Hats off to the Express for treating its readers like adults

Like smokers, the Daily and Sunday Express have been marginalised in recent years (decades even).

I remember when the Mail was a cottage industry alongside the great behemoth that was the Express.

All that started to change with the appointment of the late Sir David English as editor and the change from broadsheet to tabloid format in 1971.

The Mail's circulation overtook that of the Express many years ago and even in the current declining newspaper market the Mail continues to enjoy enormous influence in political circles.

It's easy to dismiss it but the Mail is genuinely feared by the left. Love it or loathe it, it's a formidable newspaper that has moved with the times. The Mail Online is one of the great digital success stories.

The Express, the Mail's long-time rival, has struggled to compete and at times it's been less a newspaper and more a marketing tool for its current proprietor Richard Desmond and his other business interests, or a repository for Princess Di memorabilia.

Nevertheless, recent events suggest the Express may be more in touch with the zeitgeist (how I hate that Guardianista word!) than it has been given credit for.

Yesterday it ran a leading article on plain packaging which I missed (although I read the report that inspired it) but it's worth repeating in full:

Time for the Government to treat us like adults
Is it too much to hope that the Government has finally realised that it should stop treating the nation as if we were particularly imbecilic five-year-olds?

The news that the Prime Minister has abandoned plans to force tobacco firms to sell cigarettes in plain packets in next week’s Queen’s speech has not come soon enough.

Over the past few decades we have become inured to being bullied, hectored and patronised by political parties that see it as their divine right to poke their noses into every aspect of our lives, but this was a step too far, depriving consumers of individual choice and restricting yet more of our personal freedoms.

There cannot be many people left on the planet who are unaware that smoking is bad for you but that is not the point. Adults should be allowed to make their own choices. Riding motorcycles and skydiving entail their own set of risks and yet no one has (yet) suggested that huge restrictions should be placed on them or that they should be banned.

It is the Government’s role to offer advice on how to live healthily but it is totally up to the man and woman on the street to decide how to follow that advice, if at all.

Smoking is still a legal activity and the state has no right at all to dictate how this entirely lawful substance should be sold.

How refreshing.

From a tactical viewpoint I wish that leader had appeared in the Mail because it carries more weight with mainstream politicians on left and right. Hats off though to the Express for being bold enough to publish it.

The good news is that not one of the big beasts of the newspaper world – the Mail, Times, Telegraph and Sun – has criticised the Government's decision to drop plain packaging.

Even the Guardian, bar one crackpot columnist and a naive PhD student, has been pretty quiet.

Perhaps the tide of nanny state style legislation is beginning to turn.

If so, let's credit the Express for explicitly supporting our cause when no-one else would.

Chip off the old block

Email from a friend:

You might like to know that Cross Country Rail have blocked access to your website!!

Well, it wouldn't be the first time that a site containing the word 'tobacco' has been prohibited.

In February 2010 I posted this - Does Government Internet ban include Forest?. It was in response to a parliamentary question by the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP.

Maude, who was then in Opposition and chairman of the Conservative party, had written to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to ask:

... for what reason websites featuring tobacco content are banned [on departmental computers]; if he will give examples of the types of tobacco sites which are banned; and whether the internet ban includes the Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) website.

Two weeks later Hansard published a written reply from minister Gerry Sutcliffe. It read:

The filtering software used by my Department has a standard range of categories [that] are blocked by default. Filtering is switched off for those categories that are directly related to the work of my Department, currently tobacco remains blocked. The tobacco category covers tobacco promotional websites such as www.marlboro.com.

The Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) website was inadvertently covered by this category by default. It has been unblocked.

As I wrote at the time, Woo-hoo! Government unblocks Forest website.

It's interesting to note, though, that tobacco-related websites were on a list of "unsuitable" categories that included 'violence' and 'criminal activities'.

Other categories blocked by the DCMS included pornography, extreme hate/discrimination, and gruesome content.

I would love to know what categories of websites are currently blocked by the Department of Health!

