Is There Something In The Water In Wales?

A few years ago, I hinted that perhaps small populations don't tend to be conducive to producing a large talent pool.

When England play football against San Marino, what generally happens? Well, they get thrashed of course. In fact, they get thrashed by just about everyone because they're pants. Even Scotland can put a couple past them! 

It's not their fault. It's just that their population is so small that there is very little talent to choose from. Pitting 31,000 San Marinoans - or whatever they're called - against 53 million Englanders is only going to end in one result.

I'm starting to think that this population handicap could be the reason why Welsh officialdom seems to be populated by utter dickheads. How else does one explain this week's asinine and Luddite advice about e-cigs from Public Health Wales?

• ENDS should feature alongside other health-harming substances e.g. tobacco and alcohol, in all health education for children and young people, and be presented as harmful to health.
• A systematic enforcement programme should be developed to minimise the sales of ENDS to those less than 18 years of age, including development of a register of retailers and systematic test-purchasing, prosecution and media activity.
• ‘Confectionary-like’ (sic) flavours of e-liquid should not be permitted, in order to reduce the appeal of ENDS to children and young people.
• There should be restrictions on the use of ENDS in settings predominantly used by children e.g. in schools and school grounds and around the entrances to schools.
• There should be restrictions on the advertising of ENDS in all media that would be regularly viewed by children and young people.

So, fresh from being frustrated in their attempt to ban vaping in all public places - for no reason except bigotry and spite - PHW have instead decided that they should do the next most stupid thing and issue advice which can surely only have been designed to handicap vaping as much as possible.

As others have already mentioned, the sweeping statement that e-cigs are "harmful to health" for youths is not true in all cases, so can be described as appalling advice. A fair amount of young smokers in Wales will now henceforth be told that e-cigs are a no-no. 

Likewise, advocating bans around entrances to schools smacks of butthurt 'public health' morons trying to exact revenge after their pathetic and ignorance-based full vaping ban proposal was kicked out by the Welsh Assembly, despite Dangle-belly Drakeford's two year marathon of lying.

As for restrictions on advertising, considering there is no evidence that non-smokers are taking up vaping but that there is compelling evidence in favour of e-cigs being hugely less harmful than smoking, you have to wonder why PHW want to reduce the potential positives by hiding the good news away like some mad Uncle in the attic. Does the affront to their egos hurt that much that they'd prefer vaping to wither and die? Well yes, it would appear so. Yet again, e-cigs ruthlessly expose that 'public health' in the field of smoking has absolutely nothing to do with health, and all to do with repulsive prejudice and vile class-led snobbery.

However, the recommendation which illustrates that PHW collectively are less brainy than Kurt Cobain's ceiling is the one about flavours! Firstly, it's spelt "confectionery" for God's sake; does no-one at PHW have the intellectual wherewithal to spot that mistake before releasing a position statement or are they unaware of the existence of spellchecker? And as for this ...

Ashley Gould from Public Health Wales (PHW) said: "You can buy bubblegum, candyfloss, jam doughnut flavour e-cigarettes and they are only aimed at one audience - and that's about recruiting children."

Yes that's right Ashley, you cretin. We've just had advice from dentists that 'cake culture' must be eradicated from offices because adults love cake too much, but according to you only children like doughnuts? As for the other flavours mentioned, I've vaped both and my two regular vapes are Pear Drops and Aniseed Balls ... I'm in my late 40s.

I'm not an outlier either, as the Ashtray Blog has repeatedly pointed out.

“Think of the children,” has been a rallying cry of the anti e-cig movement. 

According to this movement, the e-cigarette industry is deliberately targeting children to get them hooked on nicotine young. So far, evidence has included the fact that some e-cigs are pink and that e-liquids are provided in a range of flavours. 

But vapers like flavours too! In fact, a survey of 10,000 vapers by ECigaretteForum showed that only 22% of them chose to vape tobacco flavours:

Indeed. PHW would like to throw the baby out with the bath water and ban flavours despite this being probably the prime driver of smoking cessation via vaping.

So what the blithering fuck are the provincial pricks at PHW doing with our taxes if they are employed full-time on high salaries and yet haven't managed to find this information for themselves? Because if we put Ashley's 'expert' wisdom on the subject into a Venn Diagram it would look something like this.

Look, I'm a decent guy, quite forgiving in fact. I can see that PHW have obviously got something disastrously wrong with this advice considering it is off dancing with pixies compared to the sanity over vaping in the rest of the UK's 'public health' community (fat Irish blowhards and Scouse communists aside). So I'm prepared to think that maybe it's not be driven by spite, and that maybe population constraints are not to blame as to why Wales has to suffer officials who - like we don't let alcoholics pilot aeroplanes - should not be in charge of anything except a box of crayons.

So - and this is a long shot to be fair - the only other possible reason must be that there is something nasty in the water in Wales. And if so, perhaps PHW should be looking into that instead of unleashing mentally-incontinent bullshit about vaping to the poor Welsh saps who have to suffer it.

Good grief. 

More Cuts Required For The Good Of Public Health

So today's vitally important 'public health' message from our cash-starved 'austerity' government was about the colour of toast. Yes, really.

The awareness campaign, entitled Go for Gold and backed by athlete Denise Lewis (geddit?) was faithfully shared by state-run Nanny Beeb.

Bread, chips and potatoes should be cooked to a golden yellow colour, rather than brown, to reduce our intake of a chemical which could cause cancer, government food scientists are warning. 

