Peter thank you very much
indeed and thank you for your cigarette
paper your paper
on is this serious prime minister what
do you mean by well it's always been the
practice in the past to discourage
anti-smoking speeches by ministers and
not to print or distribute their
speeches if they make them well I want
Peter's speeches printed and distributed
I want everybody to know yes prime
minister uh do you think you will win
this one the tobacco l is incredibly
powerful well some you win some you lose
Bernard this one I shall definitely
lose and why if you were the treasury
which would you rather do without 1 and
half billion in tax cuts or4 billion in
Lost tobacco tax revenue well the tax
cuts it's small exactly that's what I
want and that's what I shall get oh it's
Sir Humphrey can he have a word yes of
course yes come in
please ah minister wonder I was just
wondering did you have an interesting
chat with Dr Thorn yes he proposed the
elimination of
[Laughter]
smoking by a campaign of mass hypnosis
perhaps by raising tobacco taxes skyh
High simultaneously banning all
advertising including a point of
sale don't you think his position is
admirably Moral Moral perhaps but
extremely silly no man in his right mind
could Poss possibly contemplate such a
proposal I'm contemplating
it yes of course prime minister please
don't misunderstand me it is quite right
of course that you should contemplate
all proposals that come from your
government but no San man would ever
support it I'm supporting and quite
right
too see the only little problem is that
the tax on Tobacco is a major source of
revenue for the government it's also a
major source of deaths from killer
diseases yes indeed but no definite
causative link has ever been proved has
it the statistics are statistics you can
prove anything with Statistics even the
truth says here smoking related diseases
cost the nhs1 165 million a year yes but
we've been into that it has been shown
that if those extra 100,000 people had
lived to a ripe old age they would have
cost us even more in pensions and Social
Security than they did in medical
treatment so financially speaking it's
unquestionably better that they continue
to die at about the present
rate when Cola killed 30,000 people in
1833 we got the public health act when
smog killed 2 and a half th000 people in
1952 we got the Clean Air Act a
commercial drug kills half a dozen
people and we get it withdrawn from sale
cigarettes kill a 100,000 people a year
and what do we get4 billion a
year 5,000 jobs in the tobacco industry
a flourishing cigarette export business
helping our balance of trade 250,000
jobs related to Tobacco news agents
packaging transport fig are just guesses
no they're government they're
facts see so your statistics are facts
and my facts are merely statistics prime
minister I'm on your side I'm merely
giving you some of the arguments that
you will encounter thank you hungry I'm
so glad to know that we shall have
support such as yours Minister it will
be pointed out that the tobacco
companies a great sponsors of sport now
where would the BBC Sports programs be
if cigarette companies couldn't adver
couldn't sponsor the events that they
take Humphrey we're talking about
100,000 deaths a year yes but cigarette
taxes pay for a third of the cost of the
National Health Service we're saving
many more lives than we otherwise could
because of those smokers who voluntarily
lay down their lives for their
friends for