A Liddle haven of freedom

Rod Liddle's Got Issues: The Smoking Ban (2011)Delighted to announce that Rod Liddle, associate editor of The Spectator, is the special guest speaker at the fifth Freedom Dinner in July.

A controversial figure who was once described – a little unfairly – as a "wind up merchant", Rod was editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme from 1998-2002.

His entertaining opinions can be found in the weekly columns he writes for The Spectator, The Sun and Sunday Times.

Books include The Best of Liddle Britain (2007) and Selfish Whining Monkeys: How We Ended Up Greedy, Narcissistic and Unhappy (2014).

An unrepentant smoker, Rod has been an outspoken opponent of the smoking ban and other anti-tobacco measures.

He was one of 400 guests when Forest organised a special dinner - Revolt In Style - at The Savoy six days before the smoking ban was introduced in England in 2007.

Writing in The Times after that event Rod declared, 'Spent a wonderful valedictory evening chain-smoking at a bash organised by Forest on Monday night.'

Our paths crossed again in 2011 when I appeared in a short video, Rod Liddle's Got Issues: The Smoking Ban.

He's been on our wish list for several years so I'm thrilled he's agreed to join us and, better still, speak.

Early bird tickets for The Freedom Dinner on Tuesday July 12th are available now for just £50 (great value). From May 1st they will cost £75. After that the price rises to a non-subsidised £110.

The price includes a cocktail drinks reception on the smoking terrace overlooking the fountains at Cabot Square followed by a three-course dinner with wine in the main restaurant.

To book email events@boisdale-cw.org.uk or telephone Boisdale Events on 020 7730 6922. Quote 'Freedom Dinner'.

Smokers and vapers welcome.

Save us from the pollution police and their perishing petitions

I was on the BBC Radio Wales phone-in yesterday.

Emma Griffiths Hughes, mother of a new born baby has launched a petition to stop people smoking outside the maternity unit at a local hospital.

Ms Hughes said she was driven to action after being forced to leave the Bangor hospital with her baby through a cloud of eight smokers on either side of door.

See Calls for crackdown on smoking outside Ysbyty Gwynedd maternity unit doors (Daily Post).

Needless to say the discussion didn't stop with smoking outside maternity units. It quickly became a more general debate about smoking anywhere on hospital grounds.

Also on the programme was Suzanne Cass, CEO of ASH Wales. Suzanne sounded pleasant if a little patronising but her insistence that every smoker is an addict annoyed me and I became a little shouty.

"People drink alcohol," I pointed out. "They're not all addicted to it."

Like all tobacco controllers she also wheeled out the argument that 70 per cent want to quit.

I disputed that (quoting former Labour health secretary John Reid, once a very heavy smoker, who estimated the figure to be nearer 30 per cent) but added that even if it was true there's a huge difference between wanting to quit and being forced to quit.

Anyway, I know it's bad form to criticise a young mum but I couldn't help it. Smokers are the ones who are usually accused of being selfish but here, it seemed to me, the tables were reversed.

And so I told presenter Jason Mohammad that Emma Griffiths Hughes was being selfish. He was aghast. Nevertheless these are the facts as I understood them yesterday.

Hughes would have been in hospital for perhaps a day or two to have her baby. When it was time to go home she left the maternity unit and a for a second or two her child was exposed to a whiff of tobacco smoke (allegedly).

Emma got in the waiting car (it must have been electric because I can't imagine she would want to expose her baby to any exhaust fumes) and off she went, never to return. (Well, not for some time, hopefully.)

Emma wasn't satisfied however. Angered by having to walk past a group of people smoking in the open air she decided to launch a petition calling for a crackdown on smoking outside the maternity unit.

(I should add that smoking is already prohibited in the area but smokers ignore the signs and, according to one or two callers yesterday, staff get abuse if they ask them not to light up.)

