Monday 7 December 2009

Home Smoking Bans Just Got A Step Closer


Taking Liberties reports that ASH Scotland have just received a quite obscene amount of money even for a collection of tax-scroungers who spend most of their time begging for handouts.

You see, this is how ASH Scotland currently derives its £1m income.


If you look very carefully, you'll just be able to make out the sliver of pie which is freely and knowingly sent to this 'charity' by the public. If Jaffa Cakes contained an orangey bit as meagre as that, Trading Standards would be on the phone to McVities pretty damn sharpish. But it's set to get even smaller with the award of half a fucking million quid from the Big Lottery Fund. Yes, seriously, half a fucking million.

Hey, I know what you're thinking. What on earth could warrant a government body increasing ASH funding by 50% in the midst of a recession? Well, here you go.

The BIG Lottery Fund has awarded just under £500,000 to ASH Scotland over the next four years to manage a research partnership with the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The aim of the project is to develop knowledge which will lead to better interventions within homes of smoking parents/carers and better health.

Now, I hate to say I told you so but ... err ... I told you so in October.

John Tilley from the Department of Health, said:

“Action on smoking in the home will be a necessary part of future strategy on tobacco control."

And don't think that because you don't have kids that you are getting away with this. ASH Scotland already have a stated aim of banning smoking in all private vehicles [pdf page 14] by 2010, and half a mill leaves a lot of scope for diversifying the message they can give to their knob end chums in the scottish parliament.

What on earth were the Big Lottery fund thinking in awarding such a hideous amount of money to this appalling collection of righteous bansturbators and dangerously dictatorial finger-waggers, with the express intent of intruding on personal privacy? Especially when their work is so poorly valued by the public (lottery players included) that ASH would barely be able to afford a few desks and a cup of tea via public donations?

The Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund is Peter Wanless. He is on Twitter, so perhaps you'd like to ask him that very question.




17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm - Twitter is down right now? Or is just Peter Clueless' section that's crashed under the weight of angry protest? Can Twitter handle 15 million hits on one page?
George

Dick Puddlecote said...

If not on Twitter (it's back up now), you can complain here instead.

Anonymous said...

Dick, have you spelt the Chief Executives name correctly? Maybe he really is part of the bansturbators team.

Leg-iron said...

Anti-smokers will be delighted that smokers will face a ban on smoking at home. At first.

ASH's smoke police are going to have to make random spot checks and you won't be able to tell them to go away. They are not going to accept 'I don't smoke' as a reason to leave anyone alone. It could be a lying smoker.

Therefore, when ASH's jackbooted Fag Gestapo start their random home searches, they are not going to be confined to smokers because there's no way to tell who's a smoker and who isn't. A national register won't work - all you have to do is tell them you've quit and you're off the register.

They are going to be banging on anyone's door at 3 am for a spot check. Anyone at all.

Non-smokers will be subject to this too. They just don't believe it yet.

John Demetriou said...

This news makes me feel sick.

I can't believe people are happy to throw away other peoples' freedoms like this, just because it doesn't bother them.

Since when did freedom mean shitting over people like this?

It is staggering and upsetting, but I commend you for bringing it to all our attention.

regards

JD

Anonymous said...

How many ASH staff can be found puffing away outside their office at any one time?

banned said...

"ASH Scotland already have a stated aim of banning smoking in all private vehicles" which is already the case in the Channel Isles, indeed any vehicle whatsoever.
How and when did ASH get statutory right of entry or any rights to talk to me at all?

subrosa said...

Give just ordered an E cigarette. Let's see how it goes because I need to stop this cough but I don't intend to give up entirely, not as yet anyway. Keep up the good work Dick.

subrosa said...

Ooops give should read I've. Brain not engaging. :(

Uncle Marvo said...

It's no problem. Wait until the hounds come, then 'fess up, then refuse to pay the fine, then go to jail. You can still smoke in jail.

This can't be serious. Banning smoking in someone's house? Even the Taliban wouldn't try that on.

Mr A said...

"This can't be serious."

I remember thinking that in 2006. It seemed obvious it would lead to massive pub closures and seemed very dubious legally - after all, even though pubs allow the public on-site they are private property.

Still happened, though.

Their agenda is obvious. They'll manufacture some junk studies on hundreds of thousands of cheeeeldren being invalided like Tiny Tim because Mom or Dad has a fag in front of Corrie and it'll come in on the back of that.

Then again, as much as I hate those pricks, I hate the faux-Libertarians more. The ones who rightly rail and fume about ID cards, the AGW fraud and so on but then when it comes to smoking say, "But I support the ban - now my clothes don't smell of smoke."

If even professed libertarians can't see what their true agenda is then what hope do Labour's pets have, under constant propaganda from the Governmrnt, the NHS and its fake charities?

We're fucked.

Anonymous said...

@Uncle Marvo - I don't think it would be difficult at all: just create spurious evidence that children are damaged by second-hand smoke (throw in third-hand smoke for good measure), set up a system of visits to 'vulnerable' children (truancy, child seems tired in school - whatever) and remove the children into care, if not on the original grounds then on smoking. In fact smoking parents might be made to feel so guilty that they'll quit smoking anyway.

Jay

Dick the Prick said...

Apologies in advance but FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF and a wee little FUCK OFF for fun. What an unmitigated set of cock gobbling, felching, fisting, anal stretching gimps.

timbone said...

Read this at 10 last night and tweeted @PeterWanless:
'Half a million pounds to ASH Scotland? A bunch of fanatics (Those are John Reid's words not mine)'
and
'I thought lottery money was for charities and other worthy causes,not pressure groups and political lobbys like ASH Scotland'

@PeterWanless send me a DM (private message)at 7 this morning - at least he had the decency to reply:
'Tim, we make over 10,000 awards a year to a huge range of organisations. No one will be pleased by everything we fund, not even John Reid!'

Dick Puddlecote said...

Yep, he replied to my query about the correct name of the person to whom FOI requests should be directed too.

Antipholus Papps said...

(lottery players included)

They're only playing the lottery because all of the bingo halls closed down!

jackbooted Fag Gestapo

It makes you nostalgic for the days of Combat 18.

Cate Munro said...

Great post Dick! I quit 2 years ago and still support the right of people to smoke - in pubs or at home! This nanny state mentality is threatening the very fibre of our country!