The day Tory leadership candidate came second in Tories Got Talent!

Postscript to the Conservative Party conference.

In my opening remarks to a fringe meeting hosted by the TaxPayers Alliance, I mentioned the Freedom Zone, a two-day mini conference that ran in parallel to the main conference.

It was launched in Birmingham in 2008 by Forest and the Freedom Association and between us we hosted 18 events. The majority were panel meetings or one-on-one interviews, but I was keen to try something a little different so to finish the first day we put on what we described as a ‘political chat show’.

Presented by Claire Fox (now Baroness Fox), the guests were Michael White, assistant editor of the Guardian; Mark Littlewood, director of Progressive Vision, a classical liberal think tank; freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke; former MSP Brian Monteith (later to become an MEP); and Neil Rafferty, who was working for Forest but had recently founded The Daily Mash, a satirical website.

It went quite well but even better was the event that concluded the Freedom Zone on the second day. ‘Tories Got Talent’ was conceived as a political version of Britain's Got Talent and as I wrote at the time:

Contestants were invited to speak for up to three minutes on a topical political issue. Their contributions were then commented upon by a panel of judges - compere Iain Dale, Nadine Dorries MP and Jonathan Isaby, soon to be co-editor of Conservative Home but then working for the Daily Telegraph.

To be honest, some people (including Iain Dale!) had their doubts about this event. They thought it wouldn't work. I felt that if we got the right compere, the right judges, and enough contestants everything would be fine!! We did and it was. The only problem was that, unexpectedly, too many people (15) wanted to take part with the result that the event over-ran and we had to drop three speakers as the clock ticked on ... and on.

Tories Got Talent was exactly what I hoped it would be - good entertainment allied to some serious political messages. There were two deliberately funny speeches and one inadvertently funny speech as speakers tackled Europe, the Post Office, the smoking ban, and so on. Some were better than others (as you would expect) but the judges hit just the right note, offering constructive criticism without being too harsh.

The winner - chosen by the audience from a shortlist of five selected by the judges - was Rupert Matthew, a prospective European parliamentary candidate for the East Midlands, who gave a very funny speech entitled, ‘Don't mention Europe - I did, but I think I got away with it’.

Today Rupert is the Police and Crime Commissioner for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

What I had forgotten, however, until I stumbled on this blog post by Iain Dale (now a successful broadcaster), was the identity of the contestant who came second.

Dear reader, it was none other than James Cleverley, one of the four remaining candidates to be the new leader of the Conservative Party and, by common consent, the candidate who got the warmest reception and appeared to benefit most as a result of the speeches they each gave on Wednesday.

In 2008 however he was ‘merely’ a member of the London Assembly, and it was almost six years before he became the member of parliament for Braintree in the May 2015 election.

I won’t comment on his chances of becoming the next Conservative leader (although they do seem to have improved), but it would amusing if the new party leader (and potential PM) was once the runner-up in an event I organised.

PS. It was great to see Simon Richards, a former director of The Freedom Association, in Birmingham last week.

Simon and I organised the first Freedom Zone together, and he subsequently kept it going for several years in Manchester and again in Birmingham.

He retired a few years ago so I don’t see him very much these days, but when I do it always brings back a lot of memories!

Last of the Mohicans!

On Tuesday Ireland’s finance minister Jack Chambers delivered the last Budget before the country goes to the polls.

Inevitably, it was a giveaway Budget for all but one group - smokers - who were hit with a €1 increase in excise duty on a pack of 20 cigarettes, pushing the price of the most popular category of cigarette above €18 (£15) for the first time.

To put this in perspective, previous increases had been 75 or, mostly, 50c.

Forest’s response - written and released while I was at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham - appeared in the Irish Daily Mail and a trade publication called Checkout.

