Desperate PM targets smokers

The Guardian today reports that Rishi Sunak is ‘considering introducing some of world’s toughest anti-smoking measures to effectively ban next generation from ever buying cigarettes’.

Measures include a New Zealand style ban on future generations being allowed to buy cigarettes, to be achieved by raising the age of sale by one year every year until no-one can legally purchase tobacco.

Apparently, a ban on smoking in beer gardens and parks is also on the agenda.

Naturally, the Guardian didn’t seek a response from anyone opposed to such policies. Forest has however been quoted by, among others, the Press Association, The Sun, Independent, i, London Evening Standard, Daily Record, STV, and the Financial Times.

According to the FT, ‘Prime minister’s latest effort to tackle falling ratings could trigger party backlash’:

Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said if Sunak decided to introduce these measures “it will be a Conservative government in name only”, taking the “nanny state to another level”.

“Prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to future generations of adults won’t stop people smoking,” he said, “it will simply drive the sale of cigarettes underground and into the hands of criminal gangs.”

I can’t say I’m hugely surprised by this turn of events. In May Sunak was reported to have rejected George Osborne’s call to ban smoking, which we obviously welcomed.

I wasn’t completely convinced, though, and even after the Government opposed an amendment to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill that would have banned smoking in licensed pavement areas, I warned:

I remember all too well when, a few months before the 2015 general election, David Cameron's government suddenly decided to introduce plain packaging, having previously kicked it into the long grass.

Labour and the anti-smoking lobby were pushing hard for plain packaging and it was said that Cameron didn't want it to be an election issue, hence the famous 'barnacles off the boat' strategy.

It wouldn't surprise me if Rishi Sunak adopted a similar tactic ahead of the next election, with the bonus that it would make the Government appear proactive, albeit not in a good way if you believe that government should butt out of our lives as much as possible.

Fingers crossed that won't happen, but I've lost faith in politicians and this Government has performed so many u-turns, what's another one to them?

By guess is that officials in Number Ten are flying a kite to see how the public (and the party) react.

What is clear is that the Conservative Party under its present leadership has no direction, or clear principles.

They are so far behind in the polls (spot the connection?) that Sunak and his advisors are thrashing around and will consider almost anything in a desperate attempt to seize the initiative with headline grabbing initiatives.

(As an aside, it’s interesting that this story was given to the Guardian, not the Telegraph or even The Times.)

The Tories, of course, have always been a party dominated not by libertarians, who represent a very small percentage the membership, nor by authoritarians (who are also a relatively small group within the party), but by paternalists.

Traditionally however Conservatives have also been pragmatic (none more so than Mrs Thatcher) but the sort of anti-smoking measures currently being considered go way beyond pragmatism. They smell, quite simply, of desperation.

Worse, targeting an ever decreasing minority of the population, like smokers, smacks of bullying. Ironically, given that most smokers are from lower socio-economic backgrounds, there’s also a hint of class warfare, the ‘comfortable’ middle class dictating how the poorer working class should live their lives.

It’s worth pointing out too that no-one has actually voted for these policies. At the very least, therefore, Sunak should have the guts to include them in the party’s election manifesto next year.

Unfortunately, there’s every chance that, in the race to outdo one another, Labour might strive to go even further, although it’s hard to see how they could, beyond a ban on the sale of cigarettes to all age groups (as requested by Philip Morris, funnily enough).

Anyway, by coincidence (and with great foresight!), Forest is hosting a panel discussion at the Conservative party conference on Monday 2nd October entitled ‘Smoking Gun: The infantilisation of Britain’.

More on this next week.

See: Rishi Sunak considers banning cigarettes for next generation (Guardian)

Update: I discussed this story on LBC on Saturday. Also on the programme: Hazel Cheeseman, deputy CEO of ASH.

Media matters

The 2023 Global Tobacco and Network Forum concluded earlier today with a 'Meet the Press' panel.

Having had a small gripe about one of the panellists before the event, I thought the least I could do was watch the discussion live online.

With an eight-hour time difference, it began at 15:55 (Seoul), 07:55 (UK), and was described, rightly, as 'lively and frank'.

There was some well justified criticism of the industry's interaction with the media – aspects of which I have touched upon myself. (See 'Rough guide to dealing with the media'.)

I do think though there was a lack of understanding of the constraints under which the tobacco industry operates. This doesn't totally excuse the companies, but there may be lawyers to satisfy which is why responses to media enquiries and requests are often delayed or derailed.

To put this in perspective, many years ago one company set up a rapid response unit, by which they meant within 48 hours.

