E-cigarette company wants ban on smoking breaks at work

Research published today claims that smoking breaks cost UK employers £8.3 bn per year, with individual smokers costing a business £1,458.60 a year.

On the back of this, and according to an email I have seen, "e-cigarette brand Vapestick are piloting a brand new programme and are calling on employers to allow e-cigarette use in the workplace and ban smoking breaks to alleviate this cost".

According to the actual press release:

Not only do smoking breaks have health implications for employees and cost implications for a business, but they can also impact the cleanliness of outside spaces. E-cigarettes offer a nicotine-containing solution for smokers that doesn't require a trip outside and that doesn’t leave behind unsightly cigarette butts or the lingering smell of tobacco.

Cloudamour, one of the businesses that has taken part in the 'Vaping in the Workplace' programme, has now banned cigarette breaks during working hours "to increase productivity".

Mitchell Feldman, CEO of Cloudamour, said: "We now actively encourage all smokers within our workforce to vape at their desks instead of taking cigarette breaks outside.

"We've also noticed that our staff concentrate more in meetings because they're not thinking about their next cigarette break and [it] goes without saying that our outside areas are cleaner than most and staff don't smell of tobacco.

We actually don't allow employees to take time out during the working day for cigarette breaks now and even subsidise our staff's Vapestick purchases to encourage our team to stop smoking altogether and vape instead."

The press release continues:

Michael Clapper, co-founder of Vapestick, Chairman of the Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association (ECITA) and President-International at Victory Electronic Cigarettes Corporation said:

"At Vapestick we are calling on all employers to actively encourage smokers to use e-cigarettes in the workplace, in order to reduce smoking breaks, which not only have serious financial implications but also of course damage the health of employees."

A decade ago I remember commenting on workplace initiatives that effectively forced smokers to go on smoking cessation programmes. If I remember, employers were also encouraged to subsidise or even give staff free nicotine patches.

'Vaping in the Workplace' is just another smoking cessation programme based on the dubious claim that smokers who take three cigarette breaks a day are costing their employer, on average, £5.61 per day.

What's interesting is that Vapestick, whose founder is chairman of the Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association, are not just promoting their brand of e-cigarette, they are actively encouraging the prohibition of smoking during the working day.

Commercially it might make sense. In the greater scheme of things, it stinks.

Anyway, this was Forest's response:

"All workers are entitled to a break and a smoking break gives many smokers a chance to think and refocus. Far from costing their employer money, it can be time well spent.

"Electronic cigarettes offer a useful alternative to smoking and there are some very good arguments why employers should tolerate their use in and around the workplace.

"However, making ludicrous claims about how much smoking breaks cost employers will not endear smokers to this particular company.

"E-cigarettes are a great invention but insulting your target audience, many of whom are dual users of both devices, is a funny way to market a product."

Another Tory defects to Ukip and this time it's personal (a personal friend)

A report published today suggests that Ukip will retain more than half its current support at the General Election.

See: General election 2015: Will this be Ukip's year? (Telegraph)

As it happens I went to a Ukip meeting last Friday. Entry was free but you had to pre-register. A friend of mine got tickets - Farage was speaking - and it seemed rude not to go.

I was curious too. Nigel has spoken at several Forest events but I wanted to see him address a predominantly Ukip audience.

Well, the Burgess Hall in St Ives near Cambridge was packed. The car park was full and we had to park on the grass in an overflow area.

We arrived ten minutes before the scheduled start and stood at the back, unable to find a seat. I recognised at least two friendly faces – Tim Aker and Michael McGough – and said hello.

There was a range of age groups, though it would be fair to say the majority were middle-aged or older.

"Fruitcakes" and "nutters" were thin on the ground - or being remarkably discreet, which hardly fits the stereotype.

Two minutes before the meeting began we were asked to move, "for health and safety reasons".

We were taken upstairs to a large L-shaped balcony that overlooked the hall. Even there it was standing room only and a line of chairs kept us as far from the stage as possible in case we were tempted to throw something.

