Washington memories

I’m currently in Washington DC for the annual Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) that begins on Tuesday and runs until Thursday evening.

I arrived early because I hate travelling long distances to conferences and then flying straight back without having a chance to explore the city or country where the event is taking place.

I normally adopt my tourist hat after the event but the Conservative party conference starts next Sunday so I have to get home because Forest is hosting a fringe event on the Monday.

Anyway, I’m pleased to be here.

This is my fourth visit to Washington. The first was in 1983, the second in 1987, the third in 2014 following another GTNF conference in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.

In 1983 I was one of 20 young European journalists invited to attend a two-week event organised by the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organisation with close links to the Republican Party.

In 1983 Brian Monteith, who later became Forest’s spokesman in Scotland and later still an MSP and then an MEP for the Brexit Party, was chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students.

Even in those days Brian and I knew each other and he kindly put my name forward as one of three UK representatives.

I knew exactly what I was letting myself in for (two weeks’ indoctrination!) so I was prepared to put up with the propaganda in return for a chance to visit the White House, the Capitol, the Smithsonian and the Washington Monument.

Some delegates however took umbrage and walked out of several ‘lectures’ - which I thought was a bit precious if not ungrateful!

We went in April which, weather wise, seems to be a great month to visit Washington as winter turns into spring.

I also met someone who is still a friend, ‘renowned economist, White House advisor, and best-selling author’ Todd Buchholz.

Nine years ago we visited Todd and his family in San Diego and I had lunch with him in London only a few months ago.

In 1983 however he was merely one of the people in charge of that YAF event, although his laidback demeanour and wry sense of humour set him apart from his more evangelical colleagues.

A few years later (1987) I was sent to America for two weeks - the first in Nashville, the second in Washington (Georgetown to be specific).

I was sent by the late Alfred Sherman, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, who wanted me to investigate the possibility of setting up a media monitoring operation in the UK based on two well-funded projects in America.

I was already director of the Media Monitoring Unit which had been set up by Julian Lewis (MP for New Forest East since 1997 and currently chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee), but the MMU operated on a tiny budget and Sherman wanted to do something on a much bigger scale.

At Nashville University there was a whole department that, if I remember, recorded every news and current affairs programme on the three national TV channels - ABC, NBC and CBS.

It was non-political and the idea, I think, was merely to create a vast library of recordings that researchers could have access to. Staff wore white coats, like scientists, and it had the feel of a laboratory. I was impressed.

In Washington I spent a week researching the work and methodology of a media group that was not unlike the MMU but had half a dozen staff working from a Georgian townhouse in Georgetown whereas I worked on my own in a basement flat in Ravenscourt Park.

The group produced a number of IEA-style reports but their greatest achievement was a tremendously entertaining annual guide that effectively critiqued every leading political journalist and broadcaster in America.

Imagine doing the same in the UK?! I’m not sure our libel laws would allow it.

Nothing ever came of Sherman’s big idea (I think the estimated cost, which I included in my report, put him off) but I loved my week in Georgetown and it was the one time in my life that I could see myself working outside the UK for a few years.

Sadly no offers have ever been forthcoming.

In 2014, following the GTNF conference in West Virginia (which you can read about here), I spent two or three days in Washington having travelled (for the first time) on an Amtrak train. (You can read about that here.)

I spent a day pottering around Georgetown but my principal reason for being in the capital was a meeting I had organised with the Center for Consumer Freedom, an organisation I had long admired and once hoped to emulate.

You can read about my meeting here - Face to face with Dr Evil.

As it happens GTNF 2022 is also in Georgetown, at the Four Seasons Hotel. Having arrived early however I am spending the weekend at the considerably cheaper Glover Park Hotel in neighbouring Glover Park.

Full disclosure: I thought the hotel was in Georgetown but it’s not. It is however a very short walk to the Russian embassy which I walked past this morning and I couldn’t help noticing the signs and banners outside some of the houses directly opposite.

I’ll add them to my Washington memories.