Goodnight 😉

Isle of Man considers generational ban on sale of ALL nicotine products

Forest was invited recently to contribute a written submission to an Isle of Man parliamentary committee.

The House of Keys Select Committee on Tobacco and Nicotine Products was established 'to consider proposals for a private member's bill on the subject of tobacco and nicotine controls'.

Chaired by Dr Michelle Haywood MHK (Member of the House of Keys), who proposed the Bill in a speech to parliament last year, ‘The Committee's remit is to consider the subject matter of a proposed Private Member's Bill on the definition and supply of tobacco and nicotine containing products, including prohibiting their sale to people born on or after 1st January 2008 – and to report back to the House’.

I would be surprised if members of the House of Keys (the directly elected lower house of Tynwald, the Isle of Man parliament) were to support a generational ban on the sale of all nicotine products, including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches.

Nevertheless I’m in no doubt that Dr Haywood's ambition represents the long-term goal of tobacco control activists worldwide.

The deadline for written submissions to the Committee was Friday (March 21) but there is still an opportunity for individuals to respond via this online survey.

It only takes a few minutes so do please complete it before the deadline on Wednesday (March 26).

Interestingly (and I didn't know this until an Isle of Man based reader, Stuart Hartill, pointed it out to me), the voting age on the Isle of Man was reduced to 16 a decade ago.

You can also obtain a driving licence at 16 in the self-governing British Crown dependency, while the Isle of Man TT races famously take place on public roads that to this day have no speed limits.

If however Dr Haywood's proposed private member's bill was to proceed and become law, the sale of tobacco and other nicotine products to anyone aged 18+ would be illegal.

Make of that what you will.

PS. I have never been to the Isle of Man. That's not why I have offered to give oral evidence to the Select Committee, but it would be a nice opportunity should they invite me.

Eye spy

Watched ‘Black Bag’, a fabulously stylish spy movie, at the Everyman cinema in Cambridge today.

Saturday morning screenings are the best, even when the audience is in single figures!

The good knight

I attended a drinks reception on Wednesday to belatedly celebrate the investiture, last year, of Sir Philip Davies.

In March 2024 the former Conservative MP for Shipley was awarded a knighthood by Rishi Sunak in what was described as a ‘surprise’ honours list.

Elected in 2005 before losing his seat at the 2024 general election, Philip was unusual for a politician because he stuck rigidly to his principles, even when they conflicted with policies being introduced by his own party in government.

I witnessed this first hand when he voted against plain packaging of tobacco. He also voted against other anti-tobacco measures introduced by Labour and the Conservatives.

He missed the second reading of Rishi Sunak’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill last April but sent us a message to say he would be voting against it at the third reading.

Of course, the third reading never happened because Sunak called an election, but I have no reason to think Philip wouldn’t have kept his word.

As it happens he never made a secret of the fact that he disliked smoking, but he also took the view that it was not the job of government to dictate how people live their lives.

If I remember, our paths first crossed in 2008 when he hosted, on behalf of Forest, a small tea party in the House of Commons. Writing about it I commented:

Exceeding our expectations, 17 MPs and five peers turned up. Of the MPs, there were eleven Conservatives, five Labour, and one Lib Dem …

Our host, Philip Davies, gave a short, well-received speech. I announced the launch of our new Amend The Smoking Ban campaign. And Trevor Baylis told a joke involving smoking and sex.

The following year (2009) he took part in a panel discussion hosted by The Free Society, Forest's sister campaign, in the Freedom Zone at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.

I can’t remember what the subject was but that was the year Labour introduced legislation to ban the display of tobacco in shops so I’m sure that was one of the issues we addressed.

The other panellists were me, Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes), Alex Deane (Big Brother Watch), and Claire Fox (Academy of Ideas).

The next year we invited Philip to take part in another discussion (‘Big Government Is Watching You: the surveillance society and individual freedom’) that was one of a series of events organised by Forest/The Free Society at the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Delivering a passionate defence of surveillance cameras, he argued that they act as a deterrent to crime and many violent criminals would not be caught without them.