Acrylamide is produced when starchy foods are roasted, fried or grilled for too long at high temperatures. 

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) recommends carefully following cooking instructions and avoiding browning.

If you're a hypochondriac - and/or are gullible with no understanding of risk whatsoever - you will naturally be terrified on hearing this new information. The truth, however, is in plain sight within the article, not once but twice.

"However, Cancer Research UK said the link was not proven in humans." 

"as yet there is no conclusive evidence."

No, and as David Spiegelhalter points out today, it's not for want of trying either; a massive report by the European Food Standards Agency found nothing worrisome in 16 studies and 36 publications they analysed. Spiegelhalter also went further and questioned the wisdom of the FSA publishing such advice in the first place.

Reactions to Go for Gold may range from the extremes of encouraging obsessive concern in the worried-well, to irate editorials on yet another intrusion from the ‘nanny state’. More worrying, people may just consider this yet another scare story from scientists, and lead them to dismiss truly important warnings [...] the FSA provide no estimate of the current harm caused by acrylamide, nor the benefit from any reduction due to people following their advice. To be honest, I am not convinced it is appropriate to launch a public campaign on this basis.

That didn't matter to The Sun though, who slapped the tale of "killer" toast on their front page as an "OFFICIAL WARNING", no less.

So there we have the UK's most respected news broadcaster and the country's best-selling newspaper both parroting absolute codswallop which will be believed by millions (Mrs P tells me that some of her white collar office colleagues did today).

Those of you with long memories might remember a similarly hysterical Sun headline from August last year - also a result of irresponsible junk science - which was equally devoid of truth, an original of which has been kept by Professor Peter Hajek who waved it at a South Bank Uni audience last week as an example of "total nonsense".

Now, there are quite a few things to note about the increasing absurdity we are seeing from 'public health' studies and campaigns.

Firstly, it is very easy to dismiss The Sun's front page today as gutter journalism, except that the BBC also prominently covered it over all platforms despite the health risk being so negligible as to be unworthy of comment. The cult of self-perpetuating 'public health' is now so entrenched that supposedly respected news sources will vomit it out as pliantly as derided red top rags. Irresponsible clickbait in journalism is now endemic.

This moves us onto the second point. I find it quite ironic that the 'public health' industry is packed full of lefty ideologists who consider The Sun and the Daily Mail to be abhorrent shitsheets which will print any old garbage, yet they are in the front line for spreading ignorant junk science. This should, surely, flag up a message as to how corrupt and shabby the output of tax-sponging 'public health' professionals really is.

Thirdly, we are living in an age where brows are being furrowed at the prevalence of "fake news" and how so many gullible individuals are susceptible to it. Well, when you have supposedly credible authorities such as the FSA producing contemptible and evidence-free arse-gravy reports of killer roasties, anything else is possible, isn't it?

Fourthly, while the media's attraction is the page views they will gather, it's quite clear that the FSA is guilty of confusing the public with the similarly selfish motivation of pursuing salaries. The NGO is state-funded, with a gov.uk web address, but on this evidence seems more concerned with being seen to be doing something than actually weighing up if the information will have a beneficial effect on public health and well-being.

Which leads us onto the final point, that if the FSA has time and resources to waste on such trivial crap, we need to see far more cuts to public sector spending. There has been no benefit gained for the public's health today, all that has happened is a bunch of overpaid rubber band-flickers have panicked many people and caused a large proportion of the public to make choices which make their lives just that little bit more miserable for no reason whatsoever.

More cuts required please Mr Chancellor, the public's health and enjoyment of life depends on them. 

There's A New Idiot In Town

Twat

It may be Christmas Eve where the vast majority of the country has closed down for the holidays, but it seems there is still time for one last piece of cretinous, puritanical, ivory tower codswallop from the 'public health' community.

Via The Times:

Vaping should be banned in public places, Britain’s top family doctor says, signalling a backlash against the enthusiastic welcome of e-cigarettes by the medical establishment. 

Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, hit out at e-cigarettes as a “lifestyle choice”, insisting they must be confined to medically supervised attempts to quit smoking.

It seems that, despite the events of 2016, these elitist morons still don't get it.

Stokes-Lampard has only been in her job for just over a month, but is already proving that GPs would probably be far better led by Frank Lampard instead. Her view of e-cigs is so out there where the buses don't run that you have to think seriously about the safety of going to your NHS doctor in the future if this is the kind of profoundly ignorant guidance they can expect to be shovelled.

“The only place that I see vaping has is for people cutting down from smoking on their way to quitting, and therefore the appropriate thing is to treat it like smoking,” Dr Stokes-Lampard said in an interview.

This attitude beggars belief and is so far removed from the consensus of current UK medical opinions about e-cigs that we must either assume she is fishing for headlines to stamp her name on the public's consciousness, or question outright the underlying motive for her uttering such execrable bullshit.

“I think it would be a retrograde step to allow vaping in public places,” she said. Many pubs and restaurants have opted to ban vaping on their premises, as have trains and airports.

Retrograde step? The reason that e-cigs are allowed in public places is that we are not (yet) living in a fascist dictatorship - however much 'public health' attempts to make it so - and there is not, and never will be, proven harm to bystanders from passive vaping. Of course, there is nothing but junk science and innuendo to back up the hysteria over passive smoking either, but since Stokes-Lampard appears to be a fully signed-up member of the cult of tobacco control industry woo, she's too gullible to even reach the first level of understanding of the matter.