Anyway I hope Emma's house is kept immaculately clean. Even if it is (and I've no reason to think it's not) most houses are full of chemicals from carpets, furniture and curtains, not to mention millions of dust particles.

Imagine exposing your child to all that pollution in your own home day after day and then compare it to the briefest exposure to a whiff of tobacco smoke in the open air!

So save us from the pollution police and their perishing petitions. The fact is, despite being surrounded by pollutants all day long, we survive and are living longer than ever before in human history.

My advice to Emma Griffiths Hughes?

One, enjoy this time with your new born baby.

Two, have some empathy for those for whom a cigarette break may provide comfort and a sociable interlude at a stressful time.

Three, mind your own business.

Could Ofcom's regulation of e-cigarette advertising silence all vaping advocates?

Broadcasting regulator Ofcom has today published a document entitled 'Regulation of e-cigarette advertising and sponsorship on television and radio'.

The document lists amendments that have been made to UK broadcasting codes concerning e-cigarettes. According to Ofcom:

The changes arise from the UK Government’s implementation of the Tobacco Products Directive 2014 (“TPD”). Among other provisions, the TPD prohibits advertisements for electronic cigarettes and refill containers in broadcast television and radio services. It also prohibits programme sponsorship which has the aim or effect of promoting such products.

In order to implement these provisions of the TPD, the Secretary of State for Health has directed Ofcom under section 321(6) of the Communications Act 2003 to make specified changes to rules in the relevant codes. Ofcom will enforce the rules in the Broadcasting Code, and the Advertising Standards Authority will enforce the rules in the BCAP [Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice] Code.

I knew Article 20 of the TPD prohibited “commercial communications on the radio, with the aim or direct or indirect effect of promoting electronic cigarettes and refill containers”.

What I didn't know is that Article 20 also prohibits “any form of public or private contribution to radio programmes with the aim or direct or indirect effect of promoting electronic cigarettes and refill containers” [my emphasis].

What does this mean in practise?

An extreme interpretation is that anyone who wants to promote or endorse e-cigarettes will be prohibited from doing so on television or radio.

That means public health campaigners and other e-cig advocates could in theory be banned from phone-in programmes or even from giving interviews for fear they will directly or indirectly promote the product.

What on earth is Ofcom playing at? I can't believe this is what they seriously intend but that's how it could be interpreted.

Read Ofcom's statement and amendments and tell me if I'm wrong.

While you're at it, check out this passage. It's in a letter from Jane Ellison, Secretary of State for Health, to Ofcom:

Member states shall ensure that:

Any form of public or private contribution to any event, activity or individual person with the aim or direct or indirect effect of promoting electronic cigarettes and refill containers and involving or taking place in several Member States or otherwise having cross-border effects is prohibited.

There it is again, "any form of public or private contribution".

What does this actually mean? It's so vague, so woolly, it could mean almost anything.

On its website Ofcom describes its purpose as follows:

The Communications Act says that Ofcom’s principal duty is to further the interests of citizens and of consumers, where appropriate by promoting competition. Meeting this duty is at the heart of everything we do.

If e-cigarettes are a harm reduction product (as most people agree they are), how does Ofcom's regulation "further the interests of citizens and of consumers"?

As readers of this blog know all too well I have serious differences with some e-cigarette advocates, not least the Royal Society for Public Health which wants to ban smoking outside pubs in order to force smokers to switch to vaping.

Nevertheless I would be interested to know what RSPH think of Ofcom's absurd regulation because, in theory, they too could be prohibited from going on TV and radio for fear they might say anything that could be said to promote – directly or indirectly – e-cigarettes.

If I'm reading this all wrong please tell me and I shall slink away to my bat cave.

In truth I suspect common sense will prevail because it reminds me of when tobacco advertising and sponsorship was banned in 2002.

For a while we feared websites like Forest's could be prohibited on the grounds that defending smokers' rights could be misconstrued by some as promoting smoking.

It isn't, of course, it's very different, but the threat hung over us for some time. In the event we carried on as before and took no notice of those who wanted to silence us.

