MPs support ban on smoking when children present
Monday, February 10, 2014 at 19:44 BBC News reports:
Car smoking: MPs support ban when children present:
Forest's response:
"We're disappointed but not surprised. The government has been spineless in its response to Labour's initiative.
"Legislation will have very little impact because so few adults still smoke in cars carrying children. Those that do will carry on because it will be very difficult to enforce.
"The overwhelming majority of adult smokers know how to behave towards children and the law should reflect that.
"It shouldn't be used to stigmatise them as potentially unfit parents who can't be trusted to do the right thing without state intervention.
"If you believed everything you heard in the House about the threat to children's health it's a miracle anyone who was a child in the Fifties and Sixties, when a large majority of adults smoked, is still alive.
"Government has banned smoking in public places. Now they're going to ban it in a private place. The home will be next."
I'm now off to do an interview with the BBC News Channel.
After that I'm on Five Live at 23.10 and again on Morning Reports (5.00-5.30).
Somewhere in between I hope to get some sleep.
PS. Things you didn't know. Tony Blackburn told me today that his father was a doctor who smoked 60-a-day.
He added that it wasn't very pleasant when his father smoked in the car (which I can understand) but, to Tony's credit, he was totally impartial on the subject unlike many of his colleagues at the BBC.
Simon Clark
The gory details:
Delight as MPs back car smoking ban (Press Association)
Smoking in cars carrying children to be a criminal offence (Daily Mail)
MPs vote in favour of banning smoking in cars with child passengers despite opposition (Huffington Post)
David Cameron backs smoking ban in cars carrying children (Guardian)
MPs vote to ban smoking in cars with children (Sky News)
Car smoking ban 'will be brought in' (BBC News)
Reader Comments (22)
I watched the debate tonight, some of these MP's wanted to make me sick. However Philip Davis MP was on top form and Ian Paisley made a great speech and there where some good comments from a couple of Tory MP's.
Just watched you Simon being interviewed with Deb Arnott. who of course had a silly smirk on her face.
Whether or not you should smoke in a car in front of children is of course a matter of opinion but what is not up for debate is her assumption that 80% of the public supports this legislation and smokers really like the ban in public places as it helps them cut down.
Pure Corrupt organisation.
Boris Johnson has stated very clearly that BBQ smoke is many times more toxic than secondhand smoke.
If he truly approves of the ban on smoking in cars when children are present then surely the logical next step is to introduce legislation that will criminalize any London family that BBQs when children are present. Followed swiftly by further regulation that bans outdoor burning because it looks like a BBQ.
Congratulations on your 24 votes. "Pisspoor campaign", huh? Numpty.
107, actually.
Don't bother, Simon. With such a thought provoking comment he/she obviously has trouble with simple maths.
Couldn't possibly imagine him/her reading and/or understanding one of the multitude of 'studies' into SHS. Y'know, one of the many that state there's bugger all to concern yourself with. The one's MP's don't read either. (probably too busy adding up their expenses)
"MPs vote to mandate plain packaging for cigarettes by 453 votes to 24"
What now, Simon? So much for the public 'consultation' and Cyril Chantler's review, eh?
l note Cameron isn't wasting time on the smoking ban in cars with children either is he? 'Sooner rather than later' he's said and aims to bring it in asap.
May l suggest you turn your attention to the illegal activities of Border Force against Cross-border Shoppers? You can have a 'victory' there because it isn't about bogus scientific evidence and the health zealots ... it's simply about the abuse of laws and regulations. lt's sat there on a plate for you.
God knows you need a 'victory'.
Remind you of anything! yes, just like the smoking ban all over again.
Remember when we all thoutht way back then what a silly law a smoking ban would be and it that it could never happen?
Well here we go again with EU dictatorship enforcing its controlling tenticles on further liberties.
They'll be tagging our ears next.
Oops maybe I shouldnt be giving them ideas!
Simon
I read some of the deliberations in Hansard today. I noted the following comment from Tim Loughton MP, who despite opposing the ban, thinks this the way smokers should be treated: " I am in favour of pariah status for people who smoke". I think that sums up the whole ethos of Tobacco Control
Charlie
I heard you point out that all smoking in cars will be next. Robert West, who seems essentially decent, poo-pooed the idea. I'll remind him next year. He also supports ecigs and it will be interesting to hear what he has to say when they are included, which they must be to make the law workable. Yes, I've got to admit, the silence from the vaping community has been deafening and I have to agree with you Simon that they deserve all that's coming.
Watching this 'debate' with interest from my spot in the middle of the Irish Sea.
Manx Government did a small public survey on the topic late last year which very strongly opposed such a move, but I suspect there'll now be fresh pressure to follow the UK.
As a non-smoker I think I'm neutral, but as a civil libertarian what worries me more is the increasing belief amongst civil servants (i.e. our employees) that the average parent is too feckless to be trusted to raise kids, and the way in which many parents are failing to challenge such folk myths when spouted as 'expert opinion' by public employees who really have a duty to do better.
"A ban in homes is not feasible or right" - Deborah Arnot 2014.
"Scaremongering
Clive Bates, director of anti-smoking group ASH, said: "This is a scaremongering story by a tobacco industry front group[Forest].
"No-one is seriously talking about a complete ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants." - Clive Bates 1998.
No Simon, on the most important vote you got 24. Don't spoil my fun by bullsh*tying.
Liberal politicians are really missing a trick here. This type of law is a far left activists wet dream and anyone who does not support our triumphant friend militant could make capital out of that fact. Public health is the last bastion of Marxism because it is a soft touch for the control freaks who have failed miserably when called to account on politics and economics. It is a soft touch because the emotional blackmail involved tends to exert undue influence on otherwise rational human beings. The ASH guidelines on media relations remind campaigners that they are pro life and their opponents are pro death which is a hard line for the spineless nouveau aristocrats of Westminster to stand up to.
