Stars paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to front stop smoking campaign
Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 11:16 
A few months ago I wrote:
It was announced yesterday that more than 215,000 smokers joined Stoptober, the annual taxpayer-funded quit smoking campaign.
Many were inspired, perhaps, by the gentle coaxing of comedians Al Murray, Rhod Gilbert, Shappi Khorsandi and Bill Bailey (above). Or maybe they weren't because the number of people who signed up was 15 per cent fewer than in 2014.
Naturally Public Health England had a ready-made excuse for the relative failure of Stoptober 2015. The drop, they said, reflected the year-on-year decline in smoking rates in England.
Except it didn't because the fall in smoking rates in England in 2014-15 is nowhere near 15 per cent, a fact rightly mentioned in this report, Fewer people joined Stoptober smoking challenge (H/T journalist Peter Russell).
I concluded the post – Stoptober is proof that comedy isn't the new rock 'n' roll (and never was) – by asking, "How much does Stoptober cost the taxpayer?"
Today the Mail reports, Anti-cuts comics accused of hypocrisy for accepting thousands in taxpayer's cash to front 'nanny-state' health and safety adverts.
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Update: Several years ago, seeking a speaker for a Forest event, I enquired via an agency about the cost of booking Al Murray for a 20-minute after-dinner speech.
To be fair, his Pub Landlord persona was at the height of its popularity and I don't blame him for making the most of it (market forces and all that), but was I still shocked to be quoted £35,000.
Nice work if you can get it.
Update: Al Murray has tweeted that he was paid the "going rate".
What I love though is PHE's suggestion that Murray and his fellow comedians were paid for their "developing and creating comic content".
Seriously, I can't remember anything funny about Stoptober. Can you?
Reader Comments (12)
C'mon Simon, you've been in the business long enough to know that unpaid anti-smoking activists are rarer than rocking horse s**t.
Politicians are beyond redemption with this waste of tax funding. Trust cannot be regained and I'll avoid above comedians to show my utmost displeasure.
Encouraging smokerphobia doesn't come cheap. It's such a shame. I used to like those comedians. Now when I look at them I know how much they would despise someone like me for not being perfect enough of a good citizen to jump aboard the "help" waggon.
After all. I am a smoker who will never quit and I am judged by what I do and not who I am.
#ShameOnThem.
More proof that the antismoking campaign is a racket designed to extract money for its partisans.
Oh weii, thats only the annual salary of four nurses and it's not as though the NHS is broken or anything. It clearly can afford to waste money. Isn't it about time someone put a stop to this nonsense though, so the money could be spent on direct patient care? Someone should point this out!
Another 4 to add to my avoid and talk down against list.
It's really growing now.
I will not be preached to by the likes of parasites who don't practice what they preach. I enjoy smoking and it is legal. Why am I being treated as a leper in this era of E&D?
PS
Forgot to add that MH is now the next crusade. The anti-smokers have created the problem along with PHE.
Please leave me alone to live the successful life that I choose.
I can't recall comedy either. However, Stoptober made clear that "this time it's personal" It was always aimed as an attack on people who won't quit and with a veiled threat behind it.
We should never have been forced to pay for this tripe and it should stop now. There can be no justification for using this much of our cash on a political campaign we are forced to fund without choice.
Murray et al would say whatever they were paid to say and I'll bet if Forest had paid Murray that £35,000, he'd have been calling for smoking back in pubs - as actually, any decent pub landlord who cares about his customers, his business and the pub culture would do.
Do none of them ever smoke? Remember Shane Warne
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/1999/05/06/1060871762110.htm
l
And he still hasn't quit.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/television/shane-warne-and-other-im-a-celebrity-australia-stars-allowed-to-smoke/news-story/b1ec0b62d56c87ab240b30e1570ff164
He quoted £35,000? He didn't say no?
I wish you'd hired him, it would have made a good headline now. "Anti smoking comedian once spoke at a 'pro-smoking' dinner".
Bucko – we had no contact with him. We never got further than making an initial approach an agent. We couldn't afford the sum quoted (obviously) so we will never know whether he would have accepted.
Pat – best not to assume Murray would have accepted work from us had we been able to meet his rate. Again, we'll never know. Without evidence I'm not keen either on the suggestion that any one of them would have said whatever they were paid to say. That's a step too far. Nor is there evidence any of them have been hypocritical.
My objection lies not with the comedians who are perfectly entitled to accept such a job and ask for the "market rate". It rests with Public Health England who have used a large sum of public money to pay them and I don't see how it's justified.
It's time the likes of ASH and Public Health England lost all public funding. We are in times of shortage and all public money is required for front line services.
Additionally working people and pensioners are being bankrupted by the high costs they pay buying the tobacco they enjoy.