Dick Puddlecote

E-Cigs: Cottage Industry To Big Business

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:07:00 +0000

Snowdon reported the Lorillard purchase of US e-cig company Blu Ecigs last month, noting quite rightly that this could be a boon for the industry.

The Lorillard buy-out is good news, especially if they pump serious money into developing better products. I've said before that e-cigarettes can replicate the sensation of smoking very well but there's room for improvement when it comes to taste (at least to these lips, many thousands of people disagree). I fully expect e-cigarettes to come on leaps and bounds in the next few years unless they are suppressed by the prohibitionists.

There have, however, been fears expressed by some vapers that there is something sinister going on.

I own a fairly successful business myself, and have always thought these fears not only far-fetched, but also rather naïve, considering some of those expressing them have been loudly trumpeting e-cigs as 'the future' for quite a while now.

As Lorillard CEO Murray Kessler expresses in this fascinating and highly recommended Ecig Advanced video, why would a major listed company not want to be on board with such a hugely promising product? Or indeed, 'the future'?

His promise of placing Blu Ecigs in every retailer in the US is not so bold when coupled with the fact that, as highlighted by the ever-vigilant SteveVape, their potential has been noted by investment heavyweights UBS and Wells Fargo.

In their investor report [pdf], UBS are particularly upbeat about the massive continuing increase in sales.

(1) Since being introduced to the US from China in 2007, the e-cig category has been growing in triple-digit territory, reaching an estimated $250 mm during 2011 and is expected to double to $500 mm by the end of 2012. Looking ahead the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association expects the category to quadruple by mid 2014.

Or, if you'd prefer something more readily digestable ...

So mahoosive are the amounts of cash being discussed that it eclipses even tobacco industry sales of alternatives such as chew, snus and dissolvables. And growing at an alarming (for grinchy smoke-haters) or exciting (for vapers) rate, depending on your point of view. The sales growth is certainly not restricted to the US either, it's a western phenomenon which has even reached Peterborough!

Now, if anyone truly believes that Lorillard would buyout a fraction of that market for $135m in a futile attempt to close the industry down, David Icke probably has a spare turquoise shell suit they could borrow.

No. As I've said many times before, the popularity of e-cigs, and the loyal support they engender, has attracted extremely big players to the market. So much so that e-cigs are becoming a nicotine juggernaut which it would be irresponsible to halt, if not impossible.

Of course, even in a scenario where harm is reduced and happiness is distributed more widely, there will still be losers.

Fortunately, they will mostly come from the ranks of hysterical tobacco industry-hating dinosaurs who still live their lives in the 60s and 70s. The types who produce desperate press releases in a pathetic bid to stay in control of a world which has moved on from their obsessive prejudice; the types who would rather see hundreds of thousands die rather than allow tobacco companies to profit from harm reduction and also insist on e-cig bans; and the plainly mad.

There's also this guy.

In the current climate of inexorable e-cig growth, that tweet - which I'll admit to taking great delight in publishing on a regular basis - could become legendary.

Additionally, now that tobacco companies are increasingly moving into the business - which can arguably only enhance its profile and appeal - one wonders where that leaves passionate e-cig afficionados like the Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association (ECITA). In March, their representative thought it a clever move to pitch e-cigs to EU Commissioner John Dalli - who is already more than sceptical about recreational nicotine - by describing the tobacco industry as "Big Death", with some of those very same companies soon to be big hitters for e-cig promotion in attendance.

Perhaps the biggest argument yet for involvement from more professional advocates, I'd say.

All things considered, it's an interesting time for vapers. Big business weighing in with hefty financial investment looks set to transform a little-known niche product into something far more visible and part of everyday life than it is now. From cottage industry status, the electronic cigarette could be on the verge of breaking into the big time.

Miserablist School Produces Results

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:42:00 +0000

In February last year, I reported on a summit organised by ASH Scotland to teach anti-alcohol campaigners how to be as successful as the tobacco control industry. The original link has now been removed, but it was announced with much fanfare at the time.

Alcohol Focus Scotland, ASH Scotland and Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems are pleased to announce a joint conference which will consider what progress has been made in alcohol control and tobacco control and explore what each sector might learn from the other.

Of course, there isn't much anti-smokers need to be taught about creating mythical hazards backed by statistical chicanery, so the flow of information was almost certainly one way. As a result, the temperance movement appear to have learned quite a lot if Alcohol Focus Scotland's latest newsletter [pdf] is anything to go by.

Do tactics like this seem recognisable to you?

A new report from Alcohol Concern, Making an Impression, shows that children as young as 10 are more familiar with some leading alcohol brands and adverts than those for popular foods and snacks.

The number of children able to identify alcohol branding and advertising was comparable to, and in some cases, greater than those who recognised brands and advertising for products known to appeal to children, such as ice cream and cake.

Hmmm. Do you think this might be a heavy hint towards advertising bans, restrictions on display and even one day in the future - because those brands, you see, they're so very dangerous - plain packaging of alcohol?

Well, there wouldn't be much point to their 'research' if not, would there?

Alcohol Concern’s Mark Leyshon said: “The drinks industry asserts very strongly that it doesn’t aim its advertising at children. However, this new study provides more evidence that alcohol marketing messages are getting through to young people well before they are legally able to buy alcohol. Research shows that children who are exposed to alcohol advertising and promotion are more likely to start to use alcohol, have positive expectations about alcohol, and to drink more if they are already using alcohol.

Ah, the old 'industry is knowingly corrupting children' angle. We know a current campaign exploiting the same mendacious ploy, don't we, lads and lasses?

Perhaps alcohol puritans are salivating at the prospect of being bunged their own £2.5m from the taxpayer to hoist billboards all over the country lobbying for something which only a negligible minority of intolerant, anti-social prodnoses would consider remotely worthwhile.

The drinks industry will have valid reasons for resisting such pathetic self-enriching, duplicitous nonsense from these tax spongers but, you guessed it, the tobacco control template is there before them.

[Dr Evelyn Gillan, Chief Executive Alcohol Focus Scotland said], ... despite minimum pricing being the will of the governments both north and south of the border and enjoying the support of doctors, nurses, the police, children’s charities and others, sections of the alcohol industry continue to threaten legal action. The lobbying power of global corporations is well documented and unfortunately all too often results in decisions being taken which favour business interests over the public interest. If the global alcohol producers and retailers persist in seeking to thwart laws which are likely to confer significant health benefits on the people of Scotland and the rest of the UK, they risk going down the same path as the tobacco industry.

The language is so uncannily familiar, it's almost déjà vu, eh? .

"All your business is belong to us" is about the gist of it. If the alcohol industry rightly claims that their detractors are absurd - and that it is long past time someone in government put them firmly back in their box - these rancid people-hating whingers will re-categorise respected businessmen as child-killers. No bag of jelly babies for spotting where this method has been employed before, I'm afraid.

Naturally, politicians will see straight past such hideous and miserable sophistry, yes?

During the Stage 1 debate in Parliament, Willie Rennie made a direct plea to the alcohol industry to stop lobbying against the measure: “I would appeal to the industry - do not go down the route of the tobacco industry and fight this tooth and nail, because there is a will in this parliament to deliver it. I appeal to them: Let’s get on with it.”

Well, no. Of course not. Because politicians are idiots.

It's clear that there's only one way this is all going. There will be a minimum price for alcohol; there will be a ban on advertising all alcohol products at some point; there will be a display ban for alcohol too; and there will be gruesome warnings on bottles of wine because alcohol prohibitionists have a precedent to help push for all of them. Swiftly followed by plain packaging unless politicians stop being dickheads long enough to realise it's a pointless and wholly miserable idea.

What's more, it doesn't matter if the alcohol industry lays down and lets it all wash over them quickly - as alcohol campaigners would wish - or fights it every step of the way. They will still be portrayed as evil big business preying on the misery and suffering of little children. It's a vital component of the whole process.

If the industry is seen as responsible, alcohol control salaries don't get paid and conservatories, loft conversions, circular drives don't get built. The new top-of-the-range car is put on hold and the dining out at Michelin restaurants at the taxpayers' expense becomes more rare. The creation of an opponent allied with Beelzebub to entrap kids is indispensable to prohibitionist wealth creation. Appeasement is entirely futile.

It's what was taught at the tobacco/alcohol summit. It's all part of the plan.

Politicians: The Real Stranger Danger For Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 22 May 2012 17:01:00 +0000

There are some things we subversively discuss here which are very irritating, but still others which are so obscene that it makes me weep for the future those younger than us will be forced to live in.

It's taken me a while to properly catch up on Lenore Skenazy's recent articles, but this kind of perverted attitude really grips my shit, so it's worth reproducing it in full.

I was accused of abusing a child when I rescued him from drowning. I was swimming on beach and I noticed a 8 or 9 year old kid come off his little surf board and he sunk straight to the bottom, about 10 feet deep. I swam down and rescued the kid and swam him back to the beach.

