Connections

Royal Academy of Arts

It's been a busy week.

Last Friday I attended a reception at the House of Commons to celebrate the (long overdue!) wedding of a former colleague, now an MP.

We were asked not to post anything on social media so I didn't, but it was nice to catch up with several people I hadn't seen for decades.

Regrettably there were one or two I didn't say hello to because it's been so long I didn't recognise them and it was only later that I found out they were there.

Anyway, I was back in London this week for two more receptions, the first at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly.

The event, which included a private viewing of the RA's Summer Exhibition, was hosted by the tobacco company JTI and was called 'Connections'.

I didn't know a huge number of people but I enjoyed wandering round the galleries, stopping to chat with those I did know.

I also got to wear a virtual reality headset that had something to do with illicit trade but after removing my glasses to accommodate the headset it was all a bit of a blur, if I'm honest.

After some trial and error, I did however succeed in opening, with my virtual 'hand', a car boot that contained what appeared to be packs of counterfeit cigarettes. Success!

Hats off, btw, to the guest who, twelve hours after attending the RA event, was scheduled to appear before the Health and Social Care Committee in the House of Commons.

By all accounts he handled the interrogation very well so credit where credit's due!

And so to last night and a packed event – on the terrace of the House of Lords – to mark the 300th birthday of the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith.

Hosted by Lord Borwick, it was organised, naturally, by the Adam Smith Institute and was quite a nostalgia trip for someone like me.

Madsen Pirie and Eamonn Butler, who founded the ASI in 1977 having previously studied at St Andrews (where I went to school), were partly responsible for getting me my first job after I graduated from Aberdeen in 1980.

It's a story I have told several times before, but I was first introduced to Madsen and Eamonn by a mutual friend (Peter Young) in a pub in Victoria Street, London.

Michael Forsyth was a friend and fellow alumni of Madsen and Eamonn’s at St Andrews and he later joined us for a drink because the pub was close to Westminster City Hall and Michael was, at that time, a Westminster City councillor.

Two days later, after a short interview, he offered me a job at KH Publicity, the PR company where he was already a director in his mid twenties.

(My initial salary, since you didn't ask, was £3,500 per annum, rising to £5,000 after six months.)

I worked for Michael for a little over two years, including 18 months at Michael Forsyth Associates which he set up after leaving KH Publicity and taking two of his colleagues (including me) with him.

Last night Michael (now Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and a former Secretary of State for Scotland) was one of three guest speakers, the others being Lord Borwick and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

There was time for only a few words with him before he had to rush off in response to a division bell, but I reminded him that the last time we met was at the wedding of a mutual Scottish acquaintance.

I was convinced it was only ten years ago but I've just looked it up and it was, in fact, in 2007.

Either way, Michael had no recollection of the wedding at all, although I remember it well and I know he was there because we shared a table in the marquee where the reception was held in what I think was a farm steading in rural Stirlingshire!

Last but not least, I had lunch this week with an American friend, writer and economist Todd Buchholz, who I first met in Washington DC in 1983 and whose musical Glory Ride (which he wrote with his daughter Victoria) is currently at the Charing Cross Theatre until the end of July.

The story of Glory Ride deserves its own post (and I shall write about it later), but I can tell you that we had lunch at Boulevard Brasserie, a French restaurant in Covent Garden.

I didn't book the restaurant, or even suggest it. Todd did, and here's the thing.

Shortly after Boulevard Brasserie opened in 1991, I interviewed the owner and proprietor for a magazine I was editing.

A short while after that I organised a party there for 100+ people.

Again, I remember it well because was a hot summer evening and guests were spilling out on to the pavement because it was cooler outside than in.

Connections? I’ve got a few!

See also: A day to remember, the unveiling of a statue of Adam Smith in Edinburgh in July 2008.

Ann Leslie RIP

Sorry to hear that Ann Leslie, one of the great foreign correspondents, has died, aged 82.

I loved her book Killing My Own Snakes (“The extraordinary life of a Fleet Street legend”) which stands alongside the best Fleet Street memoirs and makes me nostalgic for an era I missed by a generation.

