Considerate smokers

The Times reports:

Most smokers are “very considerate” when lighting up, the chief executive of Imperial Brands, the UK tobacco market leader, has said amid government plans to clamp down on outdoor smoking.

According to Stefan Bomhard, “Most smokers are very considerate … so I don’t think it will make any major difference in their numbers.”

I agree. In fact, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve said something very similar.

Back in 2013, for example, in response to an initiative inviting smokers to sign a pledge to keep their homes smoke free, or promise that smoking would be confined to one room in the house and never in front of children, I argued against the need for the campaign, commenting that:

“Most smokers are considerate to those around them, especially children.”

I made the same point, time and time again, prior to the introduction of legislation banning smoking in cars carrying children.

Times had changed, I said, and the overwhelming majority of smokers wouldn’t dream of smoking in a car if a child was present, so why the need for yet another law?

To the best of my knowledge, since the law was introduced, not a single person has been prosecuted for lighting up in a car with a child on board.

The anti-smoking lobby will say that proves the law has been successful in deterring people from smoking while a child is in the car.

I would suggest that so few adults were smoking in cars carrying children before the ban, the law made almost no difference.

Similarly, smoking in children’s playgrounds, a practise banned in Wales despite there being very little evidence that more than a handful of smokers still did it.

In 2020, in response to a request by the chief medical officer in Scotland for retailers ‘to put up notices warning people not to light up or vape outside shops’, I responded:

“Most smokers are considerate and use their common sense when lighting up outside shops or in queues.”

I could trot out lots of examples like this, and I’m not alone.

July 2011, in an article in the Independent (Is smoking still defensible?), journalist Nick Duerden wrote:

What most people fail to realise about smokers, [musician Joe] Jackson points out, "is that we are considerate people too, just like the rest of society". In other words, they don't, as a rule, go round blowing smoke into children's faces and rarely, if ever, light up where they shouldn't.

Despite this, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will give government the power to extend the workplace smoking ban to outdoor areas including outside schools and in or around children’s playgrounds.

Frankly, if this is designed to force smokers to change their behaviour then it’s a waste of time because the vast majority of smokers changed their behaviour - without the need for legislation - many years ago.

No, the only reason the Government intends to make it illegal to smoke outside hospitals and schools is because politicians are addicted to legislation, and smokers are an easy target.

It’s virtue signalling of the worst kind because the impact, as Stefan Bomhard rightly says, will be minimal, but they’ll do it anyway and boast that it’s made a significant difference when it comes to ‘protecting’ children’s health.

The Times’ report also includes a quote from Forest concerning the threat of a ban on smoking outside hospitals in England:

Forest, the tobacco industry funded smokers’ lobby group, has said a smoking ban outside hospitals was “cruel” because it could be a comfort to patients, visitors and staff “who want a quiet, stress-free moment”.

ASH has responded to this in their Daily News bulletin:

Quitting smoking, at any time, is beneficial to your health. Tobacco industry funded organisations like Forest make the argument that smoking outside hospitals is a source of relief to patients. However, the evidence is clear that the opposite is true, with smoking trapping people in a cycle of addiction and withdrawal and worsening mental health and wellbeing.

They don’t get it, do they? This is not about the long-term, it’s about the moment. A patient who may be stressed and in need of a comforting cigarette. Likewise a visitor who has been given bad news about a patient. Or a member of staff who has had a long, possibly distressing, day caring for sick or dying patients.

Personally, I can’t think of anything less likely to improve the mental health of a heavy smoker in that moment than to be told “You can’t smoke” anywhere on the hospital grounds - and may even be fined or punished in some other way.

Needless to say ASH chose not to link to this recent article (I’m a doctor – Labour’s plan to ban smoking outside hospitals is a ridiculous show of nanny statism) by Professor Karol Sikora, ‘a leading cancer specialist, who worked as a clinical director in the NHS for more than 25 years’.

According to Prof Sikora:

When it comes to hospitals, we have to be liberal about smoking out of sheer empathy for the patients – many of whom are at the end of their lives. There’s no doubt that smoking is bad for you, so I’m not suggesting that we should encourage people to do it. But for many patients it’s a lifeline – a practice that brings comfort and relief at times of deep distress.

