Season’s greetings

I’m a bit late with this but it’s worth noting that the new Scottish football league season kicked off last weekend.

Dundee United, the club I support, were promoted last season after one year in the second tier, and their reward was to start the new league season with a home game against their near neighbours Dundee.

And when I say ‘near’ I’m not kidding. The two clubs’ stadiums are 150 yards apart so when they are playing each other the visiting players traditionally walk from one ground to the other, exposing themselves to some ‘friendly’ banter from rival fans.

As it happens, the Dundee derby is one of the few local derbies where fans of both clubs often walk to the ground together, and end up in the same pubs after the match.

During the game there is genuine animosity but there is rarely any trouble, inside or outside the ground, and after the match any tension quickly subsides.

In recent times both clubs have been relegated (and promoted) twice, but last season Dundee defied expectations and crept into the top six in the Premiership.

In contrast, and even though they won the Championship, United struggled to impress, so it’s fair to say that expectations before last Sunday’s game were modest, at best.

In the event, United took the lead twice before an entertaining game finished 2-2, prompting one supporter, writer Neil Forsyth, to optimistically hope for a mid-table finish come the end of the season!

It’s a far cry from the club’s glory years in the 1980s, but I think most United fans would settle for that.

Back in April, having travelled to the game that effectively sealed promotion, I predicted:

With several journeyman players brought in from other Championship clubs with the aim of winning the lower division rather than competing at a higher level thereafter, United are going to struggle next season without significant investment in players.

I can’t see that happening under the present (American) owner who, to be fair, has already invested millions of pounds he will never get back. In fact, he’s made it clear he doesn’t intend to hang around much longer (another few years at most), and I don’t blame him.

The good news is that, contrary to those expectations, the first team squad has undergone a remarkable transformation with numerous players ushered out and eleven new recruits brought in.

New players don’t guarantee success, of course, but at least the club recognised that many of the players who won promotion last season were simply not good enough for the higher division. I just hope the club can afford the new players and don’t get further into debt!

Talking of money, United recently sold the naming rights to their home ground which will now be called the CalForth Construction Arena at Tannadice Park.

Dens Park, home of Dundee, has enjoyed similar sponsorship for some time. In 2018 the ageing ground was rechristened the Kilmac Stadium at Dens Park, but this season there’s a new sponsor and supporters now have to get used to the Scot Foam Stadium at Dens Park.

In practise, of course, no supporter would dream of calling either stadium by their ‘official’ name, so you do have to ask what the sponsor gets out of it.

The subject is topical because it has just been announced that Twickenham, home of England rugby, has been renamed the Allianz Stadium in yet another naming rights deal.

It’s possible, I suppose, that some supporters will in future refer to Twickenham as the Allianz Stadium, but for such a change to be universally accepted I think you probably have to build a brand new stadium - like the Aviva in Dublin, or the Emirates in London.

Also, there are already seven Allianz stadiums around the world. Twickenham will be the eighth, but unlike the Allianz Stadium in Munich, for example (which opened in 2005), Twickenham was first established in 1907 and since then it has gradually developed into the stadium we know today, so expecting supporters to call it by a new name may be unrealistic.

Either way, money talks, and few Dundee United fans seem to care that the club has sold the naming rights to the ground formerly known as Tannadice Park, especially if it brings in a few quid that might be spent on better players from Ghana, North Macedonia, and the lower English leagues.

As it happens I missed last Sunday’s match at the CalForth Construction Arena at Tannadice Park because my mother was staying with us, but I hope to visit the rebranded stadium before all the optimism for the season ahead has been sucked dry by a couple of early defeats.

In the meantime I have just purchased a package of tickets to watch Chelsea Women at Stamford Bridge when the WSL starts next month.

If and when Chelsea build the new stadium they’ve been talking about for years, I’m sure they will sell the naming rights, but until that happens the old ground - opened in 1905 - will always be The Bridge.

Ten years ago this week

On August 5, 2014, we delivered 53,196 letters to Downing Street.

