I promised a post mortem following last week's vote by peers to support a ban on smoking in cars with children.
First, hats off to Labour. Politically it was a very sharp move. While peers were being briefed about plain packaging (the subject of a government amendment to the Children and Families Bill), Labour stole in and tabled an amendment about smoking in cars with children. We were caught flat-footed.
As an aside, one very well known peer rang me on the day of the debate and sounded a bit, well, confused. He is very elderly, to be fair, but I found it hard to reconcile the barely audible man on the phone with the senior government minister he once was. And, no, it wasn't Lord Tebbit who still has every ounce of his marbles.
Anyway, as a result of Labour's guerrilla tactics (yet another example of the party being better in opposition than in power), the Government is on the back foot and the PM, who last year told the House he was "nervous" of banning smoking in cars, is now said to be ready to "consider" it.
If the Coalition does introduce legislation Labour will see it as a victory. And rightly so. The Government's response in the House of Lords was pretty feeble, I thought. It was no surprise when they lost the vote.
That said, credit to Nick Clegg for not sitting on the fence, unlike Number Ten. Speaking on his weekly LBC phone-in programme, the deputy PM said it was "a stupid thing to do when a child is in the back of a car" but he did not want to "sub-contract" parenthood. (Nick Clegg opposes ban on smoking in cars with children, BBC News.)
For once most media reports were reasonably balanced with comments for and against. Almost without exception, however, the comments against a ban were from Forest. Had we not issued a statement on Tuesday there would have been few if any arguments against legislation in the following day's papers, which brings me to my next point.
There are a number of pressure groups and think tanks who profess to be against excessive regulation and in favour of individual liberty. However, with one or two honourable exceptions (the IEA being one), they were mighty quiet on this issue. I'm not going to name names because I don't want to fall out with anyone in public, but it was noticed, believe me.
Likewise individuals who claim to be libertarian when it suits them also went missing. Twitter reveals a lot about people and I have a much clearer idea today who the genuine liberals are. It's a remarkably short list.
If smoking is banned in cars (with or without children) there is every chance the use of e-cigarettes will be banned too, not because they pose a threat to other passengers but because, according to their detractors, some of them "look like" cigarettes and that, it will be argued, will pose a problem for law enforcement agencies.
I can't see why it should:
"Do you know why I've stopped you, sir?"
"No, officer."
"I have reason to believe you've been smoking in a car with your little ones. Is that a cigarette?"
"No, officer, it's an electronic cigarette. I'm vaping, not smoking."
"Can I have a look, sir? Ah, yes. It appears I was mistaken. Easily done, though, I'm sure you'll agree. Sorry to have bothered you. I won't detain you any longer."
With vaping under threat as well I was hoping to hear more from the e-cig community. Instead, barely a tweet. (If I'm wrong I apologise but I didn't see anything on our Twitter feeds.)
The good news is, we're not completely alone in "defending the indefensible", as one broadcaster put it. (I'll come back to that in a minute.) Several newspaper columnists have pointed out how nanny statist (or worse) the whole thing is.
Charles Catchpole (Sunday People) asked:
Do police have to pull over every driver with a fag in their mouth and children in tow on suspicion of breaking the law?
And do they then demand proof of each young passenger's age?
In a slightly bizarre rant Liz Jones told Mail on Sunday readers:
Children cannot be protected from everything ... Crack open a window and leave the rest to fate.
The best and most substantial column was by Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. He wrote, 'If we let the Nanny State hound parents who smoke in cars, I dread to think who it'll pick on next'.
I also recommend the following which were posted online:
A ban on smoking in cars with children is an authoritarian step too far (Charlotte Gore, Guardian)
No matter who you vote for, public health always gets in (Chris Snowdon, Velvet Glove Iron Fist)
The Lords vote is not about cars it is about freedom to smoke and freedom in parenting (Brian Monteith, The Free Society)
Finally, let's address that "defending the indefensible" schtick. I have never defended smoking in cars with children, but is it really "indefensible"?
It's inconsiderate, certainly, and possibly unwise, but "indefensible" suggests behaviour that's morally beyond the pale. If it is why did no UK government think fit to ban it before? Labour had 13 years to do so. Only now, after four years in opposition, has it become the party's official policy.