Of the two I know who I’d rather listen to and it’s not ASH.

Tonight!

Clubland

I was back in London on Friday for my annual lunch with former colleagues.

We’ve been meeting for five or six years at the Reform Club where one of our number was, until last year, a member.

He decided however that because he lives outside London and rarely visits the club any more he could no longer justify the annual four-figure membership fee, so we met instead at a restaurant in Covent Garden.

As it happens, I once considered joining the Reform Club myself. You have to be nominated by a member but the process is not as difficult as it is for some of the more elite clubs so I was fairly confident I would be accepted.

However, while the idea of having a bolthole in London, and somewhere to take friends and colleagues for dinner, appeals to me, I too live outside London so the opportunity to make full use of the place would be equally limited, and disproportionately expensive.

Founded in 1836, the Reform Club was conceived as a home ‘for those committed to progressive political ideas, with its membership initially consisting of Radicals and Whigs’. Today it has no association with any political party and ‘serves a purely social function’.

Another club I once considered joining was the National Liberal Club. As its name suggests, it too was founded on politics but compared to the Reform it’s a relative newcomer, having been established in 1882.

Thirty years ago I organised quite a few events at the club, and - at the invitation of a member I knew - I had dinner there several times, so I got to know the place quite well.

Of special interest to me was a portrait of Churchill by Ernest Townsend (1880-1944). According to Wikipedia:

Townsend's 1915 portrait of the Right Hon. Winston Churchill when he was First Lord of the Admiralty was commissioned anonymously. This picture now hangs in the National Liberal Club in London, but it was not hung until 1944. Churchill had been unavailable to unveil it in 1915, and when he was available, he was no longer popular in the Liberal Club. The portrait was mothballed and retrieved for public viewing only following Churchill's success in 1944, when he was belatedly asked to unveil it.

The entry adds that:

When Townsend died in 1944, some said it was due to overwork. He had been busy during the war creating designs that could be used to camouflage Rolls-Royce's aircraft engine factories in Derby. These factories built the Merlin engines that powered the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters. Using his skills, he made the factory appear from the air to be no more than a village.

The reason it interested me is because I am distantly related to Ernest Townsend who was, I think, my grandmother’s father’s brother (ie her uncle).

Another club I’ve visited many times as a guest is the Carlton Club. Founded in 1832 as ‘the original home of the Conservative Party’, it describes itself as ‘one of London’s foremost members-only clubs’.

The late Lord Harris of High Cross, chairman of Forest from 1987 to 2006, was, if I remember, a member, as was Russell Lewis, one of our non-executive directors, who died two years ago.

There was a party at the Carlton to mark Russell’s 90th birthday, and last year, following his death in 2022 at the age of 95, the club was the venue for a memorial event where the principal guest speaker was the former Conservative Chancellor Lord Lamont.

Other clubs I’ve visited or had dealings with over the years include the Oxford and Cambridge Club (founded in 1838), the East India Club (1849), and the Royal Over-Seas League (1910).

The one I would find it hard if not impossible to resist - should an invitation to join ever be forthcoming - is the Athenaeum (founded in 1824). Overlooking Waterloo Place, a wide open square ‘awash with statues and monuments that honour heroes and statesmen of the British Empire’, it’s arguably the most beautiful private members’ club in London, and certainly one of the most elite.

Some of the rules are (or were) a bit archaic but, as an occasional guest, I didn’t mind that. The problem was that to be offered membership you had to be nominated by two members and I only knew one.

If I remember correctly, a further 20 members were required to support your nomination, which was then considered by a membership committee.

Furthermore, prospective members are expected to have some kind of distinction in science, engineering, literature or the arts, so that rules me out!

But here’s the thing. Whilst I enjoy the thought of belonging to a private members’ club, the reality can be less appealing.

Aside from the cost, some clubs (I won’t name them) are showing their age and need refurbishment. Facilities can be limited and the food is often unimaginative and bang average compared to a good restaurant.

If they are to survive, many also need an injection of younger members. I believe the Reform Club tried to address this issue by offering reduced subscription rates to younger people, but how successful that has been I don’t know.

