Deborah Arnott - a tribute (of sorts)

The anti-smoking group ASH last week announced the imminent retirement of their long-serving chief executive.

Deborah Arnott (above right) will leave her job, which she has held since 2003, on September 30th.

I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I half predicted it a year ago when I 'celebrated' the 20th anniversary of her reign by writing:

Deborah Arnott was 48 when she replaced Clive [Bates] as director of ASH … I'm not being ageist (I'm 64 myself!) but it does beg the question: could retirement be looming for this long-serving titan of tobacco control?

Last week’s announcement included tributes from some of Arnott’s allies in parliament and the public health industry, and it would be churlish of me to deny her ‘successes’, even though I fundamentally oppose much of what she, and ASH, represent.

Like it or not, she has been a tireless campaigner, even if some of her achievements have been slightly exaggerated.

Take the smoking ban. They say history is written by the victors and nowhere is this more apparent than in the infamous article that she and her sidekick, the late Ian Willmore, wrote for the Guardian after MPs voted for the legislation in England in 2006.

It was a remarkably self-congratulatory piece and I remember wondering what her fellow anti-smoking campaigners felt about them taking so much of the credit.

‘Smoke and Mirrors’ did however introduce us to two interesting concepts - the ‘swarm effect’ and the ‘confidence trick’.

According to Arnott and Willmore, they had some doubts that a comprehensive smoking ban would get through Parliament.

The ‘trick’ was to appear confident that the Bill would pass because by doing so they would win the support of politicians who want to be on the winning side.

The ‘swarm effect’ referred to the creation of a coalition of allies, an idea we took on board and adopted for our campaign against plain packaging a few years later.

For many years Deborah and I often went head-to-head on television and radio and I would be lying if I said I enjoyed it because, in person, she had an annoying habit of lecturing me even before the interview had begun.

I might be sitting quietly in the green room reading a paper and Deborah would arrive and start chiding me even before we went on air!

I don't recall any small talk, ever, but I had no problem with her in general. On one occasion I actually had reason to be grateful to her.

It was November 2009 and we were on the Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV which was recorded as live on Wednesday and broadcast on Friday at 3.00pm.

The subject that particular week was the tobacco display ban which the then Labour government wanted to introduce.

There were four guests on the show and three of them - Deborah, Kelvin Mackenzie (former editor of The Sun), and another journalist, the fiercely anti-smoking Jaci Stephens - were in favour of the ban, so I was outnumbered three-to-one.

After the show, which was recorded in front of a live audience, I complained to Titchmarsh whose reaction was a little defensive.

Deborah overheard and ran after me to say she agreed with me - a first! It was a small gesture but one that I appreciated.

Sadly, it hasn’t always been like that. The nadir of our professional ‘relationship’ was probably ten years ago.

It was odd because Deborah should have been in a celebratory mood. It was a Monday night and MPs had just voted for a ban on smoking in cars carrying children.

We were booked to do an interview on the BBC News channel at Millbank studios in Westminster, just across the road from the Houses of Parliament, and what happened when she arrived took me by surprise.

“The people have spoken ... MPs have voted ... It's a victory for democracy ... You've lost ... Forest should shut up shop,” she told me, and this was off air!

Her bitterness towards Forest seemed to cloud any personal or professional satisfaction she must have felt about the vote, and when the interview finished she marched off without another word to me.

The following day I asked, ‘Is it time for the CEO of ASH to get on her bike?’, a question that was not as outlandish as it might seem.

In 2011 I had asked ‘What’s become of ASH?’. Following the incident above, I went further and asked: ‘What does ASH do that justifies its continued existence?’

Looking back I made a pretty strong case, I think, but here’s the thing. That year (2014) marked a turning point for ASH, which I felt was running out of steam.

Indeed, Deborah Arnott’s greatest achievement in the past decade has arguably been the reinvention of ASH as an advocate of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool, and it all began following the first E-Cigarette Summit in London in November 2013 when her ambivalence bordering on hostility towards vaping contrasted sharply with that of her predecessor Clive Bates.

Had she continued to be hostile to e-cigarettes ASH might have slipped into irrelevance.

Whether she recognised the danger I don’t know, but it was noticeable that over the next few years ASH not only became far more positive about e-cigarettes, but the go to authority whose research on the prevalence of vaping is quoted by everyone from government to a grateful vaping industry.

Arnott herself has became a permanent fixture at the E-Cigarette Summit on both sides of the Atlantic, frequently quoted by vaping advocates despite the fact that her vision is a future in which all forms of recreational nicotine have been eradicated and no-one smokes or vapes.

In recent years our paths have crossed less frequently. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we were in the same TV or radio studio together.