I was also interviewed by Radio Kerry, East Coast FM, and Dublin’s FM104. That apart, there was very little reaction to what I described as a “brutal” tax hike, a point noted by Ian O’Doherty in The Spectator yesterday:

In an increasingly puritanical Ireland, that massive price hike has attracted little attention. In fact, the only anger has been coming from smokers themselves and organisations such as Forest, who often appear like the last of the Mohicans when it comes to advocating for a smoker’s basic human right to enjoy a fag without being persecuted or penalised by the eternal-health fantasists of the government and their prohibitionist allies.

Do read the full article, if you can. Not only does it include a quote by me, it features one of Ian’s trademark attacks on a government that he rightly describes as being ‘on an ideological mission to be seen to be tough on smoking … even though they must surely know this is just making things worse’.

See: Ireland’s puritanical attack on smokers (The Spectator)

PS. Full disclosure. In 2018 Ian was the recipient of a ‘Voices of Freedom’ award that we presented to him at a Forest dinner in Dublin.

Today he remains one of the few genuinely libertarian journalists still working in Ireland, and arguably the only mainstream one.

His column in the Irish Independent is usually behind a paywall but he sometimes writes for the online magazine Spiked where his collected articles can be found here.

Below: Ian with his Voices of Freedom award, November 2018

Smoke On The Water is back!

I'm pleased to report that Smoke On The Water, the Forest boat party, is returning to Westminster on Tuesday 22nd October.

It originally ran for seven years, from 2011 to 2017, as a summer event, and it was one of our most popular parties.

We retired it largely because of the cost – it’s now more than double what it was when it began - but I also felt it was running out of steam a little, and I found the uncertainty with the weather a bit of a headache.

I remember one year the heavens opened two hours before embarkation and it rained so heavily the South Bank was under water.

I thought that would deter many of our guests but, thankfully, it stopped raining and most of them came anyway, but even in summer the weather was a concern. (That said, we enjoyed some lovely evenings too.)

Anyway, Smoke On The Water is back and it’s returning for two reasons.

One, we want to try and engage with the huge number of new MPs and their staff, most of whom are new to Westminster.

Two, we want to bring together opponents of the generational tobacco sales ban, and Labour’s plan to extend the smoking ban to more outdoor areas including beer gardens.

Our vessel, as before, is The Elizabethan, a two-deck Mississippi-style paddle steamer with a unique sliding roof and covered open walkways on either side of the top deck.

Smoking is not permitted inside but for now at least you can smoke on the walkways and the open rear deck.

Guests will embark at Westminster Pier from 7.15pm and for the first 45 minutes the boat will be static, during which there will be a handful of (short) speeches.

At 8.00pm, The Elizabethan will leave the Pier and cruise down river towards Canary Wharf, returning to Westminster Pier at 9.45pm where guests will disembark.

Places are limited but if you’d like to join us RSVP by emailing events@forestonline.org.

PS. I first booked The Elizabethan almost 30 years ago when I was organising events for another organisation. It’s been refurbished several times since then and is a great venue for a party.

If you are unfamiliar with it, click here.

Putin’s Russia proposed ‘ideologically correct’ generational tobacco ban in 2017

New Zealand and Malaysia are generally credited with being the first countries whose governments planned to ban the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults.

Legislation to introduce the policy in New Zealand was repealed after a change of government late last year, and in Malaysia the plan was abandoned after the country’s Attorney-General ruled that the policy was ‘unconstitutional because it would create two sets of laws for two different groups of citizens based on age’ (Tobacco Reporter).

Before that, however, the first country that considered the idea was that hotbed of democracy … Russia. According to The Times in January 2017:

Anyone born after 2015 would be banned from buying cigarettes under long-term plans to eradicate smoking in Russia.

The health ministry proposal would make the country the first to introduce such a strategy to phase out tobacco. Similar policies have been put forward by anti-smoking campaigners in other countries but have yet to receive government backing.

“This goal is absolutely ideologically correct,” Nikolai Gerasimenko, a member of the Russian parliament’s health committee, said. However, Mr Gerasimenko also admitted he was uncertain whether such a ban would be enforceable.

Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the proposed ban would require serious discussion. He said that other ministries would need to be consulted before it was approved.