The portrayal of certain clubs as bastions of old-fashioned misogyny probably hasn’t helped, but there’s more to the decline of the traditional private members’ club than that.

Truth is, what were once known as gentlemen’s clubs peaked in the late Victorian era when there were 400 clubs in London alone.

Today, only a fraction survive, and they face competition from other private members’ clubs including the likes of Soho House (founded in 1995) and the Groucho Club, which was founded 100 years earlier (in 1895) ‘as an antidote to the stuffy gentlemen's clubs’.

In fact, when Forest had an office in Soho I did consider joining one of the smaller, less ‘stuffy’, clubs in the area.

One was in an old, rather Dickensian, building in Greek Street, a short walk from the Groucho. On the top floor, which could only be reached by climbing a steep and rickety flight of stairs, was a web design agency where I sometimes went for meetings.

The club was on the ground floor and was little more than a restaurant, although I think it was also used for meetings and other private events.

Another was in the basement of a building where it occupied a couple of small rooms where members could pop in for lunch or dinner, with the occasional private event thrown in to justify the cost of membership.

The informal, rather bohemian, nature of such places was in stark contrast to the gentlemen’s clubs around Pall Mall and St James, but despite being encouraged to apply for membership I never got round to it.

In truth, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m just not very clubbable. Or, to quote Groucho Marx, I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

PS. There are more dedicated books on the subject, but author and journalist Pete Brown talks about gentlemen’s clubs in his excellent book Clubland: How the working men’s club shaped Britain, which I wrote about here.

Part of their appeal in the 19th century was that gentlemen’s clubs were the only places where it was legal to gamble. Today, other than networking opportunities (which are probably exaggerated), their function is largely social, but I would be sad to see their further demise.

Guido Fawkes - end of an era

Ten years ago, when the Guido Fawkes website celebrated its tenth anniversary, the prime minister David Cameron sent a video message apologising for his absence.

Half the cabinet was reported to have been on the guest list, not to mention the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Boris was present again last night when the website marked its 20th anniversary with another champagne reception, followed by dinner, at the same venue, the Institute of Directors in London’s Pall Mall.

As I’ve noted before, I’m not a huge fan of parties, but last night I knew or recognised far more guests than usual, so I rather enjoyed myself.

I won’t name them, but in addition to Boris there was another former prime minister, three recent candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and the leader of an upstart political party that currently has five MPs.

Several other guests I’ve known for years, even decades. There was one however I hadn’t seen since I edited a Private Eye style student magazine 40 years ago.

At that time he, like several other guests last night – was a member of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS), an organisation perceived (unfairly) by some to be so right wing it was closed down by the Tory party in 1986!

He and his wife, a former MP, were on the same table as me. They still have a property in her former constituency and it’s in a tiny picturesque village I know quite well because it’s only two miles from where my parents lived for 40 years. Small world.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Boris wasn’t one of the speakers last night. Instead, they included Guido alumni Harry Cole, now political editor of The Sun, and recent Tory leadership hopeful James Cleverley.

The big news - reported earlier in the day by the Press Gazette - was the announcement that Guido Fawkes’ publisher Paul Staines, who founded the website in 2004, is handing the baton to Ross Kempsell, a former Guido journalist who was given a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.

Enjoyable as it was, the evening did therefore feel like the end of an era.

The website is in safe hands however because the current news editor just happens to be the son of an old friend of mine - the same person who in 1978 launched the Aberdeen student newspaper we co-edited and I subsequently relaunched as a national student magazine in 1983.

Funnily enough, that was driven by gossip and tittle-tattle too. Fancy that!

Update: After celebrating 20 years of Guido, Paul Staines stands down as editor (Guido Fawkes)

RIP, Andy Leek

’He is the singer and songwriter who quit 1980s hit Brummie band Dexys Midnight Runners two weeks before they topped the charts with Geno - to become a mortuary assistant at a Midland hospital. But Andy Leek has since enjoyed international success as a musician, writing hit songs for Tom Jones and Abba's Frida, having his album produced by Beatles producer Sir George Martin, and being big in Beirut.’ (Birmingham Post and Mail, 2012)

Well, this is very sad.

Having mentioned Andy Leek in my previous post, I Googled his name only to discover that he died last Sunday following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

What a tragic coincidence.

