Sunday
Jun292014
Sunday morning politics
Sunday, June 29, 2014 at 9:05 
I'm on Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil this morning.
Currently having breakfast at Ponti's just around the corner from New Broadcasting House in London.
Bit nervous!
Reader Comments (8)
I'll be watching - Neil has shown to be rather anti-smoking in the past. I once heard him pontificate on the issue that smokers cost the NHS millions without mentioning the tax they pay.... still rankles me. Good luck.
Actually, Andrew Neil is a cigar smoker who hosted The Spectator Cigar Smoker of the Year award last year. He also gave a very libertarian speech at a Forest event - Revolt In Style - at the Savoy Hotel in 2007. That's not to say he won't reduce me to toast - that's his job!
Simon Clark ahead on points here!
Andrew Neil was very fair in this interview and gave Simon a fair wind on this issue by the BMA.
This really is the preamble which Neil pressed on, and that is full prohibition down the road which the anti-tobacco lobby eventually wants and will keep working towards.
Simon's comments were both coherent and eminently sensible which Vivienne Nathanson had no convincing answer for.
Good interview Simon with a well presented argument.
You did well, Simon. I do wish, though, that the media would allow longer for such 'debate' - you could then have challenged the '1 in 2 smokers die from smoking' and 'smokers cost the NHS' soundbites they're allowed to get away with. (What other useful 'soundbites', designed to infiltrate the public consciousness are thrown out on other issues?)
Nathanson's line at the end - that [in 2030] it would be illegal for a 30 year old to buy cigs but not to smoke them is simply to shift the current situation along the age parameter but with the important distinction that adults are being discriminated against.
It's so absurd and unworkable that I just can't believe it. The next move will be to ban the sale of tobacco to everyone and then they'll be in the equally absurd situation where it's legal to use a product that it's illegal to buy. At that point will smokers be described as drug users?
Yes, well done. But, given that you accept that smoking shortens lives, you really should counter the misconception that the treatment of so-called 'smoking-related' diseases of smokers are an overall greater cost to the NHS than non-smokers. Most of those needing treatment are non smokers and most of the elderly are non smokers. Most ns also suffer and succumb to 'smoking-related' illness. The major difference is that a lot of diseases develop slightly later.
The cost to the NHS also fails to recognise that smokers contribute c.£12 billion pa in tobacco duty and vat, whereas non smokers do not. (that's about 10% of NHS annual budget).
Ever wondered how many hospitals could be built and run for £12 billion pa? Every year...
"At that point will smokers be described as drug users?" We already are, Joyce! It's a favourite insult in the tabloid comments sections!
I agree with you about the lack of time and opportunity for Simon to challenge some of Nathanson's remarks. Apart from the ones you mention, there was also her claim (in response to the logical suggestion that people will just go abroad to buy their tobacco) that governments everywhere are thinking about implementing similar initiatives, which prompts the obvious question "And how has that come about, then? Is there some supranational organisation - like the WHO, maybe - telling them all what to do?"
But yes, very well done Simon as ever for speaking clear, calmly and logically. I for one got instantly irritated by Nathanson's very rude head-shaking every time you spoke, but as you were sitting next to her it may not have been as obvious to you as it was to those of us watching on TV!
I was also annoyed by the claims in the introductory film that the pub smoking ban had simultaneously improved the health of bar workers and reduced childhood asthma. I don't recall visiting any children's pubs prior to July 2007.
The Tobacco Control Bosses in the BMA know very well that the idea is ludicrous. What they are doing is floating THE IDEA of prohibition. They have probably already organised some quack professor or doctor to say that, and demand total prohibition of the sale of tobacco from a certain date some time in the future. The trick of postponing the implementation date will be used to get it past the current group of ministers and MPs.
There were supposed to be exemptions in the Health Bill regarding the smoking ban which were dropped at the last minute. Zealots were calling for a ban in cars with children present, but the BMA called for a total ban in cars because of the difficulty of identifying children as such. This idea is much the same thing.
Seeing that the main scientific study shows that passive smoking is good for non-smokers, particularly in children, why on earth isn't the scientific community researching on the increase in asthmas and allergies since passive smoking began to reduce 100-fold?
Are they in it for the funding or are they in it for the truth?
The whole thing beggars belief. They blame our children dying before us for their life-styles. I don't. I blame it on the do-gooders, encouraged by the funding from BP, wrapping them up in cotton wool and giving them no resilience to illnesses.
As far as I'm concerned, the do-gooders and BP have created this appalling situation and have a lot to answer for in terms of young deaths and elderly lonliness.
Personally, I will continue to smoke and definitely not wrap my children in cotton wool. My 3 children are the picture of great health, maintaining above 98% attendance at school and being in the top set for each subject. When there is an outbreak of anything at school, they don't get it. Shock! Horror! They get dirty; they're allowed to eat before washing; they can continue playing if they have a cut; they can climb trees and swing from them; they can do the things that we were allowed to do before the country was taken over by people obsessed with making us sick, ill and irrepresible to medicine.
It has to stop.
Yes, we have an ever growing elderly population now. That population was subject to the highest smoking and passive smoking rates ever recorded in this country. I remember smoking whilst walking down the aisles at Asda - do you?
Do the anti-smokers and BP seriously believe that they want to be labelled as the industry that reduced mortality rates?
If they carry on as they are, they will be. They already are in my eyes, and words soon spread.
They can make as many excuses as they like, but the do-gooders and BP are responsible for many child-hood illnesses along with the rise in asthma cases and allergies.
The filthy lucre stinks and is causing many deaths in a so-called health industry.