As soon as I got the child to the beach he was crying and coughing up water, his mother ran down screaming to leave her boy alone. She was screaming at me so loudly that people were crowding around to see what had happened. At this time the life guards turned up and I advised them what happened as I could not talk any sense to the mother. The life guards took the boy and mother to the life guard hut and I went back to my towel on the beach.

One of the life guards came back to me 10 minutes later and ask me to stay where I am because the police have been called and the mother wants to press charges. The cops turned up 20 minutes later and interviewed me and at that time another lady came up to the police and corroborated my story. The cops let me go, no apology from mother who was marching off the beach arguing with the cops after they told her what happened.

If it was not for the other lady I believe I would be sitting in a police cell for rescuing a kid.

"Leave her boy alone", she said. Great, so there'd be a possibility of his being a dead boy.

This is a story from America, but you just know that the scenario is equally likely to have happened here. The first I noticed this pathetic parental attitude was back in around 1990 when - with my partner of the time - I attempted to soothe a child who had lost her Mummy in Sainsbury's. When the daft cow turned up, she yanked the kid away and gave us the filthiest look I've ever seen.

This, of course, two decades before the hysterical paedohysteria we see now with the entire population being condemned as kiddie-fiddlers until they are proven otherwise. In fact, nowadays, just a wild accusation can land you with a record which makes you unemployable.

It's part of a vile underbelly of filthy distrust which I have touched upon regularly on this blog, and which leads inevitably to childhood self-reliance being curtailed thanks to the selfishness of idiot elders.

All encouraged by politicians who are blindly ignorant to the nasty society they are creating with kneejerk policies which create child harm from an almost non-existent threat.

In 2008, a report for Civitas, a think tank, said the increasing use of such checks had created an atmosphere of suspicion among parents, many of whom were volunteers at sports and social clubs, and who found themselves regarded as "potential child abusers".

I don't use the term 'child harm' lightly, either. There is ample evidence that such hysteria leads to everyday situations where kids suffer real harm over fears of a risk so vanishingly small that it is literally one in a million.

On average 11 children are killed by a stranger each year in the UK (and there are more than 11 million children in the UK), a figure that has not increased since the 1970s. Statistically children are more at risk of abuse from someone they know. Of course the murder or abuse of any child is a tragedy but the actual statistics do imply that our parental anxieties about stranger danger are misplaced.

Conversely, a population scared to step in for fear of being branded a sex pest contributes to tragedies like this, not to mention the numerous lives destroyed as a result of a society obsessed with dirty-minded suspicion.

As a nation, we have shifted from a position where it is a moral imperative to look after kids where one sees them to be in trouble, to one where it is far wiser to look the other way.

Spineless politicians did that. Hurried into it by pathetic idiots who see non-existent paedos behind every hedge and - indeed, on every public beach - thereby contributing to a culture of irrational fear which destroys us all, along with communities which for centuries have been naturally disposed to looking after them.

Would you, for example, come to the aid of a kid in the current atmosphere of stranger terror?

I know I'd think long and hard before doing so.

'Non-Existent' Slippery Slope Spotted in South Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:25:00 +0000

Someone in South Africa isn't following the tobacco control script.

The planned use of graphic images on cigarette packs to show the effects of tobacco should be extended to alcohol products as it is more cancerous than tobacco, says the SA Dental Association (Sada).

It said that while smoking increased the risk of people developing cancer up to five times the norm, alcohol usage elevated the risk of contracting mouth cancer ninefold, making alcohol more dangerous.

Professor André van Zyl, Sada’s spokesman, who is also an associate at the School of Dentistry at Pretoria University, said that given the impact of alcohol on health, particularly that of young people who were smoking dagga, there was now an urgency to also put graphic images of cancer on alcoholic beverages similar to those proposed for tobacco products.

No, no no, Professor. Didn't you know that "tobacco is not like any other product" and that no precedent arises out of regulations towards it? Smokefree experts have said so.

As such, no-one will be looking at tobacco legislation and demanding the same for any other product, what a silly notion! Oh, hang on.

See, despite reality continually proving them wrong, the slippery slope is a fiction according to smokefree fantasists. Especially in a laid-back, liberty-loving Britain known worldwide for its complete lack of dictatorial, state-funded health bastards, eh? I mean, I can't remember the last time I read or heard some miserable cock droning on about restricting alcohol, sugar, salt or fast food. Can you?

H/T @Dr_Knows_Best

How To Rig The Evidence For A Consultation

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:45:00 +0000

Right.

We now know the public consultation on plain packaging has been fixed to deliver the result Lansley's crowd are expecting, thereby confirming that Sir Humphreys exist in abundance even in this era of faux transparent government.

"A basic rule of government is ... never set up an inquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be."

The findings of people paid to find exactly what they have been paid to find is one thing. It can be challenged if the bias of those doing the 'finding' is obvious ... which it will be.

However, they would still point to the 'evidence' as being a cast-iron back up for their 'expert' opinion. The problem is that the (pfft) expert evidence is cut of the same cloth.

Here is the document (pdf).

The first thing you might notice if you do a word search on it is that the lead author, Crawford Moodie, is referenced 80 times in all in the review. This is because it is mostly a collection of studies conducted by the people who wrote the bloody thing. Studies either authored or co-authored by fellow lead names Linda Bauld, Ann McNeil, Kathryn Angus and Gerard Hastings, are also quoted as sources of *cough* independent research.

As far as I can see, out of the 37 studies ~~cherry-picked~~ selected by the report's authors, 16 were written or co-written by those who compiled the evidence review on which Lansley's department is relying for information.

If such woeful bias is allowable for something as important as a systematic evidence review, I think I'll have to pitch for my own slice of the easy money. I can find 37 articles saying the whole idea is crap. OK, so 16 were written by me and my mates, but what the hell? It's 'science', innit.

Look a bit deeper and you'll notice even more cliquey manipulation.

The authors would like to thank ... Dave Hammond for his contribution to the development of the protocol.

Yeah, I haven't a scooby what 'development of the protocol' means either, except that it sounds like someone casting their eye over the methodology.

Perhaps that's why Hammond - who is almost certainly going to be one of the aforementioned expert subjective assessors - is mentioned 83 times in the review, with no less than 12 studies by him being cited. What a big head, eh?

Other names you might recognise as source material are renowned impartial 'scientists' Deborah Arnott, Martin Dockrell and Simon Chapman.

The review states that they filtered the studies from a starting list of 4,518 citations. How bad the others must have been to leave just 37 which were predominantly authored by the same people conducting the review can only be guessed at. Scribblings on the back of a fag packet, presumably. Is tobacco control really that bad, or are these people just advancing their one-sided agenda under a cloak of impartiality?

I have my own opinion, but will leave you to decide.

What makes it even worse is that four of the names at the top of the review are quoted as being from the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI). These are meant to be independent reviewers of accuracy and rigour. EPPI is referenced throughout to give a cosy, scrupulous sheen to the ~~pack of lies~~ 'evidence'.

Except that - considering the high level of self-referencing going on - the EPPI's own guidelines have not so much been broken as shattered.

A protocol is one component of an open, consultative approach to undertaking reviews. It is also argued that if the review's methods are defined explicitly at the start of the review, reviewers are less likely to be influenced by, for example, their knowledge of study authors or by study findings.

Knowledge of study authors and findings doesn't get more acute than being the people who wrote them, surely. And I don't believe there is much in the text to say something like "this is a review which we wrote about some of our own work" by way of defining 'explicitly' what is going on here.

Perhaps the EPPI lot were just eating doughnuts and chatting about what they watched at the cinema last weekend while tobacco control's prime tax spongers were concocting over a hundred pages of steaming horse shit. It certainly doesn't appear that they did much examination, but then perhaps that wasn't demanded by gimp Lansley's whip-handlers at the Department of Health.

So, thus far, we have a proposal which wasn't in any manifesto; government shovelling artic-loads of money towards lobbying itself; an evidence review which includes tobacco control referencing their own (already paid for) fantasies; and a set of expert opinions to be taken from the same people who imagined, demanded, got paid for advancing, and submitted biased 'evidence' for, plain packaging of tobacco.

Now, if you can see any involvement of just one member of the public in that democratic process, you're a better man than me, Gunga Din.

Link Tank 19/05

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 19 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I think the internet has been in one of those facetious moods this week.

US school fined thousands for selling fizzy drinks at lunch

Petty laws are an insult to the public

Three beers a day keep the doctor away

Why conservatism is doomed

Porn vs Reality

More health benefits of smoked cannabis

Sexual correctness gone mad

The best beer in the world

The best fast food chains in the world

Russian mathematician banned from travel for beard copyright infringement ... then it gets weird

Life imitates The Simpsons

Promiscuous butterflies

How To Rig A Public Consultation?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:20:00 +0000

If you were a responsible politician keen on delivering fair and transparent government, who would you appoint to impartially evaluate evidence pertaining to a public consultation? A crossbench Lord? An impartial judge? A retired police commissioner or business leader?

