A pint and a fag with Farage

Nigel Farage is rumoured to have been paid £1.5m for appearing on the current series of I’m A Celebrity.

Only ITV executives will know whether they are getting value for money, but this observation by the Telegraph’s arts and entertainment editor is quite telling:

The nicer he appears, the less he stands out from the crowd and the further ratings plummet.

If true, what a horrible indictment of modern life.

I haven’t watched the current series, so I can’t really comment, but Farage’s appearance on the programme is a reminder that ten years ago the former Ukip and Brexit party leader took part in a fringe event organised by Forest at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.

We had heard that he was coming to speak at another fringe event so we invited him to be interviewed by Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, at the Comedy Store where we were already hosting a reception and comedy event, Stand Up for Liberty.

‘A Pint and a Fag with Farage’ was scheduled for 6.15pm on the second day of the conference.

Unknown to us, however, Mayor of London Boris Johnson was the star guest at another event taking place at exactly the same time, which led to the BBC comparing the two, right down to the venue, crowd, atmosphere, funniest gag, surprising revelation, and so on.

Naturally we couldn’t compete with Boris on numbers, or excitement, but ‘A Pint and a Fag with Farage’ received reasonably favourable reviews. Here’s a snippet from a BBC News report.

The small basement auditorium is just over half full, with a mix of refugees from the Tory conference, UKIP supporters, newspaper hacks and curious members of the public. A slightly younger crowd than the average Tory conference gathering. The event is sponsored by smokers' rights campaign Forest - but no one flouts the law by lighting up …

The evening may be billed as a "pint and a fag with Nigel Farage" but it is far from a raucous boys' night out. Farage happily slurps down a pint of Guinness as host Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, probes him about his attitude to personal freedom and whether he is trying to turn UKIP into the 19th Century Liberal party.

The report summarised each event as follows:

Johnson: Most politicians' best hope is polite applause, and, if their luck is in, a standing ovation. Few can expect whoops and cheers, but that is what Boris Johnson managed here, as well as applause and a standing ovation. People expected to be entertained, and quite a few Conservative activists are willing to entertain the idea of Boris Johnson as party leader, one day.

Farage: It was no stand-up routine - there was much earnest talk about the evils of the EU - but this being Farage there was still plenty of self-mocking humour and eye-rolling pretend outrage at his outlaw status at the Tory conference. His stance on immigration and free enterprise went down well with the Tories in the audience, his pops at Tory politicians less so, but everyone seemed to go away happy as Farage headed outside for that fag.

See - Tory conference: Boris Johnson versus Nigel Farage (BBC News)

Funnily enough, on the two previous occasions Farage spoke at Forest events he wasn’t strictly invited.

In June 2009, when we launched the Save Our Pubs & Clubs: Amend The Smoking Ban campaign at a pub in Westminster, the advertised speakers were Forest patron Antony Worrall Thompson, Conservative MP Greg Knight, and Labour MP David Clelland.

If I remember, Nigel wasn’t even on the guest list, but his press officer got wind of the event and asked if they could attend, and one thing led to another.

The previous year (2008) he made a similar ‘surprise appearance’ at another Forest event - this time at Boisdale of Belgravia - to mark the first anniversary of the public smoking ban.

Again, I’m not sure he was formally invited but that didn’t stop him coming and giving a rousing address to our 200+ audience!

That, I suspect, is the Nigel Farage the producers of I’m A Celebrity thought they were getting - an outspoken, slightly belligerent disruptor happy to gatecrash the party.

Like many people, though, they have probably underestimated the former MEP because Farage will know that polarising the television audience into two camps - those that like him, and those that hate him - is not going to get him far.

With rare exceptions, the winners are usually the most likeable characters. Tony Blackburn, Stacey Solomon and Jill Scott come to mind. Likewise Shaun Ryder who didn’t win but made the final.

As it happens, Farage has arguably dialled things down too much, with the result that his impact on the programme has been fairly muted so far.