For individuals a disastrous interview can be career-ending (I've seen it happen) so you can understand why tobacco company execs are not forming an orderly queue to appear on TV or radio when a single word or comment out of place can have significant consequences.

Someone on the GTNF panel, I can't remember who, complained that the tobacco industry (like many industries) is "faceless", and that's something else I've commented on.

Thirty years ago the Tobacco Advisory Council (now the Tobacco Manufacturers Association) had a fantastic spokesman, the wonderfully urbane Clive Turner.

Unfailingly polite and good-humoured, he was more than a match for the po-faced anti-smokers he encountered on television and radio. Describing those interviews years later, he wrote:

I must have done hundreds of always hostile live and recorded radio, television and print media interviews. Following these, I could expect unspeakable and anonymous messages, not excluding death threats. You name them, I got them.

Despite this he never lost his sang-froid and even now, 25 years after he retired, I consider him a bit of a hero. (See 'Clive Turner and me'.)

Clive was the face of the tobacco industry in Britain for a decade, but the companies were arguably more aligned in those days. Today it's harder to have a single spokesman for the entire industry because on some issues the companies have diverged a bit.

Of course the print media has evolved too and journalists are under huge pressure to generate content for print and online editions. In my opinion though there is too much cut 'n paste journalism, with many reports being lifted almost verbatim from press releases, and not enough ringing around to get a response from opposing sides.

A story I've told before concerns a leading press agency. On one occasion, in response to my complaint that Forest had not been given a chance to respond to a particular story, I was told, "There's nothing to stop you sending a response to us", to which my reply was, "How can we can send a response if we don't know there's anything to respond to?!"

In the real world the likes of ASH, Cancer Research and the Department of Health never send Forest copies of their reports or press releases so unless a journalist calls us in advance for a reaction (they're often embargoed), we are totally in the dark until the story is published.

If they don't call we can't respond and the story will appear without a single opposing voice. After that we're playing catch up and it's usually too late to do anything about it, although I have had some interesting conversations with night editors at the BBC and elsewhere.

Another problem the companies face (and this was acknowledged by the 'Meet the Press' panellists) is that relatively few journalists are open-minded about the tobacco industry, which some still consider to be 'evil'.

Tobacco industry funded groups like Forest have a similar problem. When we relaunched our website many years ago we emailed journalists and broadcasters with the new URL and some promotional blurb. These were some of the replies:

Journalist A: ‘Please don't send me any more emails about your ghastly organisation ... People are not 'victims' of 'health fanatics' but victims of a cynical, multi-million dollar industry that cares not a jot about anyone's health, as long as they're making money.'

Journalist B: 'Please don't send me any of your information. I'm an ex-smoker. I don't have a problem about people smoking but I do have a problem about the unsolicited rubbish you put out.'

Journalist C: 'Please do not send me any more of your propaganda.'

I have always believed that knowledge is power and the best journalists are those who remain curious and open to information, even if they don't agree with it. Clearly there are some who are rather more narrow-minded.

Credit then to the journalists who attended GTNF in Seoul, and particularly those who took part in the 'Meet the Press' panel which I enjoyed more than any other because I liked their plain speaking. (Who knew that journalists would be such good communicators?!)

When the video is available I'll post a link here.

PS. I wrote 'Rough guide to dealing with the media' in 2016. Sections include 'The 24/7 rule, 'Persistence and communication', 'Rapid response', 'Make friends not enemies', and 'New story angles'.

I wrote it in response to a request for advice on dealing with the media and and after listening to the 'Meet the Press' panel I think it's still relevant today.

Number crunching

The BBC yesterday reported that:

Residents living in homes owned by a Surrey council could be banned from smoking on their balconies.

According to the report, written by journalists working for the Local Democracy Reporting Service (which I'll return to):

[Runnymede] council said the proposed ban was due to the "anti-social impact of smoking" as well as limiting cigarette litter falling from balconies.

It also featured the results of a consultation with 'impacted residents' which seems to have been a major influence on the council:

• Out of 174 residents, 40 responded to the local authority survey - 83% of whom were non-smokers.
• Four people said smoking should not be allowed on a balcony that is next to another home
• 16 people said it should not be allowed on any balcony
• 20 people said it should not be allowed if it causes a "nuisance" to other residents

Anyway, the council last night discussed and agreed to the proposal and this morning I was on BBC Radio Surrey with, I think, Mark Nuti, chairman of the Housing Committee.

I began by pointing out that most council house residents are from lower economic groups so the ban will discriminate against people who can't afford their own homes.

