Monday mourning

This morning I tweeted a link to a report that appeared on the BBC News website overnight.

Māori mourn loss of hard-won smoking reform

If anyone is in mourning, however, it’s the BBC.

When it was reported, in December 2021, that the Labour government in New Zealand wanted to ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2008, I noted that:

Forest’s reaction was reported by the digital Daily Express and MailOnline and I was also interviewed by Julia Hartley-Brewer on Talk Radio, Patrick Christys and Mercy Muroki on GB News, and Darren Adam on LBC.

The glaring omission on that list is the BBC.

See: Balance and the BBC (Taking Liberties)

Two weeks ago, when the incoming centre-right government in New Zealand announced that, as part of the new coalition agreement, it would repeal the policy, the BBC sniffily ignored the news for three whole days.

When the BBC News website finally got round to acknowledging the story, it led with the views of ‘health experts’ - who were inevitably incensed by the decision - and ignored the many voices who supported it.

See: New Zealand smoking ban: Health experts criticise new government's shock reversal (BBC News)

This is important because what’s happening in New Zealand, where the idea for a generational sales ban originated, is clearly of enormous relevance to the UK where the Government has only recently closed a public consultation on the issue.

Now, two weeks later, the BBC is using the highly emotive word ‘mourn’ to describe the reaction of an entire race of people, many of whom may actually welcome the incoming government’s more liberal approach to tobacco control.

What is missing, once again, is any semblance of balance, but I’m not sure the BBC cares anymore.

Here, for example, is what I wrote in 2021 when Forest took Five Live presenter Nihal Arthanayake to task for interviewing only Hazel Cheeseman of ASH when the New Zealand ban was first announced:

What is depressing is that a leading presenter on a national BBC radio station appears to have set himself up as judge and jury on smoking and won’t acknowledge that a discussion on the subject is rather more complicated and nuanced that the bald statement that 'around 78,000 people in the UK die from smoking'.

It’s as if he has listened to one side (the prosecution) and decided that whatever case the defence might have it’s not worth listening to because the prosecution has already won the argument.

Indeed, if I understand him correctly (he may wish to correct me), Arthanayake seems to think that the health risks of smoking are so great that they outweigh any debate or discussion that might (shock, horror) offer a more positive/alternative view of smoking.

As readers know, Forest has never encouraged anyone to start smoking and we fully acknowledge the health risks associated with the habit.

Nevertheless we cling to the old-fashioned view that, in a liberal and mature society, the ability to make informed choices and take responsibility for our own health - especially when it involves known risk factors such as diet, alcohol and combustible tobacco - are principles worth fighting for, and discussing.

I’m not sure the BBC agrees, which is annoying because they are happy to demand from millions of people an annual licence fee, but they seem increasingly unwilling to broadcast or publish views that are entirely mainstream and, in this instance, supported by 58 per cent of the adult population in Britain.

BAT out of hell

From The Times last week, a column by chief business commentator Alistair Osborne:

No smoke without fire at BAT

Commenting on the company’s drive towards ‘A Better (ie smokeless) Tomorrow’, Osborne wrote:

What is this supposed to mean? “We will leverage our market archetypes to guide how and where we deploy our products.” 

Or this? “In Heated Products, we continue to invest to rejuvenate our momentum with an enhanced cadence of innovation.” 

Does smoking stop you talking properly too?

Brutal, and a lesson for everyone in corporate communications.

Stick to plain English!

Great Scott wins Cigar Smoker of the Year

Actor Dougray Scott, currently starring in series two of Vigil (BBC1), was crowned Cigar Smoker of the Year at Boisdale of Canary Wharf last week.

I couldn’t go because I had something else on and, to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of award dinners, many of which are over-long, chaotic, or both.

But that’s just me. Others enjoy them enormously.

The event was launched in 2013 as The Spectator Cigar Smoker of the Year awards.

I wrote about it here and re-reading that ten-year-old post I am reminded that I was invited to present an award for ‘Best Cigar Terrace’, which I don’t remember at all.

MC was The Spectator’s Andrew Neil and the star guests were Simon LeBon and David Soul.

Since then guests and award winners have included some stellar Hollywood stars, notably Arnold Schwarzenegger, Burt Reynolds, and Charlie Sheen.

