Taking Liberties

I am assured by a very reliable source that the following story is true. "Call me Dave" recently visited the offices of a leading national newspaper. What, he was asked, is the first thing you will do if and when you become prime minister? Reverse the ban on fox hunting, he replied, without hesitation.

What about the smoking ban, someone else enquired. I don't smoke, said Dave. So that's alright. For him.

What is it with cyclists? I've no problem with them going through a red light if the road is clear. But I object to them ignoring a red light if pedestrians are legitimately crossing the road (as I was this morning!).

Worse, when I popped in to one of my favourite coffee shops in London, what did I find, propped against my regular bar stool? An effing bicycle, that's what! And on the table, where I normally spread my morning papers, was the owner's crimson cycling helmet!

The perpetrator, needless to say, was sitting at another table several feet away, sipping on a skinny mocha latte, reading the Guardian and looking incredibly smug. (OK, I made that bit up. He was reading the Independent.)

Next time I'll drive my car into the shop and park it next to him. See how he likes it.

Is it just me or is there something rather spooky about this email which (I think) is trying to sell me a mobile phone:

Dear Simon,

I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to send you this e-mail regarding a brand new product we've developed that could be of massive benefit to the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco.

Via our secure website you can view the live location and history of your people's movements, minute by minute across the UK & Europe. Other benefits of the phone are:

• The time your employee spent at a customer's site
• Whether they went to site at all
• What time they arrived
• General visibility of your vehicles and people
• Validating overtime claims
• Monitoring vehicle speed
• Performance monitoring

Our customers think our product is fantastic! It operates just like vehicle tracking but without most of the downsides and a lot more on top. It's a communication and navigation tool for your staff, with covert live tracking built in.

"Covert live tracking"? I think I'll give it a miss.

Today, on The Free Society blog, Simon Hills queries the purpose of an organisation called Dad Info that "suggests fathers-to-be listen to baby in the womb, bond with children, stay healthy – no smoking, plenty of exercise, that sort of thing – and trades in clichés such as 'It’s easy to sink into slobbery once you’ve had a child'."

By complete coincidence (and I mean, complete coincidence), I have just received an email from the influential Reform think tank. It's an invitation to an event entitled "Is Britain forgetting how to parent?" and it says:

Chris Grayling MP, Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, will put forward the party’s plans to improve the value of parenting. 

When politicians start lecturing us about the "value of parenting" it's time to run for the hills. Meanwhile, I suggest you read Simon Hills' article HERE.

Health minister Dawn Primarolo has given the following written answer to a question from Richard Benyon, Conservative MP for Newbury. Richard asked whether the Department of Health "has collated the number of cases of illnesses caused by the effects of passive smoking since the implementation of the smoking ban in 2007".

The answer is, of course, "No" because it has always has been impossible to list with any accuracy "the number of cases of illnesses caused by the effects of passive smoking" (if indeed they exist). But this government doesn't do straight answers. (Have you heard Gordon Brown on PMQs?) Instead, Primarolo (or one of her minions) writes:

We have commissioned research on the health impacts of smokefree legislation in England. However, early assessments are that this legislation is proving to be effective in significantly reducing levels of second hand smoke in enclosed public places and workplaces.

Research from Scotland has reported a range of benefits since smokefree legislation was introduced there, including dramatic improvements in air quality in pubs, improved health, reduced tobacco consumption and no increase in the amount of smoking in the home.

No-one doubts (do they?) that the level of "secondhand smoke" in enclosed public places is less than it was before the ban. Or that the air quality in poorly ventilated smoking rooms has improved. It hardly takes a genius to work that one out.

But where is the evidence that SHS is a significant risk to most people's health in the first place? Or that there is any risk at all in a controlled (ie well-ventilated) environment?

As for "research from Scotland" reporting "improved health", she couldn't, by any chance, be referring to the study discussed HERE by Tessa Mayes in The Spectator? Now that would make me laugh.

Next month Forest will reveal our plans for the 2008 party conferences. On Wednesday I was in Birmingham, which is hosting this year's Conservative conference. A couple of months ago we booked a fantastic venue close to the International Conference Centre and, this week, we booked our hotel.

Now, anyone who goes to party conferences will tell you that finding a good hotel at a decent price is a real pain. The better hotels are inevitably booked months if not years ahead, and the main conference hotels often insist that you book for the entire event (four nights) when you may only want a room for one or two days.

Anyway, thanks to Simon Richards of The Freedom Association - whose idea it was - we have block booked a number of rooms in a brand new city centre "hotel" which, on further investigation, is more akin to a social experiment (and we're the guinea pigs!).

NiteNite city hotels is an "evolving concept" catering to travellers who prefer wi-fi over scenic views (there aren't any) "and don't mind cramped quarters if that means saving money" (Wall Street Journal).

In Birmingham, NiteNite offers "windowless seven-square-metre rooms with mood lighting, 42-inch plasma-screen TVs and Egyptian cotton linens ... The windowless design allows NiteNite the possibility of building in unconventional sites, such as warehouses."

NiteNite is reviewed HERE in the Guardian.

The BBC is reporting that "workers accused of theft or damage could soon find themselves blacklisted on a register to be shared among employers". I wonder how soon smokers and other people with "bad" or "anti-social" habits will be added to that list? Story HERE.

I was invited to be on the Richard Bacon show on Five Live last night. They wanted me to talk about Boris Johnson's plan to ban alcohol on London buses and the Tube. As it happens, I got the message too late because I was in Peterborough watching my son play cricket, but they assumed (I think) that I am against such a ban - which I'm not.