When the meeting began there were four people on stage - the regional Ukip chairman; Patrick O'Flynn, former political editor at the Daily Express and now a Ukip candidate in the European elections; Paul Sykes, the businessman who paid for the Ukip posters on immigration; and - to my surprise - Daily Mail journalist Simon Heffer.

Heffer was the first speaker. O'Flynn, touted as a potential successor to Farage, was next. Like Heffer, he was quietly effective. Then it was Farage's turn.

The Ukip leader entered the hall to a warm rather than rapturous reception and did what he does very well. He engaged with the audience and they clearly liked him, but some of his gags are wearing a little thin if you've heard them before.

The principal butt of his jokes is Nick Clegg and it's clear that Ukip hope to push the Lib Dems into fourth place in terms of votes at the General Election. Whether that translates into seats is another matter. Farage admitted that Ukip's best strategy for General Elections is to target certain areas, as the Lib Dems have done, which could take years to bear fruit.

Then it was time for questions selected at random from a plastic purple bucket. Needless to say the questions were all directed at Farage which must have been galling for O'Flynn who became increasingly anonymous as the evening went on.

The mood of the meeting was neither euphoric nor triumphant. There was little sense of rebellion either.

In fact, despite the regular applause, I thought it was a bit muted. I sensed not an uprising but the sadness of people who feel disenfranchised and Ukip, for all its faults, is the only credible alternative.

The electorate isn't stupid, though. Even the hundreds of people who turned out on a Friday night in Cambridgeshire - quite an achievement, I should add - know the party's limitations.

We left a few minutes before the end to avoid a mini stampede and a potential traffic jam.

On the way home my friend spoke warmly of Farage and praised his speech. I thought it was good but unremarkable. Gary dismissed my comments. "You're the most cynical person in the world," he scoffed.

So let me tell you a bit about my friend Gary.

I've known him for a long time, we were at university together. When he graduated Gary got a job with Arthur Andersen (now Accenture). Then he joined the army, training at Sandhurst, serving in Northern Ireland.

I visited him once. It was a strange weekend. I stayed in the Officers Mess and it was all very civilised. However, as soon as we left the security of the base, in an unmarked car, reality hit home.

Two-thirds of the Province was out of bounds for off duty members of the British army so sightseeing was restricted to a well-trodden route between Belfast and Giants Causeway.

When he left the army Gary studied for an MBA and became an IT consultant. Today he describes himself as a digital monetiser.

Significantly – and this is the point of the story so hang in there – when I first met him Gary was an active member of the Federation of Conservative Students. Years later – after he left the army – he became a Conservative councillor on Watford Council.

In the 1992 General Election he stood as the Tory candidate in Eccles, a safe Labour seat in Greater Manchester. (A week before Election Day he interrupted his campaign to attend my wedding in Glasgow!)

Having tried and failed to get selected for a safe seat (he came second to the chosen candidate in five Conservative seats) he refused to sulk and spent the '97 Election campaign working as a paid official for the Scottish Conservative party in Edinburgh.

In short, no-one could have grafted so hard for the Conservative cause or nailed their colours so firmly to the Tory mast. He even joined the army to give himself a better chance of becoming a Tory MP. How's that for dedication!

Eventually even Gary's renowned optimism deserted him. His interest in current affairs has never waned (he's a newsaholic) but he became disillusioned with UK politics in general and the Conservative party in particular.

Today his enthusiasm for party politics has returned and the reason, unlikely as it seems to a cynic like me, is Ukip.

I've yet to make that journey myself but there are hundreds of thousands of people just like Gary – many of them holding the balance of power in marginal seats – and here's the rub.

Friday night demonstrated that even in a Conservative heartland like Huntingdonshire, Ukip is engaging with people in a way the three mainstream parties can only dream about.

I don't think Farage was on top form but he was still an engaging presence. More important, sharing the platform with him were two serious political journalists, one a supporter, the other a Ukip candidate in his own right.

Just as significant is the extent to which the mainstream parties – Conservative and Labour – continue to haemorrhage supporters to the new kid on the block.

