Brexit four weeks on: why a key district voted to leave the EU

Three days ago the BBC marked 'Brexit Four Weeks On' with a series of reports from different parts of the country.

One report, in Watford, featured my good friend Gary Ling who I have known since we were at university in Aberdeen.

Gary was an active Leave campaigner and although I wanted the UK to exit the EU I couldn't see it happening.

My friend however was far more optimistic and on June 22, the day before the referendum, he posted on his blog what in hindsight is a remarkable analysis – and prediction.

Naturally it was a week or so before I bothered to read it and I've been kicking myself ever since because it deserved a much wider audience.

You can read the full post here (If Watford #Brexits, Britain Exits) but Gary has also given me permission to post it here.

With Remainers continuing to cry 'foul' it serves as a valuable insight into what was happening in a key district that invariably backs the winning side in a general election.

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GARY LING, June 22, 2016

As the United Kingdom’s EU Referendum campaign comes to a close, here are eight key takeaways from my ten-week part-time participation for the Leave side in the Hertfordshire town of Watford, one of 201 non-Metropolitan Districts in England that will declare a result 0330-0400hrs Friday morning.

Key 1. Even taking into account that the Remain side had the huge advantage of the Government’s communications machine going for them, the national Leave campaign got off to a poor start back in mid-April when the @Vote_Leave organisation was officially designated. Crucially, however, one thing that really struck home with the Watford public was the #ProjectFear storyline. From my first weekend on the Leave stall in the town centre, ‘Government’s #Scaremongering’ was something that people mentioned to me right off the bat. Of course, this will only prove to have been amazingly effective if the District scores for Brexit. The Remainians have been trying to turn the tide on the effectiveness of the views of so-called ‘experts’ ever since. The extent to which they are successful in this as the campaign ends will determine the outcome.

Key 2. Ten weeks of street stall conversations with random shoppers around the District does not a proper market research project make. Yet my assumptions of the effects of ‘significant events’ amplified by social media on people’s choice in this referendum were changed by my on-street interactions. I was concerned that President Obama’s intervention in Week 3 was going to have a negative impact on Leave. On the contrary, the street reaction that weekend was broadly that he should ‘keep his nose’ out. This was a surprise to me as was general anti-US feeling. Similarly, the brutal and tragic assassination of Jo Cox does not seem to have been a major topic on the streets these past two days despite social media frenzy. In fact, as a digital strategist, I regret to say that social media buzz is a sideshow or an irrelevance to many working people.

Key 3. Since Watford is one of the most densely populated and diverse Districts outside of inner city London, immigration is an important issue here. Many people walking past the Leave stall are Eastern European immigrants who cannot vote in this referendum but whose increasing choice of Watford as a place to settle has influenced the decisions of people who can vote. Unquestionably the arrival of these new residents puts Watford’s public schools, hospital and local GP surgeries under pressure and drives up Leave vote pledges.

Key 4. From the start it was obvious that there was strong support for Brexit in the Asian community in Watford. Many mentioned to me the discriminatory nature of the EU’s free movement of people rules that allow EU citizens to enter the UK without visas while citizens from Commonwealth countries have to go through a harder, more restrictive visa process. Interestingly the Mosques in Watford don’t seem to be putting out an ‘informal’ line on how to vote in this referendum, as far as I can tell from speaking to Muslims on the High Street. That’s significant.

Key 5. Many young peoples’ support for Remain is superficial at best. Those who stopped and spoke to us at the Leave stall asking questions left, in most cases, thinking seriously whether the celebrity-fronted arguments pushed by the Remain side were as solid as they first thought. In any case the motivation of this demographic to actually turn out and choose in this (to them) complex debate is questionable.

Key 6. The determination of those who will definitely @Vote_Leave is remarkable. A plague of locusts could descend on Watford District tomorrow and Leave voters will fight their way through to the polling station. Many weekends the Leave stall was almost side by side with a Remain one flying the EU flag. Can’t say I saw much enthusiasm for the symbolism of the stars on blue in Watford. I have no doubt there is a solid and substantial Remain vote in Watford. Obviously, who turns out to vote on the day is critical. Thunderstorms are predicted Referendum day in this town. Will that make even a marginal difference? Studies of weather affecting election outcomes say not.

Key 7. Remain or Leave this event in Watford and nationally will have some serious structural implications for UK politics in terms of the futures of all the main political parties. Many mainstream UK parties were split on the EU issue - some more publicly than others. I met some great people from across the political spectrum in this campaign and it’s the first time I have ever delivered a political leaflet with a ‘Green’ message!