This, remember, is the person who has just been put in charge of the organisation that oversees every GP in the United Kingdom. Just pause and think on that for a moment. Truly terrifying, isn't it?

As the NNA described just yesterday, Stokes-Lampard is in the camp of those who know the princely sum of fuck all about what she is pronouncing on.

As the NNA has consistently advocated, a vast number of people derive great pleasure from nicotine just as millions enjoy coffee containing caffeine – both judged to be on the same toxicity level by experts – yet we do not hear of government campaigns to wean the public, or even MPs themselves, off coffee. Smokers are not ill and do not require a medical intervention; in fact, for many the very idea is anathema and would deter them from switching to a less harmful alternative.  

The huge and swift success of vaping in the UK has occurred not because it is viewed exclusively as a smoking cessation device – quite the opposite – instead the success is attributable to vaping being an enjoyable, healthier pastime free from the pressure of real or imagined state coercion. If full nicotine cessation then ensues then so be it, however that should not be the sole consideration. 

This is entirely correct. Smokers don't want to be hectored on high by self-righteous totalitarians like Stokes-Lampard, which is why they are voting with their feet and deserting Stop Smoking Services in their droves in favour of their local vape shop; the result has been a significant decline in smoking prevalence. All that a ban on vaping in public places can possibly do is to slow that down or even slam the bloody phenomenon into reverse gear, yet this ridiculous person - charged with being a thoughtful and wise leader of doctors nationwide, incredibly - doesn't even possess the basic mental capacity to understand even that.

Listen, Helen, we realise it must hurt that smokers are doing things for themselves and don't really need GP lectures any more, but wouldn't it be better if you just shut your vacuous trap instead of jealously endorsing policies which would have the sole effect of deterring people from quitting smoking? Christ on a bike, I thought we'd left this kind of protectionist medical industry ignorance behind when quacks finally conceded that a course of leeches wasn't all it was cracked up to be!

“At the Royal College of GPs we don’t allow people to vape in the building. Until we have the full evidence base we are taking the conservative approach that we do not allow smoking, we do not allow vaping because it’s so closely aligned,” she said.

Yes that's right, Helen, they're one and the same thing. My life, how fucking stupid do you have to be to believe that when all the science says otherwise? Now, I could expect it out of some knuckle-dragging ignoramus down the pub, but this woman is billed as "Britain’s top family doctor"! How bad were the other candidates if this weapons grade bonehead got the job?

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP recently said that "experts, soothsayers and astrologists are all in much the same category", and was lambasted for it by the class of arrogant, over-thinking establishment imbeciles which comprise people such as Helen Stokes-Lampard. Her ignorant wibble on the subject of smokers and vaping has just proved him 100% correct.

Did I ever tell you, by the way, that it's never been about health? 

Enfield, A Beacon In A Morass Of Local Insanity

Councillor Simon Cooke last month wrote a couple of articles on the frustration he felt when trying to introduce an enlightened approach to vaping at Bradford City Council. The second of these, in particular, listed the daft and contrived justifications that his fellow council members put forward in order to dismiss the idea, do go read them here and his commentary on the matter.

Where we go from here I'm not sure. Putting another motion to Council won't work and I'd already tried approaching public health and the council's HR department directly (they chose not to reply). We've made - and will continue to make - the case through the press. Maybe Bradford's vapers are happy to muddle through with a mish-mash of different attitudes towards what they do. And perhaps public health (and Labour councillors) are happy to conflate smoking and vaping because it suits their disdain for what seems like a decidedly working-class habit.

He shouldn't feel too disheartened because it's quite clear from a report published today by Freedom to Vape - after submitting FOI requests to every council in the country on their workplace vaping policies - that crass ignorance, snobbery and prejudice about e-cigs is not something confined to Bradford in isolation. It is nationwide.

The report lists some of the most egregious policy excuses but the most prevalent is this utterly lazy one.

By simply executing a blanket ban, the majority of councils have buried their heads in the sand, hoping that a perceived problem will disappear.

In a huge number of cases, this is absolutely correct.

Now, it's important to note here that 'public health' decisions have been devolved to council level. So even this kind of idle policy-making is reprehensible considering we now have positive reports on vaping from Public Health England (August 2015), the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (February 2016), the Royal College of Physicians (April 2016), and - specifically on vaping in workplaces - from Public Health England again in July 2016.

However, faced with the advent of e-cigs, hundreds of councils obviously couldn't bother to research what they were - the "we should be talking about more important things for the District than vaping" approach described by Cooke - and even their 'public health' departments seemed blissfully unaware of guidance from national authorities or, even worse, have ignored it entirely in favour of earlier messages which enable them to justify kneejerk bans despite their parochial policies being reviewed after better advice had been issued.

The overall ignorance is quite jaw-dropping. The Freedom to Vape summary is damning enough, but do read the spreadsheet file which accompanies it to get the full extent of how very ill-informed (or lazy) the people running 'public health' at local level really are.

Accompanying the report is a file detailing quotes from the FOI responses (see here). I dare you to read them as many are shameful and very often quite shocking. Just about all of the lame excuses Cooke encountered in Bradford are represented and communicated proudly by responding councils, and are complemented by much more rot that his colleagues never thought of.

For example, a disturbing number justify their ban simply for the fact that they say e-cigs "look like smoking", an irrelevant point which shows that their 'public health' departments have either not been consulted or are woefully incompetent. Northumberland County Council even use this to explain why they ban vaping within 30 metres of council buildings!