I added that smoking on balconies is not a public health issue because there is not a shred of evidence that smoking in the open air is a significant risk to anyone else's health.

I also noted that even Nuti admitted that the consultation had "not had as many respondents as we would have liked".

That's putting it mildly!

Effectively, Runnymede Council has banned smoking on council-owned balconies on the say so of just 16 or 20 people (ie not even a majority of the 40 respondents, who themselves represented less than 25 per cent of the 174 residents invited to respond).

Nuti's response? If residents didn't respond they can't feel very strongly about it.

Anyway, I finished by saying, "What next? Are they going to ban smoking in people's gardens as well in case a puff of smoke drifts over the garden fence?"

It demonstrates though how easy it is to ban something if you set your mind to it, or enjoy the acquiescence of the local media.

And that brings me back to the Local Democracy Reporting Service which I was unfamiliar with until I saw it added to the byline on the BBC report.

I looked it up and according to the BBC it's a public service news agency whose journalists are funded by the BBC but 'employed by regional news organisations'.

OK, well that explains why the Runnyside story appeared on both the Surrey Live and BBC websites, credited to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Although BBC Radio Surrey invited me to be on their breakfast programme, no-one from the Local Democracy Reporting Service asked Forest for a reaction to the proposed policy ahead of the council meeting so it went completely unchallenged and, surprise, surprise, was duly passed.

I'm sure the Local Democracy Reporting Service offers a valuable service but it would help local democracy if reports on issues such as this did a bit more than parrot the council line.

GTNF - making smokers history

The 2023 Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) begins today with two afternoon panels and a welcome reception in the evening.

The event is taking place in Seoul, South Korea, which is eight hours ahead of the UK so do your own maths!

I'll be following the main conference online when it starts tomorrow (full agenda here) and if there's anything of interest to report I'll let you know.

In 2017 GTNF coincided with the launch of the PMI-funded Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, which featured prominently, but I’m not expecting anything as newsworthy as that.

It’s more likely to be something on the level of last year’s conference, in Washington DC, which began with a speaker from Philip Morris International (PMI) declaring that it was six years since he’d quit smoking, prompting a round of applause.

This year, the session that ought to interest me most is ‘Putting Consumers First'. Ironically, however, ‘Putting Consumers First' is not part of the main event.

Instead it has been squeezed on to the agenda (a bit like the ‘prohibition’ panel I was on last year) as one of two sessions that are taking place today (07:45-08:55 UK time) ahead of the conference proper and before the welcome reception.

Moderated by public health policy expert Nancy Loucas, who is also executive coordinator of the Coalition of Asia Pacific Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA), the panellists are:

Alex Clark, CEO of the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association
Samrat Chowdhery, former president of the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations
Matt Drodge, research director at Walnut Unlimited
Fiona Patten, Reason Party leader and former member of the Legislative Council of Victoria
Clarisse Yvette Virgino, member of CAPHRA

I’ve met Alex because I invited him to be on a consumer panel I helped organise at GTNF 2017 in New York. A nice guy, he's a vaping advocate.

The International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO) and CAPHRA also represent consumers of reduced risk products.

Fiona Patten is an Australian politician and another supporter of vaping.

Finally, Matt Drodge works for a company that describes itself as a 'human understanding agency', but I can’t imagine it's dedicated to upholding the rights of adults who enjoy smoking and don't want to quit.

Forgive the rose-tinted nostalgia, but I remember when the views of confirmed smokers were valued at GTNF (formerly the Global Tobacco Networking Forum).

Today a session dedicated to 'Putting Consumers First' can't find room on a panel of five people (six if you include the moderator, another vaping advocate) for a single current smoker, or someone who will stand up for confirmed smokers.

If this feels familiar it’s because it is. At last year's conference in Washington DC (which I attended and wrote about here) there was a panel called ‘Forgotten Smokers’.

I found that title a bit ironic too because every speaker was a vaper, or vaping advocate, and there was no mention of what, in the context of a tobacco and nicotine industry conference, is the single most forgotten group of all - smokers who enjoy smoking and don't want to stop.

This year I won't even be in the audience to make that point, so I think we’ve probably reached the moment when confirmed smokers and their representatives have, finally, been consigned to history at GTNF.

It’s been a long time coming so while I’m not surprised I am a bit sad. For the record, this is what I wrote after GTNF 2022:

Next year’s GTNF is in Seoul, South Korea, which has been talked about as a potential location for several years.

I’d love to go - I’ve never been to that part of the world - but I sense that after twelve years my time at GTNF may be coming to a close.