The event was chaired by political blogger and broadcaster Iain Dale who tweeted, ‘Philip Davies MP making superb anti civil liberties speech, even if I disagree with virtually all of it.’

Famously, Philip voted against the Tory whip over 250 times during his parliamentary career, which made it a little surprising that Rishi Sunak should personally award him a knighthood.

Then again, they both represented Yorkshire constituencies and they seem to be good friends.

Sunak was unable to be present in person on Wednesday so he sent a video message instead. In response Philip was so fulsome in his praise of the former prime minister I was genuinely gobsmacked. I had no idea he was such a fan boy!

Present in the room were members of what Philip called his various ‘families’. These included his actual family, personal and political friends, his current colleagues in the betting industry, and his GB News ‘family’. (He and his wife Esther McVey, who is still an MP, co-presented a show on the channel for two years.)

Faces I recognised included former Conservative leaders Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, and former Tory Chancellor Lord Lamont.

I spoke very briefly to another former Conservative MP David Nuttall who back in 2010 tabled a private member’s bill to amend the smoking ban to allow smoking rooms in pubs and private members’ clubs.

I also spoke to political journalist and self-confessed ‘leftie’ Michael Crick (Newsnight, Channel 4 News) who revealed he is writing a short biography of Edward Heath.

To be honest, though, I didn’t know many guests and when I arrived I didn’t know a single person, apart from our hosts.

Twelve years ago something similar happened when I attended a drinks reception prior to the Political Book Awards in London and I spent the longest hour of my life wandering around, glass in hand, speaking to no-one.

Even now I have nightmares thinking about it.

This time, older, wiser and less diffident, I marched up to two guests - complete strangers - and introduced myself.

One was a finance director, the other described himself as a ‘techie’. We started chatting and ten minutes later I was giving them my business card (at their request, I should add).

In the unlikely event they read this I’d like to thank them because without them the evening might have triggered an old and rather painful memory!

Instead, I ended up speaking to some interesting people as well as paying my respects to one of the good guys in politics.

Below (left to right): Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes), Alex Deane (Big Brother Watch), Claire Fox (Academy of Ideas), Philip Davies and me at a fringe meeting organised by Forest at the Conservative party conference in Manchester in 2009

Reform leads opposition to tobacco sales ban, Tories divided

Update to Wednesday's post about the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

Led by Nigel Farage, Reform UK has tabled an amendment to remove the generational ban on selling tobacco products to people born on or after 1 January 2009.

Labour's huge majority means it is doomed to fail but it will hopefully be debated on the floor of the House of Commons during the report stage on Wednesday (March 26).

Fair play to Farage and Reform for at least tabling the amendment, something the Tories have failed to do despite Kemi Badenoch's opposition to the Bill.

Unfortunately the Conservative Party is hopelessly split on the issue, but if it goes to a vote it will be interesting to see how many Tory MPs support Reform’s amendment.

Likewise the amendment I mentioned in an earlier post that would replace the generational ban in favour of raising the legal sale of tobacco from 18 to 21.

That amendment has been tabled by the DUP's Sammy Wilson with the support of Conservative grandee Sir John Hayes.

Realistically, given the numbers, both amendments will fall but at least the Bill will face some opposition in the Commons before it moves on to the House of Lords.

See: Tobacco and Vapes Bill – amendments and exemptions

Lang may his lum reek

I had lunch yesterday with Ranald Macdonald, founder and MD of Boisdale Restaurants.

Ranald missed the Forest lunch at Boisdale last year because of ill health but if he sounded a bit croaky yesterday it’s because he was recovering from the annual ‘Shooting Chefs’ competition that took place the day before.

No, I had never heard of it either, but the Boisdale Shooting Chefs Cup (now in its tenth year) brings together 25 or 30 of the country’s most accom­plished young chefs to com­pete ‘in cel­e­bra­tion of the con­sump­tion of British game across the coun­try’.