Reading Council bans e-cigs on the basis that their policy prohibits "anything that can be smoked"; Redditch Council describes e-cigs as "smoking materials"; West Dorset declares that "vaping is held in the same category as smoking"; Wrexham class vaping "in the same manner as smoking of other materials in all cases"; Ipswich confidently "considers use of e-cigarettes to be a form of smoking"; and Flintshire Council bizarrely says that it is "committed to reducing visibility of smoking and this includes e-cigarettes". Forest of Dean says much the same, stating that they encourage staff not to smoke so therefore "do not permit use of e-cigarettes". Worst of the bunch in this category, though, is Isle of Wight for their grammatically-ugly "staff are however aware that smoking via an e-cigarette is treated in the same way as what smoking is".

Considering these councils are probably involved in education, perhaps someone should point them to a dictionary and/or explain what a non-sequitor is.

Despite the reports by PHE, RCP, NCSCT, ASH, CRUK and all other positive sources, many councils state that their policy is currently being reviewed but that they have already decided that a ban will stay in place. Glasgow Council has a rule that e-cigs cannot be charged and asserts that e-cigarettes are unregulated! Erm, TPD anyone?

Buckinghamshire say that they considered the issue but decided it was easier to just ban them, but that they will re-consider if e-cigs are classed as medicinal devices by the government; Horsham admits that there is no reason to ban because they fall "outside of the scope" of the smoking ban ... but ban them anyway; while Pembrokeshire concede that vaping is not illegal but it "mimics smoking" so that's good enough for them.

Both Lancashire and Shropshire (and a few others) cite the WHO saying e-cigs should be banned as their justification, while St Helens Council, along with Stockport, soberly announce that they are in favour of denormalising smoking and - without even a hint at providing supporting evidence - that e-cigs undermine this.

Stirling Council's policy - reviewed in February 2016 - authoritatively states that "there is insufficient evidence to prove they are safe for bystanders", a statement of such absolute idiocy that if I lived there I'd be demanding my council tax money back.

Some are very imaginative. Oldham say that e-cigs can be "unsettling" to people who are trying to quit so off to the smoking shelter you must go, while Powys insist that vaping "reinforces the normalcy of cigarette use" and that e-cigs are "the equivalent of cigarettes". Where they get such crap from is anyone's guess.

Trafford and South Cambridgeshire not only make staff leave the council's grounds to vape but also refuse to allow vaping breaks which is a recommendation of PHE in July this year. However, they are eclipsed by Medway Council who reach a special level of fuckwittery by declaring that "since electronic cigarettes often resemble ‘standard’ cigarettes very closely, staff should not be seen using electronic cigarettes whilst in uniform, either in paid or unpaid time". Yes, unpaid time too, just imagine being that much of an ignorant local 'public health' idiot that you came up with a policy like that for products which the RCP said should be "promoted widely".

As for Fenland District Council, can anyone - anywhere - point to where they get this bollocks from? Because they claim their policy "aims to prevent exposure to the vapours [e-cigs] produce in the same way that exposure to tobacco smoke is prevented, which is in line with the guidance issued by Public Health England". Sorry, but I think I must have missed that from PHE.

The Freedom to Vape report rightly highlights a quote from PHE which states categorically that "it is never acceptable to require vapers to share the same outdoor space with smokers". Now, it is irrelevant whether you or I agree with that or not, but it's damning that over 100 councils have completely ignored it and demand that vapers are only allowed to use e-cigs in designated smoking areas. If the future of 'public health' being devolved is that they all completely ignore guidance they are given by those superior to them, what's the point of paying any of them out of our taxes?

There is one beacon of light in amongst a morass of local authority insanity though, so step forward the London Borough of Enfield.

LB Enfield does not have a policy on the use of e-cigarettes.  We accept the evidence that e-cigarettes can aid smokers to stop using tobacco and encourage this. LB Enfield does not have a policy on the use of e-cigarettes and there are no plans to introduce one.

They should be praised from the rooftops for such a tolerant and enlightened attitude and I do hope - if they are serious about guidance that is obviously being ignored by local authority knuckle-draggers throughout the land - that PHE and others who claim to be 'vape-friendly' will let Enfield know that their policy is superb and publicly congratulate them as an encouragement for other authorities to follow their lead.

It's not just Simon Cooke's council which needs educating, it would seem, but also many others who require something more substantial than what is obviously already being ignored by inadequate local authority muppets. To Simon, I'd say that yes, he should resubmit his motion to Bradford Council. I hope this report wakes a few councils up and that Cooke writes to PHE and asks for some tangible help; from a budget of £500m per annum, I'm pretty sure PHE could send a stiff letter to all the ignorant and incompetent councils in Freedom to Vape's report and order them to stop being so damn stupid.

Cue tumbleweed.

You can read the full report along with copious notes from the FOI responses by clicking here. 

The Absurdity Of Public Health In Two Responses

Back in 2013, a bunch of tobacco control clowns punched the air and hugged each other at having struck a blow against the 'tobacco industry' after a long drawn-out debate in Brussels.

They had resisted common sense, eschewed evidence, dismissed personal testimony - instead relying on their old friends arrogance, ignorance, prejudice and junk science - to begin the process of what we now know as the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) regulations on e-cigarettes.

They didn't understand the products; they didn't understand the consumers; they didn't understand the market; and they still, after decades of making a whole load of ill-gotten bucks out of them, didn't understand smokers. But they regulated anyway, because that's what state-funded parasites do for a living.

