Why it's good to admit to being wrong every now and then...

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I used to work with a chap - forget his name, it was along time ago before I came to Bradford - who, when I'd point out a mistake in his stats or similar, would smile and say: "I may occasionally be in error but I'm never wrong." To be fair this was said with a smile while the mistake was corrected - I always liked him for that.

It was quite a while after this that I discovered Rousseau's idea of the General Will and, importantly, that my colleague's quote was more or less a description of how (paradoxically) the General Will is intrinsically right. Now the problem with this collectivist take on will is, as I'm sure folk have already noticed, that we need to have a way of knowing what that General Will is actually saying.

We can point to democracy as a means of determining what the General Will is saying except that, as us Brits have just discovered, democracy doesn't do this - is 52/48 a statement of General Will to Leave the EU or merely the result of a democratic contest? So, if we can't use voting to determine General Will (and the recent referendum reminds us of this fact) how do we decide? Or maybe the General Will - even badged as 'Common Good' or 'Common Purpose' - really doesn't exist?

For Actualists and latterly Fascists, the answer was simple, the General Will was embodied in the leader and his advisors (in themselves the leaders of the state's 'corporations' - army, business, organised labour, academia and so forth). But we're still stuck with the idea that somebody or some thing is the embodiment of that General Will - meaning, of course, that that person or body is intrinsically right. As the wags might say: "I may have my faults but being wrong isn't one of them!"

It seems to me that, in our sophisticated Western liberal democracies, this General Will has been embodied in a technocratic elite - a sort of Platonic administration by expert. Political decisions are sub-contracted to a process overseen by these experts - at the end of the process the politicians (defined here as the people we elect to represent us) do little other than rubber stamp the conclusions of the experts since these are 'scientific' or 'evidence-based'.

If we take the debate about standardised packaging for cigarettes as an example, we can see that the General Will was embodied in a small number of government bodies, academic departments and lobby groups rather than in the mass of response to the Department of Health's consultation on the proposal:

In total, 665,989 campaign responses were received from 24 separate campaigns. Around two-thirds of campaign responses received were from people who are opposed to the introduction of standardised packaging (total of 427,888 responses) and one-third of campaign responses received were from people who are in support (238,101 responses)...

The problem is that the opposition wasn't from those suitably (in the government's view) qualified to comment and they chose to assess only 'detailed' responses which, surprise surprise, split 53/43 in favour of standardised packaging. It doesn't matter whether or not you agree with the proposal for standardised packaging of cigarettes - the process of confirming the proposal post-consultation ignored the majority of responses because they were insufficiently 'detailed'.

The problem we have here is that there's a reluctance to admit that - regardless of how well 'evidenced' a policy might be, sometimes they are simply wrong. Indeed we know there's evidence of this with the standardised packaging policy:

“From a statistical perspective, none of these changes were different from zero. Over the timeframe of the analysis, the data does not demonstrate that there has been a change in smoking prevalence following the introduction of plain packaging.”

They also insert this important warning: “It is not possible to assign a causal relationship between the changes in the noticeabilty of health warnings or smoking prevalence and the introduction of plain packaging, as there have been a number of other confounding factors that have occurred before and during the period of this analysis.”

All this is merely illustrative of the problem with 'evidence' in making public policy. It's not just that we can't prove the counterfactual (what would have happened if we'd not made the policy decision) but also that appraising whether or not something works in social policy is really difficult - because of those confounding factors implicit in the second paragraph of the quotation above. Again this isn't an argument against the organised and systematic appraisal of public policy but rather a call for something different.

Put bluntly, it would be good for those experts to admit they were wrong every now and then rather than perform tortuous contortions aimed at explaining why, despite all the data (confounded or not) they really aren't wrong.

There is nothing weak about admitting a mistake - of fessing up and saying: "folks, I got that wrong!" Yet it seems that too many of us are constitutionally incapable of making that admission. We make predictions - often sweepingly on the basis of 'I'm an expert and I say' rather than actual research or analysis - and when they turn out wrong, the best we can do is sit quietly in the corner hoping no-one calls us out on our error. Some of the 'experts' are more brazen - denying that was what they predicted, shouting about how you've misunderstood what they said, and insisting that someone else is twisting their words to mean something different.

It's because of this - plus the patronising arrogance us clever folk use too much of the time - that polling tells us that much of the population simply doesn't trust what we're saying. Coupled with shouty and aggressive appeals to authority, we shove aside deductive reasoning and intelligent (if naive) questioning in favour of findings from a focus group of experts or determined by our partisan google searches. Treating the mass of the population as semi-sentient may seem right - what, after all, to those sheep know, they have to be led - but that mass of people doesn't forget and, given the chance, will stick two fingers up at you.

