No rest for the wicked

Just back from London where I was interviewed by Five Live Drive and Channel 4 News.

Earlier I gave interviews on behalf of Forest to BBC Radio Sussex, Radio Devon, Radio Cambridgeshire, Radio Solent, Radio Sheffield and Radio Essex.

Meanwhile, representing The Free Society, my colleague Tom Miers was interviewed by Radio Cumbria, Radio Merseyside and Radio Lincolnshire.

I'd sleep well tonight ... if I didn't have to get up at 3.30 to drive to Stansted to catch an early morning (6.20) flight to Cork.

There really is no rest for the wicked.

Update: Currently in Dublin, having flown into Cork at 7.45 for a meeting with John Mallon of Forest Eireann after which I caught the inter-city train to Dublin (a three-hour journey), arriving mid afternoon.

Evenings in Dublin are never dull and tonight should be no different. I'm meeting up with three "business associates" and the fun starts at 7.30. Wish me luck before I go-go ...

That tobacco control plan in full

The Department of Health has now released its Tobacco Control Plan.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has confirmed plans to implement Labour legislation to ban the display of tobacco in shops.

Retailers will be given additional time to prepare. The regulations will now begin on 6 April 2012 for large stores and 6 April 2015 for all other shops.

On plain packaging, "the Government has an open mind and wants to hear views". There will be a consultation and an "assessment of the impact" before the end of 2011.

Quoting directly from the written statement, the Tobacco Control Plan has three "national ambitions" to reduce smoking rates in England by the end of 2015:

• From 21.2 per cent to 18.5 per cent or less among adults
• From 15 per cent to 12 per cent or less among 15 year olds, and
• From 14 per cent to 11 per cent or less among pregnant mothers

"These ambitions represent reductions in smoking rates that exceed the reductions we have seen in the past five years."

The Government has set out key actions in the following six areas:

• stopping the promotion of tobacco;
• making tobacco less affordable;
• effective regulation of tobacco products;
• helping tobacco users to quit;
• reducing exposure to secondhand smoke; and
• effective communications for tobacco control.

Full Government statement here.

See also: Forest attacks tobacco control plans (press release),
Brand ban no way to a Big Society (Tom Miers, The Free Society)

Update on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 12:07 by Simon Clark

Media coverage includes:

Big tobacco counter cover-up (Daily Mail)
Tobacco displays to be banned from shops (BBC News)
Tobacco display to be banned in UK in push to cut smoking-related deaths (Bloomberg)

There's also an amusing piece the Daily Mash:

Tories to treat you like children too: it is not just the Labour Party who wants to treat you like a three year-old child, it has emerged.

H/T Tom Miers

Have the Tories misread support for tobacco control?

However depressing today's Government announcement may be, there is some good news.

Long gone, for example, are the days when it felt as though Forest was fighting a lone battle against the anti-smoking movement.

For the first time I can remember, there is a genuine coalition of forces lined up against against excessive tobacco control, as a letter in today's Daily Telegraph reveals. It's signed by:

Patrick Basham, director, Democracy Institute
Dr Eamonn Butler, director, Adam Smith Institute
Donna Edmunds, director of Research, Progressive Vision
Dr Helen Evans, director, Nurses for Reform
Dr Tim Evans, chairman, Economic Policy Centre
Daniel Hamilton, director, Big Brother Watch
Angela Harbutt, executive director, Liberal Vision
Tim Knox, acting director, Centre for Policy Studies
Mark Littlewood, director-general, IEA
Matthew Sinclair, director, The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Simon Richards, director, The Freedom Association

Meanwhile I have written article for ConservativeHome – aWhatever happened to the party of business, deregulation and personal responsibility?.

Regardless of your political affiliation, please add a comment to demonstrate the strength of opinion on this issue. Click here.

You should also write to your newspaper and to your Conservative MP, if you have one.

No Smoking Day - it's your call

There hasn't been this much excitement around No Smoking Day for years. We must thank Health Secretary Andrew Lansley for giving this tired old wreck the kiss of life.

As I write I am about to be interviewed by BBC Radio Cumbria followed by Radio Sussex, Radio Devon and Radio Cambridgeshire. My colleague Tom Miers from The Free Society is doing Radio Merseyside and I'm then due to appear on Radio Lincolnshire, Radio Sheffield and Radio Shropshire. We've also arranged for someone to appear on BBC Radio Wales between 9.15 and 10.00. I suspect there may be one or two more interviews before the day is out.

One that got away was Five Live Breakfast. I was contacted yesterday afternoon but they decided eventually to book a retailer plus our old friend Philip Davies MP to oppose someone from ASH.

(Yesterday, in response to a question from Davies who described the possible introduction of plain packaging as "nanny state politics of the worst kind", Lansley said that the forthcoming tobacco control plan would have a clear purpose – to reduce the "number of people smoking and as a consequence avoidable deaths and disease".)

Anyway we understand that the policy announcement will take place at 9.30 in the form of a Written Ministerial Statement. In the meantime, in the early hours of this morning, the BBC published this report - Plans to target sale of tobacco products to be unveiled - which provides a little more information. It sounds plausible but watch this space.

Update: I was told last night that tobacco control would be the subject of Your Call, the Five Live phone-in with Nicky Campbell (hence the title of this post). In fact, they are talking about religious bigotry surrounding Old Firm games in Glasgow so I have edited this post accordingly.

