Still defiant after all these years

Ian Hunter is releasing a new album next month.

To put this in perspective, the former lead singer with Mott the Hoople is 83 and stopped touring four years ago after he developed tinnitus.

I heard Mott for the first time in 1972, by which time they had already released four albums, none of which troubled the charts.

Thanks to their reputation as a live band however they had developed a small but devoted following that included Mick Jones of The Clash, and after Bowie gave them ‘All The Young Dudes’ (which he also produced) the band enjoyed a handful of hit singles and three successful albums before imploding in 1974.

Ironically, just as they were breaking up, a book appeared, Diary of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star. Based on a journal Hunter had kept during a 1972 tour of the States, it’s still in print with the most recent edition published in 2018.

Even now it's widely regarded as one of the best memoirs of its kind. What comes across most is the band's wide-eyed naivety of all things American, and the boredom of travelling across the States while staying in one anonymous hotel after another.

In 2009, after a hiatus of 35 years, the original line-up (1969-1972) reformed for five nights at Hammersmith Apollo. To most people’s surprise the concerts were a huge success (and I was there, for one night).

Less critically acclaimed was a short (but profitable) tour of half a dozen UK venues in 2013 that ended with a gig at the O2, an inappropriately cavernous arena for a band better suited to smaller theatres.

In 2019 Mott the Hoople ‘74 hit the road. By now two members of the original band - the drummer and bass player - had died and the lead guitarist had suffered a stroke so this version – featuring Hunter, two members of the 73-74 line-up, and members of Hunter’s own band – was something of a Frankenstein monster.

I caught Mott ‘74 in Birmingham in April 2019 shortly after they played half a dozen gigs in America.

A further US tour was planned but after Hunter was struck down with tinnitus it was cancelled. He hasn’t toured since but has been busy writing and recording at home in Connecticut.

The reason I mention all of this is because, 20 years ago, I wrote to Hunter via his website. I knew he was a smoker and the New York smoking ban had just been introduced.

Joe Jackson had spoken out against the ban (and written an article in the New York Times) so I thought I’d reach out to another English musician domiciled in the States.

A little to my surprise he replied:

I am a smoker, but if I had to pick sides on this issue I could not encourage people to smoke. I don't think it's a clever thing to do and I feel somewhat stuck with it. I like Joe Jackson a lot, but I don't go with either him or you on this one. If I want a fag I'll always find a way to smoke one.

I don't like [the ban] any more than you do. Bars/restaurants in New York City are not the same and some of them are hurting. People are going to [New] Jersey to eat. However, if somebody sat next to me in a cafe and puffed away and I didn't smoke it would piss me off far more. Sorry.

Fair play, an honest response.

Since our very brief exchange Hunter has released a further four studio albums and I have them all – Shrunken Heads (2007), Man Overboard (2009), When I'm President (2012), and Fingers Crossed (2016).

Which brings me to Defiance Part 1 which was recorded during the pandemic and features a remarkable list of guest musicians who, bored and stuck at home, responded to invitations to contribute to one or more songs.

According to Rolling Stone they include 'the late Jeff Beck, Ringo Starr, the late Taylor Hawkins, and members of Metallica, Guns n’ Roses, ZZ Top, Wilco, Stone Temple Pilots, and Aerosmith.'

Hunter is 83 now and although his music is fairly generic these days, the first single from the album sounds pretty good (to my ears). It features Ringo on drums and Mike Campbell, who played on the last Fleetwood Mac tour and was previously with the late Tom Petty.

Defiance Part 1 is released next month, to be followed later this year or next by Defiance Part 2 which features more guest musicians including Brian May of Queen.

By then Hunter will be 84. As the Telegraph reviewer put it, following Mott’s sold out reunion gigs in London in 2009:

And the rockin’ went on, unrestrainable, deafening, totally life-affirming.

See also: Happy birthday, Ian Hunter (June 2019)
Mott the Hoople – live at last! (October 2009)

And, more recently:

Catching up with Ian Hunter (Culture Sonar, March 16, 2023)

PS. Six weeks before Pete Overend Watts, Mott’s bass player, died of cancer in January 2017, he sent the most wonderful email to bandmate Morgan Fisher.

Do read it, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever read - ‘RIP Olde Gruff Pete’.

_Above: Ian Hunter in 2018.

The war on fun

Hugely enjoyable evening at the IEA on Thursday.

The first Forest event of the year attracted a full house. Actually it was significantly over-subscribed and we had to stop accepting registrations in case the room got seriously over-crowded.