The BBC also ran the story, noting:

Russia's health ministry is considering a permanent ban on selling cigarettes to people born in 2014 or later.

It's part of a tough anti-tobacco strategy the country's politicians are trying to make a reality.

Meanwhile a photo of the country’s leader was captioned:

President Putin - famously a fitness fanatic - is a non-smoker and has reprimanded ministers for smoking

So there we have it. The first government to consider a generational tobacco sales ban just happens to be one of the most authoritarian in the world.

Meanwhile its despotic leader is not only waging war with a neighbouring country, and has threatened others with the use of nuclear weapons, but has continued Russia’s long history of autocracy ‘through severe repression of dissent and use of state-owned media outlets to spread propaganda’.

It says a lot though that, having considered the idea, even Putin’s government hasn’t gone ahead with it, even though it is “absolutely ideologically correct”.

It reminds me that ten years ago I was invited to address a meeting in Moscow. (See Russian smokers behind international movement for smokers.)

I couldn’t go because it clashed with the GTNF conference in West Virginia, where I was also speaking.

However it followed a slightly clandestine meeting with the mysterious Mr A in Zurich, which I wrote about here.

A few years before that I had addressed some visiting Russian journalists at a private meeting in London.

The aim, as I recall, was to explain the impact of the smoking ban on both consumers and the hospitality industry in the UK.

I invited one of my regular readers - a smoker - to speak as well, but I think our message may have got lost in translation because I don’t think they spoke English very well, if at all.

What I do remember is that none of them took the issue very seriously because, at that time (2010?), the threat of a public smoking ban in Russia seemed implausible to them.

(That type of complacency, even among consumers, has been a problem - in the UK and abroad - for decades, and look where we are.)

Anyway, the mysterious Mr A made a reappearance in September 2019 when it was reported that the authorities in Russia were planning to extend smoking bans to apartment balconies.

I wrote about it here, noting that Andrey Loskutov was head of the All-Russian Movement for Smokers' Rights.

The global smokers’ rights movement he envisaged in 2014 never came to pass, but I think that was partly because it was focussed on cigar smokers.

Also, a worldwide smokers’ rights movement based in Russia was never going to fly.

Still, going back to my original point, it amuses me that Rishi Sunak, and now Keir Starmer, are pursuing a policy first considered by Putin’s government.

The question is, why did Putin ultimately reject the idea? Was it too draconian, even for him?

A question of trust

Just back from the Conservative conference in Birmingham.

What can I say? It rained. And kept raining. (I thought Liverpool last week was wet, but Birmingham was wetter.)

You might have thought this would put a dampener on things, but surprisingly not. In fact the mood was far more buoyant and upbeat than I anticipated - more so in fact than the Labour conference in Liverpool where things felt quite muted until Keir Starmer’s speech got delegates cheering and off their seats.

Why that should be I don’t know, but perhaps it’s the fact that, without the weight of being in government, the Tories - even party members - can enjoy themselves.

This time last year in Manchester Rishi Sunak was announcing a generational smoking ban, and I remember thinking he really had lost the plot if this was the best he could come up with to reverse the Tories’ fortunes.

It did however spark a mad 24 hours in which, having returned home to Cambridge, I then had to drive all the way back to Manchester - arriving at 2.00am - to conduct a series of media interviews for the BBC and others.

Anyway, twelve months later the TaxPayers Alliance invited me to take part in a fringe event, ‘Lost liberty: why don’t the Conservatives trust people?’.

It’s a good question, and these were my opening remarks in the Think Tent yesterday morning:

Margaret Thatcher understood that people wanted more control over their own lives - hence the success and popularity of the right to buy their own council homes.

Boris Johnson understood that many people wanted Britain to take back control of our laws from the European Union.

I’m not sure, though, that Mrs Thatcher or Boris Johnson were or are typical Conservatives.

Traditionally, Conservatives have always been fairly paternalistic, or worse. This, after all, is the party that in Scotland in the 19th century represented the lairds and the landed gentry - the best of whom looked after their crofters by employing a sort of benign autocracy (although some weren’t quite so benign.)

