So the news cycle moves on and Boris is resigning but, for the record …
Where were you when the news broke that the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javed had resigned because that was probably the seminal moment that marked the end for the PM.
I'll never forget it.
I was on the smoking terrace at Boisdale of Belgravia. It was around 6.00pm and a GB News producer, a guest at the Forest Summer Lunch, was checking her phone when her startled reaction alerted everyone that something big was breaking.
The event had began six hours earlier when guests arrived for drinks on the terrace followed by a three-course meal and ‘unlimited’ wine in the main restaurant.
We lost a few guests to Covid and other factors (one journalist was stuck in Dublin after his flight was cancelled, another couldn’t leave the newsroom because his deputy was off sick, and a couple of MPs had ‘urgent’ business to attend to) but there was still a good turnout - almost 60 guests - so the main restaurant was pretty much full.
After lunch IEA director-general Mark Littlewood and I did a short ‘in conversation’ slot before we moved on to some presentations and awards.
I was keen to recognise the support Forest has had from two people, Pat Nurse and Liz Barber, over many years.
Both of them have been coming to Forest events for as long as I can remember and Pat later told me that her first engagement with Forest was several years before I joined, which I didn’t know.
I mentioned their “zest for life” and said that although we sometimes disagree on how to combat the “anti-smoking zealots” it’s people like Pat and Liz who are the “spirit of Forest”, and I meant it.
We then moved on to our first award which was presented to Daily Mail columnist Tom Utley.
Back in 2005 we awarded Tom the title ‘Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year’ and his ‘prize’ was 200 Marlboro Reds.
Tom frequently refers to his smoking habit in his weekly column, usually in a self-deprecating way, and in a publication that pushes a strong health agenda I consider that quite subversive.
Anyway, 17 years after we gave him 200 Marlboro Reds in recognition of his smoker-friendly musings we presented him with a coveted ‘Voices of Freedom’ trophy!
Next up was a new award, in the UK at least. In Ireland in 2017 and 2018 we presented Senator Catherine Noone and former minister Marcella Corcoran Kennedy with ‘Golden Nanny’ awards ‘for services to the nanny state’.
They surprised us by turning up to collect their awards and because of that I will always have a soft spot for them. (Neither are still in parliament so perhaps we had the last laugh!)
Sadly the winner of the UK’s first ‘Golden Nanny’ award didn’t join us so we asked Chris Snowdon, editor of the Nanny State Index, to accept it on his behalf.
Dear reader, it won’t surprise you to learn that despite fierce competition Britain’s ‘Nanny-in-Chief 2022’ is Dr Javed Khan OBE whose recent tobacco control report featured no fewer than 15 recommendations to achieve a ‘smoke free England’ by 2030, one of which is to raise the age of sale of tobacco by one year every year until no-one can legally buy it.
So a worthy winner, I think you’ll agree.
Our next award went to David Hockney, a great champion of smoking and someone who has attended multiple Forest events in the past, including two at Boisdale restaurants.
Now living in Normandy David was unable to join us on this occasion so we invited Will Lloyd, commissioning editor at the online magazine UnHerd, to accept the award on David’s behalf.
Will qualified for the role because not only did he commission an article by Hockney (‘Britain needs a cigarette’) last year, he has also become something of a pen pal to the great man.
Will told an amusing story about their initial correspondence when he refused to believe that the person signing his emails ‘DH’ was actually David Hockney and after several emails had gone back and forth an increasingly irate editor effectively told Hockney to f-off.
Thankfully the misunderstanding was eventually cleared up and the result was ‘Britain needs a cigarette’.
Will also had a message from Hockney apologising for his absence. Apparently he’s not too well at the moment and a feature in the Guardian yesterday mentioned that he is currently in a wheelchair.
It’s worth mentioning though that he’s 85 this month.
The recipient of our final award was my co-host Ranald Macdonald, managing director of Boisdale Restaurants (there are currently three: Belgravia, Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf).
As I explained to our guests, I’ve known Ranald since 2004 and he’s been a huge help and supporter ever since. Together we’ve hosted multiple events at Boisdale (Belgravia and Canary Wharf) plus one-off events at the Savoy Hotel in London and a Conservative conference in Bournemouth.
Naturally he finished his acceptance speech with a joke about Viagra and a former James Bond (Roger Moore, geddit?) but no-one’s perfect.
Anyway we finished the event back on the terrace with the last guests leaving shortly after 6.00pm. I think people enjoyed themselves. One guest subsequently wrote:
‘They tell me I was at the Forest lunch yesterday. I haven’t the faintest recollection of it, so it must have been a fantastic and liquid event. Thank you so much!’
Another wrote:
‘Thank you very much for inviting me to such a wonderful event. It was great to see you and so many friends after such a long time: fabulous company in a wonderful setting with fantastic food!’
PS. Received yesterday from someone we invited via email:
‘I stupidly missed this email. What a day it would’ve been.’
Lesson: always read your emails!