The entire TPD is a dog's breakfast but the articles relating to vaping just illustrate how barking mad and detached from reality the 'public health' industry is. In the period since the TPD was inflicted on Europe, the scientific consensus has shifted and it is now only a tiny sub-set of shrill, deranged, soon-to-be irrelevant, ideological outliers who still cannot bear to admit that e-cigs are a beneficial step forward for what their profession has always 'claimed' to be about. That being health, by the way, in case you were struggling to guess.

Nothing encapsulates this more than one particular response by ECITA to the UK's advertising authority's consultation on e-cig advertising under the TPD which closed today.  In short, just about all advertising has been banned thanks to the aforementioned ignorant tobacco control clowns, all that's now being discussed is how far the ridiculous blackout should go.

Here is an extract from Question 12:

CAP considers that the following types of claims and activities are likely to be promotional in nature and therefore prohibited: 

-  descriptive language that goes beyond objective, factual claims, for example the use of adjectives 

12. Do you agree that the above types of claims are likely to be promotional in nature and should be prohibited? If not please explain why.

Yes, adjectives. They are actually talking about banning adjectives! And ECITA's response?

[A]lthough 'flavours' are considered to be a matter of fact, we are unable to conceive of a way in which a flavour can be described without any such description becoming promotional. This would seem to be an effective prohibition on non-descriptive flavour names. Consider a product sold by one of our members – Amber Blend. The name is suggestive of a tobacco flavour, but this is not explicit, and it is unlikely that someone seeking a tobacco flavour would purchase it hoping it would meet their needs. The current description is “Our Amber Blend e-liquid is a big hit among tobacco e-juice fans, it’s a light, sweet Virginian flavour.”. However, “a big hit” would clearly be considered promotional, and removing the adjectives from the line “it’s a light, sweet Virginian flavour” yields “it's a flavour”. The overall effect of bowdlerising this description is therefore:  

“Our Amber Blend e-liquid, it's a flavour”  

This does not seem likely to help consumers pick a suitable product.  

Indeed, since in this context the use of 'like' would be as an adjective, it is impossible to say that an apple e-liquid “tastes like apples”, nor would it possible to describe it as “apple flavoured”. On the other hand, unless it was flavoured with a natural extract from apples, it would not be possible to describe a flavour as “tasting of apples”, since this would not be factual.  

Given that taste is very much a subjective sense, providing useful descriptions of flavours would seem important to help with customer satisfaction, not only from a business perspective, but also in terms of helping consumers avoid reverting to smoking. However, writing an adjective-free, factual, non-promotional, description of a flavour would seem to be a broadly impossible task.

You could be forgiven for thinking that ECITA might have been so exasperated by such a question that they were playing it for laughs, I mean how can anyone possibly take such a staggeringly stupid proposal seriously? But no, this is a proper response to a UK consultation from an authority which is being deadly serious.

Now, I'm sure you've read lists of absurd laws and regulations from times of yore - often from American towns and counties - about which we can scoff at the stupidity of our ill-educated forebears handing power to such primitive, knee-jerking knuckle-draggers. But this is legislation which is actually being installed now, in 2016, not 1916. And not just being discussed here but in 28 member states of the EU covering a population of around half a billion people.

And the TPD won't be updated for another decade, so Europe is stuck with the ignorance and insane stupidity of those ignorant and bigoted tobacco control lunatics in 2013 for a long time to come.

By way of comparison, I thought you might be interested in ASH's response to the same question. Do Arnott and her state-funded pals believe that adjectives should be banned? Their reply is not quite as detailed, but makes their position quite clear. It says simply, in underlined capital letters ...

YES

Sometimes, those who the state pays to rule over our lives in the 21st Century make the Luddites of the 19th Century appear progressive and forward-thinking.

The Exception That Proves A Fool

Surely today has seen the funniest load of disingenuous bollocks ASH has ever released.

ASH research shows corner shops don’t need tobacco to be profitable

Well actually, their report, Counter-arguments (geddit?), would be funny except for the fact that - in the absence of anything useful to do with the taxes government regularly shovel this wasteful bunch of parasites - you paid for it.

Snowdon has already sliced and diced it (a simple task since their economic acumen alone wouldn't even merit a GCSE E grade) but I did find this part particularly hilarious.

Newcastle-based small retailer John McClurey agrees, but says corner shops have little choice but to sell tobacco: 

“I have little choice to sell tobacco as many of my customers still smoke. But tobacco makes me very little money while tying up plenty of cash in stock. Tobacco is a burden to me.

Now, this is the best supporter ASH could find in the trade and he admits that he cannot stop selling tobacco because it is a necessity to his business.

It's very simple, John. If you believe what ASH says - that "corner shops don’t need tobacco to be profitable", simply stop selling it.

He believes it’s time for change and welcomes the ASH report because it challenges retailers to consider whether tobacco companies and their local reps really have retailers’ interests in mind. 

McClurey added: 

“The decline in the market, the disappearance of cigarettes behind gantry doors and the shift to plain packaging have made the traditional approach to selling tobacco out-dated. A better alternative for retailers is to reduce stock, shift the gantry and free-up space for products that actually turn a decent profit.”

Well off you go then, Johnny-boy, what's stopping you?

Here's the guy, next to those products he's been selling for over 30 years and which, it would appear, he doesn't intend to stop selling anytime soon.

Why? because, on the same day as ASH released their report, buried at the bottom of their bastard cousin ASH Scotland's daily news round-up was this article in Wholesale News (emphases mine).