Going for Gold

Further to yesterday's post about the muted reaction to the Government's decision (tbc) not to introduce plain packaging.

There is a delicious moment in any campaign when opponents lose all sense of perspective and go completely bonkers, destroying their position with the sheer absurdity of their argument.

That moment happened yesterday when journalist Tanya Gold added her long awaited thoughts to the plain packaging debate.

Writing for the Guardian's Comment Is Free website (where else?), she began:

Coalition government acts as an agent for Big Tobacco .. I do not think it is mad to call its actions murderous."

Further comment is superfluous but you can read the full article here: Death is the tobacco companies' business.

I read it last night whilst watching Endeavour (another whodunnit with murder afoot) so I got a bit distracted, but those opening sentences say it all. Who needs friends when you've got enemies like this?!

Scraping the barrel even further, I also read an article on Politics.co.uk.

Written by Andy Lloyd, media, communications and social marketing manager for Fresh, the taxpayer-funded anti-smoking group, it contains the usual bleating including the statement that:

While the 'nanny state' is often the cry of Big Tobacco's paid front groups it's important to stress the massive public support for doing more to stop children from smoking.

They don't get it, do they? Of course there is public support for doing more to stop children from smoking.

Common sense suggests there are very few people who wouldn't support further measures to discourage children from smoking, if they're reasonable.

But plain packaging isn't reasonable. It's unreasonable because - among other things - there's no credible evidence it will work.

In fact there is reason to believe it could be counter-productive, encouraging illicit trade, and we all know (or should know) that black market traders sell cigarettes to anyone, including children.

Five hundred thousand people clearly agreed because they took the trouble to sign petitions against plain packaging. Compare that to the 220,000 (approximately) who were said to be in favour.

If Lloyd is suggesting that those 500,000 people are stooges of Big Tobacco I think he should get out a bit more and meet some ordinary people.

But it's given me an idea. In future we should refer to ASH, Fresh et al as "Big Government's paid front groups". That's what they are, after all.

Full article: Big Tobacco's victory over plain packaging will get more teens hooked.

PS. Belatedly the Express today reports that David Cameron stubs out plan for cigarettes in plain packets.

It includes comments from me, my colleague Angela Harbutt and Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, who says, “The Prime Minister should be applauded for vetoing this absurd proposal.”

Compare this with Tanya Gold's intemperate remark, "I do not think it is mad to call [the Government's] actions murderous."

In all seriousness, I wonder which comment No 10 will take most kindly to?

Doh!

The day Dundee United won the Scottish Premier League

Hard to believe it's 30 years since Dundee United won the Scottish Championship for the first and only time in the club's history.

The title was won in the most extraordinary circumstances on May 14, 1983, and I was in a capacity crowd of 29,206 at Dens Park, home of United's city rivals, to see them do it.

I was living and working in London so I had to catch a train to Edinburgh the previous day and continue the journey to Dundee on the morning of the match.

It was the last day of the season and three teams - United, Aberdeen and Celtic - could all win the league if results went their way.

The outcome however was in United's hands. Beat Dundee and the title was theirs.

The pressure was immense but United were two up after eight minutes. Then Dundee scored and it was 2-1 at half-time.

The second half seemed to go on forever. Aberdeen were winning and news filtered through that Celtic, two down against Rangers at half-time, had come back and were winning 4-2.

Thousands were watching the game and listening to their pocket radios. The final whistle couldn't come soon enough but for those last few minutes time seemed to stand still.

I'll never forget it, or the celebrations after the game.

Former player Paul Sturrock recalls Dundee United’s title triumph in today's Scotland on Sunday. It's a great read:

Within 24 hours of becoming legends at the packed home of their biggest rivals, United’s players found themselves at Station Park, Forfar, playing in a sparsely-attended benefit match for Billy Bennett and John Clark, two stalwarts of the Angus club.

Sturrock couldn’t play, as he had been injured at Dens, but he still had a job to do for his hungover team-mates, who were desperate for food to soak up the alcohol. “I was sent to find a man who had a shop that sold bridies. This boy told me where the guy lived so I knocked on his door. I don’t know if he was the baker, but he had a key, and he went round to heat them up. That was my job for the day, bringing back pies and bridies for all the players. The subs were even eating them in the dugout.

