Not dead yet

Another year, another birthday, and looking at the handful of cards I have received a theme seems to be emerging.

To ‘celebrate’ we had brunch at The Watch Office, a Grade II listed building that once served as a central operations hub for the RAF during World War II.

Instead of my normal full English breakfast I ordered the American Waffle Stack: Belgian waffle, crispy bacon, and fried chicken with hot honey glaze (below).

Back home my aunt, 87, rang to wish me a happy birthday.

Sounding remarkably cheerful, she reported that of the group of six people (three men, three women) she and her late husband often went on holiday with, only three are still alive and it’s the men who have all died, which is reassuring.

Sad but undeterred by the loss of their husbands, they are all going on a coach trip to Lake Garda next month.

To paraphrase my aunt, “I wouldn’t mind if I died tomorrow, but while I’m alive I’m going to make the most of what time I have left.”

My mother, 94, has the same attitude to life (and death) and in May I’m taking her to Zurich to see her sister who will be 100 next month.

Bluesky thinking

The left-leaning virtue signallers on social media are easy to spot.

They're the ones who announce, in a rather grand and portentous manner, that they are leaving X (formerly Twitter) because of the platform's alleged shift to the right, or what they consider to be a new and 'toxic' environment created by the site's owner Elon Musk.

Personally, I found a lot of tweets obnoxious or unbearable long before Musk bought the business, but I continue to stick with it because it's a useful platform for breaking news and gathering and sharing information.

Furthermore, it's quite easy to mute or ignore much of the unpleasant 'noise' it attracts from ALL corners of the political spectrum.

At least, since Musk took over, it does feel like a genuine platform for free speech, but that comes at a price – being exposed to views and opinions you may not agree with and possibly find abhorrent.

Another factor is that X has far more users and therefore a much greater reach than other similar sites.

For example, I have read that at the start of this year X had an estimated 240-300 million daily active users. In comparison, Bluesky had 3.2 million daily active users.

I don’t see those numbers aligning any time soon. Nevertheless, it is true that some people and organisations have deleted their X accounts and moved to Bluesky, which some say is a more friendly environment and others say is an echo chamber for the 'progressive' left – the very people who used to control Twitter.

Unsurprisingly this includes several members of the public health community, some of whom clearly felt very uncomfortable on X.

Take, for example, the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training which took to X in November to announce:

We’re closing our X account; it’s a toxic media platform & Elon Musk has used it to shape political discourse. Thank you to our 1.8k followers. Find us on BlueSky (which is like Twitter used to be) https://bsky.app - search for NCSCT – please do sign up and follow us there

That's quite a statement for a taxpayer-funded organisation that ought to be above petty politics.

Interestingly, however, the response from their followers on X may have surprised them. Here are some of the comments:

I'm really sad to see you go! How do we fight misinformation if we stay in a bubble shielded from it?

That's too bad. I like it here. It's where everyone is. Your reach will be slim there compared to X!

It seems that whoever made this decision has made it based on political ideology, which is disappointing. I thought this account would be here to help everybody, regardless of politics.

Seriously disappointing. The message of supporting and promoting smoking cessation should be shared on every platform irrespective of political affiliation.

And so on.

As it happens, the NCSCT's X account hasn't been closed but nor has it been updated since November 14. Curiously, though, I can't find an NCSCT account on Bluesky, which is a bit strange.

Other organisations that have defected to Bluesky include the Sheffield Addictions Research Group, part of the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR) at the University of Sheffield.

Individual public health campaigners who have left X and moved to Bluesky include Prof Robert West, Emeritus Professor of Health Psychology at UCL. West had 11.5k followers on X and currently has 1.7k on Bluesky.

Another absconder is our old friend Simon Chapman, Emeritus Professor of Public Health at Sydney University, who told his followers on January 1 that he was closing his X account 'in February' because he was 'sickened by what Musk has turned it into'.

I'm over at @Bluesky with lots of you already following. It's VERY easy to join (download the Bluesky app) and works like the Twitter of old. A troll free zone. Join me.

It may be very easy to join but Chapman currently has 750 followers on Bluesky compared to 12.5k on X. Moreover, almost two months after his solemn declaration of intent, he's still on X, retweeting the likes of Rory Stewart.