We’ll find out in the next few days whether his ‘plan’ (if he has one) is working.

Billion dollar smoke-free foundation severs ties with Philip Morris

I didn’t see that coming. Or perhaps I did.

Launched in 2017 in a blaze of publicity, it was reported yesterday (by Reuters no less) that the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World has cut all ties with the nicotine industry.

All ties?

To the best of my knowledge there was only one significant tie, and that was with the global tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) whose tireless (and often tedious) advocacy for a smoke-free world somehow convinced the company to commit $1bn to fund the Foundation over a twelve year period.

That’s right. One billion dollars.

Now, just six years on, we’re told the Foundation will ‘rebrand and find new funders from outside of the industry'.

To which I can only say, good luck with that!!

But, first, let's rewind to September 2017.

As a participant at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in New York, I had a ringside seat when the Foundation was launched, noting:

While delegates were still bleary-eyed from the previous night's 'Welcome Reception' at the Rockefeller Center, the Financial Times (five hours ahead of us) was reporting that Philip Morris International had pledged to give $1 billion to a new organisation called – wait for it – the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.

The money will be donated over twelve years - $83 million annually.

Head of the foundation is former WHO official Derek Yach who helped create the global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and is now a leading advocate of e-cigarettes.

Yach and PMI's Marc Firestone both addressed the conference so you couldn’t fault the impressive stage-management.

I was never convinced, though, that the Foundation had a long or successful future because the relationship with PMI was always going to be an albatross around its neck, and so it proved.

In March 2018 Yach, a South African, was even refused entry to the 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Cape Town, and that, you could argue, set the tone for an organisation that from day one was ostracised by the global public health community.

Then came the Foundation’s Smoke-Free Index (later rebranded the Tobacco Transformation Index), a vainglorious exercise designed to monitor the tobacco industry’s progress towards a ‘smoke-free’ world.

Writing about it in September 2018, I mused:

I do wonder what PMI’s competitors think of the company funding a body that intends to hold their feet to the fire, forever monitoring their activities in the name of some ‘smoke-free’ utopia.

For example, if their public statements are anything to go by, senior PMI executives clearly think their company is leading the race towards a ‘better’, smoke-free future.

They boast that they are disrupting not just the industry but their own company.

But what happens if and when PMI lags behind some of its rivals? (Talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words.) Will the Foundation’s Smoke-Free Index point the finger at the company that is bankrolling it?

Thereafter, one thing that struck me about the Foundation was the seemingly high turnover of staff.

And then, in 2021, Derek Yach himself was gone and I don’t believe the Foundation has ever fully recovered from his unexplained departure.

His eventual successor (it took the Foundation two years to appoint a permanent one) has presumably been tasked with giving the Foundation the leadership and direction it desperately needs, and a final grant of $122.5m from PMI should tide them over for a bit.

It may even pay for a rebrand, although it will take a lot more than a new name and logo to get this particular show back on the road.

The frustrating thing is that the Foundation will almost certainly be remembered as a lost opportunity. The former director of ASH, Clive Bates, hinted as much when he tweeted, in February 2020:

Idea: somehow find a billion dollar foundation to set up a system to meticulously track and challenge the false and misleading statements of WHO, CDC, Bloomberg-funded proxies, and call out the junk science and press releases of influential academics and medical society chancers.

I commented on Clive’s tweet here (Wanted: billion dollar foundation to challenge global health industry’s lies), noting, as I’m sure he intended:

There already exists a ‘billion dollar foundation’ that could do the work outlined by Clive … It’s called the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World and it was launched in New York in September 2017.

That said, I’m sure the Foundation has done some good work. For example, Prof Marewa Glover, a New Zealand-based tobacco control campaigner and someone I greatly respect, yesterday tweeted:

Like many others my research centre has been able to move forward with several research initiatives thanks to the support of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.

Nevertheless it amuses me that Forest, founded in 1979, has survived for almost 45 years on a fraction of the money the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World has been given by PMI in just six years.

