The Government yesterday published the draft regulations on standardised packaging of tobacco products.

At the same time we finally got to read the summary report on last year's consultation.

The first thing to note is that, predictably, the Government has completely ignored the huge public response against plain packaging.

According to the report:

A total of 137,711 responses were received, made up of 1,307 detailed responses from businesses, organisations, the public and health and social care professionals, and 136,404 campaign responses (ie multiple copies of the same response endorsed by individuals).

So, how do those campaign responses break down? Here's the table:

Well, that's pretty comprehensive, I think you'll agree. The general public has spoken and with few exceptions almost every individual who responded to the consultation via a campaign petition was opposed to the policy.

Unelected Department of Health officials saw things a little differently however. Effectively dismissing the campaign responses they wrote:

The consultation process was not designed or intended to elicit representative samples of public opinion, instead it sought information, comments and views on the consultation questions, draft regulations, impact assessment and equality analysis.

It gets better:

It is in the nature of open consultation exercises that, generally, it is only those who have an interest in the subject to respond to the questions. The nature of consultation exercises means that respondents are self-selecting, and cannot be considered to be a representative sample of public opinion.

In other words, if you have not responded to the questions in detail you clearly have no real interest in the subject and we will disregard your opinions.

Furthermore, as you have chosen (unlike the overwhelming majority of the public) to play your part in the democratic process we shall categorise you as "self-selecting" and your views are therefore worthless.

Finally, as an individual contributor to the consultation you are no interest to us. We only want to hear the opinions of NGOs, government bodies and (some) businesses (but not tobacco companies or retailers, obviously).

Oddly, I don't remember any comments like that in the report on the Consultation on the future of tobacco control published in December 2008.

On that occasion, of course, the result was very different:

As you can see, petition responses greatly favoured the tobacco control industry.

Anyway, I'll let you draw your own conclusions why Department of Health officials would qualify one set of campaign responses but not another.

The only thing I'll add at this stage is a big thank you to everyone who responded to the consultation via the Forest campaign. On numbers alone the tobacco control industry took a hell of a beating.

So tonight I shall raise a glass to everyone who signed our petition. Cheers!

To read the summary report of the 2014 consultation click here.