Was that it?

How was it for you? No Smoking Day, I mean.

On Wednesday Hazel Cheeseman, deputy CEO of ASH, tweeted that her first interview of the day was on Times Radio, but when I searched for it I found that it was broadcast between 5.00 and 6.00am.

To put this in perspective, as of December 2023 Times Radio had a weekly listening figure of 492,000, which suggests fewer than 100,000 a day. Goodness knows how many are listening before 6.00am.

Thereafter, going by tweets alone, I didn’t see much evidence of any more interviews, although local councils and the public health industry did their best to promote No Smoking Day on social media.

As far as I could tell, public engagement was minimal. Instead, the main event was a reception in Parliament hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health that, coincidentally, is run by ASH.

From the photos I’ve seen it took place in the Thames Pavilion (capacity 60), which is the smaller of the two pavilions on the terrace of the House of Commons. (The larger of the two, the Terrace Pavilion, holds 200.)

Those that did attend were there to support demands for a ‘smoke-free generation’ and badger the Government to publish the Tobacco and Vapes Bill without delay.

The principal speaker appeared to be junior health minister Andrea Leadsom who has become something of a cheerleader for the generational tobacco ban, and her comments were obviously designed to allay fears that the Bill might be significantly delayed, or abandoned.

Lord Bethell, for example, tweeted:

Strong from @andrealeadsom on the government’s determination to see through the Tobacco and Vapes Bill on National No Smoking Day. Really encouraging.

The bad news for Bethell is that, whoever makes the final decision on the timetable for the generational ban, it won’t be Leadsom who, despite running against Theresa May for the Tory leadership in 2016, is a fairly insignificant cog in the engine of government.

In fact, I was slightly surprised the Government didn’t take the opportunity to publish the Bill on No Smoking Day. After all, if the generational ban is as popular as they say it is, it would have been a useful distraction from everything else that happened last week.

Nevertheless, I’m glad ASH and co had their day in parliament. I’m just sorry that, outside the anti-smoking bubble, so few people noticed, or cared.

PS. On Friday afternoon the Express reported that the Bill may be published this week. To the best of my knowledge no-one else has been able to confirm this ‘exclusive’ so we’ll just have to wait and see.

The paper also suggested that upwards of 70 Conservative MPs are prepared to vote against it which may not be enough to stop the legislation, but is Downing Street really prepared to risk such a significant rebellion on what is essentially a vanity project?

See: Rishi Sunak braced for major rebellion over smoking ban in just days with 70 MPs to revolt (Express)

For the record, I’m not sure the Express is the most reliable source of news, but time will tell.

Forest in Paris

It’s the 40th anniversary of No Smoking Day today.

Twenty-five years ago, shortly after I joined Forest, we marked the event by sending a crack team of supporters to Paris.

The aim was to escape the annual nagathon by spending the day in what was then considered the European capital of smoking.

No Smoking Day was still a major event in 1999 and our trip attracted quite a lot of interest.

I stayed in London to manage media calls while my colleague Juliette Torres (above) did a series of interviews from the smoking coach on board the Eurostar train, and again when the group arrived in Paris.

On arrival at Gard du Nord they were met by a delegation from Le Calumet de la Paix (the French equivalent of Forest) who had arranged to host a lunch in our honour at a restaurant used by the Resistance during the war.

Other members of the party included Forest chairman, Lord Harris of High Cross, and our office manager Jenny Sharkey.

We were also joined by Bob Shields, chief feature writer for the Daily Record, and the result was a very funny double page spread in Scotland’s biggest selling national newspaper.

I think Bob enjoyed himself because a few months later he joined us again to receive our Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year award at a party at Little Havana, a Cuban-style cigar bar off Leicester Square in London.

His prize was a novelty lighter in the form of a replica hand grenade. It was made of metal and was the size of a real hand grenade. Bob was delighted. Unfortunately it was confiscated by security staff at Gatwick shortly before he boarded his flight home to Glasgow!

But Bob’s story doesn’t end there. Since retiring from the Daily Record in 2008, he’s written a weekly column for the Ayrshire Post, where his career began.

He also bought the Twa Dugs, a bar in Ayr, and two years ago, aged 66, he stood as an independent candidate and was elected on to South Ayrshire Council.