I didn’t know him well at all but Andy took part in a number of concerts and shows I produced in the mid Nineties. He was always the headline act but my post didn’t tell the full story.

In addition to events at the Royal College of Music, the Library Theatre in Manchester, and Wyndham’s Theatre in London's West End, I thought so highly of Andy and his band that I also organised a gig for them at the Rock Garden, the iconic restaurant and club in Covent Garden where Talking Heads, XTC and The Police all played in their early years. (Today the site is occupied by an Apple Store.)

By then Andy was on the party circuit, playing a wide range of covers from ‘Daydream Believer’ to ‘Livin’ La Vida Loco’ to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and many more, so I also booked the band for a gala dinner in London, and what turned out to be a fabulous night at the old Granada Studios in Manchester where they performed on the cobbles of the original Coronation Street set.

Having enjoyed several tracks on his debut album Say Something (produced by Sir George Martin and released, I think, in 1988), I also persuaded him to perform a solo show at an intimate cabaret venue near Cambridge Circus in London where he performed more of his own songs.

Say Something was not a commercial success. Andy told me (tongue-in-cheek, perhaps) that most of the budget had been spent on George Martin’s fee and there was nothing left to promote the album!

He was subsequently dropped by his management and record company and his solo career never really recovered, although he enjoyed a minor hit in Germany with a subsequent single, ‘All Around The World’.

Two decades later he also discovered that, unbeknown to him, the title track from ‘Say Something’ had been a number one hit in Lebanon!

After I joined Forest in 1999 we kept in touch intermittently and for a brief period I tried to help him get more corporate gigs, even paying for a promotional flyer and placing a full page ad in a magazine I was editing.

To be honest, I don't think he really needed my help because the band - now known as Andy Leek and the Blue Angels - got plenty of bookings and great reviews, but I sensed that his enthusiasm for the party circuit was beginning to wane.

My last conversation with him was in 2008.

Forest and The Freedom Association had joined forces to launch the two-day Freedom Zone at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham.

One of the events I was wanted to organise was modelled on the David Letterman style of chat show. Presented by Claire Fox (now Baroness Fox), I envisaged having a band that would perform a couple of songs and introduce each guest with a few bars of live music.

Andy lived locally so I asked him if he was interested. He was, but it was just too complicated. There would be no time to set up and rehearse, and the stage at the Austin Court Conference Centre wasn’t big enough to accommodate both the presenter and guests, plus musicians and their equipment (drums, keyboard etc).

What I didn’t know until yesterday was that, around that time, Andy was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Despite that, he continued to write songs and recorded a new album, Waking Up The World, as well as releasing a remastered and extended version of Say Something (Say Something: Deluxe Edition) in, I think, 2012.

In 2014 a documentary/interview (Life of Dexys Midnight Runners’ Andy Leek) was posted on YouTube.

Until I stumbled upon it late last night I had never seen it, but although the background music is a bit intrusive it’s worth watching - even more so in the light of Andy’s death.

It’s especially poignant because the Andy Leek I remember from the Nineties, when he was in his thirties, had a charm and confidence that occasionally bordered on arrogance.

The man in the video is older, wiser, and has a wonderfully dry and self-deprecating sense of humour.

I may be wrong but he seems visibly at peace with life, and himself, despite the frustrations and disappointments he experienced during his career.

Watching it I felt sad, but happy that he appeared happy, if that makes sense. It’s a fitting epitaph, as well as an interesting insight into the vagaries of the music business.

Last but not least, my sincere condolences to Andy’s wife. We never met but I have just read that they married on October 30, a few days before he died, after 35 years together.

PS. My favourite tracks from Say Something (1988) and Say Something: Deluxe Edition (2012) are:

‘Please, Please’
‘What’s The Problem?’

Andy also recorded a promo CD featuring some of the many cover versions he played at party events. The studio versions don’t match the raw excitement of the live versions, but here’s his recording of The Beatles’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.

See also: Blast from the past (The Herald, September 2012).

The most complete biography I have read can be found here.

Below: Andy describes working with Dexys Midnight Runners, George Martin, Frida (from Abba), Kirsty McColl, and more.

