Lookout, it’s John Hayes!

Further to my previous post, another potential Tory rebel on Tuesday is someone I first met when he was 25 and I was 24.

In 1983 I had launched and was editing a national student magazine called Campus.

As I told Chris Snowdon on the Swift Half podcast, the magazine was subsequently banned by 40 student unions so we couldn’t sell it through the student union shops on campus.

This was a significant problem that eventually helped defeat the project but initially, to get round the ban, we sold it door-to-door in halls of residence around the country.

On one occasion that took us to Nottingham which is how I met John Hayes, now Sir John and chairman of the Common Sense Group of Tory backbenchers.

Back then however he was still a student, albeit a leading member of the Nottingham University Conservative Association and a bit of a character even then.

We had to sell the magazine in the evenings because that was when students were most likely to be in their rooms. And it must have been winter because I remember it being dark, and cold.

Officially we weren’t allowed to sell door-to-door in halls of residence so the whole exercise had to be carried out discreetly and at speed.

In particular we had to be wary of informers (political opponents especially) who might snitch on us, and occasionally they did, forcing us to out-run whoever might be sent to stop us.

If I remember, as well as guiding us around some of the halls on the Nottingham campus, John acted as our lookout and although there was an attempt to stop us, we managed - with his help - to give our pursuers the slip.

In fact, we enjoyed one of our more successful (and profitable) evenings.

Our paths have crossed a handful of times since he became an MP (in 1997) and I started working for Forest, but I don't think he recognises me from that evening and I've been reluctant to mention it because it was a long time ago and today, as a senior Conservative (and former minister), it’s something he might prefer to forget.

Then again, I sense he's always been a rebel at heart so he might recall that evening with the same amusement that I do. I hope so.

Tory rebellion still on track

Further to yesterday’s post about Boris Johnson, the Telegraph reports that:

Rishi Sunak is facing a revolt next week over his proposal to ban smoking after it was criticised by two former prime ministers and his ex-home secretary.

One backbencher estimated that around 100 of his colleagues could defy Mr Sunak, which would make it the biggest rebellion of his premiership.

There is, though, a caveat:

However, even a major rebellion is unlikely to derail the legislation because it has Labour’s support.

Furthermore:

To force a defeat, at least 274 Tories would need to rebel, subject to how other parties voted. 

Nevertheless:

The Government’s working majority is now 51, meaning only 26 Tory rebels would be needed to leave Mr Sunak reliant on Labour votes.

Which would be very embarrassing for the PM.

The Telegraph adds that:

Although dozens of Tory MPs are understood to have concerns about the smoking ban, rebels are split about whether to oppose the Bill outright or attempt to amend it.

The second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill takes place on Tuesday (April 16), when we would expect there to be a vote that the Government will no doubt win,

That’s not the end of it, though. The Bill then has go to the committee and report stages, when amendments can be tabled.

It also has to go the House of Lords before going back to the Commons.

The Telegraph adds that:

Philip Davies, a senior Tory backbencher, confirmed that he would vote against the policy at its third reading further down the line, while another prominent figure said: “I would be surprised if the noes were less than 100.”

I wrote about Philip here following the recent announcement that he is to receive a knighthood.

He was due to host our reception at the House of Commons in February but had to drop out owing to a double-booking.

He nevertheless promised to remain a “hardline opponent” of the generational tobacco ban and he’s been true to his word.

What the Telegraph makes clear is that, while the odds of overturning Rishi Sunak’s generational ban are heavily against us, that’s no reason for us to give up, even if the second reading vote offers only a limited rebellion.

Truth is, Tory MPs will be reluctant to rock the boat before the local elections on May 2 but a bad result (widely expected) could change everything.

We’ll see.

See: Sunak faces Tory revolt over smoking ban plan (Telegraph)

Boris to the rescue!

The second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill takes place on Tuesday (April 16).

Forest has written to every Conservative MP with a copy of our ‘Say No to Nanny!’ pamphlet (right) and a covering letter.

It’s still not clear how many will vote against the generational ban. My pessimistic guess is that relatively few will want to rock the boat so close to the local elections on May 2, but you never know.

What happens after that remains to be seen. A catastrophic defeat for the Tories and … who knows what their reaction might be. A new leader, perhaps?

The good news is that former PM Boris Johnson has made his views known. Speaking in Canada yesterday, he described the generational ban as “absolutely nuts”.