The problem advocates of e-cigarettes have is that every time they open their mouths they are effectively promoting a product (albeit a harm reduction product).

This is quite different to what Forest does. We promote and defend smokers' rights. We never promote a product.

Anyway, faced with this absurd EU-inspired document what are e-cigarette advocates, and the relevant broadcasters, supposed to do?

I've no idea but we'll soon find out.

Notes from a small city

I don't normally post pictures like this but I like to be reminded how lucky I am to have an office in Cambridge.

I took it an hour ago, standing on Magdalene Bridge, a five minute walk from said office.

You can tell it's spring because the tourists are beginning to arrive in ever larger numbers.

They stand with their cameras, gesticulating at the local architecture.

The punts are being dusted down and in a few weeks the river will be alive with boats, laughter and excited chatter.

Whatever the season there's something special about Cambridge.

I love the scale. (For a city it's quite small.)

I love the colleges, the cobbled streets, the markets, the absence of traffic.

I love the independent cafes and sandwich shops.

I love the Arts Picturehouse where you can pop in for lunch and occasionally see a classic movie.

The only thing I don't like are the crowds, especially in summer and at weekends.

On a different note, here's another picture. It's currently a sweet shop a few hundreds yards from Magdalene Bridge but for many years the premises were occupied by a specialist tobacconist.

Here's hoping that in the current climate sugar emporiums like this don't go the same way.

I'm with Clive (up to a point)

I may not be Clive Bates' loudest cheerleader but the former director of ASH and I do agree on some things.

On Thursday The Times published a report by health editor Chris Smyth. It's behind a paywall but the gist was that "experts" fear heat-not-burn products "risk confusing smokers blurring the distinction between tobacco free e-cigarettes and traditional smoking".

How patronising. Once the distinction between combustible, heat-not-burn and electronic cigarettes has been explained (it's very simple) why should anyone be confused?

Anyway on Saturday the paper published a letter from Clive Bates. Naturally he focussed on the harm reduction potential of smokeless cigarettes but he also made several points that echo views I have expressed several times on this blog.

See, for example, Nicotine wars – choice is king and Convenience and competition are key for emerging products.

Wearing my Forest hat, heat-not-burn products interest me more than e-cigarettes (a device I nevertheless endorse and frequently defend) because they possess one crucial ingredient – tobacco.

There are two reasons, I believe, why the majority of smokers have not yet been tempted to switch to e-cigarettes.

One - habit. Most people are creatures of habit and smoking cigarettes falls into that category. For some it's a difficult habit to break even if they wanted to (and many don't).

Two - pleasure. Millions enjoy smoking tobacco or they wouldn't do it. You can list the reasons but one factor is the taste compared to, say, herbal cigarettes which many find disgusting.

The taste of tobacco varies. Smokers experiment and find a brand they like. Generally they stick to it, although price is increasingly a factor in their choice.

The reason tobacco-flavoured e-liquids aren't very popular and vapers move on to other flavours is because it rarely matches the taste smokers enjoy or are used to.

Heated tobacco products offer the prospect of a solution to this problem. Instead of quitting tobacco completely, smokers can switch to a potentially safer product that tastes of tobacco because it is tobacco, albeit heated not burned.

Sadly I've seen tweets and comments by some people, including vapers, who seem to regard heat-not-burn products as a threat to e-cigarettes.

Clive Bates isn't one of them. Like me he sees the potential benefit of this technology, and I welcome that. (Credit where credit's due!)

We're not entirely on the same page, however. When it comes to tobacco I believe in unrestricted choice. Let adults decide, without excessive regulation, what they want to inhale and where.

Tobacco controllers don't embrace choice at all. Choice must be restricted. (I've yet to hear a single public health campaigner argue against the forthcoming bans on ten packs and menthol cigarettes, for example.)

In their utopian smoke free world e-cigarettes, heated tobacco and even snus are a means to an end – smoking cessation.