This is due partly to Covid, but also the changing nature of broadcasting. Today many interviews are conducted online and while it would be stretching things to say I miss our ‘head-to-heads’ in the studio, life is certainly a little duller without them.

So, what next for the outgoing CEO of ASH? As readers know I have been playfully lobbying for her and her counterpart in Scotland, Sheila Duffy, to be honoured in recognition of their services to the nanny state.

With a Conservative prime minister now driving that train, the time has surely come for them to be rewarded with an MBE or OBE.

But why stop there? Some people are even speculating that Deborah will be given a peerage, allowing her to continue her anti-smoking crusade in Parliament.

Meanwhile, this is how her retirement is being spun:

Before Deborah retires, parliament is expected to have passed revolutionary laws to create a smokefree generation; a fitting end to two decades of campaigning success.

But wait … when did ASH ever lobby the Government for a generational tobacco sales ban?

Raising the age of sale from 18 to 21 was the objective, not a generational ban. In fact, when plans to ban the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults were announced in New Zealand in 2021, ASH was noticeably lukewarm about the policy.

Likewise, until very recently, and unlike their counterparts in Scotland, ASH UK was opposed to banning disposable vapes. Since the Government announced plans to do just that, however, I don’t recall hearing a single word of protest from Deborah or her colleagues.

This chameleon-like quality to adapt to circumstances and abandon previous held positions is impressive, although it reeks (to me) of bare-faced opportunism.

Nevertheless, if all goes to plan over the next few weeks, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will sail through Parliament, Rishi Sunak will have his legacy, and Deborah can walk off into the sunset, job done.

But is it?

Truth is, the holy grail for Deborah this past decade was not a generational ban, or even achieving smoke free status in England by 2030, but the introduction of a tobacco levy that would have forced the tobacco companies to fork out billions of pounds over many years, effectively funding the anti-smoking industry for decades to come.

That, I believe, is the real legacy Deborah hoped to secure before she retired, and unless Jeremy Hunt does a remarkable u-turn in the Budget next month (the Treasury has always opposed a tobacco levy), she will leave ASH with one of her principal goals unfulfilled.

As for her successor, one would imagine that Hazel Cheeseman, her deputy since 2021, is the hot favourite. Last year, having speculated that Arnott might retire, I wrote:

I’ve no reason to suppose Arnott's retirement is imminent, but it didn't go unnoticed that in 2021 Hazel Cheeseman stepped up from director of policy to deputy chief executive.

I may be wrong but I don’t recall ASH ever having a deputy CEO (or deputy director) before, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she is being lined up for the top job when Deborah does call it a day.

I still expect Hazel Cheeseman to be appointed but there has to be a recruitment process so it’s not impossible she could be pipped at the post by an external candidate. We’ll see.

Finally, I do want to pay a tribute (of sorts) to the outgoing CEO.

While ASH represents everything that’s wrong with a public health industry that puts regulation and coercion ahead of education and individual freedom, I recognise a committed and successful campaigner even if I don’t agree with the campaign.

I accept too that Deborah Arnott, an ex-smoker, is genuine in her belief that the world will be a better place without smoking or tobacco.

Of course I refute that because my experience tells me that, despite the health risks, a great many people enjoy smoking and a life without any risk is a poor substitute for living.

We must therefore agree to disagree.

Unfortunately, most tobacco control campaigners refuse to acknowledge that people like me hold views that are just as strong as theirs and, instead of respecting our differences, they insist we must be stooges of Big Tobacco.

Ringing in my ears, for example, is the repeated implication that people like me are driven not by principle but by money.

In 2010 Deborah told one interviewer:

“Well, to start with, Simon forgets to mention that his organisation is funded by the tobacco industry so his salary is paid out of their profits.”

In 2022 she was still banging the same drum:

“Well, first of all what Simon doesn't tell you is that he is a non-smoker, that he has made a very good living for over 20 years from being paid by the tobacco industry …”

I could of course have replied that Deborah Arnott has made an equally good living out of tobacco (control), earning significantly more than me, but I’m not that petty.

Also, I prefer to play the ball not the man.

That said, I bear her no ill will, so enjoy your retirement, Deborah. You’ve (cough) deserved it.

See also:
Three against one: is that a fair fight? (November 2009)
Telling tales: Deborah Arnott, Nick Triggle and me (February 2014)
Is it time for the CEO of ASH to get on her bike? (February 2014)
Nicotine: It’s a lifelong expensive addiction, says Deborah (November 2014)
Deborah Arnott rewrites history - the cheek of it! (July 2019)
Flag planting (February 2021)
The hypocrisy of ASH (October 2022)
20 years ago - exit Clive, enter Deborah (March 2023)
Vaping - the two faces of ASH (December 2023)

Below: Deborah Arnott and me on the BBC News Channel, March 6, 2010