I'm still not convinced Ukip will be with us in ten or 15 years (I hope not because it will mean we are still in the EU!), but the fact that my old friend has abandoned any thought of voting for the party he worked so hard for and represented for so many years in favour of a party with no MPs and no prospect of even sharing power for a generation or more says a lot about David Cameron's ability to alienate traditional Tory voters.

And as today's study shows, they won't be returning any time soon.

Another 'health' group wants to ban e-cigs in public places

Another day, another story about e-cigarettes.

Actually there are several articles, including opinion pieces, but the one I'm focussing on concerns the Royal Environmental Health Institute for Scotland.

Speaking ahead of the organisation's annual conference in Edinburgh president Colin Wallace said:

"We fully back the decision to ban e-cigarettes from Commonwealth Games venues but it needs to go further."

Further? Yes, the REHI wants the ban extended to advertising near Glasgow 2014 venues.

The Herald asked Forest to respond and records my quote as follows:

Simon Clark of the smokers' group Forest said the government should resist the temptation to over-regulate the use and promotion of e-cigarettes saying there is no evidence they are harmful to the user or anyone else.

"Banning e-cigarettes in non-smoking environments makes no sense because the product is very different to tobacco. There's no combustion, no smoke, and no evidence that vaping encourages anyone to start smoking," he said.

"Nicotine can be addictive but on its own it's no more harmful than caffeine. Politicians need to regulate accordingly.

ASH Scotland is absent from reports of this story, which appears in the several Scottish newspapers, which is a pity. I would love to have read their response.

As I reported at the weekend, ASH Scotland's current position is curious. They oppose a ban on the use of e-cigarettes in public places yet support bans on e-cigarettes in, er, public places, including the Commonwealth Games.

According to chief executive Sheila Duffy "There's not enough evidence of harm at this stage to include them in the ban on smoking tobacco in enclosed public places."

Yet she supports prohibition "because the devices could undermine the smoking ban by causing confusion about whether a customer is puffing on a real cigarette".

See: ASH Scotland's Kafkaesque position on electronic cigarettes

Lifestyle freedoms – why won't the centre right fight?

According to yesterday's Mail on Sunday, Labour has "secret plans" for a crackdown on drinking, smoking and junk food:

Leaked documents obtained by the Mail on Sunday show the Labour leader is proposing sweeping new laws to force people to live healthier lives if he wins next year’s General Election.

According to the paper, the Labour health blueprint includes:

• A total ban on the current £300 million sports sponsorship by drinks firms.
• Minimum alcohol price to stop ‘pre-loading’ by young drinkers.
• Banning supermarkets from selling drinks near the door, or sweets at the tills.
• New laws to curb the amount of sugar, fat and salt in food aimed at children – and a 9pm watershed for TV adverts for unhealthy products that might appeal to youngsters.
• Lottery cash to build skateboard parks.
• Aiming to get half the population to take regular exercise within ten years.
• A goal that children born from next year will be the ‘first smoke free generation’.

You can read the full report here: Labour's nanny state plan for drinkers, smokers and 'unhealthy' eaters ... Red Ed says we will FORCE you to get fit

Curiously there has been very little comment about these proposals which is odd because Labour's lurch towards lifestyle socialism should be seized upon by Conservative commentators as a perfect opportunity to put clear blue water between the parties at the next general election.

Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator and a good lightning rod for centre right opinion, had a great opportunity to denounce Labour's nanny state tendencies when he reviewed the papers on Sunday AM.

Instead he flunked it. Yes, he drew attention to the story – he could hardly miss it, it was the lead story on the front page – but he offered no comment, no condemnation, nothing, despite being given an open goal to do so.

Sad, but not surprising.

Isabel Hardman, assistant editor of The Spectator and editor of the magazine's Coffee House blog, is even worse when it comes to expressing a strong political opinion.

The last time I saw her, also on Andrew Marr's sofa, she was sitting alongside the Guardian's Owen Jones saying very little and nothing to remember.