Right: The flyer I commissioned for Andy Leek and the Blue Angels in 2002 makes a fleeting appearance in the video!

Showtime

I’m late to this because the anniversary was last month, but 30 years ago I was the proud producer of a special event at the BBC Concert Hall in London.

Today it’s called the BBC Radio Theatre but I don’t think it’s changed that much. Situated in the bowels of Broadcasting House, it boasted a beautiful auditorium with 300 seats and a polished wooden stage that could accommodate an orchestra or choir.

In those pre-Forest days I was working for Mensa, editing the society’s monthly magazine. I wasn’t (and never have been) a member but I got the job through Madsen Pirie, co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute, who was on the society’s board of directors and who I knew through mutual friends.

That was in 1985 and thereafter I worked for Mensa as a freelance journalist, juggling the job with other work until 1999 when I joined Forest.

Founded in 1946, Mensa is a curious organisation, easy to mock (sometimes with justification), but I had 15 mostly happy years editing the magazine, and during that time I discovered that the small group of active members were not representative of the wider membership.

By and large, the overwhelming majority didn’t take it too seriously. They took the IQ test out of curiosity and having achieved the score that was required to join they accepted the invitation that followed and became a member.

Thereafter they did no more than pay an annual subscription in return for which they received the monthly magazine and the opportunity to join various interest groups.

There was a social side - mostly pub meetings plus the occasional weekend ‘gathering’ - but nothing that showcased a side of Mensa that few people ever saw. Far from being a society of computer geeks and puzzle nerds, there was a significant number of talented artists and musicians, from gifted amateurs to hard-working professionals.

In 1993, with the help of some third party sponsorship, I was able to launch the Mensa Events Club. Events included lectures, debates, and panel discussions, but what I really wanted to do was provide a platform for some of the talented musicians and performers I had been writing about in the magazine.

For example, I had interviewed actor Guy Masterson and jazz pianist Mike Hatchard, and had seen both of them perform at the Edinburgh Festival.

I decided therefore to invite them to co-direct and perform in a Mensa variety show, but the idea sounded so naff to their ears that I had to work hard to persuade them that it could work.

Mike, in particular, was extremely sceptical so I arranged a visit to the BBC Concert Hall, which I intended to hire for the event. When he saw (and played) the magnificent Steinway piano on stage, and was told he could use it in the show, he changed his tune (no pun intended).

The next step was to appoint a stage manager and organise auditions. As luck would have it, our stage manager (another member) worked at the Questors Theatre in Ealing, so that’s where we hosted our auditions.

Like a smaller version of Britain’s Got Talent (albeit 13 years before BGT aired), we invited members to audition, not knowing who would turn up, or how many.

In the event, we had plenty of acts to choose from, and although the standard varied enormously we were pleasantly surprised. The best were very good and if Mike still had doubts they largely disappeared that day.

Better still, when we started promoting the event in the magazine, tickets for the show - which we envisaged as a single evening performance - quickly sold out, so we added an afternoon show, and that sold out too.

The additional show did however give us a problem because it restricted the rehearsal time to less than six hours, starting at 8.00am.

To put that in perspective, every singer on the bill had to perform with a live band who, until the morning of the show, had never met, let alone played together.

Under Mike’s musical direction they had to rehearse and perform a series of numbers in a variety of genres - jazz, rock, opera, and musical theatre - but somehow they pulled it off.

Singers included Jim Robinson whose claim to fame was singing in front of 7,000 people at the Reading Rock Festival; Kerry Donald, winner of the Gordon District Talent Contest 1989; and Ernie Thorn who was managing director of an Isle of Man finance company.

In his spare time however Ernie had also shared a stage with Lenny Henry, Tom O'Connor, and Les Dawson, and today he presents The Opera Hour on Manx Radio.

18-year-old Nikola Montfort was the youngest performer and she sang wonderful versions of 'Come Rain Or Come Shine' and the jazz influenced ‘Orange Coloured Sky’.

(Almost three decades later she sang 'Come Rain Or Come Shine' again on an album called Out Of This World: Songs of Arlen and Mercer.)

Also on the bill was 'juggler and confusionist' Allin Kempthorne who is still performing professionally today.

