Tributes for John Blundell

Sorry to hear that John Blundell, former Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, has died. He was only 61.

Our paths crossed occasionally but I can't say I knew him. He once interviewed me (sort of) for a job as PR consultant to the IEA, but that was the longest conversation we ever had, and I did most of the talking!

A mutual friend was Lord Harris of High Cross, chairman of Forest for 20 years but better known as one of the founders of the IEA.

It was John who announced Ralph's death in November 2006 when the IEA issued this statement.

He was also master of ceremonies at Ralph's memorial service in February 2007 when speakers included former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Howe, Lord Tebbit, journalists Andrew Alexander (Daily Mail) and Simon Heffer (Daily Telegraph), and many more.

How nice it would be if a similar service could be held in John's honour at the same venue – St John’s, Smith Square, London – just around the corner from the IEA.

The IEA has posted a short announcement and a lengthy obituary on its website.

The Adam Smith Institute has posted a tribute by Madsen Pirie: John Blundell 1952-2014.

ConservativeHome has also paid its respects: John Blundell, the man who helped to form the IEA, is dead.

So too the Atlas Network, In Memoriam: John Blundell (1952-2014).

PS. That job 'interview' was more of a PR pitch. I did it at the suggestion of Lord Harris but I think John was slightly horrified by some of our proposals!

Instead he made an internal appointment and the moment passed. C'est la vie.

Update on Wednesday, July 23, 2014 at 18:02 by Simon Clark

My colleague John Burton, a non-executive director of Forest and a member of the IEA Advisory Council, writes:

As a friend and colleague I greatly admired what he did to forward the free society philosophy, and the analysis/substantiation thereof, via his work in a (global) network of free-society/market institutions.

A constant theme of John’s writings about the free society is that the general idea is under continuous attack from many different intellectual sources; and that we have to “wage a war” to defend our liberties (J. Blundell, Waging the War of Ideas, London; IEA, 2003) in the intellectual realm.

About this he was absolutely right.

Full article: John Blundell, defender of the free society (The Free Society).

Standing up for freedom with Conservatives for Liberty

Pleased to report that Forest is joining forces with Conservatives for Liberty at the Tory conference in Birmingham.

On Sunday September 28 we're co-hosting a special event, The Liberty Lounge: Stand Up For Freedom, at the Hyatt Hotel.

In 2011 and 2013 Forest hosted a dedicated hour of stand up comedy (Stand Up for Liberty) at The Comedy Store in Manchester.

In the absence of a similar venue this year's event will combine a drinks reception with half an hour of stand up comedy.

Well, that's the plan.

Conservatives for Liberty was set up last year. Following the launch party honorary president Dan Hannan MEP tweeted:

"I reckon @con4lib is now the most exciting movement in UK politics."

According to journalist and peer Matt Ridley:

"A new generation of young people is reviving true liberalism today. Conservatives for Liberty are pioneers of this movement and I learned more from an evening in a pub with them than from any amount of time in Parliament."

Steve Baker MP wrote:

"All too many people believe in liberty up to the point that their faith is tested. As a result, we have been losing the arguments for most of the past century. CfL could be an important part of the restoration that our country needs."

Emily Barley, secretary of CfL, says: "We're thrilled to be working with Forest, that bastion of personal choice, on this not-so-serious event - a fun opportunity to Stand Up For Freedom and show your love for liberty."

Full announcement here.

Our other conference event takes place on Monday September 29. It's called 'Last Chance Saloon'. Make of that what you will.

If you're attending the Conservative conference make a note in your diary now. More details in due course.

See also: CfL joins forces with Forest at #CPC14

Forest's renaissance man releases new album

If you've attended a Forest event in recent years you'll almost certainly have seen or even met Dan Donovan.

He's an unapologetic smoker who first contacted us in 2007 offering support.

Since then we've built up what I think is a great working relationship.

I call him Forest's renaissance man.

He's our regular photographer.

He films and edits our campaign videos.

He's a graphic designer who produces most of our promotional and campaign material.

He's also a musician who writes, records and plays live with his own band, King Kool.

Yesterday they released their fourth album, Scuzz Bombe.

I love the artwork but if I'm honest the band's brand of garage/punk/scuzz is not entirely my cup of tea.

From time to time however Dan suggests a track I absolutely love.

One was 'Nanny Town', which we adapted for our first Hands Off Our Packs campaign video.

