The knockabout that occurs on BBC Radio Five(Live) in the morning is one I usually eschew in favour of Radio Four anchors making mincemeat of their guests. But when I turned on the radio it was still on the setting for sport that I had left it the previous night; I might have turned over but I had come in at the start of a discussion. Moreover, it was predicated on a very interesting announcement – that the coalition was finally following through on the Brown government’s proposal to ban all cigarette packets from public view in shops and pubs and possibly to push ahead with plain packaging.
Nicky Campbell had with him to mull over this policy was Phillip Davies, MP for Shipley and a spokesman for ASH, the anti-smoking lobby. Campbell allowed Mr Davies to open the salvo, deriding ASH as zealots and declaiming that the ‘nanny state’ had gone too far. ASH’s spokesman - whose name I forget because his arguments were at the forefront of his speaking, rather than his personality – responded with an impressive body of health charities and medical institutions that backed the government line and then went on to cite biological, physiological and psychological trials.
In fact, he so comprehensively blew Davies out of the water that when Campbell switched back to him, there was a stunned silence of several seconds, before he responded with abuse, once more calling ASH zealots and repeating almost verbatim what he had said originally. This gave the ASH man the upper hand for any rational people listening, I should imagine and he further developed his line of attack by saying the concept of plain packaging had been tried out in places like Canada and Ireland with the effect of lowering tobacco consumption because warnings stand out more clearly and that the industry that supplies this still differentiates – illegally – with colours to suggest that one brand is less harmful than another.
Davies, clearly one step behind, ignored all that the ASH spokesman had just enumerated and, with another swipe at them as ‘extremists’, moaned that there was no evidence for ASH saying what they were saying because no country had implemented this policy anywhere in the world (he would later contradict himself). Thus he dismissed all scientific research – a strain of English anti-intellectualism? – because he had been a businessman (he did not declare what his business was).
The ASH spokesman was becoming exasperated, partially through the relentless ad hominem insults, as well as shocked that someone could say such a disingenuous thing, that because it hasn’t been tried anywhere, it can’t work. Back came Mr Davies declaring that ASH’s sole aim was to ban smoking altogether. Campbell, perhaps sensing the inadequacy of the MP put the question forcefully that this was ASH’s real purpose. The spokesman hit back rubbishing that as counter-productive – ASH’s aim was to help prevent people smoking in the first place and to offer support who wanted to quit (65% apparently), he said – but he allowed himself to be sidelined away from the issue but the ferocious ignorance of Davies, rhetorically asking if Mr Davies thought adults smoking in cars with children present was something the latter supported.
Davies coolly swatted this away, saying it was a matter for parental responsibility – a double-edged sword, for while Davies may get all the advantages of life in his upbringing, some people are not fit to have progeny – then going on to say that tobacco purchase was not an impulse purchase like cream cakes: “Oh, I think I’ll have some cigarettes today” (another false argument because it is an addiction and the policy is to discourage take-up in the first place; people don’t say “I think I’ll have some heroin today”); before continuing to prove that he was a slow thinker, responding to the last statement but one of the ASH spokesman. Here is where he contradicted himself, by saying when Ireland introduced plain packaging (so it HAS been tried in other countries), the seizure of contraband was a record haul, yet at least he had provided something firmer than opinionated ire.
Once more, the ASH man trounced this, saying that the evidence of Ireland was that contraband seizure was the same as this supposed record haul for the ten years previous to the introduction of the policy. He was losing his temper with Davies though (not unjustifiably) and angrily asked if Davies was against seatbelts being worn compulsorily in cars.
Now the supposedly Honourable Member for Shipley was in his element of a slanging match. He manoeuvred around the charge, saying that he had an opinion on seatbelts but was for another time (how convenient and notice how he did not answer it – he probably does oppose seatbelts being worn in cars as law) called ASH fanatics and said that the nanny state had gone too far. This was supposed to be the final word, but so infuriated was the ASH man that he got in “you’re just repeating the same insults and arguments.” This was gratuitous for the listener but pleasurable to hear Davies having it stuck to him. Davies, illustrating his childish mind, tried to have the final word but clashed with Campbell bringing the guillotine down on the debate and so was not fully intelligible (though arguably he had been so all the way through).
It is easy to jeer anonymously from the backbenches at your opponents, less easy to offer cogent arguments when your mind is polluted with excessive ideology. I must make clear that this is not a transcript but I have portrayed it as accurately as possible and it really was true that Davies was the perfect exponent of the Nasty Party Tory MP – rude, smug and not making much sense. It is telling that he is at odds with his own government. He probably expected the ASH spokesman to directly impugn him, asking him if he was a smoker (to which he would probably, triumphantly, declare he was not, rather he was a defender of ‘freedom’) or where his campaign funds came from (again, another imagined triumph when he could deny it). Davies did not expect to be dissected with facts and evidence. The ASH spokesman showed considerable forbearance before finally cracking under the invective by being diverted away from the issue. There is a case for libertarianism, sometimes the nanny state does go too far and I’m sure a FOREST spokesperson would have made the case for choice between companies and their brands or the pernicious effect alcohol can have (easy targets omitted a mention by Davies). But in the matter of public health and misleading branding, a distinction has to be made and I’m glad the government is doing this. The real zealot/extremist/fanatic was Davies. Despite his nameless persona to me, any person of sound persuasion would have been very impressed by the Ash spokesman and more inclined to go with the government for the first time in a long while.