Memo to Bob Blackman MP: call yourself a Conservative?
Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 14:46 It was described as a 'debate' but it was nothing of the sort.
Tobacco control doesn't do debate. Instead it was an echo chamber, every speaker endorsing the views of the speaker who went before.
Yes, I'm talking about the Westminster Hall 'debate' on the Government's Tobacco Control Plan that took place in the House of Commons on Thursday.
I may have been a bit premature when I congratulated Nicola Blackwood, the new public health minister, for her polite refusal to be rushed into publishing the Government's new tobacco control strategy.
A desperate attempt by ASH and the APPG on Smoking and Health to bounce her into announcing a publication date was met with a calm "wait and see". What I missed was her comment that:
We can be proud of the progress that successive Governments have made on helping people to quit smoking, preventing them from starting in the first place and creating an environment that de-normalises smoking.
With prevalence rates at an all-time low, there is no question that good work has been done, but as the issues raised in this debate clearly show, there is more work to be done. The Government are committed to doing that work as a matter of urgency.
To avoid doubt she added:
The Government recognise this area as a top priority and will continue to work on it as such.
That said the Government will have noted the feeble turnout - just six backbench MPs plus Blackwood and shadow public health minister Sharon Hodgson.
Much as ASH and others will huff and puff, nothing demonstrates the level of priority parliament gives an issue than a poorly attended 'debate' that has clearly been stage-managed and exploited by a taxpayer-funded lobby group.
The event was also useful for shining a light on those MPs who will make it their business to campaign for further tobacco control measures regardless of public opinion.
In no particular order they were Alex Cunningham (Labour), Bob Blackman (Conservative), Sarah Wollaston (Conservative), Norman Lamb (Lib Dem), Kevin Barron (Labour) and Martyn Day (SNP). I'm loathe to single out one particular person but I will anyway.
Bob Blackman is chairman of the APPG on Smoking and Health which is run by ASH and is effectively a Trojan horse for ASH to swan around parliament lobbying MPs and peers. During last year's election campaign I had this to say about the Conservative candidate for Harrow East:
Bob Blackman was one of the more prominent anti-smoking MPs in the last parliament. A supporter of plain packaging, he championed the ban on smoking in cars with children and believes the major priority of local authorties in terms of public health is "to reduce the number of people smoking and reduce the consumption of tobacco-related products".
Two weeks ago however he surprised many people when he told a fringe event at the Tory party conference:
"I come instinctively from a position where I believe that people should be allowed to do what they like so long as it does not impact on others."
Cough, splutter.
The event (Personal freedoms vs. protecting the vulnerable: How should we strike the balance?) took place within the IEA Think Tent so it's fair to say the audience would have been of a slightly more liberal or libertarian persuasion.
Perhaps that influenced his choice of words (I couldn't possibly comment). All I know is, if anyone fell for his impression of a laissez faire politician they can think again. Faced with a rather different audience on Thursday Blackman adopted a very different tone:
"As someone who has been an avowed anti-smoker all my life, I will continue to oppose smoking. I take the view that there are two categories of people here. We have to help people to stop smoking, but even more importantly we have to prevent people from starting to smoke, because we know that once people are addicted it is a very difficult job for them to give up their addiction."
So much for people being "allowed to do what they like so long as it does not impact on others".
Here are some more examples of Blackwood's paternalistic, even socialist, attitude to private health:
On this side of the House it is not unusual to hear people argue that the smoking habit is none of the Government’s business. Of course, it is an important source of tax revenue, but some people say – they are not necessarily employed or funded by the tobacco industry — that those who choose to smoke understand the risks, and have exercised their free consumer choice.
I would say that informed choice and people understanding the damage they are doing to themselves is up to them, but that does not mean that we should not increase the pressure on those individuals to understand the damage they are doing to themselves and to others by continuing to smoke. I seek to make sure that we continue with the regulations and ramp up the tobacco control programme ...
One important lesson that we have learned from previous control programmes is that efforts to reduce smoking must be sustained and progressive. Sustained because, as I have said, nicotine is a powerful drug, it increases dependency and requires powerful interventions to persuade people to quit. Progressive because people who continue to use tobacco after the control programmes are in place can be said to have discounted their effect.
For example, many smokers quit after the introduction of the workplace ban in 2006, but most did not. The need for progressive steps is particularly important when it comes to tax and price policy, because the economic impacts of tax rises on reducing demand for tobacco products depend not simply on absolute price levels, but on affordability. If taxes rise more slowly than incomes, tobacco will become more, not less, affordable and consumption will tend to rise, not fall ...