However, a combination of poor weather and the usual no shows (normal for a free event like this) meant that numbers stayed on the right side of what was comfortable.

Appropriately, given the subject was prohibition, there was a faint speakeasy feel to the evening, with a makeshift bar serving drinks before and after the discussion.

Our panel - Chris Snowdon, Reem Ibrahim (IEA), Henry Hill (ConservativeHome), and Kara Kennedy (The Spectator) - were uniformly excellent.

Reem, who is in her final year at the London School of Economics, is 20. Kara, a staff writer at The Spectator World (the US edition of the magazine), is 24. Collectively it was the youngest panel we’ve ever had.

It was also one of the most entertaining.

If more politicians attended events like this they might be less inclined to ban things that many people enjoy, but it cheers me to know that in 2023 there is still opposition to the fun police.

The difficulty is uniting and organising that opposition into a coherent political force when most consumers, young and old, just want to be left alone.

Kara, btw, was invited to take part after I read her article ‘An ode to smoking’.

The tone of her piece in this week’s Spectator is somewhat darker but it’s equally arresting - ‘The killer next door: growing up in the murder capital of Wales’.

Do read it if you can.

Alternatively here’s another article, written, she told me, that very afternoon - ‘An ode to good breasts’.

Take your pick.

PS. According to The Sun, IEA director-general Mark Littlewood is to be made a peer in Liz Truss’s resignation honours list.

If and when the story is confirmed I may comment further. In the meantime I am keeping every finger crossed that it’s true!

Below (clockwise from top left): Chris Snowdon, Kara Kennedy, Henry Hill, Reem Ibrahim. Photos: Stuart Mitchell

We're back! Forest at the IEA

If you’re in London on Thursday do join us at the Institute of Economic Affairs where Forest is co-hosting, with the IEA, a small but perfectly formed event.

Preceded by drinks, it's a panel discussion entitled ‘Smoking Gun: Prohibition and the Infantilisation of Britain’. I’m chairing and our panellists are Chris Snowdon, Reem Ibrahim, Henry Hill, and Kara Kennedy (see below).

Chris needs no introduction; Reem is in her final year at LSE and was recently appointed communications officer at the IEA; Henry is deputy editor of ConservativeHome; and Kara is a staff writer at The Spectator World for which she recently wrote a widely acclaimed article, ‘An ode to smoking’.

The event will address the Khan review: making smoking obsolete and the Government’s forthcoming Tobacco Control Plan, the announcement of which is said to be imminent.

We’re excited to be back at the IEA for the first time since 2019 (ie before the pandemic) so join us if you can.

Places are limited so please register in advance. Email events@forestonline.org or go to our Eventbrite page to register there.

United by The Gold

It’s not a great time to be a Dundee United supporter.

Last month the club marked the 40th anniversary of their one and only League Championship title - a feat that will never be repeated in my or anyone else’s lifetime - with a gala dinner featuring some of the players from that 1982-83 team.

That same day United lost at home to St Johnstone, cementing their position at the bottom of the Scottish Premier League.

The following week they lost 4-0 to Ross County, their nearest relegation rivals, and promptly sacked the manager who had only been appointed in September, the previous manager having been dismissed after just ten weeks and seven matches, two of which were 7-0 and 9-0 defeats.

Under their third manager of the season, United have lost once and drawn twice and are still bottom of the division and in serious danger of relegation.

I mention this because over the past six weeks something rather quirky has been happening on television, although most viewers will be unaware of it.

If you’ve been watching The Gold, you’ll know that it’s based on the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery and if you can overlook the Robin Hood conceit that underpins the script, it’s been very enjoyable.

Neil Forsyth, The Gold’s writer, is like me a Dundee United supporter and the series is peppered with at least six references to the club and its former players, some more subtle than others.

In the most obvious example, a Spanish extra is seen wearing an Eighties style club shirt.

In a prison scene several inmates are named after legendary United players and in another scene a football commentary can be heard in the background.

The game? United versus Barcelona in the UEFA Cup in 1987, a match (and tie) United won.

Even the production company, Tannadice Pictures, is named after the club’s ground.

The final episode of The Gold is on BBC One tonight. As it happens I watched the whole series on iPlayer several weeks ago but if you haven’t seen it I do recommend it.

And watch out for those football references. As a Dundee United supporter it’s the only thing we’ve got to cheer about!

PS. ‘Jousting with Jim’ is a beautifully written piece by Forsyth, published in Nutmeg magazine in March 2019 and mentioned by me here following the former Dundee United manager’s death in December 2020.