Even if it didn’t reach a billion dollars it was still a significant sum, even for a global tobacco giant, but value for money? Arguably not.

Where the Foundation’s next big grant comes from is hard to predict but, thankfully, that’s not my problem.

So apologies for the schadenfreude, but if this is the beginning of the end for a fabulously funded initiative dedicated to achieving a smoke-free world, you’ll forgive me a wry smile.

See also: Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Names Clifford Douglas CEO as National Voice in Smoking Cessation Work

Below: Yours truly with Derek Yach, founder and president of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, on Euronews in June 2021

Nanny state of the nation

Here it is, the video of last week's 'Nanny State of the Nation' discussion at Old Queen Street Cafe in Westminster.

The event was organised in response to Rishi Sunak's plan for a ban on the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults in the UK.

The event also marked the publication of 'Freedom: Up In Smoke?', the latest in a series of Letters on Liberty published by the Academy of Ideas.

Moderated by Ella Whelan (Academy of Ideas), our panel featured me, Claire Fox (Baroness Fox of Buckley), Henry Hill (ConservativeHome), and Reem Ibrahim (Institute of Economic Affairs).

Over the next week we shall be posting a number of soundbites that were filmed after the discussion. They feature both our panelists and members of the audience.

The first one (below) features Claire Fox, founder of the Academy of Ideas, who told us:

"Over a period of time the British state will ban a 25-year-old, a 35-year-old, a 45-year-old, from smoking and treat them as if they're 14 and need the state to protect them. It's mad."

At the time of writing the clip has been viewed 27,000 times on X. That's probably as close to viral as Forest will ever get!

Update: 54,000.

Terry Venables

I was very sorry to hear that Terry Venables had died.

Venables played for Tottenham when Spurs beat Chelsea 2-1 in the 1967 FA Cup final.

Partly as a result of that match (I was eight at the time), and the fact that my aunt lived in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, I decided to support the losing side.

It was only later therefore that I discovered Venables had played over 200 games for Chelsea in the early to mid Sixties, having signed for the club as a schoolboy in 1958.

Armed with this knowledge, I subsequently followed his career as a player, and then a coach and manager, with interest.

He began his managerial career at Crystal Palace, then moved to QPR and Barcelona (where he was head coach from 1984-1987), before returning to Spurs as manager, winning the FA Cup in 1991.

I should add that ‘El Tel’ was coach of Barcelona when the other club I support, Dundee United, beat them home and away in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup in 1987.

Even though it was a terrible result for his team, he was typically gracious about it, telling the press, “I must say that Dundee United have a chance to win the trophy now.”

(He wasn't wrong. United beat Borussia Mönchengladbach in the semi-finals, but lost the final to Gothenburg of Sweden.)

In 1994 Venables finally got the England job, a role that culminated in an unlucky defeat, on penalties, to Germany in the semi-finals of Euro 96 at Wembley.

He should of course have gone on to manage England for many more years but his off-field business interests got in the way and the FA decided, even before Euro 96, to replace him with Glenn Hoddle.

He did however leave us with one indelible memory, the 4-1 defeat of the Netherlands in the final group match that secured England’s place in the quarter-finals.

In my experience only two England matches come close to England’s performance that day - the 5-1 win against Germany in Munich in a World Cup qualifying match under Sven-Göran Eriksson in 2001, and the 1-0 loss to Brazil in the 1970 World Cup that, even in defeat, was arguably the best England have ever played against a top tier nation in a competitive match.

But I digress.

Venables was far more than a football manager, which is why he was so interesting. He sang and co-wrote detective novels that were turned into a TV series. He also had many business interests.

But what he really wanted, it seems, was to run a football club from top to bottom, which is how he came unstuck at Tottenham where he lost out in a power struggle with owner and chairman Alan Sugar.

