I was considering giving the Prat of the Week award to this bloke, but this week's award has already been allocated.Therefore I have instituted another award, which doubtless will never be used again, namely "Hyperbole of the Week".
This week's Hyperbole of the Week Award goes to Nanny's chums in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) for publishing an article by Mike Daube, Professor of Health Policy Curtin University of Technology Perth Western Australia.
Professor Daube and the BMJ have decided, for reasons that unclear, to put their noses into the Tory leadership contest.
Specifically, the BMJ is very concerned about the long term health effects to the nation of a win by Ken Clarke.Professor Daube has written a lengthy, and "hyperbolic" (I do like that word), article on the horrors of Ken Clarke's association with BAT and the tobacco industry. He portrays dear old Ken as an angel of death, a tad over the top wouldn't you say.
Here is an extract:
"The tobacco industry comprises evil companies, promoting and selling a product they know to be lethal. Kenneth Clarke has been a supporter of the industry for over 30 years, and one of its leaders since 1998.
Surely a peddler of death and disease has no place aspiring to lead the party of Disraeli, let alone a great country.
If he is elected, companies such as BAT will flourish with access at the highest levels,
while their products kill more and more millions in Britain
and around the world."
I wonder what the learned professor would say if David "I won't tell you if I took drugs" Cameron won?
Methinks that the BMJ would be better off keeping their minds on their jobs, and not interfering in politics; especially since doctors are one of the highest consumers of drink, drugs and fags in the professions.
Surely if Nanny were that concerned about smoking she would ban it - period - not just in pubs and clubs!!
ReplyDeleteOf course, remember that these hypocrits in power are onto a nice little earner from the sales of these products. Probably trying to reclaim all the tax credits, benefits and the 101 other Nanny payouts many lazy slobs in this country receive!!
Not to mention the spiv's everywhere selling dodgy goods ;)
ReplyDeleteHi Ken, Looking at your diagram I think you may have confused hyperbole (pronounced hyperboly) with the geometrical term hyperbola ;)
ReplyDeleteOf course tobacco isn't the only dangerous product actively promoted by the Tories. They are also strong supporters of those real weapons of mass destruction, motor cars. No only do cars kill (3.500 deaths per annum in the UK alone) they cause disease - deaths resulting from breathing car-fouled air are currently 22,000 pa in the UK and rising. I have no time for smoking, it's a filthy habit (and I lost my father through lung cancer), but I can easily avoid smokers and their fumes. However no-one can avoid being forced to breathe the dangerous, highly carcinogenic sewage spewing from 23 million exhaust pipes every day.
Nanny's attempts to ban smoking are just a smokescreen to deflect public attention from more serious sources of air pollution.
Hmm.
ReplyDeleteHyper bollix rather than hyperbolic surely?
And for Pete Roberts' delectation - removing cars from the national transport equation would presumably have us relying of the truly filthy output from a million or so more buses. Not a nice prospect at all, even if some genius managed to come up with a way to route and schedule the damn things to get people to where they want to go efficiently.
However, with the latest panic about the forthcoming flu pandemic I think the last thing we should be considering is massing the populace into close proximity to each other on an ever more frequent basis. In fact I suspect that our ability to travel in our own little containers has been a major benefit to health over recent years, London excepted of course. But then I don't live in London and try to avoid visits if possible.
So by all means ban cars if that is your policy - I take it you are a Nannyist in that respect - but I might guess that the you would in no way prevent 3,500 deaths per annum (dealing with the much greater numbers dying from MRSA might be easier to tackle) related to travel accidents and woould dramatically increase sickness levels and associated deaths from public mass transport.
Of course for all I know that result my also be part of Nanny's policy.
Maybe we should go back to horses to see what organic chaos they could cause?
Fortunately my car has a filtered climate control system which, for a marginal cost in fuel, helps to protect me and my family from the noxious outpourings of buses and trucks. But I take it you eschew such personal benefits and use public transport, feet or bicycle. I wish you luck. You may want to consider avoidance strategies. Living well away from towns and cities would be a start - though you may need to rely on car to get around and visit the shops .... ah, I see a problem with the plan already.
I don't think Nanny is trying to make a forced reduction in tobacco consumption appear to be a smokescreen for anything, though I do like the subtle use of spin speak in the idea.
No, I think she is just exercising her desire to command and control as an alternative to having any useful or practical policy for anything else. Meddling pram pushers, all of them.