According to the Guardian:

Johnson attacked the policy at the Canada Strong and Free conference in Ottawa, where he appeared on a panel with the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott and the political commentator John O’Sullivan.

Johnson said: “When I look at some of the things we are doing now, or that are being done in the name of conservatism, I think they’re absolutely nuts.”

So that’s two former Tory prime minsters - Liz Truss and now Boris - who are fiercely opposed to the policy.

We know that many Conservative MPs share their views so let’s hope Boris’s timely intervention encourages more of them to stand up and be counted.

Does Rishi really want to be remembered for needing the support of opposition MPs to get one of his flagship policies through the House?

By the way, I stand by my view that, for all his faults, Boris ‘deserved a full parliament and the chance to return to the electorate and let them decide his future’. (See Boris: what a waste.)

I’m not saying he was a good PM, but at least he was a relatively liberal one. (I’ll excuse him the Covid lockdowns and even his Net Zero targets.)

And he couldn’t be more right about this:

The party of Winston Churchill wants to ban cigars … Donnez moi un break, as they say in Quebec. It’s just mad.”

Libertarian? Not me!

I recorded a podcast with Chris Snowdon a few weeks ago.

In the time available (30 minutes) we discussed several topics, not just smoking.

For example, Chris was interested to know what I did before Forest, which led to a brief discussion about the BBC and the changing face of journalism.

I also confessed that I am not and never have been a libertarian:

"There are plenty of things I'd ban if I had a chance. Noisy neighbours, I'd ban them. Cyclists, I wouldn't actually ban them but I'd certainly introduce a lot of restrictions. So, no, I'm not a libertarian."

Here are some other quotes:

"The idea that the smoking ban might be extended to outdoor public places, or there might be a generational ban on the sale of tobacco, I find absolutely extraordinary. It's amazing how we've come so far in just 20 years with the amount of legislation, regulations, and restrictions on people's habits. It's unbelievable."

"I've enjoyed the job [director of Forest] because it's always been a challenge. I've met some fantastic people, and the thing that keeps me going is the fact that many of the people I've grown up with have been smokers. I know there are some people who wish they had never started smoking and wish to give up but, my goodness, I've met so many people who have enjoyed [smoking], and still enjoy it to this day, and those people deserve a voice, and if it's down to me, and Forest, to give [them] a voice, then we will continue to do it for as long as we can."

"Like you, I believe there's more than one point of view in any argument, whether it's smoking, vaping, use of alcohol, any lifestyle issue, and between us – you, me, and all the other people who are out there fighting this fight – I think we deserve to be heard and we've got to keep going."

You can watch the full podcast on YouTube here or above, and an audio only version is available Podbean.

Rural retreat

Just back from a few days in Suffolk.

We stayed in a small field barn conversion on what was previously a dairy farm that dated back to the 16th century.

There were a dozen or so barns of various sizes, plus some rather dinky shepherds’ huts. The smallest barn was a single room. Others had one, two, or four bedrooms with a comfortable open plan kitchen/diner/living area.

Ours had a single bedroom. There was also a battery of wall switches that was so complicated it took me 15 minutes to puzzle out how to get the lighting the way we wanted.

Breakfast and dinner were served in the Great Barn, which in winter has an impressive log fire.

The nearest village - a 30-minute walk from our rural ‘retreat’ - was originally an old Roman settlement.

Today it’s home to 600 people and features houses going back to Tudor times while parts of the parish church go back even further.

There’s also a 300-year-old shop that sells groceries. In 2021 it faced permanent closure when the owners, whose family had run it for 100 years, retired, but villagers stepped in and it is now run as a community shop and cafe.

As it happens, we originally intended staying at the refurbished Swan Hotel in Southwold, on the coast, but the weather forecast predicted persistent rain so I thought better of it because, much as I like Southwold, rain and seaside don’t mix, for me at least.

Viewed from the comfort of our cosy barn, I think I made the right choice. Another time, perhaps.

Roger and out

This blog doesn't have a huge number of readers so I value all comments, even those I have to edit or delete because they are potentially libellous!

Occasionally, months or even years after I have posted something, someone will submit a comment, presumably because they have stumbled on it via Google or some other search engine.

Sometimes the comment comes from the other side of the world, which is what happened last week.