“Independents account for 50% of all tobacco sales in the UK and this has been driven by PMPs which have around 80% of the market and have proven popular with both retailers and shoppers. By premium pricing tobacco products, many retailers are only forcing smokers to go to the multiple retailers who are still charging at the RRP or below. Offering a compelling price on tobacco will keep customers coming through the door as it is the primary driver of footfall into c-stores. We do not need to give the multiples a hand-up when it comes to attracting customers. Instead retailers have to protect and develop their own businesses. I firmly believe that it’s ‘RRP or RIP’ for many independent stores as their businesses are at risk if reduced traffic comes through their doors. 

“We have seen from Australia that retailers who price at RRP or below have had no adverse effect on their tobacco sales. This is critically important as the tobacco shopper visits c-stores more regularly than non-smokers and spends almost £1,500 per year more in store. As a customer group, these shoppers are vital to your business and for your continued success, you need to retain these shoppers rather than drive them to rivals.”

ASH, it would seem, would prefer corner shops to commit business suicide just to satisfy their extremist feud with tobacco companies. Needless to say, if that were to happen, salaries of the hideous tax-scrounging trolls at ASH would not suffer one little bit.

But it's not going to happen anyway. If even the anti-smoking lobby's only supporter in the retail trade (they stick him on the end of a broom handle quite often to spout their shit as a result) admits that his business needs to sell tobacco and would suffer if it didn't, what the hell is the point in ASH's report today?

Meanwhile, in the real world, newsagents and tobacconists will be lobbying MPs tomorrow with a manifesto entitled "Fair Deal for Small Shops", which will doubtless include criticism of the many abuses their trade has suffered at the hands of the selfish, ivory tower, empathy-free extremists at ASH. And will be backed by every small retailer up and down the country with the exception of John McClury ... who still sells tobacco.

Now, who would you believe about the economics of the convenience store business? Those who work in it day to day, 99.9% of whom believe ASH to be a force for evil? Or ASH, who would find it difficult to push beads around an abacus without a detailed manual and have never had to turn an honest profit in their lives, and their lone retail supporter who says convenience stores should stop selling tobacco even though he can't himself without going bust?

Please! Someone cut off ASH's fucking funding, for crying out loud, they're beginning to embarrass themselves.

Jeremy Hunt And The Bourgeois Pudding Police

I'm sure Jeremy Hunt might think this a clever political move to appease the insatiable health fascists instead of bowing to demands for "fat taxes", but I don't think I've ever seen anything more evil and sinister from the UK government as this. Ever.

From The Times who I understand carried it on their front page.

Restaurants ordered to reduce size of puddings

Cut calories or be named and shamed, Hunt says 

Restaurants, cafés and pubs will be named and shamed unless they make food portions smaller or less sweet, the government has said. 

Chains such as Pizza Express, Starbucks, McDonald’s and Gourmet Burger Kitchen have been told to “step up” by cutting sugar from food and reducing the size of desserts, cakes and croissants. Calorie-reduction targets for fatty, savoury foods will also be set.

Ordered to reduce the size of puddings. From a Conservative party which claims to believe in free markets, personal responsibility, and freedom of choice?

Un. Fucking. Believable!

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, told a private meeting of more than 100 food companies yesterday that “going out to eat is no longer a treat” because it is so common. Takeaways and sandwich shops would therefore be expected to take the same action as supermarkets and food manufacturers in tackling Britain’s obesity problem, he said.

What Hunt failed to mention, though, is that some of the most fat-laden, sugar-encrusted, high calorie/low-health dishes, served - soaked in butter, carbs and with lashings of other delightful nasties - in Michelin star restaurants, high-end eateries, swanky hotels and niche bistros selling to the posh; the well-paid middle class snoboisie; and the perennially arrogant types who sneer at working class tastes, won't be on this 'shame' list.

Yet I wonder when was the last time Jeremy Hunt last cooked a home meal from a few simple ingredients instead of being wined and dined. How many MPs routinely eat out so that it is "no longer a treat". I'd wager far far more than those on mediocre means who eat the puddings that this fuckstick wants to shame.

It won't matter to him or his cohort, because they're not the targets. Nope, it's just you proles and your irritating habit of choosing what you like to eat for yourselves every now and then instead of bowing to the will of the revolting people who can't abide anyone of the lower castes enjoying the same choices.

The contempt just oozes out of his disgusting fans.

Just saw a guy have a glass of coke, a cappuccino, a croissant and a ham & cheese sandwich for breakfast #OurNHSistoast #worldgonemad

— Kirstie Mary Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) September 28, 2016

Beating up on others has never been more fashionable, has it?

It is genuinely terrifying how many people think it's OK to consume a cappuccino, a coke, a ham & cheese sarnie & a croissant in one meal.

— Kirstie Mary Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) September 29, 2016

Terrifying? No. Terrifying is that there are people who believe that a) it is now acceptable for rancid bastards to express their shameful bigotry in public and b) that the government is on their side.

Because this is actually the case, backed up by those ghastly overpaid wankstains at Public Health England.

Public Health England (PHE) has promised this will be its priority and yesterday revealed the target would apply to all the main sources of sugar for children apart from soft drinks, which will be subject to a sugar tax.

Yes. It is now a "priority" to tell you what size pudding you should be ordering. Over and above the pointless and class-based impending sugar tax.

Cereals, confectionery, yoghurts, ice cream, sweet spreads and jams, cakes, biscuits and breakfast foods such as croissants must all become less sweet or smaller, PHE told the meeting.