As he told Dram (Councillor Bob Shields):

I have been listening to my regulars complaining about the town for years and I knew what mattered to them. I also knew what the local council kept getting wrong. I used to put suggestions in my regular column in the Ayrshire Post but no one bothered, but many readers would tell me that they agreed with me. They used to say, “What can we do, how can we get things right?” I would suggest they tried changing things with their vote or stand to be an independent, then I thought I was being a bit hypocritical by asking other people to do it and not putting myself forward. That is how it all started. To change the council we had to change the councillors.

See also: Legendary columnist Bob Shields says farewell to Daily Record (October 21, 2008)

Below: Bob Shields before boarding the train at the original Eurostar terminal at Waterloo Station on Wednesday March 10, 1999

Vape tax and a ban on disposable vapes - will vapers really go back to smoking?

Some thoughts prompted by last week’s Budget.

Yes, the vape tax is stupid and sends the wrong message about the risk of vaping, but will former smokers who now vape really go back to smoking tobacco, as vaping advocates claim?

The answer, quite simply, is no.

After all, how weak-willed do you have to be that, having stopped smoking by switching to vapes, you then revert to what is still a substantially more expensive and riskier product when the price of vaping goes up?

You may conceivably quit vaping, but why would you go back to a much more expensive habit? Unfortunately this is the type of non sequitur vaping advocates love to advance.

Exactly the same argument is used in relation to a ban on disposable vapes. Prohibit them, we are told, and vapers will go back to smoking and more lives will be lost. Allegedly.

Look, I'm strongly opposed to a ban on single use vapes, but not for that reason because I simply don’t accept it.

Prohibition of disposable vapes might discourage existing smokers from switching because they are convenient and easy to use (much like cigarettes, in fact), but why would anyone revert to a product that, as I say, is vastly more expensive and far more harmful, potentially, when other options, including rechargeable vapes, are still widely available on the high street?

It doesn't make sense but it's typical of the 'vapers as victims' narrative that vaping advocates often promote.

One of the worst is that vapers cannot be expected to share an outdoor smoking area with, heaven forbid, smokers because the smell of tobacco smoke, and the sight of people smoking, might send them back into the arms of their former love.

Oh, please!!!

A similar argument was made by some ex-smokers ahead of the public smoking ban.

It was said that smoking should be banned in every pub in the country because it wasn’t fair to expose ex-smokers to other people smoking because the temptation to smoke might be too much for them.

I remember being interviewed alongside former smokers who made exactly that point, but it’s a bit like banning alcohol in pubs because the urge to drink might be too much for a recovering alcoholic.

The temptation argument may have some validity for the very weak-willed, but it’s not sufficient reason to ban the public consumption of alcohol, or tobacco.

If you’re an alcoholic or a former smoker it’s up to you, not the rest of society, to avoid situations where you might be encouraged to drink or smoke. Own your addiction, don’t expect others to change their lifestyle too.

But back to vaping.

I’m opposed to most public vaping bans, which seem unnecessary to me, but if you’re against excessive restrictions on vaping I would suggest that it’s in your interest to oppose excessive restrictions on smoking too because one will inevitably lead to the other.

Every time I write about this I seem to annoy a handful of vapers who insist they support smokers’ rights too. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of evidence to support this.

Many people who used to be outspoken opponents of anti-smoking legislation are now virtually mute on the subject, but woe betide anything that threatens their new love, vaping.

Moreover, while there are some vapers who are opposed to excessive regulations on tobacco and smoking, I challenge anyone to name any pro-vaping organisation that has EVER publicly opposed any anti-smoking measure, whether it be smoking bans, plain packaging, the ban on menthol cigarettes, or the generational tobacco ban.

I’m sorry, but I can’t think of a single one.

They may think they’re being clever or politically prudent, but I am convinced that, long-term, it’s self-defeating, and the moral cowardice of not standing up for adults who prefer to smoke is one of the reasons I find some members of the vaping lobby more than a bit pathetic.

The truth is, the pro-vaping argument will never be won on health grounds alone. Even though there is currently little evidence to suggest that vaping is a serious threat to health, history tells us that it’s irrelevant.

I guarantee that sufficient 'evidence' will be found, sooner or later, that will make redundant all the arguments about vaping being 95 per cent less harmful than smoking tobacco.

At that point, vaping advocates who have focussed exclusively on the health benefits of vaping (compared to smoking) will have nowhere to turn. They will be up a cul-de-sac of their own making.

If, on the other hand, they also promoted the freedom of choice argument (the same argument Forest has used for 45 years to defend an adult’s right to smoke and, more recently, vape), they would at least have a consistent and coherent position to fall back on.

