George, don't do that
Friday, May 5, 2023 at 12:20 
Illustration by Howard McWilliam, commissioned by Forest in 2016 for our Axe The Tobacco Tax Escalator campaign
Older readers will remember Joyce Grenfell.
Her songs and gently whimsical monologues sound terribly dated to modern ears but one, 'The Nursery School', is remembered fondly by those of a certain age.
Addressing an imaginary classroom of children, an increasingly exasperated teacher, played by Grenfell, can be heard repeatedly admonishing a small, recalcitrant child with the words, "George, don't do that."
It’s never clear what George is doing but it’s clear he was up to no good.
Which brings me, via this rather tenuous link, to his namesake, George Osborne.
As I explained here, the former chancellor of the exchequer (a smoker until at least two years ago) has been in the news this week after he urged the Government to ban smoking for future generations.
The response, I’m pleased to say, has been largely hostile.
The IEA’s Matthew Lesh was one of several commentators who poured scorn on the idea. Writing for the online edition of the Spectator (‘George Osborne’s smoking ban is deluded‘) he noted:
Not all smokers want to quit, despite the universal knowledge that the product is unhealthy. But the mark of a free society is accepting and tolerating that not everyone can, should or does live the same."
Henry Hill, deputy editor of ConservativeHome, also had a pop. Writing for UnHerd ('What is George Osborne smoking?') he declared that, under Cameron and Osborne, 'there was no vision of what a smaller state might actually look like, or which burdens the Government ought to let civil society shoulder'.
The result was a wholly unstrategic programme of spending cuts which gutted the state without shrinking it — what has subsequently been dubbed “sh*t-state Toryism”.
With that in mind, perhaps it is not surprising to find Osborne spending his political afterlife striking bold poses against Conservative shibboleths such as opposition to the nanny state for the benefit of applauding progressives. Such behaviour was, in the end, all the Cameroon project really was.
Writing for Spiked ('George Osborne’s miserable plan for prohibition') Chris Snowdon, head of the IEA’s Lifestyle Economics Unit, took his own cudgel to the former chancellor but saved his most vituperative comment for The Sun:
“This is crazy talk from George Osborne. Perhaps it’s time for him to head off into the sunset, smoke his fags and count his money."
Ouch.
The same report had this comment from me:
"Like many politicians, past and present, George Osborne wants to control how millions of people live their lives.
“Osborne's comments are a classic example of 'Do as I say, not as I do'.
“Fortunately he's no longer in government, or politics, so his views should be treated with the contempt they deserve.”
Meanwhile an anonymous Conservative MP was quoted as saying:
“And we wonder why we didn’t win in Red Wall seats when he [Osborne] was Chancellor.”
Good point.
Noting ‘Osborne’s joyless crusade’, another commentator, Joseph Dinnage, writing for The Critic, added:
Osborne has been photographed smoking on a number of occasions, so perhaps he is practicing the sanctimony of many ex-smokers or if he still indulges, self-hating current smokers. By sneering at his moral inferiors, he might feel vindicated for his respiratory wrongdoings.
Depressingly, however, Osborne’s comments represent the tip of the iceberg and his attitudes are growing among a cultural elite increasingly disconnected with the population at large. Disconnection alone would be tolerable, at least indifference implies a disinterest in meddling with peoples’ lives.
This clearly is not enough and Osborne, the Times Health Commission clique and many others will not rest until they deem Brits to have been sufficiently infantilised.
Addressing the Commission, the man himself had declared that “anti-nanny state Conservatives” were “not worth listening to”.
I've never been a member of the party but I've voted Conservative all my life so I guess that includes me.
How wonderful, then, to read Stephen Glover's almost perfect response to Osborne’s arrogance in yesterday’s Daily Mail.
Co-founder of the Independent in 1986 and founding editor of the Independent on Sunday in 1990 (when both were proper, printed newspapers), Glover has been a columnist on the Mail for many years and, I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure he is one of their leader writers as well.
He's what I would call a small 'c' conservative, with serious, considered views, so when he writes 'I can’t abide entitled Tory know-alls like George Osborne who want to tax orange juice and cake and ban smoking', the Conservative party should take note.
The entire article is worth reading but one sentence stood out:
Scratch a paternalist Tory who is certain what's best for you, and it's likely you'll find a socialist.
How true.
The good news is that the current Conservative prime minister also seems to disagrees with Osborne. According to the Mail Online:
Rishi Sunak today [May 3] rejected George Osborne's call for a ban on smoking and taxes on orange juice in a bid to boost Britons' health.
Downing Street said there were 'no plans' to follow Mr Osborne's advice and pointed to how the inclusion of fruit juices under the sugar tax had been rejected when the levy was first introduced ...
No 10 also dismissed the prospect of a complete ban on smoking and said such a move would represent 'major departure from the policy pursued over recent decades, which has emphasised personal responsibility'.
‘It's worth emphasising smoking rates in England are at an all-time low - currently 13 per cent, down from 20 per cent in 2010,' the spokesman added.
Funnily enough, those are pretty much the same arguments that Forest has been making for years.
You can read our response to Osborne's comments here:
UK should ban smoking and slap taxes on fruit juice says George Osborne (Mirror)
Smoking ban ‘would fuel huge tobacco black market’ warns lobby group (Convenience Store)
The funniest reaction, however, came from former Spectator journalist Petronella Wyatt who tweeted:
Perfect.
PS. Yesterday, on TalkTV, Maxwell Marlow, director of research at the Adam Smith Institute, told presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer:
"If [George Osborne's] concerned about smoking, and I think it's right that people are ... it is right that we go towards a smoke-free future."
Seriously, Maxwell? What next? Alcohol may not be responsible for as many premature deaths as heavy smoking, but it arguably costs society more in other ways.
Should we move towards an alcohol-free future as well? And after that?
I've said it before and I'll say it again. By endorsing a 'smoke-free future', free market think tanks like the ASI are not helping the cause of individual freedom.
Let society evolve naturally and if that means even more people choosing not to smoke, or smokers quitting or switching voluntary to reduced risk products, that's absolutely fine.
What is not acceptable, in my view, is 'free market' think tanks and 'consumer choice' advocacy groups embracing the language of tobacco control and effectively endorsing a highly illiberal 'smoke-free' agenda.
I know the ASI loves the idea that e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, snus and nicotine pouches are the future, but what about consumers who, in decades to come, may still want to smoke a cigarette or a cigar?
What about their rights and freedoms, or do they no longer matter in the race to embrace the new 'smoke free' religion?
Reader Comments (1)
Snobbery pure and simple. Sneering and turning one's nose up at the thought that some people choose not to doff their cap and listen to their "betters", like the chap from the ASI, is at the very heart of the so called desire for a future world without smokers. If the natives don't understand, just shout louder and keep pushing the blighters until they know what's good for 'em!
How dare they lecture us, especially as many of us older smokers have been inhaling smoke and enjoying it long before today's bunch of snobs, puritans, and hand ringers, have been breathing.
Why can't they just leave us alone and stop treating us as if we want or need their pity. They should just get lost and the likes of the ASI should make clear, to avoid confusion, that it is no longer an organisation that supports the right to freedom for all especially if they are not middle class or trendy.