ASH LOVE HOCKNEY'S NEW WORK

Oooh - I do love David Hockney. The image above is his latest piece of artwork designed to show the meaning of freedom.



It is called Freedom Is Choice and of course it is whatever psychobabble the fake charity ASH and its cronies spout to create fear and loathing of smokers and redefine the meaning of this important concept. Being free to chose to consume a legal product is obviously a main plank of what freedom is about. Hockney said :



"Pettiness, meanness, dreariness. That's all I see from them. Meanness of spirit is very bad for the health no matter how long you live. Can't they look into their own hearts and understand that many people in England are fed up with unthinking, bossy-boots politicians that believe us to be infants."



He could be talking about ASH here. The very organisation that would scurrilously claim that smokers kill others without being honest about the methods by which this ludicrous and slanderous claim is reached. With ventilation now so efficient it can make the air inside cleaner than outside, and a choice of venue if only we were free to chose one, all make the claim that smoking harms others defunct.



*



ASH Scotland tweeted news of Hockney's new work, which was retweeted by Chris Snowdon. I guess they must like it. I've just been over there to have a look if they had anymore to say about it on their website and I feel quite dirty now so I'll have to rush of and have a bath after posting this in case I catch their prejudice and stupidity in some kind of fourth hand way.



They say they work to stop children and young people smoking and yet they create panic among Scottish politicians to "do something" which creates the perfect climate for a rise in child and youth smoking.



I mean this ridiculous idea to force tobacconists to register as evil drug barons to sell cigarettes will not have one iota of effect given that the growing and lucrative black market, supported and encouraged by ASH's policies, do not have to comply with the same policy.



Way to go ASH - it looks like you're obviously on the side of Big Tobacco after all.



* I don't know how to take a screen shot so I reproduced ASH Scotland's tweet the old fashioned way - printed, scanned in and uploaded.



UPDATE : My technical expert teenage son showed me how to do it. That's two new skills I've learned today. Thanks Frank Davis for the other one.

WALES NEXT

Image from here

One would think that the historical Welsh fight against oppression would still be raw enough in the Walian mindset to avoid them sleepwalking into becoming slaves once again to English directives. Sadly, however, it would seem that the modern masters of the Principality have forgotten their proud roots and are hurtling towards the oppression of a significant minority of people in their country and setting out on the road to kill off their tourist industry.

Yes, the Welsh are stupidly gearing up towards being the first to cement the denormaliation, dehumanisation, and stigmatisation of people they clearly dislike in their own country and the rest of the world by working out how quickly they can ban smoking in cars and therefore smokers from Wales

One by one the bought and paid for junk scientists and self interest academics are crawling out of the woodwork to fire off separate but orchestrated press releases declaring smokers to be such child abusers that Govt needs to step in and stop them from doing what they often don't do in front of their kids in cars - smoking.

Yet they never produce this so called "research" and think that Govts should just listen to what they say without needing to see the proof of their bigoted lies which have simply one ideological aim - a smoke free world at any price because that is what they are being paid to achieve.

Of course if it could be demonstrably proved that smoking with the window open in a car will kill a child stone dead within a week, then Wales and the rest of the world would ban it now while making tobacco illegal, and not in three years time when they have had the chance to run their hate campaign against smokers to get the general public onside in further securing their marginalisation and criminalisation.

It's why it's against the law to stick a child in a car with the exhaust pipe running into it from a hose because that child will die within five minutes and that has been demonstrably proved without any doubts or need to wait. I know this is true because of sitting through one tragic court case of a "if I can't have them no will will" estranged father who meant to kill himself as well as his kids after splitting with his wife but he was found too early to finish the job.

He survived - just - they died and he was prosecuted for murder. Never have I seen anyone prosecuted for killing a child because of smoking a cigarette in their presence. Despite the made up figures, manipulated studies, probably carried out on the back of a health food packet, and science by maths instead of biology, generation after generation after generation after generation of children have survived the experience of smoking parents even in those days when almost everyone smoked.

What I find so offensive about this proposal is along the same lines that I found the Stony Stratford idea to ban smoking outside. It takes what is a minor problem and instead of working with smokers to allay the fears of smokerphobics, it jumps straight to legislation to further marginalise the smoker to put a smile on the faces of those who despise us.

It would seem that our protest in SS has had some effect as bigoted Bartlett has withdrawn his proposal for now. My guess is that he is to take instruction from the fraudulent and corrupt Pharma front group ASH before coming back with a stronger argument. They will probably buy off yet more junk scientists to make up some study to "prove" that walking past a smoker smoking or not is like being exposed to a nuclear fall out and then it will be all systems go. I am, however, encouraged by Gawain Towler's assessment of why Bartlett backed off.