A strong degree of paternalism has therefore always been ingrained in the Conservative Party, and it’s certainly been my experience that personal liberty is not a high priority for many Conservatives, especially when in government.

Apologies to Tim Scott, the current director of The Freedom Association, but 22 years ago I edited Freedom Today, The Freedom Association magazine. After two years, and a dozen issues, I was sacked for being too liberal.

My mistake was thinking we could reinvent the magazine as a more classically liberal publication when I knew, in my heart of hearts, that despite its name The Freedom Association was neither libertarian nor especially liberal on many issues.

Like the Tory party, the overwhelming majority of its members were socially conservative and paternalistic.

Despite that, in 2008, here in Birmingham, Forest and The Freedom Association launched the first Freedom Zone which ran for two days in parallel to the main Conservative conference.

One of the meetings was entitled ‘You Can't Do That! The Anti-Social Regulation of Public Space’. It featured a Conservative member of the London Assembly who supported the workplace smoking ban and described smoking as a "disgusting habit".

In response I suggested that he probably had one or two disgusting habits himself. I also made the point that if his views were representative of the Conservative party, they could kiss my vote goodbye.

What really shocked me, however, were contributions from two smokers in the audience who said they opposed the workplace smoking ban but supported bans on drinking alcohol in public parks.

Smokers, drinkers, smokers who drink, drinkers who smoke - we all have to stick together and defend one another's interests. You can't pick and choose according to your likes and dislikes.

Smoking has been described as the canary for civil liberties, or a bellwether for liberty, and that is absolutely right. The point is, if we don’t stand up for adults who enjoy smoking, what’s next?

Are public health campaigners going to move from informing the public about nutrition and healthy eating and drinking, to banning more and more products that are deemed ‘unhealthy’, while dictating the amount of sugar, alcohol or calories we are permitted to consume?

In the Freedom Zone in 2008 we also discussed libertarian paternalism, which many Conservatives have subsequently embraced. Libertarian paternalism essentially means nudging people to change their lifestyle.

I remember Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute saying he was sympathetic to the concept, but politicians would always go too far - which is exactly what has happened.

The proposed ban on smoking in outdoor public places, including beer gardens, is a form of nudging because it’s designed to create an environment in which it is increasingly hard to smoke in any public place and this, it is believed, will ‘encourage’ smokers to quit for their own good.

Leaving aside the unintended consequences for the hospitality industry, this is coercion, pure and simple. It’s designed not to nudge but to force people to quit, and it’s a continuation of the bully state that the Conservatives did nothing to reverse while in office.

The consequence has been a gradual erosion of tolerance with a small but vociferous group of anti-smoking activists dictating policy, including Conservative policy.

A few years ago I was asked what was the biggest change I had noticed in the 20 years I had been director of Forest. “When I started,” I replied, “there were voluntary agreements and codes of practice. Today there is far more legislation. Coercion has replaced common sense.”

The generational smoking ban (which is actually a ban on the sale of tobacco to people born after 2008), is a classic case of not trusting young adults to make their own decisions.

In my view, if you’re old enough to drive a car, join the army, possess a credit card, purchase alcohol, and vote, you’re old enough to buy tobacco.

But Rishi Sunak - a Conservative prime minister - didn’t see it that way and the policy, when reintroduced by Labour, is going to infantilise future generations of adults.

It seems to me however that over the next few years there is a wonderful opportunity for Conservatives to create clear blue water between the Conservative party and all the other parties who want to restrict our freedoms.

The one exception is Nigel Farage’s Reform party and you can be sure that if the Conservatives don’t occupy this space then Farage will, and Reform will pick up even more votes at the Conservatives’ expense.

The problem is, Conservative politicians often defend individual freedoms when in opposition, but as soon as they’re in power they change their tune, or accept the status quo they’ve inherited.

