Here's the video of our fringe event at the Conservative party conference on Monday.
I chaired the session and the panellists were Baroness Fox (aka Claire Fox, Academy of Ideas), Mark Oates (We Vape) and Chris Snowdon (Institute of Economic Affairs).
(As I explained in my previous post Mark was a late replacement for Lord Moylan.)
Here are some soundbites:
Chris Snowdon on health inequalities
"The whole issue of health inequalities for years has been used as a cover for imposing the lifestyles of the upper middle class onto ordinary working class and low income people."
"I don’t have the answer, and nor does anyone else, how you can make everyone’s circumstances better, but you’re not actually helping people who are in bad circumstances by taking away the things that are making their life a little bit better every day."
Mark Oates on Britain becoming 'smoke free'
"People should be free to smoke if they so choose but government is doing a bad job of letting people know that vaping is vastly safer than smoking."
"In order to achieve what they call ‘smoke free’ you need as many options as possible. It’s not a one-trick pony. I’m a big supporter of vaping but vaping doesn’t work for everyone."
Claire Fox on poverty
“Poverty is grim. It’s bloody grim. If the energy that was put into stopping poor people eating the wrong food and smoking was put into building a productive economy that might mean that people were less poor we might get somewhere."
Finally, another quote from Claire and possibly my favourite of the afternoon:
“I’m on the left and I’m far more pro-freedom than anyone I’ve met in the Conservative party ... What has happened to you lot? You’ve lost your bottle, in my opinion.”
She’s right, I think. An 80-seat majority yet the Tories have indeed lost their bottle, from grassroots to government, on a whole range of issues.
What a waste.
