Final word on last week's Freedom Dinner.
Forest has produced a short video which you can see above. It features interviews with Angela Harbutt (Hands Off Our Packs), Patrick Hayes (Institute of Ideas), Josie Appleton (Manifesto Club) and other guests.
It also features footage of the event including the speakers – James Delingpole, Claire Fox and General Sir Mike Jackson – and the band, Reuben Richards and Soul Train.
Tom Miers, editor of The Free Society, was also a guest and he has written a very good article about the event. Here's a taste:
You might have thought that it was no cause for celebration. Five years on last Sunday, and the smoking ban has sent hundreds of pubs and clubs to the wall, ruining livelihoods and rending the social fabric of communities up and down the land as drinkers retreat to their living rooms ...
Yet on Tuesday a great gathering was held in London to celebrate the freedom of the individual to make his own choices in life. Organised by Simon Clark of Forest and hosted by Boisdale of Canary Wharf, the tone of The Freedom Dinner was relentlessly optimistic. I came away confident once more that the power of ideas can be deployed to arrest the growth of the state as an arbiter of morality and personal taste.
See: Dispatches from The Freedom Dinner
Dick Puddlecote and Pat Nurse both wrote about the event. See also A smoke to liberty (The Spectator).
General Sir Mike Jackson's presence at the dinner was mentioned by both the Scotsman and the Daily Mail.
It was the Sunday Express however that summed up the principal theme of Sir Mike's speech in this report:
Sir Mike Jackson takes aim at the nanny state
PS. We interviewed several other guests for the video but in the cold light of day their comments were unintelligible.
Too much whisky and/or wine may have been responsible. I couldn't possibly comment.