How The Times has changed

Bit late to this because I've been busy with other things.

Last Friday, the day after it was reported that Cancer Research UK want the Government 'to take tougher action to stop smoking, such as raising the age at which people can legally buy tobacco', The Times threw its weight behind that and other anti-smoking policies.

In a leading article headlined 'Stub It Out' the paper urged the Government to introduce laws similar to those recently passed in New Zealand where 'Smoking will be made more expensive, the nicotine content will be reduced and the number of shops allowed to sell cigarettes will be cut from 6,000 to 600'.

'Britain,' it added, 'should levy punitive taxes and follow New Zealand in steadily raising the legal age for buying tobacco'.

I wasn't in the least bit surprised because The Times currently rivals the Guardian when it comes to a nanny state attitude to smoking. The difference, if any, is that the latter is arguably driven more by its hatred of the tobacco industry than the actual habit.

Last week's piece was also similar to another leading article published by The Times in June following the publication of the Khan Review. On that occasion the paper urged the Government to 'progressively ban the sale of tobacco products to the young', echoing one of Khan’s key recommendations.

Sajid Javid, the man who commissioned the Khan report, was still health secretary at the time (the longest serving health secretary in 2022!) but a few weeks later he resigned and was replaced by Stephen Barclay who was replaced, in September, by Thérèse Coffey.

When Coffey’s alleged lack of enthusiasm for a new tobacco control plan was reported in October The Times was naturally indignant. 'The government,’ it spluttered, ‘should not abandon its anti-smoking agenda'.

(See also 'In defence of Thérèse Coffey' in which I defended the then health secretary who was later replaced by Stephen Barclay who had previously replaced Sajid Javid.)

The Times’ most recent call to action not only urges the Government to raise the legal age of sale of tobacco but implies that it would support other New Zealand-inspired policies including significantly reducing the number of shops that sell tobacco.

Should we be bothered? Not really. The days when a leading article in The Times had much influence are long gone, I would think.

How far the paper has fallen can be gauged by comparing its calls for more curbs on smoking with what is arguably its most famous leading article, written by the late William Rees-Mogg and published in 1967.

‘Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?’ is recalled and celebrated here and although it’s explained that Rees-Mogg was defending the right to a fair trial rather than drug use, it’s clear he also believed the sentences imposed on Mick Jagger (for possession of four amphetamine tablets bought legally in Italy) and Keith Richards (for permitting the smoking of cannabis resin in his property) were excessive in relation to the ‘crime’.

In 1967, even as the health risks of smoking were becoming better known, almost half the population were smokers. The idea that the sale of tobacco to young adults might one day be criminalised and smoking itself might be eradicated by the enforcement of strict laws would have been incomprehensible to most people.

Rees-Mogg died in 2012 but had he still been alive I wonder what he would have made of the newspaper he edited with great distinction urging the Government to make it progressively illegal to sell tobacco to young and eventually older adults while imposing punitive taxation and other restrictions on the product.

If that’s not breaking a butterfly upon a wheel (ie using unnecessary force to destroy something fragile, in this case personal liberty), I don’t know what is.

PS. For a wonderful antidote to the pompous editorialising of The Times I recommend ‘An ode to smoking’ by Kara Kennedy (Spectator).

It’s brilliant and sure to win a Forest award for best article of 2023 - and we’re still in the first week!