Masterstroke – Patti Boulaye lights up tobacco livery dinner

Enjoyable evening in the City of London last night.

I was a guest of The Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders whose current 'Master' is our old friend Elise Rasmussen.

Elise has various job titles but she is primarily the organiser of the annual Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF), an event she founded in 2008.

Last night's event was a black tie dinner at Drapers' Hall, close to the Bank of England and described as 'one of the most magnificent venues in London'. I wouldn't disagree.

A drinks' reception was followed by dinner that took place in the Livery Hall whose 'vast ceiling is adorned with scenes from Shakespeare’s plays The Tempest and Midsummer Night’s Dream ...

Marble-columned, galleried, gilded and hung with royal portraits, this is where members of the royal family and other heads of state have dined. No surprise then, that it has appeared on television as Buckingham Palace.

There were 228 guests (according to the seating plan) including several familiar faces, among them Fran Morrison who I have 'known' since I was at university in Aberdeen in the late Seventies.

In those days she was a reporter and presenter on BBC Reporting Scotland, the evening news programme. A decade earlier she was at St Andrews University, graduating (I think) the same year I started secondary school in the town.

We finally met in person after I began working for Forest and Fran was head of corporate communications at British American Tobacco, and it was weird because I felt I knew her already.

She retired from the tobacco industry some time ago but our paths continue to cross (sometimes at Forest events) and there was lots to talk about last night.

Fran's place card described her as a livery 'assistant', a title 'first applied [in 1521] to those members of the Court who were neither Master nor Wardens'.

Seated next to us was another Scot whose card described him as a 'freeman'. Others were identified as a 'liveryman' but the process by which one becomes one or the other was slightly lost on me.

The Master however is the most senior liveryman, and I believe Elise is the first woman ever to hold that position in The Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders.

Livery companies, many of them hundreds of years old, are big on ceremony so last night we sang the national anthem and toasted (with port) various people whose names I didn't quite catch.

Another tradition at tobacco livery events is the after dinner snuff-taking. Snuff is passed round in a large silver vessel and guests are invited to take a pinch of the brown powder and inhale.

I noticed that most guests declined to partake but I quite liked it, although I was probably a bit conservative with the amount I inhaled.

During the evening guests were also entertained by Guildhall School pipe scholars, young musicians from the Guildhall School of Music who receive grants from the livery company.

Amid the pageantry, snuff, and music, the most surprising bit of the evening was arguably the identity of the guest speaker – singer and actress Patti Boulaye who brought a welcome dash of glamour to the evening.

It turned out she's a friend of a friend, and the friend of the friend is ... the Master of The Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers and Tobacco Blenders.

See also: The Worshipful Company of E-Cigarette Makers and E-Liquid Blenders

Above: The magnificent ceiling of the Livery Hall at Drapers' Hall
Below: Livery Hall last night

Charlie Amos – defending freedom

You may not have heard of Charlie Amos and nor, to be fair, had I until a few months ago.

Then, two days after Rishi Sunak announced a generational tobacco sales ban, Charlie sent me an article he had written opposing the ban and asked if we would publish it on the Forest website.

I replied that we don’t publish articles on the site, but I suggested he try the online magazine Spiked, or CapX.

I heard nothing more but it was subsequently published on the 1868 website (The Terrible Reasoning Behind Sunak’s Smoking Ban).

A second article (Against the Tobacco Ban) also appeared on Charlie's blog, The Musing Individualist.

On January 4 he followed it with a third article (The Battle against the Tobacco Ban), an amusing piece in which he described a day spent gathering signatures for a petition against the tobacco sales ban.

The responses he received from members of the public rang true, and I was impressed.

Last week Charlie contacted me again and asked if we would support an action day in Parliament Square, collecting signatures and handing out leaflets.

I wished him well but declined for several reasons that I won’t go into here, although it was partly to do with the fact that we have our own event taking place in the House of Commons next month and all our efforts are focused on that.

Also, I had one or two reservations about his messaging. For example, his leaflets and banner argue that the generational ban would ‘put thousands of people in the tobacco industry out of work’, which I’m not sure is a vote winner unless you extend the definition of tobacco industry to retailers.