One public health campaigner whose X account is currently locked and described as 'inactive' is Professor Martin McKee, a member of Independent SAGE, and past president of the British Medical Association.

Today, if you want to follow McKee on social media, you'll need to switch to Bluesky where he has a healthy 10.3k followers, but still far short of the 43.1k followers he had on X.

For that reason, perhaps, many more individuals and organisations appear to be hedging their bets by setting up accounts on Bluesky whilst keeping their accounts on X active, at least for now.

This latter group includes ASH, Fresh, British Medical Journal, Royal Society for Public Health, and the Tobacco Control Research Group at Bath University.

Individuals who have decided to do the same include Hazel Cheeseman, CEO of ASH; Dr Sarah Jackson, UCL Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group; and Nick Hopkinson, Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College, London.

Perhaps I should take a leaf out of their book but I'm not sure I can be bothered maintaining yet another social media account.

I'm on X. That's enough. I don't need another platform to feed my addiction!

Leading tobacco control official retires

Six months after Deborah Arnott retired as CEO of ASH, the tobacco control industry has lost another significant figure.

Martin Dockrell, tobacco control programme lead for the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (formerly Public Health England) since 2014, retired at the end of January.

Unlike Arnott, who was given a big send off with accolades ringing in her ears, Dockrell’s departure seems to have gone under the radar, publicly at least. I can find only one mention of it on social media and nothing anywhere else.

Prior to joining PHE, Dockrell spent seven years at ASH, where he became director of policy and research and effectively Arnott’s deputy. Commenting on his new civil service role, I wrote a blog post (Job for the boy at Public Health England), noting that it was an ‘interesting appointment’.

Later I started monitoring his social media posts and saw how his support for vaping as a quit smoking tool made him an unlikely friend and hero to some vaping activists. (His Twitter/X handle is @SwitchFinder. Geddit?)

Personally I was rather less enamoured, and I’m sure the feeling was mutual. In fact, he once ‘liked’ a tweet that described me as a "a smug apologist for deadly cigarettes". In response I wrote:

I’m flattered he found a moment to 'like' a tweet calling me ‘smug’. Pot. Kettle. Black.

More revealing perhaps was the fact that an employee of Public Health England endorsed a tweet that accused me (falsely) of being an ‘advocate of deadly cigarettes’.

Advocate of choice and personal responsibility, yes. Advocate of deadly cigarettes (or smoking generally), never.

Last year, ironically, the boot was on the other foot. In March 2024, following an ‘investigation’ by those super sleuths at The Examination, The Times reported that:

A public health official responsible for tobacco and vaping policy dined with the e-cigarette company Juul and gave advice on launching its vapes in the UK, new documents reveal.

The gist of the allegation was that Dockrell had had lunch - with Deborah Arnott also present - with a representative of Juul at a nicotine conference in Warsaw in 2017.

The IEA’s Chris Snowdon, who I rarely disagree with, described the investigation as a ‘smear campaign’.

Perhaps it is [I wrote] but I can’t help finding it funny that after years of trying to discredit tobacco companies and anyone who engages with the industry (even if it's only attending the annual Chelsea Flower Show), tobacco control campaigners are now the ones being targeted for engaging with "industry" – albeit the vaping industry.

According to The Times, Dockrell hasn’t commented but Arnott ‘disputed Juul’s characterisation of the meeting, saying it was a “misleading account of a discussion about the UK regulatory framework for e-cigarettes”.’

Instead she told the paper that ASH ‘occasionally “met with industry both to gather intelligence and to inform the delivery of more effective regulation and tobacco control measures” and denied it was inappropriate.’

As I say, I don't see anything wrong with that. What I find wrong, and hypocritical, is the indignation if a politician or civil servant should dare engage with the tobacco industry.

If it's OK for ASH and or a government official like Martin Dockrell to meet with the vaping industry "to gather intelligence or to inform the delivery of more effective regulation and tobacco control measures", why can't politicians and civil servants meet with the tobacco industry as well?

That said, it was a storm in a teacup. Far more interesting to me was the fact that Dockrell had instigated a living evidence review on smoking and Covid, but - unaccountably - seemed to lose interest in it (publicly at least).

