Smoking

If somebody invented a pill that could cure a disease that kills five million people a year worldwide, 100,000 of them in this country, the medical powers that be would surely encourage it, pay for it, perhaps even make it compulsory. They certainly would not stand in its way. A relentless stream of data from around the world is showing that e-cigarettes are robbing tobacco companies of today’s customers — and cancer wards of their future patients. In Britain alone two million now use these devices regularly. In study after study, scientists are finding e-cigarettes to be effective at helping people quit, to show no signs of luring non-smokers into tobacco

What form do you reckon the government’s consultation on cigarette packaging is going to take? Given that health minister Jane Ellison has said that the government’s intention is clear and the consultation short, I rather think it’s going to be like the gay marriage consultation – which ignored half a million objections to the thing in principle, and just focused on asking how to implement a decision already made. So this business of seeking out the views of ‘stakeholders’ is, I rather think, entirely cosmetic. I don’t know whether you could call me a stakeholder because I’m not exactly a smoker – I’ve never got the hang of inhaling –

There’s no reason why you should have heard of me. No reason why you would have watched a Channel 4 television series called Benefits Street — with a title like that, I’d have changed channel if it came on my telly. But they didn’t tell us the title when they wanted to spend 18 months filming on our street. For reasons I can’t pretend to understand, five million people tuned in. It’s supposed to be the biggest hit Channel 4 have had since The Snowman. A fairly normal bunch of people — myself, Fungi, Black Dee, Becky and Mark — have become reality TV stars. It’s like Big Brother, except

How the hell do we keep the kids quiet in the car now that we can’t subdue them with tobacco smoke? I suppose we’ll have to resort to slipping a tranquiliser into their in-car snacks, somehow. Parliament has now voted to make it illegal to smoke in a car when there are children in the back. Or the front, I suppose. I don’t know anyone who does this anyway, frankly. The British Lung Foundation, a pressure group which campaigns for equal rights for all lungs, regardless of colour, creed or gender, has stated that 430,000 children aged between 11-15 are subjected to cigarette smoke in cars every week. Where did

Whenever you cross from Washington, DC into the state of Virginia, you’re met with a sign saying ‘Buckle up Virginia, it’s a law we can live with’. The sign is meant to persuade people in a state where libertarianism runs deep to put their seatbelts on. But, even in the four years I lived in Washington, the sign became to feel rather out of date. Buckling up had become the norm. I wonder whether the same will happen with the proposed ban on smoking in cars when children are present. At the moment, the idea seems unenforceable, nanny statism taken to the max. But it is worth remembering how quickly

As a child, I was not a good traveller. The mere scent of a car interior – possibly the plastic seats, maybe the closed atmosphere, probably the whiff of petrol – would be enough to bring on the tell-tale flow of odd saliva that heralded a really impressive bout of vomiting. If the smell of fag smoke had been added to the mix it would have happened even sooner. So when I say that the that Labour peers’ attempt today (supporters of the amendment include Tony Blair’s old friend, Charlie Faulkner) to introduce a ban on smoking in cars with children is bossy, oppressive and expressive of the demeanour of Yvette Cooper

This was supposed to be the year of strife, strikes, misery and more. Instead, to the surprise of Britain’s politicians, things have instead gone badly right. I look at them in my Telegraph column today, and here are the top points:- 1. Crime plunges With the austerity and the unemployment, internal government reports predicted that Brits would respond by unleashing a crimewave. Instead, recorded crime has fallen to the lowest level in 25 years: [datawrapper chart=”http://www.seapprojects.co.uk/charts/3571387552215.html”] 2. We’re doing more with less People think public services are getting better, in spite of substantial cuts in local authority spending. The doomsayers were wrong – thanks to resourceful British public servants, more

It has been a bad week for smokers. In yet another skirmish in the war against the vice, it was announced late last night that the British government is pressing ahead with Soviet-style plain packaging of cigarettes, despite Cameron’s decision to shelve the policy in July. Australia is the only country currently with plain packaging, after enacting it in December 2012. The results have been less than impressive. Indeed, as I wrote about earlier this month for the Telegraph , the accountancy firm KPMG released a report on 4 November, which highlighted how the Australian government has lost $1 billion Australian dollars in the 12 months ended in June, as a

The Government’s bid to make Britain that little bit more like Australia, in a bad way, by requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain white packaging may well be announced on that annual irritant, No Smoking Day, next Wednesday. And for good measure, it may throw in a ban on smoking in cars carrying children under 16. The only upshot of that last one will be to make it that bit more difficult to get a lift for a child. I am not  a serious smoker. I can manage perhaps two or three cigarettes a year, Clinton style, but that’s enough to forfeit a premium rate of life insurance (actually

On the eve of the smoking ban five years ago, hundreds of liberty lovers came together to rebel and enjoy one last night of freedom. A reunion was held on the eve of the anniversary this week of the ban by smokers lobby group Forest. In the Scottish jazz heaven of Boisdale Canary Wharf, the biggest table thumping cheer of the night came from a reference to ‘David Cameron’s neo-facist nanny state.’ But this was far from a right wing knees up. While the claret and Chivas Regal kept the crowd lubricated, all strands of political thought came together with righty James Delingpole and lefty Claire Fox treating the crowds