Sunday 9 February 2014

Wheels Within Wheels

Further to yesterday's article on the stunning level of taxes being wasted by Smokefree South West, comes more evidence that they've troughed far too much money for far too long. You see, it has led to their taking the right royal piss.

As I said before, SFSW are central to any daft idea pumped out by the UK tobacco control industry, simply because they are awash with cash. One such initiative is the woefully inept mud-slinging Tobacco Tactics website, as detailed in their business plan from the time of its inception [pdf page 20].

You know the drill, click to enlarge

So Smokefree South West were funnelling £350k to the University of Bath for their wiki, eh? The same university which boasts Anna "junk for hire" Gilmore, one of the most adept tobacco control grant magnets of all time.

And what do we find from Anna's Bath University web profile?

Look at the entry at the foot of the screen shot
Yes, that's correct. Anna Gilmore is part of the committee which decides Smokefree South West's policy. The same Smokefree South West which is channelling hundreds of thousands of taxpayer funds to the University of Bath ... for initiatives which Anna Gilmore benefits from.

Morally bankrupt? Borderline corrupt? Should be illegal? Of course, did you expect anything else from the tobacco control industry?

It's bad enough that Smokefree South West is taking taxpayer receipts to lobby the government which hands it to them; that they are using public money to further pharmaceutical industry interests at our expense. But when these ill-gotten funds are subsequently being shovelled to Anna Gilmore by, err, Anna Gilmore, there should be some serious questions asked. No?

And perhaps, may I suggest, every penny should be handed back to the country along with an appropriately hefty fine to discourage others attempting the same grubby misappropriation of our taxes.

H/T @TobaccoTacticss


18 comments:

Liam Bryan said...

Woefully inept mud-slinging? Maybe but the page they've devoted to you is one of my favourite pages on the internet, that's a few quid well spent for my entertainment alone!

Dick_Puddlecote said...

True. 'Twas very funny. :)

What the.... said...

This photo says it all. There’s good ol’ Anna with the prince of piffle, the glorified mechanic himself, Stantonitis Glands. Stan isn’t easily impressed. Anna must have a mastery of fraudulent conduct coupled with a creative flair, similar to Stan, to bring that sort of smile to Glands’ face. She’s the cream of the crop amongst TC fraudsters.

But let me also say this. Anna has nothing but my admiration. Obviously someone of very limited intellect and moral disposition, Anna has been able to “work” an academic system already destitute of genuine scholarship and integrity to rise through the ranks to the high level of mediocrity. Otherwise destined to an employment choice of clearing graffiti from walls or collecting golf balls at driving ranges, a sickly and corrupt academia has allowed our Anna to become a “professor”. Go Anna!!

Legiron said...

I have still not managed to get a mention on Tobacco Tactics. Bah. Must be more provocative.

They are advertising a job for a new Puritan Liar at... Bath University. Funded by... (sigh) is there even any point saying it?

Blad Tolstoy said...

Excellent though this exposé is, what makes me think they'll just be allowed to continue in the same old way?

Notdunyet said...

Blah,blog,tweet,mumble,whinge ,grumble,whinge Mk2,whine,whimper,mutter and tuttter.Thats all we get from the Friends of Freedom,the Lovers of Liberty
the Cohorts of Choice, the digital Dandies who pretend influence.
Year in and year out,the same old grumble and mumble,not making one iota of difference to the ongoing erosion of our ancient concept of personal liberties.
Even the "Tory" torch bearer Boris (The Turk) Johnson shows his pink credentials in his support for Car with kiddies smoking ban,another Mesopotamian who has weaseled his way onto the sham Tory Carousel
Worse still, the "Tory bloggers"have been exposed as little more than
control junkies,media marionettes,chattering glove puppets with Fabian Fists up their rears.
Who can we turn to.?
Where are the Hard League,where are the Action Men (and women)
Where?

nisakiman said...

You're lagging behind, LI. Frank D has quite a good write up too! :)

Maybe they've realised how many people they are directing (and thus exposing) to the heresy expressed on this and other sites. Plus of course the links herein giving the lie to their propaganda machine.

An idea, LI. Apply for the job at Bath Uni. You've got all the letters after your name. Not only would you make shedloads of dough for little or no work, but you could destroy them from within. All you'd need to do is to continue with your current misinformation campaign, ramp up the rhetoric to Glantzian proportions and the whole edifice would implode!

Et voila!

Klaus K said...

Mr. Puddlecote: I find it much too nice to call these people the "Tobacco Control Industry". It's a corrupt anti-tobacco cult! It's not an industry at all.

An industry is a legal business that produce goods which customers want to pay for - the anti-tobacco cult is clearly not producing anything other than lies & bullshit - for stolen money or money from Big Pharma.
Also, when reading must be quick it is too easy to get confused and mix-up "tobacco control industry" with the "tobacco industry". This could especially be the case for outsiders reading your brilliant articles for the first time. So I suggest you find a better name for these people. How about the Tobacco Control Cult, or the Anti-tobacco Army, or ... ? Any other suggestions? I'm definitely not good at finding good names since my English is bad ... I'm sure you can do better.

What the.... said...

The Anti-Smoking Racket.
The Anti-Tobacco Racket.

What the.... said...