Smokers wanted

Tomorrow is No Smoking Day.

We occasionally receive requests from the media who want to speak to "ordinary" smokers who enjoy smoking, have no intention of giving up, and are prepared to say so.

Forest keeps a shortlist of people we put forward on such occasions. One of them is Jenty Burrill, a long-term supporter who invariably does a great job. Without ranting or raising her voice, Jenty comes across as sane, rational and utterly normal.

Presenters like her because she has a sense of humour and is honest about the potential health risks of smoking, and indeed her own health after many years of smoking. The last time she was interviewed - on BBC Radio Kent a couple of months ago - she charmed the presenter and it was a very entertaining few minutes.

If you would like to be considered please email contact@forestonline.org with the following details: name, gender, age, town/region, telephone number.

A colleague will contact you in due course.

PS. BBC Radio Five Live - together with Dame Helena Shovelton, chief executive of the British Lung Foundation, I have just been interviewed by Gabby Logan on the subject of smoking in cars with children. It will be online later, I guess.

The One to watch

Phone call from the BBC to say that Gyles Brandreth – who I saw on stage three weeks ago – has filmed an item about smoking to be broadcast on The One Show on Wednesday (No Smoking Day).

Should we be concerned? Well, from what I remember when I interviewed him some years ago, Brandreth is a liberal in the true sense of the word. By that I mean he is largely tolerant of other people's idiosynchracies and doesn't favour excessive regulation.

Then again, if you read his diaries there is only one conclusion to be drawn about his attitude to smoking. He doesn't approve. I would be surprised and disappointed, though, if he endorsed the Government's latest tobacco control initiatives live on national television.

Government to announce plans for plain packaging

I have just been interviewed by LBC on the subject of plain packaging.

If you haven't read today's papers you may be unaware that the Coalition Government is (allegedly) planning to use No Smoking Day on Wednesday to announce the introduction of plain packaging on tobacco products.

There may also be an announcement about Labour's tobacco display ban, which was opposed by both the Tories and Lib Dems in opposition but is still on the agenda.

I am still gathering my thoughts on this extraordinary if not entirely unexpected development, but I wanted to publish this post as quickly as possible so you can add your own comments about plain packaging, in particular.

Apparently the Government sees plain packaging as a chance to "lead the way" in the war on tobacco.

"Leading the way" is becoming a nauseating mantra from the tobacco control lobby. Ireland "led the way" with its smoking ban; Scotland "led the way" when MSPs voted for a display ban; and last week the Welsh Assembly "led the way" on something else. (I've forgotten what it was - a week is a long time in politics - but tobacco was at the heart of it.)

The problem with "leading the way" is that there is no evidence that the plan will actually work. In this instance I have yet to meet a smoker who will quit because his regular brand loses its logo and colour scheme.

Nor will it stop teenagers smoking because there is little evidence that young people are tempted to smoke because of the "glitzy" packaging. If anything it will make smoking appear more illicit and, potentially, more attractive.

Looking at the wider picture, smokers are clearly persona non grata when it comes to David Cameron's Big Society. You won't be receiving an invitation to join the PM's great big social experiment. If you consume tobacco you can expect to be marginalised, stigmatised and denormalised until you learn to behave in a state-approved manner.

I will almost certainly be doing more interviews on the subject over the next few days so I would welcome some feedback.

Tom Miers joins The Free Society

I am delighted to welcome a new recruit to the Forest family.

Tom Miers is joining us to work as commissioning editor for The Free Society. He will speak at various events and act as spokesman for TFS on a range of issues, including tobacco.

Tom is an independent public policy consultant with experience of the City, politics, journalism and business. Last year his Policy Exchange report The Devolution Distraction: How Scotland's Constitutional Obsession Leads to Bad Government was reported by the BBC, Daily Telegraph and the Scotsman, among others.

Tom's latest book, co-written with Craig Smith, is Democracy and the Fall of the West.

Writing today for The Free Society, Tom asks: "Do we live in a free society? This question is becoming ever harder to answer." Defining the role of the state and the importance of individual liberty in a free society, he says:

For me, the keystone of our society is that individuals must be able to live their lives in a way that is immune from arbitrary intervention by the state. So long as we pursue our aims and seek happiness without harming others, we should be left in peace. Indeed, the role of the state is to protect that private sphere from outside intervention, not to join those seeking to break into it.

This – the liberty of the individual – is what sets Western society apart from the tyrannies of the past and the despots of the present. It is also the key to our success. From individual freedom stems secure property, market exchange, intellectual freedom, and hence material prosperity, artistic endeavour and the ability to order our lives in a way that best suits our characters, tastes and abilities.

These days there is an alarming trend for government to intervene in one important aspect of this – the decisions we make on our lifestyles. The Big State is becoming increasingly concerned that we don’t know what’s good for us, and is ever more willing to force us to follow its own version of the path to happiness.

The implications of this go way beyond whether people smoke or drink or eat too much. This is why The Free Society is such an important campaigning unit in the war of ideas. Over the next weeks and months we will explore not just the practical absurdities of government restrictions on lifestyle choices, but the wider consequences for society of such intervention.

Under Tom's management the website will be updated most days. We are also working on our 2011 series of events which will be announced shortly.