No Smoking Day and plain packaging legislation: happy coincidence?
Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 14:29 I'm not a conspiracy theorist but ...
Is anyone surprised that today's vote on plain packaging legislation just happened to coincide with No Smoking Day?
Call me an anorak but the curious thing is this: if it's coincidence how come Cancer Research was confident enough to book, in January, online advertising space for the days leading up to NSD?
No Smoking Day is run by the British Heart Foundation not CRUK so it's unlikely the space was booked to promote another organisation's event. Instead CRUK has been promoting the 'facts' about standardised packaging.
They even placed an ad at a London Underground station (Westminster?) but when that was booked I don't know.
Nevertheless there has clearly been a lot of pre-planning but who knew MPs would vote on plain packaging on March 11?
Public health minister Jane Ellison only announced in February that the government was going ahead with legislation so was it a lucky punt by CRUK or did they know something we didn't?
Inevitably NSD has been overshadowed by today's vote but I've still been asked to talk about it on a couple of local radio stations.
Yesterday I also spoke to the Cambridge News which quoted me today in this article, National No Smoking Day: where should we be allowed to smoke?.
Anyway, plain packaging. MPs had three hours to vote for and against. The result is due around 4.00 or 7.00pm so watch this space.
We expect a large majority in favour. Eighty to 100 Tory MPs are thought to be against the measure but will they bother to vote when they know they're going to lose? Some have prior commitments in their constituencies and at least one is thought to be at the Cheltenham Festival!
This morning I did an interview for the BBC News Channel. I was joined in the studio at New Broadcasting House by ASH CEO Deborah Arnott. This was our first meeting since a rather frosty encounter last year. She was in a far better mood today, although I'm not sure which version I prefer.
One thing that never changes is her determination to mention the source of Forest's funding. After the interview she even tweeted about it as if it was some sort of achievement.
Watch the full interview below. Deborah's zealotry was so full on it was hard not to laugh.
#packetracket BBC fails to mention FOREST funded by tobacco industry: yet again left to ASH http://t.co/e2aUrC1Rr3
— Deborah Arnott (@DeborahArnott) March 11, 2015
Reader Comments (4)
I need to say this Simon but frankly by now you should have developed a suitable counter to the "Forest is funded by big tobacco" argument.
It would be very easy to turn that argument around on Arnott, pointing out the levels of Government funding sucked up by her group and the almost invisible contributions from members of the public.
You were played by the lot of them today. Of course the Dept of Health were in on it. It was thier plan all along... any fule can see that
I am still utterly confused as to why Cancer RESEARCH UK poor so much money into antismoking messages. The research has been done into tobacco and cancer years ago, so why are CRUK spending money for research on things which have already been done.
Jesus Christ! Look closely enough and you can see Arnott's eyes glaze over with a fanatical zeal at the end there. Simon, I'm glad to see you laughing as it's about the only reasonable response to such goggle-eyed ranting!
John, I have a simple choice to make. Do I use up valuable airtime discussing funding or do I focus on the issue, in this instance plain packaging? I chose the later. In my view Deborah's comment immediately showed her up to be the one-eyed fanatic she is, more interested in point-scoring than debating the issues, so I left it. By the end of the interview viewers could make up their own minds about our respective arguments. Taking about funding would been a distraction from that in that particular context.