One thing however has always puzzled me. I could never understand why he was never invited to return to Chelsea - his first club and the club he supported (I believe he was a season ticket holder in later years) - as manager.

Perhaps he was and said no. Or perhaps it was his chaotic business interests that put the club off.

Truth is, during his best managerial years, Chelsea was owned and run by Ken Bates, an equally strong-willed personality, so that could be the reason.

Either way, Venables will be remembered as one of England’s greatest and most innovative coaches whose man management was, by all accounts, second to none.

Too late now, but if I was to have a fantasy dinner party, he’d be one of the first names on the guest list.

The NHS and me

Fair play to the NHS.

While I believe there are better health systems and providers, I've certainly been getting my money's worth since I turned 60 a few years ago.

It began with my local surgery booking me in for what felt like a service or MOT.

Within days I was prescribed statins to reduce cholesterol in my blood, and since then I’ve been prescribed two more pills that I have to take every day.

One is to control my blood pressure, the other is to allow the blood to flow more freely around the body.

However, it was when I described to my GP symptoms that suggested a rather more acute problem that the system really kicked in.

I was immediately told to double the dose of one (multi-talented) pill and a few weeks later I was booked in to my local hospital to undergo series of scans – ultrasound, CT, and MRI –with the aim of checking my various organs for signs of wear and tear, or worse.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that my body is a temple, but the results weren't too bad, all things considered.

High blood pressure is still the main issue, not the condition of my liver, kidneys and prostate.

Anyway, last week I had another appointment, this time for an ‘abdominal aortic aneurysm screening’.

The letter inviting me to have what was effectively another ultrasound scan arrived out of the blue a few weeks ago.

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.

I suppose I should be grateful that the NHS is taking such an interest in me, and I am.

My GP, in particular, is a very pleasant fellow who has never once told me to lose weight, although common sense would suggest that it’s the major reason for the high blood pressure.

He knows I know that, and he doesn’t push the point, which I appreciate.

He also knows what I do for a living and, having asked, has never mentioned it again. (Perhaps he thought I was joking.)

In the meantime the only side effect of the pills I take each day is occasional drowsiness and the fact that I’m advised not to drink grapefruit juice, which I miss but not as much as I thought I would.

I don’t want to sound facetious, but the thing I worry about most is not a sudden and possibly fatal heart attack, but the thought of long hours in hospital.

My father, who underwent two heart by-pass operations and then a heart transplant before he was 70, spent the last few years of his life on dialysis - four hours at a time, three days a week - and that didn’t include getting to and from the hospital.

His quality of life plummeted but he kept going (until he was 84) largely for the sake of my mother, although it was difficult for her too.

With that in mind, I am already making plans to equip myself with one, and possibly two, portable batteries, and even a spare tablet, because I know that if I was to spend long periods in hospital the one thing that would make the experience vaguely tolerable would be my iPad - and the access it gives to books, podcasts, news, and so much more.

Without it, and I speak with some experience of sitting in hospital waiting rooms for hours on end, I think I might die of boredom.

See also: ‘Scanned alive’ and ‘What’s up, doc?’.

Nanny Sunak fights on but for how long?

More on the news that the incoming coalition government in New Zealand is to repeal the law banning the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults.

When I wrote about it yesterday I mentioned that the mainstream media in the UK seemed to be ignoring the story, despite the obvious implications for what appears to be one of Rishi Sunak’s flagship policies.

Put simply, having adopted the idea from New Zealand, the PM now finds himself in charge of a policy that has been abandoned by its parent.

Consequently, apart from Sunak’s Government, the only other governments that are currently backing a generational ban on tobacco are the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales, led by the SNP and Labour respectively.

However you spin it, those are interesting bedfellows for a Conservative prime minister who, lest we forget, will almost certainly need the votes of Labour MPs to get the legislation through parliament.

With that in mind, you would think the story would have generated a lot more coverage. Instead, only the MailOnline, Express, and Telegraph belatedly published reports online, and they took several hours to appear.