We collection of individuals and groups that value liberty above prejudicial and unfounded fears of smokers have moved from being blog and keyboard warriors to real life activists. First there was my own humble small protest in Lincoln to highlight the issue of smokerphobia and why this issue is no longer about health but hate and then there was the great showing in our victorious stance in Stony.

We all agree that the line in the sand has been drawn and the car ban proposal for Wales described as the "next logical step" in the ideological war to eradicate tobacco and criminalise its consumers, is yet another step too far. We must make another stand.

The Fuel Injected Moose raised the idea of hiring a mini-bus for future peaceful demonstrations and it seemed a great idea to get us all over to Wales. Individually, many of us are too skint to travel around the UK for these things but perhaps as a collection of people in one unit we can chip in, get organised, and get over to the Welsh Assembly to deliver to its leaders the truth as researched in books like Velvet Glove, Iron Fist and Smokescreens. We can also make sure they hear our messages : Enough is Enough! and It's Not About Health! and We Deserve to Be Heard!

Perhaps we can remind this inward looking bunch, who think they are doing something great but are sleepwalking into fascist ideology, of the historical Welsh fight against oppression and remove the wool pulled over their eyes by the anti-smoker industry that relies on smoker persecution for its vastly wealthy living.

Let's not forget that the man who invented Smokerphobia Stanton Glanz has bragged continuously of how we smokers have paid for his big house, big car, and personalised number plate that reads along the lines of "Sue The Bastards".

Anyone who is serious about this fight must come along to Wales Next even though I accept that with our limited budgets, job commitments, and logistical difficulties, it's probably too soon to go along yet but we can get organised, we can pull something similar off from both the demos at Lincoln and Stony and we must make ourselves heard.

If this ban goes ahead in Wales it will come to the rest of the UK immediately afterwards and then it will come to our homes. Govts have no business telling anyone what to do with their own property or their own children and false concern for children's health is misplaced when it comes to the smoking issue. These resources should be used for very real issues that put children in danger and not to bolster an ideology that comes from a standpoint of hate.

I have no idea if I have any Welsh readers but if so, perhaps you could make yourselves known and also those who would be interested to come along and be involved with the organisation of such an event. All of that would a start and this is something that we really MUST do.

One final point is that the smokerphobics are also pushing the idea to Govts that smoking in cars causes non-existent traffic accidents. During 12 years of court reporting I only heard one case of a minor one car traffic accident which involved one stupid woman reaching down into the footwell of her car to reach for her cigs when she hit a lamp post. She was, however, over the drink drive limit as well.

I have never known of any other smoker involved in a car accident because of smoking. What the smokerphobics can't know is smoking while driving is more akin to breathing than reading, talking on a mobile phone, drinking or eating.

I have said many times that Govts who want the truth on smoking and ideas on how to address issues of concern around smoking should talk to smokers. We have far more knowledge than the smokerphobics and after decades of smoking we know more far more about it then they do. That is probably why the smokerphobics deny us a voice. We speak far too much common sense for their hateful tastes.

* One final point on the Stony Stratford Stand Off that I found interesting is that if the Police raised objections to the idea of denormalising Bartlett then why is the public health program to denormalise a minority group of people in this country legal?

My guess as always is that when it comes to smokers there is one rule for them and another for everyone else.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Loads of people turned up for the Standoff in Stony Stratford to give SS smokerphobic councillor Paul Bartlett a message that we the people of his town and this country will take no more.

His proposal for an outdoor ban in the historic, picturesque town near Milton Keynes is a step too far and based more on his own prejudicial hatred of smokers and imagined rather than real concerns about health.

Local people turned out to thank those of us from farther afield for turning up on a miserable grey day. It was great to put some names to faces and after some catching up, meeting new people, smoking and drinking out in the rain with our ashtrays in hand, we squeezed inside as the speakers got ready to say their piece.





Bill Etheridge, Midlands representative for The Freedom Association, Patrick Hayes, Journalist at the Institute of Ideas and columnist at Spiked and Roger Helmer, Conservative East Midlands MEP, sat at a table scattered with hand outs submitted by various contributors.



The man we had all come to see didn't show up at the event but there were wanted posters of him stuck on walls.



Bill Etheridge said further restrictions were unreasonable in a free society. He doesn't smoke but said he'd learn how just so he could light up a cigar in the street if Barmy Bartlett's plan gets approved. He pondered on what that great political British hero Winston Churchill would say if he were to suddenly return to this NuBritain for the likes of jobsworth Bartlett to grab his iconic cigar from his mouth.



