Forest on the fringe

I’m on my way to Birmingham where Forest is hosting a fringe event at the Conservative party conference.

It’s a panel discussion on the subject of smoking and prohibition, which is probably not the number one issue on everyone’s mind this week so I’m a little concerned about the attendance.

We’re in the Think Tent marquee which is just inside the secure zone outside the International Conference Centre so that should help, but we'll see.

The Think Tent is managed by the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Taxpayers Alliance - who are hosting a series of events including interviews with the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Kwarsi Kwarteng - and we’ve booked a one-hour slot from 3.15 to 4.15 tomorrow (Monday).

We lost a panellist on Friday - Conservative peer Lord Moylan had to drop out - but Mark Oates, director of We Vape, came to the rescue and stepped in to replace him. We may have another panellist to announce tomorrow as well.

In the meantime, apart from Mark, the panel features our old friends Baroness Fox (aka Claire Fox), director of the Academy of Ideas, and Chris Snowdon, head of the Lifestyle Economics Unit at the IEA.

We tried very hard to get a prohibitionist on board but without success.

My guess is that prohibitionists don’t want to admit they support prohibition but, more generally, it’s a fact that tobacco control campaigners - including most anti-smoking MPs - are incredibly reluctant to share a platform with their opponents so they decline or, worse, ignore our invitations to speak which says more about them than us, I think.

Anyway I’m in the chair so I’ll try and play devil’s advocate as best I can to make up for their absence.

If you’re at conference, come and join us. (Refreshments include wine, beer and biscuits.) If not, I believe you can watch the event online. I’ll post a link tomorrow.