Mark Littlewood - end of an era

As some of you may have read, Mark Littlewood is stepping down after 14 years as director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

I don’t claim to know Mark very well, but I know him well enough to pay him this small tribute.

Our paths first crossed over 20 years ago but it wasn’t until 2008 that we met and worked together.

After leaving the Liberal Democrats, for whom he was a pugnacious and occasionally controversial head of media, Mark had set up a small think tank called Progressive Vision.

His interest in the smoking issue was evident pretty quickly and in 2008 PV and Forest co-hosted two events at the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth.

The following year we repeated the exercise at the 2009 Lib Dem conference, also in Bournemouth, and that went well too.

Prior to that, in June 2009, we also joined forces for the launch of the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign at a pub in Westminster.

I'm sure further collaborations would have followed had it not been for an unexpected development.

In December 2009 Mark was appointed director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

I was a bit surprised, if I’m honest. Previous DGs may have been free market evangelists but their style was very different to that of Mark, who had a rather more abrasive, even populist, approach to politics.

In hindsight though his appointment was a brave and inspired choice that soon bore fruit as the IEA's media presence quickly escalated.

Yes, it could be argued that, occasionally, the IEA under Mark has over-stepped that fine line between think tank and pressure group, but the positives, in my view, have far outweighed the negatives.

The huge amount of media coverage the IEA has enjoyed under Mark’s leadership, and the frequency with which IEA commentators appear on TV and radio, and in the press, is extraordinary.

The case for free markets and less regulation requires constant advocacy, and under Mark the IEA has led the way.

But it's not just about column inches. The arguments have to stand up to scrutiny too and the huge number of IEA pamphlets and reports supports the intellectual rigour behind the operation.

Kudos too to Mark’s eye for talent (and I mean that in the best possible way!).

Chris Snowdon, who joined the IEA in 2011, is one example. Kate Andrews, now economics editor at The Spectator, is another.

Madeline Grant and Annabel Denham were recruited and later snapped up by the Telegraph, and other talents have included Ruth Porter, who left for Policy Exchange (and other adventures!), and Emily Carver, now a presenter at GB News.

As it happens, Forest’s connection with the IEA goes back long before Mark and me, but it was only during Mark’s tenure that it was allowed to develop.

Chairman of Forest from 1987 to 2006 was the late Lord Harris of High Cross. In 1956 Ralph was one of the founders of the IEA, which he led from 1957 to 1988.

Russell Lewis, who died last year and was a non-executive director of Forest for 30 years, was acting director of the IEA in 1992, while John Burton, another non-executive director, is a fellow of the IEA.

Despite those associations, Forest and the IEA were kept largely at arm's length by Mark's predecessor.

Wearing my journalist hat, for example, I remember pitching a proposal to produce a magazine for the IEA but it was rejected partly, I was told, because of my role with Forest.

In contrast, since Mark became director-general the IEA has hosted numerous Forest events although, to be fair, the events space didn’t really exist before Mark took over because it was his idea, if I recall.

Nevertheless, he has also been a guest speaker at several other Forest events, including our 40th anniversary dinner at Boisdale of Canary Wharf, and I can’t imagine his immediate predecessor accepting similar invitations.

We’ve even been on the same side in an Oxford Union debate, but what I value most, perhaps, are the many laughs we’ve had.

Politics is a serious business but there’s no reason it can’t be fun too.

Sadly, Ralph Harris didn't live to see Mark appointed director-general but I'm sure he would have approved and been a huge fan, just like John Burton.

In fact, I think Ralph would have seen in Mark a kindred spirit.

To begin with, don't be fooled by the title, Baron Harris of High Cross. Ralph was brought up by working class parents on a council estate in Tottenham.

He went to the local grammar school and won a place at Cambridge where he graduated with a first class degree, not unlike Mark who went to an all boys secondary school (formerly a grammar school), then studied at Balliol College, Oxford.

