It's going to be in Brussels and you can come. See here for details.
Tuesday, 2 May 2017
The Nanny State Index Conference is coming
It's going to be in Brussels and you can come. See here for details.
Monday, 1 May 2017
The soda tax scam
News in from Seattle...
That's right, it's another 'sugar' tax being rolled out to drinks which contain no sugar. Another supposed anti-obesity measure being applied to products which contain no calories. Just like in Philadelphia, just like in France.
It's almost as if the whole soda tax ruse is just another way of the government dipping its greasy hands into the pockets of the gullible public and has nothing to do with health. Say it ain't so!
And if you think the money raised will go towards tackling obesity, you haven't been paying attention. Oakland, California is the latest place to let the mask slip...
To be fair, it's better for taxpayers' money to go towards fixing potholes than to be dished out to the venal 'public health' industry, but that is not how soda taxes are sold to the public. If the dumb saps of California knew that the cash would go towards budget deficit reduction they would, quite reasonably, say that the money should be raised through general taxation rather than a regressive sugar tax.
The fact that nanny state twonks are being prevented from squandering soda tax revenues is the heart-warming silver lining of this cloud, but it doesn't stop the whole thing being a massive scam.
Today Mayor Ed Murray announced his revised proposal for a tax on sodas and other sugary beverages, which will now also apply to diet soda and similar drinks.
That's right, it's another 'sugar' tax being rolled out to drinks which contain no sugar. Another supposed anti-obesity measure being applied to products which contain no calories. Just like in Philadelphia, just like in France.
It's almost as if the whole soda tax ruse is just another way of the government dipping its greasy hands into the pockets of the gullible public and has nothing to do with health. Say it ain't so!
And if you think the money raised will go towards tackling obesity, you haven't been paying attention. Oakland, California is the latest place to let the mask slip...
Oakland council members blast Mayor Schaaf for soda tax ‘bait and switch’
Three council members are blasting Mayor Libby Schaaf’s plan to spend revenue from a successful soda tax measure to help close the city’s budget deficit, calling the mayor’s proposal a “bait and switch” on voters.
Voters in November passed the penny-per-ounce tax on the promise that while the tax revenue would go to the general fund, it would be spent on an advisory board to use the money to fight childhood obesity and educate the public on the health risks of drinking soda.
Councilmembers Annie Campbell Washington, Desley Brooks and Rebecca Kaplan, who co-authored the measure, said the mayor’s final budget proposes using the revenues to fill the city’s budget deficit.
To be fair, it's better for taxpayers' money to go towards fixing potholes than to be dished out to the venal 'public health' industry, but that is not how soda taxes are sold to the public. If the dumb saps of California knew that the cash would go towards budget deficit reduction they would, quite reasonably, say that the money should be raised through general taxation rather than a regressive sugar tax.
The fact that nanny state twonks are being prevented from squandering soda tax revenues is the heart-warming silver lining of this cloud, but it doesn't stop the whole thing being a massive scam.
Friday, 28 April 2017
Public Health England and the anti-drink lobby
The very first thing Public Health England did when it was created in 2013 was demand minimum pricing for alcohol. As I said at the time, it had all the hallmarks of another taxpayer-funded nanny state outfit.
So it has proved, but the extent to which this quango acts as a partisan pressure group is only gradually coming to light. Using the Freedom of Information Act, I have found hundreds of e-mails between PHE and the Institute of Alcohol Studies (née the UK Temperance Alliance). IAS is a private organisation with strong views on alcohol policy and their members are entitled to have their voice heard, but the e-mails show that PHE has been working hand-in-glove with them for several years. Other strident neo-temperance campaigners are also heavily involved with PHE's alcohol team, including Alcohol Concern and the fanatic Ian Gilmore (who co-chairs one of PHE's main alcohol committees).
The e-mails only give a glimpse behind the curtain but it is revealing nonetheless. I've written about them for Spectator Health...
Do have a read. If you want to see the e-mails in full, you can access them here and here.
So it has proved, but the extent to which this quango acts as a partisan pressure group is only gradually coming to light. Using the Freedom of Information Act, I have found hundreds of e-mails between PHE and the Institute of Alcohol Studies (née the UK Temperance Alliance). IAS is a private organisation with strong views on alcohol policy and their members are entitled to have their voice heard, but the e-mails show that PHE has been working hand-in-glove with them for several years. Other strident neo-temperance campaigners are also heavily involved with PHE's alcohol team, including Alcohol Concern and the fanatic Ian Gilmore (who co-chairs one of PHE's main alcohol committees).
