Battling with the BBC
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 23:05 Smoking will be banned in cars with children in England from October 1.
The news was announced this evening. At 6.10, sitting in the car waiting for my daughter to finish her dance class, I received a text from a producer on the BBC News Channel.
"We would like to hear your views on the smoking ban in cars if they're carrying children. Would you be available at 7pm or 8pm?"
"I can do 8pm from your Cambridge studio," I replied.
I waited for Sophie to finish her class, drove home, shaved (I hadn't shaved since Sunday), and drove the 20 miles to Cambridge, arriving at 7.50.
At 8.00pm I was in the studio with my earpiece in, waiting to be interviewed.
The time ticked by. Eventually, after I'd reminded the producer I had an interview with LBC at 8.30, I was on.
I was asked for my reaction to the ban but what the clip above doesn't show is the presenter's final thrust.
Apropos of nothing that had gone before he said, quite abruptly: "Mr Clark, can you tell us who funds Forest?"
Well, I'm used to dealing with that question but it struck me as a cheap shot. After all, I'd given up my evening to go on a 40-mile round trip at the BBC's request yet the presenter was clearly determined to undermine me if he could.
Anyway, after I came out of the studio and did my LBC interview sitting in my car, I checked the BBC News website.
A report, England bans smoking in cars with children, had a prominent position on the home page.
At 6.44 we'd sent the BBC online news desk our response to the ban. Were we quoted? Of course not. In fact, there were no comments from anyone opposed to the ban.
So I did what I often do. I rang the news desk to point this out. In particular I said how ironic it was that at that very moment I was sitting in a BBC car park having done an interview for the BBC News Channel yet BBC News online hadn't quoted Forest despite the fact that we'd sent them our response.
To be fair the person I spoke to was perfectly reasonable and the upshot was that at 8.57 the BBC News report was updated:
But Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said the legislation was excessive.
"The overwhelming majority of smokers know it's inconsiderate to smoke in a car with children and they don't do it. They don't need the state micro-managing their lives," he said.
"The police won't be able to enforce the law on their own so the government will need a small army of snoopers to report people."
In addition they've added a link to my BBC News Channel interview which can now be seen via the home page too.
Update: An hour ago Good Morning Britain (ITV) asked me to appear on the sofa at 6.00 in the morning. That would mean getting up at 3.00am and driving to London to arrive at 5.30.
I'm usually up for such requests. This time I declined. I'm just too busy (as I'll reveal tomorrow).
Hopefully someone else will do it. I gave them a few names.
Reader Comments (8)
Smoking will be banned in cars with children in England from October 1.
Am I nor correct in thinking, Simon, that the massive WHO study on 'passive smoking' managed to come up with only one statistically significant result?
And was it not that that one statistically significant result showed that children who were exposed to 'second-hand smoke' were less likely to get lung cancer in later life than the children NOT exposed to SHS?
So why is smoking in a car with 'children' now to be banned?
Personally, when my kids were young I regularly smoked when they were in the car with me. I disagree with you that it is 'inconsiderate'. It is only necessary to have one window open an inch or so, and the smoke is whipped out immediately. I've never known any smokers who don't open the window a tad when they smoke and drive. It's just basic comfort.
This is just more arrant nonsense from the lunatics in Tobacco Control. How much longer must the world tolerate their arrogant diktats? They really are a pestilence.
You shouldn't need to telephone the news desk Simon.
Government by minority pressure group continues to be the order of the day and the BBC is a contributory factor.
re nisakiman- the SHS may be 'whipped out' but not the Arsenic, Formaldehyde etc etc. there is a lot more damage caused by SHS than potential lung cancer. Suggest you learn your facts before commenting!!
Just a thought-
If I place Arsenic in a cup of tea for someone, then that would be poisoning and I would go to prison wouldn't I !! But for you, providing a dose of Arsenic to your children in a car through smoking is OK!!
Gavin, you concede that all the smoke goes straight out of the window of a moving car, so how is a dose of arsenic and formaldehyde administered to your children?
@Gavin - fraid you'll have to explain to a thicko like me how, if the smoke contains the arsenic etc and the smoke is"whipped out" the arsenic etc isn't? Could you also explain the dose of arsenic that would poison someone (say a typical 14 year old) and the dose of arsenic in a cigarette that isn't whipped out? I don't understand either why the dose to the smoker still allows the smoker to be capable of driving (indeed, continuing to live) when it is so dangerous in SHS?
Gavin I am glad you mentioned formaldehyde. SHS is 40x safer than the recommended maximum levels.
This is written by "Gary L. Huber is a professor of medicine at University of Texas Health Center in Tyler, Texas. Robert E. Brockie is at the Presbyterian and Doctors Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Vijay K. Mahajan is a professor of medicine at St. Vincent's Hospital in Toledo, Ohio."
"In most buildings, however, the background levels of formaldehyde that we commonly are exposed to in everyday life are in the range of 40 to 50 µg/m3. The best of the published data indicate that formaldehyde concentrations in ETS are similar to background levels and generally, with unusual exceptions, do not exceed 40 µg/m3. The established "safe" level for environmental exposure to formaldehyde is 1,500 µg/m3, or several fold the level attributable to ETS."
@ Gavin
I might add to Dave Atherton's post by pointing out that the 'thousands of chemicals' found in SHS are so infinitesimally miniscule in quantity that they are measured in picograms and femtograms (check Google if you don't understand what those are), and in most, if not all cases are exceeded by that found in things we either consume or are exposed to on a daily basis in our normal lives. You talk about arsenic as if there was a measurable amount in SHS. In reality, Gavin, there is more arsenic in a single glass of drinking water than there is in being sealed in a car for hours and hours with a chain smoker and breathing the SHS. There are figures for it which I can't put a hand to at the moment because I'm away from my desktop, but which I will happily provide when I get back, if you wish.
The first rule of toxicology is: "The dose makes the poison", Remember that.
To quote your words, Gavin, I would suggest you learn your facts before commenting. By writing such risible nonsense, you only make yourself look foolish.
Dear Mr Clark
Do the regulations cover the position where the only child in the car is the only smoker?
What if all children in the car are smoking?
Would second hand smoke from an adult smoking count as more deadly than the first hand smoke of the child smokers?
http://www.findlaw.co.uk/law/criminal/your_rights/500373.html
Police officers, it seems, can only confiscate cigarettes from an under 16 year old smoking in public. As cars are private, presumably the age of the child can be upward of whatever the legal age for smoking is. If it's the same as alcohol consumption, that would be 5.
DP