At the IEA Ralph was known as the "hustler". It was his colleague Arthur Selsdon who was credited with having the intellectual nous, and it was Ralph (who was no mug himself) who sold Selsdon's ideas to anyone who would listen.

If he'll forgive me, because I don't mean it in a derogatory way, you could describe Mark in much the same way.

But the similarities with Lord Harris don't end there because there are reports that Mark is also in line for a peerage in Liz Truss’s resignation honours list.

If that is the former PM’s legacy to the nation it’s a not bad one because I’m pretty sure Mark would make a fine working peer.

Either way, it's the end of an era, but what fun it’s been.

See also: Mark Littlewood to step down as IEA director general and successor search begins (IEA)

Below: launching the Save Our Pubs & Club campaign with Forest in 2009. Left to right: Mark and his Progressive Vision colleagues Angela Harbutt and Shane Frith; at the Forest Freedom Dinner; and at Forest’s 40th anniversary dinner in 2019.

Arbroath smokies and donkey derbies

The Scottish Championship, the second tier in Scottish football, kicked off on Friday night.

The first match, broadcast live on BBC Scotland, featured Arbroath and Dundee United.

As readers know, I’ve supported United since 1969 when my family moved to Scotland.

Living in Cambridgeshire I don’t get to many matches these days but I try to attend three or four home games a year, plus the occasional away fixture.

The away games I’ve enjoyed most were in places like Inverness and Stranraer because it felt more of an adventure to get there.

For a Scottish Cup match in 2014 I got the sleeper from Euston and arrived in Inverness at 8.00am the following morning.

Seen from the comfort of my bed, the Highland line from Perth to Inverness was breathtaking. It was March and there was still snow on the hills.

The match wasn’t bad either. We won 5-0.

Anyway, last season was a bit of a disaster and resulted in ignominy and relegation, hence the new league season starting at Arbroath.

To those unfamiliar with the area, Arbroath is a coastal town 17 miles east of Dundee.

Gayfield, home of Arbroath FC, is virtually on the beach which makes it especially vulnerable to the wind that blows in from the North Sea.

I’ve been to Gayfield a couple of times and had I not just got back from holiday last week I would have liked to have gone again.

The ground was packed - 5,000 people including 3,000 United supporters - so there must have been a great atmosphere (and that was before United won 4-0).

Shortly after the game I spotted, on social media, the photo above which was taken high above the ground with the use of a drone.

You can see the United fans packed into the away end on the right, with the beach and the sea at the top of the picture.

It’s a fabulous photo and it reminded me why I love Scottish football. The actual games may not be the best quality but the locations of some of the grounds are worth the price of admission alone.

Also in the Championship this season are Airdrie, Ayr, Dunfermline, Greenock Morton, Inverness, Queens Park and Partick Thistle (both Glasgow), and Raith Rovers (Kirkcaldy).

I’ve been to all but Airdrie, Ayr and Queens Park so I’ll try to put that right this season.

Of those clubs, Dunfermline has the best stadium but Cappielow Park, home of Morton, has arguably the best location, overlooking the Firth of Clyde and the hills beyond.

Apart from visiting Gayfield, I have several other memories of Arbroath, all from my childhood.

The first time we visited the town I must have been ten or eleven but I remember it because my father insisted on buying a pair of Arbroath smokies.

I’ve always loved kippers (smoked herring) but a smokie (hot-smoked haddock) is a stronger and more acquired taste. In those days you could buy them direct from the smoke house and take them home. Perhaps you still can.

A year or two later I was invited to take part in a donkey derby in the town. No idea why. All I remember is hanging on grimly in heat after heat without winning a single race.

I also remember visiting the fun fair that sits right next to the football ground.

But the day that really sticks in my mind is when my friend Bill and I were recruited to deliver leaflets to an entire Arbroath estate.

