ConHome editor says dump plain packaging plan

I don't know how I missed this article last week but I did.

Better late than never, I'd like to draw your attention to Post Euro-elections fightback: 50 policies for the future by Paul Goodman, editor of Conservative Home.

'Policy isn’t everything,' wrote Paul. 'A party can have the best set of policies in the country, and still make no headway with voters. They may dislike its personnel or distrust its record.'

That said, 'Policies help to win elections.'

Paul then lists 50 policies 'that should be floated over the next year and set out in the Conservative manifesto'.

I won't list them – you can read the article for yourself – but one 'policy' did jump out:

• Dump the plan to put plain packaging on cigarettes.

Perhaps that stand at the ConHome conference didn't go unnoticed!

Below: Paul Goodman (bottom left) is interviewed by Michael Crick of Channel 4 News (foreground, back to camera) at the ConHome conference on May 24. In the background, Forest's Hands Off Our Packs stand.

Forest events in June and July

Wednesday 11th June

Forest and Buckingham University Press are hosting drinks and a talk by John Staddon, Emeritus Professor at Duke University and Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York.

Professor Staddon will be discussing his new book Unlucky Strike: Private Health and the Science, Law and Politics of Smoking that includes original illustrations by David Hockney.

Time: 6.15pm. Location: The Institute of Economic Affairs, 2 Lord North Street (enter via Great Peter Street), London SW1P 3LB.

RSVP events@forestonline.org or call Nicky on 01223 370156. For more information click here.

Tuesday 24th June
Following the England v Costa Rica World Cup match (ko 5.00pm) Forest is hosting its annual boat party, Smoke On The Water. Embarkation: 7.15-8.15pm.

Guests are invited aboard The Elizabethan, a Mississippi style paddle steamer, for a 60-minute drinks reception followed by a two-hour cruise along the Thames (cash bar), returning to Festival Pier at 10.15pm.

Tickets are free but advance registration is essential. Email events@forestonline.org.uk or call Nicky on 01223 370156.

Tuesday 15th July
Forest hosts the third annual Freedom Dinner at Boisdale of Canary Wharf. 6.15pm Drinks reception on the smoking terrace overlooking the fountains at Cabot Place. 7.30pm Three-course dinner with wine. 9.00pm After dinner speeches.

Speakers tbc. Previous speakers have included General Sir Mike Jackson, former head of the British army; Mark Littlewood, director-general of the IEA; and Lord Bell, former advisor to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Single ticket: £95, table of ten: £850. To book online click here.

World No Tobacco Day: ASH poll invisible except in Scotland

Today is World No Tobacco Day, believe it or not.

Despite a major promotional push tobacco control lobbyists in the UK have failed to generate any significant interest in the event or its theme (raising taxes on tobacco).

For example, a poll of 12,000 adults commissioned by ASH to test public opinion on raising the price of cigarettes has been ignored, so far as I can tell, by every national newspaper and broadcaster.

Only in Scotland has it received any coverage. Several newspapers mentioned it and BBC News (Scotland) published this report, Poll suggests half of Scots support steep tobacco price rises.

It includes a quote from Forest but only after I sent the BBC this email this morning:

Your report of an ASH poll released to coincide with World No Smoking Day fails to include a single opposing comment, although we sent you our response yesterday afternoon.

Can you please respond to this email as soon as possible and explain why you have effectively copied an ASH press release and made no attempt to include a balancing comment?

I followed this up with a phone call to the national news desk and they transferred me to the news desk in Scotland.

To be fair they updated the report within minutes but I really shouldn't have to chase the BBC to point out the one-sided nature of the original story.

Sadly, as regular readers know, it's something Forest has to do quite often.

PS. On Wednesday the Northern Echo published this report, North-East public 'distrustful' of tobacco industry.

Again, it's based on an ASH/YouGov poll, possibly the same one that asked questions about raising taxes.

I've not seen any other reports about this aspect of the poll. In fact, I've not even seen the poll.

I've looked for it, without success, on the ASH, ASH Scotland and YouGov websites.

Why the secrecy?