Jonathan Ross and Jeremy Irons have also featured so credit to the organisers.

This year, in addition to Dougray Scott, guests included fellow actors Ray Winstone and Kelsey Grammer.

Grammer has attended the event several times and whenever he’s in the UK (his wife is British) there’s every chance you’ll find him at Boisdale with a fine cigar.

(I once sat at the same table as Grammer for an impromptu late night dinner. Unfortunately we were at opposite ends so I didn’t get to speak to him. From what I could tell, however, he seemed very nice and down-to-earth.)

Anyway, since The Spectator helped launch the Cigar Smoker of the Year awards in 2013 there has been a revolving door of sponsors. (This year the principal sponsor was Santa Rita, a brand of Chilean wine.)

Nevertheless the event appears to be in good health, unlike the Pipe Smoker of the Year luncheon that succumbed to an increasingly small field of famous pipe smokers and was knocked on the head 20 years ago.

From 1964 to 2003, however, it was something of an institution with the award - presented at London’s Savoy Hotel - going to some very famous people including Harold Wilson (1965 and 1976), Eric Morecambe (1970), Edward Fox (1980), Henry Cooper (1984), Ian Botham (1988), Tony Benn (1992), and Ranulph Fiennes (1994).

The final award went to Stephen Fry in 2003 but this was a last hurrah, the writing having been on the wall for several years.

Today I would be hard pushed to think of a single well-known pipe smoker. Even the Lords and Commons Pipe and Cigar Smokers’ Club has been renamed the Lords and Commons Cigar Club.

At this point I ought to say that former Forest chairman, the late Lord Harris of High Cross, would be turning in his grave.

However, after a lifetime of smoking a pipe, even he quit the habit a year or two before he died in 2006.

See: Santa Rita Cigar Smoker of the Year Dinner and Awards 2023 (Cigar Journal)

Heart of the matter

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I had been invited to have an abdominal aortic aneurysm screening:

The purpose, I was told, was to 'help find an aneurysm' in the main blood vessel that supplies blood to the body.

What they were looking for was any swelling – which can be serious – but they couldn't find anything so I passed that test and we move on.

Yesterday I received an email from an old friend telling recipients that he is due to have open heart surgery before Christmas to repair an aneurysm.

I have known him since university. We met at a cheese and wine party (!) in our first week at Aberdeen in 1976 and have remained good friends ever since, although it’s a few years since I last saw him.

The irony is that I have always thought of him as much fitter than I have ever been.

He has never been overweight and has always looked after himself, so news of his impending operation adds fuel to my belief that, while it’s sensible to take precautions to lower the risks in later years, there is a Russian roulette aspect to health that limits what we can do.

Perhaps it’s hereditary or just bad luck, but some things are beyond our control.

My father, for example, was never overweight and enjoyed far more exercise as an adult than I ever have, yet he suffered heart problems from his early fifties and ended up having two heart by-pass operations and a heart transplant.

According to my mother - and this was news to me until yesterday - he also had aortic aneurysm surgery.

My grandfather died of angina in 1972 before heart by-passes were common procedure, so perhaps my father inherited some of his problems from his father.

The good news is that my friend’s issue has been identified - perhaps through a similar screening to the one I had last month - and is being dealt with.

I wish him all the very best.

Ugly? That's my uncle Roy's old house!!

My mother, 93 last Sunday, has been staying with us for the past few days.

Yesterday I took her to see her brother Roy in West Mersea in Essex where he lives with his wife Sarah.

I’ve written about Uncle Roy before. Like my grandfather before him, he was a GP with a keen interest in boxing that led, eventually, to him becoming chairman of the British Olympic Association Medical Committee.

In his younger days he was also an amateur racing driving whose luck eventually ran out when he rolled his Mk1 Lola-Climax once too often and my aunt ‘suggested’ he quit for the sake of his young family.

Anyway, back in the Sixties, before my family moved to Scotland, we would visit them in Colchester, where Roy and Sarah had moved shortly after getting married.

It helped that my grandparents on my mother’s side had also moved to Colchester, following my grandfather's retirement a few years later, because that enabled us to see them at the same time.

In fact, we could see the back of Roy and Sarah’s house from my grandparents’ house, which brings me to the point of this post.