If I remember they were to promote the furniture company his father worked for but, having quickly abandoned the one leaflet per house instruction, we were soon pushing half a dozen through every letter box in the hope that the job might be completed before it got dark and we could go home.

Well, it was December and that North Sea wind was bloody freezing!

Photo courtesy David’s Drone Pictures

How to undermine the Government’s vaping strategy? Ask ASH!

Further to my previous post, which highlighted the fact that ASH is calling for a ban on the promotion and display of e-cigarettes in shops, the Independent today reports that:

In a survey of 12,271 adults carried out for ASH by YouGov, 43% thought vaping was as dangerous or more dangerous than smoking cigarettes.

Hazel Cheeseman, the increasingly high profile deputy CEO of ASH, said:

“The Government has backed a vaping strategy as its path to reduce rates of smoking, but this approach will be undermined if smokers don’t try vapes due to safety fears, or stop vaping too soon and revert to smoking.

“The Government must act quickly to improve public understanding that vaping poses a fraction of the risk of smoking.”

Forgive me, but I’m confused.

On the one hand, ASH is worried that the Government’s vaping strategy will be undermined if smokers don’t switch because of concerns about the safety of vapes.

On the other, they are lobbying the Government to ban the promotion and display of e-cigarettes in shops.

I get that the latter is designed primarily to stop children seeing and therefore buying vapes.

But if you hide e-cigarettes behind shutters, like tobacco, what message would that send out to consumers, young and old, including current smokers, about the safety of e-cigarettes?

You can’t have it both ways. If ASH, and the Government, believe e-cigarettes are a much safer alternative to combustible cigarettes, then you have to permit the display of e-cigarettes in shops.

Anything else would be like taking a shotgun and shooting yourself in the foot.

The irony is that while ASH is bleating about the Government’s vaping strategy being undermined by a lack of public understanding about the relative risks of smoking and vaping, it’s the tobacco control lobby, led by ASH, that could do more harm by railroading the Government into a measure that will almost certainly be counter-productive in terms of smokers switching to vapes.

The problem is that the knee-jerk reaction of campaigners like ASH is to ban, ban, and ban again. Demanding prohibition of one sort or another is their default setting and they seem powerless to turn it off.

That said, it makes me happy (and hopeful) that they’re not as clever as they think they are.

See: More than 40% of smokers think vaping is more harmful than cigarettes (Independent)

PS. The lunacy is not restricted to ASH. See also: We need “much heavier restrictions” on vapes, says former health minister (New Statesman)

With friends like these (a gentle reminder)

ASH, considered by some to be ‘pro-vaping’, has once again called for a ban on the promotion and display of e-cigarettes in shops.

Following publication of a study in the journal Tobacco Control, The Times reports that:

Researchers at Imperial College London asked 12,445 children aged from 11 to 18 if they notice vapes when they go into supermarkets. Some 66 per cent said they did last year, up from 57 per cent when the same survey was carried out in 2018.

Readers will be familiar with this type of survey because it is very similar to research carried out before the introduction of the tobacco display ban.

However, just because children ‘notice’ tobacco or e-cigarettes in shops, that’s not a good reason to hide them from sight. (What next? Alcohol? Sunbeds?)

Laws are already in place banning their sale to under 18s, so how about properly enforcing that law before introducing yet another unnecessarily restrictive regulation that treats everyone like children?

According to Hazel Cheeseman, deputy CEO of ASH, however:

“Quantifying the impact on children of the growing promotion of vapes is crucial to determine the scale of the problem and how it can be best addressed. This analysis shows that in-store promotion has the biggest impact, which is why ASH is advocating that promotion and display of e-cigarettes in shops should be prohibited, as should the child-friendly packaging and labelling of vapes.”

Also quoted by The Times is Anthony Laverty, ‘lead author of the research and lecturer at the school of public health at Imperial College’, and Nicholas Hopkinson, ‘co-author of the study and professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial’.