To this day no-one can prove that the Kings Cross fire - which killed 31 people on November 18, 1987 - was caused by a discarded cigarette. Smoking, as ever, was an easy target when the primary problem was the discarded litter that lay beneath the escalators. This was an accident waiting to happen because it could be set alight by the slightest spark, including a spark from the escalator itself.

Nevertheless, I don't think many people object to smoking being banned on Underground trains, or even buses. This is an issue of comfort and I have little sympathy for people who can't go 30 or even 60 minutes without a cigarette while they are (literally) underground.

The same applies (I think) to alcohol. As with tobacco, no-one has a right to consume alcohol whenever or wherever they want. The only question is, does the scale of the problem justify the heavy hand of politicians, or should it be left to a combination of education and peer pressure?

These days I am rarely in London late at night and, when I am, I tend not to use the bus or Tube, so the problem Boris seeks to address (boorish, sometimes threatening, behaviour) has largely passed me by. Nor do I recall it being a serious issue in the 12 years I lived in London. Readers who do live in London and regularly experience London transport at night may like to enlighten me.

Hopefully, the new mayor is not over-reacting to the problem as he seeks to make his mark. Fingers crossed, his next move will be de-regulate rather than regulate. I am also waiting for an early announcement that a modern version of the old Routemaster bus will be back on the road (complete with open platform) as soon as they can be ordered and delivered.

When it comes to freedom, politicians need to give as well as take.

Full marks to Daniel Finkelstein, comment editor of The Times, who spotted the following story and wrote about it on Comment Central yesterday. The gist of it is that smoking bans in America have been associated with a 13 per cent rise in the number of fatal car accidents.

Apparently, there is also "growing evidence" that suggests that "smoking lessens a drinker’s level of intoxication, and that nicotine deprivation can sharpen the urge to drink".

Finkelstein quotes The Atlantic, which reported a study by the Journal of Public Economics: 

While a national smoking ban could offset some of the increase in fatalities, perhaps alcohol, like coffee, is simply best (and safest) when enjoyed with cigarettes.

Full article HERE.

Lunch with Ranald Macdonald (left) at Boisdale. In six weeks Forest will return to Boisdale for a party to mark the first anniversary of the smoking ban. Expect guest speakers, live music and more. Details of the event, to be called Smoke-Free England?, will appear on the new Forest website next week.

"CCTV boom has failed to slash crime ... Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology."

According to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, who runs the Visual Images, Idenitifcations and Detections Office, CCTV has been an "utter fiasco" and only three per cent of crimes have been solved by CCTV.

Full story HERE in today's Guardian.

Last week I did a series of interviews on Irish radio, two of them alongside Prof Luke Clancy, chairman of ASH Ireland. We were discussing the news that the smoking rate has gone up from 27 to 29% in Ireland since 2002, despite the public smoking ban.

I can't let the final interview pass without mentioning how thoroughly depressed Clancy seemed. He sounded like a man about to self-combust as his dream of a smoker-free Ireland was shown up for what it is - a total fantasy.

I've met Prof Clancy on several occasions and I rather like him. He seemed more "normal" than many anti-smokers, and he was always polite and courteous. Listening to him this week, however, he sounded how I imagine a member of the Temperance Society would have sounded in the 1920s - well-meaning but deluded and out of touch with reality.

Not only is he convinced that EVERY smoker is hopelessly addicted to nicotine, he cannot tolerate ANY view other than his own. As a result, he spent much of the interview on Thursday castigating the presenter (and the radio station) for allowing me to speak at all!

The tipping point was my refusal to accept his claim - largely accepted in Ireland - that passive smoking is a serial killer. This heresy was too much for him.

All very entertaining. As Corporal Jones would say, "They don't like it up 'em!"

So, Boris did it. If, like me, you stayed up for the result to be announced, and then kept awake a little longer for the post-match interviews and analysis ... and, if, like me, you consumed an entire bottle of champagne during that time ... you may be feeling a little worse for wear. Still, it was worth it to see Livingstone de-throned (even if he did give a surprisingly statesmanlike speech).

I can now reveal the less-than-earth-shattering news that, last year, Forest invited Boris to speak at our Revolt In Style dinner at The Savoy. We were quoted £10,000 for a 15-minute speech and the agency warned us that he could be a little, er, "eccentric" - by which they meant he had a tendency to turn up at the very last moment (missing the meal), give his speech, and then leave as quickly as he had arrived.

Hmmm. Ten grand for that?!

As it happens, Boris wasn't available on the night in question and, in his place, we got his old Spectator boss Andrew Neil who joined us for three, maybe four, hours, gave an excellent speech, and was worth every penny of his fee.

A year on, the "eccentric" Boris Johnson is mayor of London. Who would have thought?! (Let's just hope he hangs around for more than 15 minutes.)

During an interview with Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman on Five Live Breakfast this morning, Nicky Campbell read out an email from a Labour activist in the north of England who said three things had influenced people not to vote for the party in yesterday's local elections. One of them was the smoking ban.

Interesting. Very interesting.

As Forest has frequently said (even putting our money where our mouth is with advertisements in The House magazine, Blake's Parliamentary Yearbook and elsewhere): "Smokers are voters, too."

Now, I'm not naive enough to think that the smoking ban is a major election issue for most people, but in a tight election it could yet be a significant one.

The chickens, it seems, are coming home to roost. But is Labour listening?

10.00pm ... just back from London. Following a straw poll of cab drivers, I can reveal 100% support for Boris to become mayor of London. Ken, you're history fired! Note: if you want to experience a live blog of election night, click HERE. Me? I'm going to bed.