They were addressed to the prime minister, David Cameron, and were signed by adults opposed to plain packaging of tobacco.

Two days later (August 7) we also delivered - to the Department of Health - a petition with the names of over 100,000 people opposed to plain packs.

In total, therefore, over 150,000 people were signatories to the final stage of our campaign against standardised packaging that had peaked twelve months earlier when we submitted to the DoH the names of over 250,000 people opposed to the measure.

Those signatories had been gathered over four months and were part of a wider campaign that attracted a total of 450,000 signatories opposed to plain packs.

The strength of opposition - two-thirds of petition responses to the original government consultation were against standardised packs - forced the Cameron government to kick the policy into the long grass, for a while at least.

Inevitably, however, the threat returned - hence the letters and second petition for which we had just six weeks to gather signatures.

For the full story of how we delivered those letters to Downing Street, click here. Here’s a short snippet:

Understandably Downing Street didn't want them all delivered through the front door. Instead we were allowed to deliver 2,500 in a single box with the balance sent to another address nearby.

Permission to hand deliver had to be sought a couple of weeks in advance. No more than six petitioners are permitted entry to Downing Street, and placards, banners, loud hailers, fancy dress and any props are all prohibited.

The six petitioners had to be security checked so personal information was required a week in advance. On the day passports or driving licences were needed to confirm our identities.

Outside Number Ten (in the photo above) are me, Angela Harbutt, Martin Cullip and two Hands off Our Packs campaigners, Claire and Jess.

Here too is part of the press release we issued ten years ago today:

A petition against plain packaging of tobacco has attracted more than 100,000 signatures and more than 50,000 people have personally written to the Prime Minister opposing the initiative.

Standardised packaging of tobacco is the subject of a final six-week consultation that closes on Thursday 7th August.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest which runs the Hands Off Our Packs campaign, said:

"The response demonstrates the enormous level of opposition to this ill-conceived measure. We urge the prime minister to think again.

“There’s no evidence standardised packaging will have any health benefits. Advocates base their arguments not on facts but on speculation.

“There must be no rush to legislation. It’s a huge step and no government should take it lightly ...

We finally lost our three-year battle against plain packaging when David Cameron forced legislation through Parliament the following year, before the 2015 General Election.

Nevertheless, we didn’t go down without a fight (the Hands Off Our Packs campaign was originally launched in February 2012), and I look back on our efforts with enormous pride.

If nothing else, it showed what can be achieved when everyone works together. (Hint, hint.)

See: Special delivery - PM receives 53,196 letters opposing plain packaging and Over 150,000 petition Government against plain packaging.

Also: Forest underestimated success of Hands Off Our Packs campaign

Useful idiots

In exactly one month Hazel Cheeseman, currently deputy chief executive of ASH, will step up and become CEO.

I’ll have more to say when that moment arrives but today, following the publication of a survey that ‘estimates’ that 'almost one million youngsters have tried vaping this year', Cheeseman is quoted saying:

“E-cigarettes must be strictly regulated so their use is limited to the purpose they were created for, as an effective quitting aid for adult smokers.”

In other words, there is only one reason why any adult should vape, and that’s to quit smoking. And once they've stopped smoking? What then?

It truly amazes me that many vaping advocates still quote ASH as if they're an ally, despite the group's very obvious endgame – the eradication of smoking and all recreational nicotine products, including e-cigarettes.

Despite that and without, it seems, a care in the world, they happily repost comments and 'analysis' commissioned by ASH and other anti-smoking organisations as if they've been handed down on tablets from Mount Sinai.

Yesterday, for example, a leading vaping advocate reposted a tweet by Cheeseman on the subject of keeping people’s home ‘smokefree’ (sic).

According to Hazel, it’s ‘reassuring that a switch to vaping can help’.

The person concerned, who I won't name (although I do like him, to be fair) is far from the only guilty party, but my issue is this.