I was chatting to Sarah over lunch yesterday when she mentioned that their old architect-designed house (above) had featured in a Channel 4 TV programme a few years ago, and not in a good way.

Ugly House to Lovely House with George Clarke features leading architects transforming ‘some of Britain's most unloved homes’.

Ugly house? Unloved homes?!!

It’s true, says Sarah (who wasn’t the least bit bothered by their old home being traduced in this way), that the house looked dated and had a slightly strange layout, but that was because it was designed in 1962 as a family home and doctor’s surgery, with two rooms being allocated for use as a surgery and waiting room.

I imagine there was also a separate entrance for patients.

By today’s standards, the original house certainly looks ‘of its time’ but when it was built it was considered extremely modern, and I remember it reasonably well.

Thanks to the large windows it was very bright. The sitting room, on the first floor above what I think must have been the surgery, seemed enormous, and there was a modern, open plan feel to the place.

Subsequent owners seem to have built a two-storey extension at the side of the house and knocked down an internal wall creating an even larger kitchen/diner/living room.

The major crime, however, was adding a horrible boxed porch to the front of the house.

I remember going there for Christmas lunch one year and that was an eye-opener because it was the first year I discovered that other families have different traditions on Christmas Day.

I was surprised, for example, that we had to wait until late afternoon for ‘lunch’. (I believe it was because Roy had to visit patients on Christmas Day. Can you imagine GPs doing that today?)

At home Christmas lunch was normally done and dusted in time for the Queen’s Speech at 3.00.

But the bigger surprise was that my cousins weren’t allowed to open their presents until 5.00pm because my sister and I always opened our presents at 7.00am sharp.

But I digress.

From Ugly House to Lovely House is available on the Channel 4 app and I have to say it’s extraordinarily rude about the original building which is described as looking like a ‘block of flats’.

The original architect is invited to comment and he is remarkably gracious - on screen at least - about the criticism of his work.

According to the programme (first broadcast in 2017), the budget for modernising the house was £150,000, but the final cost of reburbishment, which included an impressive new extension at the back, was nearer £250,000.

The irony is that while the re-fashioned house does look better and more practical to modern eyes, from the front it could easily pass for a small modern office and my guess is that in another 50 or 60 years it will look just as dated as the original building does now.

Below: Trailer for Ugly House to Lovely House: 60s house transformed into modern home. The full progamme, Colchester Revisit – is on the Channel 4 app.

Hollywood’s burning issue

Enjoyable piece in the Telegraph by Alexander Larman:

Why Hollywood stars have started smoking again

Surprisingly, perhaps, it includes one or two quotes by me, but I’m in good company because there are also quotes from ‘film scholar’ Lucy Bolton and ‘lifestyle and cultural journalist’ Kara Kennedy.

To be honest, it was one of the more enjoyable exercises I’ve been asked to do recently, and a welcome respite from thinking about government consultations.

Alex sent me half a dozen questions and these were my replies, from which he took a few comments:

Do you believe that the contemporary portrayal of smoking in cinema is more pervasive – and more positive – than it has been for many years?
I’m not a regular cinema goer but I would be very surprised if the portrayal of smoking in films has become more pervasive, and more positive, in recent years. I may be wrong but in my experience you would be hard-pressed to find many leading characters who smoke in any top 10 box office movie. Nevertheless, if directors of more adult orientated movies are pushing back against attempts to censor their work by denying them the creative freedom to portray smoking on screen, I would welcome it. Smoking in films should never be gratuitous, but if it’s character or plot driven, and reflects the real world, what’s the problem?

Why do you think that so many major 2022-2023 films contain scenes of nicotine and tobacco use?
I haven’t watched enough films during that period so I’m not qualified to comment, but is this true? It sounds like the sort of claim the anti-smoking lobby would make to justify a crackdown on smoking in movies. If it is true, and I remain sceptical, perhaps there have been more major films in that period featuring adult themes. Smoking, lest we forget, is still a perfectly normal habit for millions of people, and art, including commercial cinema, has a right to reflect real life and the world around us, not some utopian smoke free world forced upon us by politicians and public health activists. There are 1.3 billion smokers worldwide so why not represent some of them on screen?

