Talking Liberties, online, on Zoom

Pleased to announce Forest's first ever Zoom meeting.

Rob Lyons, author of 'Nicotine Wars: The Fight for Choice', will host the event which takes place next Tuesday, 28th April, from 6.00-7.00pm.

Click here for full details including technical information.

We'll be discussing several topics including Covid-19: what it means for smokers; the forthcoming ban on menthol cigarettes; and creeping prohibition.

It will be more like a pub chat than a formal meeting so pub rules (pre-smoking ban) apply!

To register your interest email events@forestonline.org.

Smoking in isolation

Are you a smoker in lockdown, unable to leave your home other than for essential journeys?

If so you may be interested in a project being launched this week by photographer Dan Donovan.

Dan has worked with Forest since 2007. In that time he has attended most of our events in a personal or professional capacity and has taken thousands of photos.

A graphic designer, he also designs much of our campaign literature and many of our promotional tools. The current Forest logo is his work too.

Thirteen years ago, before the introduction of the smoking ban in England, Dan undertook a photographic project that was intended, he says, to be an “honest representation of smoking culture in Britain pre-July 2007”.

‘90 Smokers’ featured portraits of adults smoking in a multiple locations. It’s a great body of work.

Poignantly, many of the subjects would be committing a criminal offence if they were to light up in the same places today.

Prompted by the coronavirus lockdown, Dan is now working on a similar creative project, to be called ‘At Home: Smoking in Isolation'. He writes:

I can't take the pictures myself so I will be asking smokers to send in photos of themselves smoking at home or in their gardens during this lockdown period.

The smoking community still exists despite continued cultural demonisation and this new project will simply be a community window for those who enjoy and take pleasure in smoking.

Dan doesn’t expect professional quality portraits. The aim is simply to create a snapshot of smokers’ behaviour during the coronavirus lockdown so a photo taken on a mobile phone would be fine as long as the resolution is as high as possible.

The project, says Dan, isn’t about making a statement, it’s “more about embracing a community that is already familiar with social isolation.”

If you are interested in contributing to the project - photos will be posted on a dedicated website - please contact Dan via email at this address, dan@smokingathome.com.

To view the 2007 ‘90 Smokers’ project, click here.

A warm welcome to new readers

I can tell people are bored and looking for things to do because this blog is attracting quite a lot of new readers.

It will probably be a temporary phenomenon but visitors have more than doubled during the past ten days and they seem to be coming direct to the site, not via another blog or website.

I’m speculating but it can’t be coincidence that the spike in visitors has coincided with posts about smoking and coronavirus.

I’m not an expert so my intention is simply to pass on whatever information or links I can, with a little commentary, so we are all better informed.

One thing new readers should be aware of is this. I have a real fear of being labelled a one-issue fanatic.

Working for a smokers’ rights group is my job and my interest in the subject preceded my joining Forest by about 20 years.

I do however have other interests including football, family and food!

So if you want to join me for the long haul (I started this blog in March 2007 having previously written an online diary) you will be very welcome, but please don’t expect every post to be about smoking or Covid-19.

That way insanity lies.

Support the Boisdale war effort!

Older readers will be aware of the long-standing relationship between Boisdale Restaurants and Forest.

I've known founder and managing director Ranald Macdonald for 15 or 16 years.

Ranald founded the Scottish-themed restaurant in 1989 when the Belgravia premises were half their present size.

He subsequently opened a second restaurant in Bishopsgate, near Liverpool Street. Further restaurants were opened in Canary Wharf (2011) and Mayfair (2016).

When I first met Ranald Boisdale of Belgravia was a short walk – half a mile – from our old office in Victoria. He has been great friend to Forest ever since.

The first time we worked together was at the 2006 Conservative conference in Bournemouth. We organised a Prohibition themed event that featured the Boisdale Blue Rhythm Band and a cast that included actors dressed as policemen.

Their role was to enter the ballroom at the Royal Bath Hotel, march on stage and 'arrest' Ranald 30 seconds into his speech. He would then be charged with 'inciting people to enjoy themselves'.

The well-rehearsed scene played out perfectly and as Ranald was led away 300 people sang 'Always Look On The Bright Side of Life'.

The following year (2007) we joined forces and organised the most ambitious event in Forest's history – a dinner in the main ballroom at the Savoy Hotel in London days before the introduction of the smoking ban.

Organised at four weeks' notice, almost 400 guests attended the gala event which attracted camera crews from a dozen countries including Russia, France and Germany. Speakers that night were Andrew Neil, Claire Fox and Antony Worrall Thompson.