I don’t think paternalism is here to stay, but neither do I think that things will get better any time soon. The nanny state - or what I call the bully state - is undoubtedly going to get worse under Labour. But would things be much better under a Conservative government? The last 14 years suggest not.

I’ll end with a quote by Claire Fox (now Baroness Fox), director of the Academy of Ideas. Two years ago, at a fringe meeting hosted by Forest and the TaxPayers Alliance in this same Think Tent in Birmingham, she said:

“I’m on the left and I’m far more pro-freedom than anyone I’ve met in the Conservative party ... What has happened to you lot? You’ve lost your bottle, in my opinion.”

She was right. The Conservatives have lost their bottle, from grassroots to government, on a whole range of issues - and that includes trusting the people. And if you don’t trust the people, how can you expect them to trust you?

My fellow panellists were Joseph Dinnage (Centre for Policy Studies), Emily Fielder (Adam Smith Institute), and Andrew Rosindell MP, and the well-attended meeting was chaired by Benjamin Elks of the TaxPayers Alliance who were sharing the ThinkTent with Popular Conservatism (aka Mark Littlewood’s PopCon).

I didn’t get to all the meetings I wanted to but I understand that the threat of an outdoor smoking ban was raised in several meetings, with Kate Nichols, CEO of UKHospitality, giving a particularly robust response to the idea.

We need her support because, as I explained in my answer to a question from the audience yesterday, if there is to be push back against the Government’s plan, it really has to come from the hospitality industry and from within the Labour Party.

For the moment, and despite the surprisingly upbeat mood in Birmingham, no-one will be listening to the Conservatives, least of all the present Government.

So long, farewell, Deborah Arnott is (finally!) leaving the building

Tomorrow, for the first time in 21 years, Action on Smoking and Health will have a new chief executive.

Deborah Arnott, a former television producer who was appointed in 2003 to replace Clive Bates, is retiring today and stepping into her shoes - from October 1 - is her erstwhile deputy, Hazel Cheeseman.

More on Hazel in a minute. But, first, a final (?) word about her predecessor whose retirement was announced in February, almost nine months ago.

I’ve probably written enough already – see Deborah Arnott - a tribute (of sorts) – but I can’t let this moment pass without one last comment.

For the record, I have never disliked Deborah personally. Professionally, we’ve had our differences, to put it mildly, but I respected her as a campaigner.

Over the years we’ve enjoyed some spectacular arguments, live on air, but she could be just as bolshy off air. It was no act.

With other opponents I might indulge in a few pleasantries, even crack a joke, but with Deborah small talk was strictly off the table.

In recent years - and especially since Covid - I’ve actually seen very little of her in person. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we shared a studio or a green room. Instead, all our jousts have been via Zoom or FaceTime, which isn’t the same.

When Clive Bates moved on in 2003 after five years as director of ASH, we sent flowers to his office in London.

I was tempted to do the same for Deborah but I wasn’t sure she would get them because whenever I’ve seen her in interviews since Covid she seems to be working from what I assume is her home.

Nevertheless, I am determined to present her with a Forest award for services to the nanny state. It’s the very least she deserves.

As it happens, at last year’s Forest Summer Lunch & Awards, I invited Chris Snowdon to choose between three nominees - Deborah, George Osborne, and Labour's Wes Streeting - and he chose Osborne, but Deborah’s turn will come.

In the meantime I genuinely wish her a happy retirement because we all deserve that – well, most of us. I just hope she doesn’t come back and haunt us by accepting a seat in the House of Lords, should it be offered.

Talking of which, and I know I’ve made a joke of it (see Still no honours for titans of tobacco control), but I’m genuinely baffled why Deborah has been overlooked for the sort of recognition that others in her field have received.

As for Hazel Cheeseman, we obviously know her quite well from her media appearances and she’s definitely less prickly than her predecessor or her counterpart in Scotland who frequently brings to mind PG Wodehouse’s famous comment:

“It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine."

Hazel has a sunnier disposition but being CEO of ASH can do strange things to a person, so the jury must remain out.