A few years ago Allin auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent as Professor Strange but was eliminated with the dreaded four red buzzers when his act went disastrously wrong. Undeterred, he turned it to his advantage and judging by his Facebook posts he is one of the hardest working people in Britain.

My favourite act however was Dragonfly, a family folk group spanning two generations – Brandy Clark (no relation) and her husband Peter, and their two daughters, Lucy-Sian and Mandy, who were in their early twenties. Semi-professional, their vocal harmonies were phenomenal. I believe they had previously performed at the Cambridge Folk Festival and on local radio.

(Peter, I now read, died in June this year, aged 79. His daughter Lucy-Sian currently sings with Madison Avenue UK, a ten-piece live function band based in the Midlands.)

Anyway, the variety show was such a success that I subsequently produced a similar event featuring many of the same acts - including Dragonfly - at the Library Theatre in Manchester.

The Manchester show also featured the Andy Leek Band. For a while Andy had been a member of Dexys Midnight Runners. He played on ‘Geno’, the band’s first number one single, and appeared on Top of the Pops before leaving the band two weeks before the single got to the top of the charts!

In 1988 he released a solo album produced by George Martin. I still have a copy and there are some very good songs on it, but it failed to sell and for many years the Andy Leek Band was best known as a party band playing cover versions including a note perfect cover of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

The variety show was followed by concerts at both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music that featured even more musicians who were members of the society.

They included cellist Oliver Gledhill and violinist Cloe Hanslip, both of whom went on to enjoy successful professional careers. (Chloe was only six when she appeared at a concert I organised at the Royal College of Music in, I think, 1995.)

A personal favourite was classical pianist Elena Konstantinou. I saw her perform several times, even after I left to join Forest. (One occasion was a lunchtime recital in a church in Richmond upon Thames.

In October 1996 I produced Mensa's fifth and final variety show. Featuring the best acts who were available, it provided a fitting end to the society’s week-long 50th anniversary celebrations.

I booked Wyndham’s Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue for the Sunday night event. With 600 seats it was double the size of the other venues we had used, but once again it sold out, generating a fabulous atmosphere.

The Andy Leek Band was top of the bill, but the star (in her eyes) was an American singer who had enjoyed a number one hit in the US in … 1961. Tragically, I can’t remember her name but she did give the bill an international flavour!

That was arguably the pinnacle of my ‘career’ as a producer, although I was helped enormously by our director, former BBC producer Roger Ordish, who knew what he was doing!

In the pub after the show a senior member of the management team at Wyndham’s congratulated us and said it was one of the most entertaining shows he had ever seen. I can’t be certain, but I think that was a compliment!

Below: Dragonfly at the BBC Concert Hall

Guy Masterson, actor and award-winning producer, writes:

I cannot believe it was over 30 years ago we did that BBC Concert Hall gig. I remember the hall - at least I remember going there - but I remember absolutely nothing about the gig itself except that it was a mixed bag of Mensa members.

One of them could not resist telling me that my performance of Under Milk Wood was too close in intonation to the Richard Burton version to be my own interpretation. I remember telling him that Richard would never have attempted all the voices or performing in PJs! Which he accepted. Apparently learning the whole thing wasn't impressive enough!

I do remember Mike [Hatchard]’s incredible talent and he invited me on his Edinburgh show a couple of times. We had plans to make a play about Beethoven - inspired by Mike's resemblance to the bust I had of Ludwig and his impassioned impersonations. Sadly nowt came of it. Mike had very generously created an overture for my solo Milk Wood which I used for nine years until Matt Clifford (who plays with and composes for The Rolling Stones) wrote an entire soundscape for the piece which I have been using since.

It's funny how careers in the arts go, blossoming and withering to varying degrees. I never intended to become a producer or a director. In fact, my directorial debut also came through Mensa - through an article you wrote about me in their magazine, and I guess I kind of enjoyed it. I remember falling in love with a gorgeous lady from Nuneaton called Donna, but sadly nothing came of it.

I suppose we all make our way somehow. In truth I always wanted to be a film star, but just had to keep plodding on in the industry in some way - hence doing the solo shows. And then you meet the lady of your dreams, have children and find yourself working to live rather than chasing your ambitions. I suppose just surviving professionally doing what you love represents some measure of success even if the craved Oscar has never come my way!