"We lost the game 2-1, and Jim [McLean, the manager] wasn’t too happy. If I remember rightly, he picked near enough every player that had played the day before. It was quite incredible. Half the players couldn’t stand up. They had been drinking all night. We were pished out of our minds.”

The following season - inconceivable now - United reached the semi-final of the European Cup where they lost, 3-2 on aggregate, to Roma.

In 1987 the club went one better and reached the final of the UEFA Cup, defeating Barcelona home and away in the quarter-finals.

The magnitude of this feat can be judged by the fact that it was another 26 years before Barcelona were to once again lose both legs of a European tie (to Bayern Munich, in 2013, in case you're wondering).

The Mail Online has the story and it features an hilarious 'Where are they now?' section that includes these two entries:

John Holt
Apparently told manager Jim McLean on the morning after United's victory that he was thinking about joining Forfar as they had offered him a car. Eventually declined (although later did make the move) and now works in United's academy.

John Clark
Walked out on the club after the UEFA Cup campaign to become a fisherman but returned shortly after. Was most recently manager of Whitehill Welfare.

See: The last time Barcelona lost both legs of a European tie

Sound of tumbleweed will be music to the ears of Number 10

Advisors at No 10 will no doubt be monitoring the media - as they always do - to see what issues are dominating the news this weekend.

Well, let me help them. Even before the Nigel Evans story broke last night, plain packaging wasn't one of them.

For all the fury of the 'health lobby' following reports that David Cameron had decided not to put plain packaging in the Queen's Speech, the PM's decision has barely caused a ripple where it really matters.

In terms of comment the media has been largely silent on the issue which must be a comfort to No 10 which may have feared a backlash.

Only the left-leaning Independent has tried to create controversy with a non-story about representatives of Imperial Tobacco meeting civil servants at the DH.

During that meeting, according to the Indy:

The lobbyists warned the health officials that the plans could cost the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds in lost income.

So? They were merely arguing their corner. Are they not allowed to do that in democratic Britain any more?

Note too the pejorative use of the word 'lobbyists'. Actually they were senior executives from Imperial Tobacco and the meeting took place at the request of the Department of Health not the company.

I particularly liked this bit of the report:

Three months after the meeting in April, a minister familiar with the consultation process, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Independent: “My concern is that the tobacco companies have inveigled their way into persuading a number of important players to reject standardised packaging.”

Now who would that be? It couldn't be Anna Soubry (again), could it?

Apart from a leading article in the same paper, the only other newspaper that has commented on plain packaging is the Observer which ran a report that began:

Anti-smoking campaigners have accused the government of caving in to pressure from the tobacco lobby and running scared of UKIP after plans to enforce the sale of cigarettes in plain packs failed to make it into this week’s Queen's Speech.

It then re-hashed the Independent's story but at least acknowledged that the tobacco companies "were each invited to make representations to the government", a small but important fact the Independent chose to ignore.

That aside, and with the further exception of an equally predictable leading article in the Observer, I've struggled to find any comment about plain packaging in the mainstream media.

The Guardian published an article - online - by postgrad student Suzi Gage but an epidemiology student commenting on packaging (with no evident knowledge of the subject) is hardly likely to influence the PM.

'Columnist of the Year' Janet Street-Porter mentioned the subject in passing (in article entitled 'Dave's legacy') in the Independent on Sunday:

In spite of fighting talk, the PM backed down on minimum pricing for alcohol when almost every medical professional wanted it. Now, he's procrastinating over enforcing plain packets for cigarettes and it won't be included in the Queen's Speech.

And, er, that's it, apart from a weak (and inaccurate) joke by Frankie Boyle in the Sun on Sunday:

The Government has scrapped plans for all cigarettes to be sold in plain white packs. A shame, as then they would be ideal for all kids to colour in.