You, the underclass, are too stupid to enjoy the good things in life. Know your place and eat small portions of gruel. It's for your own good, after all.

We used to tackle malnourishment, but now our government is trying to destroy the signals of economic success, simply because a few state-paid prohibitionists have whipped up the prejudices of a minority of anti-social bigots who don't like seeing the average citizen enjoying the fruits of our prosperity.

I know I say that things like this are none of their business quite a lot, but this really isn't. The choices have already been made. Businesses don't offer large sizes of puddings because they are bullying people into eating more, it is is the result of competition because the public have demanded them.

Hunt is effectively saying that consumers are not entitled to make choices for themselves and businesses are not allowed to cater for those choices. Well, unless they are charging fortunes for high-end products for people who really do eat only rich food at restaurants 7 days a week ... like, erm, politicians. In which case it's fine and dandy.

I couldn't put it better than Action on Consumer Choice:

In effect, the government has now decided that we're getting too much food for our money. For our own good, it will pressure food producers, takeaway joints, restaurants and pubs to serve us less. 

This is an unwarranted attack on freedom to choose what we eat. It's quite easy to regulate how much sugar we consume. We can choose different products that contain less sugar, pick a portion size that suits us or simply not clear our plates. There is no mystery here. We should have the right to make those decisions and take responsibility for the consequences of them, too. (And that includes ignoring the wild scare stories about how what we eat is killing us.) Yet the government is insulting our intelligence by suggesting that we can't make such decisions for ourselves. 

Just a few years ago, the idea of the government deciding how much we eat would have been regarded as ludicrous. Yet politicians are so desperate to be seen to be 'doing something' about obesity that they want to make chocolate bars, puddings and other sweet treats smaller. Never mind that childhood obesity has plateaued, even fallen, over the past 10 years. Politicians need something to have a crusade about, and today's crusade is against sugar. So we can look forward to ever-blander food - and less of it, too.

The state is increasingly not just not your friend, but actively despises you. I can only hope that he is playing some political game where the public gets angry and bites back against the health nazis that plague decent society.

If Jamie Oliver and his insane hypocritical dishes are on the name and shame list the fair enough, but if not this is just a load of malodorous elitists telling you you're not allowed to spend your money in the same way that they do.

Marie Antoinette was slaughtered for less.

See also: A Triumph For Repulsive Anti-Social Snobbery

To Play The Game, You Should Really Understand The Rules

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but then some with very little knowledge have made a lucrative living on the back of their ignorance.

Take Simon Chapman, for example. Fresh from a triumphant tour of Europe including a London stopover - on expenses, natch - chatting to a dozen of his pals, the increasingly irrelevant fossilised tobacco control brick-brain has been pouring forth again. This time about the upcoming industry GTNF conference.

Ahem, Simon, here is what that link says.

"... in setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law"

Parties, Simon, parties. In this context, parties are national governments, not individuals.

Looking down the list of speakers to which the geriatric Aussie plonker links, there is not a single one who is affiliated with any national government anywhere in the world! So his pointing to the WHO's article 5.3 is entirely irrelevant, as is mention of 180 nations who are collectively sending no government officials there.

We should be careful not to be too harsh on poor old Simon in case this is a dementia thing, of course, but it does kinda help if someone involved in the tobacco control scam were to actually know something about the rules that his grubby profession created. Doncha think?

I do sometimes wonder where these strict tobacco control scruples disappeared to when UK and hundreds of other national government officials attended COP6 in 2014 in a country which had just blasted a packed passenger plane out of the sky and was under worldwide sanctions.

It's a puzzler, isn't it?

Eyes Wide Shut

Now, much as it pains me to keep mentioning the embarrassing event last week where hardly anyone turned up to see the legendary vandal academic Simon Chapman (after he bravely taunted vapers for not attending despite having demanded they be banned) ... it appears to be the gift that just keeps on giving.

Y'see, he's been questioning the figures.

It's a clever (albeit customarily rude and arrogant) attempt at misdirection by the dunderheaded lobcock, but anyone who has ever arranged a function of any sort knows that those who say they will turn up is never even close to the number who actually do. And his estimation of the 'crowd' differs greatly to those of three personal accounts I have come across, the most generous of which could only say "12 maybe, at a push".

Of course, considering Chappers was there for the whole day, and definitely for the hour that he stood in front of them reading his speech from a piece of paper, perhaps - I dunno - he could have counted them? Or maybe he was unsighted? Reading with his back to the audience? Frosted glass between him and those in attendance, perchance; or perhaps his eyesight is failing, it would be understandable for someone of his age and failing faculties I suppose.

Still, we shouldn't mock the afflicted, he's never been that great at adding up, after all. Maybe counting to 12 was just too taxing.

The 'Bravery' Of Simon Chapman

Following on from yesterday's article about the global joke that is Simon Chapman, you can't help but laugh at this.

Brave and fearless Chappers was just itching to face up to his detractors,so he was. So very disappointed that no-one turned up to listen to his fuckwittery, what with us all having jobs and stuff instead of being paid out of the public's taxes to go on holiday.

So imagine how surprising it was to read this about brave, brave Sir Simon.

So on the one hand he was dying to bravely hold a position of exalted power over vapers in the audience by way of a microphone and more chance to speak but, on the other, cowardly demands that no-one be allowed to challenge him from a position of equality.

I do believe this is called having one's cake and eating it. Still, if it makes the old fool happy as he becomes progressively more irrelevant, it would be pretty cruel of us to deprive him of his delusions of grandeur, don't you think? Believe me, you're going to miss high comedy like this when he carks it.

