BBC London presenter to Labour MP: "What do you want to ban next?"

I did an interview on Friday evening with the excellent Eddie Nestor on BBC London.

It was at 6.20 and I was standing outside The Castle Inn, Cambridge, where I was having an after work drink with a colleague.

Also on was Tooting MP Sadiq Khan. Sadiq believes government should extend the smoking ban to stop people smoking in more public spaces.

Here are some highlights:

Sadiq: "Legislation changes behaviour."

Me: "You really are patronising!"

Eddie: "What do you want to ban next?"

Sadiq: "If I can discourage my children, and your children, to start smoking that is a good thing."

That says it all, really.

Of course I'd prefer my children not to smoke (until they're 18 and can decide for themselves) but it's none of Sadiq's business whether they do or not.

Focus on your own children, Sadiq, but leave mine alone.

What next? Perhaps you'd like to discourage my teenage children from drinking alcohol or eating junk food as well.

Or perhaps you'd like them taken into care as soon as they're born and their entire childhood can be supervised by the state according to some official rulebook.

Is that what you want?

Click here to listen. The discussion starts at 01:15:00.

Bold new look for Hands Off Our Packs!

Sir Cyril Chantler is understood to have delivered his report on standardised packaging last week.

The review of the evidence on the effect of plain packaging on public health was commissioned by the Government – on the instructions, we are told, of David Cameron – in November.

Sir Cyril invited submissions from all sides of the debate. This was followed by meetings with a number of interested parties.

Two officials were seconded from the Department of Health to help him.

Earlier this month he travelled to Australia where standardised packs were introduced in December 2012 and where there is still no evidence to suggest the policy has had any positive impact on public health.

Despite this, and even before Sir Cyril's report has been made public, pressure is building on government to introduce the policy.

There are a number of scenarios – which I won't go into here – but we are planning for every eventuality.

This week, for example, we are rebranding the Hands Off Our Packs campaign and launching a new microsite.

As ever, we will be appealing for your help and support.

Full details to follow. Watch this space.

Who is Andy Rowell and why is he economical with the truth?

Andy Rowell describes himself on Twitter as a "freelance writer/ investigative journalist specialising in environmental, health and lobbying issues".

He's co-author of A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism And Broken Politics In Britain.

Rowell and his co-author Tamasin Cave are directors of Spinwatch which "investigates the way that the public relations (PR) industry and corporate and government propaganda distort public debate and undermine democracy".

The advisory board of Spinwatch includes some interesting names – Caroline Lucas, Britain's first Green MP and former leader of the Green party; Guardian columnist George Monbiot; and John Pilger, contributor to the Guardian, Mirror, New Statesman and Independent.

He's also a "part-time research fellow at Bath University", home of the Tobacco Control Research Group, so it won't surprise you to learn that Rowell has written an article for the Independent on Sunday today in which he "reveals the tactics of an industry desperate to head off new rules on packaging".

Recycling information that has already been published elsewhere, Rowell writes:

Leaked documents from PMI show the extent of the sophisticated lobbying and media campaign undertaken by the industry to “ensure” that the Government does not introduce plain packaging.

“Tobacco industry whistle-blowers have revealed the underhand use of third parties, front groups and lobbyists to try to prevent new regulations for tobacco,” argued Deborah Arnott from the anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (Ash).

Messengers identified by PMI, writes Rowell, include:

... the influential campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance and the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the latter having received tens of thousands of pounds of tobacco money. The BBC, in particular, has been heavily criticised for airing the IEA’s views without disclosing its links to tobacco.

Forest gets a mention too:

Forest, predominately funded by the tobacco industry, launched a campaign called Hands Off Our Packs and hired a marketing firm to employ several hundred canvassers in dozens of locations to garner signatures to be submitted to the consultation. Their canvassing tactics have been called into question, including where signatures were forged or canvassers misrepresented how plain packaging works. Forest has condemned these incidents, saying they were “isolated”.

Bias comes in many forms and bias by omission is one of them.

For example, Rowell fails to mention a far more serious case of vote rigging – by tobacco control campaigners – which Angela Harbutt and I wrote about here and here.

He also omits to mention that the BBC's chief critic when it comes to the IEA's tobacco funding is George Monbiot, a member of the Spinwatch Advisory Board.

