Had a long conversation this afternoon with Rory MacKinnon, a reporter for the Morning Star.
He's working on a piece about the response to the Government's tobacco control plan and wanted answers to the following questions (which he kindly emailed in advance):
1. I understand you told a select committee in 2000 that Forest received around £250,000pa in funding from the TMA. Is this figure still accurate?
2. You also confirmed that this represented around 96% of Forest's operating budget. Is this also still accurate?
3. You have said in both your testimony to the select committee and on Forest's website that it was "not set up by the industry, but independently by this chap, Christopher Foxley-Norris, and a few of his pals." Can you confirm that neither the TMA nor its predecessor the Tobacco Advisory Council were behind its creation? If not, why do you maintain that Forest is an independent organisation?"
4. I've read several interviews and columns in which you've said there is no evidence for a tobacco display ban reducing the number of young smokers. How do you reconcile this with the importance the tobacco industry itself places on branding and visibility?
I won't repeat my replies to these and other searching questions. Suffice it to say I'm not expecting a ringing endorsement of Forest or our role in the war on tobacco!