Responding to a piece I wrote in December about the former BBC producer Roger Ordish, who died last year, aged 83, another Roger – Roger Harland – wrote:

Living, as I do, some 6,000 miles from the UK, news can take a while to reach me. It is only this evening, March 28, 2024, that I learnt of Roger's death.

In the late 60s and early 70s was a record plugger and then PR wallah in London. I have fond memories of working with Roger on Top of the Pops and on several items in the Jim'll Fix It series. I still have the medallion he gave me bearing the legend I Fixed It for Jim.

Roger had the amazing ability of being able to sing backwards. When a recording of this was played back in reverse he was usually almost word perfect. RIP Roger.

I am reposting Roger (Harland)’s comment here because I doubt that anyone will see it otherwise.

Also, after I wrote the original post I bought and read Roger Ordish's self-published memoir 'If I Remember Rightly', and despite the shadow of Jimmy Savile hanging over it (Roger was the producer of Jim’ll Fix It for almost 20 years), it's a rather amusing romp through Ordish’s life.

It inspired a lovely review by Tim Waterstone, an old schoolfriend better known as the founder of Waterstone’s Bookshops:

If I Remember Rightly arrived yesterday, and I started reading it this morning, at 6.30am, over my first-of-the-day mug of tea. Thereafter I couldn't put it down, effectively reading it all through at one sitting. Roger - I really loved it. And, perhaps more importantly, really admired it, and indeed, from it, you.

We were such close friends as teenagers, and it is a real pleasure for me to now realise, more fully perhaps than I had before, what a wonderfully rich and rewarding career, and life, that you have led. Your description of it absolutely holds the reader.

And you write so well - the 'voice' is delightful - sometimes very funny indeed - (my absolute favourite of all your wonderful anecdotes being the little Ken Dodd piece) - sometimes unexpectedly vulnerable and exposed. Ace stuff, all of it. So well done, my friend.

How nice is that?

I was rather chuffed that If I Remember Rightly includes a short reference to the show I produced, with Roger’s invaluable help, at a top West End theatre.

According to the author, who I recruited to be both the director and MC:

Back in 1996 I was the compere of a rather splendid stage show at Wyndham's Theatre, London, for a one night stand. It was the Mensa Variety Show. Several Mensa members did their highly talented turns, mostly musical, which I linked with my own script from that famous stage.

I recounted various theatrical anecdotes, including my favourite story about the actress Coral Browne. The story does not work without a swear word in the punchline. My ten-year-old daughter was at the show, sitting in a box with my wife. I apologised in advance to my daughter. I thought my wife could cope. This is the tale:

Coral Browne had just become a convert to Roman Catholicism and was extremely enthusiastic, as only converts can be. As she was just leaving the Brampton Oratory after mass one morning, two theatrical dressers, who knew her well, spotted her as she walked reverentially towards them along Knightsbridge.

"Hallo, Coral, babe!" they cooed. "Are you alright, darling?" Coral Browne eyed them coldly and muttered through gritted teeth, "Fuck off. I'm in a state of grace."

It got a big laugh, one of many that night, and it was immensely reassuring to know that the show was in such safe, professional, hands.

Happy Easter!

Now that I am 65 I qualify for the shingles vaccine.

In fact, within days of my birthday earlier this month I was invited by my local surgery to make an appointment and yesterday I popped round to receive the first of two jabs.

The second is in six months and after that I should be protected for life, fingers crossed.

Shingles is unpleasant at the best of times, but I understand it gets progressively worse the older you are because the body finds it harder to fight the virus, which infects nerve endings and the skin around them.

This causes a painful rash and blisters on the skin, usually the torso, but sometimes on the face.

According to the NHS website, it can ‘sometimes lead to serious problems such as long-lasting pain, hearing loss or blindness’.

As it happens, I’ve had shingles before - in my early twenties - and I can vouch for the fact that it is extremely painful.

Thankfully I only had it for a month, but someone I knew through work wasn’t so lucky. He was an architect and was in his sixties when the virus struck.

He had it for 18 months which was extremely debilitating, although he was remarkably stoic about it.

I don’t know how long the shingles vaccine has been available but I didn’t think twice when it was offered, and while I was at the surgery yesterday the nurse gave me the vaccine for pneumonia too, so I ended up having a jab in both arms!

I was warned that an adverse reaction to the shingles vaccine might include a sore arm, headache, muscle pain, tiredness, nausea etc, but I seem to be OK.