When a session called ‘Forgotten Smokers’ makes no mention of consumers who enjoy smoking and don’t want to quit (the most forgotten group of all), focussing instead on smokers who are being denied the opportunity to switch to vaping, you know your time is almost up.

Meanwhile, a journalist who recently accused a fellow political commentator of being "in the pocket of the pro-smoking (sic) lobby" for accepting "slap-up free dinners and wine" (courtesy, as it happens, of Forest) is on the ‘Meet the Press’ panel on Wednesday afternoon (07:55-09:05 UK time).

You couldn’t make it up!

PS. Consumer advocates can register to watch GTNF for free here. ‘Putting Consumers First’ is not being live streamed.

Below: GTNF Networking Reception hosted by Forest in Brussels, 2016

Passive smoking – how science was defeated by the politics of public health

If you read nothing else this week, read this, or at least bookmark it for future reference.

Described as 'A look back on the 2003 BMJ controversy over passive smoking and mortality', Dogmatism, Data, and Public Health offers an insider's account of an extraordinary episode in the war on smoking.

The author, I should explain, is Geoffrey Kabat who co-authored, with James Enstrom, what is still the most significant study on the effects of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) on non-smokers, specifically the non-smoking spouses of long-term tobacco smokers.

Twenty years ago [writes Kabat with one eye on the Covid pandemic], I found myself in the middle of a different health controversy, which seems almost quaint in retrospect. This was the question of how dangerous it is for a non-smoker to be exposed to other people’s tobacco smoke. This exposure was referred to by different names: “passive smoking,” “secondhand tobacco smoke,” and “environmental tobacco smoke.”

In contrast to a pandemic caused by a totally novel virus, conceptually, the question of passive smoking would seem to be remarkably straight-forward and susceptible to rational management and amelioration. However, because it involved tobacco and the raging “tobacco wars” of the 1970s and 1980s, what should have been a relatively simple scientific question became transmuted into a moral campaign.

Published in the British Medical Journal in May 2003, the Enstrom/Kabat study (the largest of its kind), concluded that the link between 'secondhand' smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer - at any level of exposure - 'may be considerably weaker than generally believed' (BBC News).

Their findings, said the authors, suggested that passive smoking could not plausibly cause a 30 per cent increased risk of coronary heart disease, as was generally believed, although a small effect could not be ruled out.

The study was widely reported, but reports focused as much on the ‘controversial’ nature of the findings as the findings themselves.

On the day the study was published, this was my entry for an online journal, or Forest diary, the precursor to this blog:

Friday May 16, 2003
To a pub in Camden for a live outside broadcast on BBC News 24. I have been asked to comment on an American study, published today by the British Medical Journal, that suggests that passive smoking has an insignificant effect on death rates from heart disease or cancer.

The study, the largest of its kind, is being trashed by the anti-smokers because it was funded partly by the tobacco industry. In fact it had originally been funded by anti-smoking money until the plug was pulled, in mysterious circumstances, in 1999, forcing the authors to find an alternative source.

Needless to say there is a strong suspicion that funding was stopped when the anti-smoking lobby saw the initial results and realised how damaging they might be to their claim that passive smoking harms non-smokers.

No-one can deny the sheer size of the database on which the study is based (118,000 adults, 35,000 of whom were never-smokers who lived with smokers), nor the fact that it has been published in a journal with a worldwide reputation and whose editor, Dr Richard Smith, resigned his previous position at Nottingham University in protest at the university's decision to accept sponsorship from British American Tobacco.

While I'm in Camden other Forest spokesmen are on Sky News and Channel 5. We have also been on BBC1's Breakfast programme, Five Live, and a host of local radio stations. Later I find myself on College Green, opposite the House of Commons, being interviewed for Carlton Television (ITV).

“This is a good day for you,” says the presenter. “You must be excited.”

“Yes,” I reply, trying hard not to sound smug. “It is and I am.”

Of course, we know what happened after that. Enstrom and Kabat continued to be targets for criticism and the science was eventually obscured by a fug of smoke and mirrors.

To their credit, neither Enstrom nor Kabat have ever allowed themselves to be bullied into silence. In 2008 Kabat even wrote Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology which was promoted as follows:

The media constantly bombard us with news of health hazards lurking in our everyday lives. But many of these alleged hazards turn out to have been greatly overblown.

The book featured four case studies - one of which was secondhand tobacco smoke.

It angers and frustrates me that the anti-smoking lobby 'won' the debate about ETS (in the sense that many people genuinely believe passive smoking to be a serious threat to health) because the evidence was, and still is, open to debate.