According to Laverty:

“These results highlight high levels of exposure to tobacco and e-cigarettes among children, as well as the ease of accessing these products.

“This is despite legislation prohibiting sales to minors. There needs to be greater enforcement of existing laws on the display of tobacco, as well as action to stem e-cigarette advertising and put vapes out of sight and reach of children.”

To which Hopkinson added:

“In 2021 the UK government rejected amendments to the Health and Care Bill which would have given it power to control types of e-cigarette marketing that promote youth uptake.

“As well as display bans and standardised packaging, an excise tax on disposable vapes would stop them being available at pocket money prices and bring them into the excise control regime, giving [HM Revenue & Customs] and Border Force powers to deal with illegal imports.”

I don’t know about about you, but I always feel uncomfortable when researchers call for government action.

The job of a truly independent researcher - with no skin in the game - is surely to conduct research but leave the campaigning and lobbying to others (ASH, for example).

Unfortunately the line between lobbyists and researchers has been blurred for a very long time, and this yet another example.

Sadly, The Times failed to mention that ‘Nick’ Hopkinson is chairman of ASH, but perhaps that wasn’t in the press release.

Anyway, I mention this just to re-emphasise the point I have made over and over and over again.

What we’re seeing is the tobacco template being adopted for e-cigarettes. Suck up to them all you like, but ASH is not and never will be the vapers’ friend.

Norway, Denmark, and the end of the Dream

Just returned from a seven-day cruise to Norway and Denmark.

Not the most glamorous destinations, I grant you, but we got a good deal and there was no risk of being engulfed by forest fires.

Last Saturday, having stayed overnight in Lymington in the New Forest, we drove the short distance to Southampton, boarded our ship, and set sail, entering the English Channel via the Solent.

The next day we crossed the North Sea, arriving in Kristiansand in Norway on Monday morning, followed by Copenhagen on Tuesday, and Oslo on Thursday.

A further stop, at Skagen on the northernmost point of Denmark, was cancelled because of high winds that, we were told, made it unsafe to dock. Instead the ship spent a second day in Copenhagen.

Most of the time however the weather was OK - sunny intervals and moderate temperatures.

It’s 16 years since we embarked on our first cruise, a 12-day trip to the Baltics that took us to Warnemunde in Germany (via the Kiel Canal), then Tallin, St Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen.

Since then we’ve been on so many cruises I’ve almost lost count.

Top of the list is probably the transatlantic voyage to New York in 2017, followed by the cruise to Alaska (from Vancouver) in 2019, and a post-Covid no stop ‘sun voyage’ in 2021.

Over the last decade the majority have been with Cunard (Queen Victoria, twice, Queen Elizabeth, twice, and Queen Mary 2).

Last week however we were on Sky Princess, one of 15 ships owned by Princess Cruises, and I can’t help comparing it with our first ship, Norwegian Dream, owned (at the time) by Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL).

Norwegian Dream was built in 1992 so it was already 15 years old when we embarked at Dover in August 2007.

What we didn’t know was that, in 1998, it had been cut in half with an additional section added to make it longer and therefore accommodate more passengers.

Our cabins were quite small and had a porthole or small ‘picture window’. Looking at photos of the ship, I don’t think a single cabin had a balcony.

Contrast that with modern cruise ships. Most if not all outside cabins have a balcony, with floor to ceiling windows and sliding doors that allow plenty of light to flood in.

The Sky Princess was built in 2019 and the central piazza has the decor of a small Arabian palace.

In place of key cards, passengers are given electronic ‘medallions’ so when you approach your cabin the door unlocks automatically.

(This is particularly useful when you have a drink in one hand and food in the other.)

The medallions work as security tags or ID when passengers get off and on the ship in port.

Matched with an app, they can also be used to navigate your way around the ship, or locate your ‘shipmates’.

In practice, it means that if you’ve taken refuge in one of several bars, your wife can find out exactly where you are.

