Normalising prohibition

I was on BBC Radio Sussex this morning discussing the disposable vape ban that comes in on Sunday (June 1).

I said Forest is opposed to the ban, and explained why.

Also on the programme was Liam Humberstone, spokesman for leading vape retailer Totally Wicked, who backed the ban on environmental grounds. (Earlier he described it as a ’positive’ step.)

We didn’t go head-to-head otherwise I would have reminded Liam that Hazel Cheeseman, CEO of ASH, recently described the disposable vape ban as merely a “useful first step”.

The next step is more restrictions on packaging, displays and flavours.

After that? I imagine there will be calls to increase the legal age of sale of vapes leading, eventually, to a ban on all vaping devices.

That’s the tobacco playbook and the likes of ASH will follow it to the letter, even if it takes 20 or 30 years.

Another vape retailer who supports a ban on disposable vapes is Doug Mutter, director of VPZ, who last year endorsed the idea on condition it didn’t create a black market. (Good luck with that!).

However, headlines like this (Vape store boss supports ban on disposables) were less nuanced and must have been music to the ears of the prohibitionists.

VPZ, of course, is the company that in 2023 launched a much derided campaign to ‘Ban smoking for good’, which I wrote about here and here.

Ironically Mutter is a spokesman for the UK Vaping Industry Association whose director general John Dunne ‘delivered a clear message on BBC Radio Sussex this morning: bans don’t work’.

Talk about mixed messaging.

I'm pretty sure too that I read that another vape retailer has been collaborating with Laura Young (aka environmental campaigner and 'ultimate ethical influencer' Less Waste Laura) whose one-woman campaign to ban disposable vapes took her all the way to Westminster via Holyrood.

Appeasement rarely works so my message to Totally Wicked, VPZ, and any other vape retailer who supports a disposable vape ban is this:

Be careful what you wish for because the public health lobby won’t be happy until all forms of recreational nicotine are outlawed.

By supporting a ban on single use devices you not only encourage campaigners and government to move on to the ‘next logical step’, you normalise prohibition.

How foolish is that?

PS. Disposable vapes ban unlikely to reduce appeal, says campaigner (BBC News)

Disposable vapes will be banned in the UK from Sunday in an effort to curb youth vaping rates and reduce electronic waste.

But Hazel Cheeseman, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said new reusable vapes are "very similar" to single-use vapes, meaning it is "unlikely [the ban] will have that much impact on the appeal of products".

Next step: a ban on reusable vapes?

Update: Trade boss says businesses mostly pleased with ban (BBC News)

Most members of the IBVTA [Independent British Vape Trade Association] were “delighted by the news of the ban”, [chief executive Gillian] Golden says, because they “were uncomfortable“ to be selling the wasteful products.

Fancy that!

Cost and convenience, the secret of a successful quit smoking tool

From Sunday (June 1) the sale of disposable vapes will be banned in the UK.

Yesterday I was asked to comment on that, and the claim that 200,000 former smokers may return to smoking tobacco.

Although I’m opposed to yet another ban - which feels like a knee-jerk reaction to youth vaping and an equally hysterical response to an environmental issue that could be solved through other means - I do think the prospect of ex-smokers relapsing is unlikely and probably a red herring.

A handful may go back to smoking, if they’re very weak-willed, but if you’ve successfully quit smoking why on earth would you return to cigarettes (which are far more expensive than vapes) when the market still offers plenty of options in terms of e-cigarettes?

A more credible argument is the one that says that some smokers who wish to quit may be disincentivised to do so if the cheapest and easiest to use e-cigarette is prohibited.

Without wishing to blow my own trumpet (or mix metaphors), I’ve been banging this drum longer than most people, even vaping advocates.

Back in 2016, for example, when many vaping activists were obsessed by coils and pods and eliquids, I wrote:

My gut feeling – based on no research whatsoever – is that if hundreds of millions of smokers worldwide are to switch to vaping the device has to be as simple to use as a combustible cigarette.