Say what you like about Jones, he fights his corner. You know where he stands and he's very good at it.

Like Nelson, Hardman observes what's going on but she doesn't engage. They both come across as thoughtful and nice but they're no street fighters. If I was asked what either of them believe in I would struggle to respond.

That's pretty shocking given they represent the English-speaking world's oldest and arguably most prestigious centre right periodical.

In this respect they reflect the ineffectiveness of David Cameron to articulate what he actually thinks.

Talking of the English-speaking world, Dan Hannan wrote a book entitled Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World.

Earlier this year on a visit Down Under he thanked "the people of Australia – most of them, at any rate – for keeping fast to the heritage of liberty".

It was the sort of speech Hannan is very good at – making a friendly audience feel good about themselves.

I'd like him to read Chris Snowdon's article, Australia – the world’s number one nanny state. The country may have elected a new prime minister since then but has anything really changed?

Truth is, lifestyle socialism is being embraced worldwide and much of it is being advanced by the English-speaking peoples, including those on the centre right.

I suspect there's an element of unwitting snobbery involved (smoking, obesity and excessive drinking are sins of the poor) but I also think most conservatives are paternalists at heart, just as – post war – most Tories embraced Keynsian economics.

It took 20 years – from the mid Fifties to the mid Seventies – before free market economics was accepted by mainstream Conservatives.

During that period Tory governments did nothing to roll back the socialist state that Labour had built.

Today there is a similar reluctance to stop and reverse the tide of lifestyle socialism. Even in Australia – home of Tony Abbott, Dan Hannan's current hero – there is nothing to celebrate in this area.

Abbott could have made a difference – abandoning plain packaging of tobacco, for example – but like many conservatives he meekly accepts the status quo.

It frustrates me that with relatively few exceptions Conservatives in the media, in central and in local government have apparently lost the will to fight excessive regulation.

Meanwhile, as a reader for 40 years, I have given up hoping The Spectator will inspire the revolution.

Why risk all those corporate ads and 'special events' when you can sit on the fence and take the money?

Even among genuine libertarians there's a remarkable inability to fight socialists tooth and nail.

When Tony Benn died it was respectful to reflect on his life without the sort of hatred expressed by some when Margaret Thatcher died.

What I didn't expect was a prominent right wing libertarian to declare, without irony, 'Tony Benn, freedom fighter'.

Freedom fighter? Know your enemies, that's all I'll say, and never give them an inch, even when they become 'national treasures'.

Pro e-cigs, anti tobacco - whatever happened to the pleasure principle?

Every few weeks I have a little whinge about the lack of support smokers get from the more vocal advocates of e-cigarettes.

Smoking bans, display ban, plain packaging. Silence.

Some, of course, are fully paid up members of the tobacco control industry so I expect nothing less.

Many however are ex-smokers – now vapers – and I expect more of them, although we all know that ex-smokers can be among the most sanctimonious, puritanical people on the planet.

Anyway, with some honourable exceptions there are relatively few vapers willing to speak out on behalf of smokers so I was pleased to read this:

We have to start thinking straight.

I believe I am still a smoker that uses the new and better smoking system. This is the same reason I use an electric iron rather than the old ones filled with hot coals we used on the farm when I was a kid. Electric irons are clean and easy to use. They are modern. They are better in every way to the old fashioned irons.

I vape because I like it. I liked smoking too. As a human in charge of my own pleasure, I should have the power to decide which pleasures I like and how I want to perform them. I actually do not vape as a harm reduction thing. I vape because it is more convenient and just as pleasurable as smoking. I use an electric iron because it's easier and better - but if people want to iron with one filled with coals, I'm happy with that.

See: Are you a smoker that vapes? Or are you an anti-smoker? (Vapingpost)

Anyway, still on the subject of e-cigs, I was interviewed yesterday by the Scottish Sun.

They wanted to feature my thoughts in a head-to-head debate with someone who no doubt favours the precautionary principle – knee jerk ban while the authorities await evidence that the product harmful.

