Christopher Snowdon

It is an indictment of the intellectual vacuum in British politics that when a prime minister is looking for a legacy, they so often decide to give smokers another kicking. Tony Blair introduced a smoking ban to take our minds off Iraq, leaving office four days before it came into force in case things turned ugly. Theresa May set her successors the target of going ‘smoke-free’ by 2030 at the fag end of her time in Downing Street. For Rishi Sunak, way behind in the polls and failing to meet most of his five targets, a generational ban on tobacco sales offers a place in the history books. Jacinda Ardern had the same idea in New Zealand, but the new centre-right government has decided to repeal her prohibitionist policies (which included taking nicotine out of cigarettes).

Are we seeing the real Rishi Sunak at last? Since telling the nation on 20 September that his government will be taking a more realistic approach to reducing carbon emissions, the Prime Minister has announced – or, more often, refused to deny – that he intends to introduce a whole bunch of policies that horrify bien pensants but go down rather well with the general public. Nine days ago, the Economist warned that ‘If Mr Sunak hopes attacking its green plans is a way to turn around the polling figures, then he is almost certainly wrong.’ Within days, Labour’s lead in the opinion polls had been slashed by eight points according to Deltapoll and by five points according to YouGov.

Is there any amount of evidence that could convince the 'public health' lobby that one of their bright ideas didn't work? What would it take for them to admit that they failed? It is now five years since the SNP introduced minimum unit pricing for alcohol. It was supposed to be the most effective policy available to tackle alcohol harm — yet figures released today show that alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland have reached a 14-year high. Is it perhaps time for a rethink? Is it time to abandon a policy that has cost Scottish consumers hundreds of millions of pounds and instead start focusing on dependent drinkers who need help? Not in the slightest, according to the Scottish government.

Picture two village shops. If both shopkeepers are doing nicely out of selling the same product at a high price, they may decide to keep their prices the same even when the wholesale price falls. This is known as tacit collusion. Both retailers have an incentive to co-operate with each other at the consumers’ expense. But each shopkeeper also has an incentive to lower the price to make more sales and more profit. If another shop opens, this temptation will grow stronger. If a dozen shops open, it is almost certain that one of them will start a price war. Unless, that is, they form a cartel – which would be illegal. Once again, the government is getting dangerously close to entertaining the idea of price controls British supermarkets are certainly not a cartel.

Since declaring Covid-19 to be ‘over as a global health emergency’ early last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has made it very clear that it has no intention of reforming. At its World Health Assembly two weeks ago, North Korea was among ten nations elected to sit on the WHO’s Executive Board, thereby giving Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian state the power to appoint WHO regional directors and potentially vote for the next director-general. The World Health Assembly did not censure North Korea for its countless human rights abuses, which include starving its own people. Instead it singled out Israel for criticism.

One of the regular characters in Viz is an old woman called Meddlesome Ratbag who goes to great lengths to engineer situations in which she can be offended so she can complain to the authorities. I was reminded of her this morning when I read the British Medical Journal's investigation into the Beano. Yes, you did read that correctly. One of the world’s leading medical journals has been devoting its attention to a children’s comic. It turns out the Beano has a popular website that has been visited by nearly 48 million kids since its launch in 2016, according to the investigators. It stands accused of mentioning the brand names of various sweets, treats and fast food companies. These products are not advertised on the website and no money has changed hands.

There are many annoying things about the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, but none of them grates my gears as much as the media’s obsequiousness towards him. I suspect that his political campaigning is largely a self-serving gimmick to keep the Jamie Oliver brand in the public eye, but that is besides the point. The point is that he would be the first to describe himself an activist and yet he is never asked the questions that activists, let alone politicians, are asked. He gets the celebrity interview when he should be getting the political interview. He has never been hauled up on the facts. He has never been given a grilling. Hardened journalists become starstruck in the presence of a man who, in media circles if not in the country at large, is regarded as a national treasure.

British households could save £400 a year if we left the clocks alone this weekend instead of putting them back an hour, according to Professor Aoife Foley, an energy expert at Queen’s University Belfast. The logic is simple. We use a lot more electricity in the evening than in the morning. That is why daylight savings time was introduced in Europe and North America during the First World War. Some countries later abandoned it only to bring it back during the Second World War and during the energy crisis of the 1970s. Every time the reason was the same: it saves precious energy. As Britain and Europe grapple with an energy crisis going into winter, it is surprising that so few people have suggested the easy fix of year-round British Summer Time (BST).

So Thérèse Coffey, the health secretary, is putting the tobacco control plan on ice. Or is she? As in many other areas of public policy these days, all we have are rumours. Someone may be flying a kite with this rumour, but it is not clear whether it is the health secretary or a disgruntled civil servant at the Department of Health holding the string. All Coffey has said officially is that she was not ‘aware’ of what’s going on with it. You may not be aware of it at all and I can hardly blame you.

In public health circles, it is considered terribly gauche to expect policies to work. You might think, for example, that a trailblazing intervention designed to reduce obesity would be considered a failure if obesity rates rise to record highs after it has been implemented. Not so with the sugar tax. Obesity among both children and adults has gone up since it was introduced in 2018, but the health lobby does not consider it to be a failure. Contrary to the evidence of your eyes, they say, it has actually been a success. The only failure is the failure of the government to do lots of other things in addition. This is one of a number of ways in which ‘public health’ differs from medicine.