Cinema used to be associated with portraying smoking as glamorous and exciting. When do you believe that this ended?
Was smoking ever portrayed as glamorous and exciting? You’ve got to remember that in the mid 20th century, in the heyday of Hollywood, smoking was completely normal. At one point 80% of men smoked, and almost 50% of women. It’s only now that we look back and think that smoking, as portrayed on film at that time, was glamorous, or exciting, or even a bit rebellious, because we compare it with our own more censorious and risk averse age. Back then, however, smoking was embraced by every generation and every social class. In fact, it was arguably one of the most egalitarian habits the world has ever witnessed.

Do you think that major stars being associated with smoking makes it seem more exciting for impressionable audiences?
Not really. Most people are clever enough to distinguish between an actor and the role they are playing on screen, so talk of “impressionable audiences” is rather patronising. And if the major star is a smoker in real life, it has nothing to do with anyone else. They’re actors working in what I imagine can be very stressful industry. They didn’t ask to be role models, nor should they be, so leave them alone!

Which actors do you believe could bring back smoking into the mainstream if they were to be associated with it onscreen?
I don’t believe any actor has the power to bring smoking back into the mainstream. Audiences aren’t stupid. They know about the health risks of smoking. They also know that actors are playing a role, not themselves. The idea that a significant number of cinema goers might be persuaded to start smoking by the sight of an actor playing a character who smokes is laughable. There are many reasons why a dwindling number of people choose to smoke. Watching an actor, even a well-known one, light up on screen is unlikely to be one of them.

What are your personal views on smoking?
I don’t smoke but I have known many people who do, or did, and the overwhelming majority enjoyed the habit, which I respect. Other people smoking never bothered me. If adults make an informed choice to smoke, knowing the health risks, good luck to them. It’s their life, not mine, so I wouldn’t presume to comment, or lecture them, just as I wouldn’t expect them to comment on the fact that I am significantly overweight and risking my own health by eating too much of the ‘wrong’ food.

Do you believe that smoking will ever return to its previous popularity or have we passed that stage forever?
Smoking will never be history, but unless we invent a completely ‘safe’ cigarette I can’t imagine it will ever return to its previous popularity. There are two reasons for this. One, there are too many restrictions on the sale and consumption of combustible tobacco, most of which are unlikely to be reversed. Two, we know so much more about the health risks associated with smoking than we did 50 or 60 years ago, and that has obviously influenced recent generations not to start smoking. I can’t see that changing.

Smoking, I added, will never go away completely because it remains an enjoyable habit for many people. Also, given that it’s human nature to experiment, some people will always be drawn to forbidden fruit. That’s just a fact. Get over it.

You’re an adult at 18 and should be allowed to purchase tobacco

Today is the closing date for submissions to the Government consultation, 'Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping'.

A new poll has found that almost three-fifths (58%) of people in Britain say that when people are 18 and legally an adult they should be allowed to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The survey, conducted by Yonder Consulting for Forest, found that 58% of respondents think that if a person can vote, drive a car, buy alcohol, or possess a credit card at 18, they should also be allowed to purchase tobacco.

Fewer than a third (32%) said they should not be allowed to purchase tobacco products when they are legally an adult at 18, while 10% said 'don't know'.

The Government will ignore it, of course, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't share it as widely as possible.

If, however, you're in any doubt about the Government's plans, this press release (Plans progressed to create a smokefree generation), issued today, makes clear their partisan position.

It includes quotes from ASH, Cancer Research UK, and Asthma + Lung UK.

It's almost as if, since the PM's announcement of a tobacco sales ban at the Conservative conference in Manchester in October, Downing Street and the DHSC have decided they no longer have to even pretend to remain neutral during a 'public' consultation.

Plans to introduce the most significant public health intervention in a generation and phase out smoking are progressing at pace, as the government’s consultation closes today.

It must be extremely liberating, but what a joke.

PS. The Telegraph is reporting that 'Vapes could be prescription-only under Labour government'.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire …

Killing comedy

"Forest has just been mentioned on The Now Show," said my wife, who was listening to Radio 4.

"And not in a good way," she added.

The long-running BBC programme, broadcast on Friday evenings and repeated on Saturdays, has become a by-word for unfunny, woke 'comedy'.

Nevertheless, I was flattered that Forest had been mentioned so I clicked on iPlayer to listen to it myself.