Update: After much searching I have found an article about World No Tobacco Day in the national press. Surprise, surprise, it's in the Guardian.

See: World No Tobacco Day: could UK cities ever be completely smoke free?

Libertarian bloggers join forces to say "No, Prime Minister!"

Thanks to every blogger who rallied to support the Hands Off Our Packs campaign this week.

Following the official launch of our No, Prime Minister site on Wednesday the following posts duly appeared:

Plain packaging? No prime minister! (Bucko The Moose)
Plain packaging: say no to Dave (Dick Puddlecote)
Send a letter to the prime minister for me (The View from Cullingworth)
Friday request (Captain Ranty)
A new way to insult voters (Frank Davis)
Plain packaging (Oh What Now!)
Let’s see if David Cameron is REALLY listening (Redhead Full of Steam)

If I have missed anyone please let me know.

I don't like singling out anyone but the post by Joanne Lincoln (Redhead Full of Steam) was greatly appreciated because Joanne writes mostly about e-cigarettes not tobacco.

She wrote:

As many of you no longer smoke but use e-cigarettes instead, you may be thinking that this is unfortunate but it really won’t affect you. Please, think again.

We have seen just as recently as last week that slippery slopes do indeed exist. Food should be regulated like tobacco, say campaigners. Wouldn’t THAT be fun. And how about finding your e-cigarette, it’s accessories and your e-liquid in bland, generic packaging doubtlessly covered over a legally specified percentage of its available area with dire (and often nonsensical) health warnings? Sound good to you?

Of course not. So, let’s see if Prime Minister Cameron is really listening. It’s very easy to do. I have just done it myself.

There has been plenty of activity on Twitter too. In fact, as a result of people tweeting links to my own posts about the No Prime Minister campaign the number of unique visitors to Taking Liberties has doubled in the past three days.

Even our opponents (Tobacco Free Futures and Tobacco Tactics) have been tweeting about it. Every little helps!

Tobacco Reporter mentioned the campaign here, Plain packaging not a done deal in UK, and we're hoping for more coverage in the trade press next week.

Finally I must give a further mention to Dick Puddlecote because DP has also written these posts about plain packaging:

Berger: "We still won!" and You're the MP: judge plain packaging evidence.

Update: Chris Snowdon has also posted about the campaign – Once more into the breach (Velvet Glove, Iron Fist) – and to the best of my knowledge he was in Spain this week. Word travels.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Yesterday began with a couple of local radio interviews.

I was invited to discuss a comment by Professor John Britton, a leading anti-smoking campaigner, that was broadcast in last night's BBC2 documentary Burning Desire: The Seduction of Smoking.

According to Britton, the price of cigarettes should be raised to £20 a pack.

The two interviews could not have been more different. On BBC Cumbria I was on with Andrea Crossfield, director of Tobacco Free Futures, and it was a perfect example of a well-balanced item with the presenter giving both of us ample time to make our points while he remained inquisitive but strictly impartial.

BBC Cambridgeshire was a different matter. Standing in for the regular breakfast presenter, Chris Mann interviewed Alison Cox of Cancer Research UK, then me. Cox was allowed to speak uninterrupted but when it was my turn I had to fight a running battle with Mann who made his anti-smoking views very clear.

Alternatively he is a smoker (or ex-smoker) and was over-compensating, which does happen.

When I protested and said he hadn't interrupted Cox, he replied, "That's because she answered my questions." Unfair and untrue. I was trying to answer his questions but he wouldn't let me without interrupting!!!!

An hour or so later I jumped in the car with my wife and daughter and drove to Ragdale Hall Health Hydro near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.

This former country house specialises in "luxury spa breaks". My wife gave me a gift voucher for Christmas and we booked our "relaxing pamper day" several months ago to coincide with half-term.

I had to do another interview – with BBC Radio Humberside – just as we arrived but after that I switched off my phone and threw myself into the experience.

Actually, that's not strictly true. Apart from a "miracle facial", a dip in the "candle pool" and a paddle in the outdoor "waterfall" and lazy river, I spent most of the day eating, drinking or simply reading in one of the many quiet areas (Lounge, Garden Room, Pavilion).