A bluesier version was also used as the backing track on our Plain Packs Plain Stupid video, released in March.

The latest King Kool track I've fallen for is 'Buzzin Me' from the new album. I heard it for the first time yesterday and I'm playing it for the umpteenth time on my laptop as I write.

Dan suggested we feature it on a new Forest video to be unveiled at the Conservative conference in September.

Great idea!

In the meantime visit the King Kool website or, if you want to hear and even buy the album, click here.

Update: In November 2009, to help promote the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign, Forest funded a King Kool gig at The Cross Kings pub in London.

I wrote about it here (Now for something completely different) and here (Rock 'n' roll animal).

After the event I wrote:

Fantastic evening at the Cross Kings in London on Wednesday night. I must admit that I had reservations that an evening of "grunge-fuelled rock 'n' roll" in support of the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign would work, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Apologies to Dan Donovan for doubting him! It was great and I would happily do it again.

Perhaps that time has come.

"I'm going to bed" huffs ASH spokeswoman on Five Live

I was on the Stephen Nolan Show on Five Live last night.

We were discussing the decision by an American court to order a tobacco company to pay the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996 $23.6 billion (£13.8bn).

In addition to this punitive fine, the wife was awarded $16.8m (£9.8m) in compensatory damages. (See RJ Reynolds told to pay wife of cancer victim $23.6bn, BBC News).

I described the decision as "absurd" and the money awarded "obscene".

I pointed out that no-one, least of all in America, could have been in any doubt about the health risks of smoking for 40 or 50 years at least.

In the Second World War (if not the First) cigarettes were called "coffin nails".

In 1964 the US Surgeon General published the first federal government report linking smoking and ill health, including lung cancer.

Around the same time America became the first country in the world to put health warnings on cigarette packets, which was the start of tobacco control initiatives in the USA.

I also made a point about personal responsibility. Should obese people be allowed to sue junk food manufacturers? Should alcoholics be allowed to sue drinks companies?

Putting the opposing view was Amanda Sandford of ASH. Amanda tends to get these graveyard shifts (10.20 on a Sunday night) and she sounded less than pleased.

At one point, in response to my suggestion that she should go to the Forest Facebook page and read what smokers have to say about the issue, she said she didn't care what smokers thought.

Bizarrely she huffed that she was "going to bed" as soon as the interview was over.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that on air before – least of all a professional lobbyist!

Stephen Nolan is an excellent broadcaster and did what he always does. If he isn't playing devil's advocate he astutely withdraws from the conversation and allows his guests to battle it out amongst themselves.

The result can be a little chaotic, especially if we end up talking over one another, but at its best it can be quite entertaining.

Amanda was keen to stress the addictive aspect of smoking so I asked her if alcoholics should sue drinks companies for their addiction.

She wriggled a bit – tobacco is a unique product etc – but eventually said individuals should make up their own mind.

How sad that a representative of a taxpayer-funded pressure group seems to think addiction is a matter for the courts and avaricious, ambulance chasing lawyers.

In their eyes consumers – smokers, alcoholics, the obese – are "victims". The concept of personal responsibility (or willpower) is anathema to them.

Anyway, we finished our contretemps and Nolan invited listeners to phone in with their opinions. The first agreed with me and I decided to quit while I was ahead.

Following Amanda'a splendid example (but without announcing it to the nation) I switched off the radio and went to bed.

Nannying tyrants

Final word on last week's Freedom Dinner.

The speech by our principal speaker Brendan O'Neill has been posted over on The Free Society. Here's a taste:

What we have in the 21st century is not just an irritating, killjoy nanny state, but an utterly out-of-control bureaucratic imperative, an unhinged interventionist dynamic that has lost any sense of what areas of life it is appropriate for the authorities to intervene in and what areas of life the authorities should leave well alone.

We live under governments that relentlessly interfere in family life, in home life, in private life; governments which think nothing of telling parents how to raise their kids, or telling adults how to have sex, or setting out to reshape the masses’ behaviour and even our minds.

We live under a state that seems to think that individuals should have no internal moral life of their own. That isn’t quaint or eccentric or nannyish. We need to face up to the fact that the modern state has more in common with the Inquisition than it does with Mary Poppins.

 It’s worth thinking about all the stuff the state is doing these days.

It has banned smoking almost everywhere and it is always thinking up ways to make it harder to booze, too. It is banning junk-food ads, sweets in schools, and even packed lunches in some cases, so little does it trust parents to feed their kids in a proper, state-approved way.