I base this on the observation that the main reason cigarettes were so popular in the 20th century was convenience.

Compare cigarettes to pipe-smoking. The late Lord Harris, chairman of Forest for 20 years until his death in 2006, was an enthusiastic pipe smoker. Then, in his early Eighties, he suddenly gave up.

I won't go into the circumstances (it was nothing to do with health) but the principal reason was the amount of paraphernalia he had to carry around – his pipe (or pipes), tobacco pouch, pipe cleaners, lighter and so on.

Throughout the 20th century I suspect many pipe smokers quit for the same reason, with many switching to cigarettes.

My guess is the majority of smokers will only switch to vaping if the device matches the convenience of cigarettes [because] what matters most to consumers is cost and convenience.

I envisaged an e-cigarette that was as simple, convenient, and pleasurable to use as a combustible cigarette, with no buttons to press, no eliquids to refill, and no batteries to recharge.

(The cigalike didn’t count because it was so basic it was little more than a baby’s dummy.)

I’m not sure when disposable vapes first appeared in the UK, but I think I called it correctly because it was the cost and convenience of disposable vapes that led to their popularity with sales peaking around 2020/21.

It seems a little foolish therefore to ban one of the principal products that has helped reduce smoking rates in the past decade.

But that’s public health campaigners for you, and they’re still not satisfied.

According to Hazel Cheeseman, CEO of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), the ban on disposable vapes is merely a “useful first step”.

Which begs the question, what’s next?

See: Disposable vapes will soon be banned. Will it change anything? (The Times)

Travels with my mother (to see my aunt)

Just back from Switzerland where my mother and I visited relatives in Zurich.

The main purpose of the trip was to see my mother’s sister Dorothy (above) who was 100 last month.

But we also saw my cousin Rolf, his wife Christa, their son (and his wife), and various grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Born in Wembley in 1925, Dorothy left school (St George's School in Harpenden, Hertfordshire) during the war.

Thereafter she studied chemistry at Imperial College of Science and Technology (now Imperial College London), before working for Glaxo, the British pharmaceutical company that became part of GlaxoSmithKline (now called GSK).

In 1947 she moved to Switzerland where she got a job working for Brown, Boveri & Company (BBC) in Baden near Zürich.

(BBC was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies that later merged with the General Swedish Electrical Limited Company - Swedish abbreviation ASEA - to form Asea Brown Boveri, aka ABB.)

It was in Baden that she met Reini, who was Swiss-German, and they married in 1949 when Dorothy was 23. As was the way, she then gave up her job to have a family.

Initially they lived in a small flat in Zurich but in 1951, with one young son (Rolf) and another (Tom) on the way, they moved to a larger apartment.

According to Dorothy, her father-in-law suggested they rent the property after it was recommended by someone he met in the street, and Reini duly signed a contract even though Dorothy hadn’t seen it.

(Funnily enough, my father did something similar when he and my mother moved to Scotland in 1969. That is, he bought a house my mother hadn’t seen. Fortunately, she liked it.)

Dorothy must have liked the flat in Zurich because she and Reini lived there for over 50 years before he died 20 years ago. (He was a few years older than Dorothy so he must have been in his eighties.)

Anyway, she continued to live there until two years ago when her landlords (the same family who had let the apartment in 1951) gave tenants a year’s notice that the two blocks of flats they owned were to be demolished and replaced with two new residential apartment buildings.

Since then Dorothy has lived in a small flat with a large terrace in a residential care home in another part of the city.

Speaking to her over the weekend however I was keen to know more about the post wars years.

“Why Switzerland?” I asked.

“I wanted to get out!” she said.

And who can blame her? Although there was some rationing of food in neutral Switzerland, there was no comparison with Britain where rationing continued until 1954.

My mother says her sister would send her chocolate, which is ironic because today one of the things on Dorothy’s wish list is Cadbury’s Dairy Milk which is not available in Switzerland.