‘Remembering Ralph’ is another wonderful article by Forsyth about Ralph Milne, a member of that title-winning United side who died, aged 54, in 2016 after battling alcohol and gambling addiction.

Fabulous writing. And The Gold’s not too shabby either.

Above: A Spanish extra wearing a United style shirt in The Gold

20 years ago – exit Clive, enter Deborah

To no-one's surprise, this week’s tobacco tax rises were welcomed by ASH. True to form, however, they still weren't satisfied.

There was a 'lack of action on disposable vapes', they complained, and a 'failure to reinstate funding to help smokers to quit and prevent youth uptake'.

They were also 'disappointed that the Chancellor did not accept our recommendation to change from RPI [Retail Price Index] to average earnings as the foundation for the tobacco tax escalator'.

I wrote about this 'recommendation' a few weeks ago and I was right, I think, to question it because, if the forecasts are right, by the end of the year inflation will have fallen below earnings growth (where it generally resides) and that, I think, is one of the reasons ASH is pressing for change.

But that's not what I wanted to write about today, although it is ASH-related.

In January 2003 it was announced that:

Clive Bates, the highly respected director of Action and Smoking on Health (ASH), is to leave the charity after five years in March to take a job as a government adviser.

It is therefore 20 years ago (this month) that Bates left ASH to join Tony Blair’s Strategy Unit and I can’t let the moment pass without comment.

According to Campaign:

The news of Bates' departure emerges in the week that tobacco advertising ends in the UK. He had campaigned tirelessly for the ban.

Indeed he had, but despite that he seemed quite a good sport, prompting me to write, a decade later:

I have always had a soft spot for Clive, even when he was director of ASH.

By all accounts some of his predecessors were humourless zealots driven by an ideological hatred of Big Tobacco and anyone who dared to challenge the new anti-smoking orthodoxy ...

Clive was never like that. Unlike many people in public health he's had a varied career outside that cosseted industry. He's not obsessed to the point of lunacy by smoking or anything else.

Most important, he has a sense of humour.

This included contributing to the 'What's My Vice?' feature in the Forest magazine Free Choice, and when he left ASH, in March 2003, we sent him flowers. It was the least we could do.

Our magnanimity (never reciprocated, alas!) continued in the Guardian, of all places:

Simon Clark, Bates's opposite number at the pro-choice, pro-smoking group Forest, describes Bates's tenure at ASH as "a breath of fresh air" after the "antics" of his predecessors.

“Funnily enough, I'd written an affectionate profile of Clive before Christmas for our new website, in which I said it was time for him to move on and that he'd make an excellent New Labour spin doctor,” says Clark. “I shall now have to rewrite it.”

But enough about Bates, who is now a saintly ambassador for tobacco harm reduction (vaping in particular). What about his successor?

Deborah Arnott was 48 when she replaced Clive as director of ASH, so you do the maths. I'm not being ageist (I'm 64 myself!) but it does beg the question: could retirement be looming for this long-serving titan of tobacco control?

I'm sure Deborah would love to be at the helm if and when England is officially designated 'smoke free', but the 2030 target is seven years away, added to which the chances of achieving a smoking rate of five per cent or less, even by then, is optimistic.

I'm wondering therefore if the Government's new Tobacco Control Plan, to be announced "in the coming weeks", could turn out to be Deborah’s swan song.

For years the holy grail for Arnott and ASH has been the imposition of a ‘polluter pays’ levy on the tobacco industry with a view to funding more smoking cessation services and anti-smoking initiatives.

Figures mentioned have ranged from £105m to £700m annually, which would keep a whole new generation of tobacco control campaigners in work for years to come.

Like Bates and the ban on tobacco advertising, Deborah has campaigned tirelessly for a tobacco levy so I imagine that’s the principal legacy she is hoping to leave before she departs, stage left.

Another legacy she may be hoping to leave is plain packaging - and I’m not talking about tobacco, which is in the bag already, but e-cigarettes.

Yes, ASH wants all vapes (not just the disposable kind) to be sold in standardised packaging, just like tobacco. (Chris Snowdon explains all here: 'Sweet Jesus, not plain packaging again!'.)

To be clear, I’ve no reason to suppose Arnott's retirement is imminent, but it didn't go unnoticed that in 2021 Hazel Cheeseman stepped up from director of policy to deputy chief executive.

I may be wrong but I don’t recall ASH ever having a deputy CEO (or deputy director) before, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she is being lined up for the top job when Deborah does call it a day.

Anyway, I'll write a more fulsome 'tribute' in May, which I think marks the 20th anniversary of her long reign.

After 20 years on the frontline of the war on tobacco she deserves no less!