It also prompted this blog post, written in 2009 - ‘What did you do in the (Cold) War?’.

Tributes to Leslie include this from author and broadcaster Steve Richards:

I’m sad to hear Ann Leslie has died. We used to do a programme called Head to Head when the BBC allowed discussion to breathe. This fearless war reporter once told me she was terrified about her next assignment the following day: a health farm where she couldn’t smoke or drink.

And from Guardian columnist and writer Gaby Hinsliff (via Twitter):

Ann Leslie was a force of nature, a trailblazing female foreign corr & the only person I have ever seen respond to being asked not to smoke at breakfast in a party conference hotel with the words ‘darling, if I’ve smoked in a tank …’

See also Obituary: Ann Leslie (BBC).

How mixed messages are undermining the vaping advocacy industry

I sometimes think the biggest threat to vaping are vaping advocates.

I've previously highlighted several examples of foot in mouth syndrome, so before I record the latest let's recap.

In March 2021, Edinburgh-based VPZ, the UK's largest vape retailer, launched a campaign to 'Ban smoking for good' in Scotland.

Commercially you can see where VPZ was coming from. Ban a more popular rival product and, hey presto, millions of potential new customers will be forced to switch. Ingenious!

Or perhaps not. As I wrote at the time:

Calling for a ban on a rival commercial product enjoyed by millions of consumers is not a good look.

I’m not sure it does much for the reputation of the wider vaping industry either. I certainly don’t see it impressing the Scottish Government, not even one as anti-smoking as Nicola Sturgeon’s.

In fact, the 'campaign' (launched on No Smoking Day, natch) was quickly abandoned following the failure of a petition to 'Ban smoking for good' that was signed by just 103 people.

Eleven months later, whilst giving evidence to the Irish Parliament's Joint Committee on Health, a representative of the Irish Vape Vendors Association (IVVA) conceded that "Nothing is better than fresh air" while another said not vaping is always better if you are a non-smoker.

The same person agreed that some e-cigarette packaging is "overly colourful" and a third said, "I would have no problem increasing the age [of sale] to 21."

As I subsequently wrote ('Own goal?'):

WTF?! It's one thing to give an inch but a mile?!

Raising the age of sale of e-cigarettes (and tobacco) to 21 sends entirely the wrong message. As I have argued in relation to tobacco, it infantilises young adults who should be allowed (and encouraged) to make informed choices for themselves.

Specifically it sends the wrong message about e-cigarettes which, if nothing else, is a harm reduction product, not something to be feared or unduly restricted.

I also noted that after admitting that he was "addicted to nicotine", the principal IVVA spokesman added, "I would prefer not to be addicted to nicotine", which is hardly a great endorsement for the nicotine-based consumer product he was supposed to be defending!!

At the time I wasn't alone in thinking that some of those comments beggared belief and were potentially counter-productive if not damaging to vaping, but foot in mouth appears to be endemic within the vaping industry.

In the last week our old friend Doug Mutter of VPZ in Edinburgh was reported to be backing a ban on disposable vapes. Seriously.

To be fair he qualified this by saying the company's support for a ban was dependent on "proper punishments and policing" so it didn't create a black market (which of course it will!), but that nuance was lost on the BBC whose report was headlined 'Vape store boss supports ban on disposables'.

Doh!

The thing is, why risk a headline like that? Had it been me (and I have done this several times in interviews) I would have firmly rejected any suggestion of a ban and added, "Banning disposable vapes will create a huge black market and drive consumers into the hands of illicit traders."

But instead of that Mutter and VPZ appear – deliberately or not – to be on the side of the prohibitionists, which is extraordinary considering he is both a director and occasional spokesman for the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) whose principal spokesman, director John Dunne, is adamant that a ban on disposables is a BAD idea!

A quick shout out too to Louise Ross who was quoted by the Guardian on Friday in a feature headlined 'No need to rush': How to give up vaping:

Unlike cigarettes, where official advice is to completely stop smoking, going cold turkey is not recommended when giving up vaping.