The simple fact is, if plain packaging was considered an important issue, vital to the future health of the nation, columnists and op ed writers would be all over it.

Instead ... nothing but the sound of tumbleweed.

Clearly neither the public at large nor the media in general care two hoots for standardised packaging because the tobacco control industry has lost the argument.

We will know for certain on Wednesday whether the Government has taken that message on board.

As things stand, the reaction of the media (allied to the response to the public consultation) shows the Government is right to focus on far more important issues.

BBC sinks to new low with "spiteful" attack on UKIP

Five Live Drive yesterday interviewed Dr Alan Sked.

Sked was the founder, in 1991, of the Anti-Federalist League which became the United Kingdom Independence Party in 1993. According to Wikipedia he left the party in 1997, accusing it of being "racist".

I knew there had been a falling out but I didn't realise the extent of Sked's bitterness.

UKIP, he declared on Five Live yesterday, is now an "authoritarian right-wing" party. He continued his attack and presenter Peter Allen sounded a bit surprised, even taken aback.

Sked's comments went largely unchallenged. Allen, an experienced journalist, was clearly aware that the interview was hopelessly one-sided. He appeared to cut it short before acknowledging that no-one from UKIP was there to defend the party.

A few minutes later he read out a couple of texts from listeners - one said Sked's comments were "spiteful" - but if anyone was spiteful it was the producer who invited Sked on the programme and must have known what he was going to say.

(I am frequently asked my views in advance of an interview. Producers don't like being taken by surprise. Quite often they have a preconceived idea of what they want you to say and if your opinion doesn't coincide with it they won't use you.)

Quite what the purpose of the Sked interview was - other than to portray UKIP as a bunch of extreme right wing racist homophobes - I can't imagine. Why, on the day of UKIP's greatest domestic success, would you give a platform to someone who resigned from the party 16 years ago?

There was no debate and Sked's opinions were so partisan it was laughable. This was a pity because I would have liked to have learned more about the Anti-Federalist League and its founder.

As readers of this blog know I am not a UKIP supporter. I support some of their policies and I obviously welcome Nigel Farage's support for an amendment to the smoking ban.

I know and like many UKIP supporters yet I still have reservations that the party is over reliant on Farage and without him it would be a lot less libertarian or indeed credible.

I have heard tales of chaos and discord within the organisation, and there are still too many clowns and fruitcakes (to use Ken Clarke's injudicious words) standing for election under the UKIP banner.

I even share Alan Sked's concern that some UKIP MEPs have "gone native" and enjoy the Brussels gravy train a little too much.

Nevertheless Five Live's conduct in inviting Dr Sked to attack the party unchallenged was outrageous.

Not that it did UKIP any real harm. When an item is that biased listeners will draw their own conclusions.

Instead it was yet another blow to the BBC's damaged reputation as an impartial political broadcaster and further evidence that, whether it is broadcasting from London or Salford, the corporation is hopelessly out of touch with ordinary people.

PS. I should add that Dr Sked is perfectly entitled to his views. I am not suggesting he or anyone else with a similar view of UKIP should be silenced.

This is about balance and the BBC. What were they thinking?

What the Conservatives can learn by reading those comments in the Sun

I hope David Cameron's aides read the Sun online.

If they see the comments posted on this report it should convince the PM it's the right decision to ditch plain packaging.

As my colleague Angela Harbutt writes elsewhere, "Readers are virtually unanimous in their opposition to plain packs - very very interesting!"

UKIP may be getting all the headlines today but here is evidence, if evidence is needed, that David Cameron - or his advisors - are not as out of touch with ordinary people as many would have us believe.

Far from provoking a public backlash, the general public has either welcomed the report or they are completely indifferent. It's certainly not going to cost the Conservatives (or even the Lib Dems) votes.

Unfortunately the Sun's report that Cameron had decided not to pursue yet another nanny state diktat came far too late to influence the local election results.

While immigration and Europe are bigger issues for many people, UKIP's success suggests that the nanny state is also on the agenda.