The article isn't online so I haven't seen it and I've no idea who my opponent is. It could be Sheila Duffy, CEO of ASH Scotland.

Duffy has been pontificating about e-cigs for a while now. Unlike ASH London, whose position has softened dramatically – possibly as a result of the flack they were getting – ASH Scotland is strongly opposed to the use of e-cigarettes.

Recognising, perhaps, that their position is untenable, Duffy is doing her best to sound conciliatory. Writing in the Edinburgh Evening News this week, she says:

As yet, we don’t have reliable evidence on the long-term impacts of inhaling e-cigarette vapour, although it is highly unlikely to carry the kinds of risks we see with tobacco smoke.

Don't get your hopes up, vapers. Duffy and ASH Scotland still support a ban on e-cigarettes in 'public' places if only "to avoid causing confusion when enforcing the ban on smoking".

Nevertheless she concludes her article with this get out of jail card:

ASH Scotland, like the NHS and other organisations, will continue to adapt our response to this fast-emerging category of products as the body of research evidence grows.

The question is, who's going to conduct this "body of research"? My guess is the tobacco control industry sees e-cigarettes as its next cash cow with large sums of public money being channelled in its direction to conduct all manner of reviews and impact assessments.

On top of that I expect a rash of e-cig conferences - at home and abroad - featuring the usual suspects.

Spin that out for a few years and everyone's happy. Like the EU, nicotine control is a gravy train that needs constant refuelling.

One final point. Whenever I talk to journalists or broadcasters about e-cigarettes I seem to attract criticism from some vapers who go on Twitter and bleat, 'Why is Forest talking about e-cigarettes?'

Well, Forest isn't denying anyone a voice. All we do is respond to questions and/or requests for interviews from journalists and broadcasters. And we do it because we represent smokers and many smokers vape.

In fact, according to the latest ASH/YouGov survey, two-thirds of vapers smoke so it could be argued that Forest represents a substantial majority of the vaping community, unlike those advocates who have turned their backs on smokers or were never a friend of the smoker in the first place.

Forest is an organisation that supports choice so we also defend an adult's right to choose between a range of recreational nicotine products, none of which is more important than another.

What a pity more active vapers don't see it that way instead of declaring, on their Twitter profile, 'Anti tobacco, pro e-cigs'.

Make tobacco obsolete and campaigners will simply turn their attention to the next nicotine product to which consumers are allegedly addicted.

Make no mistake, public health campaigners want to control your nicotine consumption, in whatever form it comes.

Increasingly I see conferences being organised that bring together vaping 'experts' and nicotine control campaigners. It's an alliance that is sure to end in tears. The reason is this:

When did you last hear a tobacco control or harm reduction advocate talk about "pleasure"? It's a word that does not exist in their vocabulary.

To a public health campaigner e-cigarettes are a necessary evil because they help some smokers quit tobacco.

But in their eyes vapers are still addicted to nicotine and that's almost as bad. The notion that people derive pleasure from nicotine is incomprehensible because - to them - it's incompatible with a long and rewarding life.

"Pleasure? What nonsense! These people are addicted and it's our job to get them off drugs unless they're sold in a pharmacy and manufactured by one of those nice thingummy giants."

All too often vapers who no longer smoke talk about e-cigs largely in terms of harm reduction.

It's an important factor, true, but if we want e-cigarettes to be classified as recreational as well as medicinal advocates of vaping should focus on pleasure too.

Pleasure, after all, is one of the things that keeps people smoking. (Other factors include habit and occasionally, I admit, addiction.)

Pleasure has to be a reason why some people vape because it can't just be about harm reduction, although that is certainly a factor.

Smoking and vaping clearly bring pleasure (or comfort) to a lot of people so when someone says they are "pro e-cigs" but "anti tobacco" they are demonstrating a shocking lack of empathy for those who also seek pleasure from nicotine, albeit in a combustible form.

Despite this intolerance they are feted by some in the vaping community as if it's perfectly acceptable.

Well, it's not. Reap what you sow, and all that.