Well, looking at the impact assessment for the ongoing consultation on plain packaging, Andrew Lansley's Department of Health seem to have plumped for none of the above (from page 28).

Annex 2: Elicitation of Subjective Judgments of the Impact on Smoking of Plain Packaging Policies for Tobacco Products

The sample will consist of three groups of internationally-renowned experts on tobacco control policies, one group recruited from each of Australasia, the UK and North America. We will aim to recruit about 10 participants per group, numbers found to be sufficient in previous studies. Experts will meet Hora and van Winterfeldt’s first four requirements for participation, that is: (a) tangible evidence of expertise (as evidenced by publications), (b) reputation (as indicated by peer-nomination), and (c) availability and willingness to participate, (d) understanding of the general problem area (in addition to being a requirement for recruitment, participants will be provided with papers on the topic area to ensure sufficient knowledge). The latter two requirements suggested by Hora and van Winterfeldt (impartiality and lack of an economic or personal stake in potential findings) are considered impractical in this area, and so instead we will include a description of the participants’ employment and expertise for transparency.

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but this would seem to suggest that the 'experts' to be appointed for this purpose will all be people paid to come up with tobacco control policies ... like plain packaging.

The tract admits that there's no way they will be impartial, and that many will have a personal stake in seeing one side of the argument prevail over the other. However, the civil service doesn't seem to envisage any problem with this.

It's like handing control of the Leveson Inquiry to an associate of Rebekah Brooks, or even Rebekah Brooks herself with James Murdoch as a fellow panel member. Or Alex Ferguson appointing four members of the Manchester United Supporters Club to be officials for an important Champions League fixture.

In the scenario above, it's not inconceivable that the 'experts' recruited to offer 'subjective' judgements on plain packaging could include Simon Chapman, Linda Bauld and Stanton Glantz!

This is what passes for democratic process in this wonderful free country of ours.

Since we're well into the consultation period, one wonders if these panel members have been appointed yet or, if not, if the DoH has an idea of who they will be contacting for the roles. I can feel another FOI request coming on.

A Rummage In The Postbag

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:20:00 +0000

Now we know that the tobacco control industry gets a bit upset about being questioned, it's added some 'glitzy' attraction to the approach, don't you think?

ASH reasons that tobacco companies are only upset about plain packaging because they know it will work (pfft). So by the same token, if tobacco controllers are squealing at having to justify themselves, they must be worried about being exposed. QED.

As such, the most effective way of irritating them as they bully you is to send letters and queries to find out what they are hiding away so assiduously. Since mentioning that readers here had been doing exactly that and sharing their e-mails with me, unsolicited, I'm happy to report that others have also stepped forward to raise other grievances.

Without wishing to sound like a modern day Barry Took, here's an interesting such missive from Mr R of somewhere or other (I don't pry).

Dear Cancer Research UK

A bit of licence there, I presume that would have been the introductory address.

I have given money to Cancer research uk in the past, thinking that it would be spent on cancer research and treatment. However I have since found out that a portion of the money is spent on stop smoking campaigns. I want 100% of my money to be spent on cancer research, not prevention of people smoking. Please stop your anti-smoking campaigns or I will stop giving money to you.

They did, at least, reply (not that it would harm their £482m annual income if they didn't) but contrite it ain't.

Thank you for your e-mail.

Cancer Research UK is dedicated to preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer. The link between smoking and cancer is irrefutable, which is one reason why we are currently campaigning for the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes.

Err, smoking causes cancer ... so we're hoping to ban colour schemes? That's one hell of a leap. There's still no whiff of evidence any kid has started because of the pack, let alone suffered years down the line as a result. In fact, CRUK's own report said they don't even notice them. But hey, salary-chasing anti-smokers have never been known for their integrity.

We fully appreciate that some of our supporters would like their donations to solely go toward our research. We therefore have the ability to ring-fence cheque donations received, so that this may be achieved. All that we ask is for the supporter to make it clear to us in a covering note that this is their stipulation and it will be processed accordingly.

Weasel words, if ever they have been seen.

All that people who donate to CRUK ask is that their money is used for what it says on their highly-advertised tin.

Nothing there about "together we'll beat anyone who enjoys tobacco", or "together we'll stop you drinking alcohol". Oh, you didn't know that as well as a Tobacco Advisory Group, CRUK also have an alcohol equivalent? Well, they do. They're not too keen on the food you choose to eat, either, and throw cash at demonising fast food produced by popular companies.

Somehow, "together, we'll stop people enjoying themselves, by lobbying government, because we haven't the first clue how to cure cancer after over 100 years pretending" isn't as snappy, and certainly won't help those 164 employees of theirs to continue earning over £60k per annum, eh?

So perhaps, if they were being transparent and scrupulous they might - instead of only revealing the 'ring-fencing' option when challenged by e-mail - let every potential donor know this before they put their hand in their pocket, or run round a field wearing pink, to help pay for the CRUK CEO's £210k+ salary plus pension. See, that might actually mean something rather than soft soap from an administrator who knows full well that whatever the odd disgruntled correspondent says won't make a blind bit of difference to how their ocean of cash is distributed.

But more than that, they are weasel words since the employee who replied is one of a minority within the organisation who are aware that their company is involved in political lobbying. I've had cold callers begging for money who have laughed at me for suggesting that their charity is involved in politics. If their own fundraisers aren't aware of it, how do they expect anyone else to know, or - more to the point - be able to find some obscure part of their website (if it exists) which details any 'ring-fencing'?

No. Best course of action is to give your charitable donations to local efforts which deserve them and, sadly, are often starved of cash because of the well-funded predatory nature of CRUK Mega Inc.. Or there's always less bigoted deserving causes who don't turn down donations due to being wedded to the goals of the pharmaceutical industry like, err, Cancer Research UK.

Anyway, I digress. Keep pumping out those badgering e-mails and letters, won't you? And do share the results, the more they squirm the more cathartic the experience, I find.

Big Tobacco Control: A Global Epidemic Of Tax Sponging

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:40:00 +0000

This is an issue that should be investigated by the Government or the Auditor-General. Yet again we have evidence of taxpayer-funded groups using their funding to lobby the Government for specific law and policy changes.

This is an extremely bad thing. The Government should not be effectively paying people to lobby Parliament and the Government a specific way.

Sounds familiar.

A quick look at the ASH website makes it clear it is a lobby group, but a lobby group that gets 89% of its funding from the taxpayer. I am all in favour of taxpayer funding quit smoking initiatives, but not funding a lobby group. One of its values is “A dedication to influencing public policy and social norms to tobacco related harm.” It has a page on its current campaigns, of which seven are about law changes, only one is actually about quitting smoking.

Very familiar.

This isn't the UK version though, instead it is their New Zealand counterparts.

Using the parlance we see regularly from groups like these, we seem to be in the grip of a global epidemic of organised tax-sponging. Throughout the western world there are unproductive wasters begging for a government handout provided by funds extorted from 'hard-working families' (© Gordon Brown 1997-2010).

They claim to be grass roots organisations or - hah! - charities, but are really just front groups for Big Government and Big Pharma. In New Zealand, even the 11% of funding that wasn't extorted from government is from people who have seen a government minister on the telly once, so they are as tainted as the rest.

In the UK, ASH was formed as an astroturf organisation in 1972 due to the non-existence of anyone remotely giving a tuppenny toss about an activity enjoyed by millions. They have a history of disrupting society by way of underhand tactics, propaganda, and secretly colluding in the recruitment of compliant 'scientists' to produce results for payment.

The tobacco control industry costs the world economy millions of pounds per day, and one in every two people who enters the profession will shrivel up like a curtain-twitching prune as a result of their addiction to other people's money.

The tobacco control industry knows that it needs to recruit 5,000 schoolchildren every year to maintain their future salaries, Koi carp, and skinny lattes from government grants, and they do so by targeting schools with myths and 'glitzy' online marketing campaigns.

Anti-smoking cockwaffle is the only advocacy product which kills democracy, social harmony, and community when adhered to as intended.

H/T Crampton & Andrews

Where Is YOUR Contribution, Hague?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:20:00 +0000

"Nothing is fucked up, just give us your money"

You know when you read something and think you must have got all the letters mixed up? Then you rub your eyes and re-read it but it's still as shite as you first thought?

Well, this.

He says of complaining business leaders: “I think they should be getting on with the task of creating more of those jobs and more of those exports, rather than complaining about it.”

Mr Hague warns that Britain has suffered from decades of declining work ethic, when people were persuaded they could “live on expanded debt forever, rather than having to earn what we spend”. The country’s work ethic needs to be rescued “in the nick of time”, he says.

The “work harder” message is understood to be a key plan of the Government’s political fightback, which is aimed at appealing to “strivers” and hard-pressed families.

