Happy Valentine's Day: Government's war on smokers leaves bad taste

It's Valentine's Day so welcome to the inevitable report that Smoking 'is a big turn off' in the dating game.

The BBC is quite restrained in its coverage of this "new research". The original source, the Department of Health, held nothing back:

New research from the Department of Health shows that if you are looking for a date this Valentine’s Day then be sure to keep away from cigarettes if you want to increase your chances of success.

Among people polled, it was the 18-24 year olds who were most put off by the smell of cigarettes.

Seventy four per cent claimed they would not kiss someone who had just smoked; seventy six per cent agreed that smoking makes people less attractive; and sixty four per cent of 35-44 year olds said they would refuse a kiss from a smoker.

As well as leaving a bad taste in the mouth of your date, 47 per cent of those polled said that if they knew someone was a smoker they would think twice about starting a serious relationship. So, people who want to stay one step ahead of the game this Valentine’s Day should put an end to their habit and quit today.

Shameless.

The BBC asked me for a quote so I responded to the press release as follows:

"What really leaves a bad taste in the mouth is the use of taxpayers' money for research like this. To then use it to denigrate a substantial minority of the population with cheap personal jibes says more about the Department of Health than it does about smokers and their attractiveness to other people.

"There's no love lost between smokers and regulators and if it continues to hurl insults at ordinary people the government can kiss goodbye to millions of votes at the next election."

The BBC have toned down the DoH's press release so only an edited version of this quote appears in their report.

Quite what it says about the Government's war on smokers when even the BBC decides to dilute the message, I'll leave you to judge.

Update on Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 10:21 by Simon Clark

More fan mail:

I've just read yet another of your regular but ridiculous pronouncements – this time on the ‘smoking and dating’ poll which the DOH have just carried out, and which is merely confirmation of something which is blindingly obvious to anyone with a glimmer of intelligence.

It has prompted me to write to you to ask you this: can you really not see what a complete & utter fool you make yourself appear in the eyes of most people? Do you not hear the collective groan which emerges from the lips of millions of UK citizens every time you appear in the media  with a predictably stupid opinion on anything to do with the issue of reducing the harm done by smoking?

For heaven’s sake, stop prostituting yourself to the tobacco industry and get yourself an honest job.

I came to Cornwall this week to get away from all this!!

Passing comments: Harrogate, 7/7, Boisdale and a short intermission

I enjoyed my trip to Harrogate last week but I had a bizarre experience when I was sitting in Betty's tea shop because I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the town I was in. My mind went a total blank. After what seemed like several minutes it finally came back to me. Seconds later it was gone again. Then it came back. Is this how Alzheimer's begins? (I'm serious.)

I last visited Harrogate in 2005. I have no difficulty remembering that because it was the day of the terrorist bombs in London (7/7). I had been invited - with Deborah Arnott of ASH - to address a meeting at the Local Government Authority annual conference. I travelled up the previous day and was in my hotel room watching breakfast television when news of the bombings started to come through. One bomb went off at Kings Cross at around the same time that I often passed through the station en route to our old office near Oxford Street. Several people, thinking I might be at the station, tried to contact me. The mobile phone network was down so they emailed instead.

My debate with Deborah Arnott went ahead but many delegates preferred, understandably, to watch the unfolding news on the TV monitors in the foyer of the exhibition centre. Others were too busy checking out of their hotels to rush back to London. Talking about the proposed smoking ban in those circumstances seemed a bit ridiculous. It certainly put the issue in perspective. Why was so much time and energy being spent urging politicians to ban smoking in every pub and club in the country when there were far more important issues to address?

I visited Boisdale of Canary Wharf for the first time last week. I don't know what took me so long. I love it! It has the traditional Boisdale feel but with a magnificent modern twist. Over lunch with owner Ranald Macdonald, a long-time supporter of Forest, we plotted a sequel to our 2007 event, Revolt In Style, which was originally planned for Boisdale Belgravia before we moved it to London's Savoy Hotel. Boisdale Belgravia wasn't big enough for what we wanted to do in 2007 but the larger Boisdale of Canary Wharf is perfect for what we would like to organise in 2012. Details in due course. We are also planning a special lunch at Boisdale Belgravia. Both events will mark the fifth anniversary of the smoking ban. Watch this space.

