Forest launches six-day ad blitz

Forest has launched a six-day ad blitz urging George Osborne to rethink the government's tobacco taxation policy.

The ‘Be Fair To Smokers’ ad is part of Forest's Axe The Escalator campaign that calls on the Chancellor to stop increasing tobacco duty above inflation.

Starting today, a series of online ads will run for six days over two weeks, enjoying total exposure on the following websites and blogs: ConservativeHome, Guido Fawkes, Labour Uncut, Labourlist, Liberal Democrat Voice, Newsbiscuit, Political Betting, Standpoint Magazine and UK Polling Report.

The ads link to a microsite that enables consumers and shopkeepers to write direct to their member of parliament.

The Axe The Escalator campaign was launched by Forest last week in response to what it claims are "unfair" and "punitive" levels of tobacco taxation.

For more information click here and here.

To visit the Axe The Escalator website click here. Please visit the site and write to your MP today.

"Who are you?"

Priceless.

Brief encounter with the Taoiseach

As I mentioned in my previous post, Forest's John Mallon was in Dublin today to launch the Forest Eireann Election Manifesto.

Irish voters go to the polls in ten days and we wanted to remind candidates that 800,000 voters in Ireland smoke.

We also wanted to draw people's attention to the fact that the tobacco tax increases being proposed by the leading parties in Ireland could cost smokers an extra €1,560 a year.

I can't pretend it was headline news but our message was reported by Newstalk (Ireland's national talk radio statin), TV3, Dublin 98FM, The Nationalist, Irish Examiner and various other media.

John arrived in Dublin from Cork last night and made his way to his hotel in Kildare Street, close to the Irish parliament.

On a previous visit he got out of his taxi in Kildare Street and bumped straight into the then health minister James Reilly.

Reilly is fiercely anti-smoking and John is fiercely opposed to Reilly's particular brand of nanny state politics, yet they had a brief convivial chat before going on their way.

This morning John had another brief encounter with a leading Irish politician. He was standing in Merrion Street, outside the Irish parliament, waiting to meet a photographer, when this happened:

So there I am looking across the road to the Dail when Enda himself saunters up behind me. It was a golden opportunity to confront the man regarding his five years of persecuting smokers but I took a look at him and saw a guy under serious pressure.

So I shot the breeze gently with him, even going so far as to wish him luck. I disagree fundamentally with his party on so many things but Forest is a freedom organisation so he and his colleagues are entitled to think and say as they wish. Civility costs nothing.

See: Smokers are voters too (John Mallon).

For those unfamiliar with Irish politics, this was no ordinary politician. Enda was Enda Kenny, Ireland's Taoiseach (prime minister).

Last night, by common consent, Kenny had a fairly disastrous time of it in the televised debate. Yet here he was, the following morning, strolling up the road to the Dail from his house a few hundred yards down the road and our man was able to greet him, shake his hand and wish him well.

Can you imagine that happening with David Cameron?

My only complaint is that had the Taoiseach turned up 15 minutes later we might have got a picture of him with our ad trailer in the background!

Forest Eireann joins the manifesto club

Another day another launch.

There's an election in Ireland this month and all the leading parties seem intent on targeting smokers if they get into office.

Fine Gael, for example, will increase excise duty on tobacco by 45 cent. They plan to raise €349 million from increasing excise on cigarettes and nicotine products over five years.

Fianna Fail plan to increase excise duty on cigarettes by 90 cents over 5 years. They estimate that this will raise an extra €108m for the Exchequer.

Although it's not mentioned in their manifesto, Sinn Fein have called for the introduction of an annual tobacco tax escalator. (Sound familiar?)

Like Fine Gael, Labour also want to increase excise duty on cigarettes by 45 cent. They anticipate this will raise an additional €260 million for the Exchequer over five years.

Meanwhile the Social Democrats will launch "evidence-based" health campaigns to reduce the cost to the health service of smoking (and other things).

In response Forest Eireann is launching its own manifesto.

As I write, our spokesman John Mallon is in central Dublin where he is about to unveil a trailer bearing the message:

ONE IN FIVE VOTERS SMOKE.

I hope to have some photos to post here later.