Listen Hague, you weapons-grade cock, we are working harder and harder every advancing year. The fact you have any growth whatsoever even possible is nothing to do with government and all to do with Adam Smith's principle of self-interest.

Of course, anyone who tries to start up a business; grow a business; employ more people; or innovate to create jobs and produce something good for the country, is faced with one great big fucking obstacle.

The government and the EU. And guess what, munchkin, you're instrumental in both.

The Queen's speech offers us the delights of transferring maternity pay to the father, swiftly following on from your waving through EU regulations on re-instating holiday entitlement when staff get sick on their own time. You do realise, don't you, that that's someone else's money you're spending?

Crikey, these are just two off the top of my head to add to the hundreds of other obligations your political class have laid - like jagged rocks - in front of businesses trying to grow.

In my own industry of transport, you also felt it fine to let even small businesses feel the full force of EU fuckwittery, despite it being perfectly within your powers to claim an exemption. You know, for the British people, remember us?

We thought Labour were bad, but your lot are passing legislation at a more rapid rate than even them! Hugely so (bottom left of this page).

Where the fuck is your contribution to business, Hague? Where is this assault on red tape because I sure as shit haven't seen it. Where is the commitment from government to help out businesses in delivering growth? A minor tax cut coupled with burdens elsewhere which negate it? Are you serious?

Your government is not only imposing more laws than any before it, you're also spending more money than any previously. If you want growth, how about stopping the river of cash from private industry into many many pointless overheads. Ooh, I can think of £468k just for starters.

How extremely arrogant is it of this man to demand more effort from private business when his own administration is doing jack to reduce the pressure imposed from Westminster and Brussels.

Stop moaning? You should feel lucky that so few of those who can do so have migrated abroad so far. Sit back in your chair and continue to feed the insatiable tax-funded, debt-increasing monkey if you like, but don't you fucking dare say that mild complaints about your administration aren't valid.

I think it's well beyond time we reported the parliamentary Conservative Party as missing persons, don't you?

Anarchy In Manchester

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sun, 13 May 2012 18:57:00 +0000

Joyous scenes in Manchester as the blue part claimed a dramatic last gasp Champions League Title. I do like a good, old-fashioned pitch invasion, me.

10,000 criminals, pictured this afternoon

Of course, every person represented in tiny pixels on that pitch were breaking the law under the Football Offences Act 1991.

It is an offence for a person at a designated football match to go onto the playing area, or any area adjacent to the playing area to which spectators are not generally admitted, without lawful authority or lawful excuse (which shall be for him to prove).

I'm not sure "being mad fer it chuffed" would count as a lawful excuse, more's the pity.

Now, I've been to that stadium once and witnessed first hand how the obsession with crowd control under the 1991 Act results in attendees being unable to see the pitch celebrations behind a wall of six foot coppers and charmless stewards. The suppression of natural exuberance by the stroke of a risk-petrified statist pen leads to the detriment of just about everybody.

Even the act of standing the kids on concrete blocks at the front of the stand was denied because of 'health and safety', so their view of some historic scenes was relegated to gazing at the hi-viz jackets and flared nostrils of jobsworths and government-empowered enforcers.

Obedience, it seems, trumps the entire point of going to live - and expensive - sporting events, that being the utter, liberating, unrestrained and cathartic joy of success. Government says so, see?

Previously, on the pitch, the same pointless unthinking 'authority' had showed itself.
Manchester City had just come back from behind, scoring two goals in extra time to win a Championship - something never seen before in football history, and probably never likely to be seen again - and the goal-scorer was penalised for over-exuberant celebration!

Can there possibly be such a thing?

I'm sure there are occasions where all-encompassing powers might be required, but today proves that those with authority over our lives are too ignorant of the human condition to wield them.

Like a diver rising to the surface slower than the slowest bubble to avoid the bends, modern authority condemns us all to be considered as the worst possible miscreants to avoid the inconvenient need to apply judgement. We must all suffer a less joyful life in order for a pitifully few in charge to feel like they are doing something useful.

As someone who is more of a cricket and rugby fan, I can't quite place when the casual pitch strolls onto the playing area at the end of test matches and five nations battles were stopped, but it's probably around the same time football soiled its trousers enough for some MP to massage his ego with overweening legislation.

Granted, Manchester police will be unlikely to prosecute those on the pitch today, but probably only because there are too bloody many of them to justify spending the money. The fact that the law is there at all just shows that we could do with a lot less government than we have now. After all, encroaching on the pitch as a crime is just one of thousands of pathetic over-reactions they have come out with in the past few decades.

One day, we might see some balance in law-making from our unanimously authoritarian parliamentary parties, but that day is nowhere on the horizon as far as I can see. If they would just sit down and throw out the odd bit of daft stuff every now and then, it would be encouraging.

Repealing laws which dictate what behaviour a business owner can allow on his own property - like the Etihad - would be a start. Just saying.

Link Tank 12/05

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 12 May 2012 09:20:00 +0000

What was that warm yellow disc in the sky yesterday evening? I liked it.

Why obesity campaigns keep failing

How to react when children first see internet porn?

Former ASH supremo fillets the EU on their approach to smokeless tobacco

Facebook and Twitter are as good as sex

Explains a lot - Australia suffering a 'man drought'

It can't last - pie-eating gluttony in Chepstow

And the smuttiest city in America is ...

The self-driving car has arrived

The 1840s was a vintage decade for beer

We've come a long way since seat belts, fines for texting while walking is the latest 'for your own good' scam

Santino the devious stone-throwing chimp

Jewel Robbing Spotted On The BBC

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:30:00 +0000

Simon Clark today reports that those tax spongers in the South West are getting all upset about Freedom of Information requests.

Smokefree South West claim that they have been "inundated by pro-smoking/choice organisations such as Forest, backed by the tobacco industry with FOI requests in relation to their campaign.

The BBC has interviewed Professor Gabriel Scally, recently retired head of public health for the South West, and they also want to interview someone from Forest.

Dr Scally, I am told, is critical of the tobacco industry, and campaigners like Forest, for their FOIs about plain packaging not only in the UK but in Australia, "in particular the expense and time it is causing them in having to respond to some 35 requests FOI requests including very detailed ones for emails".

Oh dear. That'll be partly our fault, then.

And here they are bleating about it in a video broadcast on the BBC.

These people really do have no other line of attack than to try making out that everyone who disagrees with them are funded by tobacco companies. It's really quite pathetic.

Ever since I posted a photograph of one of Smokefree South West's advertising hoardings, I've received e-mails letting me know of FOI requests readers have submitted - probably because it was unclear at the time how much they cost.

On top of the design fees, as far as I can ascertain, this space would cost around £200 per week and, of course, we don't know how many of them there are dotted around, or for how long. Add on printing costs and beer money for the bill posters and we're talking a pretty penny being spent from your taxes, I reckon.

I submitted some myself but it was a fellow jewel robber who e-mailed me this response which was the first we knew they were pissing half a mill down the drain.

Others who e-mailed me their FOI responses include a teacher from the Midlands, an IT professional, and a guy from Manchester involved in Intellectual Property, hence his interest. As for myself, regular readers will know I run a transport company which has grown from couple of borrowed vehicles in the 90s, so I'm just a glorified white van man. Remember too, that these are just those who copied me in on their responses and takes no account of any others who may have sent a request for personal curiosity without letting on. After all, it's a very simple process.

See any tobacco industry involvement there? No, it's utter arse-biscuits, of course. But they really don't like any kind of debate or questioning, do they?

You'll notice in the BBC report that they mention the half a million pounds figure that I revealed here in April. That was the first time it had been mentioned, and it's a fair bet that without the FOI requests Smokefree South West would never have revealed it. This is the entire point of the Freedom of Information Act. To force those who spend our taxes into letting us know what they are doing with them.

Far from being 'sabotage' of their lobbying plans, those requests made these people notify the public what is being done with the cash they have stolen from us by force.

Isn't it incredible that these grasping bastards are happily trousering cash by the many millions from the public trough but - once asked what they are doing with it - squeal like stuck pigs and default to spreading lies and insults.

If they don't want to be accountable to the public - which it is clear they don't - then here's an idea, STOP TAKING TAXPAYERS' MONEY!

This contemptuous deceit goes right to the top, too.

BBC South West, or whatever it's called, was happy to confirm today that the plain packs campign was "NHS-funded", yet Anne Milton denied this in March.

The Department of Health has not spent any money on advertising or marketing the forthcoming consultation on tobacco packaging, neither through the NHS Smokefree marketing campaign, nor through any other organisation.

Thanks to our FOI requests, we now know this was a duplicitous dodge at best, a lie at worst. Again, it is perfect validation of how the Freedom of Information Act enables ordinary people to cut through bullshit from politicians and discover at least some small parts of the truth.

I say small parts as - in the sphere of public health anyway - even the government has no clue how much they are spending on this kind of stuff. They don't even know how many people they have working on it, there are too many snouts in that particular trough for them to keep track of.