Chancellor's smoke and mirrors

Writing on his blog this morning, Chris Snowdon noted:

The tax on a packet of cigarettes will rise by about £1.30 today thanks to the tobacco duty escalator. If recent history is any guide, the Chancellor won't even mention it because smokers don't matter in Britain in 2023. They are second class citizens to be vilified while the state uses them as cash cows.

See: Open season on smokers (Velvet Glove Iron Fist).

Well, Jeremy Hunt did mention tobacco duty but in the most perfunctory way. "We will uprate tobacco duty," he murmured.

(Uprate? When did that replace 'raise' or 'increase'?)

For more details we had to wait until the publication of the full Spring Budget 2023 (or Red Book, as it's known) and there, hidden away on page 83, it reads:

Tobacco duties – Duty rates on all tobacco products will increase by RPI + 2%. The rate on hand-rolling tobacco will increase by RPI + 6% and the minimum excise tax will increase by RPI +3% this year. These changes will take effect from 6pm on 15 March 2023.

What that doesn't tell you is the rate of RPI (Retail Price Index), the measure of inflation used by government when 'uprating' tobacco duty.

And this is where it gets complicated because according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) the RPI is 12.7% but I have now been told that the tobacco duty increases are based on an RPI of 10.1%.

In other words, the duty will go up by 12.1%, not 15% or thereabouts, but don't quote me because I'm still trying to get confirmation.

(The Sun and Mirror are currently basing their reports on an RPI of 12.7%. I wish the Treasury could be clearer.)

Either way, it's a massive increase in taxation, especially as inflation is forecast to come down to 2.9% by the end of the year.

By then smokers could be paying duty that is 11% (not 2%) higher than inflation. If so, that's some escalator!

See: Price of cigarettes to rise above £14 from TONIGHT as tobacco tax hiked by nearly 15% (Mirror). It includes Forest's response:

Campaigners have accused the Chancellor of being "heartless and cruel" after Jeremy Hunt pledged to uprate tobacco duty.

Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said: "Punishing smokers for their habit during a cost of living crisis is heartless and cruel.

"This is bad news for legitimate, law-abiding retailers, and bad news for the Treasury which could lose billions of pounds in revenue if more smokers buy their tobacco from illicit traders."

The Sun has also quoted us - Price of packet of cigarettes set to rise to £14.39 from 6pm tonight.

Update: The BBC has the best explanation here:

In the Budget, the chancellor revealed the duty rates on all tobacco products would increase by the Retail Price Index (RPI) of 10.1%, plus 2%. This means an increase of about 12%.

The RPI is a measure of inflation which came down to 10.1% in January.

According to the Office for National Statistics, the average price for a packet of 20 cigarettes in January 2023 was £12.84.

The increase in duty rates announced in the Budget means an average packet of 20 cigarettes would increase to £14.39 at 18:00 GMT on Wednesday.

Significantly it was not published until 7.00pm, which presumably is how long it took to clarify the details.

Not sure why the Treasury couldn’t have explained all this in the Spring Budget doc. Makes you wonder if they were being deliberately vague.

Forest's response to the Budget (watch this space)

As a child I used to hate the Budget.

In the days of two-channel television (we didn't have BBC2 until 1970 so it was a choice between BBC1 or ITV and we rarely watched ITV) I'd get home from school to find that all the children's programmes had been replaced by Robin Day interviewing one deadly dull politician after another while a series of equally boring 'experts' commented on what had just happened.

At least I had a choice of watching that or doing something more interesting. Today I have no choice because it's my job to watch the Chancellor's statement and respond to the latest hike in tobacco duty so I'll be sitting at my computer taking notes.

I think it was Gordon Brown who first introduced the tobacco escalator – in 2002, if I remember. Or maybe that was the year he dropped it because the Government was losing too much revenue (around £3bn a year) to the black market.

It was a Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne, who reintroduced the escalator in 2010 and since then UK tobacco duty has been progressively hiked to the current, punitive, levels, matched only by Ireland.

In recent years, because of the metronomic regularity of the annual escalator, the media has slightly lost interest in the subject.

A couple of years ago the tobacco duty hike wasn't even mentioned in the Chancellor's statement to the House and we had to scrabble around to read the small print when the relevant documents were posted online by the Treasury later that afternoon.

Things could be very different today because, after a decade of low inflation, the current Retail Price Index (the flawed measure used to calculate inflation for the purpose of tobacco duty) is around 13 per cent.

Add another two per cent and you have an increase of 15 per cent, which would mean an average pack of cigarettes could rise by £1.15, and a 30g pouch of tobacco by £2, according to some reports.