The e-mails only give a glimpse behind the curtain but it is revealing nonetheless. I've written about them for Spectator Health...
Emails released to me under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that IAS not only enjoys a close relationship with the Chief Medical Officer, but is also very friendly with Public Health England (PHE). PHE and IAS were in almost continuous contact in the two years leading up to the publication of the agency’s report on alcohol in December 2016. PHE officials gave its members access to unpublished documents, shared their contacts in government, promoted IAS material, invited IAS members on to three committees and even moved their official meetings to the IAS’s offices in Caxton Street, London.
Between November 2014 and December 2016, IAS had meetings with Public Health England almost every month, exchanged more than 330 emails and had numerous off-the-record conversations in person and over the telephone.
Do have a read. If you want to see the e-mails in full, you can access them here and here.
Friday, 14 April 2017
Tax vapers, we need the money!
Via United Vapers, there's an interesting little video of Stanton Glantz and Philip Gardiner - two anti-tobacco activist-researchers at the University of California, San Francisco - doing the rounds. The pair are filmed speaking to vapers and vaping business owners who are suffering thanks to the US's insane e-cigarette laws. Those laws have come about, in part, because of the unspeakable junk science that has come out of California.
Watching the film, you would think that Glantz and Gardiner were elected politicians rather than academics. There is no doubt about who has the power and influence. Who made these idiots judge, jury and executioner?
The video makes grim viewing but it does contain the following admission:
Every piece of 'e-cigarette research' I have ever seen from a Californian academic has been laughable, scare-mongering, politically-based quackery. The idea that vapers should be taxed to pay for these people to persecute them is obscene.
View it from 5.30 minutes to see the 'public health' racket in action...
Watching the film, you would think that Glantz and Gardiner were elected politicians rather than academics. There is no doubt about who has the power and influence. Who made these idiots judge, jury and executioner?
The video makes grim viewing but it does contain the following admission:
Gardiner: I'm in favour of taxing you guys. I wish I could tax it as much as tobacco but I'm willing to compromise to do it less. But it needs to be taxed. Most of the research that we do at the University of California comes from taxes, okay? We have spent a third of our budget over the last two years on e-cigarette research - which is a good thing, I'm all in favour of it - but we have no revenue coming in from it.
Various people in unison: That's not our problem!
Gardiner: But as a scientist at the University of California, that it is my problem.
Every piece of 'e-cigarette research' I have ever seen from a Californian academic has been laughable, scare-mongering, politically-based quackery. The idea that vapers should be taxed to pay for these people to persecute them is obscene.
View it from 5.30 minutes to see the 'public health' racket in action...
Outdoor smoking ban firmly rejected
When Theresa May became prime minister last July I left a hostage to fortune by telling the Morning Advertiser that she was 'surprisingly sound' on nanny state issues. Perhaps those words will come back to haunt me but the early signs are good. For example...
Same old Labour, always meddling, you might say. Except the same could be said for the Conservative party under David Cameron.
What is most encouraging about the Conservatives' response to Khan is that they have started to use accusations of nanny statism as a political weapon again.
Well said, that man. Now let's just admit that the current smoking ban has led to massive pub closures.
It is also encouraging to see the Labour party immediately distance itself from the health fascists.
It's no surprise to hear that the proposal was inspired by an attention-seeking, third rate 'public health' group.
Behind all the bluster about bar staff, that was the true reason for the original smoking ban. The mask has slipped, but it seems they have a political mountain to climb before they achieve their next goal.
A smoking ban in beer gardens and al-fresco dining areas has been blocked by the Government after ministers warned they would infringe on people's freedom and lead to pub closures.
The proposals to extend the ban to outdoor areas were have been included in a list of demands by councils and health authorities in London which has been supported by Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London.
Same old Labour, always meddling, you might say. Except the same could be said for the Conservative party under David Cameron.
What is most encouraging about the Conservatives' response to Khan is that they have started to use accusations of nanny statism as a political weapon again.
Marcus Jones, a minister for local government, said: “We already knew that Labour councils charge higher council taxes and levy more red tape.
"Now Labour’s municipal killjoys have been caught with a smoking gun, trying to ban adults enjoying their local pub garden. If implemented, these ill-founded proposals would lead to massive pub closures.
"Conservatives in Government will be vetoing these Labour Party plans. Ahead of May’s local elections, local voters have a right to know the bad and mad ideas that are being peddled by Labour councillors."
Well said, that man. Now let's just admit that the current smoking ban has led to massive pub closures.
It is also encouraging to see the Labour party immediately distance itself from the health fascists.