It was minus eleven in Cambridgeshire on Saturday. F-f-f-f-freezing!!! So we packed our bags (it's half-term) and drove somewhere a little warmer ... Cornwall. Cue a short intermission. (I'll post when I can.)

Forest v. Lord Faulkner (peer, politician and public health lobbyist)

The story so far.

On Monday Politics Home (epolitix) published an article by anti-smoking peer Lord Faulkner entitled Smoke out tobacco companies influence.

Several years ago I spoke against Lord Faulkner in a debate at the Oxford Union. I thought my opponent was going to Lord Falconer, Tony Blair's pal, and I was a bit disappointed when I found out he wasn't there!

Antony Worrall Thompson was on my team and the best thing about the evening was the dinner before we were marched off to address a chamber full of expectant students. It was impressed upon us that we were following in some very famous footsteps - prime ministers, even presidents - so I was nervous but it turned out to be good fun nonetheless.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. Angela Harbutt, newly recruited by Forest to run the Hands Off Our Packs campaign, wrote a hard-hitting reply in which she was completely frank about her paid role with Forest.

Lord Faulkner chose to come back with a dig at Angela and Forest and the claim that Forest was "set up" by the tobacco companies, which suggests that Forest was their idea and they recruited people to run it.

I responded, via email and by phone, and asked Politics Home to remove Lord Faulkner's allegation unless, of course, he could supply evidence to support his statement.

To their credit they did remove it and yesterday, following discussions with Lord Faulkner, they sent me the following email:

Dear Simon

Further to my voicemail message, below in bold is the proposed new copy from Lord Faulkner, complete with footnotes and additional information. Before we publish this, do you feel that it is factually correct?

Let me know and I will happily converse with Lord Faulkner regarding this issue. Please do call me, if you feel necessary, so that we can discuss this in greater depth.

On this basis I suggest these words in place of the ones you removed:.

“For Angela Harbutt to compare "Big Tobacco" to organisations devoted to improving public health is laughable, but hardly surprising from someone who admits to being funded by FOREST, an organisation set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers to promote the interests of the tobacco industry.”

I won't include the references (they're on Wikipedia if you're interested) but the additional information supplied by Lord Faulkner read:

Tobacco industry documents revealed in litigation in the US show that prior to its inception Forest’s founder Sir Christopher Foxley Norris wrote to BAT in 1978 seeking a paid position running a consumer's association for smokers. At a meeting, BAT staff told him that "the industry had been giving possible through to the possible formation of a consumer's body for some time and (his) ideas were to a considerable extent in line with this thinking". Subsequently the tobacco manufacturers were integral to the establishment of Forest by providing the start up costs for the group. The provision of detailed lists of Forest's activities to the industry on a monthly basis also indicates that Forest has consistently accounted for and justified its funding to the industry. Forest continues to be funded by the tobacco industry. In 2009 it admitted to the Scottish parliament to getting £250,000 a year from JTI, BAT and Imperial.

This morning I have replied as follows:

Many thanks for the opportunity to check that Lord Faulkner's statement is factually correct. I have read the documents he refers to. (I was aware of them and was familiar with their contents.)

1. Forest has always been very open about the fact that it receives donations from tobacco companies. How it was funded at the very start is still not entirely clear but I accept that, on the balance of probabilities, Forest was "set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers". You will appreciate however that there is a crucial difference between that statement and Lord Faulkner’s original claim that Forest was "set up by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association". Leaving aside the minor point that the TMA didn’t exist when Forest was set up in 1979, the latter suggests that Forest was conceived and founded by the tobacco companies. This is completely untrue so I am pleased that Lord Faulkner has retracted his earlier, false, allegation.

It is clear from the documents referred to by Lord Faulkner that Air Chief-Marshal Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris, a former Battle of Britain fighter pilot, had the idea for what became Forest. The companies knew about the idea because Sir Christopher wrote to them for funding. Knowing about an idea and being responsible for it are two very different things.