To my wife's displeasure I had my iPad with me so I was never completely out of contact with Planet Earth but there was no wi-fi and electronic devices were not encouraged, shall we say. (I didn't hear a mobile phone ring all day, which was nice.)

Instead we were invited to shed our worldly clothes and stroll around in voluminous white bathrobes.

Lunch and dinner menus featured a calorie code and it was extraordinary how I was attracted, like a moth to a light bulb, by the higher calorie options.

Lunch was an all-you-can-eat buffet. Fortunately I still had room for a large slice of Victoria sponge with my afternoon tea.

Naively we kept our bathrobes on for dinner only to find that 90 per cent of guests, some of whom were staying the night, were fully dressed.

We eventually got home at 10.30 at which point I sat down and watched Burning Desire: The Seduction of Smoking, the first of Peter Taylor's two-part documentary (see previous posts).

Never did the expression "from the sublime to the ridiculous" seem more apt.

I'm not going to review it but I may comment later. In the meantime, the Independent's description of the programme ("A compelling investigation into Big Tobacco's secrets and lies") tells you everything you need to know.

Biased? The BBC? Surely not.

BBC documentary: role of tobacco control group questioned

Ahead of tonight's BBC2 documentary, Burning Desire: The Seduction of Smoking, an eagle-eyed reader spotted something rather odd:

According to the Salford City College website (March 10, 2014):

Media students from Salford City College’s Walkden Sixth Form Centre will make their small-screen debut in May as part of a BBC2 documentary focused on exposing the UK's tobacco industry ... The opportunity was organised in conjunction with Tobacco Free Futures, who are working alongside the BBC in creating the documentary.

"Working alongside"? Whose programme is this?

The BBC may not famed for its impartiality on smoking-related issues but even they wouldn't go that far, would they?

My informant didn't wait to find out. She wrote to Emma Willis, Head of Commissioning, Documentaries BBC One, Two and Four, with the following observations:

Tobacco Free Futures is a state-funded lobbying group. According to the Department of Health report on the 2013 consultation into standardised packaging (July 2013), Tobacco Free Futures co-ordinated a massive, publicly funded, campaign response to the consultation into standardised packaging, supporting the proposal. Their campaign delivered 66,406 postcard responses and 65,756 email responses.

This organisation is also reported to have co-ordinated a campaign "Smoke and Mirrors" as part of the same drive to raise signatures supporting plain packaging of tobacco and, according to Tobacco Free Futures website, they "also gathered strong support from local authority and NHS organisations".

Plain packaging of tobacco is highly controversial - a policy under active consideration by the current government, with a further consultation due to be announced shortly.

BBC editorial guidelines, she continued, "are very clear on the matter":

Section 4 of the guidelines states:

4.4.7 When dealing with 'controversial subjects', we must ensure a wide range of significant views and perspectives are given due weight and prominence, particularly when the controversy is active. Opinion should be clearly distinguished from fact.

4.4.9 In addition, we must take particular care and achieve due impartiality when a 'controversial subject' may be considered to be a major matter. 'Major matters' are usually matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy that are of national or international importance, or of a similar significance within a smaller coverage area. When dealing with 'major matters', or when the issues involved are highly controversial and/or a decisive moment in the controversy is expected, it will normally be necessary to ensure that an appropriately wide range of significant views are reflected in a clearly linked 'series of programmes', a single programme or sometimes even a single item.

4.4.12: News in whatever form must be treated with due impartiality, giving due weight to events, opinion and main strands of argument. The approach and tone of news stories must always reflect our editorial values, including our commitment to impartiality).

Section 10 of the same guidelines document states:

10.2.1 We must treat matters of politics and public policy with due accuracy and impartiality in news and other output.

10.2.2 We must not express an opinion on current affairs or matters of public policy other than broadcasting or the provision of online services.

10.2.3 We must not campaign, or allow ourselves to be used to campaign.

Any bias in the programme toward the policy under consideration will rightly raise the question of the BBC’s impartiality and further questions regarding BBC’s editorial judgement.