Louise Ross, a clinical consultant at the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training, says the most important thing is to be ready to give up. “If you stop too quickly, the risk is that you go back to smoking.” She advises reducing the strength of the vapes gradually, vaping less often and in fewer places, and making sure your vape isn’t always in your hand. “It’s about setting controls,” she says.

Nothing wrong with that advice. But it's worth noting that Louise is still interim chair of the New Nicotine Alliance, a vaping advocacy group that, if I'm not mistaken, was originally launched to represent 'new nicotine' consumers, including those who, having quit smoking, discovered they enjoyed vaping so much they had no intention of quitting.

Today the current chair of the NNA is a former smoking cessation professional who offers advice on how to quit vaping as well.

To be clear, I am not questioning Ross's integrity because she is obviously well-meaning, but I do find it odd that some of the vaping advocates most often quoted by the media are increasingly minded to talk about quitting, or not starting (to vape).

At risk of repeating myself, is this really the best endorsement of a product we are continually told (by the same people) carries a fraction of the risk of smoking?

But that's not all:

And for teenagers who have never smoked, Ross advises them to consider the environmental benefits of stopping vaping, as well as the health benefits. Vape batteries contain lithium, aluminium, steel, copper and plastics.

Question: Why stop at teenagers who have never smoked? Surely the same message applies to anyone who vapes, or is thinking of switching to vaping (ie current smokers)? Think of the environment, people!!

If you're confused by these mixed messages, join the club. The most extraordinary thing, though, is the fact that they are coming not from opponents of vaping but from within the vaping advocacy industry itself.

As the saying goes, with friends like these who needs ....

Update: UK vaping industry called to account following rise in use among children (UK Parliament, Wednesday June 28)

From the archive: BMA supports ban on sale of cigarettes to those born after 2000

New Zealand may be the first country to pass a law banning the sale of cigarettes to people born after 2008, but the concept is far from new.

In fact, I was reminded this morning that it's exactly nine years since the British Medical Association voted in favour of outlawing cigarette sales to anyone born after 2000.

That vote, and Forest's response, was reported by, among others, the following:

Ban new smokers, call from BMA conference (BBC News)
‘Ban cigarette sales to anyone born after 2000’ (Scotsman)
Doctors vote for ban on UK cigarette sales to those born after 2000 (Guardian)

Our full response read:

“Prohibition doesn’t work. It will create a huge black market in cigarettes and drive generations of adult smokers into the hands of illicit traders.

“Criminalising adults for buying tobacco is illiberal and impractical.

“Tobacco is still a legal product and you can’t permit some adults to buy cigarettes but deny that right to others.

“In 2035, for example, it could be legal for a 36-year-old to buy cigarettes but a 35-year-old might be committing an offence.

“Once again the BMA is indulging in gesture politics for the sake of a cheap headline.”

A few days later, the BMA's Vivienne Nathanson and I were interviewed on Sunday Politics by Andrew Neil. To say I was nervous is an understatement but it went OK. See:

Smoking ban for anyone born after 2000: BMA and Forest (BBC News)

The reason I mention this is to show there are currently very few new ideas in tobacco control. Whether it's a generational ban on the sale of cigarettes, a tobacco levy, or even health warnings on individual cigarettes, the same ideas go round and round like a stuck record.

Eventually one or two may be adopted but it can take an awful long time which is why it's important to challenge them at every stage and in every market.

(Infamously, as I have mentioned many times, the threat of a workplace smoking ban in Ireland was initially dismissed as unimportant by some people because the country was considered too small to have much influence on other nations, including the UK. How wrong, and complacent, they were.)

Anyway, it's interesting to note that despite voting for a ban on the sale of cigarettes to millennials, the BMA failed to persuade government, or any major political party, that the policy was worth adopting.

Thanks however to New Zealand and Javed Khan's 2022 review, which recommended a similar policy, the idea hasn't gone away and is being touted almost a decade later.

As it happens that week in June 2014 was quite busy because apart from reacting to the BMA vote, we also had to respond to the announcement by the Cameron government of yet another consultation on plain packaging, this time concerning the regulations.

