Triple lock state pension? I'm here for it!

Yikes. In a few weeks I will be a pensioner. Literally.

On my next birthday, in March, I will be 66 and last week I got a letter from the Department for Work & Pensions that told me how much state pension I will get.

According to the DWP I will receive a small one-off payment followed by regular payments every four weeks after that.

It's not enough to live on (so I will be working for a while yet!) but it's welcome nonetheless and I deserve it!

I started full-time paid employment in September 1980, two months after graduating from university, and I've worked ever since.

Two-and-a-half years in public relations were followed by 16 years as a freelance journalist during which time I worked on various projects and publications.

They included the Media Monitoring Unit which monitored television current affairs programmes for political bias. I also got involved in events management, but my bread and butter was editing magazines.

Then, in January 1999, I was appointed director of Forest and, although I had no long term plan, events took over and here I am, 26 years later, still defending the right to smoke (or, as I see it, battling Big Government).

During my working life (45 years and counting) I've worked for other people, and for myself. I've worked in offices, in 'work spaces', and from home.

I've worked for small companies, working with and managing small teams of people, and I've worked on my own.

I've been lucky, I think, because one job generally led to another, or I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

None of it constitutes a 'career' because none of it was planned so, you younger readers, please don't follow my example.

Nevertheless, I've paid my fair share of tax (income tax and national insurance), which brings me back to that state pension.

Did I mention I'm an enthusiastic fan of the triple lock, described here as the arrangement by which 'the state pension goes up each year by either 2.5%, inflation, or earnings growth - whichever is the highest figure'?

It's almost certainly unsustainable (see 'Pensioners have never had it so good', The Spectator) but it will take a brave Chancellor to infuriate millions of pensioners by taking away something many now consider their right.

It's not, of course, and, in all seriousness, if the triple lock was scrapped I wouldn't complain.

Like the winter fuel allowance and 'free' prescriptions for the elderly, it does seem crazy that everyone, regardless of how well off they are, benefits universally.

Means testing is arguably the fairest option. The problem, as I understand it, is that means testing costs a lot of money and it's easier, administratively, to give the payment to everyone, or no-one.

That, at least, was one of the arguments regarding the winter fuel payment.

One issue with means testing the state pension is that it disadvantages those who have scrimped and saved and put money aside for their old age, either in a private pension or in a savings account.

But the bigger problem here is the welfare state which ought to exist to help those with the greatest need, but instead 'helps' everyone, even those who don't need state handouts.

Then again, if you pay 50% of your earnings to the state (top rate of income tax plus national insurance), you probably expect to get something back.

Personally I would settle for better public services including Scandinavian style care for the elderly, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Alternatively, introduce a flat tax rate and the argument for universal benefit might be harder to maintain.

Meet the new nanny, same as the old nanny

The Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee sat again on Tuesday.

That makes 14 sittings so far, with more scheduled for today, including what should be the final one before the Bill moves on to the report stage and then the third reading in the House of Commons.

Well done if you've made it this far and read all the transcripts in Hansard. I have but I wouldn't wish it on anyone else!

I'll return to the subject of the Committee later. In the meantime we have updated our Say NO to Nanny! leaflet.

The original six-page leaflet was sent to MPs ahead of the second reading of the first Tobacco and Vapes Bill in April last year.

Instead of Rishi Sunak, the new eight page leaflet features an illustration of Keir Starmer. To read or download a copy, click on the image (top right).

It also includes the result of a recent poll in which Yonder Consulting asked over 2,000 adults in Great Britain to rate ten domestic issues according to how important or not important they are.

Fewer than a third (29%) think it's very important that government tackles smoking, compared to tackling problems with the health service (83%), energy costs (74%), inflation (72%), crime (72%), and care for the elderly (72%). Full list below.

Fact checking ASH

ASH recently added a briefing paper to their website.

Dated November 2024 but posted online this month, it’s entitled 'Briefing on the tobacco industry and their tactics' and includes the claim that:

The tobacco industry often works through proxy organisations who will represent industry interests. These organisations are frequently funded by the tobacco industry but will rarely declare this.

It adds:

Tobacco Tactics, an initiative run by the University of Bath, have compiled a list of front groups, lobby groups and think tanks that are associated with the tobacco industry, including the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs.