The editor of Spiked (he's also a columnist for The Big Issue and The Australian) concluded his speech by saying:

We’re really letting them off the hook when we call them nannies; they look to me more like tyrants, or they certainly seem to be possessed of some pretty tyrannical instincts. What we’re really witnessing is the unravelling of the Enlightenment itself. The Enlightenment was based on the idea that individuals should be free to carve out their own moral and spiritual path in life without being hectored, harried or “corrected” by their rulers.



As John Locke said in his letter on toleration, one of the earliest documents of the Enlightenment, “The care of souls does not belong to the [state]… every man’s soul belongs unto himself and is to be left unto himself.

This is the real fight we have on our hands today – not a fight against a bunch of annoying nannies, but a fight against the attempted colonisation of our souls by a state which thinks, wrongly, that it knows better than we do ourselves how our lives should be run.

Great stuff. I urge you to read the full article:

Why nanny should become the new 'N' word (The Free Society)

Smoking rates: figures ignore casual smokers

Tobacco control advocates are cockahoop.

Following publication of research in Australia, anti-smoking campaigners are claiming that a "dramatic" 15 per cent decline in smoking rates is a result of plain packaging.

Look closely however and the figures (15.1 down to 12.8 per cent) relate to a three-year period from 2010 to December 2013.

Plain packaging was introduced in December 2012 but that seems to have escaped many commenters and journalists, deliberately or otherwise.

Truth is there was a whopping 25 per cent excise hike in Australia in 2010 (followed by a further 12.5 per cent increase on December 1, 2013 which will probably have an impact on the next set of figures).

We know smokers are sensitive to price increases (hence the flourishing black market trade in tobacco) so it seems reasonable to conclude that cost, not plain packaging, has been the primary influence on smoking rates in Australia over the last few years.

But wait. While a 15 per cent reduction in smoking rates may sound "dramatic", over three years it simply reflects an historical trend and is no more newsworthy than a similar decline in smoking rates in the UK which doesn't have standardised packs. Not yet, anyway.

For further reading check out this report in the FT: Australia smoking rates tumble after plain packaging shift.

See also BAT Australia's response (Smoking rates underestimated) which includes the interesting point that the Australian survey ignores casual smokers who represent one in five consumers.

Include these smokers and the smoking rate in Australia jumps to 16.5 per cent of the population.

I suspect too that many smokers simply don't admit to smoking. Here's some anecdotal evidence.

On Tuesday night at The Freedom Dinner we commissioned Dan Donovan to take photographs of guests, as we always do. (Click here for the results.)

Yesterday Dan passed on the remarkable information that several guests at the Forest Freedom Dinner (my emphasis) asked him not to take pictures of them smoking!!!!

Why, I don't know. It may be guilt or fear that in today's highly judgemental society they may be discriminated against (passed over for promotion, perhaps) or vilified in some other way.

The simple fact is this: there is a significant number of people out there who are probably casual smokers and don't want anyone, other than their immediate friends, to know about it.

So they ask the photographer at a smoker-friendly event not to take pictures of them smoking. (Note: this is the first time it's happened at a Forest event, which is why Dan mentioned it, so it's a new phenomenon.)

Likewise, when asked by researchers 'Do you smoke?', what do you think their likely response is?

I suspect there are hundreds of thousands - possibly millions - of casual smokers who go under the radar because they keep it to themselves.

What an extraordinary state of affairs.

PS. Re the Australian story I also recommend this post by Chris Snowdon, Dogs bark, cows moo, ASH lies, which I will come back to in my next post.

Poll: Tories could be hurt by nanny state policies like plain packaging

Interesting new poll, just out, suggests that "nanny state policies" could hurt the Conservatives' election prospects.

The survey, commissioned by the Democracy Institute, also found that a majority of voters – 54% to 38% – oppose the introduction of plain cigarette packaging.

Other results:

• 78% thought plain packaging would make no difference to young people smoking

• 31% thought plain packaging will hurt newsagents and corner shops; only 8% thought it would help

The press release reads:

London (17 July) – Conservative candidates in marginal seats, including public health minister, Jane Ellison, risk electoral defeat because of the government’s nanny state policies, according to a new survey of English voters commissioned by the Democracy Institute, a politically independent think tank.