We are led to believe, by the British Lung Foundation (and politicians who are too lazy to check the facts) that 500,000 children aged 8-15 are exposed daily to tobacco smoke in cars. Where has this figure come from? To the best of my knowledge it is based on research carried out the BLF in 2011.
I wrote about it here (Ban smoking in cars, says BLF):
On BBC Radio Cambridgeshire this morning a spokesman for the British Lung Foundation reaffirmed the claim that over half (51 per cent) of 8-15 year olds are exposed to tobacco smoke in cars.
How do they know that? Why, the children told them, of course, and the BLF believed them!
Advocates of a ban also cite the Office for National Statistics when they parrot the half a million figure.
It's only a guess, but it seems to me that the BLF has taken anecdotal evidence from 8-15 year-olds, allied it to the number of 8-15 year-olds in the country (a figure I imagine was supplied by the ONS), and come up with the claim that 500,000 children are exposed every day to tobacco smoke in a car.
Add to that the effect secondhand smoke allegedly has on children (it's eleven or 23 times more toxic in a car than in a smoky pub or home, depending on which anti-smoking campaigner you're talking to) and it's hard to believe that the generation that was most exposed to tobacco smoke in childhood (the baby boom generation of the Fifties and Sixties) has managed to live longer, on average, than any generation in human history.
I made this point several times in interviews last week. I wasn't suggesting it justifies smoking in a small confined space with children present, or that people are living longer because they were exposed to tobacco smoke as a child (I'm not that stupid!), but I wanted to add some perspective to the debate.
The strongest arguments against a ban are as follows:
First, according to research very few adults still smoke in a car with children. For example, a survey conducted in July 2011 using an online panel of 1001 adult smokers found that only 7.5 per cent would smoke in a car with a child present.
This figure is supported by a study by the UCD School of Public Health, published in the Irish Medical Journal in 2012, which found an even lower prevalence of smoking in cars carrying children. Researchers observed 2,230 drivers in Dublin (a city not unlike many in the UK). Eight adult passengers and just one child were seen to be exposed to a smoking adult driver. The overall prevalence of smoking was just 1.39 per cent.
So why introduce legislation when the overwhelming majority of smokers have clearly changed their behaviour, voluntarily, without the need for state intervention?
(Several times last week I was told that a law on smoking in cars with children was comparable to seat belt legislation and just as necessary. I also heard that, pre-legislation, voluntary compliance on seat belts was 25 per cent. Voluntary compliance on not smoking in cars with children is, if not universal, far higher than it was with the wearing of seat belts so the comparison is ridiculous.)
Second, there is an extremely important principle at stake which is this: the state should not interfere in people's private spaces unless it has a very good reason to do so. As Chris Snowdon told Five Live's Morning Reports on Wednesday, legislation to ban smoking in private vehicles crosses a line that governments shouldn't cross (or only in extremis).
I heard Chris's interview as I was driving to Salford for BBC Breakfast. I repeated the point several times that day because it supports Forest's view that we are entering dangerous territory with the next steps being a ban on smoking in all private vehicles followed by a ban on smoking in the home if children are present.
Tobacco control campaigners deny these are their goals but the British Medical Association has already called for a ban on smoking in all private vehicles and, well, we know how tobacco control operates. They are always looking for the "next logical step".
Funnily enough, far from "defending the indefensible", I actually felt on reasonably firm ground. With one or two exceptions, our arguments were taken seriously and given a fair hearing by journalists and broadcasters.
Even in the North East, where tobacco control enjoys a stranglehold on media coverage, journalists have actively sought our views (North East campaigners welcome Lords vote to ban smoking in cars with children).
I'm determined to fight the proposed law as long as we can. Legislation may not matter to the overwhelming majority of smokers who do not smoke in their cars with children, but it's a hugely important principle and I'm damned if we'll roll over while anti-smoking campaigners continue to spout a succession of spurious statistics in the name of science and research.
Update: The Sunday Times reports that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt will support a ban, even though he too was previously against it.
Damage limitation, I call it. Neither he nor Cameron want to be on the 'losing' side of a House of Commons vote.
So much for principle. What's the betting Cameron goes AWOL on the day of the vote - as he did when MPs voted for the smoking ban?
As for Hunt, what a [rhyming word].