Twenty years on there is still no conclusive proof that environmental tobacco smoke, annoying though it may be to some people, is a significant cause of ill health, let alone thousands of deaths, among non-smokers.

Repeat a lie often enough however and eventually people will accept it, especially if they are denied all the facts, or have no interest in educating themselves.

That includes most government ministers, although I know that John Reid, Secretary of State for Health from 2003 to 2005, was not convinced that passive smoking was a serious threat to non-smokers, including bar staff, because I was one of just four or five people in the room when his senior advisor shared with his boss his own scepticism.

Ultimately none of that mattered because Tony Blair wanted to leave a legacy and Patricia Hewitt, Reid's successor as health secretary, was happy to go considerably further than her predecessor, further even than the 2005 Labour manifesto.

Not for the first time the politics of public health defeated the science and it could happen again.

Despite the largest study of its kind providing very little evidence that exposure to tobacco smoke indoors is a serious threat to non-smokers, there was an attempt only last week to ban on smoking outside pubs.

Speaking in the House of Lords, one Lib Dem peer declared:

The public health case for this policy is extremely clear; there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke ... The smoking ban of 2007 protected workers from indoor exposure to tobacco smoke ... It is time we took action to protect them from outdoor exposure as well.

See 'Inside out'.

I am delighted then that Geoffrey Kabat has returned to the fray, if only to remind us of his 2003 study which must never be forgotten. Likewise his co-author, James Enstrom, who has posted his own comment in response to Kabat's thoughtful essay:

I commend Geoffrey Kabat on his excellent 20-year perspective on our May 17, 2003 BMJ article. My own 4-year perspective was published in my October 10, 2007 Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations article “Defending legitimate epidemiologic research: combating Lysenko pseudoscience” (DOI: 10.1186/1742-5573-4-11).

Our BMJ article and the reaction to it have revealed several serious problems with epidemiology. The problems that I want to highlight are described in my July 8 talk “Corruption of Science by the American Cancer Society”. Further details of this corruption are provided in my unanswered August 7 email letter to top ACS officials and scientists and in Geoffrey’s email letter to these same ACS officials and scientists. I welcome comments from any reader who is concerned about the epidemiologic problems raised by Geoffrey and me.

Further reading: The Smoking Issue by Joe Jackson with a foreword by Lord Harris of High Cross (Forest, 2004); Prejudice & Propaganda: The truth about passive smoking (Forest, 2005).

Driven to distraction

As Wales introduces a default 20mph speed limit on all built-up areas, here’s an edited version of a post I wrote last year about driving in Britain today.

I’ve always enjoyed driving.

I passed my driving test in 1977 when I was at university. I didn’t have a car and didn’t know any student who did, but having a driving licence was useful when I went home because I could borrow my mother’s car, a two litre Triumph Vitesse.

In 1978 my parents moved from Scotland to Cumbria and I embarked on my first long distance drive. Well, I thought it was long distance, but it was actually from Kendal to Glasgow where Dundee United were playing Rangers in a Scottish Cup semi-final.

Today the 142 mile journey would take 2.5 hours via the M6, A74 and M74 but in those days you could add an hour and possibly two because the old A74 from Carlisle to Glasgow was a lot slower.

In fact, before it was upgraded in the Eighties, drivers had to meander through small towns like Lockerbie which became infamous in 1987 when a Pan Am plane exploded above the town after a bomb went off on board.

When I moved to Edinburgh in the early Nineties I was frequently driving to London. Even today I do a lot of motorway driving and I’ve always believed that speed limits should reflect the road and traffic conditions, and the weather.

I’m not advocating dangerous or reckless driving, but I’ve never understood why, on a deserted motorway at two o’clock in the morning in good conditions, for example, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive significantly faster than the current national speed limit.

That was set, let’s not forget, in the 1960s when very few family cars could go much faster than 70mph anyway.

The problem is that despite having safer (three or even four-lane) motorways and more reliable cars (with better brakes and tyres), our national speed limits don’t reflect that.

We have overhead gantries that instruct us to slow down because of congestion or obstacles on the road, but why can’t those same gantries advise us that it’s safe to drive at 80, 90 or even 100mph at certain times of the day or night when visibility is good and there are relatively few vehicles on the road?

An acquaintance of mine, an IT salesman, used to spend long hours on the road. On one occasion he was stopped and prosecuted for driving in excess of 100mph on the M6 in Cumbria in the early hours of the morning when there was nothing on the road apart from him and an unmarked police car!

I think he escaped with a six-point penalty and a fine which could have been worse because, had he lost his licence, he could have lost his job as well, a fate wholly disproportionate to the offence.