She begins her reign with the Labour Government planning to revive Rishi Sunak’s generational tobacco ban and extend the smoking ban to outdoor areas including pub gardens, so in that respect she’s pushing on an open door.

Nevertheless she has big shoes to fill so it will be interesting to see how ASH moves forward and whether there will be any difference in tone and strategy once her predecessor has left the building.

I’m guessing not, because Hazel has been Deborah Arnott’s deputy for some time so the transition should be fairly smooth, but you never know what a new CEO’s ambitions might be.

A new organisation, Action on Public Health, perhaps? Or merely global domination. Watch this space.

Update: My first post about Deborah, written on Monday July 7, 2003:

To ITV’s South Bank studios for This Morning with Fern Britton and Philip Schofield. It's my first opportunity to meet Deborah Arnott, the new(ish) director of ASH. First impressions? Nice enough but, like her Scottish counterpart Maureen Moore, a tad po-faced.

I read an interview where Debs confessed to being an ex-smoker (20-a-day). She's well suited to ASH. Apparently she once campaigned for a ban on smoking in her own workplace even though she was still lighting up socially. Proof, if proof were needed, that turkeys DO vote for Christmas.

Below: On TalkTV with Deborah and Vanessa Feltz last year

40 years on from the Grand Hotel, Brighton, another conference calls

Later today I shall be driving to Birmingham for the 2024 Conservative Party conference.

It’s 40 years since I attended my first party conference, and who can forget what happened at the 1984 Conservative conference in Brighton?

It’s something I’ll never forget because I was in the Grand Hotel two hours before the IRA bomb went off.

I left the hotel at 1.00am with a friend because we had to drive back to London to collect copies of the student magazine I was editing.

The latest issue had just been published and delivered to my flat in West Kensington and the plan was to return to Brighton in the morning and distribute copies to delegates as they entered the conference centre to listen to Margaret Thatcher’s speech, which was scheduled for 2.00pm.

We arrived back in London around 3.00am and slept until 10.00, oblivious to what was happening 60 miles away.

We then drove back to Brighton but it was only when we turned on the car radio that we heard the shocking news. (Five dead, 34 injured, many seriously.)

There were no rolling news channels or social media in those days, nor were there mobile phones to contact people at the scene of the devastation.

Anyway, we arrived in Brighton around one and headed straight for the conference centre where we took our seats and waited for Maggie to appear and give a typically forthright response to the bombers.

(Plans to hand out copies of the magazine were quietly abandoned because in the circumstances it didn’t seem appropriate.)

Looking back I don’t remember there being much if any security. There certainly wasn’t the secure zone that now embraces all the main party conference venues.

Instead we just wandered in and out of the main hotels and the conference centre, and I don’t remember ever being stopped or asked for ID.

That all changed after 1984, of course, but it was 20 years before my work took me back to party conference.

That was in 2004 when I attended the Conservative conference in Bournemouth, and since then I’ve gone to every Conservative conference plus a handful of Labour and Lib Dem conferences.

Back in 2004 fringe events were limited, as far as I can remember, to breakfast meetings, lunchtime events, and evening meetings or receptions.

Fringe meetings were not allowed to clash with the debates and speeches in the main hall, but after that ‘rule’ started to be flouted a trickle of morning and afternoon events quickly became a flood until all the main parties were forced to embrace the fringe.

(I like to take some credit for this, having co-founded the two-day Freedom Zone event that ran parallel to the main conference when it was launched at the Conservative conference in Birmingham in 2008.)

The popularity of fringe meetings has been both a curse and a blessing for the parties.

On one hand they can make money hiring out meeting rooms in the secure zone. On the other hand, the main hall is often half empty (or worse) for the ‘official’ programme which few people seem to care about.

The growth of the fringe has also seen a huge rise in events hosted or sponsored by NGOs and corporations.

Lobbyists now dominate party conferences in a way I don’t remember 40 years ago when party conferences were attended largely by party members.