Another small but significant omission is the fact that the Indy describes Rowell as a "part-time research fellow at Bath University" but fails to explain exactly what he does.

In fact, he's a senior research fellow with the University's Tobacco Control Research Group, a job he shares with Dr Eveline Lubbers.

According to her profile:

Together they developed TobaccoTactics.org as a cutting-edge model of monitoring the tobacco industry, launched in June 2012.

Rowell can call himself a "freelance writer/investigative journalist" but anyone involved in an exercise like that is also a propagandist for the tobacco control industry. (See my review of Tobacco Tactics, published in October 2012.)

Then again, his obsession with the tobacco industry goes back a long way, so at least he's consistent. Here are two examples:

Tobacco explained: The truth about the tobacco industry in its own words, Clive Bates and Andy Rowell (1998)

No smoke without fire (2000): Tobacco smuggling has reached epidemic levels. But tobacco companies themselves are fuelling the trade. Andy Rowell and Rich Cookson report.

Anyway, if you want to read Rowell's article in today's Indy, go to Plain packaging: Big Tobacco prepares for ‘bare-knuckle fight’ over ban.

Planes, trains and automobiles

Skip this if you've read it before.

There's a reason I remember the introduction of the smoking ban in Ireland. I was there.

Ten years ago Sky News invited me to Dublin to take part in the Richard Littlejohn Show which was broadcast live from the famous Shelbourne Hotel on St Stephens Green on the eve of the ban.

If I remember, the ban was introduced at 6.00am on Saturday March 29, 2004, and the programme was going out at 7.00pm on Friday evening.

To give myself plenty of time I flew to Ireland on Thursday and stayed overnight with friends in Greystones, south of Dublin.

Sky had booked me a room at the Shelbourne for Friday so at noon I boarded a train at Greystones expecting to check in an hour or so later.

Instead I boarded a train going in the wrong direction.

After 15 minutes I realised what had happened. (The rolling hills of Wicklow and the absence of any housing were a bit of a clue.)

When the ticket inspector arrived I asked him where the first stop was. I think he said Wexford, which is 70 miles from Dublin.

"Not to worry," he added breezily, "I can ask the driver to drop you off before then."

And he did. A few miles down the line the train slowed to a halt and I was invited to jump off, with my two suitcases, in the middle of nowhere.

"See those houses?" the ticket inspector said, pointing to some buildings about a mile away. "You'll be able to get a bus back to Greystones from there."

The short version of the story is this:

I walked in the direction of the houses where I found a small town that was officially shut. (Remember half-day closing?)

I found a bus stop where I stood for, oh, 60 minutes waiting for a bus. In that time I saw perhaps one person and half a dozen cars.

Eventually a bus arrived and I did indeed get back to Greystones via several picturesque villages, and from there I caught a train (going in the right direction) to Pearse Station in Dublin.

Time was flying by and when I arrived it was almost six hours since I began my journey.

From Pearse Station I ran (still with my cases) from the station to the Shelbourne Hotel, a distance of about a mile.

I remember it vividly because I think it's the last time I ran anywhere. I have never breathed more heavily or sweated more profusely.

I checked in, showered, and with ten minutes to spare reported to a rather agitated Sky News producer.

The good news? There was no time to be nervous. I was just relieved to have got there on time.

The bad news? I was one of several people flown over by Sky and put up in one of Dublin's top hotels and on average we got 20 seconds each to make our point.

TV, eh?

The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur but the following morning the streets were full of English rugby supporters because England were playing Ireland that day.

There was a carnival atmosphere. It was bright and sunny and no-one seemed to mind standing outside to smoke. Then again, how many knew about the ban is debatable.

Of course it dominated the Irish media and what I remember most were the leading articles - the Irish Times in particular - revelling in the idea that Ireland was the centre of world attention, if only for one day.

It felt, to me at least, that the smoking ban had less to do with public health and more to do with putting Ireland on the map.

Now Irish politicians want the country to be the first nation in Europe to introduce plain packaging. I sense deja vu all over again.

Ireland: how the battle against the smoking ban was lost

My biggest regret as director of Forest was our failure to launch a campaign in Ireland sooner than we did.

In 2002 the threat of a public smoking ban in Ireland was clear yet few people took it seriously. It won't happen, I was told. Or, if it does, the Irish will ignore it.