Update: As one of its five top stories this morning Newstalk (Ireland's national independent talk radio station) reports:

Smokers' group Forest Ireland has called for a cut in taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The group says Fine Gael and Labour's proposals will mean Ireland's smokers will end up paying an extra €1,500 in tax.

They are claiming smokers are being punished for a habit they enjoy.

The same report has appeared in the Irish Examiner (Smokers group wants cut in cigarette tax) and other media outlets.

Smokers group wants cut in cigarette tax https://t.co/uJ5aTdantD pic.twitter.com/KnwNFhZV0K

— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) February 16, 2016

Be fair to smokers, George! Axe the tobacco escalator

Pleased to report the launch today of a new Forest campaign. Here's a summary:

• At least eight million adults in the UK choose to smoke tobacco, a legal consumer product.

• In the last parliament the Coalition Government maintained the tobacco duty escalator (2% above inflation) that it inherited from the previous Labour government.

• In 2011 the Chancellor implemented a one-off increase to 5% above inflation, before returning to 2% in 2012.

• During the last parliament tobacco taxation in the UK increased by more than 40%.

• The total tax on the price of the cheapest cigarettes in the UK is now 88%.

• In 2014/15 smokers in the UK paid a total of £12.1 billion in duty and VAT. According to EU Commission, the UK has the highest excise yield on cigarettes in the EU.

• Punitive taxation encourages criminal activity and fuels the black market. In 2014/15 the Government lost an estimated £2.6 billion in revenue as a result of non-UK duty paid tax on tobacco (£2.1 billion to illicit traders, £0.5 billion to legitimate cross-border shopping.)

• Illicit trade (including counterfeit cigarettes) puts children at greater risk because criminals don't respect age restrictions.

• Law-abiding consumers who buy tobacco from legitimate retailers in the UK are disproportionately penalised.

• Excessive taxation compounds poverty and increases inequality because those hardest hit are the elderly and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Ignoring the reality of the situation anti-smoking campaigners want further hikes on the cost of tobacco.

Last October, for example, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health run by ASH called for the tobacco escalator to be increased from inflation plus two per cent to inflation plus five per cent every year during the current parliament.

According to reports that could lead to packs of cigarettes costing £15 by 2020, rising to £20 (or £1-a-cigarette) a few years after that.

Axe The Escalator is a long-term campaign designed to combat these demands. We do however need your immediate support.

The next Budget is on March 16 and it's important consumers make their voices heard sooner rather than later in case the Chancellor is tempted to increase taxation above and beyond the current escalator, let alone jump off it.

Please visit the Axe The Escalator website or go direct to the 'Tell Your MP' page.

Enter your postcode and a letter will appear addressed to your MP. If you agree with it follow the instructions and we'll send it to your MP on your behalf. It should take no more than a minute or two.

In due course we will advise the Chancellor about the strength of opposition to further tax increases.

Meanwhile, here's my article for City AM, published today – Axe the tobacco tax escalator: Punitive taxation of smoking is just fuelling the black market.

There's also a news report here – Anti-smoking restrictions lobby group Forest calls on chancellor George Osborne to avoid hiking tobacco duty in next month's Budget.

Stars paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to front stop smoking campaign

A few months ago I wrote:

It was announced yesterday that more than 215,000 smokers joined Stoptober, the annual taxpayer-funded quit smoking campaign.

Many were inspired, perhaps, by the gentle coaxing of comedians Al Murray, Rhod Gilbert, Shappi Khorsandi and Bill Bailey (above). Or maybe they weren't because the number of people who signed up was 15 per cent fewer than in 2014.

Naturally Public Health England had a ready-made excuse for the relative failure of Stoptober 2015. The drop, they said, reflected the year-on-year decline in smoking rates in England.

Except it didn't because the fall in smoking rates in England in 2014-15 is nowhere near 15 per cent, a fact rightly mentioned in this report, Fewer people joined Stoptober smoking challenge (H/T journalist Peter Russell).

I concluded the post – Stoptober is proof that comedy isn't the new rock 'n' roll (and never was) – by asking, "How much does Stoptober cost the taxpayer?"