Update: This is embarrassing. I was convinced when I wrote this that the first Mensa variety show took place in October 1994, hence this 30th anniversary post.

However, I have just found a recording of the show and according to the inlay card it was ‘Recorded live at the BBC Concert Hall on Sunday 17th October 1993’.

Oops.

Why hospital smoking bans are wrong

Smoking outside pubs may have been given a reprieve, but the Government will almost certainly ban it outside hospitals.

Few people will protest, but I will because I think it’s wrong to target people for whom a cigarette may offer comfort when they may be at their lowest ebb.

That’s why, for many years, Forest has fought an often lonely battle against hospital smoking bans, and I’m proud to have done so.

In October 2009, for example, under the headline ‘Call to defy hospital smoking ban’, the Dundee Courier reported that:

The director of a pro-tobacco lobby group last night urged smokers to rebel against the ban on smoking in the grounds of Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.

Simon Clark, who represents Forest, said measures by NHS Tayside to force smokers off hospital grounds before lighting up were “dictatorial and draconian.”

“It’s rather petty and vindictive to enforce a no-smoking policy in an outside area,” Mr Clark said.

“Hospitals are supposed to show compassion and demonstrate a duty of care towards all patients. I’m sure they think they’re acting in peoples’ best interests but they’re actually making people’s lives a misery.”

He continued, “It is also quite inhumane to expect patients who are ill to walk some distance just so they can smoke.

“I think hospitals need to show a little humanity because, like it or not, some people smoke as a form of stress relief and being sick or having a relative in hospital can be quite stressful.

I’ve employed the same arguments many times since, and although it’s been a thankless task we’ve never stopped fighting.

In Scotland, for example, we made headlines in 2015 when I was invited to give evidence to the Scottish Parliament's Health and Sport Committee in response to the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc. and Care) (Scotland) Bill.

According to the BBC:

Plans to make smoking in hospital grounds a statutory offence have been branded "inhumane, petty and vindictive" by a pro-smoking (sic) group.

Simon Clark from Forest made the remark while giving evidence to Holyrood's health committee.

Mr Clark told MSPs: "Going to hospital as a patient or a visitor can be a very stressful experience. It's also quite stressful for many members of staff.

“To ban smoking on all hospital grounds, we think, is totally inhumane, it's totally vindictive, it's petty, far pettier actually than banning smoking in pubs. At least people can still go outside.

“To extend it to entire hospital sites, we think, is absolutely outrageous."

The moral victory was the fact that the final Bill restricted the ban to within 15 metres of hospital buildings.

In England the situation has been a bit different. Although many hospital trusts have introduced no smoking policies, they are not universal and until now there’s been no law to say you can’t smoke on hospital grounds.

In 2019 therefore Forest published a report (Prejudice and Prohibition) that listed the smoking and vaping policies in NHS hospital trusts in England.

Based on freedom of information requests to 200 hospital trusts in England, we found that fewer than one in four NHS trusts allowed smoking on hospital grounds.

Three quarters (76 per cent) of the trusts that responded to our survey said they did not tolerate smoking anywhere on site, including hospital car parks, while only one in five provided a shelter for smokers.

At the same time, and more surprising perhaps, we discovered that vaping was increasingly banned both inside and outside many hospitals.

Fifty-five per cent of the 170 respondents prohibited vaping on hospital grounds, with nine in ten (89 per cent) banning the use of e-cigarettes in hospital buildings.

The report called for vaping to be permitted on all hospital sites with no restrictions in outdoor areas. The use of e-cigarettes, we said, should be allowed inside hospital buildings, including wards, at the discretion of hospital management.

Other recommendations include allowing smoking outside hospital buildings with smokers incentivised to smoke away from hospital entrances by the provision of designated smoking areas, clearly signposted.

On sites where smoking is prohibited, we argued that trusts must take steps not to discriminate against patients who are infirm or dependent on others to accompany them off site to smoke.

Our press release at the time included this quote from me:

“Banning smoking on hospital grounds demonstrates a staggering lack of compassion for smokers who may be stressed, upset and in need of a comforting cigarette.