Deborah Arnott can waffle all she likes about alleged support for her bans but astute politicians should read the comments sections in the media and try to reconcile them with such claims. Most people are opposed to smoking in cars with anyone who is offended present but there is also concern over the increasingly intrusive state. It does of course depend on how you ask the question and I have no confidence in ASH or their friends being impartial in their approach.
There will of course be no accountability when the law comes into effect and no serious objective attempt to measure its impact. The zealots will move on to the next campaign, the public health Marxists will open their next box of dirty tricks and the nouveau aristocracy will bow once again to their will. However irrational and illiberal it might be.
My MP (Tory) apparently backed the ban.
Quote of the day courtesy of "The Northern Echo":
"One cigarette in the car - even with the window open - creates a greater concentration of second-hand smoke than a whole evening's smoke in a pub used to, research had found."
How can anyone with a functioning brain possibly believe that statement?
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/11000475.MPs_vote_in_favour_of_smoking_ban_in_cars_with_children__but_no_date_for_when_it_will_come_into_force/
Given this recent decision, I guess it’s no surprise to hear on the BBC this evening that yet another MP has yet again raised the question of making smacking illegal. Personally, I call that barefaced opportunism. Mind you, I can’t blame them – all they’ve got to do is trot out the same old arguments as they have for this one (other countries have done it, damaging for children, children don’t have a choice in the matter, a form of abuse etc etc), and it’ll be impossible for any of the “aye” voters for the car smoking ban to vote against a smacking ban, too (whether they’d like to or not), because to do so would be tantamount to admitting either that they were wrong over this smoking vote, or that they were right over the smoking vote, but are prepared to be “wrong” over smacking, simply because they approve of it. Not something that any MP wants to be seen as.
Oh, what corners they manoeuvre themselves into when they allow themselves to be bedazzled by the words “children” and “smoking” in the same sentence! Will they never learn?
It's obvious that the tobacco industry will continue to fight any legislation that attempts to control the use of their products using any means at their disposal. The general bluster that they make via their idiots in FOREST is a tale that's full of sound and fury but signifies nothing at all.
A senior scientific adviser to a major multinational tobacco company said recently "It is clear that smoking is extraordinarily dangerous; it causes heart disease, lung cancer and it needs to be extraordinarily well regulated" No credible research has EVER been produced to show that the use of tobacco is anything other than harmful, so inevitably legislation will be enacted to curb its consumption. Asbestos was once a wonder material that was used in many useful products until it became obvious how dangerous it is. Likewise, tobacco has had its day, so just accept that its use will slowly die in step with the demise of those too blind to see that their craving for nicotine can be sated by ecigs, patches, sprays or gum.
Mr Mcnair there is no proof of any smoking so called disease would you care to provide proof end point proof!
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18 November 2004.
http://cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/cotstatementtobacco0409
"5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke - induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease."
In other words ... our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can't even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact ... we don't even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.
One of the latest publications on the harm caused by tobacco smoke comes from the Land of the Free. See http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/50-years-of-progress/full-report.pdf
On an empirical level I watched my father and all seven of his siblings succumb to heart and respiratory failure and die unpleasant early deaths due to their addiction to nicotine taken in the form of inhaled tobacco smoke. Most of the children of that group don't smoke and have lived lives free of the misery of being respiratory cripples. Sticking your head in the sand won't make the lethal effects of tobacco go away. More legislation to denormalise smoking and curb tobacco use is inevitable. All efforts by Big Tobacco and their stooges like FOREST to halt progress in public health have been a failure.
There is no proof in the SG report go look..............
Its all linked to statistical analysis. Even their so called toxicology doesn't point to end point causation anywhere in it!
Your nom de plume suggests you're the kind of guy or gal with very old fashioned preferences so if you want to retain a mindset more suited to the 1930s then keep on smokin' baby!
In 1968 fourteen hundred British civil servants, all smokers, were divided into two similar groups. Half were encouraged and counselled to quit smoking. These formed the test group. The others, the control group, were left to their own devices. For ten years both groups were monitored with respect to their health and smoking status.In 1968 fourteen hundred British civil servants, all smokers, were divided into two similar groups. Half were encouraged and counselled to quit smoking. These formed the test group. The others, the control group, were left to their own devices. For ten years both groups were monitored with respect to their health and smoking status.In 1968 fourteen hundred British civil servants, all smokers, were divided into two similar groups. Half were encouraged and counselled to quit smoking. These formed the test group. The others, the control group, were left to their own devices. For ten years both groups were monitored with respect to their health and smoking status.
So what were the results of the Whitehall study? They were contrary to all expectation. The quit group showed no improvement in life expectancy. Nor was there any change in the death rates due to heart disease, lung cancer, or any other cause with one exception: certain other cancers were more than twice as common in the quit group. Later, after twenty years there was still no benefit in life expectancy for the quit group.
Over the next decade the results of other similar trials appeared. It had been argued that if an improvement in one life-style factor, smoking, were of benefit, then an improvement in several - eg smoking, diet and exercise - should produce even clearer benefits. And so appeared the results of the whimsically acronymed Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial or MRFIT, with its 12,886 American subjects. Similarly, in Europe 60,881 subjects in four countries took part in the WHO Collaborative Trial. In Sweden the Goteborg study had 30,022 subjects. These were enormously expensive, wide-spread and time-consuming experiments. In all, there were 6 such trials with a total of over a hundred thousand subjects each engaged for an average of 7.4 years, a grand total of nearly 800,000 subject-years. The results of all were uniform, forthright and unequivocal: giving up smoking, even when fortified by improved diet and exercise, produced no increase in life expectancy. Nor was there any change in the death rate for heart disease or for cancer.