Disseminating and effectively approving comments and research by ASH and other anti-smoking activists when it suits your pro-vaping agenda is a risky strategy because you’re going to look a bit foolish when they keep demanding more and more restrictions on the sale and consumption of all nicotine devices, including e-cigarettes.

Anyway, this could be a much longer article – naming and shaming the many useful idiots involved – but that grand opus will have to wait.

For the moment, I've got better things to do.

The lying game

There are a lot of accusations of lying flying around at the moment.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is accusing her predecessor, Jeremy Hunt, and the last government of lying about the state of the nation's finances before the election, and Hunt is responding with similar language.

This is a rather tenuous link but today is the tenth anniversary of the publication of an article by former MSP (and MEP) Brian Monteith entitled 'Why do governments lie? Because they can!'

It was published on The Free Society website that no longer exists but was active from 2007-2014. I do however have all the articles on an Excel spreadsheet and I'm going to publish Brian's article below.

But first, some background.

Ten years ago this week, after a tortuous 18-month process, the ASA Council rejected Forest's complaint about a Department of Health advertisement that claimed that 'Every 15 cigarettes you smoke will cause a [cancerous] mutation'.

ASA stands for Advertising Standards Authority and the extraordinary thing is that the ASA executive (the people who are employed to run the organisation) upheld our complaint THREE times during that period.

Each time the Department of Health – with their far greater resources – would appeal and the final adjudication went to the ASA Council led by former Labour minister Lord Smith.

For anyone interested here are my blog posts published at the time:

At last, the ASA verdict on Forest complaint about DH "mutation" ad
On the record: that Forest-ASA correspondence in full

Failing that, do read Brian's article (published on July 31, 2014):

Why do governments lie? Because they can!

It's official! If you want to tell lies in an advert it's OK if you are the government. The state can get away with it, for other advertisers the costs might be painful.

The evidence for this bold claim comes from none other than the recent adjudication of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Council following a complaint by Forest about an advertisement broadcast in January 2013 by the Department of Health.

You may remember it. A man goes outside his back door (note he is not shown smoking in the house) and lights up. As he smokes the cigarette mutates and grows ugly tumours. According to the voiceover:

When you smoke the chemicals you inhale cause mutations in your body and mutations are how cancer starts. Every 15 cigarettes you smoke will cause a mutation. If you could see the damage you would stop.

On behalf of Forest, [campaign manager] Angela Harbutt submitted a complaint to the ASA on 14 January 2013 based on two counts: first, that it made misleading claims (about the mutations) and, second, there was an omission of material information (substantiating the claim).

In Forest's opinion the advertisement was therefore in breach of the Advertising Code. So began a long and tortuous process of making a complaint about a government department's false claims.

On 5 March (ie two months later) the ASA e-mailed to ask for permission to use Forest's name in correspondence with the advertiser and in the final adjudication. Forest consented by return.

On 3 September (eight months later) Forest wrote to the ASA complaining about the slow progress of the complaint, making the point that:

As you will be aware, it was January 2013 when we first lodged the complaint. Eight months later we are still awaiting a decision on the matter. There have been no follow up questions - indeed no communication at all from the ASA to Forest for some considerable time.

According to Angela Harbutt:

I note that in this period the ASA has ruled on at least three complaints on tobacco-related advertisements. All three complaints were submitted by high profile anti-smoking groups against the tobacco company Gallagher Limited.

A12-208266 complaint submitted by ASH, ASH Scotland and Cancer Research UK
A12-210929 complaint submitted by Cancer Research UK
A12-213116 complaint submitted by Cancer Research UK

I do not know if the ideological stance of the organisation making the complaint has any bearing on how a complaint is investigated by the ASA. Nor do I know if the fact that we are making a complaint against a government department, rather than a corporation, has influenced the ASA's approach or attitude towards this investigation.

Whatever the reasons for the failure of the ASA to make an adjudication on our complaint to date, I do not believe this is a particularly complex matter to investigate. From the information initially provided, and the responses from the Department of Health sent to me and forwarded to the ASA, it seems all too clear that the Department of Health mislead the public in the advertisement in question and a statement to that effect should be issued without further delay.

