Five Live reports "unbelievable reaction" to news of plain packaging legislation
Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 0:30 OK, I admit it. Last night's announcement took us by surprise.
It was the timing rather than the announcement itself:
Cigarette package law to be voted on by MPs before election (BBC News).
Since the news broke Forest has been quoted on the BBC Ten O'Clock News.
I've done late night interviews for Five Live and the BBC News Channel plus interviews via Skype for Sky News and ITV's Good Morning Britain, the latter at midnight after I got back from the BBC studios in Cambridge.
On Five Live presenter Phil Williams reported an "unbelievable amount of reaction" to the news, most of it (I believe) strongly against plain packaging.
It's now 12.30am and I have to get up at 2.30 to drive to Media City in Salford for further interviews with Good Morning Britain (6.20) and BBC Breakfast (8.10).
I'm also doing BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio London.
I'll keep you posted.
Update: The Good Morning Britain interview took place using an outside broadcast van. We were in an empty car park; it was dark and very very cold.
The outside broadcast team consisted of three people and although they were very friendly they were all rabid anti-smokers who weren't backward in making their views known!
In addition to the interviews listed above I've also done BBC Radio London, BBC Radio Manchester and, coming shortly, the BBC News Channel.
After that it's BBC Hereford and Worcestershire. Doesn't get more glamorous than that.
Update: It's 12:50 and I'm still at Media City in Manchester. I've been on the Jeremy Vine Show (Radio 2) and I've just been sent a list of 15 BBC local radio stations that want to interview me between 3.00 and 5.00pm this afternoon.
More later.
Reader Comments (16)
What can one say. Jane Ellison lies in public and the Conservative party pushes through an unpopular policy at a time when it thinks that it can get away with it. Contemptible anti-democratic scum seems somehow inadequate but that is modern day politics for you The Conservative autocrats have only to be marginally less repulsive than the Labour autocrats to stay in power and that is all that motivates them. Forgive my language but these people disgust me. There is no decency whatsoever in mainstream politics, which is why it is despised by the vast majority of decent people in the UK. .
Last night you were so correct what you said on Five-Live Simon, this could change the way people vote, indeed, newsagents for one, and people now are just so fed up with the nanny state, At the same time this plain packaging legislation is, in my eyes, anti-business this is going to put many people out work. Least Ukip's policy on this is clear, Ukip opposes 'plain packaging' for tobacco products. And a few hours ago Nigel Farage tweeted Plain packaging is an appalling intrusion into consumer choice and the operation of free market, jobs and tax revenue would suffer.
Why are politicians increasing their toxicity in an election year?
White Van Man will be ecstatic at this news. This comment from DP nails it.
"It isn't that just current counterfeit branding will be made so much easier, it's the fact that the counterfeiters increase the range of cigarettes to every brand that is available. Let that sink in and next time you see all the brands of cigarettes available in newsagents just remember this. At the moment counterfeiters don't do ALL the brands ... it's too expensive and messy. Plain packaging removes all the obstacles. You really have to be a complete moron not to understand this ... cue Tobacco Control and Government!"
Jobs and tax revenue have already suffered although the Govt has cottoned on that criminal penalties for dropping cig ends, and the myriad of fines now brought in on the back of smoking restrictions, does replace lost tax and even earns them more. After all, someone has to replace that tax from quitters so who better to screw for more than cash cow smokers.
Anyone who has lost their jobs from the thousands destroyed by public health ideologues and anti-business Tories should remember who forced them on the dole. It was Labour who created the vicious climate and Tories who announced - via Andrew Lansley - that they would make policies to force the tobacco industry out of Britain as they have done and put as many as 80,000, employed either directly or depend on business indirectly from tobacco companies, out of work.
Sadly, I'm sorry to have to say it, but Forest was taken by surprise because Govt won't take Forest seriously and has no intention of working with you or those you represent, or even listening to a damn thing you or we might have to say about anything.
You are lovely Simon but for our sake, you must now take the gloves off, attack and keep attacking otherwise what you do isn't really helping and its achieving nothing. After all what is there left to lose now and how will being nice avoid that? It won't. Smoking in the home will be banned next and soon, and then I reckon within 2 years tobacco will be made illegal, smokers will be forced to quit and those who don't will be jailed where they'll be forced to quit and probably "reformed" into anti-smoker morons.
Personally the only way to ensure non discrimination, fair play and criminalisation is to leave the country.
"Why are politicians increasing their toxicity in an election year?"
The only toxicity is the toxicity in cigarettes. Let's stop glamourising smoking and skirting around the issue of the health deficiencies linked with it. I can only imagine that most people posting on this article are smokers/have smoked for a considerable amount of time, and that is their right. It is the legal right of the government to make informed decisions that benefit the consumer. Your generation of smokers were probably born in the 'golden age' of smoking ads, billboards and celebrity endorsement. You only need to look at the fate of the Malboro man to see that there really is no silver lining when it comes to smoking.