“A reasonable policy would lift restrictions on vaping but give those who prefer to smoke the option of sheltered smoking areas.”

Five years later and the new Labour government is planning to ban smoking outside every hospital in England.

The details haven’t been published yet so I don’t know whether the legislation will prohibit smoking anywhere on site, including car parks, or within 15 metres of hospital buildings (as in Scotland), but we’ll find out soon enough.

The good news is that Forest is no longer a lone voice condemning hospital smoking bans. In the last 48 hours articles have appeared in the Telegraph and The Spectator (online) and they’re not by lobbyists like me.

Quoted by the Telegraph, leading cancer specialist Prof Karol Sikora argued that:

When it comes to hospitals, we have to be liberal about smoking out of sheer empathy for the patients – many of whom are at the end of their lives. There’s no doubt that smoking is bad for you, so I’m not suggesting that we should encourage people to do it. But for many patients it’s a lifeline – a practice that brings comfort and relief at times of deep distress.

Writing for The Spectator, by Druin Burch, a consultant physician and former junior doctor, goes even further:

Smoking on NHS property is already banned to the highest degree. No hospital is without its sign saying that smoking is not allowed. But beneath every sign stands a smoker. No one enforces these no-smoking rules, and it is perfectly obvious that nobody should. Staff, their smoking shelters taken away, make mild efforts to be furtive. Visitors don’t bother, and to see them puffing away in front of these signs tells you what weight hospitals put on their own rules.

Then there are the patients, often lacking the physical ability to leave the grounds. Some want to quit smoking but can’t, others freely choose to continue. Still more have no sane reason to quit at all. Many are dying already, and smoking gives them pleasure and comfort. This NHS policy, with its failure to provide anywhere for patients to smoke, with its pretence that putting up a sign means the issue is solved, with its utter indifference to enforcing its own rules, is simply hypocritical virtue-signalling, laced with dishonest cruelty. 

I don’t doubt that many more health professionals, including hospital administrators, feel the same, but sadly they have chosen - over many years - to remain silent.

The lack of prosecutions in Scotland suggests that the law is not being enforced because reports indicate that smokers are still lighting up outside hospitals, and will continue to do so, regardless of the law.

The police, clearly, have better things to do and without resorting to heavy-handed enforcement that would be disproportionate and wholly inappropriate in a hospital environment, there is little anyone can do to stop it, which will make both the Government and the law look ridiculous.

PS. I’ve been writing about (and campaigning against) hospital smoking bans for many years. Here are a handful of blog posts on the subject:

Hospital admits defeat and reinstates smoking shelters (October 2012)
Why smoking should not be banned on hospital grounds (April 2013)
Hospitals, have a heart (April 2015)
Ban on smoking on hospital grounds sends wrong message about our ‘caring) NHS (July 2015)
Reporting Scotland: hospital smoking bans under attack (September 2015)
Scotland’s hospital smoking ban: law could be restricted to designated areas (November 2015)
Hospital targets patients who smoke (June 2017)
Smoking and vaping on hospital grounds in Scotland (June 2020)
Smoking banned within 15m of hospital buildings in Scotland (September 2022)
Scottish hospital smoking ban a failure (January 2023)

Mistaken identity

Enough words will be written elsewhere, so I’m not going to comment on the re-election of Donald Trump.

I am however thrilled to see so many broadcasters and pundits with egg on their smug, self-satisfied faces.

The fact that so many manage to earn a living from their uninformed, myopic view of the world beggars belief, but there’s clearly a market for those who live in a bubble, surrounded by like-minded ‘friends’, and continually preach to the converted.

Anyway, to lighten the mood, here’s a true (and unrelated) story.

When the Adam Smith Institute revealed the identity of their new patron last month, I congratulated ASI president Madsen Pirie with the words:

‘Just seen the announcement about Peter Mandelson - quite a coup!’

Except it wasn’t Lord Mandelson, the former New Labour spin doctor, who had become a patron of one of Britain’s leading free market think tanks.

It was Lord Mendelsohn, another Labour life peer who, following his peerage, became the party’s business and international trade spokesman in the House of Lords.

To be fair, he too has been described as a ‘key New Labour fixer’ so, in my defence, an easy mistake to make!