Writing in the Sunday Times the following weekend, Rod Liddle commented:

Spent a wonderful valedictory evening chain-smoking at a bash organised by Forest on Monday night ...

There were some fine speeches – pugnacious and rabble-rousing from Anthony Worrall-Thompson; politically-loaded and sharp from Andrew Neil; counter-intuitive from the excellent Clare Fox.

Without Ranald's help that event would never have happened.

Since then we've organised three big parties at Boisdale of Belgravia, each one attracting around 300 guests. Over at Canary Wharf we've hosted seven dinners, each one catering for between 140 and 180 guests.

One of the attractions is Boisdale’s commitment to accommodating guests who want to smoke. The Belgravia terrace, built at a cost of £40,000, was opened in direct response to the smoking ban.

The smoking terrace at Canary Wharf stretches the entire width of the building and overlooks the fountains at Cabot Square. It’s less cosy than Belgravia but a great location for pre-dinner drinks.

Why am I writing this? Well, Boisdale has supported smokers, now it’s time to support Boisdale.

With restaurants closed during lockdown the company has launched a special promotion called 'Boisdale War Bonds'.

They include a Long Victory Lunch Bond (£100), a Victory Dinner Bond (£150) and a Private Victory Dinner Party Bond (£1,500). Other ‘bonds’ are available!

Valid for one year, the 'bond' can be redeemed whenever Boisdale reopens its doors and terraces. For full details click here.

My very brief brush with the law

What was that all about?

I’m talking about the large number of people who were allowed to gather on Westminster Bridge on Thursday night to ‘Clap the NHS’.

More galling than that though was the sight of all those police officers standing by, also applauding.

One of them was Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick. When the entire country is being urged to socially distance what on earth did she think she was doing?

In the middle of the bridge sat a long line of police cars, blue lights flashing for maximum effect.

If anything was designed to attract a crowd it was this ostentatious display of crowd-pleasing, virtue signalling exhibitionism.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure it was well-intentioned and I suspect that the risk to anyone’s health on the bridge and surrounding areas was probably very small.

Nonetheless, compare the scenes on Westminster Bridge to the over-reaction of police officers to people sunbathing or strolling, while still socially distancing, in parks and beaches.

Or the infamous use of a drone to target isolated couples walking in the Peak District, miles from anywhere.

In one clip that went viral this week, a journalist filming someone being forcibly escorted from a park was repeatedly told by police officers to stop filming and ‘Go home!’

Another uniformed officer then approached him and screamed, “You’re killing people!”

As someone on Twitter commented last night:

Cafes are closed, but 15,000 fly in unchecked every day. Police arrest lone people sunbathing in the park, but gather with large crowds on Westminster Bridge to 'Clap the NHS'. This lockdown is a farce - it is no longer about protecting people; it is about controlling people.

I’m not yet at the stage of calling the lockdown a farce because I appreciate the reasons for it and I don’t think it helps to criticise government policy when ministers are clearly doing their best, guided by ‘experts’ whose advice may in hindsight prove to be wrong but no-one currently knows so we just have to get on with it.

That said, I had my own very minor and very brief brush with authority this week.

My daughter and I had driven to the small market town of St Ives in Cambridgeshire.

It was an essential journey because we were taking her bike to a bicycle shop to get the front tyre repaired following a puncture that happened during her daily exercise regime.

We rang the shop in advance to check it was open. It was.

When we arrived my daughter went in and they said it would take 20 minutes to fix.

We decided to wait outside because the shop was quite small and there were several people inside.

At this point I need to paint a picture of The Broadway in St Ives.

In the middle of the street, with the cycle shop on one side and Chicken Licking on the other, sits what is effectively a mini roundabout.

In the middle of the mini roundabout stands a small monument called Queen Victoria's Jubilee Memorial.

No-one was there so we went over and sat on the low wall at the base of the monument. We were at least 15 yards from the nearest person.

From this position we watched as a number of customers went in and out of the cycle shop.

Several other people walked past the shop on the pavement. One or two stopped to look in the window.

Sitting in the middle of the road by the Memorial seemed a good way to socially distance ourselves.

But then a police community support officer appeared.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I explained.

“You can’t sit there,” she said, “otherwise it looks like you’re chilling and other people might start to gather.”

Chilling?

She pointed to the cycle shop. “You need to stand in the shop or outside it,” she said.

I said there were other people in the shop and if we stood outside we would be much closer to other pedestrians.