This was followed by a warning: don't interfere in Ireland. They won't like the English telling them what to do.

Did they think I was stupid? I grew up in Scotland so I am well aware of the sensitivities.

Anyway, in 2001, in response to devolution, we had launched a new campaign – Scottish Forest – with a Scottish spokesman, Charles McLean. It was a short-lived project but the launch was a huge success, attracting an enormous amount of media coverage.

I was convinced we could achieve the same level of interest in Ireland. Instead we were forced to watch helplessly as others tried unsuccessfully to fight the ban.

The vintners spoke out but they were an uncoordinated lot, with one organisation representing the rural pubs and another representing Dublin-based pubs and bars.

It didn't help that they had almost no popular support.

In 2003 Forest was invited to take part in a debate at University College Dublin. It was more Comedy Store than Oxford Union but I discovered real anger towards the vintners.

Publicans were blamed for the high price of beer and there was resentment that so many members of parliament were publicans or ex-publicans.

The smoking ban, it was suggested, was an opportunity to give them a bloody good kicking.

Something else struck me. Unlike the UK, where a lot of publicans had spent good money improving ventilation or introducing no smoking areas so there more choice for non-smokers, the pub industry in Ireland had been slow to act and had done little to improve air quality or cater for non-smokers who didn't want to socialise in a smoking environment.

Another problem - shared with the UK - was that most smokers only woke up to the ban after legislation was introduced, or the moment it was enforced, by which time it was far too late.

In 2004, after the ban was introduced in Ireland, Forest was approached by a Waterford based group called SAD Ireland (aka Smokers Against Discrimination).

I met the chap behind it. He took me on a tour of Waterford pubs and showed me bars that had been forced to reduce their opening hours because elderly lunchtime customers in particular were staying away.

The old codgers who would meet on a Tuesday to smoke their pipes and play bridge in the pub had effectively been ostracised.

But they represented Old Ireland and in 2004 that was sneered at by the metropolitan elite. In many ways Ireland's smoking ban was a signal to the world: look how modern and clean living we are!

In Cork there was another group that called itself ESAD (European Smokers Against Discrimination). Again, there were only one or two people behind it and like SAD Ireland it never really got off the the ground.

Interestingly, one of them was John Mallon, now spokesman for Forest Eireann. When he's accused of being a tobacco industry stooge, John often points out that he was fighting smoking bans and defending smokers long before he had any association with tobacco companies.

This letter, published by the Irish Examiner on April 14, 2005, proves it: Smokers invited to campaign against the ban.

Back home we could do nothing to help consumers in Ireland because by 2004-5 the focus was exclusively on our UK campaign, Fight The Ban: Fight For Choice.

I'm not suggesting an earlier incarnation of Forest Eireann, which was eventually launched in 2010, would have derailed or even delayed legislation in Ireland, but it would have been nice to try.

Instead what opposition existed was easily defeated. See How the smoking ban was won (Irish Times).

I'm not sure if I fully accept this vainglorious version of history which is written, as always, by the victors. Perhaps one or two Irish readers would like to comment.

PS. To support my contention that Forest Eireann could have made a difference pre-smoking ban, here's a list of radio stations John Mallon gave interviews to in the past week:

RTE Radio 1
RTE News
NewsTalk
Kildare FM
Ocean FM
Phoenix FM

And here's a list of newspapers that have featured comments by Forest Eireann in the same period:

Irish Sunday Times
Irish Examiner
Irish Independent
Irish Daily Star
Evening Echo
The Herald
Midland Tribune
Checkout Ireland

Since the turn of the year John has also been interviewed on:

Today FM
Cork 96FM
WLR FM
Red FM
South East Radio FM
Clare FM
Mid & NorthWest Radio
Tipp FM
Northern Sound
Midlands 103
Shannonside Radio

He has also given interviews to:

Clare Champion
Longford Leader
Waterford News & Star
Tullamore Tribune

Contrast this with ten years ago. When the smoking ban was introduced in Ireland in March 2004 there was no-one representing the consumer.

Times have changed but is it too little too late? I guess we'll know in 2025, the year health minister James Reilly wants Ireland to be "smoke free" with the smoking rate reduced to five per cent or less.

Reflections on the Irish smoking ban

Today is officially the tenth anniversary of the public smoking ban in Ireland.