UPDATE: In fact, as I now understand it, brave Chappers specifically demanded of the RSM that none of the "vaping mafia" - as he put it - be allowed to attend the event at all! How odd, then, that he should tweet complaining that there were no vapers in attendance, eh?

Charge!

Phew, that was a close one!

A longstanding 'public health' lie came close to destabilising the NHS over the weekend.

A move that could have seen obese patients refused surgery in an attempt to save money is to be reviewed after national NHS bosses intervened. 

A proposed restriction by the NHS Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group would have seen non-life threatening procedures delayed by a year for those with a body mass index exceeding 30. 

The rule would also apply to smokers. 

NHS England, which can intervene as the CCG is under special measures, said the group had agreed to rethink the move.

As Snowdon has already noted, this is not how most people would expect the NHS to operate.

Rationing healthcare on the basis of lifestyle was never part of the NHS's plan in 1948. It it had been, there would have been even more resistance to the nationalisation of the industry than there was. But after years of wrongly scapegoating smokers and fat people for the NHS's spiralling budget, it's no surprise to find the service being turned from a free-at-the-point-of-need Ponzi scheme into a tool of outright coercion and punishment.

Indeed.

It's what happens when health nazis torture statistics in order to play on bigotry and prejudice and pretend that smokers and the overweight are taking more than their fair share of NHS resources. Because that's exactly what this is all about, as alluded to in the BBC article.

"They are trying to lose weight in the vast majority of cases and to deny them treatment that they need on the basis of their weight, without then offering them effective help to help them lose weight is rather like discriminating [against] a segment of the population on the basis of their colour or religious persuasion."

Besides which, it has, quite simply, never been true (like almost everything you ever hear from 'public health') that unhealthy lifestyles unnecessarily harm NHS finances. Whenever economic costs of socialised healthcare are calculated, it is always the 'healthy' - and not those who choose riskier lifestyles - who put the most burden on health services.

It should be obvious, especially since 'public health' wants to simultaneously tell us that smokers and the obese live far shorter lives. Healthcare costs for those who are considered healthy are more expensive to the system both short and long-term, and the largest financial commitment any government commits to - pensions - are hugely more costly too.

When tobacco controllers, or any other 'public health' charlatan, tell you that x costs the NHS y amount of money, they are lying by way of only giving you one side of the equation.

It's not hard to understand really.

While smokers and the overweight are often criticised for the financial impact of their unhealthy lifestyles, an obese person's medical bills actually average 10 per cent less overall than those of a person of normal weight. 

Smokers require even less treatment, say the researchers. 

The reason is that the healthy tend to live longer and so, while they might not have to battle lung cancer, heart disease or diabetes in their fifties, they may need long-term care for illnesses of old age such as Alzheimer's. 

As a result, any "savings" made by them being healthy when young are more than offset by their being ill in old age.

Tobacco controllers - who know better than the rest of us that smokers don't actually cost the NHS more than anyone else, quite the opposite - usually counter this incontrovertible fact with shrill straw men such as "so you're saying that governments should encourage smoking because it's good for the country's finances?". Well no, we are just arguing that 'public health' lobbyists should stop using outright lies to push their agenda.

The result of all this wholesale lying by health lobbyists is daft policies like that proposed by the ignoramuses at NHS Vale of York. To save money, they have taken the stance that the best thing to do is penalise the people who cost them the least amount of money in the long run. It's why they are not handling budgets or performing actuarial calculations in the private sector .. because if they were they'd be sacked.

Restricting treatment is just one stupid policy recommendation that 'public health' lying creates, the other is the regular call - which you may have heard from the most easily-gulled in society - to charge smokers, drinkers and the obese for NHS treatment. You know, because it's self-inflicted, innit, and why should they pay for the healthcare costs of others.

This is very dangerous ground for the NHS. Once you get into that line of thinking it renders the NHS unworkable. There's little need for those lucrative sin taxes now, is there Mr politician? Just think of all those treatments the NHS provides which the public regularly object to, and there are very many. If we can pick and choose who is treated and who is not, there are going to be a lot of green ink letters from Mr & Mrs Disgusted of Cheltenham.

There are also dozens of dangerous activities anyone could name that might end in long-term and incredibly expensive palliative care, why should the public collectively pay for extreme risk-taking? And you know that unwritten contract we have whereby we pay our taxes and you promise to treat us accordingly? Well, there is just the taxation now, if the benefit is being withdrawn for large sections of the population, we'll see those taxes dramatically cut so we can source healthcare elsewhere at our own cost, Mr Politician Sir, or we'll see you in court.

You can't have a protection racket without the protection, now can you?

It only takes one successful case and the NHS could be holed beneath the water line. Imagine the free-for-all as those most able to negotiate the red tape and best-placed to afford it opt out of a portion of their taxes and go private. Oh joy!

I've written about this kind of backward thinking from NHS administrators (who ironically are the biggest direct drain on the NHS) before, and whenever I do I find myself thinking "bring it on!", just before health service grandees intervene and tell the local idiots to shut the fuck up and stop trying to derail the gravy train.

Just like this weekend.

Oh well, these instances are becoming more and more frequent, so better luck next time, eh?

As a footnote, Snowdon also mentioned the appalling 'nurse' Jane "They'll just have to die" DeVille-Almond in his piece. If you've not heard her contribution to the "do no harm" principle of the medical profession before, you can listen to it below.