Friday 7 December 2012

Ignore The Police And HMRC, What Do They Know?

It's customary to end a blogger's week with a bit of light comedy, so what better than tobacco control's increasingly laughable grip on reality?

We've already seen how they are so very mad that they deny the fundamentals of economics, but their insistence that plain packaging won't make life easier for counterfeiters is even funnier. It should be clear to even the simplest of minds that reducing 200+ pack designs to just the one government-prescribed one is a Godsend to criminals. But no, not in wibbly-wobbly tobacco control land.

Deborah Arnott was adamant in this Sky News clip (2:55 onwards) that anyone stating the bleeding obvious is quite barking.



See, they have 'covert markings' now. It's just a tobacco industry smokescreen, so it is.

Except, of course, that it isn't the tobacco industry making this argument. Long-serving police chief, Peter Sheridan, has stated that the markings are going to be pretty useless when plain packaging comes in unless plod are routinely given gadgets to check every packet they see on the streets (5:25 onwards).



He explained that "things like colours, embossments and shapes, all are defence mechanisms" against counterfeiting, before going on to describe plain packaging at HuffPo UK as an idea which "will create a fertile ground for tobacco smuggling".

Still, I suppose Arnott will dismiss a well-respected police officer with 30 years' experience of tackling criminal gangs as some kind of tobacco industry shill. But what about state-paid employees like Mike Norgrove who is Director of Excise, Customs, Stamps and Money at HMRC?

He gave evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee a couple of months ago. Perhaps his professional experience is also inferior to the awesome fairy tale-spinning intellect of Deborah Arnott, eh?
Kate Hoey: Do you think there would be an increase, or what would you see as the effect, if this country was to follow the Australian line of going down plain packaging? 
Mike Norgrove: The Department has made representations, as everyone else has, on the consultation about the possible effects of plain packaging. 
Kate Hoey: Did you put in a submission? 
Mike Norgrove: We did. 
Kate Hoey: Is that public? 
Mike Norgrove: No, it was not a public submission. 
Kate Hoey: Right, okay; so you are not going to tell us. 
Mike Norgrove: I can say that the obvious danger from our point of view is that the ability to detect counterfeit or illicit material would be made more difficult by a system where there was no difference between one packet and another.
Good God! Do cranks like Peter Sheridan OBE and Mike Norgrove CBE not realise that Nanny Arnott is the font of all knowledge on law enforcement and illicit duty avoidance? Who do they think they are claiming to be experts? The bloody nerve!

It must be a tobacco industry plot. I mean, who could possibly believe Arnott is talking out of her tax-sponging backside ... again, eh?


8 comments:

timbone said...

Deborah is looking a bit peeky these days. Are we making her ill?

Nick Lowe said...

And she says Tobacco smuggling is declining. This is straight from Tobacco control's website today.

"According to the European Commission, the EU law enforcement agencies
seized 4.7 billion illicit cigarettes in 2009. One of the main routes
into the EU is via what are called the Eastern Partnership countries, in
particular Moldova, Ukraine Belarus and Russia. The Commission believes
that the number of cigarettes smuggled via this route increased in
2010. European Commission,
[http://ec.europa.eu/anti_fraud/documents/preventing-fraud-documents/eastern_border_action_plan_en.pdf
Action plan to fight against smuggling of cigarettes and alcohol along
the EU Eastern border, Commission Staff Working Party,] Commission
Anti-Fraud Strategy, Brussels, 24 June 2011, SEC(2011) 791 "


Another porkie from Debs I think.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

That's cos she is using two year old figures.

http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/sod-basic-economics-when-theres-public.html

Dave said...

Incremental totalitarianism
implemented through

institutionalised compartmentalisation.

What the.... said...

All activists within the Tobacco Control Racket are a peculiar breed. They can blather and lie their way through any topic….. any discipline while maintaining a complete fixation on the antismoking goal. It takes a particular talent to lie at will and not be distracted by facts or nuisance issues like honesty and integrity. Just look at the model for racketeers - the glorified mechanic, Stantinitis Glands. He is equally comfortable crapping his way through economics issues as he is with cognitive matters, etc, etc. Glands does his best work on the toilet; it stimulates blood flow to his thinking apparatus. He has long had a simple solution to world hunger. He has a simple solution for world peace. He has simple solutions to many considerable problems. He has the scrawled on toilet paper indexed on the bookshelf ready to be approached by some UN agency. In the meantime, he’s happy…. ecstatic… that he was at least approached for his solution to the smoking “problem”.

JonathanBagley said...

She's just read this comment under Clive Bates' latest article (link Chris Snowdon).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"It is interesting to consider if the smokers’ class actions of the future might be directed at Commission officials, politicians and European health groups who conspired to deny them much safer alternatives, with full knowledge of the relative risks, addictiveness of tobacco, and plenty of scientific advice showing that they knew or should have known the harm reduction benefits of these products."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve Brown said...

I've tried. In fact I've tried twice. I'm sorry but I simply cannot stomach watching that purse-lipped harridan and hearing her spout utter and total crap.
She's vomit-making.

Tony said...

Something is bugging me about Arnott, I had a cursory look around and I cannot seem to see her age anywhere. Now I would wager that she looks a lot older than her actual age and this makes her a very bitter evil person.