The competition took place, I think, at the Holland & Holland Shooting Grounds in West Lon­don. Afterwards everyone boarded a Routemaster bus and were driven to the Belgravia restaurant for a boozy three-course lunch.

Although the purpose of our meeting yesterday was to discuss the details of a forthcoming Forest lunch, including the menu, the conversation occasionally went off piste.

For example, when I mentioned I am going to Skye next month, Ranald offered to arrange a private tour of the Museum of the Isles which just happens to focus on Clan Macdonald.

(Ranald - or Ranald Og Angus Macdonald, to give him his full name - is the elder son of the 24th captain and chief of Clan Macdonald of Clanranald.)

He also revealed he has just bought a five-bedroom house in the Outer Hebrides - without, it seems, having visited it (the house not the islands).

It’s 21 years since I first reached out to him. In 2004 Forest’s office in Palace Street was half a mile from Boisdale of Belgravia, the original Boisdale restaurant.

Ranald, who founded Boisdale in 1989, was happy to support our campaign against the workplace smoking ban, and one of our first events was a small private dinner at Boisdale of Bishopsgate (now closed).

Guests that evening included David Hockney (who told me it had been a “life-enhancing experience”) and Oscar-winning screenwriter, the late Sir Ronald Harwood.

In 2006 Ranald joined us at the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth where we hosted a Prohibition themed reception for almost 400 people, the highlight of which was Boisdale’s MD being ‘arrested’ by actors wearing police uniforms who charged him with “inciting people to enjoy themselves”.

He was marched off to the accompaniment of ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’.

Looking back it remains one of my favourite Forest events, and I still remember the morning after when we sat on the terrace of our hotel in the autumn sunshine, eating breakfast and recovering from the night before.

Since then we’ve hosted numerous events at the Belgravia and Canary Wharf restaurants (the latter opened in 2011), culminating in our 40th anniversary dinner at Boisdale of Canary Wharf in 2019 when 200 guests were invited to mark the occasion.

Our most successful event is probably the gala dinner we hosted at the Savoy Hotel in London a few days before the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007.

The original plan was to host it at Boisdale of Belgravia but the Eccleston Street restaurant can only accommodate 70 people in the main restaurant and we wanted to go big to mark one of the last occasions when people could eat, drink and smoke in an indoor ‘public’ place.

Organised at four weeks’ notice, our target was 200 guests in the 400-capacity ballroom.

On the night there were 380 people, including 300 who paid £96 per head, plus guest speakers Andrew Neil, Claire Fox (now Baroness Fox), and Antony Worrall Thompson. (The freebies went to MPs, peers, journalists and other special guests.)

The event also attracted reporters and film crews from twelve countries including Russia, France, Germany and Greece, while the BBC sent a team from Newsnight.

Eighteen years later we’re still planning, and plotting. Lang may his lum reek.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill - amendments and exemptions

The report stage of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill takes place next Wednesday (March 26).

Amendments will be debated and voted upon in the House of Commons before the Bill moves to its third reading, at which point some of the MPs who didn't vote at second reading may come out of the closet and reveal their preferences.

You can read the current list of amendments here.

I assume that no reader of this blog will be directly affected by the generational tobacco sales ban, if and when it is introduced.

Nevertheless it should interest you that the DUP's Sammy Wilson has tabled an amendment that, if passed, would mean it wouldn't be an offence to sell 'tobacco products, herbal smoking products and cigarette papers to people born on or after 1 January 2009'.

Instead it would only be illegal to sell those products to a 'person under the age of 21'.

Another amendment, tabled by Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell, 'exempts tobacco products other than cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco from the offence of selling tobacco products to a person born on or after 1 January 2009'.

In other words, an exemption for cigars, cigarillos, and heated tobacco.

A further amendment, tabled by Lib Dem MP Helen Morgan and supported by four of her colleagues, would restrict the Secretary of State 'to only being able to designate open or unenclosed spaces outside a hospital, children’s playground, nursery, school, college or higher education premises as smoke-free areas'.