The on board wi-fi, which used to be an unreliable add-on that cost hundreds of pounds, resulting in a medical condition known as ‘internet anxiety’, is now part of a pre-paid package and worked flawlessly.

Sometimes however the public areas on Sky Princess felt rather crowded, which I think may be due to the current trend for a higher ratio of cabins per ship, which in turn has resulted in more passengers in relation to the size of the ship.

I may be wrong but we’ll have an opportunity to test this hypothesis next year because we are booked on the Queen Anne, Cunard’s new ship whose maiden voyage is scheduled for May 2024.

Accommodating 3,000 passengers, more than any other Cunard ship (even though it’s smaller than QM2), it is nevertheless fewer than Sky Princess (4,610 passengers, 1,411 crew) and most other modern cruise ships, some of which carry in excess of 6,000 passengers, which is not my idea of fun.

As for Norwegian Dream (2,156 passengers), I have just discovered that it was sold by NCL in 2012 to new owners who re-registered it in Singapore and renamed it SuperStar Gemini before selling it for scrap in India last year.

To date, Norwegian Dream is the only ship we’ve been on that has been retired or scrapped. The others (still in active service, having undergone one or more refurbishments) are:

Crown Princess, launched 2006 (sailed 2010)
Grand Princess, 1997 (2012)
Queen Victoria, 2007 (2014 & 2016)
Queen Mary 2, 2003 (2017)
Celebrity Eclipse, 2010 (2019)
Queen Elizabeth, 2010 (2021 & 2022)

Finally, I’ve been asked many times whether I enjoy cruising. The evidence suggests I do, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Truth is, there are pros and cons, as I tried to explain following a tweet by broadcaster Iain Dale a few years ago - see ‘Bon voyage’.

As for our latest cruise, nothing against Kristiansand or Oslo, but I particularly liked Copenhagen. We saw a side to it we didn’t see when we visited the city (very briefly) during our Baltic cruise in 2007.

Lots of independent coffee shops, some great restaurants, and the ‘world’s best Metro’.

I’d definitely go back. A midwinter mini-break, perhaps.

Keeping the lighter flickering

One of the recipients of a Forest award at Boisdale last week was Alwyn Turner (above).

Eight weeks ago he wrote an essay for a website called Lion and Unicorn that features the work of five writers including Alwyn, an historian who writes about British culture and politics.

‘Time takes a cigarette’ (the opening words of ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’, my favourite Bowie song) took a nostalgic look at some of the cigarettes and tobacco favoured by the author in the days when he was a smoker.

Even for a non-smoker like me, it was a hugely evocative piece, combining snippets of social history with pop culture.

Today, Alwyn is an ex-smoker who is ‘very happy to accept that the War on Tobacco has been a Good Thing’, although the ironic use of capital letters suggests a slightly more ambiguous verdict.

Nevertheless, I did wonder if he would accept our invitation to the Forest Summer Lunch because I understand why some people hesitate or decline to attend our events.

Also, he didn’t know he was going to be given an award until we announced it, so there was no incentive other than simple curiosity allied to an open mind.

I am delighted he did come because not only was he a charming and erudite guest, he has since written a rather lovely piece (‘Settin’ the woods on fire’) about being in receipt of an award ‘for the first time in my life’.

Of Forest, he writes:

Forest always insisted that they were not pro-smoking, but pro-freedom of choice. That means the organisation takes in a fair chunk of pure libertarianism, which goes further in its distrust of the state than I do, but even a liberal would have to be very pollyannaish not to be at least a little concerned by the censorious puritanism of successive governments. It’s good to have the likes of Forest around, that they might occasionally question the boundless self-confidence of Those Who Know Better.

As for the following passage, you might not agree with every word, but what a beautiful, even poetic, turn of phrase at the end:

Smoking is probably a lost cause, of course. Forest are, as their opponents would say, on the wrong side of history. But the wider war continues, as it has done for centuries, and there’s something to be said – as the shadows gather – for keeping the lighter flickering.