Some colleagues may think that an intervention in the market is not required, but I think one is needed more than ever before. Since the programme was first published in 1998, the fall in our smoking rates has been similar to that of Canada and Australia, as has been mentioned. In France and Germany, which do not have comprehensive strategies, the rates have hardly changed in 20 years. The evidence shows that these programmes work, and that where there is no programme there is no movement forward ...
The targets for the past five years of the [tobacco] programme seemed difficult, but they have all been achieved, so we should set challenging targets now that will lead to a smoke-free Britain. That has got to be our ultimate aim.
Speaking at Forest's fringe event at the Tory conference Iain Dale, LBC Radio presenter and publisher, said, "I don't know how any politician can support excessive regulations on what we consume and call themselves a Conservative."
Well, Bob Blackman not only supports excessive regulations on what we consume, he also calls himself a Conservative. Sarah Wollaston is another.
The question is, where does Theresa May and her 'Conservative' Government stand? The new Tobacco Control Plan, when it's published, will provide some interesting answers.
Read the full Westminster hall 'debate' here.
Reader Comments (15)
Blackwood does not inspire confidence in me that the new Conservatives are worth voting for.
Blackman is just a bigoted smokerphobic who has made up his own prejudicial mind about smokers. Xenophobics, homophobic and Islamophobics are denied positions of power and influence, rightly so, and there should be no place in our Parlt for smokerphobics either.
All we ask is to be left alone without the bullying and we demand truly independent, not industry nor politically motivated, scrutiny of all the lies and slander aimed at us in the name of so called "studies" and junk science.
All evidence is that although the Conservative Party takes a marginally less interventionist line on public health issues than Labour, a majority of Conservative MPs and elected representatives support anti-tobacco measures such as plain packaging. As the House of Commons vote on plain packaging showed, around a third of Conservative MPs are supportive of the Forest/tobacco industry line with the other two thirds taking a view closer to the public health lobby. Rightly or wrongly Bob Blackman is certainly not alone in the Conservative Party.
I should also add that you will have a much better chance of winning over the two thirds of Conservative MPs currently sceptical of Forest and the tobacco industry if you focus your efforts on harm reduction as you have increasingly been doing to your credit rather than trying to reverse the smoking ban which no Government will ever agree to.
These days, I mentally add “except smokers” whenever I hear the term “everyone,” “for all,” or “for all of our customers,” because that’s what the person saying these words actually means, even if they don’t recognise the fact. It’s a useful trick to get into the habit of using, even if you’re a non-smoker, because subconsciously it’s very effective in lessening the “persuasion factor” in all number of areas – whether the speaker wants you to vote for them, support their cause or purchase something from them, it reminds you that these people are only saying what they think you will like to hear, not the truth as it stands in reality. I’m as susceptible as anyone to hopeful-sounding words, whether spoken by a politician, a campaign group, or a business trying to flog me something, but that little mentally-added couple of words often brings me right back down to earth with a bump before I do anything silly – like voting for that speaker, donating to that charity, or splashing any cash on that product/service.
Forest speaks for smokers, Borderline, not those who push smokers around.
We want our meeting places back. We want to be off the streets and out of the way of smokerphobics, harm reduction is possible without quitting.
You sound more like an anti or a vaper but definitely not someone who should be telling Forest how to represent the people that Forest knows wants their pubs and clubs back
With 'plain packaging' and tobacco products hidden and priced well beyond the reach of the young all this has now gone far enough. Pubs and clubs have been decimated. Smokers should now be left alone to enjoy tobacco and i mean inside not out in the cold. I have just had a wonderful holiday in Copenhagen where pubs under a certain size and run by a proprietor permit smoking. A lovely friendly atmosphere full of very nice smokers all enjoying themselves. Just like our pubs before 2007 when we let the insane ASH et al get out of control. I recommend Copenhagen if you want to see how it could be.
"We have to help people to stop smoking,"
To the tobacco controller, "help" tends to be a euphemism for "bludgeon them about the head and upper torso until compliance is achieved."
Repealing the smoking ban and rejecting all persecution of smokers should be at the core of restoring liberty.
@ Timothy G
Not only Denmark.
If you come to Greece, you would be forgiven for thinking that there is no smoking ban anywhere. I go to my insurance broker's office, and there are ashtrays on every desk, and the receptionist is rolling up (or smoking) some Old Holborn. I go to the main local branch of the post office, and there are ashtrays on the desks. A couple of years ago, I had to go to the main police station, and in the front office, I could hardly see the large 'NO SMOKING' signs on the wall for the fug of tobacco smoke.