On 12 September the ASA responded, stating that all organisations are treated equally but that the science surrounding mutations is complex and time is being taken to consider all the papers being supplied by the DoH - whose responses to ASA enquiries 'have not always been as swift as we would have hoped'. A promise was made to be more regular with updates.

On 9 October Forest e-mailed again to ask about progress, asking if the review had been completed.

On 10 October the ASA replied explaining that the delays were caused by the DoH response requiring an external expert.

On 1 November the ASA e-mailed Forest with its draft recommendation:

As you can see from the attached we are recommending that your complaint remains upheld. The report is a draft recommendation and the decision and wording will rest entirely with the Council, who may see things differently.

If we change the draft recommendation materially as a result of comments we receive, we shall tell you. If no material changes are needed, the draft recommendation will be forwarded to the Council for consideration. We shall write to you again to tell you the Council's decision. Please treat the draft recommendation as confidential until the final report is published.

On 15 January (2014) Forest's Angela Harbutt wrote again,

It has now been one full year since I submitted a complaint to the ASA regarding the above government advertisement. This is an extraordinarily long time to be waiting for a ruling on this matter. It is also over eight weeks since you supplied me with the ASA draft ruling on this matter.

Can you please advise what stage you are at in 'seeking further clarification' from the government on this advertisement, and when we might expect a final decision from the ASA? As stated previously I do not think that the government, or any other advertiser, should be allowed to delay matters unnecessarily, particularly given that the misleading advertisement is still widely promoted and available on YouTube, and probably other outlets.

On the same day the ASA replied:

In exceptional circumstances, some investigations do take longer than we expect, as is the case with your complaint; we are hoping to meet with the Department of Health in the coming weeks to facilitate a resolution to the investigation.

On 3 February Simon Clark, the understandably frustrated director of Forest, wrote:

I am writing to request an urgent conclusion to our complaint which was submitted over 12 months ago. You said you were 'hoping' to meet with the Department of Health 'in the coming weeks' to facilitate a resolution to the investigation.

'Hoping' isn't good enough. Nor is the vague timescale 'in the coming weeks'. Please advise exactly when that meeting will take place and when, finally, the matter will be concluded. I am sorry to have to write in these terms but the delay in concluding this matter is totally unacceptable and reflects poorly not only on the advertiser but on the ASA itself.

On the same day the ASA responded:

This investigation has taken longer than expected due to the very complex nature of the evidence provided to support the advertised claim and, to an extent, the time it has taken the Department of Health to respond to our queries regarding that evidence.

Following our recent meeting (24 Jan), we can confirm that we will be asking an expert to consider points raised. We expect to appoint an expert in the next week and for them to provide their assessment within another two weeks, after which we will draft a revised recommendation, inviting comments on its factual accuracy.

We hope to present our recommendation to the ASA Council mid-March and the final decision and wording will rest entirely with them.

On 18 February the ASA emailed to say:

We have appointed an expert to provide a report for us. We hope to receive this within the next two weeks. Depending on the outcome of that report we may issue an additional draft recommendation for parties to comment on. We will continue to update you on key developments of our investigation as they arise.

On 1 April Simon Clark of Forest wrote:

It is now almost 15 months since we submitted [the complaint] and six weeks since you wrote to me saying you hoped to receive a report from an expert 'within the next two weeks'. As the weeks go by it gets increasingly hard not to put this matter in the hands of a member of parliament with a view to raising this issue with the relevant minister in the Department of Health.

On 7 April the ASA replied:

As you can appreciate we are required to consider any expert report in detail and if necessary ask further questions for clarity. We are now in a position to update our recommendation and I hope to be able to send this out soon.

On 17 April the ASA issued its second draft recommendation:

As you can see from the attached we are recommending that your complaint is upheld.

The report is a draft recommendation and the decision and wording will rest entirely with the Council, who may see things differently. Please ensure you have made all the points that you want to make.