Key 8. I have been involved in politics for many years and the people who say they ‘don’t care’ about voting this time around is the lowest I have ever seen in any plebiscite in my adult life. This is maybe because it’s a simple binary decision which people who have a great disdain for party politics can engage in. I don’t go so far as to say we’ll see a whole bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses turning up at the polls but, generally speaking, more people are thinking about the issues at least than for any campaign I have experienced including general elections.

Prediction: The conventional psephologist wisdom is that the closer to London a voter is the more likely they are to vote Remain. Watford borders Greater London and is often touted as the ‘Gateway to the North’. It is a barometer parliamentary seat and has voted for the party of government in every general election since 1974. After ten weeks involved in the #EURef campaign here I can say with some certainty that things are very, very close as of today. The Remain camp need a larger margin here if they are to avoid Brexit as results sweep into London proper. Putting aside all my inbuilt bias as best I can, I’m calling the result in Watford District as 51:49 for Leave on the day. If I’m right Britain is headed out of the EU and into an outward looking, global trading future as an independent nation state.

Below: Gary Ling interviewed on a BBC News report about 'Brexit Four Weeks On'.

A tale of two conferences

As I wrote on Wednesday, repeating what I have said several times before, public health campaigners are very clearly trying to control the debate on e-cigarettes.

By issuing 'guidelines' about vaping in the workplace the aim of Public Health England is not merely to 'encourage' more smokers to quit but to control where and how often adults can vape as if it's part of a smoking cessation programme.

Advocating rooms where people can vape, plus extra vaping breaks, may seem liberal in relation to other tobacco control policies but it still seems a bit controlling to me.

If I remember there were similar 'guidelines' about smoking at work until, one day, legislation was passed that imposed strict regulations on employers with threats of fines and other penalties if anyone contravened the law.

Vaping rooms, like smoking rooms, are designed to divide and conquer. I'm reluctant to use the word but in its more general meaning it's really a form of apartheid (ie segregation on grounds other than race).

It's also a subtle form of denormalisation. Want to vape? There's a designated room for that.

Another way public health is trying to exert control is by organising or dominating all those "summits" and seminars on the subject.

Take the E-Cigarette Summit, now in its third year. I went to the first one, in 2014, but chose not to attend last year's event.

There were several reasons (see Why I'm not attending today's E-Cigarette Summit) but the main one was the appearance of so many familiar faces from tobacco control, many of whom had spoken at the inaugural event the previous year.

In alphabetical order they included:

Prof David Abrams, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Deborah Arnott, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
Prof Linda Bauld, University of Stirling, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies (UKTAS) and Cancer Research UK
Clive Bates, former Director, ASH
Prof John Britton, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies
Shirley Cramer, Royal Society for Public Health
Andrea Crossfield, Tobacco Free Futures
Martin Dockrell, Tobacco Control Lead, Public Health England
Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre, Greece
Prof Peter Hajek, Queen Mary University, London
Beryl Keeley, Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA)
Jim McManus, Director of Public Health, Hertfordshire County Council
Prof Ann McNeill, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies
Prof Ricardo Polosa, Institute for Internal Medicine, University of Catania
Louise Ross, Leicestershire Partnership NHS
Prof Robert West, Director of Tobacco Studies, Cancer Research

To that list the organisers belatedly added a handful of actual vapers but only those who could be relied upon to not rock the boat or ruffle a few public health feathers.

Tobacco control only wants to hear from vapers who have quit or are trying to quit smoking. Dual users? Not so much. Smokers who don't want to quit? No chance.

The tobacco industry – or anyone with links to Big Tobacco – were noticeable by their absence on the list of speakers and panellists despite the fact that the companies clearly have a huge role to play in the development of e-cigarettes and other harm reduction products.

Anyway, confirmed speakers for the E-Cigarette Summit 2016 currently include:

Prof David Abrams, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Deborah Arnott, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
Beryl Keeley, Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA)
Prof Linda Bauld, University of Stirling and UKCTAS*Martin Dockrell,* Public Health England
Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre, Greece
Prof Peter Hajek, Queen Mary University, London
Jim McManus, Director of Public Health, Hertfordshire County Council
Prof Ann McNeill, Professor of Tobacco Addiction (UKCTAS)
Ram Moorthy, British Medical Association
Robert Morrison, Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP)
Prof Marcus Munafo, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies
Prof Ricardo Polosa, Institute for Internal Medicine, University of Catania
Louise Ross, Stop Smoking Services, Leicestershire NHS Trust
Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of The Public Understanding of Risk, Cambridge University
Prof Robert West, Director of Tobacco Studies, Cancer Research

If that list seems familiar it's because it is. (Those who spoke at the 2015 event are highlighted in bold.)

