Sunday 6 April 2014

Cyril Chantler For Prime Minister!

I've shared my initial thoughts on the Chantler policy-led whitewash review into plain packaging and subsequent parliamentary statement this week, but you might be interested in a Twitter exchange with Times journo Alex Ralph from Thursday kindly shared by fellow jewel robber RooBeeDoo.

You see, Cyril Chantler is a paediatrician, we are told. As such, he's not really someone who can be called an 'expert' in assessing the accuracy or otherwise of economic research into illicit trading of tobacco - it's just not something covered in kiddie medical school, for some mad reason.

But he has installed himself as such anyway.


So, move over internationally-respected financial experts KPMG; stand down National Audit Office as your flawed methodologies are no longer required; customs authorities hang your head in shame for not knowing your own area of expertise; and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, go tell your 34 member nations that you are disbanding with immediate effect due to inept embarrassment.

You're all wrong and Cyril the medic is right.

So why the need for all these highly-paid specialists when a humble paediatrician can do the job just as well, eh? Forget convention, let's just have this colossus of global economic brilliance installed as Chief Executive of the DCLG, Financial Conduct Authority, Border Force, Prime Minister, Chairman of the World Trade Organisation, and, heck, why not Pope too?

Unless, of course, his opinion is tarnished by having been, I dunno, got at? Whaddya reckon?


9 comments:

RooBeeDoo said...

DP sent you and email. Time to attack. Can you wake up the others? Cheers
Roobee

RooBeeDoo said...

Oh and thanks! You're my online dick. Ban that, pah!

Lawson said...

What is it about paediatricians and their unerring ability to drop themselves in the proverbial?
Prof Roy Meadow knows a thing or two about flawed methodology. Perhaps Cyril should have a little chat with him about his downfall, before going any further.

Ken MacLeod said...

The Israeli article on ecigs is the most laughably misinformed piece on the subject I've read this week.

Ivan_Denisovich said...

All hail the medics! They are omniscient superior beings sent to save us. They can do no wrong and their word is sacred.

nisakiman said...

So have KPMG issued a press release questioning the reference to their 'flawed methodology'? It would be nice if they made a bit of a stink about it and brought it to the attention of the spineless ones in the HoC.

Junican said...

You might not have seen this:

"Guido Fawkes has dug out some interesting facts about Mr Chantler:

http://order-order.com/2014/04/03/smoked-chantlers-plain-package-parliamentary-pass-perk/

Just how neutral is Maria Miller’s smokescreen and plain package advocate Sir Cyril Chantler? Earlier he would have had us believe he is just a simple Consultant Paediatrician, yet he holds a Parliamentary staff pass from Baroness Cumberlege, the former Junior Health Minister, who in 1992 called for a complete phase out on the sale of cigarettes in the UK by 2020:

“The 25 phase-out would require sharp reductions in the numbers of young people who take up smokers “redoubling education efforts will go a long way to that end,” said Lady Cumberlege “Ultimately, I suppose some form of prescription dispensing could be envisioned to ‘accommodate’ the last aged addicted smokers in the realm,” she said.”

If you follow the ‘staff pass’ link, you find this:

Baroness Cumberlege.

Staff…………………….. Other relevant gainful occupation or benefit.

Sir Cyril Chantler…… Chairman, UCL Partners Academic Health Science Partnership; Non-executive Director, By the Bridge (fostering agency); Chairman, Clinical Audit Committee NHS England; Occasional inquiries or reviews on NHS matters.

One fine day said...

So many experts ready to suffocate any form of free enterprise and free choice,they cant wait to snuff out any signs of individual responsibility,to drown liberty in a deluge of lies and deception.
May I suggest they take a look at the price paid for freedom,the suffering ,the sacrifice ,the piled high corpses of those who gave all for our way of life,our freedom,our choice,the good bits and the warts.

http://youtu.be/H8nNJF1V1Pw

nisakiman said...

This is something that makes me want to cry. That those brave men, so many of them, made the ultimate sacrifice so that their children and grandchildren would not have to live under the yoke of tyranny, and just look at the UK today, top heavy with little tin-pot tyrants banning things left, right and centre. Those fallen soldiers must be turning in their graves.

You can't even go to a pub for a pint and a smoke anymore. I've been back to UK a few times since 2007, and I couldn't believe how awful pubs had become. They now have all the ambience of a doctor's waiting room, albeit one that stinks of stale beer and urine. No hubbub of friends enjoying a pint under a faint haze of comforting tobacco smoke, and an absolute dearth of the general bonhomie that was always the mark of a welcoming hostelry.

In fact the last time I was in UK, I didn't even bother going to a pub.

What's the point? It's so bloody sad.