Despite public support and the medical evidence that plain packaging would save lives, David Cameron has put the interest of his chums in big business above British public health.
By shadow health minister Diane Abbott
Smoking is a killer. It is still the major preventable cause of death and disability. And it is the biggest cause of health inequality. Poor people suffer most.
We know that plain packaging is in important tool in bringing down levels of smoking. It is particularly helpful in discouraging smokers. Some thought that Cameron’s government wanted to bring in plain packaging. As late as April, the Tory Public Health minister, Anna Soubry said that she was convinced plain packaging should be introduced.
Ireland is now rightly pressing ahead with plans to force tobacco manufacturers to use standardised packaging.
Yet a few weeks ago the Sun’s well connected political editor Tom Newton Dunn reported that David Cameron had scrapped plans to force all cigarettes to be sold in plain packs:
“Mr Cameron has now ordered the proposed law to be pulled from next week’s Queen’s Speech. A Whitehall source said: ‘Plain packaging may or may not be a good idea, but it’s nothing to do with the government’s key purpose. The PM is determined to strip down everything we do so we can concentrate all our efforts on voters’ essentials. That means growth, immigration and welfare reform.'”
Yet again, this exposes real weakness from David Cameron, and it’s yet another humiliating public health car crash.
The hand of Lynton Crosby
The Sun did not identify its source, but the quote bears the hallmarks of the Conservative Party ‘strategist’ Lynton Crosby. In Australia, while Lynton Crosby was federal director of the Liberal Party, the party accepted major donations from the tobacco industry.
Between 2000 and 2010 the Party received $AUS 2.5 million from PMI and BAT. The UK Conservative Party has hired Mr Crosby through his lobbying firm Crosby Textor Fulbrook, which represents tobacco industry clients including British American Tobacco. In Australia, Mark Textor, co-founder of the company with Mr Crosby, was an adviser to the industry in its unsuccessful campaign against standardised packaging.
In the UK opposition to standardised packaging has been organised by the tobacco industry front group FOREST, through a campaign called ‘Hands Off Our Packs’. FOREST receives well over 90 per cent of its funding from the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry has also hired lobbying firms including Luther Pendragon and Goddard Global to help out.
The UK campaign against standardised packaging is just a part of a worldwide effort by the tobacco industry to defeat what it sees as a major threat to its ‘intellectual property’. In July, 2012 it was reported that the ‘tea party’ pressure group the ‘American Legislative Exchange Council’, which is backed by far right billionaires the Koch brothers, had launched a worldwide campaign against plain packaging of cigarettes.
The power of advertising
Cigarette packaging is last remaining area of tobacco advertising in the UK, following a general ban on advertising in the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002, and a ban on retail displays of tobacco products under the Health Act 2009.
Tobacco manufacturers therefore design their packs very carefully, and in particular to try to appeal to new smokers. Standardised packaging would remove virtually all branding. The pack and contents would be a standard shape, size and colour, and health warnings on front and back would be increased in size.
All packs would have a quitline number and web address. All key security features on existing tobacco packaging will also be on standardised packaging, including covert anti-counterfeit marks and numerical codes, making the industry’s claim that it would increase illicit trade as mendacious as every other argument it has employed on this issue.
Lobbying information suggests that there would be a clear majority in both the Lords and the Commons for standardised packaging, in a free vote. A free vote was used on the introduction of smokefree enclosed public places, and the measure passed in the Commons with a majority of over 200. Opinion polls also show clear public support for standardised packaging. A recent YouGov poll for ASH found that overall 64 per cent of adults in Great Britain were in favour of standard packaging.
Yet despite public support and the medical evidence that plain packaging would save lives, David Cameron has put the interest of his chums in big business above British public health.
The last Labour government showed leadership in bringing about real change on tobacco control. We introduced the smoking ban in pubs and enclosed spaces, ended sports sponsorship and billboard advertising, raised the legal age of purchasing cigarettes and put graphic warnings on cigarette packs.
