Summary
JOHN Reid, former Communist and working-class hero, does not indulge himself in looking for converts. Smoking is a habit he has kicked, but he does not look back on it with any distaste. "The thing about John is that he really loved smoking, he could have done it professionally," one veteran colleague said last week. "He didn't really do it out of habit, and it definitely wasn't to do with his nerves. He just enjoyed it. He only gave it up when he decided it was probably best for his health that he did."
Thus, the Health Secretary can sometimes be found lovingly toying with other people's cigarette packets and, even if he no longer inhales, he has strong opinions on the standard of tabs within. He recently asked a female journalist what brand she was smoking, then recoiled when she confessed she was packing "lites". "Och," the former 60-a-day man said with some disgust. "That's like smoking fresh air."See the full content of this document
Extract
Health Warning
Reid's comments last week about the value of smoking among the working classes were, therefore, the impassioned words of a man who knows only too well how pleasurable a quick drag can be.
But they were not entirely the product of his own experience. He was, in fact, speaking up for many in his own department, and even in the NHS itself, who believe that "smoking kills" and other explicit health warnings simply do not work."What Dr Reid was saying is becoming a pretty conventional viewpoint among people who have experience of the effects of smoking," one senio...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