Labour members used to have furious rows and debates about party policy. In contrast, ‘the blue rinse brigade’ (ie elderly Tories) came not to discuss anything as vulgar as policy but to catch up with members they hadn’t seen since the previous conference.

For them, just as it was for younger members, the annual party conference was primarily a social event, hence the Young Conservative Ball that used to kick-start the conference on Saturday night.

In truth, if it wasn’t for Forest I wouldn’t go to a single party conference. I’ve enjoyed many of the fringe events we’ve organised, and several have very special memories, but in general party conferences don’t appeal to me at all.

Bournemouth, which is no longer on the rota for the Labour or Conservative conference, is my favourite conference location, especially if the weather is good. (A sunny autumn day overlooking that sandy beach is hard to beat.)

But I don’t miss Blackpool, another place that’s no longer on the list, and while Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool have far better facilities - including modern conference centres and hotels - they leave me a bit cold (and wet).

In my experience the biggest change since 1984 is the disconnect between the conference and the host city.

Party conferences today take place in a bubble behind a security cordon, and if you are a resident of Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or even Brighton you may be unaware that a conference is taking place at all.

In that regard party conferences reflect the increasing divide between politicians and the electorate, and it’s getting worse, not better.

Anyway, I’m in Birmingham to speak at a fringe meeting hosted by the TaxPayers’ Alliance on Tuesday morning.

The subject is ‘Lost Liberty: Why don’t the Conservatives trust people?’ and you’ll find us in the Think Tent marquee within the secure zone.

There’s a very good panel and I believe it will be streamed live for those not at conference. Details to follow.

See also: From Bournemouth to Blackpool, the best and worst party conference locations and Forest’s top ten conference events.

Andy Morrison

I was very sorry to read, late last night, that Andy Morrison has died. I had no idea he was ill, so it was a bit of a shock.

Andy, I should explain, is reasonably well known in vaping circles. He quit smoking, switched to vaping, and became a keen advocate of e-cigarettes, always willing to offer help and advice, but without being preachy.

I can’t remember when our paths first crossed, but in September 2015 we both gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Health and Sport Committee alongside Sheila Duffy (ASH Scotland) and Linda Bauld (Cancer Research UK).

Andy was representing the New Nicotine Alliance and a year later I met him again when he organised the UK premiere of A Billion Lives, the documentary produced by Milwaukee filmmaker Aaron Biebert.

Writing on this blog, I noted that:

The screening took place at the Odeon in Braehead, Glasgow. There were 40 or so people in the auditorium and I was one of them.

It was a far cry from the Hollywood premiere that took place a few hours later, or the New York City screening (with Q&A!) hosted by Jeff Stier, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, but credit to organiser Andy Morrison for pulling it off.

What I admired was the fact that, while other vaping activists in the UK dithered and sat on their hands, Andy went ahead and organised the event.

Others can talk about the work he did to promote vaping, but I quickly discovered he had a stubborn, mischievous side.

In 2017, for example, ahead of the annual E-Cigarette Summit (which I had been critical of for not inviting many consumers to speak), he messaged me as follows:

How u doing Simon. Fancy going to the summit and causing some disturbance? I intend to go.

Tempting though it was, I replied:

I'm definitely thinking about going but wasn't planning to cause a disturbance! What did you have in mind?

[Andy] What I have in mind is to demand an explanation of why an 'ecig' summit has only one vaper on one panel. It's utterly repugnant to me that this is being turned into a .... Oh I don't know what to call it .... forum for those who think they know all about ecigs .... nothing about us without us would be my stance.

[Me] I agree something needs to be said and I'm happy to advise but I think it would be counter-productive to have me alongside you because this has to come from the vaping community not the 'tobacco lobby'. How many vapers are going? At the first Summit in 2013 there were lots of vapers. There seem to be fewer and fewer each year. It would help if there was a small group of you.