I also discovered that Charlie has a mildly chequered political past. A few years ago he was ousted as president of King’s College London Conservative Association only weeks after he was elected. Then again, that’s student politics for you, so I would be a fool to hold that against him.

Check out his videos on YouTube (notably this one, although there are several more) and you’ll discover a rather eccentric figure, to the point where I began to wonder whether 'Charles Amos' was actually a rather clever spoof.

But no, Charlie Amos is real, and has a genuine sense of humour. Better still, he's not afraid to laugh at himself, which is refreshing in politics.

It’s not, perhaps, the type of humour that translates to a Forest campaign (although I am reminded of a video we shot for the Hands Off Our Packs campaign in 2013), but I nevertheless admire anyone who takes the time and trouble to stand up and be counted, even at risk of public humiliation.

It takes courage, and if I had one I’d take my hat off to him.

As it happens, the only negative comment I’ve seen so far was the suggestion that he ‘looks likes a 1970s accountant’, which I’m sure the winner of the IEA Intern of The Year Award in 2019 will take with a large pinch of salt.

War on smokers backfires, pushing up inflation

The punitive hikes in tobacco duty introduced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt last year may have backfired.

Reports this morning suggest the UK inflation rate has ‘unexpectedly’ taken a turn for the worse. According to the Guardian:

The increase in the annual rate was largely the result of a government increase in tobacco duty, after the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced higher taxes in the autumn statement.

Given the importance Rishi Sunak has placed on reducing inflation to two per cent, this is nothing short of a disaster for Downing Street, and it’s pretty clear who is to blame.

But first, a quick recap:

In his Budget statement last March, the Chancellor stuck to the tobacco escalator and increased duty on cigarettes using the Retail Price Index (RPI) of 10.1%, plus 2% – in other words, an increase of 12.1%.

And if that wasn't enough, in November he raised the duty on cigarettes by RPI plus 2% again. Furthermore (to reduce the gap with cigarette duty), he increased the duty on hand-rolling tobacco by RPI plus 12%.

This was just seven weeks after the prime minister announced plans to introduce a generational tobacco sales ban, so the Chancellor no doubt thought he was kicking on an open door.

However, the economic consequences of the Government's war on smoking are now coming home to roost, and it's not good news for Rishi Sunak or the Conservatives, whose election schtick will be based largely on their ability to reduce inflation and improve the economy.

Instead, according to the Bank of England, inflation is currently at four per cent and the target of two per cent is further away than it was before the latest figures.

Of course, given that smoking is a minority habit, there have already been people questioning why the price of tobacco could impact the inflation rate.

It's true that tobacco is just one of hundreds of consumer items used to calculate inflation, and it's also true that increases in tobacco duty won't directly affect the vast majority of the population.

But that's true of many items in the 'basket' used to calculate inflation. I don't use e-bikes, for example, nor have I ever purchased security or surveillance cameras (items recently added to the list).

I rarely use the train, either, yet train tickets are included, so the inclusion of tobacco (which is still consumed by almost one in seven adults) is perfectly legitimate, especially if you contrast tobacco with two items recently removed from the list – digital compact cameras, and non-chart CDs bought in store.

But there are two other aspects to this.

One, by having an impact on the inflation rate, Hunt's decision to impose further punitive tax hikes on tobacco last year has marked him (and therefore the Government) as economically incompetent.

Most people won't care that they don't smoke and are therefore not directly affected by an increase in tobacco duty.

The only thing that will register is that efforts to reduce inflation have stalled and the Government is struggling to achieve its target of two per cent. Politically, that's another error by the Chancellor.

Two, most smokers are from poorer backgrounds. Forcing people who are already on lower wages to pay significantly and disproportionately more for tobacco is hardly levelling up – it's discrimination, pure and simple.

Not for the first time, the war on smokers, and smoking, has backfired. If that doesn't give Rishi Sunak pause for thought before he steams ahead with his generational tobacco sales ban, I don't know what will.

PS. I don't claim to be economically literate myself, so if I've got anything wrong do let know. Then again, I'm not Chancellor of the Exchequer!

Talking liberties

At the Battle of Ideas last year I took part in a session entitled ‘Freedom: Up In Smoke?’.