Nobody with a bad habit should be forced to give it up. Realistically, it is of little consequence to the consumer who wishes to smoke whether or not there is a coloured packaging. They will carry on regardless of gruesome imagery!The younger, more impressionable generation of 'potential smokers' should be shown the cold facts when it comes to the inside damage smoking is proven to cause. It's easy to bury your head in the sand when you've smoked for a number of years and still remember glossy fag adverts in magazines and papers, but realistically it's irresponsible and downright dangerous to market smoking in the same way to young people in this country.
My nose was put out of joint this morning when I saw this moron on BBC News, promoting a moronic cause that will receive minimal support in parliament and with the British public. Parents and teachers attempting to educate and inform young people on the right choices - these young people that still have time to make an informed decision about whether to smoke or not - should be supported by the government.
Smokers are not backed into a corner; they are discouraged to give up by health professionals that are now, for the first time in decades, completely aware of the true effects of smoking. Everybody knows the addictiveness of nicotine will far outweigh any kind of 'shock tactics', but responsibility must be taken. Why are smokers not pleased to see the government attacking a disgusting corporate enterprise, for a change!?
As for alcohol - it CAN devestate lives, yes. There are no recorded health benefits. Enjoyed in moderation alcohol is harmless in comparison to cigarettes. MODERATION.
Because disgusting and every other prejudicial word and view you use is your own description and not everyone in the world agrees with you. Health workers and teachers are neither Gods nor Priests and they work for us not the other way around. After all, our tax pays their mortgages and holidays and without us many now in the persecution industry would be out of a job.
If the policy was indeed useful in stopping kids buying tobacco all well and good but it isn't. It's to please smokerphobic bigots like you and bring an end to an industry that legitimate consumers do not want to see destroyed any more than wine or whisky lovers want to see the end of those industries.
Why should my grandkids have less protection than we child smokers of the 1960s had and that was little enough. It seems my generation's crime is simply that we smoked as kids and we haven't pleased ppl like you by dropping dead yet well into our old age.
Got news for you too. Smoking in moderation is even less harmful than drinking alcohol in moderation but then I guess you like wine so that's different isn't it. #SanctimoniousHag
hi lucy you are welcome to have your opinions.but having descions made for me by the health faceless wonders is another matter.you wish to live in a tolitarian society good luck to you
your faviourte choices r next !!!
Lucy, you are so wrong on so many points I hardly know where to start, but let's go with Marlboro Man, Darrell Winfield, who just died at the age of 85 (poor chap, to die so young...), and then follow it with a quote from Dr James Le Fanu who writes for the Daily Telegraph:
"Perhaps it would help if obituary columns stopped saying ‘so and so aged 85 died of cancer’. He/she didn’t, they died of old age."
The fanatics in the anti-smoking movement have been lying, deceiving, exaggerating and throwing billions at misleading propaganda for the last few decades. They portray themselves as some poor David fighting the might of the Goliath of 'Big Tobacco', but the truth is that not only do they have more funds sloshing around in their war chest than 'Big Tobacco' could ever dream of (even if they were able to use it, which they aren't since the anti-smoking zealots misled politicians into enacting legislation to prevent them from mounting any defence at all), but also any lies that 'Big Tobacco' may have told in the promotion of their products pale into insignificance when compared to the fact-free and baseless propaganda we have been relentlessly subjected to from 'Public Health' and their assorted hangers-on.
Yes, I am a smoker, and have been for more than 50 years. I'm fit and healthy. I never get sick. When I have any physical injury, I heal extremely quickly. And funnily enough, I know many smokers of my age who are equally fit and active and healthy. And I don't know any who have died of cancer. The only people I've known who died of cancer were never smokers.
I am sick to death of the lies.
I am sick to death of grey, joyless jobsworths who will die years before I do trying to coerce me into what they have decided is the 'right' lifestyle.
I am sick to death of the recourse to emotional blackmail when we are perpetually whined at to "think of the cheeldren".
I am sick to death of the manipulation of research to reach a conclusion at odds with the actual results.
I am sick to death of people like you who think they hold the moral high ground, when in reality they know absolutely nothing of which they speak, have never actually studied any of the research in a critical fashion, and just parrot what they believe is the politically correct response.
I am sick to death of the stigmatisation of a quarter of the worlds population because they won't do what the puritans want them to do.
I am sick to death of the discrimination against smokers which would never be tolerated with any other minority group.
I am sick to death with the way the sanctimonious prigs in 'Tobacco Control' have destroyed businesses and lives in their ideological purge.
I am sick to death with the devastation those same sanctimonious prigs have caused in the lives of the elderly, who have been thrown out of their locals, their bingo halls, their British Legion Clubs, and now have nothing to do but sit at home alone in front of some mindless blather on the TV.
Basically, Lucy, I am sick to death of you and your ilk who have done nothing but harm to society.
You shout about 'how successful' your measures have been, but the only success has been to divide society and increase the sum of human misery. You should be ashamed of yourself. You have done more damage than you can ever imagine with your lies and misinformation and punitive legislation. History will judge you, and you won't come out well. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Pat Nurse your comments are spot on. Hopefully Simon and Forest will take note. Tobacco is likely to be made illegal within a couple of years here in the UK and those that refuse to quit are likely to be criminalised. As for plain packaging like the smoking ban which the majority of people still are against, this got introduced because MPs clearly don't represent the view of the majority of their constituents and are scared stiff of the health lobby I'm sure there will be a similar outcome. It is time for Forest to take the gloves off and really fight for us, as Pat said.