He then excels himself by squeezing in a reference to one of Britain’s comedy icons:

Tony Hancock once asked: ‘Do we get a badge for doing this?’ The answer, it turns out, is: Yes. Yes, we do. Well, stone me.

Wonderful stuff.

Why vaping advocates should support the right to smoke

Here's my short introductory speech at Boisdale this week. Readers of this blog have heard it all before so apologies for being predictable ...

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us for the 2023 Forest Lunch & Awards.

In a few minutes I’m going to introduce our special guest speaker, but first, a quick reminder of where we were when I stood here 12 months ago.

It was shortly after the publication of the Khan Review, the allegedly independent review by Dr Javed Khan into making smoking history by 2030.

The Khan Review was commissioned by former health secretary Sajid Javid who, ironically, resigned from government a few hours after last year’s Forest Summer Lunch, but I’m assured it was complete coincidence.

Sajid’s resignation was followed, a few minutes later, by that of Rishi Sunak, and a number of us were still here, on the terrace, soaking up the news, so it was quite a dramatic day.

Anyway, the Khan Review made 14 recommendations, including raising the age of sale of tobacco by one year every year until no-one can legally buy cigarettes any more.

It also called for mass media campaigns to persuade smokers to quit, and suggested that the colour of cigarettes should be changed from white to dirty green.

In April this year the Government responded to Dr Khan’s recommendations in a way I can only describe as rather encouraging.

There appeared to be very little enthusiasm for most of Dr Khan’s recommendations, with one exception. The Governmentt, said Khan, must embrace the promotion of vaping as an effective tool to help people quit smoking tobacco - and the Government seemed to agree, announcing that ‘free’ vape kits are to be given to up to one million smokers to encourage them to switch.

Forest broadly welcomed this announcement because we have no problem with any policy that is based on education, including information about the relative risks of smoking and vaping, as opposed to coercion and further restrictive laws and regulations.

Most gratifying of all, both public health minister Liam O'Brien and the prime minister have emphasised and reiterated the Government’s belief in personal responsibility, which is music to our ears because, together with freedom of choice, they are the two things Forest has stood for and advocated for over 40 years.

There are still however some dark clouds on the horizon.

Forest is not and never has been party political. Frankly, when it comes to nanny state measures, there’s very little to choose between any of the parties.

Nevertheless, I think it’s generally accepted that Labour are likely to win the next General Election and, if you can’t remember what happened under the last Labour Government, let me remind you.

In 2002 Labour introduced a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

In 2007 Labour reneged on a manifesto commitment to exempt private members clubs and pubs that don’t serve food, and banned smoking in all enclosed public places. The ban embraced every pub and club in the country, including those that could easily have had well-ventilated smoking rooms.

They then introduced a law banning tobacco vending machines

And before they left office in 2010 they passed yet another law - that was later enforced by the new Coalition Government - that banned the display of tobacco in shops.

So when Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting says Labour will not only prioritise reducing smoking and vaping, but will consider the New Zealand policy of banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2008, I think we have reason to be concerned.

Everyone knows the health risks of smoking. If adults choose to smoke, they have every right to smoke without being bullied and harassed until they quit.

The same of course goes for vaping.

So I’ll finish with a message for advocates of vaping, many of whom are happy to keep quiet when politicians and anti-smoking zealots go after smokers.

Vaping is next. You might think vaping will escape the prohibitionist tendencies of campaigners like Action on Smoking and Health.

But let’s be clear. ASH’s current support for vaping is as thin as cigarette paper. In their eyes vaping is just another weapon to beat smoking. The idea that adults might vape long-term because they enjoy it is anathema to them.

In the medium to long term they want adults to quit ALL forms of recreational nicotine.

