Love at first sight

My son has written a piece for The Spectator about his love of antique shops.

I think he may have inherited his interest from his great grandfather (on my father's side of the family).

When my grandfather retired in the mid Sixties my grandparents moved from an old Victorian house in Chertsey, Surrey, to an even older property in Dorset.

The thatched house in Fifehead Neville near Sturminster Newton had originally been three farmworkers’ cottages, parts of which were over 300-years-old.

Everything about the house, including the furniture, felt old – and I loved it because it was so different to our home on a modern housing estate in Maidenhead, Berkshire.

The four houses my parents bought between 1963 and 1980 were either new or no more than ten years old. Their taste in furniture (and furnishings) was modern too. You could say they were the Habitat generation.

Items included an Ercol dining table and chairs, an Ercol armchair, an Ercol settee, and even an Ercol rocking chair.

Named after Luciano Randolfo Ercolani (who was born in Italy in 1888 but moved to Britain as a child), mid 20th century Ercol furniture is now considered a design classic:

The new post-war sensibility saw the birth of the iconic mid-century modern style, which favoured furniture with simple, functional designs and easy, clean lines. During these post-war years, especially the 1950s, Ercol released some of its most iconic pieces that we still know and love today.

Sixty years later my mother still has several items of Ercol furniture, including the dining table and rocking chair, both in immaculate condition.

If I had the money I'd love to own a substantial Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian house, and fill it with furniture and other items that would complement the property.

The oldest piece of furniture I've ever possessed that would fit that brief was a chaise lounge. It had been upholstered by the previous owner (who gave it to me when he moved house and didn't have room for it), but despite looking nice it was hard and uncomfortable. I gave it away many years ago.

The oldest item of furniture I currently own is a large oak dining table. I bought it almost 40 years ago from a shop in Chiswick, close to the Barley Mow Workspace where I worked.

There was evidence of woodworm (that had been treated) and it's solid rather than beautiful, but it was love at first sight – rather like the rustic pine bed I bought in Bath a year or two earlier.

The latter was too big for the studio flat I was renting at the time so I had it delivered to a friend's house where it lived for two years before I had a room large enough to accommodate it.

Perhaps I've inherited a little bit of my parents' taste because the item that arguably gives me the most pleasure is a contemporary double swirl oak floor lamp from John Lewis.

I bought it two years ago, shortly after New Year, to fill the space where the Christmas tree had been. It's neither antique nor vintage, but I love it.

In fact, I never thought that an item of furniture would give me so much pleasure, but it has.

As for antique shops, I couldn't write an article about them but I do remember one shop – in Thistle Street, Edinburgh.

The owner was the father of a friend of mine. Aldric was a lovely man, a little eccentric, but always generous and entertaining.

He also owned several other properties in Thistle Street, including the flat my wife and I lived in for 18 months after we got married.

The shop was only a few yards away and I remember it being a very quiet and tranquil space. Most items, though, were well out of our league.

One piece of advice: never visit an antiques shop under the influence of alcohol. Forty years ago, in London, I did just that and it cost me!

The shop was very close to the Ealing pub where I had just had lunch with a friend, and something drew us in.

Inside there was an old pendulum wall clock and without thinking to haggle I parted with over £100 (almost £400 today). It wasn't even a particularly beautiful clock. But the worst thing was, it has never worked.

Anyway, you can read my son’s article here. Judging by the comments it seems to have struck a chord with a number of readers.

See: The melancholy of an antiques shop (The Spectator)

Ireland to raise age of sale of tobacco to 21 and introduce warnings on alcohol

Did I mention I was in Dublin last week?

Over in Ireland the Government has rejected a UK-style generational ban. Instead ministers have decided that the age of sale of tobacco should go up from 18 to 21 in 2028.

Although I am opposed, in principle, to increasing the age of sale beyond 18, at which point people are legally adults, I do accept that 21 is better than creeping prohibition (raising the age of sale by one year every year).

One area in which Ireland is 'leading' the world is health warnings on alcohol. From May 22, 2026, 'Labels will alert people to calories, risk of cancer and liver disease and dangers of drinking while pregnant'.

The news has been under-reported in the UK, which doesn't surprise me. The same thing happened when politicians in Ireland discussed and then passed a law banning smoking in the workplace.

As I remember, it only became a significant media story in the UK the week the law was actually enacted, but prior to that relatively little was written or spoken about it. Now history could be repeating itself.

In my view we should always monitor and, where necessary, oppose illiberal and unnecessarily restrictive measures in any country, whatever the size of the market, because that is often where momentum for radical new policies starts.

Laws are passed and that creates a precedent for policies that were previously not considered by governments in larger jurisdictions.

As far as the workplace smoking ban is concerned, Ireland was the canary in the coal mine. Likewise the tobacco display ban was introduced in Ireland several years before the UK.

It will be interesting, then, to see what impact the introduction of health warnings on alcohol in Ireland will have on UK government policy.

If I worked for the UK drinks industry I would be keeping a very close eye on things because we all know the anti-alcohol agenda won't stop with health warnings.

The tobacco playbook offers a clear template for puritans in government and public health and this is just the beginning.