Note that both sets of speakers include Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH. That's right, the same Deborah Arnott whose alleged complaint about "unpleasant and distracting" vapour led the organisers of the Global Forum on Nicotine to ban any vaping in plenary and parallel sessions.

In other words, same old, same old – and still no sign of any speakers from the tobacco industry.

But it doesn't have to be like that. For example I was asked recently to speak at something called the Next Generation Nicotine Delivery conference in London.

According to the invitation it "brings together KOLs (key opinion leaders) in the alternative nicotine delivery and tobacco industries, alongside regulators and advocates".

It was suggested I might moderate or take part in a session entitled 'Gaining valuable insight into consumer needs and consumption of alternative nicotine delivery in different markets/regions'.

I didn't want to moderate so I replied as follows:

I would be happy to be on the panel, if you want a slightly alternative viewpoint. (I don't think I would be suitable to chair or moderate the session.)

As someone who doesn't smoke or vape I can't bring any direct personal experience to the session so I would have to talk in more general terms, from a Forest perspective.

Although we primarily represent adults who choose to smoke combustibles, an increasing number of our supporters also use e-cigarettes (for a variety of reasons). Common sense dictates that we embrace and endorse any harm reduction product but most of all we advocate choice, an issue that is sometimes lost in the current debate.

Consequently we are a little uncomfortable with the evangelical nature of many pro-vaping advocates who in their enthusiasm for e-cigarettes are blind to the fact that many smokers don't like or aren't attracted to e-cigarettes.

Likewise at the e-cigarette conferences I've attended there seems to be a general incomprehension that more smokers don't want to switch. This attitude was reflected only last week by Mark Pawsey MP, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on E-Cigarettes, who said he found it "mind-boggingly incomprehensible" that, knowing the health risks, so many people continue to smoke combustibles.

As part of the session therefore I would like to address the reasons why so many smokers haven't switched to vaping, and why they shouldn't be forced to.

Also, most if not all of the vaping representatives at e-cigarette conferences tend to be ex-smoking vapers which makes them unrepresentative of many vapers, the majority of whom are (I believe) still dual users.

They are also unrepresentative in other ways – notably the type of products they use. We very much hope there is a niche for every product for which there is some consumer demand. Long-term however we believe that if the e-cigarette market is to grow substantially and attract more smokers to switch, the two essential factors will be cost and convenience.

Based on anecdotal evidence we also believe there are some aspects of the current pro-vaping advocacy that are actually driving some smokers away from e-cigarettes.

Overall I would be very positive about e-cigarettes and their role in harm reduction. At the same time however I'd like to raise issues involving current smokers (and potential vapers) that are often overlooked when pro-vaping advocates get together.

As a result of this I thought I might be quietly dropped from the programme. Not a bit of it. The conference organiser replied:

I believe having an alternative viewpoint will be valuable as we don’t want to regurgitate the same message and the audience would really benefit from hearing your experiences at Forest.

I believe your insights on smoker-centric approach with emphasis on understanding and educating the smoker, alongside not having a biased approach, will resonate well and will indeed support an engaging discussion.

How refreshing is that?

Interestingly my fellow panelists include a representative from a tobacco company and another from an "independent e-cigarette manufacturer".

Frankly the third Next Generation Nicotine Delivery conference, which describes itself as "an open, unbiased and interactive platform to discuss TPD implementation, alongside alternative nicotine delivery product innovation", sounds rather more open and interactive than its cousin, the public health dominated E-Cigarette Summit.

Sadly if you want to attend both conferences and compare notes there's one small problem – the dates overlap! Madness.

Tobacco control freaks

Public Health England is urging businesses to provide vaping rooms so vapers won't have to stand outside with the smokers and their nasty little cancer sticks.

Personally I've no problem with vaping rooms. Like smoking rooms (outlawed) this should be a matter for individual businesses.

What's more interesting is that PHE is also suggesting that workers who vape should be allowed additional breaks to top up their nicotine levels:

Vaping provides a generally lower blood nicotine level and takes longer to reach a desired level, requiring frequent interim top-ups,” PHE said in the guidelines for employers. “This difference should be taken into account, particularly when developing policies for workplaces.”

Yesterday the Scottish Sun invited Forest to respond. They also contacted vaping advocate Linda Bauld (currently on holiday in Canada) possibly because they thought we would take opposite positions - Linda in favour, Forest against (on account of it being 'unfair' to smokers who have to go outside).

I explained that our position on vaping at work is exactly the same as our attitude to smoking. Ultimately it should be a matter for the employer.

I did however query whether fellow workers would appreciate vapers being given extra breaks.

We were close to deadline so after a quick chat I sent the following response:

"Not all smokers wish to quit and their right to smoke outside during legitimate work breaks must be respected.