Personally I object to smoking being banned in any open space, regardless of whether it's outside hospitals, schools or higher education premises, but if the amendment makes it harder for future Secretaries of State to extend smoking bans to more outdoor spaces then it may be a small price to pay.

The problem is that none of these amendments have been tabled by Labour MPs and without their backing I can't see any of them getting the votes they need.

Unfortunately any plans we may have had to make some noise while the Bill is being debated in the House could be dashed by another political event on the same day – the Chancellor's Spring statement.

What a coincidence!

All is not lost though because whatever happens next week the Tobacco and Vapes Bill still has to go to the House of Lords where it could be amended by peers, so there's plenty to play for, even if the odds are clearly against any dilution of the Bill as it currently stands.

Watch this space.

I once met …

Self-help guru Paul McKenna has been sharing with readers of The Sun an ‘exclusive 25-minute hypnosis’ video that helps people quit smoking.

'Self-help guru' and 'life coach' are not descriptions I normally warm to but I bumped into McKenna once, many years ago, and he was very nice.

We were at Western House (later renamed Wogan House) in London waiting to be interviewed on Radio 2.

We weren’t on together because I was there to talk about smoking and he was there to promote a new book about something else, but we had a short chat while we sat outside the studio.

In fact, he instigated the conversation which was quite unusual.

I’ve sat in many green rooms with many ‘celebrities’ and it’s rare that they initiate a conversation with someone they’ve never met, let alone show an interest in that person by asking questions about their job.

It’s so rare that only two people stand out - Tony Blackburn, who I spoke to when we were waiting to record a pilot for a Marcus Brigstocke talk show over 20 years ago, and Paul McKenna.

Knowing McKenna helped people stop smoking I expected a negative reaction when he asked me what I did, but he wasn’t judgemental or anti-smoking at all.

Like Tony Blackburn, he was extremely personable and I liked him immediately.

I had a slightly different experience when I met another quit smoking guru, the late Allan Carr, in a BBC studio in Manchester.

It was on January 4, 2004, and we were about to appear on The Heaven and Earth Show, a Sunday morning programme that ran from 1998 to 2007 on BBC1 and addressed spiritual and moral issues.

The date should give you a clue that we had been booked to talk about a possible workplace smoking ban, which the Labour government was considering, under pressure from the tobacco control industry.

To my surprise Carr was opposed to a smoking ban, but not for the same reasons as me. In his view it would lead to smokers ‘binge smoking’ when they left the office at lunch or after work.

However, while we were both opposed to a ban, it would be wrong to say we saw eye to eye on anything else and I found him quite intense. As I wrote later:

I enjoyed The Heaven and Earth Show. I got to meet quit smoking guru Allen Carr, a strange little man, quite different from the smooth-talking salesman I had imagined. Although he gave up his 100-a-day habit 20 years ago, he's still addicted to smoking, albeit in a rather different way. Even in the green room he and his wife (they now live in Malaga) found it difficult to talk about anything else.

To be honest, I was surprised he talked to me at all off air because I was led to believe he could be extremely hostile to anyone who had connections with the tobacco industry, which he seemed to blame for his own smoking habit all those years before.

He died from lung cancer, aged 72, two years later, but although there was no meeting of minds on the wider issue of smoking, we didn’t part on bad terms.

We simply didn't agree and I didn't want to get into an argument with him or his wife off air. (They were clearly devoted to one another, although she said very little.)

While I’m name dropping I might as well mention a third celebrity whose easy charm and interest in others impressed me enormously when I met her.

Emma Forbes was a presenter on Saturday morning children’s TV in the Nineties. The daughter of actress Nanette Newman and film producer Bryan Forbes, she was a regular contributor on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV when our paths crossed in 2009 and she could not have been nicer.

I’ve just Googled her name and it seems she moved to America a few years ago with her husband and children and they have no plans to return, at least not permanently.

Who can blame them?!