Abertay academic against nannying: Newsnight Scotland interview

Watch this televised interview between Dr Stuart Waiton, against nannying, and Dr Andrew Fraser and Laura Williamson in favour of what they term a caring society that is willing to help people reduce their smoking and drinking.

It's always interesting to see health medics, who claim a political consensus in favour of their view, weigh in on their opponents and characterise them as rather irresponsible, selfish individuals who believe in pleasing only themselves. They claim to care for the children and society at large more than these un-community-minded free-market maniacs.

From what I know of Dr Stuart Waiton, he is no more a free-market maniac than I am. He quite reasonably rejects the notion that the health professionals hold a monopoly of wisdom about people's decisions, and rightly derides their eagerness to help people make the 'right choices'. There is an assumption that the patrician middle class has all the right answers, and anyone who disagrees puts himself (or herself) automatically in the wrong.

The two pro-establishment doctors sow the seeds of their undoing by claiming that a quarter of Scots smoke (9.29), and that people in poorer districts benefited less from the smoking ban than people in more affluent districts (10.40). Both statements reiterate the failure of tobacco control to achieve its stated aims. The smoking rate has not changed significantly since the smoking ban was introduced, the same figures (one in four Scots smoke, smoking kills 13,000 a year) have been trotted out since the millenium: a rapidly escalating tobacco control budget has done nothing to reduce the smoking rate or the alleged death rate.

Dr Williamson goes to far as to say that '[Dr Waiton's] argument for a minimal state would be okay if everybody had the same degree of freedom', but social inequalities lead to health inequalities, which it is the government's duty to correct. 'People need help, and what the government is trying to do is create this level playing field.'

She argues in favour of a system which she must acknowledge is not working. She knows the smoking ban hasn't really helped narrow the health inequalities gap. Intervention is needed to prevent 'the chronic diseases that result from smoking, obesity, alcohol consumption'.

Missing from their argument is any glimmer of interest in the socio-economic condition of patients whose interests they claim to be helping. Dr Fraser says that people know the answers but don't make the right decisions, and yet stops himself short of saying 'We love coercion'. If it is part of their faith that economic wellbeing improves health outcomes, that is where their efforts at 'levelling the playing field' should be addressed, instead of working to create countless new offences, which adversely affect people's prospects when they fall foul of the law.

More importantly, where did this idea come from that chronic diseases result only from lifestyle choices? Is it that the mega corporations are too important to politicians for their activities to be attacked on the grounds of environmental and public health damage? Note that Dr Williamson refers only to the budgets of tobacco and alcohol industries: not about the budgets of any other kind of industry, although these other industries must be even more powerful if they can avoid the government and medical establishment's hit list. Everyone knows people who have died early in spite of doing all the right things with their health: non-smokers, non-drinkers, joggers, you name it. No one is safe. [Late edit: more on this here: How working kills smokers: 'There is no question that smoking contributes to poor health. But to claim that smoking is the primary cause of preventable death and disease is one of the greatest scams in modern history.' H/tip Freedom2Choose newsletter, April 2013.]

The doctors wind up stating that we should look to a fair Scotland where we care about each other and community. And on the face of it, what's not to like? Only that the politicians and the medical establishment do far too little to campaign against economic hardship, which they know to militate against 'healthy choices', and place too much emphasis on lifestyle factors when explaining how people get ill.

Scottish pub closures blamed on supermarket prices: more expected

Supermarket beer prices are held responsible for pub closures and many more closures are expected.

Nothing if not opportunist I added the following comment to the Express;

I am author of petition 01451 at the Scottish Parliament, 'review the smoking ban' open for signatures until 22 October. The smoking ban was brought in with the promise that non-smokers would fill the pubs if smoke were no longer a problem. Someone didn't do their market research properly, as the pub's traditional customers were used to the differential between supermarket and pub prices but people the pubs were now trying to woo were not used to them. And many smokers no longer cared to pay the differential now that they were shunted outdoors throughout the evening. 

Public pressure to bring in minimum pricing will not benefit pubs in the near term, because the European Union will fight them. Far better to take advantage of modern air standards and air cleaning technology and enable the hospitality trade to cater for smokers again.

It is nothing short of madness to expect that minimum pricing will bring relief to the bar trade in the near future. Europe will fight it.

This is the answer! Please sign and share.