And on Tuesday June 24 we hosted what I think was our fourth Smoke On The Water event:

Over 230 people attended the annual Forest boat party on the Thames which took place in typical British weather – a mixture of sun, showers and overcast sky.

The aim of the evening, apart from having fun, was to promote Forest's No, Prime Minister campaign. We had a small team that spent the evening inviting guests to sign a letter to David Cameron. And many did.

Eventually, and within just four weeks, we were able to submit over 50,000 letters to Number 10, which was in addition to the 260,000+ signatories who signed an earlier Forest petition opposing plain packaging.

Despite that the Government still went ahead with it. C'est la vie.

Below: Channel 5 News report on the BMA vote with a soundbite from me

‘Avid anti-smoker’ awarded CBE

The Queen’s Birthday Honours may have morphed into the King’s Birthday Honours but still no recognition for two of our most committed anti-smoking activists.

Yup, it’s that time of year when I dutifully point out that Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH since 2003, and Sheila Duffy, chief executive of ASH Scotland since 2004, have yet to receive a gong, despite decades devoted to the anti-smoking cause.

As I have said before, the lack of recognition is particularly strange when their counterparts in similar but less influential organisations have been recognised.

I’m referring, specifically, to the former directors of Smoke-Free South West and Smoke-Free North West, organisations that don’t even exist any more.

But I could also point to Ailsa Rutter OBE, director of Fresh (formerly Smoke-Free North East).

Anyway, it’s ten years now since I first highlighted the lack of recognition for these titans of tobacco control, and it got to the point where I even speculated that the only explanation is that Arnott and Duffy may have turned down honours, although I’m not aware that either of them is a closet republican.

I certainly find it hard to imagine that someone, somewhere, hasn’t tried to nominate them.

There is however good news for one ‘avid anti-smoker’.

Bob Blackman, Conservative MP for Harrow East and chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health (run by ASH), has been awarded a CBE, which is one level down from a knighthood.

I suspect though that given his long political career - he was elected as an MP in 2010 following 24 years as a councillor - the award is to recognise that rather than his unremitting campaign against smoking.

(Update: My hunch was correct. The award is ‘For Political and Public Service’.)

Either way it would be impolite not to congratulate him, but here’s something I wrote for ConservativeHome, in response to an article by the MP for Harrow East, just over ten years ago:

Whatever happened to Conservative values such as tolerance and common sense? Whatever happened to the party that advocated less state intervention and more personal responsibility? Education is better than coercion because the state should impose itself on individuals only in extremis.

If Bob Blackman believes a ban on smoking in cars with children represents ‘true Conservative values’ I worry for the future of the party. But then I’m only a lifelong Conservative voter, and my opinion doesn’t seem to matter any more.

See: Bob Blackman is wrong. We don’t need a smoking ban in cars to protect children (ConservativeHome, April 2013)

Three years later I noted what I called his ‘paternalistic, even socialist, attitude to private health’. See: Memo to Bob Blackman MP - call yourself a Conservative? (Taking Liberties, October 2016).

Meanwhile, this is how the political website Guido Fawkes reported a December 2015 debate in Westminster Hall on the government’s future smoking strategy tabled by Labour MP Kevin Barron:

Bob Blackman appeared to be giving a speech from notes printed on the fanatical Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) campaign’s headed paper. His key point was more money was needed for tobacco control – in other words more taxpayers’ money for ASH – reading line for line from their own note. Fancy that …

See: “This debate brought to you by …” (Guido Fawkes, December 2015).

As for Arnott and Duffy, what can I say? Next year, perhaps?

Glenda Jackson RIP

I am sorry to hear that Glenda Jackson has died. She was 87.

One of my earliest memories of secondary school was being taken, with the rest of my history class, to the New Picture House in St Andrews to watch a special screening of Mary, Queen of Scots, the 1971 historical drama in which Jackson played Elizabeth I.

I remember it because it was mid morning and it was nice to be out of school.

