Taking Liberties

Joe Jackson first toured Australia in 1983. He liked it. "The people," he writes on The Free Society blog, "were laid-back, with a dry sense of humour, and the culture had a nice mix of American and British influences." Recently returned from his latest tour, he found the country "stifled by American-style paranoid health-freakery and a very British-style nanny state".

Most disturbing, writes Joe, was the email he received from a journalist from the Melbourne paper The Age, shortly after doing a telephone interview.

He'd been sympathetic to my views on smoking, and wanted to tell me that his article had been 'butchered' by his editor on instructions from their legal department. It seems there are now laws governing what can and can't be printed about tobacco, and it's actually illegal to say anything which might be construed as positive.

Full article HERE.

"It’s not only national politicians who make one think the world is galloping mad," writes Allan Massie in today's Scottish Daily Mail." (Massie, for those of you who don't know, is one of Scotland's most respected writers and journalists.)

"One Scottish newspaper yesterday ran an interview with the campaigns manager for ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), the occasion being the BMA’s recommendation that the portrayal of smoking be taken into account when classifying films. Now, as a happy smoker for more than 40 years, I should perhaps tread warily on this one, for it’s now generally held that smoking is not only wicked, but, after knife crime, perhaps the deepest and darkest blot on society.

"But then again, perhaps not, for the campaigns manager touched agreeable heights of craziness. Asked his opinion of the portrayal of smoking in movies, he said: ‘It isn’t very realistic. Although you often see actors smoking on screen, you rarely see the consequences. So while you see someone stub out a cigarette, you do not see them having a heart attack or dying of cancer.’

"Well, no, you don’t – and it wouldn’t be ‘very realistic’ if you did because, no matter the possibility – or likelihood – that a smoker may die of a heart attack or lung cancer, you don’t often actually see one doing so each time he stubs out a cigarette. But in the mad world of ASH, I suppose we should have movies in which every cigarette smoked is followed by the actor clutching his throat and dropping down dead.

"Laughter," Massie concludes, "is often the only sane response to the lunacy of the modern world."

I couldn't agree more.

PS. See also Neil Clark ("Anti-smoking hysteria reaches new heights") on Comment Is Free in the Guardian HERE.

Rob Lyons, deputy editor of Spiked and a guest at our party at Boisdale, has marked the first anniversary of the smoking ban in England with another excellent article. "It’s built on anti-pub prejudice, junk science and petty authoritarianism," says Rob. "So one year on, why do so few people see the ban as a blow to our freedom?" Full article HERE.

Libby Brooks (left), deputy comment editor of the Guardian, has THIS to say about Forest, smoking, and class in today's paper. Discuss.

Stephen Pound MP (left) used to be a member of Forest. Today, writing in the Independent, he explains (not for the first time) "why I threw away my cigarettes the day after voting for the ban". He did the same the day after the vote (in February 2006) when he appeared on the Today programme to announce his sudden flip-flop conversion.

Pound's "moment of epiphany" was apparently the result of listening to Deborah Arnott of ASH ("calm and realistic") and Dr Richard Taylor, "the independent MP for the Wyre Forest, who was scarily scientific in his description of the foul chemical-sodden composition of what I had thought was sun-dried organic Virginia tobacco".

Ignoring the evidence on passive smoking (which a House of Lords committee subsequently confirmed did NOT justify a comprehensive ban), Pound chose to conclude that "while I had a right to kill myself slowly I had no such right to visit a long, lingering and agonising death on those around me".

Politicians are busy people and it is understandable if, on occasion, they take their cue from one or two so-called "experts". When, however, you are about to vote on an issue that could have serious social and economic consequences for millions of people, surely you do a bit more research?

Politicians. Don't you just love 'em. Full article HERE.

I was quite excited when I heard that Lynn Barber was coming to the Forest party last week. Lynn Barber! Not only is she one of the most famous journalists of the last 20 years (her interviews are legendary), she's also a smoker. And she's on friendly terms with David Hockney, and since he was coming too (and the party went so well, or so I thought) I was convinced we were set for a favourable review.

As it happens I've been in public relations long enough never to count my chickens. But even I was disappointed to read Barber's piece in today's Observer. (The title alone sets alarm bells ringing: 'This party's such a drag'.) Disappointed, but not surprised. After all, one of my favourite articles is Toby Young's 'My interview from hell' in which he wrote:

The question of why anyone agrees to be profiled by Lynn Barber is a curious one. After all, her last collection of interviews was called Demon Barber so it's not as if she makes any secret of her intentions. The hatchet job is her stock-in-trade, yet for some reason there is never any shortage of willing subjects.

According to Young:

"Recent casualties include Boy George, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Winston, Jerry Hall, Gyles Brandreth, Alan Sugar, Terence Conran, Julian Fellowes and Clare Short, to name but a few".

That was in 2006. I'm sure there have been a few more "casualties" since, and I'm equally sure that Forest won't be the last.

Lynn Barber's Forest/Boisdale article is HERE but the last word should go to Toby Young:

"I did my best to keep my cool. I counted to ten. I tried to picture her naked. But it was no good. Words came tumbling out of my mouth in a torrent of rage. At one point, I even noticed a fleck of spit landing on her taperecorder. I was fucked."

The first issue of Total Politics is out this weekend. The publisher is Iain Dale and it's bankrolled by Tory billionaire Michael Ashcroft, see HERE. (Update: Iain tells me that Ashcroft is not bankrolling the magazine. "He is a commercial investor, just like several others.")

