What’s the point of a pro-smoking (sic) group in 2021?
That's the headline of an article by journalist Ralph Jones.
It's been a long time coming because I was originally interviewed by Ralph in January 2019 when he was working for Vice magazine.
He had been commissioned, he said, to write about the 'smoking lobby' but nothing was ever published, as I explained here.
Eighteen months later – working freelance – Ralph contacted me again to say he had now sold the idea to The Fence, a magazine I had never heard of, and could he interview me again.
To cut a long story short, we met for a second time (in October last year) but after that I heard nothing more.
The Fence obviously passed on it so Ralph has now posted the article on a platform called medium.com where he writes:
Simon Clark vehemently defends people’s right to smoke tobacco. But with the practice in terminal decline, is there any point?
You can read it in full here but it brings to mind something Joe Jackson once said to me.
Despite writing a well-received essay and several articles on smoking and appearing more than once on the Today programme to argue his corner, Joe didn’t enjoy giving interviews on the subject and articles like this are probably one of the reasons why.
Joe felt that much of what he said would be either ignored or edited to the extent that any comments he made would be reduced to soundbites most likely out of context with the broader discussion.
I understood his frustration but he's in a different position to me and is entitled to pick and choose who he speaks to. When it comes to being interviewed beggars like me can't be choosers so I'm rather less discerning than he is!
That said, I'm not complaining. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I agreed to be interviewed by Ralph and I quite enjoyed our chats.
One thing worth noting however is his unquestioning belief in (a) the claim that passive smoking is a serious threat to non-smokers, and (b) the opinion of the World Health Organisation, the British Medical Journal and a former Chief Medical Officer.
I wouldn't like to guess how old Ralph is (early thirties perhaps?) or what his politics are (although reading his tweets Nish Kumar comes to mind!).
I am however constantly amazed that people you might expect to be a bit anti-establishment are actually the least willing to question establishment positions on things like passive smoking, even when the 'facts' can be shown to be false or, at the very least, contentious.
Sadly it's this meek acceptance of what 'experts' and government bodies tell us that is eroding freedom of choice and individual liberty. And the age group most susceptible to junk science and the claims of the establishment is the one that, in a previous era, would have been the most sceptical of authority.
How did that happen?
PS. Ralph was recently a contestant on This Is My House, the Richard Bacon-produced programme I wrote about last month (see 'BBC’s House party brings home the Bacon').
It’s still on iPlayer and Ralph (or Mitch 1) is in episode 4. If you've never seen the programme do watch it. It's a hoot.