I'll come back to Tobacco Tactics, which I wrote about here shortly after its launch in 2012, but a small section of the ASH briefing paper is devoted exclusively to Forest.

The reason I mention it is because it's one of the laziest things I've ever read. According to ASH:

Forest is a ‘smokers rights’ group that regularly opposes tobacco policy and is often quoted in the media. Although they claim to speak for smokers they rely heavily on funding from the ‘big 4’ tobacco companies.

First, it's not true to say Forest gets funding from the ‘big 4’ tobacco companies.

We currently receive donations from two companies – JTI and Imperial Brands (formerly Imperial Tobacco).

We used to receive donations from a third company - British American Tobacco - but that stopped several years ago when BAT decided to go all in on next generation products and abandon smokers who don't want to quit.

Philip Morris, the other 'big 4' company alluded to but not named, hasn't donated a penny to Forest since 1997, almost 30 years ago, and it was £20k out of an annual budget of around £300k (at that time). So we certainly didn't 'rely heavily' on PM's contribution!

This may seem like splitting hairs but ASH would be the first to complain if we published information about their funding, including all those taxpayer-funded grants, that was not strictly accurate.

A phone call or an email to Forest and I would have happily set the record straight. But they couldn’t be bothered to fact check their own briefing.

What I can't get over though is just how dated all the 'information' is. It's as if they've cut and pasted something from 2010 or earlier:

In 2000, Simon Clark, the Director of Forest, when questioned by the Select Committee on health (sic) admitted that 96% of their budget came from industry.

Yes, this is factually correct, although the word ‘admitted’ is a bit misleading because it suggests they had to prise the information out of me, which was not the case. (We have always been very open about our primary source of funding.)

More important, why are they quoting something from a quarter of a century ago in a briefing paper written in 2024? And there’s more:

They have campaigned to repeal the 2007 indoor smoking ban even though the majority of smokers are supportive, along with 90% of non-smokers.

Again, not strictly true. We campaigned to amend the public smoking ban (and only in pubs and clubs), but our campaign effectively came to an end in 2011 when we had to put the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign on ice in order to fight plain packaging.

Furthermore, the link in the briefing paper takes readers to the results of an online poll conducted by market research firm Ciao Surveys, conveniently ignoring other polls that found that a majority of respondents supported designated smoking rooms in pubs and clubs long after the ban was introduced.

But that wouldn’t fit ASH’s sly dig which is designed to make Forest appear out of touch with the public, including smokers, when there is plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Meanwhile:

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill returning to Parliament is the first step towards a smokefree future, creating a smokefree generation and taking vital powers to curb youth vaping. As the Bill progresses through Parliament it is likely that the tobacco industry will attempt to water down, disrupt or delay the Bill to buy more time in the UK market. Industry will always protect their profits - despite many company taglines portraying them as part of the ‘solution’.

This briefing provides a guide to the tactics and arguments we expect industry to use around this bill, along with the public health responses.

I can’t speak for the tobacco industry but it’s pretty clear what tactics the tobacco control industry is using – smear the opposition by employing old news that, in at least one instance, is factually incorrect.

It’s a small thing but it does make me question the accuracy of other information ASH has been using to brief parliamentarians and the media.

As for the Tobacco Tactics website, here's that 'list of front groups, lobby groups and think tanks that are associated with the tobacco industry'.

ASH describes Tobacco Tactics as 'an initiative run by the University of Bath'. What they don't say is that it is now 'part of STOP, a global tobacco industry watchdog' funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies whose founder is the three-time New York mayor (and billionaire) Mike Bloomberg.

Given how transparent they expect their opponents to be, this seems a rather unfortunate oversight.

Meanwhile, here’s part of my review of Tobacco Tactics, written shortly after its launch in 2012. (The Free Society referred to was a Forest affiliated initiative that ran from 2008 to 2015.)

TT lists contributors to The Free Society, some of whom have never written about tobacco.

It also names organisations that have co-hosted TFS events, ignoring the fact that many of them were on non-tobacco related issues and the word 'smoking' was never mentioned by the majority of speakers (who have been listed nevertheless).

Clearly, any association with Forest (even indirectly via The Free Society) is considered worthy of a mention.