If we change the draft recommendation materially as a result of comments we receive, we shall tell you. If no material changes are needed, the draft recommendation will be forwarded to the Council for consideration.

We shall write to you again to tell you the Council's decision and the publication date for the final report. Please treat the draft recommendation as confidential until the final report is published.

On 24 April Simon Clark wrote:

Can you tell me when the recommendation is scheduled to be put to the ASA Council and the estimated publication date for the final report?

On the same day the ASA replied:

If the Department of Health have comments that require a revision to our recommendation, the draft will be delayed. However, if the Department of Health have no comments to make on our draft recommendation, we will put it forward to the ASA Council next Thursday. Their full comments will be available to us by the following Wednesday.

If the Council are divided in their deliberations, it may go forward for a vote which will take a further week. You should be aware that in some circumstances, the ASA Council may ask for the case to be presented to them at their monthly meeting at our offices. If this is the case, they will have the chance to discuss it during their meeting in late May.

On 2 May Simon Clark wrote:

Can you advise me what is happening?

On 7 May the ASA replied:

We are considering the Department of Health's response and will decide if any changes are required to our draft recommendation. I hope to be able to do so next week.

On 5 June the ASA wrote:

As you will be aware, we contacted an expert to consider the evidence submitted by the Department of Health, which they responded to in detail. It was then necessary to ask our expert to comment on their response.

Their comments were received yesterday, however I have had to go back to them on a point of clarity. I hope to hear back from him soon. I hope to be able to provide a more definitive update once we have considered our experts replies in detail.

On 10 June the ASA wrote:

We have made minimal amendments to our draft recommendation. Because we do not consider our changes to materially affect our recommendation we will not be inviting further comments. As you can see from the attached we are recommending that your complaint remains upheld.

On 25 June the ASA wrote:

The ASA Council considered our draft recommendation over the past week. Due to comments they have made, it has been decided to present the case to them at their next face-to-face meeting on July 18. I should have the outcome of that meeting shortly afterwards.

On 19 July the ASA wrote:

The ASA Council has now adjudicated on your complaint and DISAGREED (our emphasis) with our recommendation that the ad breached the Code. The attached report will be published on the ASA website on Wednesday 30 July and we ask you to treat it as confidential until then. We realise this decision will disappoint you, but thank you nonetheless for taking the trouble to raise the matter with us.

So there we have it - the long and winding road of how, after three draft recommendations upholding the Forest complaint, the ASA Council sides with the government.

Note how the DoH delayed the process, how it required an 'expert' for something they were already promoting in an advert and presumably were confident about stating - or do they just make it up as they go along?

Note how meetings are required with the DoH (confidential of course) and how the ASA then had to get its own expert to consider the DoH defence - but still rejected that defence - only for the Council to repudiate its own officials.

Is there any point to complaining against the government lies? Somehow I don't think we have heard the last of this sorry episode.

See also:
Forest slams ASA decision on DoH smoking ad claims (Campaign)
Pro-smoking group fails to stub out NHS smoke free ad (Marketing Week)
Forest vows to appeal ASA “inexplicable” decision on Department of Health ruling (Drum)

Message to the Younger Generation

Postscript to my previous post.

When Alexander Waugh, who died on Monday, told me in 2019 he was ‘editing a 43-volume scholarly edition’ of Evelyn Waugh’s complete works, he added that he had come across an advertisement his grandfather had written for Havana Cigars before the war.

Published in The Times and Daily Mail on 22 November 1938, it read:

Vivat Havana!
by EVELYN WAUGH
 
The author of ‘Decline and Fall’ and ‘Scoop’ dedicates this message to the Younger Generation.
 
It always strikes me as odd that cigars should, almost universally, be regarded as symbols of wealth. I know of no other physical pleasure which can be purchased as cheaply, and leaves behind it so few regrets or responsibilities. 

