Stoptober, the "28-day stop smoking challenge" run by Public Health England, is launched today.

Last year PHE, which is funded by the Department of Health, hired four "top TV" comedians to promote the campaign. Together they cost the taxpayer £195,000.

Al Murray, one of the four, was also hired to promote the 2014 campaign.

This year the Stoptober budget has been slashed, allegedly, from £5m to £1m and savings had to be made.

Instead of TV and radio ads the campaign is focussing on Facebook advertising - £500,000 worth - in the belief that two-thirds of smokers use social media.

Murray and his mates have departed and the new "celebrity ambassadors" are Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, former Atomic Kitten member Natasha Hamilton, Sky Sports presenter Chris Kamara and former England cricketer Phil Tufnell.

Tufnell is an interesting choice because the last time I saw him (in the flesh) he was addressing the Association of Independent Tobacco Specialists at their annual tobacco trade lunch at Lords.

That was in 2015. I wrote about it here and as I reported the last thing I heard him say was, "If you've got any cigars I'll be outside having a fag."

To be fair, this not the first time Tufnell has been associated with Stoptober. In 2013 he kept up a constant commentary on Twitter, keeping his followers informed of a previous attempt to quit smoking using what looked like a rather primitive e-cigarette called Kwit Cig.

That clearly didn't work because he was still on the fags last year and now PHE has recruited him as their quit smoking "ambassador".

Time will tell how much he and his fellow "celebrities" have been paid but, don't worry, it's only our money.

Update: To promote the launch of Stoptober 2016 Public Health England is pushing the fact that smoking rates in England are at an all-time low.

I guess they want publicly-funded campaigns like Stoptober and local stop smoking services to take some of the credit.

In radio interviews this morning however I've been pointing out that if smokers want to quit they are increasingly using free market e-cigarettes in preference to state-funded stop smoking initiatives.

Last year, as I have previously reported, Stoptober saw a 15 per cent drop in the number of people who signed up compared to 2014. Meanwhile there has been a 51 per cent drop in the number of people using stop smoking services in England and Wales since 2010/11.

This morning the Press Association quoted me as follows:

"Quit smoking campaigns like Stoptober are a waste of public money because smokers don't need the state to help them quit.

"Smokers who want to stop are increasingly using free market solutions like e-cigarettes that cost the public nothing."

See Number of smokers in England falls to record low (Independent).