To be clear, as with the Westminster Bridge debacle, I don’t think anyone would have been put at significant risk of infection had we stood there, but it seemed a bit silly to be told to move closer to people when we were already sitting in splendid isolation, minding our own business.

She then said something about the need to keep on the move. Sitting isn’t allowed because it’s not exercise.

I protested in the mildest possible way and explained that it was because my daughter wanted to exercise that we were momentarily sitting while waiting for her bicycle to be repaired.

“I’m only doing my job,” she said, which was true and I felt sorry for her.

She plainly knew it was ridiculous to ask us to move from our socially isolated position in the middle of the road to stand outside the shop where we would be in much closer proximity to anyone entering or leaving, or walking past, but she had her instructions and rules are rules.

It was a very minor incident (hardly worth writing about!) but it left me feeling very uncomfortable.

I had no wish to argue with her (PCSOs and police officers have a difficult enough job as it is - but the scenes on Westminster Bridge suggest there’s one law for Cressida Dick and her happy clapping officers, and another for the millions of people who are doing their best to observe lockdown regulations and just want some flexibility regarding the enforcement of guidelines - the same flexibility that was given to those who gathered on Westminster Bridge to ‘Clap the NHS’.

Update: Coronavirus: Met Police criticised for allowing clapping crowds to break lockdown rules on Westminster Bridge (Sky News)

Politics and propaganda

The ASH propaganda machine has been in action again this morning.

According to a tweet posted at 9.36:

Health Secretary @MattHancock confirmed "it is abundantly clear that smoking makes the impact of #coronavirus worse". Now is a great time to give quitting a go ...

The quote is accurate but when I read ASH’s tweet the use of the word ‘confirmed’ made me think Hancock may have said it in the last 24 hours in reaction, perhaps, to reports casting doubt on claims that smoking increases the risk of severe respiratory disease from Covid-19.

He didn’t. The comment dates back to 16th March and was in response to a question by Bob Blackman MP who, coincidentally, is chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, run by ... ASH.

Since then multiple studies have been published that suggest that smokers are under-represented among hospitalised or critical COVID-19 patients.

ASH knows this yet persist in pushing the claim that smoking makes the impact of coronavirus worse when the jury is clearly out.

Moreover, in a highly fluid situation, they are determined to recycle a four-and-a-half-week-old quote that, evidence suggests, is probably past its sell-by date and could make the Health Secretary appear rather foolish if repeated often enough.

Good work!

Update:

Smoking and Covid-19 update

We can add another two studies to the list of preliminary reports that mention smoking and Covid-19.

The first, published on Saturday and entitled ‘Factors associated with hospitalization and critical illness among 4,103 patients with Covid-19 disease in New York City’, is an interesting read.

It concludes that the strongest risks for hospital admissions were age and comorbities (pre-existing illnesses). On the issue of smoking, the key paragraph reads:

Surprisingly, though some have speculated that high rates of smoking in China explained some of the morbidity in those patients, we did not find smoking status to be associated with increased risk of hospitalization or critical illness.

The second is a French study. I can’t read French so I am indebted to Danish journalist and blogger Klaus K who tweeted:

Official French data on #tobacco smoking & #covid19 replicate the picture in China, Germany & USA: A remarkable low rate of smokers are hospitalised w/ coronavirus compared to smoking prevalence (France 23%).

A link to the data can be found here.

These are not the only examples of smokers being found to be under-represented among hospitalised or critical coronavirus patients.

On March 31 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the USA posted preliminary estimates of the prevalence of selected underlying health conditions among patients with coronavirus.

The CDC results were summed up in another tweet by Klaus K:

The consistent low rate of #tobacco smokers among patients with #coronavirus in China is now duplicated in the US by CDC. Among 7,162 corona patients with medical records, 6,901 were never-smokers (96.3%), 165 ex-smokers (2.3%), and only 96 smokers (1.3%).

The CDC study followed reports of two meta-analyses of studies based on patients in China that I wrote about here.

According to a preliminary meta-analysis published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine (sample size: 1,399), 'Researchers found no link between cigarette smoking and the severity of Covid-19 among cases in China.'

See 'Smoking not linked to COVID-19 severity'.

In another, ongoing, meta-analysis, cardiologist Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos has reported that of '2,352 hospitalized cases examined, the observed prevalence of current smoking is <1/3rd the expected.'

See 'Smoking, vaping and hospitalisation for COVID-19'.

Interestingly, the Foundation for a Smokefree World is compiling its own ‘Covid-19 and Smoking Updates’.

