Those were the days
Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 8:56 Another year another Budget and another increase in tobacco duty.
Twenty-six years ago Chancellor Nigel Lawson made the headlines for NOT putting extra duty on tobacco and alcohol.
It caused such a stir that Forest campaigns director Chris Tame was invited to appear on Wogan with Dr John Moore Gillan of the British Lung Foundation.
To view the interview click on the image below.
A non-smoker and co-founder of the Libertarian Alliance, Chris subsequently became director of Forest (1990-1995). He died of bone cancer in 2006.
Simon Clark
In his Budget statement Osborne announced that tax on tobacco wouldn't change.
Bit disingenuous. "No change" on tobacco duty means "inflation plus two per cent" not "frozen" (like wine).
The RPI is one per cent so the increase is three per cent, or 16-17p for a packet of 20.
Reader Comments (10)
Forest were around 26 years ago? Wow!
Founded in 1979 by Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris, former Battle of Britain fighter pilot.
.. who, if I recall correctly, decided consumers needed a group to represent their interests after he was smoking his pipe on a railway platform and a woman hit him with her handbag because she didn't like it.
I became aware of Forest at least twenty years ago, maybe even longer, back to when it was founded. It was, if I remember right, my outrage at airline smoking bans that first brought my attention to this organisation. Of course, back then the internet wasn't what it is now (that is, I didn't have it), and I was busy moving to Greece the first time around, so I kind of lost touch with Forest's existence.
I only became re-aware when I started arguing on forums about the stupidity of the concept of SHS eight or nine years ago, and needed to do some research to back up my stance. That led me to the blogs (including this one) that I frequent now.
It is telling that the tax rise hardly got a mention in the media. Partly I suspect because it was more of the same but partly because the mainstream media and the politicians have written off smokers as a politically irrelevant group whose votes nobody needs to worry about.
I thought he hadn't increased the tobacco take in this budget because (as I think he said in his speech), he'd already slapped that one on the consumers in his previous mini-budget in the summer, so he's already getting the goodies from this little source ...
I first heard of Forest, incidentally, back in 1989. I was in college doing A levels. When discussing lobbyists, and lobbying, our tutor mentioned both ASH and Forest. My guess is that today mention of a smokers' rights group in education would be verboden.
The tutor did not smoke but many students did and we could smoke in the common room back then.
Still Waiting...
@nisakiman. I've asked Simon but had no answer...do you know where I can download 'Smoking Out The Truth' by Lord Harris in pdf form?
After my computer crashing I've lost all these types of pdf files which I had built up over time.
Chris is right...we have become invisible as a group, and therefore can be safely ignored. But I hope the antis realise that they ignore us at their peril. It of course would never occur to these zealots, that millions of votes have already moved to UKIP from the two major parties, for this very reason.
The election is only days away now...and it will clearly emerge how powerful is the smokers' vote...well...clear to us!
Dennis, 'Smoking Out The Truth' is included as a the foreword of this 2005 report, Prejudice & Propaganda: The Truth About Passive Smoking.
Thanks Simon
Gawd bless you guv!