It is a cult (zealotry/fanaticism/mania) framework that, in partnering with government and Pharma, is running a racket.
Government gains through baseless, extortionate taxes. The antismoking groups want their cut of the booty to further “educate” the public and keep themselves in comfortable employment (they also attract Pharma funding). And Pharma gets to peddle its useless “smoking cessation” wares as the avenue of “salvation” for smokers. The ones forced, through a load of inflammatory propaganda peddled as science and scholarship (appeal to authority), to finance the endeavor are smokers; smokers have the “privilege” of paying for their own persecution. What a wonderful system!

brianb007 said...

He's right though, isn't he?

We aren't going to slay this dragon with mere words.

Klaus K said...

Agree. But please take note that Pharma's financial interest in health- and patient groups is not only smokers and anti-smoking drugs - it is ALL drugs. And the patient groups are nothing more than pharma frontgroups:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jul/21/big-pharma-secret-drugs-trials

truckerlyn said...

Anti-smoking / tobacco bullshitters, liars, thieves and spongers

truckerlyn said...

And now big pharma appear to have paid some quack in NICE to push statins to people who don't need them. Obviously the pharma lot don't think they are making enough from us!

nisakiman said...

Indeed he is right, Brian, and I have myself argued for a more proactive approach, but our options are limited as much as our (and the 'our' is also part of our weakness insofar as we are disparate individuals rather than organised groups) funding is limited. If we had just 10% of the funding that the anti-tobacco zealots have at their disposal, we could turn the juggernaut around. But without any funding and without any organisation, all we can do is to chip away at the edifice as individuals. I personally make a point of commenting wherever I can, all over the world, where I find an article about smoking that perpetuates the bullshit, with links if they can be included in the comment. My impact may be small, but if it opens some eyes to the perfidy of the anti-smoker industry, it helps. And it hopefully will have a ripple effect.

What else can we do, given our (lack of) resources? What could any 'Hard League' or 'Action men / women' do? What course of action should they take? It's an intractable problem. I guess a start would be some sort of an organised group, a 'Provisional Wing of Forest', perhaps, who would take part in high-profile demonstrations or civil disobedience exercises or whatever. But it all takes money, and TCI have cleverly removed any usefulness of funding from the Tobacco Industry by declaring anything funded by them as ineligible and to be dismissed out of hand.

A series of full page ads in the nationals (if they would even run them) spelling out the lies and misinformation of TCI would be useful, but it would have to be a sustained campaign, and that takes big bucks, which unlike ASH et al we don't have.

brianb007 said...

I don't have the answers either, Nisakiman, but it is well past the time when we should start having a serious debate about tactics - and behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the fascists!

I think the commenting approach is helpful, if only for one's own morale, and the blogs are obviously being noticed (hence 'tobacco tactics' wiki), but every time we think we are getting somewhere we have to face a massive step backwards such as happened this past couple of days. To be honest I firmly believe that, had Monday's vote been to ban smoking in all cars, not just with kids, it would have been carried. That's where we are now with the rancid politicians which our warped form of democracy has landed us.

Certainly we are past the time where we must (I mean MUST) start ignoring these infantile laws - we get nowhere with hand-wringing wittering about "staying within the law" - bad laws should be treated with the contempt they deserve. I know that most smokers and their friends are most concerned about their local pubs, and don't want to hurt the landlords. I understad this, but we are past the point where it makes any difference, so it's tme to be selfish. Anyway there would be more impact if one lit up in a library, or the dole office, perhaps at a council meeting or in the HoC. After ensuring that the press will be there, of course! Sends a signal pour encourager les autres!

The enemy (and I mean that term literally now) don't just have the money, (although I have personally donated at least 3 grand towards this fight - so far - and I am only one), they have the PR capability, the ear of the media, and, most importantly, have dropped all pretence of ethics when it comes to saying what they know will resound with the press, regardless of whether it is true (and as we know it rarely is). That's where we need to do much better than we have to date.

I have lots more thoughts on the subject, but I have to get on with my work. Consider this though; all of my life I have been an average law-abiding, Tory-voting, midldle(-ish) class, get-on-with-my life family person. This pogrom on MY lifestyle has pushed me beyoind the point now where I can actually contemplate (relish, even) inflicting extreme violence on the perpetrators. I take no pride in this personality shift - equally I feel no shame, either.

So if someone like me can be pushed to the brink of committing murder, it must be possible to mobilise the rest of the "19.3%" somehow.

In the final analysis. helpful though it is, the internet is never going to provide the medium to drive this madness away. Only serious action will work.

nisakiman said...

I concur with all you say Brian, even though I am not personally affected by this madness, as I live in a country where I can smoke almost anywhere I choose without so much as a disapproving frown. (However, the zealots don't like it one little bit, and I can see them lending their attentions to those places they have not yet successfully penetrated in the not too distant future.) That fact notwithstanding, I am passionate about these matters, and my anger knows no bounds when I see the UK politicians meekly acquiescing to the illiberal demands of the embittered misanthropes of TCI. I view them as an out-of-control juggernaut careening madly through our lives without regard for the damage they do. They must be stopped. By any means possible. No more Mr Nice Guy.

Please feel free to contact me directly, Brian. DP can give you my email address if you wish.

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