"But if employers want to encourage employees to quit smoking it makes sense to provide rooms where they can vape in comfort without having to stand outside with the smokers.

"Non-smokers might draw the line at allowing vapers additional breaks but in many ways it's no different to allowing people to have additional coffee breaks.

"What matters to any business is how effective you are as an employee. If you produce your best work by being allowed to smoke, vape or consume caffeine at regular intervals that's a matter for you and your employer.

"E-cigarettes are arguably the best smoking cessation tool ever invented because they mimic the act of smoking in a way that no other stop smoking aid can match.

"Ultimately, though, this is a matter for individual employers who must be allowed to devise a policy on vaping that best suits their business and the interests of all members of staff."

I don't expect them to use more than one or two sentences but it's an issue that I'm sure will run and run.

In the meantime it's worth noting - again - how public health groups are progressively taking control of vaping behaviour to the extent that they are now issuing 'guidelines' to employers.

There are some, I'm sure, who will welcome such initiatives as evidence of a more liberal approach by public health towards nicotine.

Perhaps it is.

What shouldn't be forgotten however is that these guidelines are simply the latest stage in a hugely illiberal tobacco control strategy designed to force adults to quit smoking.

As readers know (because I've repeated it often enough), Forest embraces e-cigarettes and other harm reduction products because we believe in choice, but a truly liberal society is one that accommodates those who want to smoke whilst educating consumers about the relative risks of using e-cigarettes, combustibles etc without hyperbole or scaremongering.

Btw, I notice that PHE isn't liberal enough to suggest that people might be allowed to vape at their desk or in any other communal area. Oh no, there has to be a separate vaping room with vapers "permitted " additional breaks.

Guidelines, regulations, legislation. However you look at it, they really are control freaks.

Disgruntled passenger to Cunard: "Smokers are treated like pariahs"

John Staddon is professor emeritus at the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University in the United States.

He's also honorary visiting professor at the University of York.

A couple of years ago John wrote a book, published by the University of Buckingham, entitled Unlucky Strike: The Science, Law and Politics of Smoking.

It included illustrations by his friend (and Forest supporter) David Hockney and I reviewed it here.

To help promote the book Forest organised a speaker meeting, Why government should leave smokers alone.

Shortly after that John and his wife joined us at The Freedom Dinner and we have kept in touch, occasionally swapping emails.

A couple if weeks ago John sent me a copy of a letter he had written to the CEO of Cunard following a recent cruise. It reads:

I have just returned from a generally enjoyable trip on the remastered QM2. It is my third QM2 trip, but it may be my last. The physical facilities, especially the library, were excellent; the service and food very good. The talks and entertainment were generally excellent cruise fare.

Those are the good things. But there were also bad things. There were computer problems which caused many people to wait hours before they could embark. You probably know about these.

But there are two other chronic problems that you may not be aware of. First the security in Southampton was intrusive and obsessive to a ridiculous degree. As a result I temporarily lost my watch, which was demanded by a robotic security officer – I say ‘robotic’ because he used so little judgement that he could have been replaced by a machine.

In the course of my efforts to find my watch I spoke with the security officer. When I questioned the excess of the whole security procedure – worse, in my experience, than at most airports – he proudly proclaimed “The rules are the same!”

But of course the risks are NOT the same. The QM2 is unlikely to be threatened by a watch, even an explosive one. You don’t check people’s watches and walking sticks when they go into a theater or get on a train. The QM2 is no different. The risks are different so should be the security procedures, and on most cruise ships, they are.  

Being treated in a reasonable and civilized way is one reason that people choose sea travel over air. Cunard is throwing this advantage away.

Second, the treatment of smokers, especially cigarette smokers, is disgraceful, even offensive. Smokers are now treated even worse than on previous voyages of the QM2. (And worse than the crew, apparently.)

Cigarette smokers (I am an occasional cigar smoker) have no heated, covered area where they can smoke. It would be more honest if Cunard announced that their ships are all non-smoking rather than intimidate and insult cigarette smokers in the way that you do.

On this last trip passengers were regaled with several entertainments celebrating Cunard’s distinguished history. No-one could fail to notice that smoking was treated for most of that history as a civilized part of travel on a Cunard ship. Now smokers are treated as pariahs. Disgraceful!

The sensible and decent thing would be to designate the large and often largely empty Commodore Lounge, which is adjacent to the diminutive Churchill cigar room, as a smoking area.

I generally enjoyed my trip, but I will not be signing up again unless Cunard does something about these two very unpleasant features of your travel experience.

No word yet on Cunard's response but I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime I'm booked on another Cunard ship, the Queen Victoria, next month.