That would be almost unprecedented, hence the headline of Forest's draft press release:

CHANCELLOR ACCUSED OF BEING "HEARTLESS AND CRUEL" – "THE NASTY PARTY IS BACK" SAY CAMPAIGNERS

Jeremy Hunt may surprise us of course so, just in case, we have drafted a second press release that reads:

CAMPAIGNERS WELCOME CHANCELLOR'S "COMMON SENSE AND COMPASSION"

Watch this space to see which version we send out!

Update: "We will uprate tobacco duty," says Hunt. No mention of by how much, though. Details should be posted online later.

Update: 'Tobacco duties – Duty rates on all tobacco products will increase by RPI + 2%. The rate on hand-rolling tobacco will increase by RPI + 6% and the minimum excise tax will increase by RPI +3% this year. These changes will take effect from 6pm on 15 March 2023.' Spring Budget 2023, page 83.

Note: I've been told that the increases are based on an RPI (Retail Price Index) of 10.1% (not 12.7%, the figure that is being more widely reported) plus escalators, so the duty on cigarettes will go up by 12.1%, although this has still be confirmed.

Interestingly, though, inflation is forecast to come down to 2.9% by the end of the year so by December smokers will be paying duty that may be 11% (not 2%) higher than the rate of inflation.

I think that's right.

Heroes

Hats off to Ian Dennis, Alistair Bruce-Ball and John Murray.

According to reports, the three commentators ‘all took a stand under immense pressure to commentate for the BBC over the weekend.’

The Mail has the story here and there’s an excellent piece in The Times today (Solidarity with BBC football staff who actually showed up for work) that is well worth reading.

All three are heroes in my view because it’s far harder to swim against the tide, especially when you know what’s coming. (Insults and accusations of being a “scab”.)

Fair play too to Pat Nevin. The former Chelsea and Everton winger, who is now a Five Live pundit and co-commentator, has never hidden his liberal, progressive views, although they’re more cultural than party political.

Like Ian Dennis, Alistair Bruce-Ball and John Murray (my favourite Five Live commentator), Nevin actually turned up for work on Sunday.

Not for him the pathetic posturing and virtue signalling of other pundits and commentators, some of whom weren’t even scheduled to work but decided to tell the world that, if they had been, they would have withdrawn their labour.

Speaking on Five Live, Nevin is reported to have said:

“I happen to stand on roughly the same hill as Gary Lineker, but we have to understand that if we have stringent opinions and other alternative – and indeed opposite – opinions, they would have to be allowed.

“That is not easy for an impartial organisation like the BBC to cope with. I’m going to talk about this for a long time to come, we’ve got to debate it – the future and direction of this organisation, possibly under threat institution, could depend on this.

“It’s about getting on and getting it right from hereon in. I could go on, I won’t, we’ve got a game of football here to talk about."

Clearly, Nevin gets it. Unlike many of his peers, who arguably don’t know or care, he understands that the BBC is supposed to be an impartial organisation.

Kudos too to Chris Sutton, another former Chelsea footballer whose most successful years were at Blackburn, and later Celtic.

Sutton’s radio persona is that of a controversialist, or contrarian. He winds people up with his arguments but it’s clearly an act.

‘Writing’ for the Daily Mail, however, he was more Nevin than (Gary) Neville, the Labour-supporting ex-footballer and Sky Sports pundit, and much better for it:

Many football fans will have been really disappointed with the reduced coverage. The brilliant Ian Dennis, who went ahead with covering Leeds v Brighton on 5 Live on Saturday, summed it up best on air. 

He said he is a commentator and felt it was important to provide a service to the 5 Live audience. And that’s where I stand. Gary has had great support from fans and fellow broadcasters, pundits and presenters. I support free speech. 

The power to be able to speak freely is pivotal. But the situation is complicated and I feel greatly for BBC staffers who are not sure what to do and freelancers who are losing work because of this situation. 

Nevin, btw, gave me and thousands of other Chelsea supporters one of the great moments at Stamford Bridge. As I wrote here:

One moment – which I remember vividly to this day – was little Pat Nevin beating at least five players from the halfway line before dribbling round the goalkeeper only to shoot wide. It didn't matter. The crowd stood and gave him a standing ovation and Chelsea went to win the match, against Newcastle, 4-0.

The Chelsea website has a report of the match, in 1983, and I wos there!

But wait, what's this?

Fortunately for viewers in the north-east, an industrial dispute meant no ‘Match of the Day’ that night.

Fancy that!

See also: Let's talk about Gary Lineker