A crucial piece of evidence that Lord Faulkner has overlooked is the name: Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco. According to one of the documents referenced by his lordship, the tobacco companies had concerns about the name Forest “in view of the unfortunate connotations that could be attached – forest fires, backwoodsmen etc”. The minutes of the PR sub-committee of the Tobacco Advisory Council (the forerunner of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association) in May 1979 reveals that “it was agreed that the Chairman should write to Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris to let him know of our misgivings and propose a more straightforward title such as ‘Freedom to Smoke’”.

This confirms beyond any possible doubt that Forest was Sir Christopher’s idea. It also highlights another important point: Sir Christopher, an independent-minded man with a distinguished military history, chose to ignore the companies’ “misgivings” and stick with the name that he had come up with. This is hardly the sign of a man – or group – utterly beholden to the companies who help fund it and I am pleased to say that Forest has continued in the same spirit of independence to the present day.

2. Although I accept that, in all probability, Forest was "set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers", it is tendentious and factually incorrect say that Forest was "set up ... to promote the interests of the tobacco industry". According to minutes of a meeting on 27 November 1978, referenced by Lord Faulkner, Sir Christopher’s proposal for “a Tobacco Consumers’ Association set out in his letter of 18th October [1978]” had been inspired by “the increasing interference by Government and other do-gooding bodies in many aspects of people’s private affairs. In particular, as a confirmed smoker, he had been struck by the treatment handed out to smokers and at the apparent lack of co-ordinated reaction by the industry or its customers …”.

In other words, Sir Christopher’s proposal was not "to promote the interests of the tobacco industry" but to promote the interests of the consumer, a crucial difference. The interests of the consumer and the tobacco companies may overlap at times but they are not the same thing and they quite often diverge. We often have differences of opinion with the companies. Sometimes this has had serious repercussions, including a loss of funding, but we value our independence too much to be ‘stooges’ of Big Tobacco and I think that, ultimately, the companies respect that even if they do not always agree with our views.

Sadly, Tobacco Control advocates like Lord Faulkner can’t understand that there are people in the world who are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves – we don’t need politicians or public health lobbyists to do it for us.

In view of the above comments, I propose that Lord Faulkner’s copy reads as follows:

For Angela Harbutt to compare "Big Tobacco" to organisations devoted to improving public health is laughable, but hardly surprising from someone who admits to being funded by Forest, an organisation set up with funding from the tobacco manufacturers.

Anything else is conjecture or highly subjective and would suggest a (deliberate?) misreading of the relevant documents.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Simon Clark
Director, Forest

I am now awaiting Lord Faulkner's response.

Update on Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 16:52 by Simon Clark

Update from Politics Home:

[We] can confirm that this revised comment has been accepted by Lord Faulkner and has been added accordingly.

So, to summarise. Anti-tobacco peer backs down. Forest NOT "set up" by tobacco companies "to promote the interests of the tobacco industry".

Fancy that!

Save us from the BBPA!

Just arrived in Harrogate.

I am giving a short presentation to an FLVA (Federation of Licensed Victuallers) seminar at The Old Swan Hotel.

I'll be discussing the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign and I've just noticed that I am following Dr Martin Rawlings MBE of the British Beer and Pub Association.

The BBPA has never shown the slightest interest in supporting the campaign or reviewing the smoking ban, a point I might mention during my speech!

Update on Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 16:34 by Simon Clark

Hope you're having a good day.

I am currently having afternoon tea in Bettys, the famous cafe and tea rooms founded in 1919. Whenever I'm in Harrogate I come here.

In a few minutes I shall buy a couple of 'Fat Rascal' coffee mugs, made exclusively for Bettys by Emma Bridgewater. They are designed in honour of Bettys Fat Rascal and I have two at home already but you can't have too many Fat Rascal mugs, in my opinion.

By coincidence, each speaker at this morning's seminar was given a Fat Rascal as a small thank you. I shall eat it as soon as I get home. After all, "there's nothing better than a warm, buttered Fat Rascal".

