Cough, cough, coffin along…
An early and highly prized polemic example of social engineering by Jesse Eaglin in 1931. You will recognise the technique, indoctrination of the children.
Tomorrow, Our Dishonourable Fiend, Health Secretary Andy Burnham is to unveil his new ‘crackdown’ on the freedom to smoke.
We have moved from ‘your child is not your own’ to ‘your home is not your own’. He wants to ban parents from lighting up at home or in their car when travelling with children. Quite how he intends to do that, unless he is planning to bribe children with rewards for shopping their parents – which will come, mark my words – is anybody’s guess.
His master stroke though, in this remake of ‘It’s a Grey, Grey, world’, is to call upon an undeclared study which alleges that children believe cigarettes in ‘glitzy attractive packets’ are less harmful, to insist that all cigarettes are sold in plain grey packets with the brand name in plain text above a government health warning.
Marketing guru B J Cunningham could teach him a thing or two about selling cigarettes in plain grey packs with just a dour warning that they are a one stop route to an early coffin.
He found himself in financial difficulties when his car importing business collapsed, with the result ‘that he lost everything except his debts’. He pledged his overdraft to start The Enlightened Tobacco Company, which held the rights to manufacture DEATH Cigarettes. Sold in a plain and defiantly non-glitzy package, with a skull and crossbones prominently displayed, they were a resounding success. So much so that when he started a direct marketing scheme he was roundly sat upon by the combined weight of the UK Tobacco giants via the European Court of Justice.
The purpose of marketing is to sell you a product you neither want nor need. King Edward potatoes have never needed to be dressed up with colourful packaging. Nor pushed to the forefront of the store display with the offer of two for one. Tea didn’t require any advertising until a genius decided to package it in portion control and start a sales war based on whether the package was round or square.
Andy Burnham has just ensured that cigarettes are seen as an essential staple that the responsible shopper remembers to add to the shopping bag every week before gliding down the aisles of the maybe I shall, maybe I shan’t, can I afford to be seduced so, output of the marketing gurus.
Did I remember to tell you that there has so far been no outcry from the Tobacco Industry at this latest initiative? I can’t think why…….
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1
January 31, 2010 at 16:03 -
I’t doesn’t matter how they are packaged, the choice of the majority of smokers is……the cheapest.
Grey unnattractive packaging should make them cheaper still.
Methinks that the real reason is to make it easier to spot the “rogue” non duty paid cigarettes that are widely available, practically everywhere these days.-
2
January 31, 2010 at 16:37
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3
January 31, 2010 at 16:14 -
While I consider the smoking ban in pubs to have been a classic example of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, I also feel that anyone who smokes in the presence of children is an idiot – having said that, the recent advertising campaign, using children as a form of moral blackmail, takes the art of cynical manipulation to levels of crassness of which the “Bock von Babelsberg” himself would have been proud.
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4
January 31, 2010 at 16:47 -
it is alleged,that if you register anything then it is the property of the state we are only keepers ie children,vehicles houses.
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5
January 31, 2010 at 16:52 -
A perverse result of The Law of Unintended Consequences from banning smoking in pubs (& restaurants) is that all establishments now have outdoor heaters. This means they must contribute massively to Global Warming.
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6
January 31, 2010 at 17:14 -
As someone who quit the filthy habit some 27 years ago (I was on 30 plus a day at the time) I feel the compulsion to laugh when I watch otherwise sane people rushing out of the pub every 15 minutes for a fix.
My daughter, who was then a smoker, used to work in a London casino and came home about 5am. She crept in like a mouse but the smell she brought in with her invariably woke us up. To say she stank like a filthy ashtray is somewhat of an understatement.
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January 31, 2010 at 17:29 -
Andy Burnham “thick as sh*t” like so many of his colleagues doesn’t have a clue about anything!
Gumbo is spot on.
Read a few statutes that relate to any form of licensing or registration and assuming you don’t drop off you will see there is no legal requirement to licence or register most things.
I say most because the statutes are some of the most boring documents ever written so I haven’t read them all. If you just manage to read through one you will be far wiser than most of those you spend your time with. -
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January 31, 2010 at 18:43 -
As an ex smoker I can tell the useless Burnham that no measures will stop anyone smoking unless the person is ready to do so. No amount of horror pictures, anti smoking advertising will work. People will smoke no matter what.
The smoking ban has killed off out pub trade, people who would go out for a drink and a smoke can no longer do so and thus hundreds of pubs are closing each month.
The pub and restaurant trade should have been given the choice of either being a smoking or non smoking venue so people could have the choice either to drink and dine in a smoke free premises or smoke filled ones. But in true freedom denying Labour Stalinist measures we see law abiding people being forced into the indignity of smoking a legal product outside a pub in all weathers, when unlawful drug users and those who use their premises for the use of illegal drugs get a slap on the wrist.
Again Labour has denied owners of pubs and restaurants the right to choose and thus the people of the UK. -
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January 31, 2010 at 19:51 -
Couldn’t care less. All of my tobacco now comes in a cheerful yellow Cutters Choice pack with “Fumar Puede Matar” on it. Not sure what the message is about – something about smoking is recommended by matadors ?
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10
January 31, 2010 at 19:51 -
I suspect increased time off work due to illness taken by smokers forced outside in winter might also be another result of The Law of Unintended Consequences.
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February 1, 2010 at 00:09 -
I gave up on cigarettes at university and have smoked a pipe for the last 50 years. Like Steve McIntosh my tobacco comes with the ‘smoking can kill’ warning in Spanish – after all it’s much cheaper just over the boarder.
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February 1, 2010 at 02:59 -
So they are saying the warnings so not work, what a suprise.
You do not need an “ology” to work that one out.
Where the hell do they get off with the pretty packaging now, with the warnings and pictures.
Ask the kids where to get hold of drugs (illegal ones) they would know before the adults, no advertising at all. ASH have done more advertising than Big tobacco could have dreamt of.
Ban anything and it is a, must have for the kids, nothing smells worse than the stench of the purists.
mandyv
freedom2choose.info -
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February 1, 2010 at 09:35 -
Inasmuch as I know, you need a court order to go into someone’s house uninvited. So you may be right, Anna, children will have to denounce their parents …
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14
February 1, 2010 at 11:21 -
Cigarette cases and tobacco pouches will soon become must-have accessories to conceal the origin of the tobacco (mine coming from Germany where the health warning covers half the packet owing to German prolixity).
And making smokers stand outside will serve only to toughen us up and boost our immune systems. Smokers could soon be as indestructible as cockroaches!
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