The Times, Guardian and Sun, who all support the generational ban, ignored the story completely. As did the FT, Mirror and, predictably, the BBC.

Thankfully the Press Association stepped up and issued a report that had a quote by me and embedded in the report was a tweet (by Forest) that featured the illustration of Sunak that we commissioned a few weeks ago precisely for moments like this!

The PA report was published by, among others, the Independent, London Evening Standard, and Lancashire Telegraph.

The PA also had the wit to approach Downing Street for a response and, although Sunak’s spokesman insists the Government’s plans for a generational ban are “unchanged”, I’m convinced this is not yet over.

Not least, our ‘Conservative’ prime minister has some explaining to do to his backbenchers to justify a policy dreamt up by a Labour government in New Zealand that has now been rejected by a centre-right coalition in that same country.

See also: New Zealand government u-turn on tobacco sales ban (Convenience Store), New Zealand’s smoking ban u-turn is bad news for Rishi Sunak (The Spectator).

Below: The Forest tweet that featured in the PA report

A VERY good morning!

A VERY good morning!

Reports from New Zealand suggest the country’s next government will scrap the new law that bans the sale of tobacco to future generations. According to Bloomberg:

Legislation banning tobacco sales to people born after 2008 will be dumped by the new administration, according to coalition agreements released Friday in Wellington. The new government, which comprises the National, ACT and New Zealand First parties, will also stop a plan to reduce in the number of retail outlets allowed to sell cigarettes.

I’m pleasantly surprised but not shocked because I wrote about the possibility only last month when I noted that David Seymour, leader of ACT, had last year tweeted:

Labour’s authoritarian prohibition of tobacco has been signed up to by every party except ACT. Prohibition has never worked and it always has serious unintended consequences.

I added that:

In January [2023] the Sunday Times even reported that Seymour ‘would seek to reverse Labour’s anti-smoking legislation if his party gains office'.

“This has gone beyond a public health initiative to a public control initiative,” he said.

Realistically, I would be surprised if tobacco policy is a hill Seymour will choose to die on.

Nevertheless, if the National party does need ACT's support, the issue should at least be on the table for discussion.

Either way, Sunak would be well advised to watch developments closely.

Well, it seems the issue was indeed up for discussion, despite the fact that Christopher Luxon, leader of the centre right National Party and the incoming prime minister, was on record saying he was "broadly supportive" of the previous government’s plan (as I also wrote here).

Where this leaves Rishi Sunak’s policy (which he stole from a Labour government on the other side of the world) is anyone’s guess, but it ought to give the PM pause for thought because he is now the driver of the most illiberal anti-smoking measure in the world.

In the short period that remains of his premiership, is that what he wants to be remembered for when there are so many other, far more pressing, issues he needs to address?

PS. ASH New Zealand has tweeted:

One of the coalition's first health measures is to essentially grant a pardon to tobacco companies, and allow them to continue selling products that kill almost 5000 New Zealanders every year.

Good to see they’re taking it well.

Update: Chris Snowden has written a short piece for CapX – An about-turn on tobacco – pointing out that:

Sunak stands alone. It is left to the Conservative Party in Britain to carry the torch of the New Zealand Labour Party.

How embarrassing. For the moment, though, the mainstream media in the UK is completely ignoring the story. I wonder why?

Chancellor declares war (again) on working class smokers

In my brief speech on Monday night (see previous post) I repeated something I have said several times before:

Today smoking, obesity and alcohol are frequently mentioned in the context of levelling-up, and there seems to be an unchallenged consensus that tackling all three should be part of that process.

I don't see it that way at all. For me reducing smoking rates by forcing people to quit isn't levelling up, it's dumbing down, because it treats smokers – the majority of whom are from lower socio-economic groups – as if they're stupid, uneducated idiots for choosing to smoke in the first place.

