Still taking liberties
Wednesday, April 20, 2022 at 9:47 It was pointed out to me recently that I’ve been writing this blog for 15 years.
The anniversary of my first post was on March 26 but I was busy and forgot to mention it.
I don’t know how many blogs from that era have survived but the number of bloggers hanging up their keyboards appears to have accelerated with each passing year.
The mid to late Noughties were arguably the peak years for blogging. It reminded me a bit of the punk rock explosion in the mid to late Seventies.
Just as obstacles to recording and distributing records were overcome as a wave of independent labels sprang up all over the country, suddenly there were fewer barriers to publishing.
Anyone with a computer could publish an online journal using a simple content management system - WordPress, for example, or (in this case) Squarespace.
Echoing the punk rock movement very few blogs merited a large following but there were exceptions.
In my opinion Iain Dale’s Diary was far and away the best of the political blogs. Trading in political news and gossip, with a smattering of personal stories, it was essential reading for anyone with an interest in Westminster politics.
The problem, as I recall reading, was that it took over Iain’s life with some readers disappointed if he didn’t publish four or five posts every day. That degree of commitment was impossible for someone with a full-time job.
I had no ambition for this blog other than using it to promote Forest and a sister project, The Free Society, that covered a variety of lifestyle issues. On March 26, 2007, I introduced the blog as follows:
Welcome to Taking Liberties, an oasis for those who believe in less not more government intrusion into our daily lives. For those who missed our launch party last year, The Free Society is an offshoot of Forest, the smokers' lobby group. Founded in 1979 by a former Battle of Britain fighter pilot, Forest defends those who choose to smoke tobacco and don't expect to be vilified for consuming a legal product that generates billions of pounds for the Treasury.
The Free Society will take that campaign one stage further. We will demonstrate that attempts to ostracise smokers are part of a much bigger picture in which politicians, campaigners and public officials are slowly eroding our civil liberties with laws and regulations that are out of all proportion to the problems they seek to tackle. Today tobacco, tomorrow food and drink. And motoring. Free speech, too, is under threat, with politicians and scientists telling us there is "no debate" about passive smoking or global warming when, clearly, there is.
There are two reasons for naming the blog Taking Liberties. First, I am genuinely concerned that freedoms we have taken for granted are slowly being taken from us without proper debate. Second, I want to make this blog as entertaining as possible and if that means taking liberties in a more colloquial sense, so be it. Feedback is positively encouraged so feel free to comment on anything that appears here. It's going to be an interesting journey so welcome aboard and enjoy the ride.
Within months I was writing about the introduction of the smoking ban in Wales, then England. The latter, funnily enough, was a bit of a damp squib media wise because all the shouting had taken place 18 months earlier when MPs voted for the ban. That day (Sunday July 1, 2007) I wrote:
You've got to laugh. All week we were anticipating a media blitz, beginning on Friday. I was primed. Neil Rafferty (another Forest spokesman) was on red alert. And yet - it hasn't happened. Thanks to events outside our control (flash floods, car bombs and the Glasgow Airport attack), we have been dumped by CNN, Sky News, BBC Breakfast and News 24.
Only Voice of America and New Delhi TV went ahead with pre-arranged interviews - which is why I am sitting in my London office, on a Sunday afternoon, munching chocolate, reading the papers and watching Sky while waiting for calls that never come. Ironically, I turned down an appearance on BBC1's regional Politics Show - broadcasting live from a dog track in Brighton - saying I was needed in London. Doh!
Media coverage on the day the ban was introduced may have been low key but after that there was rarely a dull moment and always something to write about as the Labour government pressed ahead with further anti-smoking measures including graphic health warnings, a ban on tobacco vending machines and the tobacco display ban that was later adopted and introduced by the Conservative-led coalition government in 2011.
In 2009 Forest launched the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign with the aim of amending the smoking ban. A long shot, I admit, but reading some of my posts now I’m surprised by how much traction and support we got. It didn’t always feel like that at the time but in hindsight we kept the issue alive longer than most people thought possible.
The campaign peaked two years after it was launched with a reception on the terrace of the House of Commons hosted by a cross-party group of MPs and attended by David Hockney who spoke out against the ban. (See ‘David Hockney lights up the House of Commons’.)
Likewise the Hands Off Our Packs campaign, launched in 2012, ran for three years and its progress was reported step by step on this blog. The crowning moment was delivering to the Department of Health a street petition with over 235,000 signatories opposing standardised packaging of tobacco. Naturally I wrote about it here (‘Hands Off Our Packs: number crunching‘) and here (‘235,000 people sign the HOOPS petition‘).
The Free Society meanwhile ran for six years with its own dedicated blog featuring articles written by a small team of contributors overseen by a professional editor. It expired for several reasons, one of which was a declining interest in blogs per se, even those with multiple contributors.
Taking Liberties however has stumbled on. In January 2011 the blog was redesigned and relaunched on the current platform with a slightly different URL so to read it in full from the beginning you have to start here not here (if you see what I mean).
Technically the only thing we’ve tweaked since then is making the blog tablet and smartphone friendly so people can read it on an iPad or iPhone as well as a laptop or desktop computer.
I do most of my internet browsing on an iPad these days and I imagine many readers do the same so the blog has to be compatible with all mobile devices.