The bars and restaurants all have the mandatory 'No Smoking' signs on the doors, and they all have ashtrays on the tables.
ASH aren't big here...
Pat Nurse - actually I'm neither an "anti" as most people would define someone nor am I a vaper - I'm a lifetime non-smoker who has worked in the tobacco industry in the past. Essentially I am a realist. It's not realistic in the current regulatory climate to get smoking brought back in clubs and pubs as there simply isn't the political will to do so. In my view there is a moral duty to reduce the number of people dying of smoking-related diseases while still balancing the rights of individuals to make their own decisions to their own bodies as far as possible while not harming others. It can be a difficult balancing act for Governments and the last few Governments have perhaps focused more on the former rather than the latter.
"... there simply isn't the political will to do so. "
Precisely. It’s perhaps the best indication of how little our elected representatives actually do represent us. They are only really happy to represent the majority, and in turn they are happy to believe the highly-skewed words of lobby groups who tell them what that “majority” wants, without ever bothering even to look around them, to scrutinise what they have been told or simply to ask around “normal people” in their constituencies. If they had done so before voting on the smoking ban they’d have realised that the “overwhelming public demand” for such a ban simply wasn’t anywhere near as “overwhelming” as their heavily-biased “advisers” were indicating. Minorities (like smokers) who aren’t currently “in vogue” as right-on poor-little-me victims just don’t get considered.
And yet the smoking ban, and the erosion of personal responsibility and personal choice that it represents runs far, far wider than just smoking. The Health Act 2006 set a whole raft of new precedents that - had they not solely been in respect of smoking (at that point in time) and had they not been preceded by a very careful and thorough propaganda and “ear-whispering” campaign by the anti-smoking movement - would never have been allowed to see the light of day. That Act set so many dangerous precedents that a fit-for-purpose collection of MPs would have dismissed it out of hand simply because of those dangers. But no, like most of the general public, they believed the mantra that these principles would only ever apply to smoking, because “smoking is a uniquely dangerous activity.” Even now, devoted ban-adherents still can’t see the connection between the initial phases of the anti-smoking movement and the (currently) initial phases of the anti-alcohol, anti-obesity, anti-salt, anti-sugar and anti-driver campaigns. The irony of so many new products/activities now also being cited as “uniquely dangerous” simply doesn't seem to have struck them. Yet.
Gullibility amongst huge swathes of the general population is a given, sadly. Even now, even those who claim to distrust politicians and not to believe a word they say often give themselves away as “closet believers” by showing surprise when yet another politicians’ promise proves to be nothing more than empty words. Few people care to scratch beneath the surface of very many issues to look at what the onward ramifications might be or what the true motivations or intentions are. But that’s because they’re busy people, and because they aren’t making decisions which will affect the whole country, it is to an extent forgivable, if a little sad. But in our MPs, who are making those decisions, it’s unforgivable. Totally.
Borderline, it is well known that the political class is out of tune with the public. The majority always did and still does prefer choice and forest should never stop trying to encourage inclusion.
What kind of support group would forest be if every time it surrendered to the smokerphobic's bullying demands rather than the rights of smokers. We are legit consumers, breaking no laws, we deserve to be treated the same as other consumers, with respect.
Forest must always fight for that. What would have happened if ASH had given up back when most people smoked and the chance of any ban being supported by politicians was fantasy?
They never gave up back then and we should not give up now.
Other countries manage to be civilised. Italy is another which is why my hard earned is never spent on leisure here in the UK because I will not pay to be treated second class. Forest must never concede that the people it represents are anything other than people who deserve to be treated as fairly as anyone else.
It must always fight for choice and against bullying and doing so it not only supports smokers but civilised society too.
There is hatred of smoking (and thus of smokers) in all countries. Everywhere strict neurotic anti-smokers are a minority of the public, but (admitting being subjective) this minority seems to be larger in the USA, Canada, Australia, NZ and the UK than in other countries and cultures. In fact, the UK is not as bad as (say) Canada, California or Australia (not to mention the nanny Singapore basket case).
I have been a smoker for 40 years, my first 10 years cigarettes and the last 30 years only cigars and pipes. I travel a lot and all nasty anti-smoking experiences I've passed through in the last 20 years (when smoking became stigmatized) were in English speaking countries. Is this a cultural phenomenon?
The England smoking ban came into force not in 2006, but on 1st July 2007. Smoking was on the decline prior to the ban, but no further decline followed the ban until vaping became popular in the last 3 or 4 years.