Truth is there isn't any General Will - or Common Purpose for that matter - but rather a moving collection of shared interests that never involve every person. Government - however hard you bash the social policy thing - is a pretty poor way of managing these shared interests. And the futher that government is from the things that actually matter to the folk who (in George Bailey's words) do all the living, working and dying round here, the less effective it becomes.

So my friends, make an effort - admit it when you get something wrong, a prediction doesn't turn out quite as you thought or a policy you backed is a failure. It will be a catharsis for you and will get you a damn sight more respect than trying to pretend you weren't wrong. And, of course, feel free to call me out on this too.

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I was right. Plain packaging doesn't reduce tobacco consumption.

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In March 2011 I wrote this:

My main concerns in all this – leaving aside the issue of personal rights – is that, if the aims are twofold: first to increase rates of smoking cessation and second to reduce rates of smoking adoption, then we are barking up the wrong tree. By way of illustration, between 2003 and 2005 all forms of tobacco advertising in the UK were banned. If the arguments for a ban were correct – less tobacco use and fewer tobacco users – we would have expected the rate of tobacco consumption to accelerate. However, the ban (like the smoking ban in public spaces) had no discernible impact on the long-standing decline in use.

In simple terms introducing plain packaging for cigarettes simply won't work (if the aim is to reduce tobacco consumption or smoking adoption). And it seems I was right:

Ronald Coase famously argued that if you tortured the data long enough they would confess. In this paper we have tortured the data, but there has been no confession. At best, we can determine the plain packaging policy introduced in December 2012 has not reduced household expenditure of tobacco once we control for price effects, or the long-term decline of tobacco expenditure, or even the latent attributes of the data.

To the contrary, we are able to find a suggestion that household expenditure of tobacco has, ceteris paribus, increased. In our forecasting exercise the actual data come close to breaking through the 80 per cent confidence interval. While we do not want to over-emphasise these results, we do conclude that any evidence to suggest that the plain packaging policy has reduced household expenditure on tobacco is simply lacking.

Now I'm sure the tobacco control folk will redouble their efforts - despite being completely wrong. But I hope one or two of them consider whether some different strategies might be more effective in reducing the consumption of tobacco and the adoption of smoking.

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A reminder that plain packs for cigarettes will kill jobs in Bradford...and won't stop kids smoking either

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I know I've pointed this out before but it merits repetition. Here's Mike Ridgeway from the Consumer Packaging Manufacturers Alliance explaining:

“Plain packaging would have a catastrophic effect on the packaging industry and its supply chain that currently employs over 60,000 people across the UK. .

"It would remove the need for a series of highly skilled printing and packaging techniques that currently support jobs and flourishing apprenticeship schemes. Plain packaging could result in the loss of jobs within the supply chain and so it is essential that the Treasury and BIS undertake their own thorough assessments as part of this review.

“Inward investment into the UK packaging industry has been substantial in recent years, but further investments are on hold pending the Government’s decision on plain packaging. If the measure was adopted it would inevitably lead to jobs and investment being redirected to other parts of Europe and the world. It is extraordinary that the Government has so far failed to take these concerns into account." 

So hundreds - perhaps thousands - of jobs are risked for a policy where these is no evidence at all from anywhere that it will make one jot of difference to either the take-up of smoking by young people or the continuation of smoking by grown-ups.  Indeed, the decision to look only (and then selectively) at the supposed health benefits in the Chantler Review simply ignores those workers in Bradford.

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Quote of the day: on plain packaging...

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From Professor Sinclair Davidson of RMIT University in Australia:

“I have no doubt that the consumption of cigarettes has risen since plain packaging was introduced; we just can’t be sure whether it is by existing smokers or new smokers.”

The quote's from an excellent article in The Australian (via Chris Snowdon). We should be clear that the good professor isn't saying that plain packs caused the rise in consumption rather that there's no link between what the packs look like and levels of consumption. Something some of us were saying even before the Aussies introduced the policy.

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Send a letter to the Prime Minister for me...

There's a chance that the Government, in its desire to assuage some Lib Dems and obsession with indulging Labour's health fascist tendencies, will include the introduction of standardised packaging for cigarettes in the forthcoming Queen's Speech.