Today the Mail reports, Anti-cuts comics accused of hypocrisy for accepting thousands in taxpayer's cash to front 'nanny-state' health and safety adverts.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Update: Several years ago, seeking a speaker for a Forest event, I enquired via an agency about the cost of booking Al Murray for a 20-minute after-dinner speech.

To be fair, his Pub Landlord persona was at the height of its popularity and I don't blame him for making the most of it (market forces and all that), but was I still shocked to be quoted £35,000.

Nice work if you can get it.

Update: Al Murray has tweeted that he was paid the "going rate".

What I love though is PHE's suggestion that Murray and his fellow comedians were paid for their "developing and creating comic content".

Seriously, I can't remember anything funny about Stoptober. Can you?

More on that Smokefree South West story

Above: Friday's report on BBC Points West included a short clip of me head-to-head with Kate Knight of Smokefree South West in February 2015 but ignored Forest's response to the questionable claim that "thousands will die" if the taxpayer-funded anti-smoking group is allowed to close.

Update on the Smokefree South West story that broke on Friday.

As the BBC reported the anti-smoking group (renamed Public Health Action in November) is to close in June following the withdrawal of funding by eleven local councils.

Although I was interviewed on BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio Cornwall, I was anxious to be quoted by BBC News online because that's what people will be directed to when they search 'Smokefree South West' in the days, months and years to come.

I was supremely cheesed off therefore when BBC Bristol published a report online and there wasn't a squeak from me or anyone else in favour of the councils' sane and sensible decision.

If I was a councillor or an uninformed member of the public reading that I might have questioned the decision to withdraw financial support because there was no-one supporting it.

The reason I was particularly cross was because two days earlier the BBC's regional health correspondent had invited me to send him a comment that would be forwarded, he said, to the online newsdesk.

Twenty-four hours later I had the same conversation with a BBC radio producer who assured me she too would pass on Forest's response to the appropriate newsdesk.

To cap it all I even sent a copy direct to BBC Bristol's online newsdesk myself. And they still didn't use it!

Significantly however they did include – as the caption to the main photograph – the tendentious claim that 'The group, formerly known as Smokefree South West, has helped thousands of people to give up smoking.'

To cut a long story short, I spent the best part of an hour emailing, phoning and texting my various BBC Bristol contacts and eventually – some two hours later – the report was amended.

To be fair, the BBC wasn't alone. The ITV News website reported the story in much the same way until I had a word with the West Country newsdesk and they agreed to update their report as well.

(Visit the itv.com report, Smokefree South West to close this summer after cuts to funding. Read it without Forest's contribution – which was added several hours later – and tell me it isn't one-sided. They even included a Smokefree South West campaign video!)

So we got there in the end but it was harder work than it should have been. Impartiality comes at a price - my health!

Smokefree South West to close in June

This shouldn't come as a complete surprise but I was still a bit startled when I was told the news (in confidence) on Wednesday.

The BBC has this morning revealed that eleven councils in the south west are to stop funding the anti-smoking campaign group Smokefree South West which will close in June.

The story was reported on BBC Radio Bristol as their lead story and I 'discussed' it at 7.05 with a spokesman for Cancer Research UK who claimed it was a "disaster" for the region and predicted dire consequences.

Smokefree South West "declined to appear" which is ironic because one of the reasons I welcome their demise is because there are far too many tobacco control groups all sending out pretty much the same message.

The fact that Cancer Research could put up a spokesman rather proved my point. (ASH has also been commenting.)

CRUK is one of many anti-smoking organisations but at least they're not funded by the taxpayer. As long as we have organisations like CRUK, the British Heart Foundation and the British Lung Foundation, why on earth do we need publicly funded groups like Smokefree South West, Tobacco Free Futures (formerly Smokefree North West) and FRESH (formally Smokefree North East)? Or ASH for that matter?

More recently Smokefree South West has been sharing an office with the regional branch of Public Health England, another taxpayer-funded body.

If I'm surprised it's because I can't believe it took these councils so long to draw the obvious conclusion. Do we really need another publicly-funded quit smoking organisation in our region?