One of the ports we're due to visit just happens to be in Turkey. In the circumstances you'd hope Cunard might turn a blind eye to nervous passengers lighting up in no-smoking areas!

PS. John Staddon is right to highlight the long history of smoking aboard Cunard ships.

Last year, at the TabExpo Congress in London, maritime historian Brian Hawley gave a very interesting if nostalgic presentation entitled 'Smoking tales on the high seas'.

 Hawley also has a hand in this fascinating feature, Queen Mary and Hindenburg: A Detailed Comparison, which reveals that not only were there smoking rooms on both vessels, "passengers could smoke virtually anywhere on Queen Mary":

While the First Class smoking room was an especially elegant place for a man to enjoy a cigar, pipe, or cigarette, passengers were free to smoke in their cabins, in the dining room, and almost everywhere else.

In contrast:

Because Hindenburg was inflated with highly-flammable hydrogen, smoking was strictly limited, and passengers were required to hand all matches and lighters to a steward before being allowed to board.

But Hindenburg’s designers knew that a smoke-free airship was not likely to appeal to the nicotine-addicted travelers of the day and came up with an ingenious way to allow passengers to satisfy their cravings without destroying the airship; a pressurized smoking room entered through an airlock.

The air pressure in the smoking room was kept higher than ambient pressure, so that no leaking hydrogen could enter the room, and a steward carefully monitored the door to make sure that no passenger left with a lighted cigarette, cigar, or pipe.

Well worth a read.

Maybe I'm amazed

When I was appointed director of Forest we had an office in central London.

In addition to me there were three full-time staff.

I can't remember her official title but Jenny was part receptionist, part secretary, forever photocopying documents and supervising mailshots to MPs and the media.

She also spent a great deal of time on the phone, diligently listening to the grievances of mostly elderly smokers, many of whom lived alone and just wanted a friendly voice to speak to.

Jenny was as hard-working as she was patient. She rarely grumbled (although I could always tell when something was amiss) and was extremely loyal.

What I remember most though was her enduring cheerfulness and endearing ability to laugh at herself.

When she left I was sad to see her go but pleased for her too. Hired to work for a member of Parliament in the House of Commons, she told me it was her "dream job".

That was 16 years ago. Today she continues to work for the same MP so the qualities that impressed me must have impressed Theresa May too.

Amazing then to report that the PM's PA once worked for Forest. Fancy that!

Crazy chick

On Monday I reported that Annie Dressner, a little known American singer-songwriter based in Cambridge, had launched a petition calling for a ban on smoking near children's playgrounds.

We'd both been quoted in last week's Sunday Times and later went head-to-head on BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Tees.

I noticed a slight hardening of attitude between the first and second interviews which was confirmed when she blocked me, Forest and Forest Ireland from following her on Twitter or viewing her tweets.

Not sure why but I may have annoyed her by mentioning – on air – that we had seen her tweets and found it strange she'd been tweeting the minister of health in France about her campaign.

Anyway, what Dressner doesn't know is that Forest has multiple Twitter accounts, some linked to old campaigns, so her blocking manoeuvre hasn't stopped us viewing her efforts to drum up support.

And some of those efforts are impressive, if optimistic. To echo David Cameron in relation to Jeremy Corbyn, "I'm beginning to admire her tenacity."

Here, for example, is a list of some of the people Annie Dressner tweeted last week. They include:

Little Mix
Claudia Winkleman
Kerry Katona
Katie Price
Colleen Rooney
Emily Blunt
Dr Alice Roberts
Victoria Beckham and
... Adele

Naturally, with the Rio Olympics a few weeks away, she's targeted not only individual Olympians (Jessica Innis and Louis Smith among them) but also Team GB (the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic team).

More bizarre still, she's tweeted Liv Tyler, the American actress who lives in New York, and – wait for it – Taylor Swift!!!! (Whoever next – Tom Hiddleston?!)

The list goes on and on and on. She's even tweeted Tour de France winner Chris Froome who I suspect may have other things on his mind at present.

You couldn't make it up.

Amusingly Dressner has also tweeted some leading vaping advocates, among them Clive Bates who, to date, hasn't replied.

As far as I can tell only one of the above names has responded positively (or at all) to Dressner's frantic messaging and that was TV presenter Dr Alice Roberts.

And, boy, wasn't Annie grateful:

@DrAliceRoberts I am so grateful that you, and educated and respected person, has agreed with this! I have a lot of people telling me off.

— Annie Dressner (@AnnieDressner) July 14, 2016

Update: Despite the support of Roberts, Julie Barrett (director of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health Wales) and the British Lung Foundation, Dressner's petition seems to be losing momentum.

Launched on July 1, it currently has 2,630 signatures, with just 16 added in the last 24 hours.