I’m not sure it’s even considered to be chocolate on the continent (not enough cocoa, apparently) but my cousins love it as well so my mother took several large bars!

According to Dorothy, in those immediate post war years she would fly to Zurich from Heathrow on a Douglas DC-3 Dakota, a twin-engined aircraft with a cruising speed of 207mph, and a range of 1,500 miles.

The Dakota carried up to 32 passengers and was originally designed and launched before the war.

In truth she probably flew from Northolt (also in west London) because at that time Northolt not Heathrow was the UK’s busiest airport.

While Heathrow was under construction Northolt was also the operating base for British European Airways (BEA) whose first service from Heathrow didn’t take place until 1950.

My mother remembers flying to Zurich for the first time in the early Fifties, but it was Dorothy who did most of the travelling.

In 1956, three years before I was born, Rolf and Tom were pageboys at my parents’ wedding.

Reini rarely visited the UK but as a child I saw Dorothy several times when she came over to see my grandparents, sometimes bringing Rolf and Tom with her.

For many years she was a member of the Naval and Military Club where she stayed when she was in London.

Informally known as The In and Out Club, it was founded in 1862 and was based at 94 Piccadilly before moving to its current location, 4 St James’s Square, in 1999.

I remember having dinner with Dorothy at the club in the late Eighties. Earlier that day she had flown into London City Airport, the new London airport that opened in 1987.

As it happens I visited Switzerland for the first time in 1987, but I flew from Heathrow. I was speaking at a conference in Berne so I took the opportunity to spend a couple of days with Dorothy and Reini in Zurich.

Their flat was on the second floor of a building built of thick grey stone. It was a big apartment with a long central corridor, three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and a large dining area that led into a sitting room, and a balcony large enough for the whole family to eat outside.

What I remember most though is the clanging of the local church bells at seven o’clock in the morning. I had never heard anything like it but Dorothy and Reini barely noticed the cacophony.

Dorothy tells me that some people in Switzerland have started to complain about church clocks that toll in the middle of the night, and even the sound of cow bells has been known to antagonise some sensitive souls.

I said that in rural England there are similar stories of newcomers trying to put a stop to the local church bells, and even in urban areas people are moving next to pubs and then complaining that it’s too noisy.

In 2011, a few years after Reini died, I returned to Zurich but this time with my family. We caught the ferry at Portsmouth and drove to Switzerland via France). A few years later I went there on business and met up with Dorothy and my cousins for dinner.

In 2010 Dorothy came to my father’s 80th birthday celebration at Hassop Hall in Derbyshire, and after his death in 2014 there was another visit to Derbyshire to see my mother.

Talking of whom, fair play to my mother. She may be 94 but we must have walked several kilometres over the last few days.

(Our hotel - a former brewery at the top of a hill - was very nice but not, perhaps, in the most convenient location.)

She didn’t need airport assistance and the only small moment of alarm was when she (almost) walked in front of a moving tram!

As for Dorothy, aside from her restricted mobility, she is as sharp as ever and on the evidence of the last few days she could have several more years ahead of her.

That said, I can also see her rolling her eyes at the prospect so perish the thought!

Above: My aunt Dorothy, born April 2025, pictured, aged 100, on May 24, 2025. Below: my mother, 94, at Zurich Airport, May 25, 2025. Mission accomplished!

Ticket to ride

Currently in Switzerland.

I’ve brought my mother, 94, to Zurich to see her sister Dorothy who has lived here since 1947 and was 100 last month.

We’re staying in the ‘industrial chic’ B2 Hotel in what was previously a brewery (founded in 1867). The interior however feels very modern.

It’s nice but I’m not sure about the location because it’s quite a steep climb to the hotel. On reflection I should have given a bit more thought to my nonagenarian travelling companion.

Anyway, we’re seeing Dorothy today at the residential complex where she now lives. It has a restaurant so we’re going there for lunch.