A Labour spokesman said: "This is not Labour Party policy. It's not something we are considering, nor is it something we will be considering."
It's no surprise to hear that the proposal was inspired by an attention-seeking, third rate 'public health' group.
The Royal Society for Public Health has called for "exclusion zones" around pubs, in parks and at the entrances to schools.
It said that reducing the "convenience" of smoking will prompt more people to give up.
Behind all the bluster about bar staff, that was the true reason for the original smoking ban. The mask has slipped, but it seems they have a political mountain to climb before they achieve their next goal.
Thursday, 13 April 2017
Action on Jam
Action On Sugar's usual gimmick is to read the nutritional information on food labels, collate the figures and then alert the public, via a press release, that food companies use sugar as an ingredient. The amount of sugar is explained in terms of teaspoons and the quantities consumed are contrasted with the government's guidelines. Never mind that the guidelines relate to added sugar whereas Action on Sugar's figures show total sugar. Never mind, too, that the guidelines were arbitrarily halved a couple of years ago to ensure that everybody is eating too much of it; a sugar ration from World War II would take you over the guidelines these days.
This schtick works quite well for savoury products. If you're the kind of moron who doesn't realise that sweet and sour sauce has sugar in it or doesn't know that white bread is supposed to contain sugar, you might find Action On Sugar's press releases vaguely interesting. One consequence of the decline of home cooking is that people are constantly surprised by the amount of sugar, salt and fat that are used - and have always been used - in food. Action On Sugar like to talk about sugar being 'hidden' because it implies some sort of chicanery, but everything is 'hidden' in food once it's been cooked.
The inexplicable success of the Great British Bake Off has done nothing to calm the sugar panic. A certain amount of doublethink is required for a nation to go crazy for baking cakes while panicking over tiny quantities of sugar in tomato ketchup. Jeremy Corbyn personified this confusion when he described himself as 'totally anti-sugar'. His hobby is making jam.
Jam is now firmly in Action On Sugar's sights. Their latest publicity stunt exposes the 'shocking' amount of sugar contained in jam, marmalade and chocolate spreads. The worst offender is the seemingly respectable Women's Institute, whose Fine Cut English Breakfast Marmalade has 14.3 grams of sugar per 20 gram serving. In the jam category, Mackays Scottish Strawberry Preserve is named and shamed for having 13.4 grams of sugar per serving and Tesco has the sugariest chocolate spread with 11.8 grams per serving.
Aside from a wry article in The Times, this 'story' has not received much attention from the press. That is a shame because the public need to know what kind of people they are up against. A spokesman for the National Obesity Forum says the WI 'should never have allowed a manufacturing company to lace its product with so much sugar'. The chairman of Action On Sugar has demanded that jam makers 'go well beyond the 20 per cent sugar reduction that Public Health England is calling for'. This is wingnuttery of the highest order and should be reported.
The obvious problem for Action On Sugar is that everybody knows that chocolate, jam and marmalade contain sugar. It is not newsworthy. But there is also the more subtle problem that jam and marmalade are not regarded as suspicious processed foods invented by scary corporations. They were made and eaten by your great-grandmother and the recipes have not changed since the days of Mrs Beeton. The idea that children are endangering their lives by eating two slices of toast with jam, as Action On Sugar have suggested today, would strike any sane person as ludicrous. If having a bit of marmalade is enough to take you over the government's guidelines, you might conclude that it is the guidelines that need changing, not the marmalade.
But it doesn't matter what you think. Jam, marmalade and chocolate spread are going to be changed whether you like it or not. Like a host of other products, they are included in Public Health England's ludicrous sugar reduction scheme. If the manufacturers fail to reduce sugar content by 20 per cent, the government is threatening legislation.
In a few years time, the only way to eat jam the way your grandmother made it will be to do as Mr Corbyn does and make it yourself.
This schtick works quite well for savoury products. If you're the kind of moron who doesn't realise that sweet and sour sauce has sugar in it or doesn't know that white bread is supposed to contain sugar, you might find Action On Sugar's press releases vaguely interesting. One consequence of the decline of home cooking is that people are constantly surprised by the amount of sugar, salt and fat that are used - and have always been used - in food. Action On Sugar like to talk about sugar being 'hidden' because it implies some sort of chicanery, but everything is 'hidden' in food once it's been cooked.
The inexplicable success of the Great British Bake Off has done nothing to calm the sugar panic. A certain amount of doublethink is required for a nation to go crazy for baking cakes while panicking over tiny quantities of sugar in tomato ketchup. Jeremy Corbyn personified this confusion when he described himself as 'totally anti-sugar'. His hobby is making jam.