In my view, instead of insulting people’s intelligence and curtailing their freedoms with further restrictions on the sale of tobacco and where you can light up, governments should concentrate instead on creating the conditions for them to make 'healthier' choices for themselves, because it's clear that while many people smoke for pleasure, many also smoke to relieve some of the stress that may be caused by their circumstances or their environment.

In other words, instead of punishing adults who smoke with punitive taxation and other measures designed to force them to quit, often against their will, government should focus on the underlying reasons why a greater proportion of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are smokers.

It may take substantially longer to achieve the Government’s ‘smoke free’ target but that’s a small price to pay if, in the meantime, ministers are addressing far more important issues like housing, jobs and poverty.

That, to me, is the essence of levelling up – improving people's lives not through coercion and prohibition, but by tackling some of the factors that lead us to eat, drink and smoke to excess.

As if on cue, the Chancellor has today doubled-down on smokers from lower socio-economic groups with the extraordinary decision to raise duty on hand-rolled tobacco by a whopping TEN percent above the tobacco escalator (which is inflation plus two per cent).

That means, as of tonight, the cost of hand-rolled tobacco will increase by almost 17 per cent.

The reason he's doing this is because hand-rolling tobacco has been less expensive than manufactured cigarettes, which is why many smokers have switched in recent years, but it seems petty beyond belief to target poorer smokers like this.

In particular, what really strikes me is the contempt for working class smokers and others on low wages, or even unemployed.

I get it, I really do, that if money is tight everyone has to make sacrifices, which may include smoking or drinking less, but I always come back to something former Labour health secretary John Reid once said.

That's something else I mentioned it in my speech on Monday when I said:

I come from a comfortable middle class background so it’s probably not my place to say this, but listen to the words of former Labour health secretary John Reid. A former heavy smoker, Reid represented one of the poorest constituencies in the country, and he understood why many people smoke.

In 2004, when anti-smoking campaigners were demanding a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places, including every pub and working men’s club in the country, Reid resisted calls for a blanket indoor smoking ban. He even gave a speech in which he said that for a young single mother living on a sink estate, a cigarette might be one of the few pleasures she had.

Naturally the middle class do-gooders in the public health industry came down on him like a ton of bricks but, given John Reid’s background and the constituency he represented, I’d take his word ahead of theirs any day.

Anyway, here's my response, on behalf of Forest, to today's Autumn Statement:

"The Chancellor has just raised two fingers to working class people across the country.

"Raising duty on hand-rolled tobacco by such a punitive amount is going to push more smokers further into poverty or into the hands of illegal traders including criminal gangs.

"This is a clear attack on smokers from poorer backgrounds, many of whom use hand-rolled tobacco because until now it's been cheaper than buying manufactured cigarettes.

"Instead of punishing adults who smoke with punitive taxation designed to force them to quit, the government should focus on the underlying reasons why a greater proportion of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds are smokers.

"Often it's because of their environment but, instead of improving the conditions in which many people live, this Tory government is determined to force smokers to give up a habit that may relieve some of the stress caused by their environment."

How depressing that four years after winning one Red Wall seat after another on the back of the slogan 'Take back control', the current Tory prime minister and his chancellor are determined to impose their middle class anti-smoking agenda on those very same people on the grounds that 'we know best and we are going to force you to comply'.

Update: I understand that the duty on cigarettes has gone up as well, albeit by not as much:

Tobacco Duty Rates – Duty rates on all tobacco products will increase by RPI +2%. To reduce the gap with cigarette duty, the rate on hand-rolling tobacco will increase by RPI + 12% this year. These changes will take effect from 6pm on 22 November 2023 and will be included in the Autumn Finance Bill 2023.

It's my understanding, therefore, that having increased duty on cigarettes by approximately 12% in March, a further increase of RPI +2% (in October RPI was 6.1%) will add an additional 8%, so the total increase on duty on cigarettes in 2023 will be close to 20%.

The exact figures are a bit unclear so don't quote me, but there have nevertheless been whopping increases in duty on both cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco this year.