It was prompted by my essay of the same name, which is one of a series called Letters on Liberty published by the Academy of Ideas.

Letters on Liberty are published three at a time, and one of the essays published at the same time as mine was ‘Boxing: Don’t Count It Out’ by Chris Akers.

Chris has written about boxing for 15 years, covering title fights and interviewing domestic and world champions.

He also has a podcast, The 286 Project, in which he discusses sport, politics, and the arts with a wide range of interviewees.

The latest edition, recorded last week, features an interview with me which you can watch on YouTube (below) or listen to on Spotify.

We discussed the proposed generational smoking ban and other tobacco-related issues and, although I didn’t go into it too much, I think there are similarities between the war on boxing (a predominantly working class sport) and the war on smoking, which is now a predominantly working class habit.

I’m not sure if that bit of the conversation survived the edit, or took place after we stopped recording, but have a listen anyway.

Public health minister – "There is no safe level of nicotine consumption"

Quick follow up to last week's Westminster Hall ‘debate’ on achieving a ‘smokefree’ (sic) future.

My prediction that very few MPs would be present was correct (no surprise there), but I over-estimated the number. Including the chairman, Virendra Sharma, just eight MPs bothered to turn up.

In addition to Bob Blackman (Conservative), chairman of the APPG on Smoking and Health, and Labour's Mary Kelly Foy (who is vice-chair of the same APPG), the others were Jim Shannon (DUP), Liz Twist (Labour), Preet Kaur Gill (Labour’s new shadow public health minister), and public health minister Andrea Leadsom, every one of whom support the Government's ‘smokefree’ ambition.

The only dissenting voice was another DUP MP, Ian Paisley, but his principal concern was the unintended consequences of crime in Northern Ireland and the problems that might arise if a generational ban was introduced there when, over the border in the Republic, tobacco could still be purchased legally at 18.

The defining memory of the 'debate' however was not the pitiful attendance nor the predictable contributions from the likes of Blackman and Mary Kelly Foy, but Andrea Leadsom's performance.

Perhaps I'm used to ministers being a little more guarded in their response, or at least keeping their personal views closer to their chest, but Leadsom didn't hold back. A former smoker, she clearly considers this a personal crusade:

Quitting smoking is the best thing a smoker can do for their health: someone who quits before turning 30 could add ten years to their life. That is very reassuring to me; I started smoking at the age of 14 and gave up as my 21st birthday present to myself, by which time I was smoking 40 a day. I was a student — how did I afford it? I have no idea!

I am so glad I stopped. For anyone who doubts how addictive it is, I turned 60 last year and even to this day, talking about smoking all the time, I sometimes think, “Ooh a cigarette.” That is how addictive it is — 40 years on and I still think, “Ooh!” It is that addictive, and that is absolutely appalling.

But the most jaw-dropping moment was when she declared:

Unlike other consumer products, there is no safe level of nicotine consumption; it is a product that kills up to two thirds of its long-term users and causes 70% of lung cancer deaths.

'No safe level of nicotine consumption'? That’s quite a statement, although I can see what's she done. She's conflated smoking with the consumption of nicotine, but if it was an accident it was also a Freudian slip.

Truth is, as far as government and the public health industry are concerned, the war on tobacco is a war on nicotine, and comments such as 'There is no safe level of nicotine consumption' make the direction of travel absolutely clear.

The UK Vaping Industry Association reacted furiously, as you might expect ('Health minister worryingly out of touch on vaping issues').

It amuses me, though, when vaping advocates, including the vaping industry, accuse politicians and public health activists of being 'out of touch' on vaping whilst accepting everything they have to say about smoking including, no doubt, the claim that that 'the directly attributable cost of smoking to society was around £17 billion a year'.

So forgive me if I don't share the UKVIA's angst.

Nevertheless, it is a little worrying when a government minister makes such a sweeping statement. It's like saying 'There is no safe level of alcohol consumption', or 'There is no safe level of caffeine consumption'.

Has she never heard the expression, 'the dose is the poison'?

Anyway, it's hard to see the Government rowing back with the likes of Andrea Leadsom in office. She may only be a junior minister but that's scant consolation given the PM’s key role in proposing a generational smoking ban.