The chief complainant, Gabriel Scally, is apparently debating plain packaging with Snowdon and Clark in Bristol tonight. Considering he's part of a bullshit spreading campaign on the BBC today, the chances of his being truthful there are obviously very slim.

Still, to all of you fellow jewel robbers who have managed to get right up the noses of these greedy, arrogant, public-funded arseholes. Very well done!

Beginning Of The End For Duty Free?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:01:00 +0000

Just the other day, Nanny Beeb were asking if the airport experience has "become horrible". The answer is obviously yes, but it's not like tax-funded lobbyists couldn't make it worse with a bit of effort.

As hinted at here in February, I see from the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance that their government are well on their way to wiping out duty free tobacco for travellers in the latest budget.

As part of its reforms, the Government increased the excise on tobacco products by 25 per cent, and will reduce the duty free allowance on tobacco to 50 cigarettes or 50 grams of other tobacco product.

A couple of packs or a large pouch of baccy. That's it.

Doubtless the tobacco control industry will once again say this doesn't represent any kind of precedent, but commenters to this article in April didn't seem to think so. The very whisper of a rule no-one had even considered in their everyday lives before instantly brings the spiteful out of the woodwork to apply it elsewhere. Alcohol featured prominently.

There really is nothing that those paid to impose their personal preferences on others will view as not being a target for making grey and mundane.

And in politicians worldwide devoted to ripping every penny the public earns in feeding the bloated monkey of profligate government, they have perfect allies. Yours is not to enjoy life or find joy in the odd perk, it is only to serve the state machine and live as long as possible to pay even more taxes.

You didn't really want that Toblerone anyway, did you?

Epidemiology: A New Graduate For The Corrupt 'Science'

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:22:00 +0000

You might have missed this. Surprising really, since the author tweeted it a dozen or more times over the past week, and pimped it out to Cancer Research UK and the plain packs campaign amongst others. Must be a true work of art then, obviously.

Indeed it is.

Yesterday an article in the Daily Mail was brought to my attention by Ben Goldacre, and Transform Drug Policy Foundation.

Yes, it's not much of an introduction if you're looking for impartial, evidence-based comment, but give her a chance, eh?

There have been a few articles along a similar line to this one, questioning tobacco control research and policy.

The cheek!

This one seemed particularly one-sided, so it's made me decide to go through the arguments, and discuss.

That's what debate is all about. Great to see.

The very first sentence of this article riled me, I have to say:
There are few industries to have come under such sustained attack as big tobacco.
It's almost too ridiculous to know where to start. I may be arguing semantics here, but I would say it's not the tobacco industry under attack so much as the disease and death caused by smoking cigarettes.

I can see that we are faced with someone a bit new to all this, and - just a hunch - I reckon she might be rather 'one-sided' herself.

It would be fantastic if it were just the effects of smoking being addressed but tobacco control long since veered away from such things. When you have tobacco controllers changing the rules of economics and blaming tobacco companies for the consequences of their own high taxation policies, we're well past any sensible measures to tackle the harms of smoking, and profoundly into personal crusades and policies motivated by obsessive hatred of a legitimate industry. Yesterday's risible nonsense proves that quite comprehensively if the Master Settlement Agreement hadn't already.

From an inauspicious start, it just goes further downhill.

So on to the meat. One thing that immediately leaps out to me about this article is that nowhere does it state that tobacco KILLS PEOPLE.

Because, you see, this is a bit of secret. No-one is aware of the fact that smoking carries dangers, least of all those who read articles in a section of a newspaper dealing with business and the money markets.

It's astounding, to Suzi at least, that highly educated people haven't been told the bleeding obvious. She didn't go on to say that they should also be informed that tobacco comes in boxes or pouches and sold in places called 'shops', but I suppose she was keeping to prescribed word limits.

OK, we all know this, but it's fundamental as to why there is this legislation in the first place.

If you're a tobacco control advocate, yes, that's how you start every article. But this isn't one of those, d'you see?

It's not there as some 'Nanny state' agenda, it's put in place primarily because there is evidence that most (8 out of 10 according to a cancer research document on the subject) people start smoking before the age of 19.

That's where we tend to disagree. Anything that claims to be worried about the choices of people 18 or over is definitely part of a 'nanny state agenda'.

Tobacco control has a two-armed approach: preventing children from starting smoking before they're in a position to appreciate the risks, and helping those who want to quit but struggle. To me, this is not a Nanny state, but a state with a social conscience.

So where is her article on how the army is an abhorrent organisation as it admits 'kids' who choose to join from 16 upwards without - according to this reasoning - appreciating the risks of being blown up in Afghanistan? The dangers of tobacco are part of the national curriculum, the deadly nature of joining the army isn't. I don't see any health warning on this website but I'm sure youngsters are pretty well clued up before they apply.

Social conscience is a state which educates and allows choices to be made, and products enjoyed, without coercion. A nanny state is one which sets out to destroy even quiet enjoyment of a product. Let me quote ASH on the subject.

Smokers display the branding every time they take out their pack to smoke. In doing so they are making a statement about how they want to be seen by others as they display and endorse the brand they have chosen.

As such, the banning of branding is a direct attack on how smokers choose - according to ASH, remember - to enjoy the product they pay a lot of money for.

If that's not nanny state, I'm struggling to imagine anything that is.

If you thought that was bad enough, wait till you get a load of this.

Let's consider some of the arguments against tobacco control.
...since the UK Government annually reaps £12billion in levies from the likes of industry giants British American Tobacco, Imperial and Gallaher-owner Japan Tobacco, is it shooting itself in the foot?
Aha! Of course, never mind the health of our citizens, we're in a financial crisis, let's not lose money here. A fallacy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, figures from 2010 suggest that smoking is a net cost to the economy - with every cigarette costing the country 6.5 pence.

Did she just cherry-pick that pharma-funded Champix advert written by a guy at Policy Exchange who was tweeting after an ASH AGM about how 'something should be done' about his personal hobby horse? Indeed, one of the negligibly few economists worldwide who share such a minority opinion? Yes, she was.

As if that wasn't enough, she compounded the error with this conflict of method.

And secondly if money isn't getting spent on tobacco, it will get spent elsewhere, it won't simply disappear, so it will still be being taxed; alcohol, petrol, all sorts of things are highly taxed. The money will remain in the economy.

That's right. Money not spent on tobacco isn't being lost at all, it'll just be spent anyway.

Well, the Policy Exchange study said we'd save £342m by not having to pay people to clear up cigarette butts, the equivalent of ditching 17,000 street cleaners on current wage levels, if smoking was banned tomorrow ... because they obviously wouldn't have any other rubbish to sweep up. Or is that just the usual anti-smoking ploy of changing the terms of debate to suit? Yes, I do reckon it is. Sorry, but if she's willing to accept crap like Henry Featherstone's she's hardly in a position to state that cash spend on tobacco would be spent elsewhere.

Suzi also seems to believe that smokers don't die early thereby saving billions in pension provision, otherwise Policy Exchange's figures simply don't stack up anyway. So if smokers die at the same age as non-smokers, Suzi, where is the problem?

Next:
'You hardly need research from anti-tobacco campaigners to tell you that people may prefer elegant and attractive packaging to grim, uniform, dour packs designed by politicians and health lobbyists,' says Mark Littlewood, director general (of the Institute of Economic Affairs). 'But this proves absolutely nothing at all. The idea that youngsters take up smoking because they find it impossible to resist the colour scheme on a cigarette pack is risible.'
Erm...the scientific evidence does seem to suggest otherwise. The shocking video by Cancer Research (see below) shows children spontaneously commenting on cigarette packets. Suddenly it all looks a little less risible. And this is before we get to the evidence.

Well, I'd hardly call kids being recruited and stuck in front of a camera, which pans out exactly when required after they're shown doctored packets by a vested interest, as 'spontaneous', but if it floats your boat.

And evidence? Great. Tell me more.

Experiments conducted on teenagers have found they falsely believe packs of certain colours to be more healthy (gold and silver for example), and more importantly that they would pick these packs to try.

Err, it isn't tobacco companies telling consumers that some cigarettes are more healthy than others, it's the EU. That's exactly why they set tar, nicotine, and Carbon Monoxide limits in the first place, and why SCOTH keep a register of different strengths. If that's all bollocks, it would be great to get rid of such red tape in a recession, eh?

They can't, of course, because there is a huge lobby of froth-mouthed lunatics who would go ape-shit if they did. Because it was they who lobbied the EU to impose the limits in the first place ... on the premise that it would make cigarettes less damaging. If all cigarettes are now homogenous in terms of risk no matter the levels of differing constituents - a concept at odds with rules of biology and nature, by the way - can we now abolish the EU limits tobacco control once said were vital, then?

Why, if it won't work, is the tobacco industry both here and in Australia where plain packaging has already been approved by the Government, fighting so hard to stop it? Something doesn't quite add up.