I wonder what former Conservative party chairman David Davis MP, Matt Grist (senior researcher at Demos), Professor Terence Kealey (vice-chancellor at the University of Buckingham) and Toby Young (associate editor of The Spectator) will think of that.

When they agreed to take part in a discussion called 'Freedom, Education and the State' hosted by The Free Society and the Adam Smith Institute, I bet they weren't expecting their names to appear, a year or two later, on a website called Tobacco Tactics!

See: Tobacco Tactics - what do you think of it so far?

The Trump effect - America U-turns on menthol cigarette ban

It was reported late last week that the new Trump administration has withdrawn a plan by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban menthol cigarettes in the US.

Prohibited in EU member states since 2020, menthol cigarettes have been at centre of a rather different row in America where the race card has been played by both sides.

According to the BBC in 2021 (Why the proposed US ban on menthol cigarettes is controversial):

Public health and civil rights groups have lobbied vigorously for the ban, citing the disproportionate harms of menthol cigarettes on black Americans.

Conversely:

Opponents of the ban, including black leaders like Al Sharpton, have said banning a product that is most popular among African Americans is discriminatory.

When the FDA moved to ban menthol-flavoured cigarettes in 2021 it was described as a 'major blow to the tobacco industry'. Almost four years later it's the tobacco control industry that has suffered a major blow.

According to CNN:

“The Lung Association remains deeply disappointed that President Biden did not finalize the menthol cigarette and flavored cigar rules when he could,” said Erika Sward, the assistant vice president of national advocacy for the American Lung Association.

Yolonda C. Richardson, president and CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids also said Friday that she was deeply disappointed that the ban did not happen in a timely manner under the past administration.

Meanwhile hopes are high that another FDA plan – to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes, effectively prohibiting almost every cigarette currently on the market in the US – could suffer a similar fate.

Although Trump can be a bit erratic when it comes to policy making, I would be surprised if, having rejected a ban on menthol cigarettes, he now endorsed a strict reduction in nicotine levels that would effectively ban the cigarettes he has just reprieved, and many more.

There are two other reasons why he might not support the policy.

One, like Biden's contentious pardons, it was announced at the fag end of his presidency (see 'Smoking bans: the fallback legacy for failed leaders'.

Two, and this may be complete coincidence, but it was also reported (last month) that the biggest corporate donor to Trump’s presidential campaign was RAI Services, a subsidiary of Reynolds American which 'owns the companies that control some of the most well-known tobacco brands, such as Newport, Camel, Pall Mall, Lucky Strike and Natural American Spirit'.

As I say, I'd be a fool to second guess Trump on anything, but …

Final word (from me) on The Traitors

I had a sharp spike in visitors to this blog on Friday – four times the usual average.

I can only think it was due to the headline that mentioned 'The Traitors'.

Visitors expecting some deep philosophical insight or, at the very least, an amusing review, will have left disappointed.

Numbers are now back to normal but if I want another temporary boost I know what to do.

PS. I think we can agree that the finale was a bit anticlimactic. Then again, it's unrealistic to think there will ever be an ending as dramatic as season 2.

The Traitors may have peaked but there's life in the format as long as they don't ruin it with unnecessary twists.

Every voice? Don't hold your breath!

I mentioned recently that the US-based TMA (formerly the Tobacco Merchants Association) is rebranding as the Nicotine Resource Centre.

Yes, you read that right. Founded in 1915, they're dropping the word 'tobacco' from their name.

I noted too that the CEO recently 'liked', on LinkedIn, a post by Global Action to End Smoking (formerly the Foundation for a Smoke Free World) that expressed support for the proposal by the US Food and Drug Administration to limit the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.

If approved by the incoming Trump administration this would effectively prohibit the overwhelming majority of combustible tobacco products currently on the market in the USA.

I was surprised that the CEO of an organisation founded as the Tobacco Merchants Association would 'like' such a statement but he has now replied, putting me straight, for which I am grateful.

He responded on LinkedIn but I hope he won't mind me publishing it here as well:

I like lots of things on LinkedIn because they’re important parts of the dialogue and will come up at our conferences. ATNF, GTNF and the Nicotine Resource Consortium are open and agnostic forums (the organization doesn’t lobby or take positions). Our forums’ purpose is to bring people together and raise the big ideas and concepts that proliferate across the stakeholder spectrum. Some of those are obviously in opposition to others. But an open and welcoming forum encouraging meaningful dialogue demands hearing out every voice.

