An Outbreak of Sanity
Photos: Stuart Mitchell
Tobacco Reporter joins Forest on the River Thames for its annual Smoke on the Water reception.
By George Gay
It seems there has been an outbreak of sanity at the heart of government in the U.K. In an Oct. 25 story in The Guardian, a Downing Street official was quoted as describing moves to ban tobacco smoking in certain outdoor places as comprising an “unserious policy.” “Nobody really believes smoking outdoors is a major health problem [for nonsmokers],” the official added.
The story was one of several media reports claiming the ban on smoking in certain outdoor places was being dropped from the government’s upcoming Tobacco and Vapes Bill (TVB). But while the change of policy, if that is what it is, is to be welcomed, it raises a couple of questions, one of which asks why the government was faffing about with an unserious policy when there are many serious matters that need fixing.
However, more importantly, in my view, is the question of trust or lack of it that arises from this volte face. I take it that if the government had not come under pressure from a hospitality sector concerned about the possible closures of some of its venues should the outdoor smoking ban be imposed, it would have gone ahead with the ban, justifying it on the grounds of protecting nonsmokers, a justification that “nobody” would have believed was valid. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how, since it was unserious, it would have been anything but a vindictive policy dumped on a largely unorganized but significantly sized minority with little means of defense.
And from here it is but a small step to questioning what of the other information we are fed about tobacco smoking is unserious—unbelievable. It seems obvious, for instance, that the level of harm caused by tobacco consumption is exaggerated. Deaths from other causes are put down to tobacco smoking, all in the best interests of smokers, of course.
The formulation of unserious tobacco policies is based, I imagine, on the idea that smokers are often from impoverished backgrounds—so not well educated and therefore dumb enough to fall for such chicanery. But this is a dumb idea apparently subscribed to by people who have the power to dictate policy but who engage only with a thin slice of the society on which their policies are imposed. In October, I had an opportunity to speak for a while to a smoker who had thought long and hard about her habit and who was aware of all the misinformation and hypocrisy that defines much of the debate that surrounds tobacco. Paula (not her real name) had a riposte for all the normal accusations and slurs aimed at smokers and smoking, but what impressed me most was her reaction to being told from above that she should stop smoking. Before people told her to stop smoking, she said, they should come and ask her why she smoked.
So why did she smoke? It was because she had issues in her life and she found that smoking was the best way to relieve the stress they caused. I got the impression that she thought the government’s best tactic for getting her to stop smoking was to act in respect of the causes of the issues she had. This is unlikely to happen, however, because it is cheap to lecture people and bring in some draconian, perhaps unserious anti-tobacco legislation but more expensive in respect of both effort and money to address some of the issues that cause people to seek refuge in smoking.
I spoke with Paula on the smoking deck of the Elizabethan, a two-deck Mississippi-style paddle steamer that the Freedom Organization for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (Forest) occupied for the evening of Oct. 22 as the venue for its Smoke on the Water reception. Such events, which take place as the Elizabethan paddles gently down and up the River Thames, have traditionally been held in July, but this year’s October schedule was timely because it provided an opportunity to address issues concerning the TVB.
Simon Clark, the director of Forest, in a brief address to the 180 guests aboard the Elizabethan, said he had two main concerns with the TVB. The first was the generational smoking ban that would make it illegal for those born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, to be sold tobacco products. This was a policy first introduced by the previous Conservative government but dropped when the then prime minister called a general election earlier this year and has since been revived by the Labour government that replaced the Conservatives. Clark said he found it weird that the new government should reintroduce a Conservative initiative and bemoaned the fact that the policy, if enacted, would mean future generations of adults would be treated like children.
The other main concern was the Labour initiative that would mean smoking’s being banned outside pubs and other public venues, but this seems as if it is dead in the water, an outcome for which Clark claimed some well-deserved credit in a statement issued after the reception. “As for the timing of the government’s alleged U-turn, can it be coincidence that it was reported just 48 hours after our Smoke on the Water boat party …? We’re (half) joking, but there’s no doubt that events like this (promoted throughout the Westminster village) have their place and, occasionally, some influence.”