Anyway, speed restrictions seem to go only one way, which brings me to the horror that is driving in London today. All over London, and central London in particular, the roads are painted with the number ‘20’ in a white circle to indicate that the speed limit is 20mph.

That’s fine if you’re in a line of slow moving traffic and it’s impossible to go any faster anyway, but when the road opens up ahead of you (along the Embankment, for example) the natural inclination is to press the accelerator and within seconds you might be doing, oh, I don’t know, some crazy speed like 30mph.

Today, as someone who drives in London once or twice a month, I am forever getting caught out by the ‘new’ 20mph limits because I’m not used to them. So far, more by luck, I think, I have avoided anything more than a fixed penalty notice and a fine and that was for entering and getting stuck in one of those box junctions with criss-cross yellow markings.

The ‘offence’ took place in Hammersmith but I was unaware of having done anything wrong until the FPN arrived. There was photographic ‘evidence’ so I didn’t challenge it but I certainly wasn’t conscious of it at the time.

More recently I was sure I got flashed by a speed camera as I crossed a junction just as the traffic lights turned amber and then red. I was probably doing no more than 20mph but I couldn’t slam on the brakes in case another car was behind me, so I accelerated slightly to make sure I got across the junction as quickly as possible.

That was when I saw a camera on the other side of the road flash three times but it could have been targeting cars that were going in the opposite direction. So far I’ve not received the dreaded brown (?) envelope and I’d be pretty hacked off if I did because I genuinely don’t think I did anything wrong.

My point however is this. Driving in Britain today is no longer fun because every journey is an opportunity to inadvertently commit some minor transgression that may result in a fine or, worse, three points on your licence leading to higher and possibly exorbitant insurance costs.

All it takes is the sight of a speed detection vehicle or a lone copper on a bridge holding a speed gun (M11 last week) and that’s when the paranoia kicks in. In London the threat feels even worse.

It was never like this in the Eighties or Nineties and although I’m not a conspiracy theorist it feels like a deliberate ploy to discourage people from driving in London.

As for cyclists and pedestrians, don’t get me started. The roads in London today are unrecognisable from the city I knew in the Eighties when hardly anyone cycled to work. Most of us got the bus or walked.

At rush-hour the roads are now swarming with cyclists. Sometimes (near Blackfriars Bridge for example) it’s like the Tour de France has hit town such is the speed they’re going.

Wherever you look there’s a pack of cyclists, many of them swerving in and out of traffic. Some are either oblivious to the rules of the road or they seem to think the onus is exclusively on the driver of a car, bus or lorry to avoid any accidents.

Frankly I don’t care if cyclists go through red lights if the road is clear. That’s one of the perks of riding a bike. What does bother me is when cyclists undertake or don’t slow down for moving vehicles that may obstruct their path.

A couple of years ago I had a small disagreement about this with Jeremy Vine on Twitter and he blocked me! That said a lot about the attitude of some cyclists and their refusal to accept even the mildest suggestion that the driver might not be wholly to blame.

Recently there was another spat on Twitter when a video was posted showing a close encounter between a Waitrose delivery lorry that was in one lane and a cyclist who was in another.

It was clear from the video that the lorry driver had never left his lane and had done nothing wrong but despite that (and the fact that no-one got hurt) there was the usual blame game.

Waitrose, I'm pleased to say, stood by their man and after examining the evidence exonerated him of any fault.

I'm sure there are many cyclists who are more sinned against than sinning (this week I was in a black cab that came perilously close to a cyclist who took umbrage and shouted at the driver) but the Waitrose lorry incident highlighted the worst side of the more extreme cycling fraternity.

I’m not sure too why cyclists should be allowed to ride their bikes on the pavement, but that’s another story which I addressed in 2016 (Today’s cyclists are a real test of my liberal instincts).

Drivers in London (and Cambridge, where Forest has an office) also face another hazard - e-scooters - that appear from nowhere when you’re least expecting it. The other day an e-scooter undertook me at speed before swerving inches in front of my car before crossing to the lane on my right. Moron.

Again I’m not against e-scooters but I get the same sense of entitlement from some of their riders as I do from many lycra-clad cyclists. The difference perhaps is that many e-scooter riders are still learning how to use them without falling off and you can sense both their vulnerability and their instability.

Meanwhile, do cyclists and e-scooter riders ever bother to indicate? When I was at primary school aged six we had lessons teaching us how to ride our bikes on the road.

The most important lesson was signalling to drivers when you were about to turn left or right. You did this by checking the state of the traffic behind you and holding out your left or right arm to indicate your direction of travel.

