That slippery slope that doesn’t exist?

Like a soft drink do you? Well get ready to be de-humanised for it over the next few years.

Smokers such as myself have already experienced it. But is only just starting for the lovers of soft drinks.

For smokers it first started with colossal rises in tax on tobacco products.

Guess what, soft drink lovers, it's going to happen to you in the near future.

Thousands of cases of diabetes and cancer could be avoided, saving the NHS £300million, by putting a health tax of 12p a can on sugary drinks, it is claimed. (My bold: They don’t actually know)

Academics have calculated the likely reduction in consumption caused by putting up the price of full sugar drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi and the resulting health benefits.

The work by experts at the University of Liverpool and the Children’s Food Campaign will fuel the growing campaign to extend the principle of a duty on unhealthy products from cigarettes and alcohol to some types of drink and food.

The start of your fall from grace begins there. They actually admit to wishing to follow the tobacco control template

Health campaigners and doctors have controversially likened sugar and its contribution to obesity and ill-health as the ‘new tobacco’.

Next will be horrendous images of diseased kidneys, rotting teeth, and pictures of ill people in bed  covering your can of delight.

The next step will be to of course will continue with fizzy pop being hidden behind screens for “THE SAKE OF THE CHEEEELDREN”.

You tell me what comes next….

SOURCE

You have been warned.

Mission creep, or the domino effect.

An abridged list of policies that have been proposed in the name of ‘public health’ in recent months includes: minimum pricing for alcohol, plain packaging for tobacco, a 20 per cent tax on fizzy drinks, a fat tax, a sugar tax, a fine for not being a member of a gym, graphic warnings on bottles of alcohol, a tax on some foods, subsidies on other foods, a ban on the sale of hot food to children before 5pm, a ban on anyone born after the year 2000 ever buying tobacco, a ban on multi-bag packs of crisps, a ban on packed lunches, a complete ban on alcohol advertising, a ban on electronic cigarettes, a ban on menthol cigarettes, a ban on large servings of fizzy drinks, a ban on parents taking their kids to school by car, and a ban on advertising any product whatsoever to children.

An excellent article in the online journal, Spiked, written By Christopher Snowden on the slippery slope into more Public Health control of our lives.

Read the whole article HERE.

Silencing Science

An interesting article  of how the science about the non effects of passive smoking by Enstrom and Kabat (2003), were suppressed by the MSM. A couple of paragraphs reproduced below.

This paper examines the silencing of science, that is, efforts to prevent the making of specific scientific claims in any or all of the arenas in which these claims are typically reported or circulated. Those trying to mute the reporting or circulation of scientific claims are termed “partisans.” The paper examines silencing through a systematic examination of the “rapid responses” to a smoking study published in the British Medical Journal claiming that second-hand smoke is not as dangerous as conventionally believed. Media
coverage of the smoking study is also examined, as is the question of whether there is self-silencing by the media regarding doubts about the negative effects of passive smoke. The results suggest that the public consensus about the negative effects of passive smoke is so strong that it has become part of a regime of truth that cannot be intelligibly questioned.

And towards the end:

Finally, we perused articles on the scientific effects of smoking. Notably, more coverage was devoted to second-hand rather than first-hand smoke. In the latter case, an interesting check of the self-silencing hypothesis comes from examining media coverage of
the possible beneficial effects of smoking. Smoking may benefit people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia; some forms of inflammatory bowel disease also seem to improve with smoking (e.g., Doll et al., 2000). Despite raging scientific controversies
over possible benefits, there were just a few newspaper stories on the issue. Significantly, the claims about positive effects of smoke were treated in an incredulous and mocking fashion.

All of the stories on second-hand smoke were examined, and the results revealed a strikingly one-sided discourse consistent with self-silencing by the media. Specifically, out of more than 500 articles examined, fewer than 10 afforded any sense of either scientific
uncertainty or of negative findings challenging the prevailing consensus. The huge remainder disregard the conventions of balancing and controversy (allowing at best a short paragraph to smoking defenders), and in place of these media staples presented a dutiful and credulous account of the dangers of passive smoke. Thus a recent British report presented at a conference of the Royal Society of Physicians in London on 17 May 2004 garnered the following headlines in the British media (New Scientist, 2004):

Passive smoking numbers shock
Passive smoking kills one bar worker a week
Passive smoking is workplace killer
Passive-smoking survey reveals startling death rate
Cost of Passive Smoking on Barmaids and Waiters
Dying for a passive cigarette
One person per week dies in British hospitality industry from . . .

There you have it. They lie by omission.

Now, whatever else could this study apply to? Hmmm?

Wind turbines and solar panels?

Alcohol?

Red meat?

Trans fats? (Obesity)

Salt?

And the latest. Sugar.