The remarkable thing is that Leadsom could have been PM had she not shot herself in the foot with an ill-judged remark about motherhood making her a better candidate than Theresa May for the Tory leadership in 2017.

Thankfully we dodged that bullet but got the Maybot instead. Hard times.

Down memory lane

I'm spending the weekend having a bit of a clear out.

Or that's the idea. What invariably happens is that I spend most of the time reading old letters and magazines, and reminiscing.

For example, I've just found a press cutting from the St Andrews Citizen, dated May 22, 1976. That would have been shortly after my final exams at school, and it features a photo of the Madras College 1st XI cricket team.

Eight of the eleven were in the year below me so they still had one year left, but every face, bar one, is familiar to me and it's one of the reasons I would hate to attend a school reunion. Fancy seeing those same faces, older if not wiser, almost 50 years on, and them seeing mine. I couldn’t do it.

One thing that strikes me about the picture is what a scruffy lot we looked. Only one person – the captain sitting in the middle – looks properly equipped to play cricket, and if I remember he was indeed the only decent cricketer in the team.

Cricket in Scotland (especially at school) was a strange affair. We only played cricket during the summer term which was quite short because the summer holiday in Scotland starts two or three weeks ahead of England.

The term was also interrupted by exams so several matches were held over until the exams were finished and then squeezed into the short period before the end of term.

The unpredictable and often cold weather, even in May or June, was another issue, and matches were sometimes played on grounds that, during the winter, were used for rugby so some outfields were very uneven which made fielding a bit of a lottery.

Furthermore, if you were in sixth form, as I was in 1976, and had finished your exams, you didn't bother going to school unless there was a very good reason to, so in your head you had already left. Returning for a cricket match felt a bit odd.

Anyway, the photo below brings back lots of memories – the worst of which was when we were bowled out for 14 and I was third joint top scorer with one run.

In the circumstances I was quite pleased with myself, but I think we lost by ten wickets that day, our opponents knocking off the runs in two or three overs.

Madras College 1st XI cricket team, 1976. Yours truly is seated, far left

Another thing I didn't expect to find was an old newsletter dated Christmas 1994. It was called ICS Express and it was one of a handful I produced for ICS Worldwide Couriers.

Chairman and chief executive was a Canadian businessman called Michael Jacobson. The company was launched in 1984 and this was Jacobson's message to his workforce ten years later:

Although I much prefer looking to the future than wallowing in the past, I can't let 1994 slip away without some reference to our 10th anniversary.

Ten years ago the company headquarters was a flat in Hampstead. Eight cardboard boxes, marked with Central London postcodes, were propped up against a wall and a typical day would begin at 4.00am when I took two sacks of documents down to Smithfield meat market.

Four people on push bikes were recruited to deliver ICS packages before their working days began and we would go to a nearby cafe to sort the post.

After breakfast I spent the day making sales calls until the pick-ups began at 4.00pm. Then it was back to the flat for a couple of hours' sorting, and at four the next morning the cycle would begin all over again.

A few months after writing that Jacobson sold the business to the management for £78m and the newsletter, which was his baby, was quietly dropped.

In hindsight, though, and given that £78m valuation, I should perhaps have charged rather more than I did to produce it!

What happened to the company thereafter I've no idea. Google 'ICS' and you'll find several businesses, including a Canadian courier company founded in 1978, with the same initials so it's a bit confusing.

As for Michael Jacobson, I can find only two references to him online – a short entry in what I assume is the Sunday Times Rich List where he ranks 1100= (in 2008), and a piece in the Daily Mail in 2012 where he pops up as the 'new man' in the life of former model Lisa Butcher.

By coincidence, they are pictured ‘arm-in-arm at the private view of David Hockney’s much-vaunted show A Bigger Picture at the Royal Academy’.

Fun fact: Butcher and Mica Paris replaced Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine for two series of BBC1's 'What Not To Wear' when the latter jumped ship to ITV in 2006.

Gladiators, ready!

The return of Gladiators to our TV screens reminds me that 33 years ago I interviewed one of the original hosts.

Not Ulrika Jonsson, but Wimbledon footballer John Fashanu.