Campaigners - some of the 425,000 plus who wrote previously to oppose this policy - are urging people to write to the Prime Minister - you can get details of the campaign at Hands Off Our Packs.

The reasons why? Well here they are:

1. There is no evidence supporting the contention that standardised packaging reduces either the uptake of smoking or overall consumption. Indeed, in the year since the introduction of plain packs in Australia rates of smoking have increased

2. There is clear evidence to show that standardised packing increases both the counterfeiting of cigarettes and the smuggling of tobacco. The beneficiaries of the policy are criminals not the public

3. The policy will lead to job losses in places like Bradford - the jobs designing, planning and managing a multiplicity of different packaging designs will be gone, replaced with a simple print job

So do write urging the Prime Minister not to introduce this egregious - and pointless - policy.

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Plain packaging is anti-capitalist complains Cuba...

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Odd bedfellows! But I guess that when one of Cuba's top export industries is threatened all those socialist principles get dumped sharpish:

Cuba’s letter to the WTO’s Committee to Technical Barriers on Trade concluded: “Cuba expresses great concern over the UK Parliament’s decision to move ahead with the process of implementation of plain packaging of tobacco products, without waiting for a settlement of the complaint against Australia before the WTO Dispute Settlement Body.”

Still it made me smile.

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Oh I don't know Melanie...

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Melanie McDonagh in the Spectator writes:

Look, tobacco is a perfectly legal stimulant. It will, taken in sufficient quantities, shorten your lifespan, but so too will drinking to excess, and we’re not yet contemplating selling Bailey’s, Gordon’s and Captain Morgan’s in indistinguishable bottles, marked only by a health warning.

If some folk get their way, that's exactly what we'll be getting:

...Iceland heavily restricts the marketing (packaging) opportunities for alcohol products. It does so by limiting the permitted text and visual imagery typically depicted on the label. The rules governing the product selection undertaken by ÁTVR (The State Alcohol and Tobacco Company of Iceland) provide that packaging and labeling may only contain certain information relating to the product, its production method or its properties...

Welcome to the slippery slope folks.

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Smoking and advertising - some hints why plain packs won't cut smoking rates

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For many years I've been carefully pointing out to people that advertising for cigarettes doesn't work the way they think it works. The "they wouldn't do it if it didn't work" argument is entirely true. It's just that what you think "works" means in this context isn't the same as what us marketers mean by "works".

The truth is that there's almost no relationship between the amount of advertising and marketing spend on cigarettes and the quantity sold. The advertising is targeted at the smoker not the non-smoker and aims to get that smoker to prefer one brand over another. This preference allows for the marketer to get a bigger margin because the consumer's choice set is limited by that advertising. Incidentally the same goes for soap powder, dog food and lemonade.

By way of proving this, here's US ad spend on cigarettes set against cigarette sales:

As you can see here there isn't any connection at all between advertising spend and cigarette sales - the advertising bans and restrictions have all been "shoot the messenger" campaigns made worse by the fact that the messenger wasn't talking to children or indeed any non-smoker but to smokers.

These facts suggest to me that introducing plain packaging for cigarettes will be just as pointless, just as ineffective. Inconvenience, annoyance and the further ostracising of the smoker will result but it won't make a jot of difference to either take up or consumption of cigarettes.

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...in which we are reminded that plain packs won't stop people smoking

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These proposals come from people who neither understand brands nor appreciate the point or purpose of marketing. As I wrote a while ago:

...brands do not act to recruit customers to a given product – we choose to buy the product and then we select the brand. Nobody starts buying bread because they saw a Warburton’s ad – they buy bread because, well, they want bread! What the brand provides is a heuristic – a short cut, if you will – allowing the consumer to make a choice quickly and confidently. What we do know is that it is the search for a benefit that makes consumers choose to buy a product rather than the shininess of the brand presentation.  Or is you prefer: we buy bread because we want to eat it not because the advert featured a brass band playing chunks from the New World Symphony!

So I was pleased -although not surprised - to see this view confirmed by a branding expert:

...the notion that selling cigarettes in logo-free dull green packages will deter smokers fails to take into account both human nature and the way brands work.

Advocate of plain packaging believe that smokers and aspiring smokers will be repelled by unattractive plain packages.  I doubt that this will have much effect. Nobody smokes because the packages are cool; people start smoking because smoking is cool – at least in their eyes.

You the problem is that the anti-tobacco lobby - rather like Naomi Klein - haven't the first idea about brands, advertising or the point of marketing. They - like most non-marketers - confuse 'marketing' and 'selling' assuming that the two words are interchangeable, that 'marketing' is merely a posh word for 'selling'. And they are wrong.