Draw your own conclusions, but following publication of the twelfth and final version of the review in August 2021 I noted that the summary was almost identical to every previous version. Ergo:

Compared with never smokers, current smokers appear to be at reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and increased risk of greater in-hospital disease severity.

Harking back to a previous post I had written, I reminded readers that:

In recent months … Dockrell has done very little to promote the study to a wider audience.

I have just had a quick glance at his Twitter account and as far as I can tell the last time he mentioned the living review was on September 18 (2020) when he retweeted a link to version 7.

Since then versions 8, 9 and 10 have been published and not a peep from PHE's tobacco control lead.

See: End of the road for living evidence review on smoking and Covid

In 2022 I noticed that he had nevertheless found time to retweet another snarky comment, this time by LBC broadcaster James O’Brien about the Institute of Economic Affairs, which seemed a strange thing for a civil servant to do, especially when a pinned tweet on his Twitter account read:

Friends, a little note on the special constraints I operate under. Lead me not into temptation and if you ever feel I’ve overstepped the mark, shout out!

Naturally, I took him up on that (Shout out for Martin Dockrell), remarking:

I'm curious to know how RT'ing a snarky comment about a 'free market' think tank (note O'Brien's sneery quotation marks) by a radio host well known for his left wing or 'liberal' views adheres to the Civil Service Code which urges civil servants to 'apply the same standards' online and offline, 'either at work or in a personal capacity'.

I also took issue with his involvement in the ‘independent’ Khan Review, pointing out that:

There has to be a question mark over how 'independent' Javed Khan's review really is, especially after Martin Dockrell, the former director of policy at ASH who has been tobacco programme lead for Public Health England for almost a decade, tweeted: ‘Chuffed to be assisting @JavedKhanCEO on his project.’

Despite his retirement, however, we may not have heard the last of him because Dockrell is chairing a panel discussion at Smoking Cessation and Health 2025 at York Racecourse on March 5.

Panellists at the event include Hazel Cheeseman, now chief executive of ASH, and Richard Boden, deputy director, tobacco and vaping policy and legislation, at the OHID.

An ‘experienced civil servant’, Boden’s bio is interesting because it states that:

Richard has led on the design and development of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, and prior to this led on the independent Khan Review.

This does of course beg a question similar to the one I asked in relation to Martin Dockrell: how independent was the Khan Review if it was led by a civil servant working for the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities within the Department of Health and Social Care?

Anyway, if anyone knows who has taken Dockrell’s role as tobacco control programme lead for the OHID (or if the position still exists), do let me know.

I’ve searched online (including LinkedIn and social media) but can’t find any mention of a successor.

On Monday I emailed the Department of Health and Social Care but the automated response didn’t promise a reply and added that even if they do respond it might take 20 working days (four weeks!) to get back to me.

I’m also struggling to confirm the identity of Boden’s boss - the director of tobacco and vaping policy and legislation at the OHID. Does such a post exist or is the tobacco control programme lead one and the same?

Again, if anyone has any information, let me know.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill – progress report

Further to yesterday's post, we're still waiting for the Government to announce the date of the report stage of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

If you are unfamiliar with the process, the progress of a bill starts with its formal introduction in the House of Commons. This is the first reading and there is no debate.

It then moves on to the second reading, where there is a debate on the floor of the House, and if a bill passes that hurdle it proceeds as follows:

Committee stage (Commons)
Report stage (Commons)
Third reading (Commons)
First reading (Lords)
Second reading (Lords)
Committee stage (Lords)
Report stage (Lords)
Third reading (Lords)
Consideration of amendments
Royal Assent

The committee stage is when a committee of MPs (chosen by party whips, if it's a government Bill) gets to scrutinise the bill, line by line, and discuss/vote for amendments.

After 16 sittings the Tobacco and Vapes Bill completed the Commons' committee stage at the end of January and is now awaiting the report stage which is described thus:

Report stage gives MPs an opportunity, on the floor of the House, to consider further amendments (proposals for change) to a bill which has been examined in committee.