Moral of this article: Question everything you read or hear in the MSM.

Smoking out my MP

Some while ago, February 18th to be exact, I wrote to my MP. Below is a short piece of it.

You'll have to forgive the loose format. Blogger is buggering me about.

Dear John Stanley,

Just a little message about how you and your ilk have badly let the old, 

 and lonely down,  with your illiberal smoking ban.

Some of the quotes I have collected are taken from the blog site

 of Frank Davis, and from those  who have made comments there.

 Frank has posted regularly and movingly on the subject of

 loneliness and the smoking ban, and particularly its effect on

 older people.

I give you one example, of  a poignant letter written by pensioner

 Jane Daniel in the evening  of New Years Eve 2010.  

“I have accepted all of that and never smoked where I was 

not welcomed to do so. I am now in my mid 70's and can

now only smoke either at home or in the open air. I am now

disabled (accident damaging my hip) and so can not get out

as much as I would like to.

So now I only smoke in my own home. This is a very lonely
existence and I would love to be able to go to a pub for a drink
occasionally. However, as a smoker I know that I can't do
this and enjoy a drink and cigarette in safety and comfort in a pub.

I accept all this and am sorry that my pleasure upsets so many people.
I wish that my life was different,  but after smoking for over 60 years
it is difficult to stop.

It really hurts me to hear that smokers are now classed as
disgusting filthy death carriers as I really hadn't considered
myself to be thus.

Now that I am all these horrible things I am glad that I am
nearing the end of my life. How cruel and malicious are
these people that have ostracised me and cast me out from society.

 I am so sorry if my 'habit' has offended people and wish that I
had never taken that first cigarette all those years ago.”

There were many more of these sad stories in my Email to Sir John.

I finished it of with this:

And you think that you stand up for a conservative way of life.

 You should be ashamed to the very  core of your being. From being

 a lifelong conservative voter, I decided that I couldn't vote for

 labour light  at the last election. IE the Cameron, left thinking big society.

 I'm unable to understand why the party  I used to believe in has

 become so intolerant to smokers, and bends over backwards with

 funding to  fake charities such as ASH and Alcohol concern.

I would appreciate an answer that doesn't involve spin and obfuscation,

 which is what is normally sent to us proles who question the status quo.

 Are you man enough? Your reply will say it all. 

Hint: 25% of the voting public smoke.

Your obedient servant(Not)

The Filthy Engineer

Now you would think that I’d get a sympathetic reply. Nope.

 I get this cockwaffle following the party line.

From the Rt Hon Andrew Lansley CBE MP

Secretary of State for Health

Department of Health

Richmond House 79 Whitehall

London

SW1A 2NS

Tel: 020 7210 4850

The Rt Hon Sir John Stanley MP House of Commons

Westminster

London SW1A OAA

29 MAR 2011

 Thank you for your letter of 2 March enclosing correspondence

 from your constituent Mr Filthy Engineer of Filthy Mansions, Somewhere in Kent,
about smokefree legislation.The smokefree provisions in the Health Act 2006
were carriedout in free votes across all parties by large majorities
in both Houses of Parliament. This Parliamentary support for smokefree

legislation reflected the very widespread public support.

The primary aim of the legislation was to protect workers and the

general public from exposure to the harmful effects of secondhand smoke.

Medical and scientific evidence shows that exposure to secondhand smoke

increases the risk of serious medical conditions such as lung cancer,

heart disease, asthma attacks, childhood respiratory disease,

sudden infant death syndrome and reduced lung function.

Smoking is the largest single cause of preventable illness and premature

death in the UK. It kills over 100,000 people every year and a recent

academic study suggests that the cost to the British taxpayer is more

than £5billion a year.

ANDREW LANSLEY CBE

Note the first bit if disinformation in the second paragraph.”reflected the
very widespread public support.” Well I wasn’t consulted, nor was
anyone I know.


The second paragraph is more waffle not facts. Notice the phrase that is
used by the bansturbators of all colours.  “ increases the risk”. I would like
to know Mr Lansley how you can state that asthma attacks are increasing
and blame it on SHS, when the percentage of smokers has fallen dramatically
in the last 50 years.


What about having  a look at this study which I think may have some small
bearing on our health. What are you doing about that? Nothing.


As for the last paragraph even that arch antismoking group ASH (January 2011)
doesn’t agree with that made up figure of £5 billion..

Smoking costs the National Health Service (NHS) approximately
£2.7 billion a year for treating diseases caused by smoking. 
About 76% of the price of a packet of cigarettes consists of taxation.


And as for the reply from my MP enclosed with that letter.
Just a note from one of his minions.

Oh well, time for a blood pressure pill, and shortly a large whisky or two.*


*And you too can bugger off, Alcohol Concern, if you read this.