It is not too late for Cameron to show similar leadership. He needs to get back on the plane from Ibiza and explain why the government is breaking yet another promise, and why doing the right thing is no longer a priority for his government.
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20 Responses to “Cameron’s friends in big business hold back progress on public health”
Cole
Let me repeat: the BMJ article you kept telling everyone about said their were under 12,000 unnecessary deaths not 40,000. As you well know.
The NHS is now definitely in decline as a result of the government’s policies. The chaos at A&E across the country is a disgrace.
The Conservatives and their friends are floating ideas such as limiting the number of times we can visit a GP and paying for services. It’s not difficult to see where this is heading.
LB
I posted several links. You are not reading the BMJ link.
The NHS is fucked. Purely because the NHS has become self centered and taken to looking after the NHS at the expense of patients.
That’s why just one hospital killed 1,200.
That’s why 40,000 are killed
That’s why vast numbers are maimed
Where are the whistle blowers at Stafford? Bad wasn’t it. Hmmm, how many doctors grassed the bad ones? None. How many nurses? None.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/lifestyle/health/stafford-hospital-campaigner-mothers-grave-4020748
The campaigner who exposed the Stafford Hospital scandal says she is leaving town after she received abusive messages and her mother’s grave was vandalised.
Julie Bailey fought for a public inquiry into appalling neglect and shocking standards of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust following the death of her mother Bella, 86.
After the grave was desecrated, she got a card that reportedly read: “Thank you for closing Stafford hospital, Ha, Ha, Ha, you better now spend more time watching your mother’s grave.”
It has been handed to police.
Julie, who runs Breaks Cafe in Stafford, said: “People have been coming in, shouting that nothing happened, that I am lying and that there were no unnecessary deaths.
Check out all the latest News, Sport & Celeb gossip at Mirror.co.uk http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stafford-hospital-campaigner-julie-bailey-1916795#ixzz2UmFV45i1
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook
That’s because their little scam, of not caring for patients but taking the cash has been rumbled.
It’s being going on for years. 4 people I personally know have been killed by incompetence.
1. Sent home with toxic shock.
2. One eviscerated because the surgeon didn’t take a swab and get it cultered – end result necrotising facietus
3. One was intubated into the stomach and not the airway, 02 not monitored, turned blue. By the time they noticed, brain dead.
4. A mother not treated for a brain aneurysm.
It’s been going on for years.
And from your postings, you don’t particularly care.You are wedded to a concept of the NHS. You aren’t concerned at all about what it provides.
===============
The evidence gathered by the Inquiry shows clearly that for many patients the most basic elements of care were neglected. Calls for help to use the bathroom were ignored and patients were left lying in soiled sheeting and sitting on commodes for hours, often feeling ashamed and afraid. Patients were left unwashed, at times for up to a month. Food and drinks were left out of the reach of patients and many were forced to rely on family members for help with feeding. Staff failed to make basic observations and pain relief was provided late or in some cases not at all. Patients were too often discharged before it was appropriate, only to have to be re-admitted shortly afterwards. The standards of hygiene were at times awful, with families forced to remove used bandages and dressings from public areas and clean toilets themselves for fear of catching infections.
others showed a disturbing lack of compassion towards their patients. Staff who spoke out felt ignored and there is strong evidence that many were deterred from doing so through fear and bullying
No doubt the same ones desecrating graves.
Labour was in power. Labour is responsible for Stafford.You can’t blame the Tories for this.
Labour paid off the unions with large pay rises and just a small proportion went on treatment.
End result now, is that without reverting back the payothers showed a disturbing lack of compassion towards their patients. Staff who spoke out felt ignored and there is strong evidence that many were deterred from doing so through fear and bullying
Cole
You know you are lying.
LB
You can’t read can you.
So what are you? Doctor or Nurse at Stafford?
Cole
Oh grow up. I’ve nothing to do with the NHS.
You can’t deal with having your fake figures exposed, can you? But that’s what you’d expect from the swivel-eyed tendency.