Given the publicity she enjoyed earlier in the week that's pretty feeble. Then again the majority of callers to Radio Ulster and Radio Tees made it clear what they thought of her idea so it's not that surprising. (You can listen to a podcast of the Radio Ulster debate here.)

My message to Annie Dressner? Good luck with your new album. Let's hope you have better luck flogging that!

Voices of Freedom 2016

A feature of this year's Freedom Dinner was the inaugural Voices of Freedom Awards.

Credit to Ranald Macdonald, MD of Boisdale Restaurants. Earlier this year we were throwing around ideas, wondering how we could breathe new life into the dinner, when Ranald suggested we present some awards. But what to call them?

In 2010 and 2011 Forest organised a series of panel discussions called the Voices of Freedom Debates. We've considered bringing them back because they were pretty successful. In the meantime it seemed appropriate to co-opt the name for the awards.

We then needed a logo.

In 2008 Forest launched The Freedom Zone with The Freedom Association. Dan Donovan designed the logo and we commissioned this website to promote the event.

I've always liked the original Freedom Zone logo and as Forest still owns it, and the website, and it's not been used for eight years, I asked Dan to adapt it for the Voices of Freedom Awards. How's that for recycling?!

And so to the actual awards.

Naturally our guest speaker Rod Liddle was presented with the very first Voices of Freedom award. Further awards were presented to the following with these citations:

Barry Curtis

This award is for someone who has taken up the fight against one of the nastiest of nanny state policies. For most consumers the smoking ban is illiberal and pointless but in practice it's an inconvenience, robbing us of the joy of chatting away in a cosy pub over a pint and a fag, forcing us to stand outside in all weathers like lepers when we want a smoke and breaking up conversations with non-smoking friends.

For patients at psychiatric units, however, ever tighter bans have become a real threat to their well-being. Many units are now banning smoking even outdoors. For those unable to leave the building freely, that means no smoking full stop. For many mental health patients smoking is a considerable source of relief from their symptoms. Such bans deny them that relief and a small but important degree of autonomy when almost all other freedoms have been taken away. On top of that, by forcing staff to act as police to prevent smoking, the vital trust between medics and patients is undermined.

Our award winner, a former patient himself, has stood up for the rights of patients, launching a campaign to try to draw society's attention to this terrible loss of liberty. It gives us great pleasure to present this award to ... Barry Curtis.

John Mallon

Our next award winner first came to our attention in 2003, before the introduction of the smoking ban in Ireland. After the ban was introduced in 2004 we noticed he continued to write letters to the newspapers, pointing out the negative impact of the ban, and for several years he appeared to be the sole voice of reason in Ireland on this thorny subject.

In 2010, when we launched Forest Ireland, he was the obvious choice to represent smokers in Ireland. He has done that job now for six years, impressing everyone he meets with his charm and common sense. In an extremely hostile climate – the media in Ireland are far more hostile to smoking and the concept of smokers’ rights than their counterparts in the UK – he appears regularly on radio and, occasionally, TV.

At times it’s been a lonely and thankless task but I’m delighted to say he’s here tonight, still smiling, still drinking, still smoking. Ladies and gentleman, in recognition of grace under fire, we present our international award to ... John Mallon.

Chris Snowdon

Our next award winner is a writer and researcher. He first came to our attention eight years ago as the author of Velvet Glove Iron Fist: A History of Smoking. In fact we were so impressed that Forest hosted a party at Boisdale of Belgravia to mark the book’s publication.

As Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs he appears regularly on TV and radio. His work focuses on pleasure, prohibition and dodgy statistic and he has authored a number of publications including Sock Puppets, Euro Puppets, The Proof of the Pudding, The Crack Cocaine of Gambling and Free Market Solutions in Health.

His crimes and misdemeanors include calling Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH a "chronically deluded neo-prohibitionist”. Anti-smokers accuse him of publically critcising leading tobacco control scientists by referring to them as “zealots” and “extremists”. He is of course 100 per cent correct.

He is now regular contributor to Spectator Health where his incisive, pithy articles have acquired a cult following, partly due to his transparent loathing for Jamie Oliver, a feeling many of us share. Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of our next Voices of Freedom Award is … Chris Snowdon.

Claire Fox

Our next award winner is regularly invited to comment on developments in culture, education and the media on TV and radio programmes such as Question Time and Any Questions?. She is also a regular panellist on The Moral Maze on Radio 4.

She’s a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party who has been widely criticised and praised for her libertarian belief in the need for minimal governmental control and her outspoken support of free speech in all contexts.

After the closure of Living Marxism, which she published for three years from 1997, she founded the Institute of Ideas with a view to creating a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. On the back of that she organises the annual Battle of Ideas festival that currently takes place at the Barbican in London every October.