Tomorrow we’ve been invited by my cousin Rolf to join him, his wife Christa, and Dorothy, for dinner in Frankental, where he and Crista live.

Frankental is a 40-minute tram ride from the centre of Zurich and Rolf has advised against using taxis on Saturday evening.

The tram, he says, is a better option, and he has kindly sent a card with six tickets to our hotel.

“At a tramstop you just shove the card into the slot on the left on the ticket machine and it activates a ticket for every shove.”

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? What could possibly go wrong?!

Watch this space.

Update: We got a taxi to Sydefädeli where my aunt lives, and the tram back.

The card my cousin sent me worked perfectly and I can see why he recommended the tram because it’s a quick and easy form of transport.

Spotless too. We’ll be using it again tomorrow.

Reform name game

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the think tank Reform would have to rebrand, and yesterday it was announced that it will henceforth be known as Re:State.

A few years ago I noted that:

Reform (the think tank, not the more recent political party) was launched in 2002 by Nick Herbert and Andrew Haldenby to ‘challenge the idea that increasing public spending, and taxation, was the only way to improve public services’.

A few months after the launch I was contacted by Herbert (who subsequently became a Conservative MP and is now a peer) who commissioned me to produce a magazine, also called Reform.

They seemed happy with the first issue but my services were quietly dispensed with the following year for reasons I described here. (I’m still on their mailing list though, and I hold no grudge!)

It was obvious, though, that the rise of Reform UK was going to put pressure on the think tank to change its name because I can’t imagine the trustees would have wanted to share the name with any political party, let alone a party as potentially divisive as its namesake.

An email set to subscribers yesterday confirmed this:

Our new name reflects our legacy, builds on our momentum, and looks ahead to our vision of the State remade.

It also reinforces our strictly independent, cross-party charitable status, ending the confusion created by the Brexit Party renaming as Reform UK.

It must be annoying, though, to be forced to give up the name it adopted almost two decades before the Brexit Party rebranded as Reform UK.

Ironically, though, before she became an MP in 2010 former Conservative PM Liz Truss was deputy director of Reform, hence this blogpost, My brush with Reform (and Liz Truss).

PS. Now there is no longer a think tank called Reform, perhaps Reform UK can drop ‘UK’ from its name? Just a thought.

The irony of recycling anti-smoking propaganda is lost on vaping advocates

The World Health Organisation ‘is peddling dangerous misinformation about vaping’.

That’s according to a tobacco harm reduction campaigner, and I largely agree with him.

At the same time however he also claims that combustible tobacco ‘kills eight million people a year’.

No evidence is offered to justify that figure, nor are we given a source. We’re simply expected to accept it as fact.

So I looked it up and, amusingly, the statistic appears to have come from … the WHO!

In other words, having been told that the WHO ‘is peddling dangerous misinformation about vaping’, we are supposed to accept the same organisation’s claim that smoking combustible tobacco ‘kills eight million people a year’.

But there’s more. According to Action on Smoking and Health:

Tobacco kills up to half of its users, this equates to 8 million deaths a year globally. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

If therefore you are minded to accept the argument that, globally, there are eight million smoking-related deaths every year, you presumably also accept that over one million deaths are the result of passive smoking.

Stuff like this is one of the reasons I find it hard to take many vaping advocates seriously, even when their motives are genuine.

The problem is that many are so invested in promoting vaping as a reduced risk option to smoking they are happy to recycle any old garbage about combustible tobacco, even when the source is the same organisation they are attacking for propagating disinformation about vaping!

The irony escapes them, it seems, which is quite funny when you think about it.

PS. I am reminded of a post, written in 2016, that featured a comment by musician Joe Jackson in response to Aaron Biebert, director of the vaping documentary A Billion Lives.

(The title of the film echoed another WHO assertion - that one billion people will die prematurely from smoking this century.)

