Thanks to Geoff Vann for alerting me to the answer to a question I sort of asked on Saturday.
On Friday evening the Quit for Covid Twitter account let slip that the 'campaign' – which never really got off the ground – was about to end.
I was a bit surprised but I'm not sure why because we've been monitoring it since it was launched in March and it was pretty dire.
In almost six months the number of smokers they engaged with can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Managed by two smoking cessation 'experts', most of the time it was an echo chamber for the stop smoking industry.
On May 21 I wrote:
Not counting retweets, Quit for Covid has posted around 550 original tweets. Over 65 days, that's an average of 8.5 per day. A quick scroll reveals that many Quit for Covid tweets attract no comments, no retweets and no 'likes'.
When a tweet does get a 'like', or is retweeted, the organisation or individual responsible is almost always part of the tobacco control or public health industry.
A random check of Quit for Covid tweets posted in April and May found the following organisations retweeting or 'liking' them:
ASH Wales, Breathe2025, Smokefree Hackney, Making Smoking History Greater Manchester, Get Healthy Rotherham, NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire CCG, and the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT).
Individuals included Ailsa Rutter, director of Fresh Smoke Free, and Andrew Furber, regional director of public health, North West England.
Other individuals who I won't name included a health psychologist, public health consultant, smoking cessation officer, smoking cessation specialist and a 'smoke free lead'.
Ordinary members of the public, notably smokers who want to quit, are almost completely absent from the conversation.
You can read the full post here: 'Number 10 must say no to ASH and Quit for Covid'.
As I wrote last Saturday, I was also aware that last month ASH launched another campaign, Today is the Day, so it was obvious the £350,000 grant they had applied for to run Quit for Covid hadn't come through.
What I didn't know was how much money ASH had been given to run Today is the Day and that's where Geoff (@BV_dodderer) came in because it was he who drew my attention to the Government's response to a parliamentary question tabled by Lib Dem peer (and former trustee of ASH) Lord Rennard:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase funding for public education campaigns about smoking in order (1) to encourage people who have quit during the Covid-19 lockdown to remain smoke-free, and (2) to motivate people to quit smoking in coming months.
In response Lord Bethall, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the DHSC, replied (August 10):
The Government has committed £70,000 to support the 'Today is the Day' campaign which is targeted at localities with high smoking prevalence. Public health England's annual Stoptober campaign will be held in October 2020 and will take account of the Covid-19 pandemic.
£70,000 is still a substantial sum but it's one fifth of the money ASH wanted from the taxpayer to fund the Quit for Covid campaign.
According to ASH it was No 10 that put the brake on the original grant application so it’s reasonable to assume that No 10 was also responsible for blocking it completely.
Not only is this a slap in the face for ASH, it is also a huge embarrassment for officials at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) because, again according to ASH, it was the DHSC that asked ASH to apply for a grant in the first place.
I'm speculating but it suggests two things:
One, that No 10 is aware that giving a substantial sum of taxpayers' money to a political lobby group like ASH is a dubious use of public money.
Two, running a campaign called Quit for Covid when almost all the evidence suggests that existing smokers are at far less risk of getting Covid-19 than non-smokers would be completely tone deaf.
So farewell Quit for Covid (£350k) and welcome Today is the Day (£70k).
It's still £70k too much but it's good to know that No 10 is asking questions and possibly shares our scepticism about ASH's modus operandi.
With a bit of luck the days when ASH could rely on their pals at the Department of Health to keep the gravy train rolling are over, for now at least.
What we really need though is a health secretary (and a public health minister) who can stand up to pushy lobbyists like ASH.
That may be asking too much at the moment but I live in hope that somewhere there are Conservative ministers brave enough to tell the Left-leaning, anti-business tobacco control industry to take a hike.
Meanwhile is that weeping and gnashing of teeth I can hear from ASH HQ?
PS. As you can see, the Quit for Covid Twitter profile includes the Today is the Day website address. Fancy that!