It is helpful of Lucy to demonstrate why no decent, right minded individual should continue to pander to the hysterical extremism of those who seek to inflict their self-righteous zeal on others. It is indeed a very slippery slope down which our political elite are about to launch us.
"the issue of the health deficiencies linked with it."
They now 'link' a Prince of the Realm with abuse of a minor, they 'linked' all sorts of things to the Rubella vaccination. The list of things linked or not linked to other things is endless.
"Linking" is what the MSM, politicians and Twitter do when they can't find any hard scientific proof or even just some serious evidence.
@Lucy Sigh... you evidently have little grasp of the issues involved and the principles at stake.
I've read the article in the Guardian and noted their quote of the CRUK survey.
“Seventy-five per cent of potential Conservative, 75 per cent of Labour, 80 per cent of Liberal Democrat and 64 per cent of UKIP voters all said they backed making tobacco packs plain.”
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/21/plain-cigarette-packs-general-election-tobacco
Found it quite remarkable (unbelievable in fact) that 75% of Labour and 64% of UKIP voters support plain packs. Also surprised that not one single person polled seemed to be from the Greens.
Okay so it's a tiny poll that was conducted by You Gov and commissioned by CRUK.
Their site gives slightly more detail, but omits a full analysis, including voter intention.
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/press-release/2015-01-21-cancer-research-uk-welcomes-government-action-on-standardised-cig-packs-with-voter-support-at-a-high
Do you have full details of this poll Simon and, if so, can you supply me with a link to it?
Lucy, oh Lucy, you really are a sad little person from one of those sad little worlds that cannot agree on others having harmless pleasures! You state nothing but the boring mantra of the anti tobacco lobbyist fresh from one of Glantz's classrooms with your inane drivel.
Don't you find it strange that my Dr rode his bike everywhere, even on his 'after surgery rounds', never smoked a cigarette in his life, warned others about the perils of smoking on a daily basis (because that's what his profession demanded) but dropped dead in his early fifties. Now we know it wasn't SHS that killed him as SHS has been declared harmless! We know it wasn't smoking as he was a 'never smoker', but he was always out and about on his bicycle - snorting in all those disgustingly toxic fumes that fill our atmosphere 20 hrs per day.
By the same token, my friends physio nurse, who cycles 3 miles to work daily (& 3 miles home again), was "breath tested" by one of those idiotic "Tobacco intake testers" and accused of being a 15-20 a day smoker. Guess what, she has never smoked a cigarette in her life!
Then perhaps we should look at Bertrand Russell who enjoyed smoking for some 72 years before capitulatinng to something called old age! You stupidly mention "The Malboro Man" - WOWEE! Let me remind you of the bible's quotation Lucy:- man shall live three score years and ten! Marlboro Man managed a whole heap more than that. What you are actually saying is that smoking gave you, and many of your ilk, a reason to profit from his demise-that's all it is Lucy!
Has it ever occurred to your simple, amoebic brain that people actually enjoy smoking? Yes, weirdly enough, millions of people do! Have you also noticed that since the implementation of smoking bans, cancer cases have risen on a daily count basis? Now why would that be I wonder? Have you also noticed that Prof John Britton stated that 20% of cancer patients are 'linked' to smoking - so what are the other 80% linked to Lucy?
Please don't respond by telling me that cancer will be eradicated if smoking is eradicated !
Now it might surprise you to know that there is an organisation prepared to fight against all these injustices being heaped upon 1/5th of the population. We cater for many people that don't smoke, have never smoked etc for there are plenty that simply object to having their freedoms removed bit by bit by nondescript, faceless ne'er do wells who live in Ivory Towers. Check http://www.justice4smokers.co.uk/ out, you might enjoy it girl!
On the other side of the coin Lucy, have you ever thought how much it costs gov't for all these so called 'healthy people' living longer? have you any idea of how much dear old Ethel lang cost this country for having the audacity to remain here for 114 years? Conversely, have you any idea how grateful this country/government would be if everyone (you included Lucy) 'popped their clogs' the day before they retired? Study our Welfare Costs Lucy and you may find that you actually have a lot to thank smokers for! Have you read the reports regarding 'longevity - v - early demise'? (very interesting indeed!)
Unless the people actually stand up and fight, as Alan Auld is prepared to do, then Health Lobby, with there vast resources from Big Pharma, will simply continue the stampede over people's freedoms of choice. It's all very well Simon going on '500' radio stations a day, it's getting 'nobody not nowhere man'. Action is needed from the man on the street-talking of which, there are so many other problems in this country now that civil unrest is not far away Lucy-will you be part of that or just sit back in your Ivory Tower hoping it passes you by?
Do remember to check out http://www.justice4smokers.co.uk/ you might actually enjoy a change of scenery!
Exellent coments from Nisakiman and Phil