Further evidence that anti-smoking campaigners may be slightly troubled by the new government.
Following this post (Are Truss and Coffey making tobacco control twitchy?) I couldn’t help notice that Hazel Cheeseman, now deputy chief executive of ASH, has retweeted or commented upon several tweets that relate to reports that the Government may be about to revisit its obesity strategy and even scrap the sugar tax which is almost universally supported by public health campaigners and other state interventionists.
On September 13 Cheeseman retweeted a tweet by Caroline Cerny, policy director for BiteBack 2030, a ‘youth-led movement for change’ in the field of food and health.
Cerny had tweeted a link to the revelation (in the Guardian) that ‘Liz Truss could scrap anti-obesity strategy in drive to cut red tape’.
Added to this she wrote:
A Prime Minister voted into office by just 81k people cancels policies supported by over 70% of the population and with potential to improve the health of millions. Bad times.
Cheeseman, deputy CEO of ASH, not only retweeted this comment, she then retweeted a tweet by Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners.
Responding to an article in The Times by Dr Rachel Clarke (Scrap sugar tax and I’ll watch more patients die), Marshall had commented:
Well said Rachel Clarke
That got Cheeseman’s seal of approval too.
On Tuesday meanwhile anti-smoking campaigners Fresh North East retweeted the following comment by former Conservative leader William Hague who raged:
Rumoured scrapping of anti-obesity polices would be a serious error, leading to poorer health, more dependency, and ultimately higher taxes and a bigger state. See my Times column in May.
The column, published on May 16, was headlined ‘Obesity U-turn is weak, shallow and immoral’.
Strong stuff. And there, commenting on Hague’s tweet, was our old friend Hazel Cheeseman. According to Hazel:
If we change our environment we change our behaviour. So much ill health caused by behaviours driven by our environment. Want to secure healthier, happier nation? Then the answer is clear.
As it happens I rather agree with her on this, as I wrote here:
In my view, instead of insulting people’s intelligence and curtailing their freedoms with further restrictions on the sale of tobacco and where you can light up, governments should focus less on 'helping' people stop smoking and concentrate instead on creating the conditions for them to make 'healthier' choices for themselves because it's clear that while many people smoke for pleasure, many also smoke to relieve the stress that may be caused by their circumstances or their environment.
In other words, instead of punishing adults who smoke with punitive taxation and other measures designed to force them to quit, often against their will, government should focus on the underlying reasons why a greater proportion of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are smokers.
Full post: Tobacco control - levelling up or dumbing down?.
Hazel’s comment about changing our environment suggests some common ground. Sadly I suspect that’s where we part company because ASH’s idea of changing our environment includes more restrictions - extending smoking bans to outdoor areas, raising the age of sale of tobacco, banning smoking in social housing etc etc.
But back to William Hague who I remember giving Tony Blair a good run for his money at PMQs (if not the 2001 general election when the Conservatives were trounced for a second time by New Labour), making me laugh with his jokes and witticisms.
Sadly, as he has got older, Hague has become one of the most boring and paternalistic men in politics. Nevertheless his article for The Times did include this interesting definition of ‘freedom’:
Freedom is, most crucially, being free from oppression, violence or discrimination. But it is also the freedom of a child to skip and somersault; of an adult to enjoy running down a country lane or in a city park; of an old person to keep their quality of life until their final days. Freedom is being well enough to work in your chosen career, to be strong enough to protect and care for your loved ones, to be fit enough to take part in sports and games. Freedom is climbing a mountain without physical distress and looking down from the top with exhilaration and wonder. These are the freedoms being denied to vast numbers of people who are the victims, not the free agents, in a system that wants to fill them up with salt, sugar and saturated fat.
Victims, not free agents. Is that really how politicians like Hague view me and millions of other people?
I’m overweight - morbidly obese according to current standards - and the days when I could climb a mountain or even a modest hill without physical distress are long gone.
As for running down a country lane, forget it. I can’t even run for a bus these days which is why I drive everywhere and park as close as I can to my destination.
But as an adult it has always been my choice what I eat. No-one has ever forced me to eat all the ‘unhealthy’ things I enjoy (which are generally not unhealthy if consumed in moderation).
When I was younger I may not have been fully appraised of what was healthy and what, eaten to excess, was not but I could guess because it’s not rocket science that fruit and vegetables, for example, are generally better for you than cake and doughnuts.
But I like cake and doughnuts and since I left home to go to university at 17 what I eat has been my business and no-one else’s and to suggest that millions of people like me are victims, not free agents, takes the biscuit.
Whether the fate of the Government’s obesity strategy (which has yet to be announced) has any bearing on its tobacco control strategy remains to be seen.
I’m dubious, personally, that even a Liz Truss government will publicly abandon Theresa May’s ‘smoke free’ ambition but I’m hopeful the new Secretary of State for Health Theresa Coffey will put education and the promotion of reduced risk products ahead of further anti-smoking measures designed to punish smokers for their habit.
Meanwhile it’s amusing to watch anti-smoking campaigners take such an interest in the size of the nation’s collective waist.
It just goes to show that their interests go way beyond tobacco and nicotine but, then again, so do mine.