That’s what we’re up against and so, to the smug, self-righteous and sanctimonious vaping advocates who are happy to throw smokers under a bus, I say this:

Forest will ALWAYS defend and support the right to vape. But as consumers we’re all in the same boat, so get off your high horse and support the right to smoke as well as the right to vape because, if you don’t, the war on vaping will follow the same pattern as the war on tobacco.

PS. To view the Forest Summer Lunch photo gallery click here.

Life, liberty and lunch – a celebration

Well, that went quite well.

Despite some late withdrawals, we pretty much had a full house for the 2023 Forest Summer Lunch & Awards at Boisdale of Belgravia on Tuesday.

In fact we had to accommodate some guests in the Courtyard, which is immediately adjacent to the main restaurant, because there were too many for the Mac, as it's called.

That worked rather well, I thought, because it generated even more atmosphere and when it came to the speeches and awards everyone came through to the main restaurant so it was literally standing room only.

Before lunch the smoking terrace was packed (and quite smoky!) but we managed to get everyone seated on time.

The schedule slipped a little after that but I think most people had written off the afternoon, so I don't think it mattered too much.

Huge thanks, as ever, to our host Ranald Macdonald, MD of Boisdale Restaurants.

Ranald reminded guests how long we have worked together. I first approached him as a potential ally in 2004 and Forest has been hosting events at Boisdale ever since.

A few days before the introduction of the smoking ban in England in 2007 we also co-hosted a valedictory dinner for 400 people at the Savoy Hotel (principal guest speaker: Andrew Neil) that was attended by TV crews from twelve countries including Russia, Greece and France. (Newsnight was there too.)

But I digress.

Ranald presented the first award of the day to Ricardo Carioni, who describes himself as a 'true and passionate cigar champion'.

Ricardo (below) was recently appointed CEO of Gesinta International Tobacco Company, 'the leading premium cigar company in Spain'. Prior to that he was COO at Tor Imports, another cigar company.

He is also a former deputy ambassador of Nicaragua to the UK, Ireland and Iceland, which led to a minor diplomatic incident when he was challenged by two guests on Nicaragua's human rights' record.

According to The Times Diary yesterday:

Sparks flew at an awards lunch held at Boisdale of Belgravia yesterday by Forest, the pro-smoking group, after a former Nicaraguan deputy ambassador was seated opposite Paul Staines, the libertarian political blogger better known as Guido Fawkes.

Prickling at Staines’s comments about his president, Daniel Ortega, the diplomat sniffily asked what he knew about Nicaragua, allowing Staines to puff his 1089 book about human rights abuses under Ortega's Sandinistas.

There was, however, a glimmer of agreement. "Communists do make the best cigars," Staines conceded.

The other guest who confronted Ricardo was my old friend Peter Young, with whom I edited a student newspaper at Aberdeen University in the late Seventies.

Peter was subsequently elected chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students (beating Anna Soubry!), and later founded Adam Smith International, the commercial arm of the Adam Smith Institute.

By coincidence, the day before our lunch CapX had published an article by Peter castigating the lack of sanctions imposed on Russia by South American countries including Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. (See ‘The West must crack down on Russia’s Latin American proxy states’.)

Anyway, blissfully unaware of the contretemps, I said a few words about smoking and vaping (that I might publish in my next post), before introducing our guest speaker:

His TV credits include Live at the Apollo, Michael McIntyre’s Roadshow, and Channel 4’s Stand Up for the Week.

He is also a regular on Radio 4’s The News Quiz, and various other panel games, and from 1998 to 2002 he wrote and hosted eight series of the news satire, The Way It Is.

He is to date the only comedian to have appeared on both University Challenge: The Professionals, and Christmas University Challenge. He also won Celebrity Mastermind in 2012, with his specialist subject being Sir Ernest Shackleton.

He has also appeared multiple times on various debate shows, including BBC Question Time and The Big Question.

He writes for the Telegraph and the online magazine Spiked, and he is also a presenter on GB News where he hosts Headliners, the late night look at the next day’s newspapers.

Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to … Mr Simon Evans.

I think it's fair to say that Simon was one of the best speakers we have ever had.

Not only was he funny, but he engaged with our audience, and the subject, in a way that few of our other speakers have done.

Better still, not only did he join us for drinks before lunch, he was one of the last to leave, hours after the event had (officially) concluded.

Very few speakers do that so I do believe he enjoyed himself!

Talking of awards, there were six presentations in addition to 'Cigar Champion'. The first I described as bittersweet because it was a posthumous award to the late Russell Lewis, who was a non-executive director of Forest for 30 years, from 1992 until his death last year.

Russell's award was accepted by his son Dan. (See also ‘A tribute to Russell Lewis’.)

The next three awards were presented to Reem Ibrahim ('Young Freedom Fighter of the Year'), Kara Kennedy (Best Article: 'An ode to smoking'), and Alwyn Turner (Best Essay: 'Time takes a cigarette').

Reem and Alwyn were there to collect their awards in person.

Kara, who works for The Spectator World (the US edition of The Spectator) and recently moved to America, sent us a short acceptance speech which we read out:

When I wrote the column on smoking after a big-name columnist dropped out and we scrambled to fill the space, I had no idea of what the reception would be. It turns out that smoking really does bring people together and shows that the spectator in particular has a very fun/anti puritan readership. I’m honored to be given this award and am very sad that I’m not here to collect it, however, I’ll be at Shelly’s, my new favorite smoking bar in DC, which is so smoky you can barely see the people you’re with. Cheers!”

The winner of our next award ('Best Use of Taxpayers' Money') wasn't present so we invited John O'Connell, director of the TaxPayers Alliance, to accept it and say a few words.

The absent recipient was the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP for (allegedly) having a smoking den built ('with taxpayers' cash') on the roof of his government department.

Last but not least, we invited Chris Snowdon, editor of the Nanny State Index, to choose - from one of three nominees - the 2023 'Nanny-in-Chief' award. They were announced (by me) as follows:

Our first nominee is George Osborne. When he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer under David Cameron, he introduced the infamous sugar tax. This year, despite raising tens of billions of pounds from smokers when he was chancellor, he called on the government to ban the sale of cigarettes in the UK. He also wants the sugar tax extended to fruit juice and milkshakes.

Our second nominee is Deborah Arnott. As director of the anti-smoking group ASH, Deborah continues to demand further anti-smoking measures – whether it be raising the age of sale, higher taxes on cigarettes and tobacco, or a tobacco levy that would push the price even higher.

But the reason she’s been nominated for a Nanny is because it’s exactly 20 years since she was appointed director of ASH and she STILL hasn’t been honoured with an MBE or OBE - unlike the directors of Smokefree South West and Smokefree North West which don’t even exist any more - and we think 20 years of nannying the nation deserves some sort of recognition.

Our third and final nominee is Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting. According to Wes, reducing smoking AND vaping will be “priority” for the next Labour government, and he has promised to consider the New Zealand policy whereby the sale of tobacco will be banned to everyone born after 2008.

After mulling it over and eliminating – after careful consideration – two of the three candidates, Chris announced that Britain's 'Nanny-in-Chief 2023' is .... former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

Officially the lunch was then over but I'm pleased to say we were joined on the terrace for several hours by many guests who seemed reluctant to return to their work, and the final guests didn't depart until almost 9.00pm.

One of them was Chris Snowdon who commented on Twitter, 'One hell of a day!'.

Other comments, received via email in the last 24 hours, include 'What an excellent lunch', 'Great speeches and fantastic company', 'A wonderful event with fantastic speeches, food and smoke', ‘Fantastic ethos, brilliant company ... May Forest fight on for our basic civilized values a good deal longer.'

I'm happy with that.

PS. There is a fabulous gallery of photos here. Do have a look.