As it happens the outdated software I use is no longer supported but I haven’t worked out how to transfer the blog to the latest version without losing every post and comment from the last eleven years.
In truth I was a year or two late to blogging while the focus on smoking-related issues has inevitably reduced the blog’s appeal to a wider audience.
That said, in those early years I got several thousand readers a day and some posts attracted 100+ comments, sometimes more. The numbers have declined over time and I can’t say I blame readers for drifting away.
While I have tried not to let it become a single issue blog I appreciate that is probably how it is perceived and there are only so many times most people want to read about smoking!
So why, after 15 years, do I continue to blog?
One, I enjoy writing and always have. From the age of ten I wanted to be a journalist and although that ambition didn’t pan out as I might have hoped (ie with a career in Fleet Street), I never stopped writing. Blogging was a natural extension of 30+ years writing, editing and publishing a string of magazines and newsletters.
Two, I believe writing is like a muscle and if you don’t exercise it you quickly lose the ability to write. Blogging enables the use of that muscle and I recommend it to anyone who wants to write, if only as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
Three, although I like to include some personal and non-work related stuff, the main purpose of the blog is to combine commentary about smoking-related issues with an informal record of Forest’s work. Campaigns, media appearances and publications - that information is all here emphasising my belief that blogs are a useful and often neglected business tool.
As it happens the precursor to Taking Liberties was a work-related ‘diary’ on an earlier version of the Forest website. I found some of the entries a few years ago and posted them here. They date from 2003-2004 and as I explain in my intro:
Flitting in and out of these entries are Joe Jackson, Antony Worrall Thompson and David Hockney who all made significant contributions to the national debate [about the smoking ban] …
The full cast of characters includes Lionel Blair, Edwina Currie, Bob Geldof, Allen Carr [the quit smoking guru], Julia Hartley-Brewer, Tony Blackburn, Marcus Brigstocke and many more.
I’m not sure what happened to the entries, if there were any, from 2005-2006 which is a pity because that was arguably the most difficult yet satisfying period in Forest’s history, certainly since I’ve been director.
Given everything that happened in those two years - for various reasons it was quite a rollercoaster ride - I suspect I didn’t have time to keep a regular diary. Not all the stories have been lost though because some have been recorded, retrospectively, here.
However there’s another reason I still maintain the blog and it’s this. When I die I would like to leave something for future generations of my family to read, should anyone be interested.
Many of the magazines I once edited and wrote for have gone AWOL so this blog represents a substantial chunk of my writing. However it’s online and at some point after I’m dead - probably the first time the hosting fee comes up for renewal - it will disappear from the internet forever.
Either that or the platform will no longer be compatible with the hardware of the future.
I am wondering therefore if my only option is to copy and print some of the thousands of posts I have written and leave them in a folder for someone to find in a box in the attic in 50 years’ time.
There’s a precedent for this because my grandfather kept a diary that covers his time in India after the war. The typewritten manuscript (I still have the typewriter he used) only came to light quite recently and although I haven’t read it in full yet the entries I have read capture the time and the place wonderfully well.
Those who were born at the start of the 20th century and lived through two world wars (like my grandfather) arguably experienced greater change in their lifetime - from the birth of aviation to the advent of the computer - than any other generation in history.
Add a touch of Empire - albeit in its final days - and a personal account of that period makes fascinating reading.
In contrast (and I am not comparing the two because my grandfather’s diary is much more interesting than this blog) Taking Liberties reflects a very different world.
Truth is, I and many of my generation have lived relatively bland and comfortable lives without ever being exposed to significant danger.
Nevertheless my interest in the smoking debate does highlight a growing desire by politicians of all parties to micro manage our lives to the nth degree.
It also highlights the increasing power and influence of professional lobbyists such as ASH, although there’s nothing new about temperance movements or anti-smokers.
How it will read to future generations of my family I’ve no idea but if it generates even a flicker of interest I’ll be happy with that.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who continues to read this blog. I can’t promise to be here in another 15 years but you never know!
Reader Comments (7)
I still read your missives, alongside those of other remaining stalwarts, via the magic of RSS... :-)
DK
Haha, thank you! I miss the original libertarian swearblogger!
maybe we can resurrect Smoke on the Water to celebrate the auspicious occasion!
Good idea! Do you know anyone who might help organise it? 🤔
Well, I for one am very happy that you are still here, Simon! So many of the old bloggers have fallen by the wayside one way or another and I must say that I rather miss them and often wonder what’s happened to them. Some, we all know, have died, like Frank D or Captain Ranty, because we’ve been told; others we know have simply given up blogging, because they’ve often informed their readers beforehand, but many just seem to have faded away without any warning. Even the Freedom2Choose forum, which I used to greatly enjoy for its informality and variety, seems to be dead now, with no new posts since the end of 2020. Perhaps they’ve all migrated over to Facebook or Twitter or Instagram (or whatever the most currently-popular platform is) and have simply left behind those of us who don’t subscribe to any of those. So your blog is a little oasis in an otherwise barren landscape for the few freedom-lovers who still exist out here! Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
Thank God for you and this blog Simon. I don't know what I would have done without it all these years.
Forest is the only organisation to stand up for smokers against the most powerful bullies and abusers in this country.
Please don't ever stop blogging.