The winner of this award believes that fear of giving offence is killing democracy and stifling truth and her new book I Find That Offensive!’, published in May, has deservedly won many plaudits and is a must read. She’s an inspiration to many people. Ladies and gentleman, our final Voices of Freedom award goes to … Claire Fox.

Update: Rod's speech, which I posted here yesterday, has also been published on The Spectator website together with a short video clip. Click here – Rod Liddle’s Freedom Dinner speech: Labour’s Jew-bashing, the anti-Brexit mob and Tim Farron.

The Times' Diary and the Daily Mail also featured comments from Rod's speech.

Rod Liddle's Freedom Dinner speech

I promised you the speech journalist and broadcaster Rod Liddle gave at the Forest Freedom Dinner this week. Blogger Guido Fawkes called it "the best political speech this year". Another guest said it was "the best after-dinner speech I've ever heard". Another tweeted, "Rod Liddle is upsetting lots of people this evening, the trouble is it's very funny." I'm not sure speeches like this work so well in print. Perhaps you had to be there to enjoy it fully. I'll let you be the judge. For the record, it still makes me laugh even without the laughter and applause of the audience.

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ROD LIDDLE

MANY THANKS for inviting me here tonight. I have been told that I was picked to deliver this address from among a very large list of people, solely because I have children and am a mother. This gives me great empathy and understanding and also the right to amend my CV whenever the feeling takes me. That was a star which rose and fell rather speedily, wasn’t it? Before we even learned how to pronounce her name.

We live in interesting times, do we not? It is quite possible that within a few months England’s most long-standing political leader will be a man called Tim Farron. I heard Tim on Any Questions last week and he spoke with great uncertainty and anxiety, like a man who fears that he may have left the gas oven on at home and is contemplating calling the emergency services. Soon we will have to regard him as a titan of politics, a colossus.

And then there is my party, Labour, which is fine fettle, no? There will be a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn’s sane and rational leadership from a woman called Angela Eagle – swoop, swoop. She is the sister of the former cabinet minister Maria Eagle, which prompted one MP to say that Angela was the lesser of two eagles. And also that she wasn’t even the best politician in her own family. Not even the best … well, who could imagine Labour making that sort of mistake?

Angela is also a lesbian, which is fine by me. But this is presumably the next stage in the lesbian takeover of British politics. Both the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Conservatives are led by lesbians. I don’t know the sexual preferences of Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru – any port in a storm, I would guess.

But this is all very commendable, especially as I read recently that lesbians are actually much scarcer than is popularly thought – almost endangered – and that we should perhaps consider a reintroduction policy in selected areas, much as has been accomplished with red kites in the Chilterns. It will be a fine sight to see lesbians once again soaring on outstretched wings across Beaconsfield and Henley, gimlet eyes scouring the terrain for carrion. But rumours of their scarcity have clearly been exaggerated.

All of this is keeping Labour from its most important work, which is kicking me out of the party. I was suspended a month or so ago for the crime of having suggested that adherents of Islam were not always entirely kindly disposed towards Jewish people. I know, it beggars belief how I could have possibly reached this conclusion. I’d probably had too much to drink.

Anyway, I got an email shortly after from a man called Harry who said I was suspended but could present my case at a "fact finding" hearing. I would be allowed to take a friend with me but the friend wouldn’t be allowed to speak. I suggested that suspending me before the initial fact finding hearing had a slightly, how can I put it, Soviet ring to it. Harry replied that my suspension was a “neutral” act. I would have thought a neutral act would have been to NOT suspend me, but there we are.

This was all part of Labour’s frankly hilarious investigation in anti-Semitism which gave the party a nice clean bill of health and was presided over by a woman who presides over all of us, Shami Chakrabarti. Shami is also Chancellor of Essex Univerrsity, visiting fellow at Nuffield College Oxford, an honorary fellow at Mansfield College, master of the bench of the Middle Temple, governor of the British Film Institutue and holds honorary degrees from three more universities.

It’s nice she was able to squeeze Labour’s Jew-bashing into her packed schedule. Indeed so prolific is Shami within publicly funded bodies, quangos, the third sector and education that I was able to create a parlour game called Six Degrees. Basically choose any arts council, charity or quango, look down the list of trustees and you’ll be able to get to Shami within an absolute minimum of six moves and more usually two.

This is because it is a very small pool of people who run all this stuff and they are all chosen for the same reason – they share precisely the same bien pensant opinions and, usually, affluent background. This is the new establishment, the people who in a sense govern our country. People who are appointed to stuff, who are on the boards of all of our universities, who run the arts programmes, the charities, everything which costs the taxpayer money. Always appointed – no interview needed. The same names, over and over again. The new great and the good.