Joe’s comments are as valid today as they were then so if you have a moment do read it: Joe Jackson on A Billion Lives.

Farewell Gary Lineker, but why did his departure take so long?

So, Gary Lineker has confirmed his premature departure from the BBC.

The Match of the Day presenter will step down after the final MOTD programme of the season on Saturday and will NOT present the World Cup for the corporation next year.

His time working for the BBC is up and even he finally recognised that he had to go.

The real question is, why did it take so long? Or, to put it another way, why was he not sacked by the BBC years ago?

Perhaps I should declare an interest because for five years from 1985 to 1990 I was director of the Media Monitoring Unit which was set up to highlight political bias on BBC current affairs programmes.

In 2017 I wrote:

For an ex-footballer with no experience of journalism and very little experience of broadcasting, Lineker has made a pretty good job of it.

He's clearly worked very hard to get where he is but that's part of the problem. With [his predecessor Des] Lynam almost every link or joke was seamless. Can you say that of Lineker, many of whose jokes feel a bit forced?

Even his body language – leaning forward, as if a little anxious – feels more urgent and therefore less comfortable than Lynam's more relaxed posture although, to be fair, the latter was usually sitting behind a desk.

But that's not why Lineker is stretching my patience. The truth is I can no longer watch Match of the Day without being reminded of his political views.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but by choosing to work for the BBC Lineker is in a privileged position. Most BBC presenters understand this (even those that work on Newsnight!).

Unlike Piers Morgan, who was almost certainly hired by ITV precisely because of his polarising views and large Twitter following, Lineker's foghorn opposition to Brexit and Trump are in my view a serious distraction.

I don't want to know what the presenter of Match of the Day thinks about the leading political issues of the day. When I think of all the presenters of the past I have no idea who David Coleman or Jimmy Hill voted for or what their position was on the miners' strike, Nixon or the EEC.

Likewise, throughout his long and successful broadcasting career, I had no idea what Des Lynam's political views were. Only in semi-retirement (2013), long after he was a national figure hosting a much loved TV institution, did he come out and endorse Ukip …

Readers may recall that Rod Liddle was sacked as editor of the Today programme for writing an article in the Guardian attacking the Countryside Alliance and people who hunt. Clearly there was one rule for Liddle (in 2002) and another for Lineker in 2017.

The Match of the Day presenter has of course argued that he's not a member of staff, he's freelance. That however is unlikely to be the perception most people have, even the very small number who see him presenting Champions League football on BT Sport.

Consequently he has a responsibility, like all BBC employees (especially those in the public eye), not to draw attention to his political beliefs.

Former Blue Peter presenter and Five Live broadcaster Richard Bacon seems to share Lineker's views on Trump and Brexit. He too is freelance but unlike Lineker his BBC work is far more sporadic these days. He's not on national television every week. It's an important difference.

The fact is, as long as Lineker enjoys a big fat income for presenting a long-running, high profile television programme for a publicly-funded broadcaster, he should abide by the same guidelines as editors, producers and journalists.

Technically it might not be in his contract but Lineker's reinvention as a political protester suggests a poor understanding of the need for impartiality at all levels of the BBC.

Whether it's driven by naivety or arrogance I can't say. Whatever the answer, someone at the BBC should have a little word in those jug-like ears.

See: Gary Lineker, political protester - what would Des Lynam think?

Two years ago, when Lineker was suspended by the BBC following a crass tweet comparing the Conservative Government’s Rwanda policy with 1930s Germany, I revisited the subject:

Lineker may be freelance and work for other broadcasters but he’s the BBC's highest paid presenter, for Christ’s sake, with arguably the biggest profile of any BBC presenter after David Attenborough.

He didn't achieve that profile by presenting programmes on BT Sport or LaLiga TV, who have also employed him. As someone else said yesterday, he has 'BBC' stamped on his forehead and with that comes responsibilities, including the responsibility not to say or tweet overtly political messages while he is being paid by millions of licence payers who are under threat of criminal prosecution if we don't cough up.