My wife however has been persuaded that I need to rest for at least 24 hours and as she never reads this blog I’m looking forward to a quiet (and leisurely) day.

Happy Easter!

Every cloud and all that

Daily Mail columnist Tom Utley is an old friend of Forest.

I first met him 24 years ago at Auberon Waugh’s Academy Club in Soho where Forest was sponsoring a series of soirées in a spartan smoke-filled room overlooking Lexington Street.

A lifelong smoker, Tom has attended many Forest events and we have presented him with two awards, one in 2005 at the Groucho Club, and another in 2022 at Boisdale of Belgravia.

In a recent column (March 22) he described how a burglar had broken into his south London home two days earlier and taken what he could while Tom and his wife were asleep upstairs:

Clearly it was a quick in-and-out job which couldn’t have lasted much more than five minutes.

But it was quite long enough to cause an enormous amount of anxiety, distress, inconvenience and expense.

I know what he means.

It’s a very long time since I experienced a burglary, and I too was living in south (east) London. However, although I was never in any personal danger, the cost in terms of peace of mind was surprisingly high.

Here’s what happened.

In 1987, to get on the property ladder at the age of 28, I bought a 25 per cent share of a large four-storey house in Camberwell.

We were there for two years before we had our first break in. The thieves had climbed over the wall at the back of the property and broken into the house via the kitchen which was in the basement.

We weren’t at home but eagle-eyed neighbours had spotted some unusual activity and called the police.

When I arrived home an hour later, blissfully unaware that the house had been broken in to, several policemen were in and around the building.

The policeman standing by the front door had to be convinced I was the owner but even when they were satisfied they wouldn’t let me in because they thought one of burglars might still be on the premises.

When they were satisfied no-one was there I was allowed in and I saw at once that a television and two video recorders had been taken which was annoying because I was director of the Media Monitoring Unit at the time and needed them for my work.

I was warned that one of the bedrooms - my bedroom - was in a bit of a mess with clothes on the floor and drawers pulled out, but when I had a look I had to confess it was like that when I left the house that morning.

After that we installed a sliding metal security gate to protect the double door in the basement, but a year later it happened again.

This time I arrived home, heard the sound of someone running down the stairs, and was gobsmacked when a hooded figure raced past me, out the front door (which was still open), and off up the road.

We think he got in through one of the less than secure sash windows, but nothing seemed to be missing so I must have disturbed him before he took anything.

In hindsight I’m very glad we didn’t meet further up the stairs because I might have inadvertently blocked his escape route and who knows what might have happened. (Like Tom Utley, I’m a writer not a fighter!)

In the five years I lived in Camberwell I also had my car stolen while I was on holiday. I replaced it and within weeks the spare wheel was stolen.

Thieves later broke in to the ‘new’ car by smashing the rear window but there was a fault with the engine and the thieves couldn’t get it started to drive it away.

Overall, though, apart from a much loved seven-year-old car that wasn’t worth much when it was stolen, I didn’t lose a great deal.

Unlike Tom’s family, I didn’t have the inconvenience of losing my wallet, bank card, driving licence, house keys, laptop and passport.

Tom also had both sets of car keys stolen which necessitated his beloved Merc being towed away to a place of safe keeping in case the robbers came back for it.

Nevertheless, it was several years before I regained complete peace of mind.

Two years after we moved to Edinburgh in 1992 I remember looking out the window of our top floor flat convinced that someone was trying to break into my car, and for several years I was on constant alert for anything suspicious.

Yesterday Tom described the many kind words and deeds that neighbours and even complete strangers have offered him and his family this past week.

He also mentioned that, as a newspaper columnist, there’s a part of him that welcomes the occasional domestic crisis because it gives him something to write about.

Even as a humble blogger, I can relate to that. Every cloud and all that!

PS. Before I moved to Camberwell I was renting a tiny studio flat in Ravenscourt Park between Hammersmith and Chiswick.

It was in the basement of a terraced house and one night, as I was sleeping, I was woken by the sound of someone trying to climb in through the sash window that I had left partly open to get some fresh air.

I was half asleep but I shouted as loudly as I could, with a few expletives thrown in for good measure. The intruder got such a shock he fell back, and ran away.

At the time it felt like a dream but it definitely happened. Honest!

Above: Tom Utley at the Forest Summer Lunch, Boisdale of Belgravia, July 2023