That position, to be clear, is this: whatever the health risks of smoking or vaping, as long as consumers are informed about the potential and relative risks of either habit, adults must be free to practise either habit without punitive restrictions and taxation, or, worse, prohibition.

The same argument applies to drinking alcohol, consuming sugar, or eating meat, fatty foods and dairy products – and anything else that might conceivably be 'bad' for us over a long period.

Instead, vaping advocates have put their entire case in one basket - the one that says vaping is significantly ‘safer’ than smoking.

I don’t dispute that argument, by the way, but remember the 'debate' about passive smoking?

To this day I would contend that, based on the evidence, the risk of harm from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) has been greatly exaggerated and still doesn’t justify the comprehensive public smoking bans that have swept the world.

Despite that we lost the public and political battle because we faced a tsunami of 'evidence', much of it unsubstantiated or anecdotal, and most of it statistically insignificant in terms of risk, but none of that mattered. It was the perception of harm that counted, not the scientific reality.

Meanwhile organisations like the World Vapers Alliance continue to talk openly of ‘beating’ smoking, as if smoking is the enemy, ignoring the inconvenient truth that millions of adults enjoy the habit and don’t want to quit or switch to an alternative nicotine product.

(This US-based organisation was at it again only last week, with a press release commenting on the UK Government’s proposed vape tax headlined, 'The UK’s announced increased vaping tax jeopardises the country’s success in beating smoking'.)

Sadly we’re living in an age where governments – aided and abetted by a ravenous public health industry that sees excise duty on vaping products as a future source of income for its work – want to create the impossible, a risk free society in which everyday decisions about our private health and welfare are taken not by individual citizens but by politicians and faceless bureaucrats.

To justify government intervention, the anti-smoking lobby argues that ‘helping’ smokers quit will save the taxpayer money, but will it?

Not for one second do I believe the claims that smoking costs society in Britain 15, 50 or, even more absurdly, 150 billion pounds a year.

The only figures that matter are the estimated cost of treating smoking-related illnesses on the NHS (said to be £2.5b annually but almost certainly exaggerated, like everything else), and the recorded annual income from tobacco duty and VAT - around £9-11 billion a year.

Viewed dispassionately, smokers are therefore a net benefit to the taxpayer, a fact that should never be forgotten by government, anti-smoking campaigners, and vapers who will one day have to pick up the tab as revenue from tobacco declines thanks to a thriving generational ban black market allied to Britain's self-imposed, and self-defeating, 'smoke-free' status.

In fact, to those complaining about the Chancellor's vape tax, all I can say is ... you ain't seen nothing yet.

This is just the start of a cash grab on your habit and the closer government gets to its smoke-free ambition the more vapers will be forced to pay.

From Overnight Sensation to hit record

Eric Carmen, the American singer-songwriter who has died, aged 74, is best known in Britain for the 1975 hit single ‘All By Myself’.

Personally, I always considered it a bit of a dirge and never liked it.

Far better, in my view, is the lost classic he wrote and recorded with the Raspberries, the band he was in before he went solo.

Released in September 1974, ‘Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)’ is one of my all-time favourite pop songs.

Described by one critic as an ‘epic-scale production number about the thrill of hearing your song on the radio’, it was a minor hit in America and Canada but not the UK, although I remember it getting some air play.

Another critic called it a “mini-symphony packed into a five minute song" that is "overflowing with vocals, percussion, guitars, drums, saxophones, pianos, you name it”.

It’s definitely one of those tracks where they threw the kitchen sink at the production.

At one point there’s even a few bars where it sounds like the song is being played on a tinny transistor radio.

Towards the end the song appears to be fading to a gentle, piano-led conclusion before the drums come crashing back in and the rousing chorus is resumed.

Some years ago I bought Greatest, a 2005 compilation album by the Raspberries, who recorded four albums between 1971 and 1974.

Nothing on it comes close to ‘Overnight Sensation’ which captures perfectly the yearning for a chart-topping record and it’s one of the few pop songs I have never grown tired of hearing.

According to Carmen, speaking on stage during a reunion tour in 2004, the record company refused to release the song under the title ‘Hit Record’ because they felt it was “way too presumptuous” so they changed it to the “much less presumptuous” ‘Overnight Sensation’.

Ironically he did have a genuine, incontestable, hit record the following year with the maudlin ‘All By Myself’, but this is the song I’ll remember him for.

Play it LOUD!

The joy of PR

Tenuous link alert.