Only if you haven't the first clue about business, market share and the role of premium branding in a competitive shareholding environment. What do you do again, Suzi?

2nd year Epidemiology PhD student looking at the relationship btwn cannabis, psychosis and depression, writer, sci comm, knitter, musician, Bristolite

OIC.

Plain packaging brings us to our next argument (again a quote from Mark Littlewood):
'If the health campaigners are listened to in this policy area, they can expect the lasting gratitude of organised crime networks, whose task of counterfeiting will be made much easier and who have no qualms at all about peddling their products to kids.'
Another straw man. Counterfeiters are hardly having problems making near perfect copies of current cigarette package designs, it is trivially easy to counterfeit current cigarette packages, so plain packaging makes NO difference.

She's a good little apprentice bansturbator, of that there is no doubt. Being wilfully ignorant of economic reality is a prerequisite.

The final argument in this article is that the Government is being 'inconsistent', by bringing in shutters to hide cigarettes from view, AND consultation on plain packaging. To me, this seems entirely consistent with trying to protect young people from marketing that is potentially targeted at them (according to this Cancer Research document)

You're behind the times kiddo. Cancer Research UK have since produced this document which destroys that argument. Here are a few quotes.

Generally, there was little awareness of different styles of tobacco packaging [...]

Aside from Mayfair, there was little prior awareness of the packs used in the focus groups.

[...] it appeared that participants were seeing most of the packs used in the focus groups for the first time.

To some extent the pack appeared peripheral compared with the cigarette in youth smoking [...]

[...] low brand and pack awareness of all but the most popular brands.

All in all, it's rather disappointing that someone who is aspiring to be an epidemiologist of the future can be so credulous and unquestioning of evidence. But then, the profession isn't one which is known for its integrity, is it?

She did, at least, fact check her nonsense first. Well, up to a point.

Thanks to the members of TARG who fact checked this for me.

I didn't know who TARG were before the weekend, but fortunately they educated us yesterday.

Ah. The Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group of Bristol University, of which 'Sooze' is a student member.

No wonder she pumped it out all over Twitter. Not only is it off the scale in terms of agitprop posing as reasoned, impartial comment, but just producing it no doubt brings reward points towards her PhD in righteous hectoring.

Under the circumstances, why should she care about rigour and objective assessment? A perfect epidemiologist of the future, then.

ASH And The Monsters In The Wardrobe

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:55:00 +0000

Hi, tobacco stooges!

Well, some of you have submitted objections to tobacco control consultations, so you're obviously a tobacco industry front group according to ASH.

Written while Debs, Martin and the gang cowered beneath their desks in tinfoil hats and turquoise shell suits debating whether to include lizards under the North Pole as being part of the Big Tobacco conspiracy, their latest report makes hilarious reading.

I was planning on having some fun with it but Snowdon has stolen my thunder somewhat, not surprising when handed such an unexpectedly simple target. Do go read his chucklesome rundown on how your taxes are being wasted on barmy conspiracy theorists during a recession.

I'll just add one laugh out loud 'proof' of tobacco interference not yet covered elsewhere.

[...] the House of Commons Pipe and Cigar Smokers Club, previously described in the view of another MP as “a front for the Tobacco Manufacturers Association”.⁵²

And who is that fine, upstanding, untainted authority on such matters in our House of ~~Fools~~ Commons? The scrupulous and highly impartial Kevin Barron, MP for Rother Valley, no less.

Mr. Barron: I remind my hon. Friend that the Lords and Commons pipe and cigar smokers club is not an all-party group. [Hon. Members: ``It is!''] It is not; it is denied to most hon. Members. It is a front for the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association, set up to influence legislators.

Did he offer any proof to back up this assertion? Did he bollocks!

And who - as if regular readers didn't know - is Kevin Barron? Well, he is a bessie mate of ASH's Debs Arnott, wheeled out to deliver anti-smoking propaganda when ordered, who thinks the public should have nothing to do with democracy.

He's also someone who is the very last person to be quoted in a document about 'front groups'. Snowdon describes a similar all party group thus.

There is some heavy irony here. Not only is ASH (and Smokefree SouthWest and D-MYST and so on) an astro-turf group for the Department of Health, but the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health is itself a front group for ASH. It was formed in 1976 by ASH's then director David Simpson as a way of briefing politicians and persuading MPs to raise Early Day Motions and Private Member's Bills. It was originally known—more accurately—as the All Party Parliamentary Group on Action on Smoking and Health, but they later dropped the 'Action on', presumably to make it look a bit less like the mouthpiece of a special interest group. ASH continues to provide all briefing materials and pays for all expenses. The group's secretariat is Deborah Arnott, the current director of ASH.

This 'front group' for ASH just happens to have a certain Kevin Barron MP as one of its Vice Chairs.

Funny that ASH were so coy about such a compromised source of 'opinion', doncha think? Still, we shouldn't knock them too much for it, the lack of rigour can doubtless be put down to their panicking about the upcoming end of the world.

The Liberal Democrats: Recovering From Schizophrenia

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:42:00 +0000

If you've read one article by a left-leaning Lib Dem bemoaning the fact that his/her party is involved with the coalition, you've read about a dozen. However, this one by LibDem Voice's Robin Fenwick at Iain Dale is a particularly interesting example.

The party which Robin Fenwick once loved is headed for disaster, and there's only one thing for it - it's time to leave the coalition.

The Liberal Democrat leadership have lost their senses. They can't see or hear supporters who have turned their backs on the party. They can't smell the putrid stench of inevitable electoral punishment in 2015, and they're certainly out of touch with public perception.

[...]

Nick Clegg and his acolytes have disastrously shifted public perception of the Lib Dems from being a distinctive party of the centre-left, to an identikit party of the centre right.

Have they?

The party is in danger of becoming a toxic brand. The local elections again demonstrated that Nick Clegg's calamitous dance with the right is dragging down the fortunes of all associated with the title "Liberal Democrats".

Does it?

Casting an eye over Lib Dem marginal parliamentary constituency battlegrounds, I have to say that it's not that black and white.

In areas where Lib Dems traditionally battle a Labour candidate, they have been caned, no doubt. Rochdale, Manchester and Leeds would be places where Lib Dems could probably forget holding seats they have done previously - they lost councillors galore. Having said that, it could be argued that it was merely payback after profiting from Labour's abject shambles at the 2010 general election.

However, it's a different picture in marginals where Lib Dems are up against Conservative opposition. Hotly-contested seats such as Romsey or Westmoreland (where they actually gained council seats) look like they'd be held just as their council representation was on May 3rd, while Solihull also saw little disruption.

In Eastleigh, Lib Dem councillor numbers were boosted by another two, and they weren't affected in Cheltenham either. In Portsmouth, they also gained three seats from the Tories.

There was little voting going on in the West Country where the Lib Dems are strong, but they have been since time immemoriam as that is the last bastion of true classical liberal voter patterns. Even in the pre-SDP years when the old-style Liberal Party had all but collapsed, Cornwall and Devon were happily returning Liberal MPs. I can't see that changing anytime soon.

Contrary to Fenwick's opinion, very many voters apparently see the Lib Dems to have traditionally been a classic liberal entity rather than a 'progressive' one; nearer to a centre right party, than centre left.

So, the Lib Dems are less likely to be 'heading for disaster' than re-aligning themselves with the party which many people still believe them to be. You know, an entity which can carry the tag 'liberal' with some degree of confidence and a straight face. All that is happening is that those who have fallen for the lefty spin, and now take the word liberal to mean heavy government regulation and high taxation, are just returning to where they should have been in the first place. Labour.

It's an identity crisis that the Lib Dems have held off for quite a while. There are two distinct wings of the party and those holding true to the roots of history are still quite content. It's only those who thought it had been hijacked into a Social Democratic Party in all but name, with the label of 'liberal' being a handy cloak, getting all grumpy about it.

So off the likes of Fenwick might toddle with his "broadly progressive ticket" agenda, but Lib Dem MPs in LD/Tory marginal constituencies won't care too much. Vince Cable, Ed Davey and Paul Burstow won't lose any sleep. They'd worry more if Fenwick was deliriously happy.

It's how the hierarchy at Lib Dem HQ react which will be very interesting. Do they move visibly to the left and risk losing the voters who backed them on May 3rd despite Tory opposition, to chase lefties who are running away with chips stubbornly stitched to their shoulders? Or carry on as they are, safe in the knowledge that their voters in Tory marginals are of the opinion that current policies are precisely what Lib Dems should be doing in government anyway?

What should certainly not be surprising - especially to a Lib Dem member - is that there is a fracture between two sides of the same party. It was widely predicted at the time of the coalition agreement, after all. Something had to give in the hugely diverse Lib Dem membership - if they had entered coalition with Labour it would still be happening, but with Richmond, Carshalton & Wallington and Solihull going blue in 2015 instead of Bradford East, Birmingham Yardley, and Manchester Withington probably turning red.