I haven't seen a copy yet (apparently it's on sale in some branches of WH Smith, Borders and Waterstones) so I'll reserve judgement, but the launch issue includes a head-to-head debate on the question "Was the smoking ban right?". In the "yes" corner is the Guardian's Polly Toynbee; and in the "No" corner is my old friend Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute.

Writing as an ex-smoker, Toynbee argues:

"Banning indoor smoking in public places was a big political risk. Would smokers rebel? The fear was that people would disobey and make the same monkey of the law we have seen with the fox hunting. But one year on, it is a law the country has taken to heart. No-one would dare light up in the wrong place – not for fear of the plod, but fear of the public. It has been an unexpectedly popular law."

Pirie (an occasional cigar smoker) responds:

"The smoking ban arose from an unfortunate desire some people have to make others live as they would have them live, rather than as they themselves would want to live. The same desire has characterised destructive political ideologies and religious zealotry, and does not belong in a free society. The smoking ban has significantly eroded that freedom."

You can read the full feature online HERE.

Yesterday I spoke to a journalist and broadcaster for whom I have enormous respect. In fact, it was quite a thrill when I heard those clipped, crystal clear vowels on voicemail, asking me to call her back. Joan Bakewell is a generation older than me but she represents the kind of tolerant, liberal England I believe is worth fighting for.

The last time she wrote about smoking, she told me, she received a volley of abuse from anti-smokers. Undaunted, she has once again stuck her head above the parapet to write THIS column in today's Independent.

Postscript: Joan recently introduced an archive evening on BBC Parliament called Permissive Night. According to her Wikipedia entry, "The programme examined the liberalising legislation passed by Parliament in the late 1960s which made Britain a more tolerant and permissive place to live." I would love to know how a similar programme, broadcast in 2040, will review the present era.

Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas, is an old friend of Forest. She chaired our David Hockney event at the 2005 Labour party conference (see below) and has spoken at several other Forest events, including last year's Revolt In Style dinner at The Savoy.

In this week's Spectator (available in London today, the rest of the country tomorrow) Claire has written a searing attack on Britain's political classes and their obsession with the "denormalisation" of smoking. Read it online HERE or buy a copy of the magazine. And pass it on.

Rob Lyons, deputy editor of the excellent online magazine Spiked, has this to say about the latest anti-smoking campaign: 

"Even after their ban on smoking in public places, [anti-smoking campaigners] continue to come up with new ways to restrict smoking or access to cigarettes, and are always looking for other ‘vulnerable’ groups of ‘addicts’ to meddle with. Well, when you’re an unpopular government in desperate need of a purpose, any crusade will do."

He adds:

"What the proposals are really all about is the long-standing anti-smoking campaign technique of denormalisation. This is an insidious attempt at social conformism. If people who engage in some habit are marked out as different, as deviant, then others will reject them. If you have to ask for a packet of fags in much the same manner that dodgy men in macs have to ask for porn, you’re less likely to want to do it."

Full article HERE. Well worth reading.

"I don't smoke and I don't care much for smoking," writes Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, "but I'm outraged that the UK government plans to ban the display of tobacco products in shops. Which other of our 'unhealthy' pleasures will be driven under the counter next? Sweets? Crisps? Fizzy drinks? When you give political zealots so much power, you never know quite where it will end up."

Full article HERE.

Stigmatising smokers with tougher tobacco controls threatens every single one of us, even non-smokers, says Brian Monteith. Full article HERE on today's Free Society blog. Comments welcome.

On the new Forest website we have a section called Best Articles. Candidate for this week's best article is "A cruel and unusual ban" by Ken McLaughlin, senior lecturer in social work at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Writing for the excellent online magazine Spiked, Ken comments on this week's High Court ruling that psychiatric patients detained in high-security hospitals have no "right to smoke". He concludes by observing that:

"Today, exaggerated claims from health campaigners on the dangers of passive smoking have been mixed with a broader risk-averse outlook, and once again it is to the detriment of those confined in long-stay mental institutions. At least the inmates of the old asylums could have a cigarette; now they cannot even enjoy that small mercy."

Full article HERE.

A couple of months ago I was interviewed by Tom Bruce-Gardyne, writer, journalist and author of The Scotch Whisky Book. Tom was writing a feature for Harpers magazine about the lessons the drinks industry could learn from the war on tobacco. He has given us permission to reproduce the article HERE on The Free Society blog.

Tom Utley, a former winner of Forest's Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year Award, has written an interesting piece about his friend Boris Johnson in today's Daily Mail. Like many people (including, I suspect, Tom Utley), I cling to the hope that Boris will eventually have the courage of his convictions to say - consistently - what he really believes without backtracking, hours later, into Cameron-speak.

The truth is, Boris Johnson faces a very tricky balancing act. Even people like me - who love his quirky, amiable persona - have been praying that he would abandon the "buffoon" act and become a "serious" politician. This he is clearly attempting to do. The danger is he goes from one extreme to the other and becomes yet another boring, identikit politician with nothing interesting to say and no reason to vote for him.

Anyway, read the full Tom Utley article HERE. My advice, for what it's worth, is "Vote Boris". His heart's in the right place even if, on occasion, his mouth isn't. There's nothing to lose if Boris becomes Mayor of London. In the long run, there may be something to gain.