Reports that the Duchess of Sussex has allegedly hired a top PR guru to ‘resurrect’ her image in the UK reminds me of another PR-related story.

Six months before I got my first job - as an account exec for a PR firm in London - the company acquired a new client whose name had been tarnished and needed a reboot.

The year was 1980 and the client was an offshore oil company whose subsidiary had just completed a major project - converting a drilling rig into a production platform (or something like that).

It was the first conversion of its kind and a big deal in offshore oil circles.

Unfortunately, thanks to the complexity of the project and a series of industrial disputes, the project was a year or two behind schedule so the brief was to spin the completion as a great success rather than the embarrassment it had become.

What happened next is the stuff of nightmares for any PR exec but thankfully it happened before I joined the company so I wasn’t involved.

To cut a long story short, my colleagues-to-be had arranged a cutting-the-ribbon type event to celebrate the completion of the project.

To make matters a little more complicated, it was to take place on the Isle of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland, where the work had taken place, and because many of the invited journalists were based in London they had to be flown to Glasgow, and then on to Lewis.

Guest of honour was the Secretary of State for Energy, Hamish Gray, Conservative MP for Ross and Cromarty, and by all accounts everything went really well - apart from one small thing.

Many of the journalists developed food poisoning as a result, I believe, of something they ate at the reception.

As it happens, I don’t think it affected media coverage of the event, which was largely positive, but it taught me an early lesson that however well you prepare, and however good your organisational skills may be, there are some things that are beyond your control.

The client must have agreed because the PR company was retained and the client was one of several accounts I was given to work on when I joined the company a few months later.

Their loyalty was rewarded the following year when I pulled off a bit of a coup after I organised a photo op for a professional golfer the client had agreed to sponsor.

It took place at a golf club in Essex and the aim was to promote both the player and his new apparel that featured the client’s logo and corporate colour.

During the shoot the photographer suggested taking pictures of the golfer hitting some bunker shots.

I don’t know how many photos he took that day, but imagine my surprise (and delight) when, a month or two later, one of the photos appeared on the front cover of a leading golf magazine.

It was a pretty spectacular shot too, with the ball caught mid air in an explosion of sand. Better still, the company logo on the golfer’s corporate coloured jersey was clearly visible!

What does this have to do with the Duchess of Sussex? Nothing, probably. But if I learned anything in PR it’s this: creative ideas and a good strategic plan are all well and good, but what you also need is a fair slice of luck, and good will from third parties (the media in particular).

Without it, you’re stuffed.

Then … and now

After 25 years and 64 series, BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show is finally coming to an end.

But first, rewind to December 2023.

“Forest has just been mentioned on The Now Show,” said my wife, who was listening to the radio. “And not in a good way.”

It was part of a monologue by “smug ex-smoker” Jessica Fostekew that was prompted by the news that New Zealand’s incoming coalition government intended to repeal the previous government’s generational smoking ban.

According to Fostekew:

“New Zealand's new government has shocked the world this week by repealing Jacinda Ardern's epic new smoking ban, despite the fact that smoking kills more people than anything else in New Zealand ...

“The new law would have come into force next year and would have banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. And they've unbanned it! How rock 'n' roll is that ...?"

She continued:

“Making smoking easier again does feel like a bizarrely regressive thing to do. All out bans can be impractical and in some cases tough to enforce. I don't fancy being the police officer whose job it would be to arrest illegal smokers in the act, but at least they'd be quite easy to beat in a chase …

“It begs the question, who could possibly have been against this ban? We spoke to Forest, the UK's smokers' rights group, largely funded by the tobacco industry. And their spokesperson said, "We think ... [noise of persistent coughing] ... we think smoking is delicious."

You can read the full transcript here. I concluded the post (Killing comedy) with these observations:

While the depiction of a fictional Forest spokesman was amusing (I did smile), it was also completely predictable.

Equally predictable was a comedian on The Now Show aligning herself with our anti-smoking Establishment that includes both the BBC and all mainstream political parties, not to mention our 'Conservative' government.

Mainstream comedians were once mocked for being conservative (or even Conservative). Then came left wing 'alternative' comedians led by Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle who were seemingly anti-Establishment.

Many of today's 'progressive' comedians like to think they follow in the footsteps of those 'alternative' comedians, but there's nothing radical about them at all.

As far as smoking is concerned, someone like Jessica Fostekew not only supports and parrots the Establishment line, she appears happy to foster and promote anti-smoking propaganda, not even for laughs but as genuine 'information'.