Milk bars and an American diner

If you're interested in social history there's an interesting piece on the BBC website about National Milk Bars.

Contrary to its name, National Milk Bars were never national. At its peak the company had 17 branches in Wales and the north-west of England.

Nevertheless, there was a period when milk bars were far more common than they are today.

The idea came from America in the Thirties and they were popular in the Forties and Fifties when they were recommended by the temperance movement as an alternative to the pub.

It's not strictly true to say that the National Milk Bars café in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, is the very last of its kind because milk bars do exist elsewhere, although you'd have to look hard to find one.

As it happens, I will be in Scotland next week and if I have time I am hoping to visit Powmill Milk Bar near Kinross.

It's in a very rural location and I stumbled on it by complete chance a few years ago when I took a detour en route to St Andrews.

As I wrote at the time, there was a great selection of cakes, coffees and milk shakes!

It reminded me of the first time I experienced an American-style diner – which wasn't in the States, funnily enough, but in Covent Garden.

Fat Boy's Diner was described as a 'classic 1950s-style chrome-and-neon diner with counter stools, for burgers, hot dogs and milkshakes'.

Other Fat Boy's Diners were purpose built but this one was a converted train carriage that had been renovated and shipped to the UK from the US in the Nineties.

The Maiden Lane location was only temporary, though, because it sat on a small parcel of land that was due to be redeveloped.

I went there several times before the novelty wore off and when I back a year or two later it had gone.

I have never forgotten that first time, though. Truly, it was like stepping on to the set of Back To The Future!

Rights and responsibilities

More on Andrew Gwynne whose indiscreet WhatsApp posts have derailed – for how long we don't know – his political career.

I've lost count of the number of people – many on the so-called 'libertarian' right and left – who are arguing that he should not have been sacked because he had every right to rant in private.

One writer has even made an impassioned plea for clemency on the grounds that, by its very nature, WhatsApp encourages bad jokes among friends.

Look, I get these arguments, and it's clearly preposterous that Gwynne's posts have been classified as a 'non-crime hate incident'. Likewise the absurd suggestion that he should be prosecuted. (For what? Making a tasteless joke?)

I deplore too the actions of whoever it was who grassed Gwynne to the Mail on Sunday. If you join a WhatsApp group your fellow members have a right to expect a substantial degree of privacy and, if you don't like what's being said, leave the group.

But let's not make him out to be a martyr because there is one very important factor the free speech and privacy lobby are forgetting. Andrew Gwynne was not just an MP, he was a junior minister with the ambition, perhaps, of being in the Cabinet.

If all these posts were published when he was a teenager, or a student, or before he became an MP, I would have a great deal more sympathy for him. But he wasn't. He is now 50-years-old and was first elected as an MP in 2005.

He was a shadow minister in the last parliament, and a junior minister in the current Government. That brings with it responsibilities, both in public and in private.

No-one's perfect, everyone makes mistakes, but the public deserves MPs and government ministers who, at the very least, are able to demonstrate good judgement.

I don't care therefore if these comments were made among 'friends' in the privacy of a WhatsApp group. How stupid do you have to be to make some of the comments that have been attributed to the former health minister, even if they were in jest?

Politics is notorious for the fact that not only do you make enemies, most of your enemies are in the same party.

I've no idea how many people are in the 'Trigger Me Timbers' WhatsApp group, but I cannot believe that every member was a close personal friend of Andrew Gwynne, and he should have known he was playing with fire.

I can't tell you the number of emails I have deleted before pressing the 'send' button. Likewise social media posts to my small number of followers.

I learned a long time ago that once something is in print (or, more recently, online) there's no going back. It cannot be erased.

Even private comments intended exclusively for friends go through a mental filter.

Likewise, having been sued for defamation as a young student journalist, I learned that even things written in jest can come back and bite you. Bigly.

It's jaw-dropping to me that people who should know better are defending the former health minister.

Forget free speech and the right to offend (which I support). In this instance the most important issue is that a government minister has demonstrated extremely poor judgement, and for that reason alone he deserved to be sacked.

See: Andrew Gwynne has every right to rant in private (Spiked)
Andrew Gwynne and the truth about WhatsApp (The Spectator)
Ex-Labour minister’s WhatsApp chat recorded as non-crime hate incident (Telegraph)

Update: According to a report in The Times today (February 13) there were 'roughly 16 involved' in the 'Trigger Me Timbers' WhatsApp group, which suggests a fairly tight group of people – albeit not tight enough to stop someone leaking the messages.

Meanwhile, writing in The Spectator, Rod Liddle takes a different view to me, arguing that 'Gwynne's remarks ... were simply a few slivers of black humour regarding people who had got on his nerves'.

The gist of Rod's argument is that MPs have a terrible job and should be allowed to mouth off in private. I don't disagree with that but I still think that if you're in Andrew Gwynne's position you need to be more circumspect, in public and in private.

Face to face with civil liberties

In Dublin last week I was shown a facial recognition app - still in development - that calculates someone's age.

Theoretically it could be used by retailers to enforce the generational tobacco sales ban which is due to be introduced in 2027.

But how well does it work? Well, I’m almost 66 and it calculated that I am 61.