All MPs may speak and vote - for lengthy or complex bills the debates may be spread over several days.

All MPs can suggest amendments to the bill or new clauses (parts) they think should be added.

The report stage is usually followed, almost immediately, by the third reading of the Bill when MPs debate the amendments and vote for a second time.

The process is then repeated in the House of Lords before the bill returns to the Commons where amendments introduced by peers are considered by MPs and either accepted or rejected.

If rejected, this can lead to the bill going back and forth from one House to the other until agreement is reached, or peers are eventually forced to accept that the elected chamber ought to have the final say.

You can read the current version of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill (as amended by the Commons' Public Bill Committee) here.

One proposed amendment, to replace the generational ban on the sale of tobacco with an alternative proposal to restrict the sale of tobacco to those aged 25 and above, was withdrawn following a Committee debate.

Another proposed amendment that would have restricted the places government could designate as 'smoke free' to 'open or unenclosed spaces outside an NHS property, children’s playground, nursery, school, college or higher education premises' was also defeated following a vote.

As things stand, therefore, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill could be used by any government to extend 'smoke free' status to almost any open or unenclosed space without further debate in parliament.

It may not happen immediately, but it doesn't take much imagination to predict how this will pan out in the years ahead. Beaches, parks, you name it. There won't be a single outdoor public space that will be beyond the 'smoke free' ambition of big government.

Meanwhile, report stage amendments currently include replacing the generational ban by restricting the legal of age of sale of tobacco to anyone under 21.

The relevant amendment has been proposed by Sammy Wilson, DUP MP for East Antrim, with the support of Conservative MP Sir John Hayes.

You can find the current list of report stage amendments here. More will be tabled, I'm sure.

And the Bill hasn't even reached the House of Lords where a posse of peers closely allied to ASH will be lying in wait with their own amendments that will no doubt include further restrictions on smoking and tobacco.

I'll keep you posted.

Rankin points

Writing for the online edition of The Spectator today, Conservative MP Jack Rankin declared:

We got a pasting last July. The task that belongs to us few survivors is renewal – rediscovering those conservative principles that have historically made us so successful. A good starting point would be remembering that the Conservative party has traditionally stood for individual liberty, personal responsibility and the free market.

Specifically:

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill flies in the face of all of these principles. Most significantly, it introduces a so-called ‘generational ban’ on tobacco products, depriving anyone born after 1 January 2009 from the joys of a Montecristo No. 2. Shame. Being an MP exposes you to people with some pretty wacky views, but I’ve yet to find an adult who doesn’t know smoking ain’t great for them. In my book, as long as the external healthcare cost socialised onto all of us is covered by duty, the state should mind its own damn business.

To be honest, I would have preferred him to reference the joys of a Marlboro Red or a Players Superking rather than a well known brand of cigar. Nevertheless, it's good to see a Conservative MP push back, even a little bit, although he also conceded (prematurely, in my opinion) that 'that fight, for now, is over'.

Instead Rankin’s primary preoccupation is not the generational ban but opposing the ban on the advertising and promotion of vapes – hence an amendment (to be tabled at the forthcoming report stage) 'that would require the secretary of state to consult on this proposal so we can at least give retailers, consumers and the industry the chance to have their voices heard'.

If the name sounds familiar it’s because Rankin was one of 17 MPs on the Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee who spent the best part of January scrutinising the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. (I mentioned him here several times.)

He and his fellow Conservative MP Sarah Bool were effectively the only opponents of the Bill on the Committee which was dominated by supporters of the Bill, including all eleven Labour MPs, both Lib Dems, and even two of the four Conservatives on the Committee, notably Dr Caroline Johnson, the shadow health minister.

I wrote about Rankin’s jousts with Johnson here (Blue on blue differences on tobacco and vapes highlight Tory divisions), noting that:

It therefore begs the question: what is the Conservative position on the Bill, especially the generational ban? And the answer is: I don’t know. Literally, not a clue.