I accept that the name Tobacco Merchants Association is a bit old-fashioned, hence the frequent abbreviation to TMA in recent years, but I'm sad that an organisation set up over 100 years ago to represent the tobacco trade now describes itself as an 'agnostic forum' that 'doesn't lobby or take positions', but that's the 21st century for you.

I will also take some convincing that the ATNF and GTNF are 'open' to 'every voice'. It used to be true of GTNF (aka the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum) but I'm not sure it still is.

For example, from its inception in 2008 to 2017 I was invited to take part – as a panellist or primary speaker – in every GTNF, from Bangalore to Brussels, Cape Town to New York.

The last time I was invited to speak – as part of a panel – was in Washington DC in 2022, but as I explained at the time I wasn't part of the main programme. We weren't even in the same hotel as the conference!

Since then invitations to speak at GTNF have been noticeable by their absence (see GTNF - making smokers history), and I would be surprised if we are asked to provide a speaker (or even a panelist) when GTNF convenes in Brussels later this year.

This, despite the existential threat to future generations of adults who might wish to smoke. (If that's not worth a session for debate I don't know what is.) Unfortunately, adults who want to smoke, and adults who don't want to quit smoking, have increasingly been abandoned by organisations that used to defend both their interests and their rights.

If I am wrong and GTNF is still open to 'every voice' I'll be the first to let you know. Don't hold your breath, though!

Tales from the Derbyshire Dales

Five years ago this week my mother left her home in the Peak District and moved to Chester.

She had lived in Thorpe, a tiny hamlet near Ashbourne, Derbyshire, for 40 years, having moved there with my father in 1980.

My father worked for Nestlé his entire working life. He started at the company’s chocolate factory in Hayes, Middlesex in the Fifties. Then, in 1965, he moved to the company’s UK head office in Croydon.

Prior to Ashbourne, where he was in charge of a factory that produced canned milk products, he managed factories in Dundee and Milnthorpe, near Kendall in Cumbria.

My parents moved to Derbyshire during my final year at university. Shortly after I graduated at Aberdeen I got a job in London so I never lived in Thorpe, but I always enjoyed visiting.

Their house had an uninterrupted view of Thorpe Cloud, a craggy limestone hill that attracted a lot of hikers. It was easy enough to climb (even I could do it!) and from the top, on a clear day, you could see five counties. Allegedly.

On the other side of Thorpe Cloud lies Dovedale, a popular beauty spot best known for the stepping stones that cross the River Dove.

Ashbourne, four miles away, is a small market town with lots of independent shops whose fortunes seem to fluctuate wildly according to the state of the economy.

I remember times when there were numerous up market boutiques and shoppers would come from far and wide (by which I mean Sheffield.) During a recession the same shops might close as quickly as they had opened.

Sheffield is 40 miles from Ashbourne but over an hour by car, which gives you an idea of the type of rural roads you’re driving on.

Derby, on the other hand, is half the distance (20 miles) and only 15 minutes from Ashbourne.

The city doesn't have a great deal to recommend it, if I’m honest, but in the Eighties, when visiting my parents, I would spend many a Saturday afternoon at the Baseball Ground watching Derby County.

The old wooden stands were extremely close to the pitch which was infamous in the Seventies for being little more than a mud bath in winter.

In the Eighties the grass was definitely greener but what I remember most was the atmosphere, which was brilliant, even in the old second and third divisions.

There was a family atmosphere too, which was unusual, with very little threat of violence (unless Leeds were the visitors!).

When I started watching Derby the ground was surrounded by narrow streets with two-up two-down Victorian terraced housing. Many of the original inhabitants would have worked at the Rolls Royce factory, a few hundred yards away.

Today the Baseball Ground no longer exists. In 1995 the club moved to a new stadium, Pride Park, and the old ground was subsequently demolished. Most of the Victorian terraced housing has gone too. The last time I looked it was an industrial estate.

But back to Thorpe and the Derbyshire Dales, which are part of the Peak District.

According to the 2011 census Thorpe had a population of 183. Ten years later (2021 census) this had dwindled to 139.