First broadcast in October 1992, Gladiators was a TV phenomenon, initially at least, until the novelty wore off and falling ratings led to its cancellation in 1999.

Fashanu, an FA Cup winner in 1988, was still playing and had no TV experience before he was chosen to present the programme alongside Jonsson, a former breakfast TV weather girl.

From 1990 to 1992 I edited a monthly magazine for chartered accountants and one of the first things I did was introduce a feature called ‘Money Talks’ that featured well-known people talking about, er, money.

Subjects included Norris McWhirter (Guinness Book of Records), Gyles Brandreth, inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, chef Anton Mossiman, Labour MP Dennis Skinner, and ‘Low Life’ journalist Jeffrey Bernard.

(I’m not sure if I’ve ever written about my two meetings with Bernard, almost a decade apart but virtually identical in that we met at the Coach and Horses pub in Soho at 11.00am and I watched as he got progressively tetchier under the influence of alcohol, much of it provided free by admirers who wanted a minute or two of his time.)

Fashanu seemed an interesting case study for ‘Money Talks’ because, while he was famously physical and intimidating as a player, he was also a budding businessman.

If I remember, he was managing a number of properties for wealthy clients. We met in one property, a flat very close to Marble Arch, and he drove me to another, a mansion in The Bishops Avenue just north of Hampstead Heath.

(I’m not sure when the definite article was added. Perhaps it was always there but I’ve always known it as plain Bishops Avenue.)

The Bishops Avenue is said to be home to some of the wealthiest people in the world, but I don’t remember much about the house because I don’t think we were there very long. (Fashanu was on a tight schedule and most of the interview took place in the car.)

What I do remember is how well spoken and easy to speak to he was. Put it this way, I didn't have to prise information out of him, although he was professional and discreet about his clients.

As a football fan and Chelsea supporter I was probably more interested in talking about football and there were one or two stories that, sadly, I couldn't use in the published article.

Anyway, I was impressed. Although he drove a large, luxury car, and took me to a property in one of the world’s richest streets, he seemed down-to-earth and level-headed, confident but not arrogant.

Sadly, like many interviews I did at that time, I don’t have a record of it because I don’t have a complete set of back copies which is annoying because my memory is terrible and getting worse!

So you’ll just have to believe me when I say, I really did interview the original presenter of one of the biggest TV shows of the Nineties (and an FA Cup winner to boot).

Tap of the pubs

A pub in Tamworth has been named the best pub in Britain for the second year running.

According to the BBC:

The Tamworth Tap scooped the National Pub of the Year 2023 award by the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) - the organisation's top honour.

Located in a 16th-Century building in Tamworth, the pub is only the second to win the prize twice consecutively.

I’m not a fan of Camra - largely because they actively welcomed the smoking ban and did nothing to oppose it - but the Tamworth Tap … that rang a different bell.

In October 2022 the pub also won the Best Pub Garden award in the Great British Pub Awards organised by the Morning Advertiser.

I remember searching for it online and the outdoor area did indeed look nice. I was a bit concerned though by the ‘no smoking’ signs, so I emailed the landlord, congratulated him on the award, and added:

Forgive me asking, but can you confirm your smoking policy? I’ve seen signs that say ‘No smoking in the courtyard’ but I wondered if smoking is allowed anywhere in the courtyard (a smoking area, perhaps) or at the tables out front.

The reason I ask is that a decade or so ago we were co-sponsors of the Best Outdoor Smoking Area award at the Great British Pub Awards. That award no longer exists but we still like to monitor trends in the pub industry and it’s interesting that in 2022 the ‘Best Pub Garden’ might be non-smoking.

To be clear, we have always argued that as owners of a private business publicans should be allowed to devise their own policies on smoking so this not intended as criticism. I’m merely curious.

He replied very quickly and explained that:

The garden is divided into two areas with smoking and non smoking. We also allow smoking at the front of the building. We aim to cater for all customers.

Fair enough.

It was at that point however that I realised I had made an unfortunate faux pas. Instead of addressing the landlord as ‘Mr Greenaway’ (his first name is George), I had addressed him as ‘Mr Galloway’. Doh!

All I could do was apologise and blame it on autocorrect.

See also: Tamworth Tap has been named the best pub in the country (Camra)