I hope that you can confirm that the Salford City College website is inaccurate and the BBC has not worked in conjunction with Tobacco Free Futures in any fashion at all. Or, if the BBC has done so, then it has also worked alongside other groups with differing views, in your strenuous efforts to produce a fair and balanced programme.

In response my correspondent received a reply from Lucy Hetherington, Executive Producer, Current Affairs. It read:

Your letter of 21 May 2014 to Emma Willis has been passed to me, as I am the Executive Producer of "Burning Desire: The Seduction of Smoking".

During production of the series we spoke to a large number of organisations and invididuals with a wide range of views on smoking and smoking-related issues. Among them was a cigarette manufacturer – two senior executives are interviewed in the programme – and Tobacco Free Futures.

However, none of these organisations or individuals have had any editorial control over the series. We have listened to what they have to say and, where appropriate, included it in the programmes, which have been made in accordance with the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines.

We are not responsible for what appears on Salford City College’s website, but we have been in touch with the college to point out that their blog could be interpreted as implying that Tobacco Free Futures had some editorial input to the series, which it has not [my emphasis].

So Salford City College and by association Tobacco Free Futures have been caught out and had their wrists slapped for making exaggerated claims about their role in the production of the programme.

Or perhaps they were telling the truth and made the rookie mistake of boasting about it online.

(Tobacco control groups seem to make a habit of this. Remember Health Secretary Andrew Lansley being listed as a 'Supporter of Plain Packs' on the Plain Packs Protect website during the 2012 public consultation? See How stupid is Plain Packs Protect?)

Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see whether the programme meets BBC editorial guidelines or is yet another nail in the coffin for this bloated, politically disruptive organisation.

Meanwhile, perhaps oblivious to this correspondence, Tobacco Free Futures has just tweeted:

Watch new BBC TWO documentary 'Burning Desire: The Seduction Of Smoking' tonight 9.30pm-10.30pm featuring TFF staff.

We will, believe me, not least because we want to find out how taxpayers' money (and the licence fee) is spent in the name of tobacco control.

H/T Angela Harbutt

The BBC's burning desire to promote tobacco control

I'm on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire at 7.20.

That's followed by BBC Cumbria at 8.10 and BBC Humberside at 10.20. Freedom Association spokesman Jack Hart will be discussing the same issue on BBC Tees.

We're responding to a story that has been generated by the BBC itself ahead of Burning Issue: The Seduction of Smoking, a two-part documentary presented by Peter Taylor. The first part is broadcast on BBC2 tonight.

Here are some notes that were circulated to local radio producers yesterday:

Burning Desire. First of a two part documentary by Peter Taylor looks at the issues of smoking.

One of the country's leading experts on the impact of smoking, Dr John Britton, Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies and Chair of the Royal College of Physicians' Tobacco Advisory Group, says the price of a pack of cigarettes needs to rise to £20 in order to reduce the continuing toll on public health.

His exact comments - that will play in the BBC2 documentary and will be in BBC news output tomorrow morning – are this:

Peter Taylor: How much would like to see a packet of say 20 cost?
John Britton: Three times what you pay now. Talking to smokers, many will say if you make a packet £20, they will stop smoking.

The interesting thing is this. The theme of World No Tobacco Day 2014, organised by the World Health Organisation, is raising taxes on tobacco.

How fortuitous that a BBC documentary, broadcast two days before the event, should feature a leading tobacco control campaigner calling for the price of cigarettes to be raised to £20 a pack.

Better still, the BBC is actively hawking John Britton's comment around its network of radio stations.

Here’s the full press release about Burning Desire: The Seduction of Smoking:

Cigarettes are the most lethal consumer product on the planet. Yet the burning desire for tobacco is as strong as ever. And it's not just smokers. It's government exchequers too, with tobacco revenue bringing in almost twice the cost to the NHS of treating smoking-related diseases.

In Burning Desire: The Seduction Of Smoking, award-winning journalist Peter Taylor investigates how, despite all the health warnings and decades of increasing government regulations, thousands of young people around the world are seduced by smoking every day. He examines how powerful cigarette companies manipulate smokers, and is given rare access to the world's second-biggest tobacco company.