The result of this isn't better public health, it isn't the incipient collapse of the tobacco industry (perhaps the anti-smoking lot might care to visit Peru or Afghanistan to look at the growing of coca and opium poppies) - what we get is job losses, businesses closing, a new criminal class of smugglers and no further progress in reducing the harm caused by smoking. As Andrew Hennigan, who I quote above, concludes:

Reducing the number of people smoking and, most importantly, the number of young people starting is a key public health goal, but I fear that we need to find some other solution than plain packaging...

Perhaps shifting from denormalisation to harm reduction might be a start?

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Now about that cigarette smuggling

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It seems that it's getting worse and this is before the nannying fussbuckets make it even easier for the smugglers by introducing plain packaging for fags:

The survey in Birmingham by MS Intelligence, a Swiss-based brand protection company, found that 30.9 per cent of packets were either bogus or purchased abroad.

A similar study conducted last year found the proportion was only 14.1 per cent - indicating that the number of illicit cigarettes smoked in Britain's second-largest city has more than doubled in 12 months. 

Even accounting for the limitations of this study, these figures demonstrate that there is a point at which sticking the price up every year stops working. And we have crossed that point - the criminals are switching from high risk heroin ans cocaine to low risk booze and fags:

Profit margins are said to be just as high because of the scale of the operation, but detection rates are lower and punishment less severe.

Recently, heroin and cigarettes have been smuggled together.

'Bring a container of cigarettes into this country and you're talking a £1.5 million profit,' said Mr O'Reilly. 'Organised crime is all over it.

'After a number of years in decline, there has been a sharp rise in illicit cigarettes.

'That's partly down to the economy - people can't afford the real product - and it is easier for counterfeiters to copy the packets.

'Plans for plain packaging are simply playing into the hands of organised criminals and counterfeiters because it will be so much easier to make copies.'

Perhaps we need to change our attitude to smoking. Rather than the abstain or nothing approach coupled with ever more draconian price and distribution controls, we should maybe consider treating adults like, well, grown ups. Setting the facts out before them, providing support for quitters and encouraging less harmful smoking options such as water pipes and e-cigarettes.

Not going to happen though is it! The fussbuckets just plan to shout louder, ban more and control more.

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It's for the kids...

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“This is not about curbing the freedoms of existing adult smokers; it’s about giving kids one less reason to start smoking in the first place.” 

...the ones whose Dad's are going to lose their jobs no doubt:


...or the ones shot and killed in the turf wars of smugglers and counterfeiters

If you get a chance before Friday tell the government that the police, business and the unions oppose plain packs, that there's no evidence at all to support their introduction and that the idea won't stop one single "kid" from taking up smoking.

The consultation is here.

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The police, the unions, business and the public think it daft. Can we ditch the idea of plain packs for fags now?

It seems that everyone bar the paid lackeys of The Churchof Public Health is against the idea of plain packaging for cigarettes.

The police:

Health Secretary Andrew ­Lansley’s plans to force ­cigarettes to be sold in plain packets have been blasted by police.

Nearly nine out of 10 officers – 86 per cent – believe the move will lead to a rise in smuggling and sales of fake ­cigarettes, a poll claimed yesterday.

The findings also show that six out of 10 believe that the clampdown would drive teenagers towards illegal ­cigarette suppliers where they could buy counterfeit branded packs.

And senior officers make clear the problem – 24 of them wrote to the Times about it:

Sir, Plain packaging risks fuelling tobacco smuggling. We are concerned at the possibility of the Government introducing standardised packaging of tobacco products. We do not wish to get involved in the public health debate. However, our concern is very much on the impact that it could have on crime and in particular on serious organised criminals who are the target of the major law enforcement agencies.

Tobacco products are relatively small, high-value items and are smuggled in extremely large quantities, depriving the Treasury of billions of pounds in tax revenues. Those who smuggle tobacco products are often involved in other forms of serious criminality. The introduction of standardised packaging would make it even easier for criminals to copy and sell these products to the unsuspecting public, including children. This would place further pressure on already stretched law enforcement agencies and at a time when the Government needs to secure much needed tax revenues.

To my thinking that ought to be enough but we can add trade union opposition – they’re worried about jobs (like I am since 1000 of those jobs are in Bradford):

The FDT National Committee has serious concerns that these measures are ill-thought through and not evidence based, and in some parts of our sector, particularly tobacco and alcohol, could simply make it much easier for criminals to sell (unregulated and untaxed) counterfeit and smuggled goods and thus have flow-on affects such as a significant impact on jobs in our sector.