Introduced by Hugh Dennis, the item begins at 18:00 (episode 5, series 63) and features a monologue by guest Jessica Fostekew about the generational smoking ban.

Sounding more like a genuine BBC newsreader, Fostekew said:

"New Zealand's new government has shocked the world this week by repealing Jacinda Ardern's epic new smoking ban, despite the fact that smoking kills more people than anything else in New Zealand ...

"The new law would have come into force next year and would have banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. And they've unbanned it! How rock 'n' roll is that ...?"

"I'm particularly stunned by this repeal, of course I am," added this self-confessed "smug ex-smoker" before launching into a mercifully short but still unfunny anecdote about her toddler son and his wish for her to give up her "adult blowing".

Returning to what felt more like propaganda than comedy, she declared: "The smoking ban we've had in the UK since 2007 has worked.

"Since then it's been illegal to smoke in enclosed spaces, or workplaces. Studies have shown that following these original bans hospital admissions for directly smoking-related diseases reduced, including marked reductions in premature births, and childhood asthma, and over £800m every single year of savings for the NHS.

"For the love of facts," she shouted, "surely that's a good thing?"

"Jacinda's mighty ban," she insisted, "had been internationally applauded. Other countries, including the UK, had said they liked its prospects so much they were going to be following suit. It was set to be New Zealand's new, most famous, export ...

"Making smoking easier again does feel like a bizarrely regressive thing to do. All out bans can be impractical and in some cases tough to enforce. I don't fancy being the police officer whose job it would be to arrest illegal smokers in the act, but at least they'd be quite easy to beat in a chase.

"There were some logistical worries over the ban because it would stop anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes and it meant there would come a time when a 40-year-old might have to ask a 41-year-old to buy their fags for them.

"It sounds strange but, let me tell you, I would love that. As someone who has very recently turned 40, the sheer human thrill I just get at once more being ID'd.

"It begs the question, who could possibly have been against this ban? We spoke to Forest, the UK's smokers' rights group, largely funded by the tobacco industry. And their spokesperson said, "We think ... [noise of persistent coughing] ... we think smoking is delicious."

"In actuality," she added, “the only group who had been vocally against the ban had been owners of coroner shops and newsagents who, I should add, were going to be given subsidies ...

"But to end on a positive note, Sunak has said he does still intend to bring the extended ban here in the UK, with the very noble aim of putting an end to smoking forever. Unfortunately, he said he will have to make up the tobacco tax financial shortfall by instead taxing vapes.

"Whaaaat? That's just jumping out of the frying pan and into the watermelon plume. Rishi, ideally we'd like the government not to be financially reliant on tax income from any kind of adult blowing.”

Needless to say, much of this was accompanied by raucous audience laughter, but I've been in those audiences and I can tell you ... you're conditioned to laugh, if only out of politeness.

But my more serious point is this.

While the depiction of a fictional Forest spokesman was amusing (I did smile), it was also completely predictable.

Equally predictable was a comedian on The Now Show aligning herself with our anti-smoking Establishment that includes both the BBC and all mainstream political parties, not to mention our 'Conservative' government.

Mainstream comedians were once mocked for being conservative (or even Conservative). Then came left wing 'alternative' comedians led by Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle who were seemingly anti-Establishment.

Many of today's 'progressive' comedians like to think they follow in the footsteps of those 'alternative' comedians, but there's nothing radical about them at all.

As far as smoking is concerned, someone like Jessica Fostekew not only supports and parrots the Establishment line, she appears happy to foster and promote anti-smoking propaganda, not even for laughs but as genuine 'information'.

As for "Jacinda's mighty ban", how rock 'n' roll is that?

The point is, Fostekew is clearly not alone. I don't doubt for one second that her view – even allowing for the fact that this was a 'comedy' sketch – is also held by most of those working for The Now Show, and of course the wider BBC.

It isn't an accident that she was given a platform to promote "Jacinda's mighty ban" and mock opponents of a generational ban.

However, any comedy programme with an ounce of self-respect would surely want to put the boot into the prohibitionists and overweening regulators, or the middle-class do-gooders who can't wait to dictate how others live their lives.

But no. The Now Show and their guests are the Establishment, and completely predictable. How (un)funny is that?