If the Conservatives want to win back some of the votes they have lost to Nigel Farage's party I suggest they abandon any thought of effectively nationalising a popular consumer product, whether it be tobacco, alcohol or convenience food.

Instead they need to demonstrate - with actions not words - that they reject the nanny/bully state consensus that has gripped Britain over the past decade and offer voters a clear choice.

People aren't stupid. They know UKIP will struggle to win a seat in a general election. They know too that a vote for UKIP could cost the Conservatives any chance of a majority.

But the Tories have to give people a positive reason to vote for them. Relying on the fact that they are 'not Labour' is not enough.

Queen's Speech: what's in, what's not

Quick update on the plain packaging saga:

Guardian political editor Patrick Wintour (the man who brought us the news that plain packaging would be in the Queen's Speech) now reports that Queen's Speech to contain legislation on pensions, social care and benefits but not, it seems, plain packaging:

Government sources confirmed that David Cameron overruled plans by his public health minister Anna Soubry to introduce plain cigarette packaging. Cameron, eager to avoid another backbench revolt over a "nanny state", has declared the proposals are not central to his plans. No 10 wants to wait for more evidence from Australia, where plain packaging was brought in six months ago. The Home Office warned the move might lead to an increase in smuggling.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg seems unwilling to press the issue, saying on Wednesday he did not want to be seen as heavy-handed.

Meanwhile the tobacco control industry continues to thrash around with the support of its cheerleaders in the media, notably the Independent (Doctors condemn Government's decision to hold plans for plain cigarette packaging) which also has a leader urging the prime minister to change his mind.

ASH yesterday announced that members of the Smokefree Action Coalition have written to David Cameron:

In their joint letter to the Prime Minister, members of the SFAC including the Faculty of Public Health, the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the British Medical Association, say that abandoning standardised packaging would be to miss a golden opportunity to take a further step to cut smoking rates and the toll of death and disease that smoking causes.

In a press release ASH claimed that:

Since the launch of the public consultation on standard tobacco packaging in April 2012 there has been a groundswell of support for the measure with nearly two-thirds of the public and a majority of MPs across all political parties in favour.

Groundswell of support? Would that be the 500,000 people who opposed plain packaging in a pubic consultation compared to the estimated 220,000 who supported it?

The health groups say that if the Government will not go ahead with the introduction of standardised packaging then Parliament should decide in a free vote as was the case with smoke-free legislation. The Labour Party has already committed to supporting the measure.

Odd, isn't it, that Labour didn't introduce plain packaging when they were in power. They considered it but backed off because there was no evidence it would work.

There is still no credible evidence that plain packaging will stop children smoking but, politics being such an unscrupulous business, it makes sense for Labour to embrace the measure in Opposition and accuse the Government of abandoning its commitment to public health etc etc.

Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive of health charity ASH said: "Reports that the Prime Minister has rejected plans for standard packaging are very worrying. But this does not mean that the battle is over. With a majority of MPs and peers as well as the general public in favour of standard packs we believe that Parliament should be given the chance to decide."

I don't know about the majority of MPs being in favour, but Deborah's claim about the general public supporting plain packaging is based on a YouGov poll that I wrote about here and there's no more to be said about YouGov, its president Peter Kellner and his close relationship with ASH that hasn't been said before.

Finally, there's a good article on the Channel 4 News website, with input from Forest – Ifs and butts of the fag packet argument – FactCheck.

Update: Coalition to dump cigarette plain packs? (AOL Money)

Update: Anger at dropped fag pack proposal (The Sun):

Angry health campaigners last night begged the PM not to scrap plans for plain fag packets ... But smokers’ group Forest said PM had “listened to the hundreds of thousands of people” opposed to plain packets.

Update on Friday, May 3, 2013 at 9:43 by Simon Clark

The Telegraph reports that:

Plans to force tobacco manufacturers to sell cigarettes in plain packs in the UK have been kicked into the long grass, it has emerged, but the industry faces a fresh threat from Europe.

Full article: Tobacco industry to fight 'standardised' cigarette packs in Europe

I feel another campaign coming on ...