Gramsci would have been proud of this march through the institutions. When you dig away at each name it’s not easy to find a reason why they’ve been appointed. I was rooting through the names on the BBC Board of Governors a while back and came across a woman of whom I’ve never heard. So I searched out her biography to find out her back story. All it said was Mahmuda has spent her career upholding standards in public life. You can imagine meeting her at a party, can’t you?

This stuff has a point right now. You will probably be aware of the sort of weirdo authoritarian censoriousness currently gripping our students. The banning of speakers from left and right because they transgress some fatuous shibboleth these cossetted and mollycoddled idiots think of as sacred. Feminists banned from campuses because they’re not sure about transgendered people. Islamists banned because they’re not mad on feminism. Jews banned because they’re not sure about Muslims. Sombreros banned because they might offend Mexicans.

The idea is to create a safe space where these people – supposedly our intellectual elite – can exist without anything, ever, challenging their world view. As if they have a right not to be contradicted or offended. As if what they believe is it, and there’s an end to it.

We sometimes portray this hilarious – but genuinely totalitarian tendency – as being an affliction of youth. I’ve written about this and said much the same thing. But it’s not, really. The universities in which these kids are taught are scarcely better. The same political and cultural hegemony applies, a suffocating refusal to allow freedom of speech and dissenting views.

It’s there in all of those quangos and third sector bodies I mentioned before – an absolute refusal to tolerate dissent from the approved socially liberal views. It’s there in the BBC. You can see it in the Guardian which has recently started denying readers the right to comment on articles which it thinks might be controversial – the site called, with exquisite irony, Comment is Free. Its writers were miffed when people started posting opinions which ran counter to their own. So they banned the comments, all of them.

And more than anything it's there in the deranged and apoplectic response from some Remainers to our vote on June 23. It's not enough that they may disagree with the decision to withdraw from the EU. I can understand that: it was a close call for me. But the screaming tantrums and the bedwettings, the toys thrown out of the pram, the tears before bedtime and the stamped feet! The demands that because working class people were allowed to vote the whole thing should be run again. Oh DO fuck off.

And you are left with the same conclusion you reach with those students. That these people are utterly unused to being contradicted. They have no experience of being gainsaid, of being told that they might be wrong, of being on the wrong side of the argument. And so they react with an incandescent fury and a sense of outrage and also, in this particular instance, with the massed ovine bleat of raaaacccist, like lobotomised sheep. Very angry lobotomised sheep. And they gather in Parliament Square and they sign petitions which somehow they think is more democratic than the actual vote. They are deranged, I think, these people.

Still, we are out, although for the next two years stuff will procede as normal as we are still beholden to European Union directives which insist that the tobacco industry and the sugar industry and the fast food industry are basically agents of Satan tempting a gullible and cretinous public with evil.

No more so than with cigarettes, of course. I think I was slightly angrier with Tony Blair for banning smoking in public than I was with him for invading Iraq, which is a rather selfish way of looking at the world. But one adapts as a loyal consumer, much I have done with the packaging issue. These days I always ask the tobacconist for a packet of cigarettes that has that chap with an enormous tumour growing out of his throat. I much prefer that to the one which shows inadequate semen.

The argument has always been – from the same neck of the woods as those people I’ve mentioned before – that you are, to quote a smug and complacent phrase they often use, on the "wrong side of history". That, in essence, freedom of choice, like freedom of speech, is actually a tyranny rather than benediction. They think it is not a freedom at all because other people – never themselves – are somehow oppressed by it, oppressed by freedom.

And so they demand ever greater restrictions on your products, more regulations and, best of all, price hikes so that it is the poor who really cop it. They are the ones who suffer through paying more for their treats – the smokes, the burgers, the alcohol. Because they are the stupid ones whose lives need to be regulated. Other people. It is always other people who binge drink, isn’t it? We just have three or four rather agreeable bottles of Sancerre. That’s not binge drinking. Cheap cider is binge drinking.

And they do all this because of course they know best. Like the students with their safe spaces and the Guardian restricting free speech for other people, and like the howls of outrage from the anti-Brexit mob, they cannot bear to gainsaid. You’re on the wrong side of history.

Ah, well. As we have seen, one can be on the wrong side of history until history suddenly and rather capriciously switches sides – as it did on June 23 this year. The other people, particularly the poor, became sick of being told what to do. And they rebelled. It may not seem so to some of you Remainers worrying about your overseas contracts right now, but in the end that rebellion is good for you too. It was a vote for freedom of choice.

Following his speech Rod was presented with our first Voices of Freedom Award (below).