A friend, 54, was reckoned to be 43 which was flattering for her but could be problematic for potential users, notably retailers.

Imagine, for example, if in 2030 someone was 25 but the app insisted they were 20 and below the legal age of sale for tobacco.

Awkward.

I dare say the technology will improve but it won't be foolproof and, even if it is, Big Brother Watch (Defending Civil Liberties, Protecting Privacy) may have something to say about it.

Keep the Red Flag flying

While I was in Ireland last week it was reported that Dublin-based Red Flag Consulting had been sold with an anticipated payout of €33m to founder Karl Brophy.

According to the Irish Times:

While the sum paid for the Irish business has not been disclosed, industry sources put the value of the deal at about €45 million … Mr Brophy owns 75 per cent of the firm, indicating a payout for him of just more than €33 million.

I don't suppose many (if any) of you will have heard of the company but let me disclose my interest in this story.

Red Flag was founded in Ireland in 2013. Within a year I was introduced to the company through a mutual acquaintance, and that led me to visit their modest office in Dublin where, at that time, they employed no more than four or five people.

Today, it's reported that Red Flag has 65 staff, offices in Dublin, Brussels, Cape Town, London, and Washington DC, and clients including Diageo, Google, and Coca-Cola.

Meanwhile:

Séamus Conboy, who is head of Europe at Red Flag, owns 5.8 per cent of the company and stands to earn about €2.6 million from the sale.

Would that be the same Séamus Conboy I had coffee with ten years ago?

And there's more:

It is understood that a seven-figure sum will be paid to employees who don’t hold shares in the company, by way of a completion bonus.

How lovely.

To be clear, my brief acquaintance with Karl Brophy and Séamus Conboy can be measured in minutes rather than years.

Nevertheless I love success stories like that and I can only congratulate them all on their windfall. Richly deserved!

Tobacco control lobby loses a close ally

The defenestration of Andrew Gwynne has arguably lost the tobacco control industry one of its most vocal supporters.

Here, for example, is the former health minister tweeting in July 2024:

A few months later (October 14, 2024) he spoke at the inaugural meeting of the new APPG on Smoking and Health (run by ASH), an occasion recorded here by his Labour colleague Mary Kelly Foy, co-chair of the APPG.

Two days before that he spoke at a parliamentary event organised by ASH ...

In July 2023, as shadow public health minister he could be found at another parliamentary event reflecting 'on the strong cross-party support for tobacco control and the Smokefree 2030 ambition, and the role of both Labour and Conservative governments in taking us closer to ending smoking'.

But his support for tobacco control goes back long before that. Writing for Labour List in 2015, for example, he claimed that 'The new car smoking ban is a landmark moment for public health'.

Landmark moment? To the best of my knowledge, only one person has been prosecuted for smoking in a car carrying children since the law was introduced, for which there are three possible explanations:

One, the law has been a spectacular success, dissuading millions of smokers from lighting up in car with a child present.

Two, the police are not enforcing the law because it's almost impossible.

Three, when the law was introduced very few smokers were still smoking in cars with children so the impact has been negligible.

You decide.

Either way, Gwynnne has been a keen supporter of tobacco control for a long time, and it seems he had his eye on pubs – the last refuge of the smoker – as well. (Pubs could be forced to close early as Labour considering crackdown on opening hours, health minister says.)

Although he will be quickly replaced as public health minister, his cocksure performance during the Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee meetings suggested a politician comfortable in his brief and in a hurry to get the legislation through parliament, so he will undoubtedly be missed by the tobacco control lobby.

Speaking of which, keep an eye on the social media accounts of all those groups he declared "It was great to meet" – ASH, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Asthma + Lung UK, Mental Health Foundation, and Age UK.

A penny for their thoughts today.

You couldn’t make it up

On January 30, public health minister Andrew Gwynne wrote on Instagram:

“I'm very happy to say that the Tobacco and Vapes Bill has now passed the Committee stage.

“I’m incredibly proud of this Bill and all the brilliant scientists, academics, and parliamentarians who have brought it to fruition.”

Helpfully, he then listed some of the policies he was “incredibly proud” of:

• No tobacco sales to anyone born on/after 1 Jan 2009
• Smoking banned outside hospitals, schools and playgrounds
• Ban on vape advertising
• Smoke-free areas to include ban on vaping

Fast forward to yesterday evening.

I was watching the rugby on TV when a news alert popped up on my phone: ‘Health minister sacked over WhatsApp messages’.

According to the Mail on Sunday, which ‘exposed his racist and sexist messages’:

Andrew Gwynne also made anti-Semitic slights and ‘jokes’ about a constituent being ‘mown down’ by a truck.

Keir Starmer stripped Mr Gwynne of his job as Health Minister and suspended his membership of the Labour Party when he was told about the content of the WhatsApp messages yesterday.

Meanwhile, the MP himself apologised for his ‘badly misjudged comments’.

Who saw that coming?

The irony is, if there’s one politician who has been in my head more than any other during the past month - as I have read and re-read the Hansard transcripts of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee meetings - it’s the (former) minister for health Andrew Gwynne.

You couldn’t make it up.