The fact that, given a choice of alternative nicotine products, millions of smokers still choose combustible cigarettes is anathema to them.

It's the elephant in the room they can't bear to acknowledge. Hence even the most 'liberal' tobacco control activists support legislation that seeks to restrict or even prohibit choice.

I'm pleased nevertheless that Clive is inching in our direction. Unlike Professor Robert West (another e-cig advocate), Clive is prepared to let the market decide - up to a point. (He still doesn't believe in letting the market decide on smoking in pubs, for example.)

This development interests me because what we are seeing, following the very public argument between public health activists who support e-cigs and those who don't, is another division - this time within the ranks of campaigners who advocate e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool.

On one hand there are those who consider any product that contains tobacco to be a bad thing that must be fought with taxes, restrictions or even prohibition.

On the other there are those who apparently see a future for tobacco products, albeit the smokeless variety.

What advocates of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products have to understand however is that if you embrace choice it has to include combustible cigarettes.

You can't claim to support choice without accepting the principle that, sometimes, people will make choices you don't approve of.

Coercion and prohibition - policies that are frequently adopted to force people to switch from combustible cigarettes to alternative nicotine devices - must be rejected, publicly and privately.

Unfortunately I suspect that public health campaigners - even the saintly ones - are doing what they always do.

Far from embracing choice, their real goal is to control choice by restricting it to products they approve of.

The Tobacco Products Directive, which comes into force next month, is a case in point. Consider some of the restrictions that are being introduced:

• Ban on ten packs (cigarettes)
• Ban on smaller pouches of tobacco
• Limit on strength of e-liquids
• Limit on size of e-juice containers

Although tobacco control campaigners like Clive are rightly against the new restrictions on e-cigarettes, I have never heard a single one say a word against the new regulations on tobacco.

OK, it would be naive of me to expect them to, but it's their fault that we now have a culture of regulation and suppression. The framework for regulatory intervention was supported by the very people who are now complaining when it's used against e-cigarettes.

The regulation genie is well and truly out of the bottle. At every turn our choices are being restricted. That's why, as I have always said, the war on tobacco is a war on choice.

Anything else is smoke and mirrors.

If Clive Bates really believed in letting the market decide he wouldn't support a ban on smoking in every pub and club in the country.

Like all tobacco control activists he wants to restrict choice, nudging or coercing consumers towards the holy grail of a smoke free society.

If you're comfortable with that, good luck to you.

What I will say, in Clive's defence, is that he is totally consistent in his commitment to harm reduction. And I respect that.

I support harm reduction too. But I also value choice and personal responsibility and in a free society I rate those issues even more highly.

Without the freedom to choose what we eat, drink and smoke we're on the road to a drab, bland society that I personally wouldn't want to live in.

Follow Clive's path in other product areas and the next thing you know alcohol will be banned from pubs and replaced with alcohol free lager and sugar free soft drinks.

Harm reduction, see?

But don't worry, I'm sure you'll have a wide range of alternative refreshments to choose from.

Farage supports designated smoking rooms in Scottish pubs

Say what you like about Nigel Farage, he's consistent in his opposition to the smoking ban and other nanny state measures.

Yesterday, ahead of the Scottish parliamentary election in May, Ukip unveiled their Scottish manifesto.

Echoing Forest's recent call, it includes a proposal to allow smoking rooms in pubs and clubs.

The Morning Advertiser has the story here (UKIP calls for smoking ban to be scrapped). The idea has also been reported widely by the Scottish media.

Many commentators, especially on social media, seem to consider smoking rooms to be a return to the age of rickets and diphtheria but if anyone is a Luddite it's them.

Not only is it possible to have a perfectly decent smoking room that isn't swimming in a fug of smoke, their remarks ignore the fact that a majority of adults in Scotland support the idea.

