Listen to Deborah Arnott get quite angry
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 at 17:51 As I mentioned in a previous post I did a handful of radio interviews this morning.
LBC was first, at 6.50. For those who like to know these things I was on my mobile phone in the middle of Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Palace of Westminster overlooking the Thames.
Normally it's quite a nice spot but at the moment it looks like a building site. And at that time of the morning it was also quite cold. To listen click here.
I then popped across the road to the Millbank studios which are shared by the BBC, ITV, Sky News and other broadcasters.
On BBC Radio Scotland I was grilled by former international rugby player John Beattie (an ex-smoker) who is now a BBC radio presenter. Click here.
After that I went head-to-head with ASH CEO Deborah Arnott on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. The clip doesn't sound quite as feisty or as argumentative as I remember it. I think that's because they turned down our microphones when we started to speak over one another.
At the time I thought, 'Why is Deborah so angry? Is it something I said?'. Click here to listen to it in full.
I later did an interview for BBC Radio Merseyside. I'll post the clip here when it arrives. Or you can listen now via the BBC Merseyside website. The item begins at 06:15.
Update: BBC Merseyside clip here. It's the best one, I think.
Reader Comments (10)
Well done for pulling Debs on the lie about smoking being as addictive as heroin or cocaine.
Not only is it untrue but continuing to spread that lie does a lot of harm. If a smoker who wants to quit comes to believe it, it can make it psychologically more difficult to quit.
And as the lie is repeated so often, many smokers could come to believe it.
I see she also fell back on the 'tobacco industry funding' mantra. *Yawn*
Thank you Simon for actually saying exactly what I feel like saying everyday! I think you came over very well in all of those interviews, very refreshing.
An interesting point is this. In Ed Miliband's speech at the last Labour conference, and several times during the election campaign, he spoke of a levy on the tobacco industry to help pay for their policies on public health. Now that the election has passed, with no Labour Government, we find out where this tobacco levy policy really comes from.
The tobacco tax levy is already too high/ I suspect the *^% of cost tacked on to the cost of a package of cigarettes does little to dissuade those who with to smoke but certainly drives many to purchase cigarettes from the black market. I also window since non-smokers also suffer from so-called tobacco-related diseases were the funding to that those illnesses will originate?
Simon,
Please emphasise the real tax rate, which is over 600%.
People complain and argue the merits of taxing luxury goods at 20% (VAT). This takes a £1 product up to £1.20. The 20p tax makes up around 17% of the retail price (0.2/1.2).
Now consider cigarettes where, as you rightly say, 86% of the retail price is tax (approx 6/7). So the actual tax rate, for comparison with VAT at 20%, is over 600%. Taking a £1 product up to £7 (or more).
So the really important figure is that cigarettes are taxed at over 600%. Outrageous!
Please check my figures if you find them hard to believe.
I listened to the 'discussion' with Arnott. I was gratified to hear you 'come out punching'. No wonder Arnott became annoyed. I really liked the way that you insisted that she declare her funding sources.
It is important to understand that ASH is owned by the Royal College of Physicians, and whatever 'committee' of the RCP. It is not a 'stand-alone' charity. Arnott does what she is told to do by the RCP which hired her. Note that the RCP is supportive of ecigs, while the BMA is against them.
A nice little tussle there.
But, the important thing is that you PUNCHED. You punched very effectively re Arnott's claim that smoking is as addictive as heroin.
People like Arnott are very adept at linking several ideas together in sequence. "Children start to smoke in their teens, and become addicted. They are condemned to a lifetime of addiction. WE must stop that happening".
Answer: "The statistics which support her argument are ancient history. They come from 40 years ago. They no longer apply. Hardly any young people start to smoke these days until they are adults".
The odd thing is that I do not really remember what the discussion was about. What was important was that you came out 'punching'.
I noted the inference which was implied by the question, "Are you funded by Big Tobacco?" You did well to say that BT funds you to represent consumers, but you could also ask whether the funders of ASH would fund FOREST. Who looks after the interests of those adults who enjoy tobacco? Who checks the quality of the tobacco from which Big Tobacco makes cigarettes?
You 'bashed' Arnott today. Well done!
I also heard Arnott say that they are funded by the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK. So that means that if I were to give some money to charities which claim that they research heart disease and cancer, some of it goes to an anti smoking lobby group!
A tolerant and compassionate never smoker friend of mine told me she donates to CRUK. I mentioned how greedy they are and how much of their cash goes to political lobbying and fat cat salaries. Suffice to say she won't be donating to that scam politically motivated "charity" again.
I said if she wanted to do something to help cancer victims, she should donate to real charities that ensure their money goes to direct patient care and doesn't fund fat salaries, villas in Tuscany or obscene lifestyles.
One thing I would like to know is if there are any independent Ombudsmen that the public can complain to about corruption in the DH and it's employment of political lobbyists as alleged "impartial" civil servants who have been pushed in there by pharmaceutical companies to represent their corporate interests over the health and well being of the general public. It cannot be right that these infiltrators are paid public money to deliberately discriminate and attack one legitimate group of consumers over others.
It cannot be right and the public must have an avenue for complaint. Does anyone know?
"timbone" - I wrote to CRUK (CROOK) for information a couple of years ago and they styated (and i quote) ".... every penny of every donation goes directly to reasearch and finding a cure for cancer."
I then wrote back and asked why, if that was the case, did CROOK spend £8.5m on anti-tobacco advertising and also WHY they funded the front group known as ASH and pointed out that they had blatantly lied in response.
There return was to simply state that they no longer wished to correspond with me!
So, when the truth smacks them in the face, they simply don't want to answer the questions that uncover them.
I also agree with the above-Simon did come out punching and that is what has to happen every single time! just because they are funbded by a different organisation/s it doesn't mean they are the goodies! We have a welfare state problem don't we??? so why are ASH banging on about people living longer? The last thing this government wants is human longevity, it costs too much :)
And one other point Simon (if you don't mind my friend), please take her apart on the idiotic angle of "premature deaths" as there is no such thing! No one single person is born with a date (d.o.d) stamp about their person therefore there can be no "premature deaths"! "Premature Death" is simply a very useful piece of terminology fully utilised by the medical industry as a powerful fear mongering weapon! Destroy the Arnott bit by bit please Simon - or let me know when the next interview is please! ;)
Arnott was banging on about you mouthing Big Tobacco's script, how about her repeating all those lies about tobacco being addictive, and fatal for some 80,000 people every year. She repeats the same tired old lies time after time - talk about pot and kettle.