In opposition, and with only 121 MPs, you might think that every Tory MP would be singing from the same hymn sheet. Instead, the divisions are all too obvious …

Given that Kemi Badenoch voted against the Tobacco and Vapes Bill at second reading it’s clear where the leader of the party stands, but her shadow public health minister appears to be pursuing her own agenda …

Listening to Caroline Johnson it’s that clear she, like many of her colleagues (including Bob Blackman, co-chair of the APPG on Smoking and Health and recently elected chairman of the influential 1922 Committee), supports the type of nanny state policies that are anathema to Jack Rankin, Sarah Bool and others.

How, then, are they in the same party because this is a fundamental difference, not just in policy but political philosophy.

Citing the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and the Football Governance Bill (‘Both were borne of a Conservative government, but neither is animated by conservative principle’), Rankin concludes his Spectator article by noting that:

Kemi Badenoch voted against both bills at second reading: rediscovery of our principles is on; renewal beckons.

If only if it were that simple. As I also wrote last month:

I’m a big supporter of Kemi Badenoch and I have no time for the impatient naysayers and critics … but I do hope that what emerges from the current period of reflection is a Conservative Party that reaffirms its neglected commitment to individual freedom and personal responsibility, and reins in MPs who don’t share those values.

Unfortunately, with the likes of Caroline Johnson and Bob Blackman in influential positions within the parliamentary party, there are good reasons to remain pessimistic.

See: The Tobacco Bill shows how we Tories lost our way (Spectator)

Problem sorted, for now

Good news.

Six weeks ago I reported that I was experiencing technical problems with this blog:

It doesn’t stop me posting but it takes a bit longer because when I try to log in and post copy I frequently get the message, ‘Whoops, something went wrong’.

It was also happening when I just wanted to access the site like any other user. In addition I occasionally got the message, ‘500 Internal Server Error’, prompting me to write:

It’s overcome easily enough. You just have to refresh the page and most of the time that reboots it, although edits have to be done again which is a nuisance if I haven’t copied them.

Despite several attempts to get it fixed the issue has been ongoing and getting worse … until today when it magically resolved itself.

Whatever the problem was it appears to be sorted, for now, which is a relief because it was becoming more than a little annoying.

What I don’t know is whether it was impacting on you, the reader.

What I do know is that I can no longer put off the inevitable. It’s time to upgrade this ageing platform to the latest version.

My fear is that, in the process, I could lose hundreds of posts and images. Watch this space!

The boy from Wormit

Bit late to this but I discovered this week that I have something in common with actor and comedian Richard Gadd, who wrote and starred in the award-winning Netflix series Baby Reindeer.

Like me, Gadd is a former pupil of Madras College in St Andrews. He supports Dundee United, and he grew up in Wormit, where my family lived from 1969 to 1978 (and where his parents still live).

I'm three decades older than Gadd so our paths have never crossed, but we seem to have shared an early interest in acting. Sadly, that's where any similarity ends.

According to the Madras College Christmas newsletter (2005), Gadd 'excelled' in the title role in the school production of Macbeth a few months' earlier:

He delivered a wonderfully physical performance in which he was perfectly prepared to smash his head off the set when the role demanded it!!

The programme for that production offers the following portrait:

Richard's drama career began when he played the part of a wise man in the nativity play at Wormit Primary School. He thoroughly enjoys his drama classes at Madras, easily picking it over Latin in his second year. He took part in the LAMDA acting exams, performing pieces from "The Trestle" and "Billy Liar". Richard has taken part in several small school productions during lunchtimes and after school including one in aid of Tsunami Relief.

He auditioned for "Macbeth" expecting a small role but instead was handed the role of Macbeth. This has involved endless pages containing huge speeches (half of which had been cut after learning them). He is both nervous and excited about performing and knows he will miss all those involved after the final curtain. It will also be hard for him to stop lapsing into Shakespearean when talking to friends and family when the production is over.

That was 20 years ago. Last year the show he created won four Emmys including Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

Not bad for a boy from Wormit.

PS. Driving home from Scotland on Thursday we were listening to Woman's Hour on Radio 4 when another former Madras pupil was interviewed.

Born in Edinburgh in 1975, KT Tunstall was only there for a short time, I believe, but as far as I'm concerned she's still one of us.

The Ivor Novello Award-winning singer-songwriter has written the music for Clueless: The Musical, hence the interview on Woman's Hour. It's at the Trafalgar Theatre in London until June 14.