Even at the age of six I could understand why this was necessary and advisable. I rarely see any cyclist do that these days. Instead drivers are expected to anticipate what the cyclist is about to do. Or that’s how it seems to me.

As for e-scooter riders, they’re far too busy holding on with both hands and if they do have a spare hand they’re probably using it to hold their mobile phone. (OK, I’ve only seen one person do that but I suspect it's not uncommon.)

Finally, pedestrians. When did pedestrians decide they were immune from harm and start crossing the road without a care in the world?

Don’t get me wrong. I would hate to live in a country where jay-walking is an offence and you can be fined for crossing the road at an unauthorised place or when the lights declare ‘Don’t Walk’ because I’ve done it thousands of times myself.

But when I cross the road I at least check for oncoming traffic. Many pedestrians today don’t because, in many cases, they’re too busy looking at their phones. Or they’re wearing headphones and can’t hear an approaching car.

Excessive and sometimes random speed restrictions, speed bumps, box junctions, cyclists, e-scooters and mindless pedestrians, these are just some of the many irritations that are taking the joy out of driving.

Anxiety and fear of prosecution for the most minor infringement are now part and parcel of almost every car journey and it’s doing my head in.

Update: Incredibly, the Labour MP for York Central recently suggested that councils should introduce speed limits of TEN miles an hour in residential areas. See What do public vaping ban and 10mph speed limits have in common?.

Inside out

Further to yesterday’s post …

One of the peers who put her name to amendment 258 at the report stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill was Baroness Northover.

Explaining why she supported a ban on smoking in licensed pavement areas, the Lib Dem peer told the House:

The public health case for this policy is extremely clear; there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke.

Smoke-free pavement licensing would also help to protect hospitality workers. The smoking ban of 2007 protected workers from indoor exposure to tobacco smoke. The noble Earl [deputy leader of the Lords, Earl Howe], I remember well - helped to put this in place. It is time we took action to protect them from outdoor exposure as well.

"The outside," she blethered, "has now, in effect, become the new inside."

I'm sorry, but the risk to non-smokers from exposure to 'second-hand smoke' in pubs and clubs was always very small, whatever the anti-smoking lobby might say.

You’d have to be exposed day after day for many many years, and even then the evidence of risk is inconclusive.

Outside, however, the risk from exposure to tobacco smoke is somewhere between insignificant and non-existent.

But if there is evidence of significant risk, let's see it.

As far as I'm aware, there’s none. So how can the public health case for banning smoking outside pubs be “extremely clear”?

Despite this, politicians stand up in parliament and make claims that not only go uncontested, no-one bats an eyelid.

That's the real scandal.

As for there being “no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke”, if that is the basis on which we’re going to legislate in future, I can’t think of anything we’ll be allowed to do without being subject to regulation to avoid even minimal risk.

This, btw, is what I wrote about Baroness Northover in 2020 when she supported a similar amendment to the Business and Planning Bill:

In contrast to her sniping about Forest, Baroness Northover was so effusive in her praise for taxpayer-funded ASH ("that outstanding campaigning organisation") that she admitted it was ASH not her that drafted the amendment she put her name to.

Fancy that!

See: Lib Dem peer bidding to extend smoking ban to outside areas thanks ASH for its "assistance" (July 2020) and Lesson in hypocrisy (March 2022)

PS. A quick reminder that ASH yesterday acknowledged, in its Daily News bulletin, that ‘The amendment was not pushed to a vote and will not be included in the bill’.

Good news, for now, but with Labour supporting the amendment this issue is not going to go away.

Labour supports ban on smoking outside pubs, Government "not persuaded yet"

On Monday evening it was reported by The Sun that:

'Smokers face BAN outside pubs and restaurants under major rule change demanded by officials'

According to the paper:

Smoking would be banned from all pavement seating outside pubs and restaurants under a crackdown demanded by councillors.

Ministers are being urged to make the spaces cigarette-free to help existing smokers kick the habit and stop kids taking it up.

Overnight, after I complained about the one-sided nature of the report, The Sun added this response:

Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, said: "There is absolutely no justification for the government to ban smoking outside pubs and restaurants because there is no evidence that smoking in the open air poses a significant risk to non-smokers.

He added: “At stake is the ability of small businesses, including cafes, pubs and bars, to choose policies that work best for them and their customers.

“Government should be reducing red tape, not adding to it with arbitrary regulations that can only hurt the hospitality industry.”

The timing of The Sun's report, which was picked up by the Mirror and attracted quite a lot of attention on social media on Tuesday, was no coincidence.