On this issue therefore Ukip is on the side of public opinion. In contrast every other party – including the Scottish Tories under their jovial but lightweight leader Ruth Davidson – continues to ignore one of the main reasons for the decline of the traditional Scottish pub.

Over 1200 pubs have closed in Scotland since the smoking ban was introduced – that's one fifth of the country's entire pub estate in 2006.

To be honest I'm not one of Farage's biggest fans. I did like him, on a personal level at least, but his behaviour towards colleagues such as Douglas Carswell and Suzanne Evans – a former deputy chairman who was suspended recently from the party – did him no favours in my eyes.

To give him his due however he has been remarkably consistent in his opposition to the smoking ban.

In fact, without Farage at the helm, I've little doubt Ukip's opposition to the smoking ban would be quietly parked.

It certainly wouldn't make the headlines as it did in Scotland yeaferday so we must be grateful for that.

The intriguing thing now is whether any of Ukip's 26 candidates get elected under proportional representation.

If they do we should be able to make even more noise about designated smoking rooms.

PS. Friends within Ukip tell me it's likely Farage will step down as leader after the EU referendum.

We've heard it before but if it's true we'll miss his no nonsense approach to lifestyle issues.

His style of leadership may be a cause for concern at times but there aren't many politicians in Britain who are prepared to stand up for choice and personal responsibility as much as Farage does, and none of them are in the Cabinet.

Given we have a Conservative government that's a fairly shocking thing to say and a sad indictment of politics today.

A billion, trillion, zillion lives

Some interesting responses to my previous post, here and elsewhere.

Dick Puddlecote replied and Grandad and Frank Davis chipped in too.

While we're on the subject of vaping, the producers of A Billion Lives, the documentary they hope will change the world, have just announced the date and location for the long-awaited world premiere.

It takes place next month in, er, New Zealand.

Before I post some of the promotional blurb, let's remind ourselves that this is not – according to some of its apologists – an anti-smoking film. No siree.

According to some the title is an ironic nod to the lies told by tobacco control, in this case the World Health Organisation's claim that if everyone stopped smoking a billion lives could be saved over the next century.

I'm sorry, but nothing that has been said or written about A Billion Lives – including the claim, in the film's trailer, that 165,000 children under the age of five die worldwide every year as a result of passive smoking – has ever come close to irony.

Instead the project appears to be driven by the type of evangelism that makes someone like me extremely uncomfortable.

Oh, I'm sure the film's producers are sincere when they say the aim of A Billion Lives is to highlight the lies told by some public health campaigners with regard to e-cigarettes.

I'm sure they're also sincere in their desire to promote a genuine harm reduction product.

It seems strange however to attack elements of the public health industry for, on the one hand, telling untruths about vaping, then repeat some of the myths, distortions and, yes, lies those same bodies spread about smoking in order to bolster the argument for e-cigarettes.

Anyway, let's be charitable and accept that A Billion Lives is not an anti-smoking film. Or, to put it another way, 'No smoker has been demonised during the making of this documentary.'

Here's the latest promotional email:

We've traveled across four continents, but missed one area of the world that is facing tremendous death and disease from smoking: Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.

That all changes on May 11th.

It's a mess down there. Two out of every five indigenous New Zealanders smoke. They just threw an Australian man in jail for selling vapor technology. Half the world's smokers are in Asia.

We are eager to use our world premiere to shed light on a dire situation. They need help.

No, nothing anti-smoking about that.

Meanwhile here's another description of A Billion Lives courtesy of the Doc Edge festival which is hosting the world premiere next month:

In 20 years' time, there will be nearly 1.6 billion smokers around the world. Approximately 70% of smokers want to quit.

The United Nations’ World Health Organisation expects a billion people will die prematurely from smoking this century. The products their doctors recommend are rarely effective and many are trapped.

A new vapour technology was invented to give smokers a successful way to quit. But it was quickly demonised, and even banned in many countries.

A perfect storm is brewing between smokers trying to quit, government regulators, and health charities funded by the powerful pharmaceutical industry.