Also, and I may be wrong because it's a long time ago, the film was quite violent in parts, although the violence may have been off screen and left to our teenage imaginations.

The reviews at the time were mixed, and I'm not sure how historically accurate it was, but that didn't seem to bother our teachers!

Either way, it was Jackson’s performance that left the biggest impression and I had completely forgotten, until I looked it up, that Mary Stuart was played by Vanessa Redgrave.

If you include her famous appearance on the Morecambe & Wise Show in 1971, playing Cleopatra, followed by another appearance on the 1972 Christmas Show, watched by half the nation, it’s fair to say that Glenda Jackson played a small but not insignificant part in my childhood.

Astonishingly, despite winning two Oscars, she gave up acting to become a Labour MP from 1992 to 2015 and, although I didn't share her socialist politics, I admired the fact that she stuck to her beliefs and remained a maverick to the last.

Incredibly, after stepping down as an MP at the age of 79, she returned to acting and enjoyed further success playing a gender blind Lear in King Lear, among other roles.

I was aware of course that she was a smoker and we did invite her, once or twice, to Forest events, but she didn’t bite which was a pity because I would have loved to have met her, fearsome reputation or not.

As for the New Picture House in St Andrews, where I first saw Jackson on screen, it wasn't new at all.

It opened in 1934 and was 'new' only in comparison to the Cinema House on the other side of the road. That opened in 1913, hence the ‘New’ Picture House.

Today the New Picture House is the only cinema in St Andrews because the Cinema House closed in 1979 before being demolished and replaced by a block of flats.

I knew you’d be interested.

Update: ‘Chain-smoking and often barbed, she tolerated no fools. "No-one does scorn like Jackson," said one shell-shocked interviewer.’ (Glenda Jackson obituary, BBC)

Marianna Spring watch

Appointed in 2020, Marianna Spring is the BBC's 'first disinformation and social media correspondent'.

A few weeks ago she was also recruited to work for BBC Verify, the new fact-checking team that has been launched 'to counter disinformation'.

Recently she has been presenting a Radio 4 series (and podcast) called 'Marianna in Conspiracyland', a programme title that is quite an accolade for someone who was largely unknown until a few weeks ago, and even now is probably unknown to most people outside the media bubble.

Anyway, I mention this not because I have anything against her but because the name sounded familiar and it was only yesterday that I finally remembered why.

Readers probably won't remember this, but in 2015 I took part in an Oxford Union debate. It provoked some controversy, which I wrote about here, because the idea for a debate about the morality of the tobacco industry came originally from Imperial Tobacco, who offered to sponsor it and provide a speaker.

It all kicked off and the student journalist who reported the story for Cherwell, the Oxford student newspaper, was none other than ... Marianna Spring.

To be fair, it was a comprehensive, well-balanced piece, far better written than most student newspaper reports I've read (and I've edited two student newspapers so I have some experience of them!).

I hope for her sake though that her current role doesn't define her career, although she seems to have entered into it quite happily and over several years.

It's hard enough being a top journalist without having a target on your back, and when you've been appointed by your vainglorious bosses 'to counter disinformation' in order to meet 'the rigorous editorial standards the BBC is proud to uphold', the pressure will be enormous.

And while the BBC Verify team may be 60-strong, Spring appears to be its public face.

Anyway, I'm glad I finally remembered her Cherwell report (‘Union tarred by Imperial Tobacco sponsorship dealings') because it had been bugging me for weeks.

See also: 'The BBC’s phoney war on disinformation' (UnHerd) and From Cherwell to the BBC: Marianna Spring in Conversation (Cherwell).

Designing the future

My daughter was invited to Number 10 last week.

She was attending a reception to celebrate a project she’s been working on for the best part of a year.

The London Design Biennale is at Somerset House until June 25 and on Saturday we went to see it for ourselves.

Described as an ‘interactive, musical and kinetic exhibition of design and design-led innovation from across the globe’, it features contributions from multiple countries including Poland, Ukraine, USA, Malta, Chile, Taiwan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and many more.

Spain and Peru, countries that share a cultural heritage, collaborated on a joint installation, as did Denmark and Switzerland (for reasons that were slightly less clear).

