When I was in Edinburgh yesterday I took part in a phone-in on BBC Radio Scotland.
The topic, as you might expect (see previous post), was smoking in cars with children.
I was on for 25 minutes and during that time I had the following exchange with Sheila Duffy, CEO of ASH Scotland.
Sheila Duffy:
For me one of the real benefits in this legislation is raising awareness about tobacco smoke being a harmful substance. Now Forest is largely funded by tobacco companies ...
Me:
And you're funded by the taxpayer, Sheila. You get £900,000 from the Scottish Government. You're funded by the taxpayer and you use that to lobby government …
Duffy:
No we don't get that much from the Scottish Government …
Me:
How much do you get from the Scottish Government? How much?
Duffy:
What, what we do is we look at the evidence and we look at the facts and we …
Me:
How much taxpayers' money do you get annually?
Duffy:
… and the facts are that this is ...
Kaye Adams, Radio Scotland presenter:
How much taxpayers' money do you get, Sheila?
Duffy:
Um [pause], we [pause], certainly not as much as nine thousand [sic].
Me:
How much?
Duffy:
It's about eight hundred thousand.
Me:
[Laughing] Very close then.
Duffy:
We get that to provide services. We get that to ...
Me:
And lobby government!
Duffy:
No, we don't use taxpayers' money to lobby government. We use grant funding to lobby government.
Me:
Semantics, Sheila, semantics.
Adams:
OK, I'm not sure where we're going with that but let's bring in some callers.
Click here if you want to listen. The exchange above begins at 8:38.