See: ‘Like a gig with your favourite 90s artists’: KT Tunstall composes Clueless musical (Guardian).

Food, glorious food

Just back from our annual gastronomy tour of north east Fife (via Glasgow).

It’s half-term (my wife works in education) so we drove to Scotland, arriving in Glasgow on Sunday, and on Monday we had breakfast at Singl-end Cafe & Bakehouse, above. (Yes, that is the correct spelling.)

The cafe - in a quiet residential street in the city centre - is named after the single rooms that were found in the working-class tenements that were such a feature of cities in Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries.

According to the National Trust for Scotland:

The working-class tenements, often consisting of a single room (referred to as a 'single-end'), were testaments to the harsh realities of the time. These cramped spaces, shared by as many as eight family members, created a perfect environment for overcrowding and poor sanitation.

From Glasgow we drove to Powmill Milk Bar (which I mentioned in a post last week) where I ordered a strawberry milk shake. The bar is clearly popular because mid morning, and despite being in a fairly isolated location, it was almost full.

(Funnily enough, on the drive home yesterday, we passed another milk bar in the Borders, so perhaps they are not as outdated or on the verge of extinction as we are led to believe.)

En route to St Andrews we also popped into the Ship Inn in Elie, in Fife. Famously, it is home to the only cricket team in the world that plays all its matches on the beach adjacent to the pub.

Elie is one of a handful of picturesque fishing villages that can be found in the East Neuk of Fife. Others include Crail, Anstruther, Pittenweem, and St Monans.

Later, after checking in to our apartment in St Andrews, we returned to the East Neuk for supper - fish and chips at the Anstruther Fish Bar - which we ate in the car in the tiny car park that overlooks the harbour.

It was dark, of course, so we couldn’t see anything, but it’s a family tradition.

On Tuesday morning, back in St Andrews, we bought coffee and freshly cooked bacon rolls at the appropriately named Gorgeous Cafe, just around the corner from where we were staying.

Following an afternoon in Dundee (see below), we had dinner at Haar, a restaurant that occupies the same building as The Niblick, the (former) pub where I bought my first pint, aged 15.

Like me, our hostess at Haar was a pupil at Madras College in St Andrews. Unlike me, she is only 24, and her father was born in 1969, the year my family moved to Fife, which made me feel very old.

The school moved to a new £50 million campus on the edge of town in 2021. Before that it was split into two sites, a mile apart.

The older of the two sites (built in 1832) is now being redeveloped by St Andrews University and will eventually reopen as New College. The newer site (opened in January 1968) has been refurbished and is now student accommodation.

Even better than Haar, perhaps, was Dune, where we ate on Wednesday evening.

Like Haar, Dune is owned by chef Dean Banks. The ‘newest bar in St Andrews’ is a cocktail and wine bar that, upstairs, also offers what is described as a ‘loft dining experience’.

I ordered the octopus hotdog on a crisp brioche roll and it was delicious. (Octopus can often be rather rubbery. This wasn’t.)

Dune (‘The Seafood Shack’) is quite small but very atmospheric. According to our waitress, a history student, the premises were once a morgue, although it feels like it could have been a small chapel as well (see above).

We drove home yesterday (it ended up being an eight-hour drive) but not before we had breakfast at Balgove Larder Farm Shop, Butchery and Cafe where I had a full breakfast. Warmly recommended.

Did I mention the weather? Until yesterday it very cold with occasional light rain and even sleet so it wasn’t conducive to spending a lot of time outside.

On Tuesday afternoon therefore we watched Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy at Dundee Contemporary Arts. (For those unaware of the geography of these parts, Dundee is a 15-20 minute drive from St Andrews.)

St Andrews no longer has a cinema, the New Picture House (opened in 1933) having been sold to a company part-owned by Tiger Woods with a view to converting it into a sports bar.

Like the DCA cafe, the larger of the two DCA cinemas (202 seats) was almost full, mostly with elderly ladies, but it was the first time my wife and I have both qualified for senior citizen tickets, a combined saving of four pounds that my wife immediately spent on a glass of wine.

Oh, and the film wasn’t bad either.