Posted on Friday by Charles Gardner, the Foundation’s director of Health Science and Technology, this is his current analysis:

Smokers who become ill with Covid-19 are no more likely to be hospitalized than non-smokers.

13 studies from China covering 5,960 hospitalized Covid-19 patients show that only 6.5% of them were smokers. The smoking rate in China is 26.6% (50.5% male and 2.1% female).

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on 7,162 Covid-19 patients show that only 3% of those who required hospitalization were current smokers. The smoking rate in the United States is 13.7% (15.6% male and 12% female)

To the best of my knowledge none of the studies mentioned above have been reported by a single mainstream newspaper or broadcaster in the UK or US.

Only one smoking and Covid-19 related ‘story’ has been reported and that was a statement issued on Friday April 3 by Public Health England that declared:

‘Emerging evidence from China shows smokers with Covid-19 are 14 times more likely to develop severe respiratory disease’

See ‘Smokers at greater risk of severe respiratory disease from Covid-19’.

Based on a single study that analysed just 78 patients of whom only five were smokers, this alarmist anti-smoking propaganda has been reported at home and abroad without, as far as I can tell, any counter argument.

The only journalist who has queried PHE’s ‘story’ is Rod Liddle. Writing in the current issue of the Spectator, Rod cites some of the evidence PHE chose to ignore. The article can be found in the print edition, out now. Online it is available only to subscribers but if that changes I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, based on all the current evidence, how do we summarise the threat of Covid-19 to smokers in particular?

If you have an existing respiratory illness, possibly caused or exacerbated by smoking, it’s reasonable to think you may be at greater risk of hospitalisation or critical illness if you catch a respiratory virus such as Covid-19. That much is common sense.

So far however there would appear to be very little evidence that smokers per se are at greater risk of hospitalisation or chronic illness than non-smokers. Indeed, in most of the preliminary studies smokers are under-represented in terms of hospitalisation and critical illness.

One or two studies even hint that smokers might be protected from Covid-19. Personally I think it’s too early to draw any conclusions either way.

On current evidence however it’s clear that if there is an outlier among the present crop of studies and meta-analyses, it’s the study that Public Health England has used to justify the contentious claim that ‘smokers with Covid-19 are 14 times more likely to develop severe respiratory disease.’

Unscientific propaganda has no place in public health and in due course PHE must be held to account.

Holiday woe

This morning my wife and I were due to catch a 6.40am flight from Heathrow to Corfu.

Following a three-hour flight we would have arrived in good time for lunch at the restaurant above followed by an afternoon on the beach or by the adult only pool (below).

We were there last year and enjoyed it so much we booked a further week at the same resort.

Four weeks ago we were naively hopeful we might still be able to go. There were no reports of COVID-19 having reached Corfu and most airlines were flying as normal.

It was then reported that all Greek resorts and hotels would be closed until the end of April (at least), and a week or two later BA informed us that our flights had been cancelled.

Then came lockdown.

So instead of relaxing by the pool or on the beach, eating and drinking morning, noon and night, we shall be at home, eating and drinking (morning, noon and night).

We will re-book when things have returned to normal, whenever that is.

In the meantime I’ve been giving some thought to where else I would like to go when we are given the green light to embark on non-essential travel.

I imagine there will be huge demand for the usual sun spots, including Corfu, and as I’m not keen on crowds I think we might look closer to home.

The west coast of Scotland - and the Isle of Skye - will be high on my list.

My wife and I first visited Skye in 1991. On the recommendation of friends we stayed at Hotel Eileen Iarmain which overlooks the Sound of Sleat, the stretch of water that separates Skye from the mainland.

It’s a wonderful location, and the hotel isn’t bad either. There are 16 rooms, some in the Main House, others in the Garden House.

There is a small restaurant and, if memory serves, an even smaller bar. Log fires and candlelit dinners come as standard.

The following year we decided to invite a small group of guests to join us there for dinner after our wedding on April 3, 1992.

The wedding itself took place in Eaglesham, just south of Glasgow. Afterwards it took five hours to drive to the hotel via the Kyle of Lochalsh ferry. (The Skye Bridge, which replaced the ferry, opened three years later in October 1995.)

My father took it as a personal challenge to win the ‘race’ to get there first but the rest of us adopted a more leisurely pace. The weather was uncommonly good and everyone arrived in plenty of time for dinner.

It may seem odd, escaping government-imposed isolation only to drive to one of the more isolated parts of the country, but it will be a genuine treat getting as far away as possible knowing that at journey’s end there will be a warm welcome in wonderful surroundings.

Corfu may just have to wait.