29/04/2013 Newsnight Scotland

Miliband to say, just trust us! On Newsnight Scotland tonight, does

Nanny know best? A succession of campaigns to stop people smoking

with the latest today a ban on cigarette displays. The

government's rates to respect our liberties or does taking tough

action no means saving in the long run? Two different Scottish

administrations have been clamping down on smoking for the last few

years. Proposals to limit alcohol and

healthy eating problems have also hit the headlines. Some say the

nanny states should stop sticking its nose and our lives but if the

state has 2p for the consequences, should be able to intervene?

The shutters have come down here on cigarette displays with customers

wanting the tobacco fix from now on will have to specifically ask.

Smaller scale shopkeepers have another two years to comply with the

display ban but for now she questions the strategy. Those who

smoke will still smoke. I really feel that if the government is

serious about this, they would make it an illegal activity but they are

happy to take the money the tax revenue brings them. They have to

get the message rates one way or another. There was a time when

smoking was seen as pretty acceptable. Eventually health

schemes came into play. In more recent times, the Scottish

government has been restricting tobacco in a variety of ways. The

smoking ban in 2006 was the first major measure. The purchasing age

was raised to 18 and then a lady was raised on supermarkets which sold

tobacco and alcohol. -- levy. It is not just smoking that ministers want

to deduce. Scotland's public health minister has previously called for a

UK wide ban on TV ads on the food that is high in fat, salt and sugar

before the watershed, but are these measures a step too far?

Public-health policy has to be informed by an evidence base and it

is important to listen to that. The significant level of marketing

evidence which demonstrates the ways in which particular are marketed is

transmitted, whether it is through newspaper and television, can have a

real impact on the choices people make. We also have to look at what

impact that then makes on the health of the nation. Labour's Richard

Simpson is a former GP who welcomes the recent action but how does he

answer those critics who say civil liberties are being put at risk?

consult widely on every measure and if there was a large opposition, it

would have to be looked at very carefully indeed but that he will

accept what we have introduced, like the smoking ban, two thirds of

people will commit including two thirds of smokers. What does history

tell us about restricting things that can be bad for you? When the

manufacture and sale of alcohol was banned in the US in 1920,

campaigners smashed kegs and poured the link down the drain. National

prohibition drove alcohol underground. When the policy was

scrapped, people went to celebrate. Back in modern-day Scotland, there

is no suggestion that tobacco restrictions will lead to

prohibition era seems but will further plans which include a ban on

smoking outside hospitals will leave civil rights groups fuming? We are

now joined in the studio by Doctor Andrew Fraser of NHS health

Scotland, Doctor Laura Williamson from the Institute for applied

health research and from Dundee, a sociology lecturer who is also the

founder of liberty Scotland. Do you think we live in a nanny

state? I do not think so. I hope we are living in a well-informed state.

The government has a role in bringing information to the public

and helping them to make the correct choices and these choices are

increasingly healthy choices. The consequences of not bringing that

information to peoples attention is are pretty dire on our national

health. The consequences of that run the health service. People can die

young and leave children behind and if you consider alcohol, there is a

large social cost with broken families and the results they are.

The implications of not tackling difficult issues of health are many

and varied than go well beyond the health service. Do you agree with

that? Do you think the state has a right to tell people what to do? In

certain circumstances, yes. primary and secondary care, choice

is being increased. The government is allowed to infringe freights on

liberties but we are concerned about public health. The measures have to

be proportionate which is why the lady in the film referring to the

fact that they should just ban it. The government has decided that is

not proportionate. People can smoke in the own homes but not endanger

the health of others. Protecting the vulnerable is a well-established

principle. To some extent this is doing the right thing, saving lives

and saving money? Treating people who suffer from smoking-related

diseases cost the Government millions per year. You agree with

what these two are seeing? No. We are missing a much more important

picture if we do not realise that this is new. Essentially, when you

hide cigarettes from adults, it is like hiding the sweetie jar from

children. Society is increasingly treating adults in an infantile way.

They may not make the choices that you would like, as one of your

panellists said, help them make the right choices. There is an

underlying form of moralising that takes place, as well as this great

advice that we have, that we seem to have, remote blissfully given to us.