Sermon over.

Deborah in the dock!

Here's a photo of ASH CEO Deborah Arnott.

At first glance she looks like a defendant arguing her case in the dock of a courtroom.

No such luck.

Yesterday British American Tobacco held its AGM and ASH took the opportunity to organise a small demo and post some pictures that are described as follows:

Young people protesting outside the BAT AGM at Banqueting House, Whitehall, before meeting MPs at the Palace of Westminster.

This morning The Filter, which is part of ASH Wales, tweeted:

Here are ASH's photos from the BAT AGM yesterday, some great shots of youth activism!

Click here to see the best of British youth.

And Deborah.

Also in Committee Room 10, the cream of Britain's anti-smoking parliamentarians:

Bob Blackman MP (Conservative), Paul Burstow MP, Julian Huppert MP (Lib Dem), and Lord Rea, Kevin Barron MP, Alex Cunningham MP (Labour).

David Cameron's former chief of staff to speak at Forest Freedom Dinner

Delighted to announce the first confirmed speaker for this year's Freedom Dinner.

Alex Deane is head of public affairs at Weber Shandwick but he's best known to readers of this blog as the founding director of Big Brother Watch and David Cameron’s first chief of staff.

Today Alex advises some of the biggest companies in the UK. He's also an elected Common Councilman in the City of London.

Alex has appeared on BBC Breakfast, The Politics Show, Newsnight, the Today programme, Any Questions, ITV News, Channel 4 News and Sky News.

Now in its third year The Freedom Dinner takes place at Boisdale of Canary Wharf on Tuesday July 15.

Previous speakers have included Claire Fox (Institute of Ideas), Mark Littlewood (Institute of Economic Affairs), Lord Bell (former advisor to Mrs Thatcher and Ronald Reagan) and General Sir Mike Jackson (former head of the British Army).

The Freedom Dinner is organised by Forest and supported by The Free Society and the IEA. Tickets go on sale very soon so watch this space for more details.

Simple vandalism or race hate crime?

A European election candidate has been arrested in Winchester.

According to the Daily Mail, Paul Weston, chairman of Liberty GB, was arrested "for failing to comply with their request to move on under the powers of a dispersal order made against him".

He was also "detained on suspicion of racial harassment" after quoting a passage from Winston Churchill's 1899 book The River War.

I'm not going to get into the rights and wrongs of Weston's arrest. Dan Hannan has a go here (Britain has just witnessed a political arrest. Where is the liberal outrage?) and I don't entirely agree with him.

Truth is, it's a bit naive to turn up with a megaphone on the steps of the local guildhall and not expect to be moved on. To describe it as a "political arrest" is stretching things, irrespective of what may or may not have been said.

The reason I mention this story is because a friend recently drew my attention to something he had written in 2012 and I've been looking for a topical peg on which to hang it. (This isn't it but I shall press on. It's a slow news day.)

What he told me was this: two cars in his street had been damaged by someone scratching the words 'frog' and 'Nazi' on, respectively, a Renault and a BMW.

The assumption among neighbours was that drink had been involved and this was an example of petty vandalism. However the Community Support Officer decided it was a race hate crime and logged it as such.

Now, I've no idea what motivated the person to vandalise those cars (it can't have been envy because who would envy the owner of a Renault Espace!) but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion it was motivated by racial hatred.

Unfortunately that's what the police seem to do these days when a better description (in this instance) might have been 'drunken, moronic prank'.

See: Race hate or plain criminality (Gary Ling)

As for Paul Weston of Liberty GB, the best place for him is Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. (Perhaps the authorities could allocate a similar space for him in Winchester.) If he gets arrested there we really do have a problem.

PS. I shouldn't have to say this but I will, in case anyone gets the wrong impression about my attitude to racial hatred, which I do not take lightly.

One of the few things I'm proud of having done is getting a fellow 'supporter' thrown out of a football ground for racially abusing an opposition player.

The player was Basile Boli, the opposition was Rangers, and it was a pre-season 'friendly'!