Cigarette smoking is a habit, pipe smoking a hobby, but smoking Havana Cigars is a delicate and profound delight. I think perhaps the reason why, in fiction and films and caricatures, we always see cigars associated with the elderly and opulent, is that it is one of the pleasures we can share with them. 

How little we count most of their possessions and habits; their great traffic-logged motor cars; their secretaries and surgeons, their divorces and remarriages, their super-taxes and death duties, their air-conditioned offices and penthouse apartments! And how much in their harassed routine they need those exquisite hours when the Tobacco of Havana comes to calm their apprehensions and woo them into self-esteem. 

We, too, have our worries and we, too, turn to the same source of comfort. The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana cigar.
 
Issued by the Cuban Government to further the smoking of HAVANA CIGARS

See also: Alexander Waugh, 1963-2024

Alexander Waugh, 1963-2024

Last year, having somehow ‘missed’ the deaths of several people I knew or had worked with many years ago, I vowed to read the obituary columns every day.

See: Gone but not forgotten.

Today, flicking through the Telegraph obituaries online, I read that Alexander Waugh, son of Auberon Waugh and grandson of Evelyn Waugh, died on Monday of prostate cancer.

Before his death in 2001, his father was a great friend of Forest. I had never met Alexander but five years ago I invited him to attend our 40th anniversary dinner in London.

He couldn’t come but replied as follows:

I am very sorry that your extremely kind and friendly letter has only just come to my attention, and even sorrier that I am unable to come to your 40th anniversary dinner. It was very generous of you to seek me out and invite me and I am touched to learn that Forest still remembers my father with amiable affection.

Wishing your organisation all happiness and prosperity and ultimate success against the tyrannies of Nanny Stateism. May we meet in the near future. With all warmest salutations for your 40th anniversary! Vivat Forest!

Thanking him, I asked if we could read that last paragraph to our 200 guests, to which he responded:

Yes of course read it out, with plenty of gusto if you can. Sounds like it will be a very jolly do!

Regrettably, we never did meet, and I feel rather sad about that.

His father, you see, was a huge inspiration to me when I was young and an aspiring journalist. I even produced a student magazine inspired by Private Eye (for which he wrote a wonderfully fearless and acerbic column), so it was an enormous thrill to finally meet him when I became director of Forest.

I was a big fan of his grandfather too, hence my reply when Alexander informed me that he was editing a 43-volume scholarly edition of Evelyn Waugh’s complete works:

What a mammoth task you have undertaken. The Loved One remains one of my favourite books because it introduced me to your grandfather’s work and encouraged me to read his earlier novels. That in turn resulted in one of the very few dissertations I enjoyed writing as a schoolboy!

It’s true. In my final year at school my English dissertation covered the satirical novels of Evelyn Waugh and Michael Frayn, and I can honestly say it was the only time I genuinely took pleasure from researching an essay or dissertation.

So although I didn’t know him, Alexander Waugh’s death feels strangely personal to me.

It has also prompted me to buy his 2004 book, Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography of a Family which is said to cover five generations of his family.

Curiously, Evelyn Waugh was 62 when he died in 1966. Auberon Waugh was 61 when he died in 2001, and now his son, Alexander, has died, aged 60.

My condolences to his family.

See also: Auberon Waugh and the Academy Club and The world of Auberon Waugh

Telegraph obituary - Alexander Waugh, author of an acclaimed study, Fathers and Sons, and Shakespeare sceptic

Daley Thompson, superstar

Talking of the Olympics (see previous post), do watch Daley: Olympic Superstar on iPlayer.

It's a documentary about Daley Thompson, Britain's greatest Olympic athlete, and it's worth every minute of your time, especially (spoiler alert) the moment at the end when he and his fiercest rival, the West German decathlete Jürgen Hingsen, laugh and embrace.

According to some, Thompson has either been forgotten by many people or journalists have been driven to ask, 'Why do we find it so hard to love Daley Thompson?'.

Speak for yourself!

Despite his well publicised faults he's always been a hero to me, and after watching Daley: Olympic Superstar I couldn't love him more.