There's relatively little about it in the papers today because the story was covered extensively earlier in the week following a 'symposium' at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (which I wrote about on Monday).

This led to some journalists reporting that the anniversary was on March 24 which demonstrates the grip tobacco control has on the media!

Fortunately you can always rely on the Irish Examiner and today the Cork-based newspaper has published two more articles celebrating the ban.

One – by Micheál Martin, who introduced the ban and is now leader of the main opposition party Fianna Fáil – is entirely predictable.

What is breathtaking is the extent of the propaganda, then and now.

See: Many lives have been saved with smoking ban but we’ve more to do and 10 years after smoking ban, Martin questions Coalition’s commitment.

The other article, billed online as the 'top story', is headlined Smoking ban breathed new life into pubs. I'll let you read it for yourself.

Inevitably there are proprietors who have done well since the ban. Or perhaps they have increased business relative to their competitors by spending large sums of money on comfortable smoking areas.

But what about the 1000+ publicans whose bars closed in the aftermath of the ban (ie before the recession hit the country)?

Take this research published by Forest in 2010:

Using data from the Revenue Commissioners, researchers found that the number of pub losses demonstrate a very close statistical relationship between the introduction of the smoking ban in 2004 and the rapid decline of the Irish pub.

This relationship, says the report, is considerably stronger than those that could be attributed to other factors such as the recession, alcohol duty or supermarket competition, although all of these are likely to have been contributing factors.

Analysis of statistics set out in the Statistical Report on the Revenue website showed that Ireland lost 1,097 pubs in the four years following the ban.

See Smoking ban to blame for decline of Irish pub, says new research.

To put that in perspective, in 2008 1,097 pubs represented eleven per cent of Ireland's entire pub estate. Sadly those publicans are no longer in business and are therefore unavailable to debate whether the smoking ban has indeed 'breathed new life into pubs'.

Needless to say that story has not been reflected in any reports in Ireland this week. We are simply asked to accept, without dissent, that without the ban Ireland would be a poorer, unhealthier place to live.

Or, in the words of Micheál Martin:

Ten years on it is clear that the ban has been a success and that its impact has been positive and everyone can take pride in the fact that Ireland led the way in Europe on this matter.

Workplace smoking bans improve children's health, apparently

The media is reporting the results of 'new' research by tobacco control.

According to BBC News, Smoking bans cut asthma and premature births by 10%, study says.

The report is based on a press release issued by The Lancet:

The introduction of laws banning smoking in public places and workplaces in North America and Europe has been quickly followed by large drops in rates of preterm births and children attending hospital for asthma, according to the first systematic review and meta-analysis examining the effect of smoke-free legislation on child health, published in The Lancet.

The analysis of 11 studies done in North America and Europe, involving more than 2.5 million births, and nearly 250 000 asthma exacerbations, showed that rates of both preterm births and hospital attendance for asthma were reduced by 10% within a year of smoke-free laws coming into effect.

An edited version of Forest's response is included in the BBC report. Here it is in full:

"The researchers appear to have reached their conclusions by cherry-picking eleven studies to generate a highly questionable meta-analysis.

"The report suggests there has been a significant reduction in cases of childhood asthma in countries or states that have introduced comprehensive smoking bans.

"If children are exposed to second hand smoke it is mostly in the home so workplace smoking bans would have little or no impact on children.

"If the report is suggesting that environmental tobacco smoke is the only or principal cause of childhood asthma that's ridiculous.

"In the UK the number of people suffering from asthma has tripled in the last 40 years. During that same period the number of people who smoke has halved and today relatively few children are exposed to tobacco smoke in confined spaces such as homes and cars.

"Calling for more countries to introduce comprehensive smoke-free legislation is a gross over-reaction and makes little sense."

Forest is also being quoted on Radio 4's Today programme. Well, I say quoted. Our response was distilled to:

The smokers' group Forest said the study was "highly questionable".

Better than nothing, I suppose.

Diane Abbott on UKIP voters and "people like him" (points finger at me)

I was on the Daily Politics today with former Labour health spokesman Diane Abbott.

Full story to follow. But first I need a drink.

PS. Click on the image above and it will take you to this page on the BBC News website – Cigarette plain packaging: Diane Abbott and Simon Clark – where you can watch a clip of the interview.

Guido Fawkes also posted this piece: Out of touch Diane Abbott snobbishly sneers at constituents.