Roger Helmer said smoking restrictions were the slippery slope that were giving inspiration to bans and controls on other products that contain salt and sugar. He lamented the idea of graphic health warnings on products like tobacco and alcohol that carry risks we are all aware of.

"Can you imagine a future romantic night out where the bottle of wine comes to your fiancee with a diseased liver plastered all over it," he said.

Mr Helmer is a non smoker who hates smoke but he abhors the nanny/bully state more.



Patrick Hayes from the Institute of Ideas was also a non smoker. Like Bill, he said he'd strike up a cigarette on principal outside if smoking gets banned in the open air. All of the speakers agree that the current restrictions are unfair and go too far and smokers are being treated like children when they should be treated with respect because of the huge amount of tax they have paid on their product in their lifetime.



Busy businessman and head of Stony Stratford Chamber of Commerce, David Odell, also a non smoker, popped in to give the campaign support. He said his family business had been in the town for 140 years. It had survived recessions and two world wars in which many men and women died fighting for freedom.

He said Stony Stratford had a history of welcoming people - it was not in the business of saying "You're not wanted." An outdoor ban would be against British culture of tolerance and bad for business, he said.



Many people waited eagerly to hear Nigel Farage speak on a subject that he feels passionately about. His car got stuck on the M1 in traffic after an accident and so he arrived late. He called for the nonsense to end, for "these awful people to get off our backs", wished us luck with our campaign, and said it was time for cafes, pubs and restaurants to be allowed to choose whether to have smoking rooms.

The issue, he said, was not about health but freedom of choice and what sort of country we want to live in.

The event was well organised and has given ordinary grass roots people the idea that they can speak up, protest and make their point when all other avenue of consultation is denied.



The film crew above is based in Stony Stratford and they were on hand to capture the whole event as was the BBC. Simon Clark says Look East used the story as their lead on local news but I didn't see it. If anyone has a link, I'd love to see how it gets reported.

Maybe it's too early but now we have some momentum, we should be thinking where next? I propose Wales

UPDATE : I just read THIS on the BBC site. And there are more photos HERE

UPDATE : I guess most of you have read around the blogosphere about this protest so I see no point in linking to the excellent articles by Frank Davis, more from F2C, About My Area, and The Fuel Injected Moose, to name a few, because it takes me ages.

I will however Post this link to the BBC Look East programme. Enjoy.

IT'S NOT ABOUT HEALTH.

Councillor Bartlett in Stony Stratford Is a complete nutter who has demonstrated out of his own mouth that this is not about health but hatred of people who smoke.

He makes some very wild and scientifically unsubstantiated allegations.

Don't try it in Lincoln or you will face the wrath of the local tax payer who has simply had enough.

What council in its right mind would want to be seen like this manic smokerphobic idiot?

It's not about health.

In Bartlett's own words : ”Why should people have the freedom to smoke in my face, pass on diseases and spoil the environment? ….. When you walk through the high street in any town smoke is in your face and harming you and any children there…. Smokers then get their butt, which is full of saliva, and chuck it on the floor…It costs millions to clear street rubbish, and goodness knows what a child could pick up from them…”

For those who don't know, smoking is not a communicable disease. You cannot get ill from standing near a smoker. The science on passive smoking is not settled, and third hand smoke is a smokerphobic invention to ensure smokers' properties are devalued and they are unemployable.

It is about hate.

THE FIGHT BACK BEGINS

Image nicked from The Angry Exile

I agree with Simon Clark over at Taking Liberties that something seems to be finally stirring among the grass roots smokers and non smokers who are fed up with the escalating nonsense around the smoking issue.

People are finally getting active and making their voices heard outside of the internet with the next protest planned at Stony Stratford

Organiser Dick Puddlecote will be talking about why enough is enough on Talksport Radio tonight at 10.15pm. I hope he mentions something on how the boundaries on where people can and can't smoke have got to ridiculous and obscene dictatorial levels based more on smokerphobia than any proven or real concern for health.

I'll be there on Saturday with my placards, hand outs and my pocket ashtray. My problem with the outdoor ban proposed by Smokerphobic Coun Bartlett is not just because it is unnecessary but because it is the only solution on the table to what is in reality a minor problem.

Bartlett hates to see cig ends in the street so he bans smokers who he clearly dislikes when cigarette ends are a litter problem not a smoker problem. Councils began handing out pocket ashtrays when the ban first came out which was a sensible move but others like Barlett's prefer to criminalise smokers and bolster the "denormalisation" programme instead.

Of course the most sensible thing to do would be to get smokers back inside and reach a sensible compromise to suit both sides of this acrimonious issue. That is why many MPs and grass roots smokers and non smokers support the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign as you can hear in their own words in the two videos below.