Conducted before and after the cabinet reshuffle, the poll found tepid Tory support in much of England, especially in regions containing the most marginal seats (eg Ellison’s south London seat, Battersea). Conservative candidates continue to be threatened by a relatively popular Ukip, a second choice for a growing number of voters.

According to Patrick Basham, who directed the survey, “These results suggest Ukip’s outspoken opposition to many of the government’s public health proposals has the potential to shift, in small but critical ways, the electoral sands.

“David Cameron’s tenuous hold on the keys to No 10 is threatened, in part, by voters who tell us they’re tired of government telling them what, how, and when they should eat, drink, and smoke,” said Basham, who has conducted campaign and policy polls in the UK, East Africa, Australia, North America, and the Middle East.

The poll finds that a majority of voters – 54% to 38% – oppose the introduction of plain cigarette packaging. And, a plurality of voters (42%) is less likely to vote for a party that supports plain packaging. More than two-thirds (68%) fear that plain packaging will encourage smuggling. Revealingly, one-third (34%) of smokers admit that plain packaging would make them more likely to buy their cigarettes on the illicit market.

“Our poll surprisingly finds plain packaging’s as unpopular as the tobacco industry itself,” observes Basham. A majority (51%) think the industry makes a negative contribution to the economy, while 53% say the tobacco industry also plays a negative societal role.

Basham suggests that, “While Big Tobacco remains a political pariah, plain packaging could prove an electoral albatross, in tandem with other nanny state-style initiatives, weighing down the Conservative vote.”

Download the full press release here.

The Freedom Dinner: who was there, who wasn't, and why

The third Freedom Dinner went pretty well, I think.

(See full gallery of pictures, courtesy Dan Donovan.)

Slightly disappointing that a number of MPs had to pull out. Eight were due to come but six couldn't because the Government chose last night to push ahead with its emergency surveillance bill.

Consequently Tory and Labour MPs were on a three-line whip to attend and, if necessary, vote. That left us with just two MPs and very welcome they were too.

Also missing was journalist Rod Liddle and his wife Alicia. Last week, in response to a query about dietary requirements, Rod wrote, 'Sadly both of us eat only wood, and preferably from deciduous trees'.

Yesterday, just as we sat down to eat, I received another email: 'Simon - I'm so sorry; our babysitter has called in "sick" and we can't track down a replacement, so we'll have to miss the dinner. I'm most terribly sorry and would have loved to be there.'

One final absentee was Daily Mail journalist Peter McKay (aka Ephraim Hardcastle). His excuse was priceless – he had a flying lesson!

Anyway, those who did make it included some leading lights in the Westminster village, including:

Mark Littlewood, Institute of Economic Affairs
Christian May, Institute of Directors
Jonathan Isaby, TaxPayers' Alliance
Mark Wallace, ConservativeHome
Ruth Porter, Policy Exchange
Emma Carr, Big Brother Watch

The Adam Smith Institute was represented by communications manager Kate Andrews, and I lost count of the many political researchers who work in parliament.

Guido Fawkes (aka Paul Staines) was there. So too Ian Dunt, editor of Politics.co.uk.

The online magazine Spiked had their own table (as did the IEA).

Other guests included Prof John Staddon, author of Unlucky Strike: Private Health and the Science, Law and Politics of Smoking, Count Nikolai Tolstoy and his wife Countess Georgina Tolstoy.

If they represented the older generation, there was no shortage of younger people – from the Liberty League contingent to the likes of Oliver Cooper, national chairman of Conservative Future.

I was delighted to welcome Patrick Basham, director of the Washington-based Democracy Institute who is in London for a few days.

And similarly pleased to see Annunziata Rees-Mogg.

In other words, it was a remarkably eclectic group – united however in opposition to the nanny state and excessive government.

Which brings me to our speakers, Alex Deane and Brendan O'Neill.

Alex was David Cameron's first chief of staff. He was the founding director of Big Brother Watch and is currently head of public affairs at Weber Shandwick and an elected common councilman in the City of London.

Brendan blogs for the Telegraph. He's a columnist for The Big Issue and The Australian and occasionally writes for The Spectator. He's also editor of Spiked, the online magazine, and was once described (in the Guardian, no less) as a "Marxist proletarian firebrand".

I was too busy to make notes but fortunately Nick Hallett of Breitbart London did it for me. See: Cameron's former chief of staff: I voted Ukip (Breitbart London).