The problem with Tobacco Control

Yesterday Politics Home published an article by tobacco control campaigner Lord Faulkner.

It was headlined Smoke out tobacco companies influence and argued that:

“Smokers’ rights groups” and retailer front groups will continue to claim they have a right to be heard. Perhaps so, but they should no longer have the right to hide from Parliament the payments and briefings they receive from tobacco corporations.

Today Angela Harbutt, who is now working for Forest (see previous post), responded with Tobacco Control – the real smokescreen:

If there is a need for transparency – it is a need for government to come clean on just how much public money is being spent on Tobacco Control and just how far the tentacles of Tobacco Control have reached into government health policy. It might not be a bad idea to also get a truly independent body to evaluate how effectively this money has been spent. In August 2010 Eric Pickles MP announced that the government was going to stop "government lobbying government". This must surely apply to Tobacco Control.

Curiously, Politics Home have allowed Lord Faulkner to add this comment to Angela's article:

For Angela Harbutt to compare "Big Tobacco" to organisations devoted to improving public health is laughable, but hardly surprising from someone who admits to being funded by Forest, an organisation set up by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association to promote the interests of the tobacco industry.

I have now written to Politics Home as follows:

I would be grateful if you could remove the totally false allegation by Lord Faulkner that Forest was "set up by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association to promote the interests of the tobacco industry".

If you allow the comment to remain, perhaps you could ask Lord Faulkner to produce evidence to support the claim. For the record, the TMA didn't even exist when Forest was founded by Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris, a pipesmoker and former Battle of Britain fighter pilot, in 1979. The tobacco trade association at the time was called the Tobacco Advisory Council but there is no evidence the Forest was set up by the TAC or anyone else connected to the tobacco industry.

I'm afraid this sort of misinformation is typical of the anti-smoking industry and it supports Angela's argument that one of the problems facing Britain today is not Big Tobacco but Tobacco Control.

Watch this space.

Forest announces new signings!

Quote: "I've gone and got corrupted and I am now officially working on Forest's Hands Off Our Packs campaign."

Full story here: Angela Harbutt joins the fight against plain packaging on tobacco.

A warm welcome too to Amul Pandya who will be working with Angela. See Forest announces Hands Off Our Packs campaign team.

If you still need convincing to sign up to our campaign see Angela's latest post on Liberal Vision: Why I am against plain packaging of tobacco.

Great to see that Progressive Vision has endorsed our campaign too.

Keep on spreading the word. If you oppose the plain packaging of tobacco and want to make your views known to government click here now!

Below: from the February issue of Scottish Grocer

Welsh government targets smoking in cars

Woke up to hear Forest being quoted on the Today programme.

The Welsh Assembly Government is today launching a campaign to 'persuade' parents not to smoke in their cars when children are present.

On Friday I did a pre-record for BBC Wales and also gave a quote to the Western Mail.

The gist of my comment was that Forest would support a campaign to educate parents because we do believe that smoking in a car is inconsiderate to a small child. Research suggests that the overwhelming majority of smokers believe this too, which is why they don't do it.

On the other hand we dispute the extent of the alleged risks and we will resist a ban because that would be disproportionate to the problem.

The BBC has the story on its website - Welsh government targets smoking in cars when children present.

PS. I am currently en route to Kings Cross to collect my mobile phone from lost property. On Saturday night a nice man from Network Rail rang to say it had been found on a train on Friday night. It must have fallen out of a pocket, on to the seat or the luggage rack. Good start to the week!

Update: A soundbite from my interview with BBC Wales was included in a report on BBC Breakfast this morning. Click here.

Update on Monday, February 6, 2012 at 14:59 by Simon Clark

Email from a Mr Robert Evans:

Once again you bleating smokers whinge about how persecuted you are. OK, carry on smoking in cars and make children really ill with your selfish, foul habit? As non smokers, we have been persecuted for decades by you lot, not being able to have a night out without going home stinking of stale tobacco, having to shower as soon as you get in, put your clothes right in the wash.

The smoking ban was the BEST THING EVER, and if you selfish, whining pathetic lot don’t like it then tough luck.