Olympic size headache for individual liberty

By common consent, smoking is not conducive to a long and successful sporting career.

That, at least, is the modern view, although there are exceptions.

Sixty or 70 years ago it wasn't an issue because a great many sportsmen, including athletes, were smokers.

The list from that time is endless but to pick one at random, I'm pretty sure that Jimmy Greaves, the greatest English goalscorer of his time, was a smoker, and it was alcohol not tobacco that prematurely ended his top class football career.

Around the same time there's a famous photo of Billy Bremner, captain of Leeds United and Scotland, casually smoking a cigarette in the changing room at half-time.

Google it and you'll also find a picture of Jack Charlton, his Leeds teammate, smoking a cigarette during training.

A decade later the two biggest stars of the 1982 World Cup – Paolo Rossi (Italy) and the brilliant Socrates (Brazil) – were both heavy smokers, and although they both died prematurely (Rossi at 64, Socrates at 57), it would be hard to argue their habit ruined their careers.

Today very few top sportsmen smoke (publicly at least) and it's probably no coincidence that today's athletes are considered fitter than ever.

Nevertheless, smoking is not unknown, which brings me to the case of Shoko Miyata, the 19-year-old captain of Japan's women's gymnastics team, who has been sent home and won't be allowed to compete in the Olympics in Paris.

Her 'crime'? Smoking a single cigarette (allegedly).

To put this in perspective, reports say it's illegal to smoke under the age of 20 in Japan, which was news to me.

However, to deny a young athlete what might be her only chance of competing in the Olympics seems incredibly harsh, especially given the pressure she was said to be under.

Her 'punishment' has therefore received a mixed response but an article in The Spectator (Why the punishment fits the ‘crime’ for Japan’s smoking gymnast) is interesting because it explains the cultural differences between Japan and the UK, and why the Japanese authorities have acted – in our eyes – so severely.

According to the writer, Philip Patrick:

The protection of societal harmony is paramount, easily trumping any personal circumstances or sympathy for an individual who is seen to break the rules, however young. Miyata is really being punished as a representative of her country (literally in sporting terms and figuratively in terms of Japan as a whole). She has let the side down, with the side being Japan.

Compare that to the reaction in Britain to the English golfer Dan Brown who was seen smoking during play at the Open Championship at Troon at the weekend.

Apart from a handful of people who didn't approve of him flicking his cigarette butts into the (very wet) grass, very few of the comments I saw or heard were judgemental or negative.

'Man of the people' was one, but amusement was the overriding reaction.

His image did however take a bit of beating when he confessed that he hoped his parents hadn't seen him smoking, which was strange on two counts.

One, he was on national television (Sky) and they were no doubt following his progress closely. (He was briefly in the lead before finishing in the top ten.)

Two, he's 29 and a bit old to be worrying what his parents think, or perhaps that's a sign of the times.

My guess is that in ten or 20 years, when the sale of tobacco is prohibited to anyone under the age of 25 or 30, British Olympians may also find themselves banned or sent home for smoking.

How long too before a future UK government (Conservative or Labour) bans not only the sale of tobacco to thirtysomethings, but also makes smoking under a certain age a criminal offence?

(We keep being told it's only the sale of tobacco that's being made illegal to future generations, but I can't see how any government can achieve a 'smokefree' society without making smoking illegal too, and even that will only push it underground.)

Nor will it end with tobacco.

Initially, most reports about the Japanese gymnast said she had sent home for smoking. What the majority of reports and headlines didn't say is that she was also caught drinking alcohol.

The point is, the war on smoking is much further advanced in the UK than the war on alcohol, hence it was more of a story for the media (including the BBC) to frame it around smoking.

Nevertheless, fast forward 15 or 20 years and I can envisage even Brits falling foul of strict anti-drinking laws, including a ban on the sale of alcohol to anyone under the age of 21 or 25.

Given the current trajectory, it's almost inevitable, isn't it?

See also: Cutting an athlete from the Olympics for smoking is a ban too far (Independent)