Director Aaron Biebert travelled across four continents interviewing doctors, scientists, and others working to save a billion lives.

What he found was profound government failure, widespread corruption in the public health community and powerful subversion by big business.

Leaving aside the Michael Moore-style promotion, I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing A Billion Lives when it comes over here.

Curiously however I've yet to see any mention of a UK premiere. There's been talk of a European premiere (in Paris?) and a special screening at the Global Nicotine Forum in Warsaw in June, but nothing to suggest a screening in dear old Blighty despite the fact that several Brits feature in the film.

Given the UK is arguably the most vaper-friendly anti-smoking country on earth I'm surprised no-one has yet booked a cinema in the West End for such an event. There are many auditoriums available for hire in London including some of the most famous commercial cinemas in Leicester Square.

They don't cost the earth either. I know because I once booked a cinema for a private screening and I've just checked the current prices. They're available from £100 an hour.

So here's an idea. Forest (or Action on Consumer Choice) will host it.

Why not? Who wouldn't want to help promote a documentary whose producers boast:

"We’re putting everything we have into making this the defining film for an entire generation and helping end the grip smoking has on over a billion people."

On second thoughts ...

The canonisation of Clive Bates, part two

More adulation for Clive Bates, the former director of ASH who is now a leading advocate of e-cigarettes.

Fresh from the fug of Vape Jam UK, Dick Puddlecote has posted a clip of an eight-minute interview Bates gave to a Canadian website.

A feature of Dick's post is a "top rant" in which Clive – a long-term tobacco control activist – imagines himself as a smoker-turned-vaper:

"You told us to quit smoking. You taxed the pants off us; you've bullied us with your public information campaigns; you've racked up the stigma that we felt.

You've tried to stop us using these products wherever we can. You've hit us with massive societal disapproval. Tobacco companies haven't done that, government and public health have done that.

So we've done the right thing. We've got off smoking; we've protected our health; we produce a vapour which doesn't harm anyone; most people aren't troubled by it. Just leave us alone! Just get off our backs!"

"Bravo!" applauds Dick. "Watch and enjoy," he tells his readers, "because this is what advocacy should be like: confident, forthright and pleasantly free of nitpicking and weasel words."

Personally I find it quite nauseous.

I've made it clear (several times) that I admire Clive's skills as a campaigner but that recognition comes with a serious caveat.

In November 2014, for example, I wrote:

Clive is a shrewd, sincere and intelligent campaigner. I have a lot of respect for him but I must point out – not for the first time – that the idolatry (#ImWithClive) that greets his every word is ironic because in my opinion he must take some share of the blame for the culture of intolerance that has swept the nation with regard to smoking and, by association, nicotine.

As director of ASH Clive was no stranger to fear mongering about passive smoking. Few of the allegations made much sense and during his time in charge the threat of second hand smoke was repeatedly debunked.

See The Canonisation of Clive Bates (Taking Liberties).

In January that year, in response to a post Clive had written entitled 'Where is the humility? Where is the empathy?', I also wrote:

Clive is correct to berate public health workers for their lack of "humanity" and "understanding" of e-cigarettes and those who want to quit smoking tobacco.

But what about smokers who don't want to quit, or those whose lives have been changed, sometimes ruthlessly and often for the worse, by smoking bans and other anti-tobacco measures designed to "denormalise" their habit and stigmatise them personally.

Don't they deserve empathy too?

In common with many e-cig campaigners, Clive loves the testimonies of vapers who quit smoking, but where is the "humility" to accept that a great many people enjoy smoking, have no wish to quit, and should be allowed to smoke in comfort, without harassment, in some enclosed public places?

See Where is the empathy for smokers who don't want to quit? (Taking Liberties).

If you can stomach it you can watch (if not enjoy) Clive's interview on Regulator Watch here.

Me? Pass the sickbag.

Update: Grandad and Frank Davis have also commented.