The smoking ban does NOT cost lives, it saves them. If you want to carry on this filthy, pathetic, life shortening habit, do it in private and shut the hell up.

How this clown Clark can say ‘it’s a step too far to protect children by banning smoking in cars’ beggars belief. You selfish, ill informed fool. You want to step back, listen to the crap you spout, and concede that smoking is: expensive, socially obnoxious, going out of fashion faster than good manners, taking years off your life, and diminishing the quality of your last years in life.

Get a grip man and be HONEST, your argument, like your clothes and your breath, stinks.

Yours sincerely

From a smoke and stink free house.

Charming.

Passing comments: snow, snow, quick, quick snow

The forecasters were right. The first snow of the winter arrived in East Anglia last night. Finally! Perhaps it will justify that vast outlay on winter tyres in November. I was beginning to give up hope.

I love snow, always have. Not every memory is a good one, though. For example, it reminds me of the first and only sledge I have ever owned. It was a Christmas present when I was ten and my family had just moved to Scotland. It was one of those old-fashioned wooden ones with metal runners. It looked great and at the first sign of snow we drove to the Cairngorms, got the sledges out of the car (my sister had been given one too), and proudly carried them to the top of a gentle slope. We put them down, climbed on board, grasped the rope, and promptly sank into the soft sticky snow. Those babies weren't going anywhere. With their heavy metal runners they were better suited to the Cresta Run. It wasn't the greatest disappointment of my life (believe me, I've had a few) but it was in the top 50.

The most interesting encounter I've had with snow took place when I was at university in Aberdeen. Each year the student charities campaign – the largest of its kind in Scotland – chartered a train to take 400 students from Aberdeen to Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast and back. The train would leave Aberdeen at 9.00am and return in the evening. Well, that was the plan. In my first year students got so drunk and the communication cord was pulled so many times that we returned rather later than expected and in disgrace. It caught the attention of the local newspapers and the headlines were not complimentary. I was a steward on the train so I was sober by comparison with most of the passengers. Nevertheless a girl did throw up on me when I was consoling her for feeling 'unwell' so I didn't escape the mayhem.

The following year British Rail reluctantly agreed to let us charter another train. As before we set off promptly but by the time we arrived (without incident) in Kyle of Lochalsh it was beginning to snow. Two hours later, in near blizzard conditions, we were the last train allowed to leave the tiny station. We were due back in Aberdeen mid evening but en route we got stuck in several snow drifts and with only a driver and a guard on board stewards had to help dig the train out.

At one point a tree crashed down and broke the windows in a carriage that was then unfit for anyone to sit in. Worse, another train got stuck further north and British Rail took the decision to send our locomotive to rescue it, leaving 400 students in a siding near Inverness without heating or food and very little to drink. We finally arrived home at seven o'clock the following morning. This time the newspaper headlines were rather better and in an archive somewhere there is a copy of the Aberdeen Press & Journal with a picture of me and my friend Dougie Kerr (recently retired from the Foreign Office), each with a shovel, pretending to dig the train out of a snow drift. The real work was being done by other students out of shot.

On the Andrew Marr Show this morning a guest mentioned how Americans are obsessed about clearing their driveways of snow. By coincidence we were woken at seven o'clock this morning not by the dog wanting his breakfast but by our American neighbours shovelling snow off their drive!!! Is it a compulsion? Is it in-bred? No-one else has bothered to clear their drive and the road itself is under a thick carpet of snow. In fact the only visible tarmac is outside our American neighbours' house. I'm not criticising. It's a harmless addiction. But why do they do it?!

Talking of the dog (now seven months old), today was Roly's first experience of snow. My son took him for a walk and the dog returned with large chunks of snow stuck to his legs, chest and tummy. He looked like a monster from Doctor Who. We tried pulling the snow off but a lot of it had stuck to his shaggy fur and wouldn't come off, however hard we tried. We then used a hairdryer in the hope that we could speed up the melting process. It took an hour before he was in a fit state to wander around the house without leaving pools of water everywhere. Problem is, he's due another walk this afternoon.

Above: the view from the bottom of my road this morning.