Hands Off Our Packs campaigners Amul Pandya and Angela Harbutt
Well, that went pretty well.
A full house (150 guests) celebrated, if that's the word, the launch of Forest's Hands Off Our Packs campaign at St Stephen's Club in Westminster last night.
The trade press was particularly well represented. Other journalists included the Daily Mail's Tom Utley, Simon Hills of The Times and Mick Hume, founding editor of Spiked.
There were one or two MPs, several parliamentary researchers, plus numerous think tank types including Eamonn Butler and Tom Clougherty (Adam Smith Institute), Matthew Elliott (Taxpayers' Alliance), Shane Frith (New Direction), Donna Edmunds (Progressive Vision) and Patrick Hayes (Institute of Ideas).
Bloggers were represented by Paul Staines and Harry Cole (Guido Fawkes), Dick Puddlecote and Chris Snowdon, among others.
Chris was one of two guest speakers, the other being Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
We also premiered a new campaign video, 'Welcome to Nanny Town', featuring contributions from Mark, Angela Harbutt and others.
More to follow.
Below: label on the bottle reads, 'WARNING! Alcohol can cause death, poisoning, cancer and addiction'.