As I wrote last week, anti-smoking peers had tabled two amendments to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill which has been progressing (very slowly) through parliament for months.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was day seven of the report stage in the House of Lords and among the amendments up for 'debate' were the following, as I explained last week:

Amendment 256 (tabled by Lord Holmes of Richmond) 'would allow a local authority to require that furniture is removed from the highway when it is not in use, as well as imposing a condition to require the licensee to prevent smoke-drift affecting those in the vicinity'.

Amendment 258 (tabled by Lord Young of Cookham) goes even further. Quite simply, its purpose 'is to ensure that all pavement licences are smoke free'.

I noted that very similar amendments had been tabled in July 2020 when the Government was trying to pass an emergency Business and Planning Bill that was intended to reduce unnecessary red tape and therefore assist businesses recover from the effects of the first lockdown.

Inevitably, this was seen by the anti-smoking lobby not as an opportunity to reduce red tape but to impose even more restrictions on pubs, cafes and restaurants.

Thankfully, as I recorded at the time, after a fightback by Forest and others the Government stood reasonably firm and refused to introduce a comprehensive national ban on smoking in licensed pavement areas.

Instead, the power to refuse a pavement licence unless the seating area is completely 'smoke free' was given to local authorities, only ten of which have chosen to impose it on local businesses.

And so to last night and some good news. Despite pressure from the usual suspects, the Government continues to resist demands to ban smoking in licensed pavement areas outside pubs and restaurants.

In the words of Earl Howe, deputy leader of the House of Lords, "I can only say that we are not persuaded yet [my emphasis] that this move would be the right one, having consulted extensively with all stakeholders involved."

You can read his full response here (scroll down to near the end) but here's a flavour:

Of course I understand very well the strength of feeling expressed by my noble friend and a number of noble Lords on the nuisance caused by the smoking of tobacco ... the Government fully recognise the importance of this issue for public health, but we also recognise the need to do what is reasonable and proportionate ... Our guidance already makes it clear that pavement licences require businesses to make reasonable provision for seating for non-smokers to ensure choice for customers.

It is also clear that ways of meeting this requirement could include clear “No Smoking” signs, the removal of ashtrays in smoke-free areas and a minimum 2-metre distance between smoking and non-smoking areas, wherever possible. Local authorities are also able to consider setting their own conditions, where appropriate, and where local decision-makers believe it is reasonable to do so ...

As my noble friend Lord Naseby rightly said, it is perfectly possible for councils to do this, and we think it is better for decisions of this sort to be taken locally so that individual circumstances are taken into account.

More important, perhaps, given that we will most likely have a new government following the next election, where does the Labour party stand on this issue?

In 2020 the party grudgingly supported the Government's position, but that has clearly changed and it's hardly a surprise. Labour, after all, is the party that introduced the indoor smoking ban in Scotland, England, and Wales.

Last night, Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, shadow Lords spokesperson for Levelling Up, Housing, Communities and Transport, told the House:

Amendment 258 would ensure that smoking and vaping does not impact on others. At the moment, pavement cafés are often marred for non-smokers, who find them difficult to use because smokers tend to see them as their own territory ...

Going into a pub garden, for example, on a warm summer evening is often a great feature of our life in this country — that is, when it is not marred by rain. But it can also be marred by clouds of cigarette smoke or vape smoke, so we have to think differently about that.

There is also the issue of the cigarette ends that smokers leave. I have never understood why smokers do not think of cigarette ends as litter. The area outside a pub is often absolutely covered in cigarette ends. So there is the question of having smoke-free areas where there are cafés, pubs and restaurants.

So there you have it. Labour supports not only a ban on smoking in licensed pavement areas but, judging from Baroness Taylor's remarks, an outdoor ban might also be extended to beer gardens and include vaping.

Either way, it's very clear – as I predicted in 2020 – that this issue won't go away.

Indeed, Lord Young was asking Earl Howe only last night to "say whether primary legislation is required if, in the future, the House wants to revisit this issue if we do not achieve this progressive measure this evening?".

Primary legislation? With the state of the economy and everything else that's going on domestically and internationally? Seriously, have they nothing better to do?

Thankfully, Forest is not alone in opposing such measures (see below), so I foresee quite a struggle over the next few years. If so, we're certainly up for it.

Banning smoking outside pubs is another step on the road to misery Britain (Joseph Dunnage, CapX), and The sad side of “smokefree” (Ben Sixsmith, The Critic)

Update: ASH reports that ‘The amendment was not pushed to a vote and will not be included in the bill’.