The fearless face of health journalism

The Guardian today features an ‘investigation’ into alleged lobbying by tobacco companies opposed to the generational tobacco ban.

The report is credited to two journalists, Rob Davies and Matthew Chapman.

Davies is a business reporter at the Guardian. Over the years he has occasionally asked Forest for a quote in response to some smoking-related story.

This is unusual for a Guardian journalist writing about tobacco so I’ve always respected him for that.

Chapman is a senior reporter at The Examination which was launched last year and describes itself as an ‘independent nonprofit newsroom that investigates preventable health threats and empowers people in harm’s way’.

Also, ‘Fearless journalism for a healthier world’.

Previously Chapman worked at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism where he spent three years ‘investigating Big Tobacco’.

Funnily enough, one of his recent reports (which I wrote about here) targeted Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH, and her former head of research Martin Dockrell.

Dockrell is better known today as the tobacco control programme lead at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (formerly Public Health England) and in a piece published in March, ‘in collaboration with The Times’, it was reported that:

Martin Dockrell, England’s tobacco control programme lead, had a private dinner with Juul co-founder Adam Bowen and two other company representatives at a nicotine conference in Warsaw, Poland, in June 2017 — a time when Juul products were driving a youth vaping epidemic in the US …

News of the dinner, which was also attended by Deborah Arnott, CEO of Britain’s leading anti-smoking charity Action Against Smoking and Health, has been revealed by The Examination and the Times at a time when Dockrell just shaped a new bill on vaping that was introduced to the British Parliament on Wednesday this week. 

Amusing though it was to see Arnott and Dockrell singled out for the same righteous indignation that ASH frequently reserves for Forest and the tobacco industry, the story - Civil servant in charge of vaping policy advised e-cigarette giant - seemed rather weak to me, which brings me to today’s report, of which there are three versions.

The longest and most detailed (credited solely to Chapman) is on The Examination website - Revealed: Big Tobacco’s campaign to undermine UK generational smoking ban.

Abridged versions can be found on the Guardian website (Revealed: how Sunak dropped smoking ban amid lobbying from tobacco firms) and in the print edition where it appears on page 53, so not exactly front page news.

I do however want to take issue with the inference that the ‘smoking ban’ (sic) was dropped because of lobbying and/or legal threats by the tobacco industry.

When Rishi Sunak called an early general election last month the Tobacco and Vapes Bill was still awaiting its third reading in the House of Commons and had yet to be considered by the House of Lords.

Yes, there had been a degree of perfectly legitimate lobbying by equally legitimate stakeholders opposed to a generational ban, but the reason the Bill was dropped is more prosaic.

Other bills were far more advanced so it would have been unusual, and controversial, to prioritise legislation that was still at a relatively early stage of its passage through Parliament.

On closer examination therefore only one person is responsible for the generational ban being dropped and that’s Rishi Sunak who called a snap election, but that would spoil the narrative about tobacco industry lobbying.

It also ignores the industrial scale of lobbying conducted by the anti-smoking industry that far outweighs anything the tobacco lobby might have been doing.

I should add that Forest is mentioned in the Examination/Guardian report and I’m pleased because it’s always nice when our work is recognised!

I’m curious though how The Examination knew the names of the two MPs - Alexander Stafford and Andrew Rosindell - who attended our ‘Beat the Ban’ lunch at Boisdale on May 21, the day before Sunak announced the date of the election.

It wasn’t a secret that MPs were present (I mentioned it here) but apart from Sir Philip Davies, who was a late withdrawal, we didn’t name any other MPs.

Furthermore, while Stafford was on the guest list and the table plan, Rosindell was a late, unexpected arrival and wasn’t on either. There are two explanations I can think of.

One, another guest leaked the information.

Two, and this is probably more likely, Chapman simply used his initiative and examined the gallery of photos that we made public and spotted the two MPs.

Either way, hat’s off to The Examination for some impressive sleuthing!

The good news is that both of the online reports feature the illustration of Sunak dressed as a nanny pushing an adult in a pram.

Commissioned by Forest for our campaign against the generational ban, I’m delighted it has received further exposure because I’ve always thought a good illustration is worth a thousand words.

My only regret is that it wasn’t reproduced in the Guardian’s print edition as well!

Update: According to ASH Daily News (July 1, 2024):

The title of the [Guardian] article has been changed from 'Revealed: how Sunak dropped smoking ban amid lobbying from tobacco firms' to 'Revealed: tobacco firms lobbied against smoking ban'. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill was unable to be passed into law before the general election as it had not progressed far enough through the legislative process.

This is essentially what I wrote above, two days ago, so it's nice to see my analysis confirmed by ASH, of all people.

However, I've clicked on the link to the Guardian report and the title still reads 'Revealed: how Sunak dropped smoking ban amid lobbying from tobacco firms' so perhaps it's taking a while to update.

PS. Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting was among those who reacted to the Guardian report by posting a response on X.

At the time of writing (on Saturday) Streeting’s comment had been reposted by 295 people, including Matthew Chapman.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

Streeting is not just lacking in intellect for failing the recognise the bleeding obvious, but is also a massive hypocrite https://www.thenational.scot/news/24250557.wes-streeting-takes-175k-donors-linked-private-health-firms/

We are in for a terrifying five or ten years of a tyrannical Labour government full of ministers like Streeting who appear not to have the capacity to think independently but happy to be led by the nose by whoever pays the most for influence and any sensible person following the smoking issue these 50 years knows it is not tobacco companies anymore.