-- relentlessly given. I have heard you. Let us live lives, even if we

make the wrong choices. Really, there is measure ask measure of

politicians becoming more like behavioural psychologists who treat

us like lab rats or alike children who need constantly to have our

behaviour regulated by them. We are being treated by children, we should

get the advice and then act on it. Like the lady was seeing in the

film, perhaps, the Government should be brave and ban tobacco, if that is

what they want to do and not tinker around the edges. It is one thing to

have a CD but back it with evidence. That is a different

matter. -- a CV. We know that giving information is not enough to change

behaviour. The Scottish Health Observatory published a large

document last week that said people are aware but are not making the

changes that conform with the type of healthy and balanced life style

which will help them illness. We are not arguing for nannying or a

universal, or one way is the right way, few of the world. We are

arguing that we take proportionate measures for EBV serious health

problem that we have in Scotland. -- a very serious health problem. 40%

of people facing the greatest challenges smoke. We cannot let that

lie and let people drift into illness and early death without

taking proportionate measures. We look to the Government, as to other

players in Scottish life, to take action. It is not just government.

There are social aspects and other aspect which must influence others.

Government must play its part. Laura, government playing its part.

How receptive are people when they hear the Government 's message? Does

it almost depend on the social economic background? The

middle-class people not mind what to do whereas traditional working-class

families are more used to the state being involved in their life and

will listen? I think that Stewart's argument for a minimal state would

be OK if everybody had the same degree of freedoms. Because of the

circumstances that you referred to, health inequalities, chronic

diseases that result from smoking, obesity and alcohol consumption,

people do not have the same degree of free choice. There is evidence to

show that the smoke-free legislation has had least effect amongst those

in poor circumstances. People need help. What the Government is trying

to do, I think, is create a level playing field. Unfortunately, it

does not exist at the moment. Hearing that, maybe you seeing that

the Government treats the people like children but to people not need

to be cared for if they're not making the right choices? If we want

to give up on having a public health service. The comment that is made

there is patronising. Essentially saying that poor people are more

stupid to make their own choices. We know that more poor people smoke so

we need to make the choices. Yes, more poor people smoke, there are

many reasons, but they still make the choice. This sort of approach is

degrading and patronising and has an authoritarian aspect to it. We have

to recognise that this is what politics has become. Major policies

are about increasing pricing, how you regulate smoking. This politics,

historically, used to be about advancing society and how you engage

with people as thinking, free, morally responsible beings. Now, we

have held responsible professionals -- health professionals, influencing

what was called our private lives. People with a private existence

should make their own choices. Beautifully patronising? It is

certainly not because poor people are stupid. Unfortunately, it is

because the social economic circumstances the 11 do not have the

same choices as people of the richer areas in Glasgow. I am sure the

people with the life expectancy of 54 would love to have the freedom

that people in the West End Have. . So you will make the choice? I am

not making choices for anyone. My work with people in various areas

suggest that people are not taking, the people that we are describing as

stupid, are not taking the position that they want a minimal state.

want support. They are for community and government helping them to

flourish. How discovered and tread that difficult line, as we are

hearing, a government has to be responsible but, perhaps, they are

too responsible. The have the worry too much about the people. Again,

coming back to the issue of proportionality, we have a big

problem over health. Patronising is something that people may think. We

have to do something about that. You heard from Doctor Simpson mentioning

a broad political censors are crossed parties that courageous

measures need to occur in parliament, with politicians, at but

taking the public with us. They are not patronising the public because

they are depending on the public for their boats. I am interested in the

public health. That is not just about people who make choices. I am

thinking about children, where we have a national aspiration to give

children the best start in life. Getting it right for every child.

What does that mean? I think we have to think about sense of community.

What sort of Scotland we want to be. Not a patronising Scotland, not

a free choice at any cost Scotland, but a Scotland that cares about each

other, community, its health and improvements in that. What about a

community where adults are expected to be able to make morally

responsible decisions for themselves, without having things

hidden from them, like children? Without having the price of

alcohol... Let me put that point to you that was being be reinforced

from the report that there is a political consensus? Of course there

is. The idea of liberty and freedom has completely collapsed in Scotland

and, actually, nudge policies and behaviour management,

micromanagement of peoples lives, has become what politics today. We

have to recognise that the basis of freedom and liberty which was

developed by the classic liberals who developed the idea of freedom of

democracy was the important thing was not the decisions but that

people and culture was free. People recognised that it was the

responsible and that they should be given responsibility for their

lives. Increasingly, that is being taken away. People are being treated

like children. Laura, have we abandoned those old philosophies?

have not. Those philosophies allow protection from harm to others and

protection of the vulnerable. Children are vulnerable. One of the

important things is that we are talking about freedom as if it is

made in a neutral context. In fact, in respect of alcohol and smoking,

we are talking about multi-million dollar, pound advertising

industries. In face of that, how free are these choices? This is why

cigarettes have been locked away and we have gone for plain advertising.

Patronising, we are all bombarded by adverts. Therefore, I going to

drink. Therefore, I am going to smoke. And incredibly patronising

view of the public. Have you ever heard of the dictionary? These