Surrounded by farms, the village has a small Norman church and an even smaller village hall, but the sub post office is long gone.

My parents’ house, built from local stone, was one of four houses built on farmland in the early Seventies creating a small cul-de-sac. To the best of my knowledge, they were the last houses to be built in the village.

A regular walk took us to one end of the village and down a narrow track to the bottom of a valley where an old stone bridge crosses the Dove before climbing up the other side.

This is the old coaching road that would have been used by stagecoaches in the 18th century, and walking along it you really do feel a sense of history. I imagine the views of the hills and valley are much as they were 300 years ago.

Thirty minutes from Thorpe, heading north, is the spa town of Buxton. The A515 from Ashbourne to Buxton is said to follow the course of an old Roman road.

It’s an enjoyable drive (although I remember one hair-raising journey at night in thick fog) and if your destination is Stockport or Manchester I would recommend a detour via the scenic A5004 that eventually joins the A6 via Whaley Bridge.

Chatsworth House, 20 miles and 40 minutes away, is possibly my favourite stately home. I regret however that we have never been to the famous Christmas market. (This year, perhaps, with an overnight stay at the Beeley Inn or Cavendish Hotel on the Chatsworth estate.)

Another stately home worth visiting is Haddon Hall near Bakewell.

And then there's Hassop Hall, also near Bakewell. Built in the 17th century as a country house, it was converted into a hotel in 1975 but was sold in 2019 and is now a private house again.

In 2010 we celebrated my father's 80th birthday at Hassop Hall, staying overnight.

Reviews damned the hotel with faint praise. According to one, the ‘stuffy Edwardian country house menus seldom troubled the food guides’ but my parents liked it (and my mother was a cordon bleu cook!).

We liked it too. The food wasn't outstanding, it's true, but the service, and old-fashioned surroundings, evoked a certain nostalgia.

My father died four years later, in 2014, but my mother stayed in Thorpe until it became clear that living in such a rural location, with the nearest shops several miles away, was neither advisable nor feasible.

She sold the house and moved to Chester in January 2020, two months before the first Covid lockdown. Had she not done so, goodness knows how she would have managed on her own.

To this day my mother has never had wifi. She got her first smartphone a few months ago but uses it only to make the occasional phone call. She has never had a computer of any sort which means she has never ordered a single thing online.

Anyway, I took the photos below on my final visit to Thorpe, on the same day she left.

She’s 94 now and living, independently, within walking distance of the centre of Chester. My sister lives a few miles away and I visit whenever I can.

I do miss the Derbyshire Dales, though.

PS. A distant relative, Ernest Townsend, who painted the portrait of Winston Churchill that hangs (or used to hang) in the National Liberal Club in London, was born and lived in Derby. That, I think, is my only family connection with Derbyshire.

Instead a significant part of the family came from Sheffield, including my father who was born in India but grew up in the city before moving away after he went to university.

Ironically it was in Sheffield that he had his heart transplant at the age of 67 because the Northern General was not only one of the few hospitals that specialised in such operations, it was also the nearest to where he lived.

Sheffield, of course, is in South Yorkshire not Derbyshire but the two counties share a border so it’s not a million miles away.

Also, and this perhaps explains my affection for the county that pre-dates my parents moving there, but one of my favourite series of books as a child was the Jennings’ novels written by Anthony Buckeridge.

If you’re familiar with the books (25 were written over 44 years), the eponymous hero’s best ‘chum’ was a boy called … Darbishire. Fancy that!

Below: Thorpe in Derbyshire. Population (2021 census): 183

The Traitors - spoiler alert!

My daughter has been watching The Traitors.

A few days ago she was several episodes behind when I inadvertently let slip something that had happened in an episode she hadn’t seen.

(I can’t remember what it was. I probably revealed the name of a contestant who had been murdered or banished.)

Following last night’s episode she sent me a text:

So I caught up on all the traitors episodes - watching tonight’s now. The phoney Welsh girl has been very good.

To which I replied:

I wanted Minah to win but she wasn’t ruthless enough. Freddie was unlucky - he was only a traitor for two minutes!

To which she replied:

I haven’t watched today’s episode yet … as I said in my first message. That’s twice you’ve done that now.

Oops. 🤣🤣🤣