I suspect though that many younger people, below the age of 30 certainly, have never purchased a TV licence so arguments about the licence fee being a factor in relation to Lineker's attacks on government ministers go right over their heads.

Part of the problem of course is social media. It must be lovely to enjoy the love and support of millions of followers, but it's an echo chamber. How does Lineker not see that?

So where do we go from here? There are two options:

One, Lineker must accept, like all leading BBC presenters, to abide by the Corporation's guidelines on political tweets and comments. It doesn't matter if he is 'freelance'. It's the perception that matters, not the technicality.

Two, if he can't accept the restrictions of working for the BBC, he should quit. He won't be cancelled or out of work because many commercial broadcasters would love to have him.

If, in his absence, commentators, presenters and pundits like Alan Shearer don’t want to work for the BBC, no problem. Jog on.

A less selfish individual might regret the chaos he has caused these past few days and the hellishly difficult position he has put many of his colleagues in.

They may have downed tools in 'solidarity' but how many have done so in order not to be labelled a 'scab'. There’s no bravery in being part of the herd so there must be mixed feelings, to say the least.

Lineker, meanwhile, can walk into another, probably better paid, job. But can they?

What annoys me, and must annoy some of his BBC colleagues, is why does he expect to be treated differently to most of his fellow BBC sports presenters, past and present?

See: Let’s talk about Gary Lineker

To the above I would merely add: if any of Lineker’s Match of the Day colleagues wish to follow him out the door they are more than welcome to.

When they walked out in sympathy with their mate two years ago they demonstrated zero understanding of the privileged position they enjoy working for the BBC, an organisation funded not by advertising but by a licence fee paid for by the public under threat of prosecution.

No-one is irreplaceable, as Lineker is about to find out. And nor are the pundits, presenters and commentators who walked out with him.

I hope some of them are considering their futures too.

See: Heroes

Up and running

My daughter ran her first half marathon yesterday.

The Hackney Half Marathon was part of Hackney Moves, ‘an unforgettable weekend of sport, entertainment and celebration in vibrant East London’.

I was a bit surprised when Sophie took up running last year, but she seems to enjoy it and having entered the Hackney Half Marathon she followed a fairly rigid regime that culminated in a 17km training run a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday's run started - and finished - at Hackney Marshes, an area of east London I’ve driven past many times but never explored on foot.

As advised by the organisers, we parked the car at Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford and followed the pop up signs to ‘Hackney Festival Village’ (a 30-minute walk) where 24,000 runners were gathering and limbering up ahead of the event.

Runners were assigned to one of eight groups and when we arrived at 9.15 the early runners had already set off.

Sophie was in the group that started at 10.15, so we watched them leave before walking to the eleven mile point - bordering Victoria Park - where we shouted encouragement ahead of the final, two-mile, stretch.

The Hackney Half Marathon is the largest half marathon in London and there were a lot of spectators - many of them families and friends - supporting the runners en route.

Pounding music occasionally competed with the cheers of the spectators, creating a noisy, vibrant atmosphere.

An app allowed us to track Sophie’s position so we knew where she was and what time she would reach the eleven mile point.

We then retraced our steps back to Hackney Marshes (which was shorter than the half marathon route) and got back in time to see her finish.

Impressively she was able to sprint the last few hundred yards and take a call on her phone from friends who were waiting at the finish line!

I, on the other hand, was absolutely knackered.

According to my wife’s Apple Watch, by the time we got back to the car she had walked 28,000 steps (approximately 11.5 miles), and as I was alongside her for every one of them I must have covered the same distance.

I can’t remember the last time I walked eleven miles. Thirty years, probably, and I won’t be doing it again any time soon.

Anyway, congrats to my daughter on her first half marathon. I’m biased, obviously, but great effort!

See also: Hackney Half 2025: ‘Lime bike plan’ and record demand as race reaches new heights (The Standard)