[Andy] I agree - I've been to the last 3. And it's getting less and less vapers attending. I don't think there will be many there this time round at all. Whilst I understand your concerns, and by the same token, I often shy away from siding with you for obvious reasons, between me and you, where I can find common ground with you, I will support you. I'm happy to go there and make a point. I don't care who I upset in the process. I think this point has to be made and am happy to go out of my way to make it. It's a twat of a journey to make just to attend, but if I'm gonna go, then I will be heard.

If I remember he did go and as a result of his persistence he was eventually included on one of the panels.

Three years ago I invited him to take part in a Forest webinar that featured a panel of consumers including Mark Littlewood, then director general of Institute of Economic Affairs; Henry Hill, news editor, Conservative Home; visual artist Anita Chowdry; website content manager Emily Wieja; and Pat Nurse of this parish.


Prior to the event he sent me the following biographical notes to edit and use in my introduction:

Ex Royal Air Force, now a self-employed IT specialist living in Scotland. Was a pack-a-day smoker for 40 years and of the mindset that nobody would ever get me to stop smoking. Accidentally switched to vaping in December 2011 and never looked back. On hearing about possible impending bans and listening to some of the junk science which seemed to be fuelling the proposed regulations, decided that it was time to try to do something about it. Assisted with various studies in central Scotland surrounding vaping. Currently involved in getting free e-cigs out to those that need them and helping people make the switch. Former trustee and now an active associate of the NNA UK.

I subsequently wrote about the webinar - Consumer voices unleashed! - quoting him as follows:

“Vaping for me is more pleasurable [than smoking] because of all the different flavours you can have.

“A lot of people do slip back in to smoking because they don't understand how to combat the side effects [of vaping] but health wise I've never felt better.

“If anyone expresses an interest [in vaping] and want to carry it forward I'll help them but I'm not into coercion at all ... It's each to their own as far as I'm concerned.”

After the webinar, in July 2021, he emailed to say:

What a thoroughly enjoyable event with some terrific panellists – It was a pleasure to be part of it all. Should you need me in future, please don’t hesitate to give me a shout.

Our shared interest however wasn’t smoking, vaping, or even nicotine - it was football, because we both supported Scottish football clubs.

Andy supported Greenock Morton, while I follow Dundee United, and in the 2017/18 season, following United’s relegation, our teams found themselves in the same division.

Furthermore, we were both at Tannadice on January 27, 2018, when Morton beat United 3-0, which was arguably the worst performance I had seen from a United team in 50 years.

After the match Andy and his mates celebrated with a curry at the Tayview Indian restaurant, which he told me was his favourite Indian restaurant in Dundee.

When United were finally promoted after four seasons in the second tier, he wrote:

Good luck to the Tangerines for the upcoming season. I doubt our paths will cross unless it’s in one of the cups. If that happens, perhaps we could hook up for a couple of jars.

It was a typically generous comment but he was right. In recent years, and in the absence of any cup matches, our paths didn’t cross and that was the last time I heard from him.

RIP, Andy, and sincere condolences to family and friends.

Below: Andy taking part in a Forest webinar in 2021. An ex-RAF man, he chose his own background image but there were some technical issues. In the words of the late John Mallon (Forest’s equally plain speaking man in Ireland who took the screen shot), “His green screen is shite”. Knowing John, and to a lesser extent Andy, I would like to think they are now having a couple of jars together.

PS. I discovered last night that ‘ardent fan’ Andy Morrison was once banned from Cappielow (Morton’s home ground) for allegedly starting a rumour that Morton were to merge with their local rivals St Mirren!

According to reports, Andy denied the allegation and vowed to fight the ‘shock lifetime ban’, telling the local newspaper:

“Basically [chairman] Hugh Scott told us to stop attacking the club. There were a few disagreements but I think the situation is resolvable. It’s a step forward.”

To put this in perspective, Scott was a hugely controversial chairman from 1997 to the early Noughties and Andy wasn’t alone in criticising the running of the club at that time.

Typically, though, he wasn’t deterred by the ‘lifetime’ ban imposed on him. “I will be back for the next home game, come what may,” he told one journalist. And indeed he was.