Jam is now firmly in Action On Sugar's sights. Their latest publicity stunt exposes the 'shocking' amount of sugar contained in jam, marmalade and chocolate spreads. The worst offender is the seemingly respectable Women's Institute, whose Fine Cut English Breakfast Marmalade has 14.3 grams of sugar per 20 gram serving. In the jam category, Mackays Scottish Strawberry Preserve is named and shamed for having 13.4 grams of sugar per serving and Tesco has the sugariest chocolate spread with 11.8 grams per serving.
Aside from a wry article in The Times, this 'story' has not received much attention from the press. That is a shame because the public need to know what kind of people they are up against. A spokesman for the National Obesity Forum says the WI 'should never have allowed a manufacturing company to lace its product with so much sugar'. The chairman of Action On Sugar has demanded that jam makers 'go well beyond the 20 per cent sugar reduction that Public Health England is calling for'. This is wingnuttery of the highest order and should be reported.
The obvious problem for Action On Sugar is that everybody knows that chocolate, jam and marmalade contain sugar. It is not newsworthy. But there is also the more subtle problem that jam and marmalade are not regarded as suspicious processed foods invented by scary corporations. They were made and eaten by your great-grandmother and the recipes have not changed since the days of Mrs Beeton. The idea that children are endangering their lives by eating two slices of toast with jam, as Action On Sugar have suggested today, would strike any sane person as ludicrous. If having a bit of marmalade is enough to take you over the government's guidelines, you might conclude that it is the guidelines that need changing, not the marmalade.
But it doesn't matter what you think. Jam, marmalade and chocolate spread are going to be changed whether you like it or not. Like a host of other products, they are included in Public Health England's ludicrous sugar reduction scheme. If the manufacturers fail to reduce sugar content by 20 per cent, the government is threatening legislation.
In a few years time, the only way to eat jam the way your grandmother made it will be to do as Mr Corbyn does and make it yourself.
Wednesday, 12 April 2017
Stanton Glantz on e-cigarettes
Vice have produced a worthwhile video about the e-cigarette war in the USA in which chief protagonist Stanton Glantz is interviewed at his desk in San Francisco. Glantz has been fanatically opposed to e-cigarettes from the outset and has been as prolific in producing junk science to support his position as he has been in the past when he was promoting smoke-free movies and smoking ban miracles.
The interview with Glantz reminded me of one of those consumer affairs programmes, such as Watchdog, where the investigative journalist finally catches up with the boss of a fly-by-night building company that has been filmed ripping off customers. All bluff and bluster. I wouldn't be surprised if the interview was cut short after Glantz suddenly remembered an important meeting he had to go to.
After waffling on about the fictitious 'gateway effect' and asserting that vaping is 'as bad as smoking a cigarette' for cardiovascular health, Glantz attacks his old colleague Michael Siegel. Without a hint of irony, Glantz says that Siegel has 'lost all credibility as a scientist'. This is followed by an amusing exchange in which the fat mechanic projects all his failings onto Siegel:
The whole thing is quite entertaining so have a watch of it below.
The interview with Glantz reminded me of one of those consumer affairs programmes, such as Watchdog, where the investigative journalist finally catches up with the boss of a fly-by-night building company that has been filmed ripping off customers. All bluff and bluster. I wouldn't be surprised if the interview was cut short after Glantz suddenly remembered an important meeting he had to go to.
After waffling on about the fictitious 'gateway effect' and asserting that vaping is 'as bad as smoking a cigarette' for cardiovascular health, Glantz attacks his old colleague Michael Siegel. Without a hint of irony, Glantz says that Siegel has 'lost all credibility as a scientist'. This is followed by an amusing exchange in which the fat mechanic projects all his failings onto Siegel:
Glantz: One thing that strikes me is that any research which supports his preordained position is good no matter how bad it is, and anything that doesn't is bad no matter how good it is.
Q: Is that the same for you?
Glantz: No, no, no.
Q: What bit of research recently has upended a few of your assumptions about e-cigarettes?
Glantz: Er, about e-cigarettes... er... nothing has come out that has - but I...
Q: But there's a bunch of stuff that has come out that disagrees with you.
Glantz: I'm not, I'm not... no, no.
Q: Yes, of course there is!
The whole thing is quite entertaining so have a watch of it below.
Will the government decide to stop e-cigarettes? (via @HBO) pic.twitter.com/U1uDwm8heV— VICE News (@vicenews) April 10, 2017
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