It was fine for the membership to hold their wildly differing personal views of what a Liberal Democrat is supposed to represent while not in office, but it is simply impossible to please all people all of the time. Once in government and making policy, the political schizophrenia had to end.

Hurting as he may be, for Fenwick - and those who share his views - to claim that Clegg is "dragging down the fortunes of all associated with the title Liberal Democrats" is plainly wrong. Many will be largely unconcerned that Fenwick types will be voting differently in the future (SNP, apparently, if it were an available choice!).

That Clarkson 'Gaffe'

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:05:00 +0000

The Mail is describing this from Jeremy Clarkson as a gaffe.

'Nobody is waved through any more. Immigration officials are not allowed to use their discretion,' he said.

'Common sense has been erased from the system. And the result is plain for all to see. There's a two-hour wait. And come the Olympics they're saying that time frame will double.

'Net result: Immigration officials have to assume that the nice family of four coming back from their holiday in Sardinia is going to cheat the social out of millions then blow up during the 100 metres final.'

'Nobody likes a racist. Nobody likes prejudice. It has no place at work, at play or on the terraces of a football stadium. It has no place at school, or in government.

'But at Heathrow airport? Hmmm.'

Predictably, he has been condemned by organisations which are wrong on just about every other issue, too.

However, a spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents Border Force workers, said: 'Clarkson is an idiot.'

Presumably, they'd also consider their highly-successful and efficient counterparts in Israel as 'idiots' too.

Despite facing dozens of potential threats each day, the security set-up at Israel's largest hub, Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, has not been breached since 2002, when a passenger mistakenly carried a handgun onto a flight. How do they manage that?

"The first thing you do is to look at who is coming into your airport," said Sela.

The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?

"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.

Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" — behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.

"The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security," he said. "To us, it doesn't matter if he's black, white, young or old. It's just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I'm doing this?"

Feel free to read the rest of an article which openly ridicules the Neanderthal approach to security employed across the Atlantic and, by extension, us.

By contrast, Israel takes account of profiling - which Clarkson was alluding to - in delivering a service which benefits everyone.

The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.

Idiots, obviously.

If an airport in the heart of a country considered target number one by extremists - and right on their doorstep to boot - can use intelligence to solve the problem of airport security, why can't we?

The answer is partly in the PCS union's response. They dismiss any thought of profiling in preference to checking absolutely everyone as Clarkson describes. In doing so, they are implicitly stating that they're not confident enough in their members' ability to spot true risk passengers as opposed to the family travelling to, or from, Sardinia.

Either that, or protecting jobs which might prove unnecessary under a more enlightened security regime at the expense of all passengers who indirectly pay the wages.

I suppose you could make a case that political correctness has instilled the requirement of all unions to instantly dismiss any talk of profiling, but that just makes things worse.

Whichever way you cut it, the only 'idiots' are those who carry on with a system which is not fit for purpose, instead of one which does the job without making our airports a self-inflicted national embarrassment.

Pointing out the collective stupidity of politicians, airport security managers, and unions resistant to innovative solutions isn't really a 'gaffe'.

More like a public service, I'd say.

Distracting Issues

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:26:00 +0000

Mr Osborne added that the Government would "learn" from the verdict delivered at the ballot box on Thursday.

He told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show: 'I think what people are saying is focus on the things that really matter, focus on the economy and on education and welfare.

'Focus on those things, don't get distracted by too many other issues.'

A tiny flicker of realisation from one of our Westminster wallies. Do we believe that these 'distracting issues' might include minimum pricing and plain packs and that they should be ditched? Nah, course not, they only got a slight spanking at the polls, not a brain enlargement operation.

On the futility of banning colour schemes to make health warnings more visible and frightening, for example, if only Gideon would listen to anti-smoking advocate Gerard Hastings.

Fear messages are important. The ﬁrst step in tobacco control is to inform people of the dangers of smoking. But repeating this to a population that knows it, two thirds of whom already want to quit, is of questionable value. To return to our initial example, there comes a point where the theatre-goer shouting “ﬁre” is reduced to the irritation of a malfunctioning alarm. Furthermore, searching for evermore powerful warnings is fruitless. There is no ultimate deterrent in smoking, no mother of all health warnings that will ﬁnally alert smokers to the error of their ways.

Though written a while ago, his conclusion is strangely ironic.

All we have to do is be a better friend to the smoker than the tobacco industry. Surely we can manage that.

One might say the same about Cameron and Clegg's government.

If they can't manage to be more popular than a Labour party which ripped up civil liberties, bullied its public, signed away vast tranches of our sovereignty, engaged in two unpopular wars, and bankrupted the nation for decades to come, there really are no limits to their ineptitude.

UPDATE: Cameron agrees.

The message people are sending is this: focus on what matters, deliver what you promise – and prove yourself in the process. I get it.

He 'gets it', does he? Deliver what was promised, eh?

Forgive me for asking, but can anyone point to the part in either the Tory or Lib Dem manifestos which mentioned minimum pricing or plain packaging?

Don't They Grow Up Quick?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 05 May 2012 19:23:00 +0000

An Aurora elementary school student has been suspended for three days after quoting this line from an LMFAO song: "I’m sexy and I know it."

Forms from the school indicate the [6 year old] first-grader was suspended for sexual harassment, which the school district's discipline code says has "negative affects of the learning or work of others."

Some grown-ups don't half have filthy minds, eh?

The boy little P tells me that if the same rule applied over here, all the boys in years 4, 5 and 6 at his school would have been at home playing on their Wii machines for the past couple of months.

You see, the song is more than a little popular. I wonder where that leaves the pop music stations who have been playing it dozens of times a day all over the United States, presumably they will be hauled up in front of a beak for sexually harassing all listeners 6 years old and over? Mind your playlist, BBC Radio 1.

I'd like to say that our educators aren't as daft, but I just know you lot will point to the same kind of idiocy this side of the pond. Daily Mail links don't count.

Anyway, altogether now, "Everyday I'm shufflin".

H/T David M

Link Tank 05/05

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 05 May 2012 09:30:00 +0000

Something to help you forget that drunken rant in KFC last night.

Big Maconomics: How McDonald's explains the world

Swedish man cleared of smuggling because he's a heavy drinker

Porn panic and the Daily Mail

Smokers' rights group challenges New York's parks smoking ban

BBC Play School presenters went on air stoned

Doctor caught making up rubbish as he goes along regarding e-cigs

Beer companies go to court in the US to dismiss health-based lawsuit on selling of alcohol

The Metropolitan thought police

Protest against the plastic bag tax planned for Cardiff

Men like to cuddle, women prefer sex

Laser-equipped shark

Plain Packs Will Make Warnings More Visible ... So What?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:30:00 +0000

Michael Siegel - an American anti-smoking advocate who is more than a trifle irritated by much of his own movement's modern practices - last week highlighted more evidence that gory pictures on packets are nothing more than a psychopathic wet dream for tobacco controllers.

This study adds to a growing body of evidence that the graphic cigarette warning labels which are the centerpiece of the FDA's strategy to reduce tobacco use are likely to be only marginally effective.

This research adds to a body of psychology and neurophysiology research which suggests that graphic warning labels on cigarette packages will have very little effect in either deterring smoking among existing smokers who are addicted to cigarettes or among youth.

While almost no scientific studies support the hypothesis that graphic warning labels will cause smokers to quit, a wide range of evidence suggests that this intervention is unlikely to be very effective.

It's not the first time, either. He said the same back in August 2011 commenting on a study examining their effect in the UK.

The following were the major findings of the study regarding the effects of the graphic warning labels on smoking behavior:

1. There was no observed effect of the graphic warning labels on cigarette smoking prevalence.

2. There was no observed effect of the warning labels on cigarette consumption.

3. There was no observed effect of the warning labels on smoking reduction (measured as forgoing cigarettes due to the warning labels).

Thus, there was no observed effect of the new warning labels on any aspect of smoking behavior.

[...]

The report summarizes its findings as follows: "The only significant change in behaviour was that more adult smokers reported using a technique to avoid seeing the messages. It therefore remains to be seen whether these emotional responses are translated into behavioural change in the future. Among young people, the impact of picture health warnings was negligible."

All of which is quite amusing, since one of the prime selling points for plain packaging is that making the disgusting images larger will instantly result in more quit attempts and a reduction of youth smokers. According to ASH, anyway [pdf].

Plain packaging would increase the effectiveness of health warnings and reduce misconceptions about the risks of smoking

Although there is good evidence to show that large bold written health warnings are effective in motivating smokers to quit ²¹ and that picture warnings are even more effective than written warnings ²² [...]

The 'good evidence' (21) for gore being brilliant at making people quit was a press release by the Department of Health, who kinda have an interest in advancing that opinion (it's no longer checkable - plus ça change with these people), while the 'proof' that pictures are more effective than words is quite laughable.