And the packaging industry agrees:

A considerable amount of the business of both Weidenhammer and Chesapeake involves the printing of cigarette cartons for the export trade. At Wiedenhammer’s Bradford site a large proportion of the work involves the production of drums for loose tobacco and, if this business disappeared, then it is estimated that turnover would decrease by at least a third. The threat to the business is, therefore, very real and...there would be major implications for investment, jobs and the tobacco packaging supply chain across the UK. 

So the police think it will increase crime and make it easier for children to get hold of tobacco; the unions and industry think it will result in job losses and the public? Well they think it’s a daft idea too:

72% of those questioned in Populus poll today say that #plainpacks will cause people to turn to the black market http://ow.ly/cqEgr

So there you have it folks – the police, the unions, business and the public all think plain packaging for cigarettes is a daft and counterproductive idea. Can we dump the idea now?

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A reminder how the Tobacco Control Industry is killing people...

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Most smokers want to give up smoking. But most of those who want to give up fail to do so. Yet the Tobacco Control Industry - ASH and its associates in any number of local NHS "smoke free" bodies - persist in denying the value of harm reduction strategies and insist on abstinence or nothing.

And this approach means that people are dying unnecessarily - here's the facts (well American facts):

i) There are approximately 46 million tobacco smokers in the United States.
ii) While three-quarters say they want to quit smoking, and about one-third try to quit each year, fewer than 10% succeed.
iii) The FDA-approved smoking cessation aids simply do not work: They improve quit rates only minimally, if at all, therefore …
iv) About 450,000 American tobacco nicotine addicts die prematurely each year from smoking-related causes.

You see, while it is the nicotine that we get addicted to, it isn't the nicotine that kills us. It's the smoke.  Which means that if we remove the smoke, we reduce the harm and save lives.

We see tobacco control people wanting to ban e-cigarettes - despite their proven effectiveness as a smoking cessation aid. And to ban smokeless tobacco products like snus despite the almost complete absence of any evidence indicating harm.

As the author who pointed out the facts above observes:

Despite the demonstrated benefits of harm reduction, and the lack of efficacy of the approved pharmaceutical products (such as patches, gum, and medications), public health spokespersons, governmental and private, adhere to the mantra, “there is no safe tobacco product.”

While inexcusable, their rationales for such unscientific policies understandably derive from deep-seated mistrust of tobacco companies and their phony promotion of ostensibly “reduced risk” products like “light” or filter-tip cigarettes.

But this “won’t be fooled again” policy — ignoring the fate of the millions of addicted smokers — enforces an abstinence only, “quit or die” approach.

But rather than grasping the opportunities presented by a harm reduction approach to tobacco control, the New Puritan fundamentalists focus instead on ineffective, unproven controls such as plain packaging.

And as a result people who might not have died are dying.

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More on plain packaging and the threat to jobs in Bradford

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As Bradford is stunned by the loss of nearly 500 jobs following Thomas Cook's decision to close their office in the City, the nannying fussbuckets are eagerly promoting proposals that threaten hundreds more jobs in the City - plain packaging for cigarettes. Here's a quote from a briefing note prepared by Bradford Council officers:

A considerable amount of the business of both Weidenhammer and Chesapeake involves the printing of cigarette cartons for the export trade. At Wiedenhammer’s Bradford site a large proportion of the work involves the production of drums for loose tobacco and, if this business disappeared, then it is estimated that turnover would decrease by at least a third. The threat to the business is, therefore, very real and...there would be major implications for investment, jobs and the tobacco packaging supply chain across the UK. 

 The briefing note continues by noting the problems of counterfeiting:

...unbranded packets and containers are far easier to counterfeit, using a simple, four-colour machine, and that, if the UK government decided to implement the measure, then it would be ‘a gift for organized criminal gangs’. The growth of illicit cigarettes and contraband products would undermine volumes for bona-fida manufacturers, as well as reducing government revenue by even more than the current estimate of £3.1 billion per annum lost from illicit trade in tobacco.

The conclusion from officers says:

Members need to consider whether they wish to support manufacturing businesses in the Bradford area and protect high value engineering jobs by taking part in the consultation process.

I shall be urging Bradford Council to act in the interests of jobs and business in the City and to oppose the proposals.

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What Nanny's state will be like?

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This could happen - just think about it!

h/t to Dick P ....

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