Smokefree South West must have known something was afoot because – in a sure sign of desperation – they re-named themselves Public Health Action and started campaigning on drinking as well as smoking.

Talk about loss of focus!

Truth is, the alarm bells began ringing long before that. On February 8, 2014, for example, I wrote a post entitled 'Smokefree South West battles to retain local authority funding'.

It began:

Yesterday I travelled to Bristol to record an interview for BBC1's Sunday Politics West, to be broadcast tomorrow.

On Wednesday a producer rang to tell me that councils in Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset have been reviewing the financial support they give Smokefree South West.

One council has decided to stop funding the group, another has cut its funding, and a third is considering its position.

I described the recording of the programme and my subsequent comments now seem unusually prescient:

Fiona [Andrews, director of Smokefree South West] talked about the work Smokefree South West does while I tried to question why we need a regional anti-smoking group when central government spends millions of pounds on anti-smoking campaigns and we also have ASH and other tobacco control groups doing the same work.

I could, I suppose, have listed some of them – Cancer Research, British Heart Foundation, British Lung Foundation, British Medical Association ... the list is endless.

I could also have mentioned GASP, a Bristol-based smoking cessation company that began life as a pressure group but is now a successful commercial operation that doesn't need public money (as far as I know).

But time was limited. Instead I found myself saying, in a raised voice, "You're just duplicating their work!"

I finished that particular post by asking a series of questions:

What is the point of Smokefree South West? Or Tobacco Free Futures (formerly Smokefree North West)? Or Fresh (formerly Smokefree North East)?

What additional value do any of these groups offer that is not already covered by ASH, Cancer Research, the British Medical Association etc and central government which pumps millions of pounds of taxpayers' money into a variety of tobacco control campaigns?

Why should people have to pay for anti-smoking campaigns twice – once through income tax, and again through their council tax?

Worse, a lot of this money is being spent on campaigns that effectively lobby the Department of Health to introduce policies that it already supports or is considering.

The good news is that some councils are finally getting wise to the problem and are questioning this waste (or abuse) of public funds.

Hats off to the local councillors who have seen through the propaganda. Hopefully, more local authorities follow suit.

As I say, that was two years ago and it appears that the local authorities have finally done the right thing and pulled the plug.

I'm sorry for the people who work for Smokefree South West (Fiona Andrews and her deputy Kate Knight always struck me as decent people) but I can't bemoan the loss of a group whose entire raison d'être was designed to denormalise smoking and, in turn, smokers.

Lest we forget it was Smokefree South West who persuaded the owners of two privately-run squares in Bristol to ban smoking on their property. OK, it was a "voluntary" ban but that term is meaningless. It also gave rise to suggestions of similar bans in other cities.

It was also Smokefree South West that helped set up Plain Packs Protect, the pro plain packaging campaign. Half a million pounds of public money went into that – and it took an FOI for the truth to come out.

So let's not be squeamish. This is a very good day. Let's hope several more tobacco control campaigners are sitting rather less comfortably.

Instead of relying on the taxpayer to keep them afloat they might heed what I wrote two years ago:

If Smokefree South West is running short of money I suggest they approach the pharmaceutical industry for support.

If they offer any value to the tobacco control industry I'm sure Big Pharma will be happy to plug the funding gap.

Anyway, as well as BBC Bristol I'm also on BBC Cornwall and BBC Somerset.

As you can see, this is a big story in the South West.

PS. Big H/T to Chris Snowdon and Dick Puddlecote who have also been on Smokefree South West's case for several years. Chris is now synonymous with the term sock puppet – having virtually invented it – and Smokefree South West is a classic example.

Update: We're expecting a report on the BBC News website. I'll add a link when it appears. In the meantime here's the quote I gave the BBC:

"Taxpayers already pay for NHS smoking cessation services and national anti-smoking campaigns.

"When budgets are so tight, and other services are being cut, it's difficult to justify the use of public money to support yet another tobacco control group.

"The health risks of smoking are very well known and widely publicised by other bodies including Public Health England which has a regional office in Bristol.

"In terms of public health, the impact of Smokefree South West closing will be negligible, I'm sure."

Update: Click here to listen to the interview on BBC Radio Bristol this morning.