Findings: Smokers in the four countries exhibited significant gaps in their knowledge of the risks of smoking. Smokers who noticed the warnings were significantly more likely to endorse health risks, including lung cancer and heart disease. In each instance where labelling policies differed between countries, smokers living in countries with government mandated warnings reported greater health knowledge. For example, in Canada, where package warnings include information about the risks of impotence, smokers were 2.68 (2.41–2.97) times more likely to agree that smoking causes impotence compared to smokers from the other three countries.

Ace! Those contacted in a phone poll who had seen graphic warnings were more likely to understand the dangers. Err, but they were all - significantly - still "smokers".

Unfortunately for ASH, their special way of defining 'evidence' doesn't change reality. Quite apart from the studies highlighted by Siegel above, since the UK mandated tumours and coal miners' lungs on cigarette packets, just about no-one has given up smoking as a result. Anywhere.

How do we know this? Well, from the font of all tobacco knowledge, of course ... ASH's own website in October [pdf].

Coinciding with the start of the economic downturn in 2008 (the year when picture warnings were introduced, DP), over the past few years the decline in smoking rates has stalled.

So, the incontrovertible fact that making packs grotesque has had no effect whatsoever leads ASH now to assert that making them bigger - by eliminating logos and branding - will most definitely work. That's some strange kind of logic. As usual with tobacco control tax spongers, it's also fatally flawed, as a study last year on reactions to disgusting warnings concluded.

"We noticed in our collection of anti-tobacco public service announcements a number of ads that contained very disturbing images, such as cholesterol being squeezed from a human artery, a diseased lung, or a cancer-riddled tongue," Leshner said. "Presumably, these messages are designed to scare people so that they don't smoke. It appears that this strategy may backfire."

"Simply trying to encourage smokers to quit by exposing them to combined threatening and disgusting visual images is not an effective way to change attitudes and behaviors," Bolls said. "Effective communication is more complicated than simply showing a disgusting picture. That kind of communication will usually result in a defensive avoidance response where the smoker will try to avoid the disgusting images, not the cigarettes.

Which is kinda the point, isn't it?

Furthermore, the EU chip in with a leap of logic which should be framed and placed in the Tate Gallery (or European equivalent) as the fine art of self-delusion.

In their consultation of September 2010 [pdf page 138], they assessed the 'success' of graphic warnings as part of the big sell of plain packaging.

Some evidence from the UK that the introduction of pictorial labels on all tobacco products would produce a drop of 0.5% in tobacco consumption in the long term or a drop of 75% of 0.5% if the pictorial labels are only applied to cigarette packs (note: because 25% of UK smokers consumer tobacco products other than cigarettes).

From this (the only fleeting mention they could trawl from anywhere in Europe) they conclude that increasing graphic warning size and visibility will have an exponentially greater chance of stopping people smoking. Though how multiplying a zero effect - which we now know to be the case - by any number will be useful, is anyone's guess.

The EU's problem is that they used a statistic from the 2006 Department of Health consultation on graphic warnings which has since been proven by actual events to be a wild fantasy.

It is estimated that smoking levels in the UK would decrease by around 0.5% if picture warnings were introduced.

The EU using an estimate which hasn't been borne out in the real world? Say it ain't so! No, no, don't throw your hands in the air laughing just yet as it's even worse than that.

The EU was estimating their figures from an estimate now shown categorically to have been ridiculous ... which in turn was copied from an estimate in 2001.

However, without any specific evidence on impacts on smoking levels, we will assume that the introduction of picture warnings will have a similar effect to that predicted for written warnings: to decrease the number of smokers by 0.5% in the long term.

In short, because there was no evidence at all, they were guessing ... by taking their previous guess and just guessing again!

These are lies embedded on lies ... and embedded again on lies ... we are talking here. The distance between the real world and anti-smoker flights of fancy is quite remarkable.

So, would the elimination of branding - and therefore the increased size of ugly pictures - lead to a decrease in smoking? Well, it wouldn't seem like it.

Statistics prove that the current warnings have done nothing to reduce smoking; there is no evidence that there is any potential for them to do so now or in the future; people think they look ugly but carry on being smokers regardless; the EU anticipate that increasing their size will multiply nothing by nothing; and it was all based on a prediction plucked out of the air anyway.

Faced with overwhelming evidence of failure such as this, most organisations would try something else. But those obsessed with attacking smokers and tobacco companies are not blessed with such wisdom.

They just keep babbling utter shite to a political class who are quite incapable, or unwilling, to do anything but swallow it alongside a fruity tax-subsidised bottle of Chablis.

A Parable On Government

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:48:00 +0000

Via Theo Spark, a story which could easily be adapted to describe any number of national or local government departments. The tale of the night watchman.

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night."   So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?"   So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?"   So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people. One was to do the studies and one was to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?"   So they created two positions: a time keeper and a payroll officer then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?"   So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one year and we are $918,000 over budget, we must cut back"   ... so they laid-off the night watchman.

Quite apt, I thought, for a day when we're voting on which set of clowns will be ballsing everything up for the next four years.

A Vision Of Future Britain?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:34:00 +0000

Too far-fetched? Oh, I dunno.

H/T Jay via HOOPs.

Thanks For The Taxes, Just Don't Expect Anything In Return

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:15:00 +0000

We used to have these things on telly, they were called public information films. You may remember them.

They spanned many a subject. Who of a certain age, for example, can forget Charley and the matches; Derek Griffiths on bike theft; or Jimmy Savile's 'Clunk Click'? The one thing they had in common was that they were fears government had for us, about which it was felt we needed an educational warning. I can't remember anyone other than the state being asked to pay for them, though, because that is what taxes are for. Right?

Not any more, it would seem.

Sexting involves the sharing of sexually suggestive messages or images electronically, primarily between mobile phones. According to Ofcom, about 50% of eight to 11-year-olds and 88% of 12 to 15-year-olds own a mobile phone. The speed with which children and young people are gaining access to the internet—accelerated with the advent of smartphones, enabling children to access the internet from their mobile phones—is unprecedented.

That's Labour MP Ann Coffey addressing the House last week. She obviously feels there is a serious issue which needs to be conveyed to young people on the potential dangers of mobile phone use, and she has a point.

So, will we get a public information broadcast or the online equivalent on targeted media seen by children and teens? Well, perhaps, but she doesn't think the government should have to shell out for it. After admitting that this should be something for parents to tackle, she puts forward proposals.

More needs to be done, however. I want the mobile phone industry to do more to highlight some of the dangers of its products, in the same way as the gambling and alcohol industries provide help for people who encounter problems arising from their products. The gambling industry provides funding for education and the treatment of problem gambling and the drinks industry funds the charity Drinkaware.

A sage warning there, I think, that appeasing government is always a pretty stupid idea. Because it leads inevitably to further demands, like this.

The mobile phone industry has a great responsibility, given the profits that it makes and its targeting of young people to buy its products, to set aside money to inform young people of the dangers of sexting. The industry should provide an information and advice leaflet with each new mobile phone, warning of the dangers of sexting. It should also pay for advertising on TV and in the press and for the promotion of helplines, such as the NSPCC’s ChildLine. The leaflet with each new mobile phone should explain how, at the click of a button, an image intended for private use can lead to public humiliation and even fall into the hands of sophisticated sexual predators. I should like retail sales people to be trained to discuss the risks of sexting when selling phones to young people or to adults buying them on their behalf.

Very free and easy with other people's money, isn't she? Who does she really believe will end up paying for all that in the end, or has it not crossed her cobwebbed mind?

Not satisfied with the huge tax receipts from the mobile phone industry - along with the eye-watering sums paid out by these companies for the privilege of being allowed to sell anything in the first place - Ann, being a true modern MP, demands more.

Ignoring the industry's profits she and her ilk have already spent on mandatory wage levels; sick, maternity, paternity, and fostering pay; statutory pension provision and holiday pay; along with licensing and health/safety red tape to name but a few, businesses haven't been punished enough, apparently.

Now they should be - according to Ann - forced to fund the kind of advert government used to accept it was there to provide.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that out of the incredible level of increased public spending this country is creaking under (last paragraph here), Westminster could at least countenance paying some of it out for public information.

So what does the Conservative spokesman, Tim Loughton, have to say in rebuttal?

I have found the hon. Lady’s remarks helpful. There is little to disagree with.

It seems there is a massive disconnect between what the public believe the state should and shouldn't provide and what MPs think. The crippling taxes they impose on all of us seem - to politicians - to merely be free money with which to enrich the civil service and share amongst their favoured chums. Why should they spend any of it if they can get someone else to do so instead, eh?

If politicians want a more responsible public, educate them with the ocean of money swimming around treasury coffers like, you know, they're supposed to. However, if they want a hog-tied private sector unable to create jobs for the future, along with an inept and irresponsible population doomed to live life as infantilised morons with a death wish, our leaders (hah!) are following exactly the correct path.

And yet still they scratch their heads wondering why we view them all with utter contempt. Jeez.