This was a good point to make and a cheery one for those of us who tend to think that it is difficult if not impossible to give smokers a voice. The Smoke on the Water guests included members of Parliament, parliamentary aides, think tank staffers, broadcasters and supporters of Forest. The largest group were the parliamentary aides, staffers working for Members of Parliament (MPs) across most of the political spectrum: the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Reform U.K. parties.
Looked at from this point of view, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of Forest and the way it operates under Clark. “The aim of the event was primarily to engage with the new intake of parliamentary staffers because, following Labour’s landslide election victory and the defenestration of so many Conservative MPs who lost their seats, we had lost a large number of contacts from the previous Parliament,” Clark told me after the event but before it was reported that the government seemed to be on the point of dropping the outdoor smoking ban.
“The need to engage with MPs and their staff was particularly urgent given the expectation that the new Labour government will reintroduce the previous government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill before Christmas, and it’s our hope that ministers will, at the very least, reconsider the proposal to extend the smoking ban to outdoor spaces, including beer gardens.”
Otherwise, the aim of the event had been to highlight the impact of the proposed legislation on future generations of adults, and for this reason, Clark had assembled a panel of people in their 20s to briefly describe where they stood: Sam Bidwell, director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute; Josh Cheshire, national coordinator for Students for Liberty in the U.K.; Jonathan Heywood, a leading young Labour activist; and Reem Ibrahim, acting director of communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
I think it would be wrong to give the impression that these young people were representative of young people in general, except in the sense that they were looking to have some fun. And those of them who were smokers weren’t representative of smokers, but they were all representative of those who, like Paula, cherish the right to make their own decisions, including decisions that might affect their health, wise or not in the eyes of others.
One spoke with disdain of a 30-year to 40-year tradition that had imposed on the young “geriatric paternalism,” which, as somebody not far short of being an octogenarian, I can assure the young is what we geriatrics regard as fun. I know it’s sad, but there it is. And another pointed out that with the tide of public opinion going against individual freedoms and the possibility of still more restrictions on tobacco use, smoking was likely to become cool and to be seen as an act of resistance.
But perhaps the most interesting comment came when Clark asked Ibrahim what she would have said to the secretary of state for health, Wes Streeting, had he been at the reception, which elicited the suggestion that he should have a beer and some fun.
In fact, I don’t think he needs any such encouragement. In a 2023 interview in The Guardian, Streeting, who was then shadow health secretary, was quoted as saying, “If I’m going out, I’m a binge drinker—terrible messaging for the shadow health secretary!”
Not wishing to sound even more like a geriatric paternalist, I nevertheless wonder whether that statement goes some way toward explaining why what is being proposed is a generational ban on tobacco smoking and not a generational ban on smoking and drinking alcohol. After all, it is not immediately obvious why drinking should not be targeted. According to the Alcohol Change U.K. website, alcohol consumption is a causal factor in more than 60 medical conditions, including mouth, throat, stomach, liver and breast cancers, high blood pressure, cirrhosis of the liver and depression. Alcohol misuse is the biggest risk factor for death, ill health and disability among 15-year-olds to 49-year-olds in the U.K.
At the start of this piece, I suggested there might have been an outbreak of sanity at the heart of government in the U.K. Now, it seems I have to qualify that suggestion because the budget, delivered on Oct. 30, indicated there had also been an outbreak of cognitive dissonance, at least in respect of the budget’s treatment of tobacco, nicotine and alcohol. Although the government’s aim is purportedly to improve public health and take pressure off the National Health Service, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, treated alcohol with kid gloves. But she announced that vapes, the most successful quit-smoking aid, would be the subject of a significant levy. And while the government claims to be helping the less well-off, it is increasing by eye-watering amounts the taxes on tobacco, one of the few pleasures on offer to that demographic.
This, in part, is what Clark had to say about the budget announcements: “Instead of punishing the low paid, the government should focus on improving the environmental conditions that drive many people to smoke in the first place.” I think that Paula would endorse that.