I can't pretend I understood the purpose or message behind every exhibit, but the award-winning Polish pavilion – featuring discarded but reusable windows that are being collected and sent to Ukraine to help repair buildings damaged in the war – left nothing to the imagination, and was all the more poignant for it.

Correspondingly, part of the Ukraine pavilion (named 'The Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn') features taped windows which in a war zone is intended, I think, to limit shards of glass injuring or maiming people following an explosion.

The meaning behind other exhibits was sometimes more opaque. Literally.

The Serbian pavilion was a darkened room infused with a strong scent and shafts of murky light. I’ve no idea what it was meant to represent but it certainly had a calming effect.

I also liked the Congo pavilion which 'reimagines the country's national museum as a vivid virtual world'.

It made maximum use of the space and featured, on one wall, a large screen featuring what appeared to be live pictures of passing traffic shot from a camera on the roof of what I assume is the national museum in Kinshasa.

Consequently it was one of the few exhibits that gave a direct glimpse of the country the pavilion was there to represent.

Arguably the most significant room was devoted to items made by Ai-Da Robot, 'the world's first ultra-realistic robot artist':

Ai-Da Robot makes history as the first humanoid robot to use artistic AI algorithms to design everyday items such as mugs, vases, plates and cutlery.

If I understood it correctly, however, many of the items are considered to be failures because of various 'mistakes'.

Nevertheless, the designs looked quite impressive to me, although how practical some of the items on display are I don't know.

It can only be a matter of time before the errors are eliminated, though, and what happens after that is anyone’s guess.

Pity the designers of the future, although it won't be the first time they've been threatened by new technology.

I remember, in the late Eighties and early Nineties, how the rapid advance of desktop publishing replaced skilled graphic designers with IT specialists who may have had an eye for design but were employed primarily for their IT skills.

To survive, graphic designers had to become computer literate extremely quickly, and that was quite a struggle for the older ones in particular.

Back at Somerset House there was also an exhibition within an exhibition. This was Eureka, a ‘showcase of design research from across UK universities’.

Strathclyde University (I think it was) had a design proposal for a High Line in Glasgow city centre.

Having been hugely impressed by the wonderful New York High Line when I was there in 2017, I would love to see something similar in other cities, and as a regular visitor to Glasgow I can imagine it being a huge attraction.

I was drawn too to the proposal for a new type of public toilet in Glasgow city centre:

Changes include increased floor space in cubicle … and posters of local events, history information, helplines and places of support to create sense of community.

I’m not sure how much of that is a priority when you’re bursting for a pee, but I do think Britain's public toilets are due a major overhaul, as long as they’re not unisex!

Somerset House, I quickly discovered, has a choice of male, female, and unisex toilets and on the two occasions I used the unisex toilets I had to queue!

No queuing was required for the male only toilet, but it was only late in the afternoon that I discovered there was one.

My daughter, I should add, isn't keen on unisex toilets either. According to her, men make too much mess.

But I digress.

Aside from the Biennale, I thoroughly recommend Somerset House as a venue, although navigating every room can be a little confusing.

Despite visiting the East and West Wings, and the basement and mezzanine in the main building, the Dubai pavilion, which was said to be one of the highlights of the Biennale, remained elusive.

It looked good in the brochure, though.

Somerset House has two excellent cafes and, outside, a lively terrace bar which appear to be open to the general public, not just visitors.

The Financial Times reviewed the London Design Biennale here and you can also read about it here and here.

Unlike my daughter (above), I have never been invited inside Number 10.

The closest I’ve been to the hallowed hall and staircase (with its portraits of every British prime minister) was standing outside the famous front door in 2014.

I was part of a small delegation tasked with delivering 53,196 letters to the then PM David Cameron opposing plain packaging of tobacco.

In fact, all but a handful were sent to another address because Downing Street, understandably, didn’t want them all delivered to the front door.

Instead we were allowed to deliver, by hand, 2,500 letters in a single cardboard box, but only after jumping through numerous hoops.

Full story here.