As for "Jacinda's mighty ban", how rock 'n' roll is that?

The point is, Fostekew is clearly not alone. I don't doubt for one second that her view – even allowing for the fact that this was a 'comedy' sketch – is also held by most of those working for The Now Show, and of course the wider BBC.

It isn't an accident that she was given a platform to promote "Jacinda's mighty ban" and mock opponents of a generational ban.

However, any comedy programme with an ounce of self-respect would surely want to put the boot into the prohibitionists and overweening regulators, or the middle-class do-gooders who can't wait to dictate how others live their lives.

But no. The Now Show and their guests are the Establishment, and completely predictable. How (un)funny is that?

Three months later the long-running comedy show is being taken off air.

Was it something I wrote?!

Election fever? Chancellor postpones vape levy until October 2026

Well, that was a surprise.

Having let it be known for weeks that he was going to introduce a levy on vaping products to discourage children and never smokers from taking up the habit, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, did indeed introduce a vape tax in today's Budget statement.

The unexpected twist was that the measure won't be introduced until October 2026, by which time the Tories are very unlikely to be in government!

Meanwhile, having also floated the idea of a further "one-off" tax hike on tobacco in order to maintain the difference in cost between tobacco and vaping products, Hunt announced that the additional tax would be introduced at the same time as the vape levy.

If you're confused I don't blame you because following the Chancellor's announcement the BBC News website immediately reported that 'Hunt has introduced a new levy on vaping' and 'There will also be a one-off increase in tobacco duty', implying it would happen immediately because there was no mention of the critical date, October 2026.

Moreover, what no-one has reported is that there are no other changes to excise duty on tobacco in today's Budget - including the annual escalator (inflation plus two per cent) - so tobacco duty has effectively been frozen, for now at least.

Why this should be the case is a bit of a mystery, but I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that previous hikes in tobacco duty were reported to have increased the rate of inflation, and that's the last thing the Government wants or needs ahead of a general election.

I should add that I don’t for one second think that a future Labour government will repeal Hunt’s vaping levy. If anything, they might impose even harsher duties on tobacco and vapes.

Either way, Forest's response is reported by Asian Trader here – Hunt announces extra tax on vaping from 2026.

We’ve also been quoted by the Press Association, the Independent, Daily Mirror, London Evening Standard, and several more.

Update: The Sun is reporting that 'The price of cigarettes is set to rise to an eye-watering £16 following a one-off increase of £2 per 100 cigarettes or 50 grams of tobacco'.

Don't know where they got those figures from but I assume they are referring to the 'one-off increase' scheduled for October 2026. We’ll see.

Update: The figures above were obtained from Spring Budget 2024 Policy Costings (page 26). And, yes, they do refer to the October 2026 increase.

Another liberal conservative bites the dust

I was sorry to hear that former government minister Paul Scully is to stand down as an MP at the forthcoming election.

Minister for London from February 2020, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy from October 2022, he was surprisingly sacked from both roles in November last year.

That came a few months after he failed to be selected as the Conservative candidate for London mayor. Remarkably, given his ministerial role at the time, he didn’t even make the shortlist.

I’m biased, but on the few occasions our paths have crossed, I have found him to be extremely pleasant and approachable.

He first came to our attention at the Conservative party conference in 2011 where we hosted a comedy night at the Comedy Store in Manchester.

It prompted the former Sutton councillor to tweet:

Forest fringe at the comedy store is possibly the best ever I have attended at conference. Smokers showing antis how to do #nudge. #cpc11

Elected to Parliament in 2015 as the MP for Sutton and Cheam, he was therefore an obvious choice when we needed someone to speak at our 2016 fringe event in Birmingham.

With 500 guests squeezed in to a Birmingham night club it was very noisy and our two guest speakers - Paul and LBC broadcaster Iain Dale - struggled to be heard.

Nevertheless they handled the situation with aplomb and, by coincidence, Iain even interviewed Paul on his programme last night.

The last time I saw Paul in person, but not to speak to, was at a Conservative Muslim Forum event to mark the coronation of King Charles last year.

As I wrote at the time:

I’m not entirely sure what Paul Scully’s connection with the CMF was, but I was interested to hear him say he was running for Mayor of London.

If selected as the Tory candidate the odds will be strongly against him winning, but he would run a very good campaign, I'm sure, and I wish him well.

Sadly, that wasn’t to be, and we are now set to lose one of the relatively few liberal conservatives in the House.

What a shame.