Every year, more than five million customers of the tobacco industry die - in the UK alone, 100,000 people die from the world's biggest cause of preventable death.

Peter travels to Australia to look at the industry's last-ditch battle to prevent plain packaging in which glossy images are replaced with gruesome health warnings. And now, other countries are poised to follow suit, including England and Wales, after fierce lobbying and two controversial U-turns.

For an industry under constant attack, the tobacco industry is in remarkable health. With eye-watering profits of more than £30 billion, producing six trillion cigarettes a year, the industry would appear to be winning.

Peter Taylor has spent 40 years investigating how, in the past, the industry has dissembled and lied - which makes it all the more remarkable he was given rare access to the second-largest tobacco company in the world, British American Tobacco. He talks to their executives and learns how BAT, now openly recognising that smoking kills, has set itself a new core strategy of 'harm reduction', developing a range of less harmful alternatives to conventional cigarettes.

In this two-part series, Peter - honoured with a Royal Television Society Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding contribution to journalism earlier this year - returns to an industry he last exposed 30 years ago. In his seminal documentaries in the 1970s and early 1980s he revealed the denials, duplicity and dirty tricks of an industry that refused to acknowledge the truth about tobacco. Now, Peter sets out to find how much the tobacco industry has changed and if there is any likelihood of the burning desire ever being extinguished.

Chris Snowdon has already commented on Peter Taylor's enthusiastic endorsement of the Chantler Review on plain packaging. See Two hours of plain pack promotion on the BBC.

On Monday he added this post, Policy based broadcasting.

It will be interesting to see if our fears about balance and impartiality prove correct. I may have to wear my Media Monitoring Unit hat one more time!

Update: Peter Taylor has written an article for BBC News online - Can the tobacco industry shed its 'toxic brand'?.

Meanwhile the Today programme has tweeted:

Can the tobacco industry shed its 'toxic brand'? Dr John Britton & British American Tobacco’s Kingsley Wheaton debate at 7.50am #r4today

Pot, kettle, black, the astounding hypocrisy of ASH

It's World No Tobacco Day (sic) on Saturday.

This WHO organised event normally gets a lukewarm reception in Britain where we have enough anti-smoking promotions of our own, notably No Smoking Day, Stoptober and New Year's Day.

This year however it could be different and I wonder if the proximity of World No Tobacco Day to the Queen's Speech (which may or may not include plain packaging) and the anticipated announcement of the government consultation on plain pack regulations may have focussed one or two minds.

ASH, for example, has just released the results of yet another YouGov poll. I haven't seen the national results yet but I've seen the press release issued by Fresh (formerly Smokefree North East) and the UK version will be in a very similar vein, I'm sure.

Here's a taste:

Tobacco companies should not be able to influence health policy and should declare what they spend on promotion and lobbying government - that is the view of the North East public in new figures released for World No Tobacco Day (May 31).

The findings from YouGov show most adults do not trust the tobacco industry and believe public health policies should be protected from the influence of multinational tobacco corporations ...

The independent 2014 SmokefreeYouGov poll, commissioned by Action on Smoking and Health found:

– Nearly half (43%) of North East adults think the government’s activities to limit smoking are not doing enough
– Only 9% of North East adults agree or strongly agree that the tobacco industry can be trusted to tell the truth.
– 77% of North East adults support the idea that government health policy should be protected from the influence of the tobacco industry.
– 78% of North East adults agree or strongly agree that tobacco companies should be required to disclose the amount spent on lobbying politicians, front groups and promoting their products

The Northumberland Echo has the story here: North-East public 'distrustful' of tobacco industry. It includes a quote from me.

I'll be interested to see how much coverage the poll gets. Disparaging the tobacco industry is hardly news these days.

I'm curious to see whether it gets overshadowed by a statement from the first of a two-part documentary on smoking that goes out on BBC2 tomorrow night.

The BBC is promoting the programme as hard as it can and the comment (concerning a substantial increase in the price of cigarettes) has excited a number of local radio stations.

Cynics might conclude it's part of a well choreographed attack on tobacco days before the Queen's Speech and the start of the consultation.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, as you know, but I'll have more to say about this in the morning.