Here comes the bride

Yesterday we were in London - at Holy Trinity Church in Tooting, to be exact - for the wedding of a former Forest employee. (And it's not often I can say that!)

Josephine Gaffikin joined us in January 2001. It was her first full-time job after university. She worked in our London office for three years and did every job we threw at her. This included TV and radio work, and a compendium of ills called Health Wars: The Phantom Menace, reviewed HERE and reported HERE.

Then there was her tour of Britain's railways, staying in grotty guest houses from Sheffield to Plymouth - part of our 2001 campaign against Virgin Trains' proposed ban on smoking. (The two-week tour included her dramatic eviction from Carlisle railway station which was caught on camera and featured on the the local television news.)

Her finest hour, however, has to be the time she took to the stage at University College Dublin wearing a pair of fuschia pink cowboy boots featuring the unmistakable image of a Marlboro Man-style smoker on each boot. From that moment, the members of the UCD Debating Society were putty in her hands.

All this experience must have been useful because she is now head of communications at the prestigious Design Museum in London.

Anyway, back to the wedding. The bride looked lovely and, true to form, the wedding included lots of nice individual touches. They included a rousing rendition of a well-known reggae song played (and sung) by the bride's sister during which the entire congregation was invited to pivot 360 degrees at a certain point in the chorus. Given the heels some of the women were wearing, this was no easy task, but it generated plenty of laughs.

The service was conducted by a vicar who not only entered into the spirit of things with some light-hearted quips, but - at one point - even heckled the bride's father from the back of the church hall during the speeches.

The sun shone throughout the celebrations. In fact, I don't recall better weather all summer. So congratulations, Jo and Jan-Martijn. Here's to a long and very happy marriage. Bon voyage!

That was the holiday that was

Just returned from Scotland. We spent a couple of days in Glasgow, where I have relatives, before moving on to Crieff Hydro ("Scotland's leading leisure resort") where we ate (and drank) far more than was good for us.

Crieff Hydro is a Scottish institution (and I use that word advisedly). When I was a child, friends used to come here on holiday, even though it was less than an hour's drive from where we lived. Famously, one boy's father drove home on the second day of their holiday because he had forgotten to pack his favourite jumper. When he returned, two hours later, no-one had noticed his absence.

In those days the "institution" was an alcohol-free zone and, I must confess, I panicked a bit when my wife told me - the day before we arrived - that the policy was still rigorously enforced. Thankfully, she was joking.

Today, with its range of indoor and outdoor activities, Crieff Hydro reminds me of a cruise ship. It's a very similar environment - with the same obliging staff and a multi-national cast of characters.

On Monday I tried my hand at quad biking, but for much of the time - while the children were swimming or pony-trekking or firing air rifles into the Scottish mist - I was either reading or working. That's the trouble with the modern office. A combination of mobile phone, laptop computer and wireless broadband makes it very difficult to switch off, especially when you (stupidly) launch a series of PR/marketing initiatives the week before going away.

PS. We drove home via St Andrews and Anstruther. I have written about Anstruther before. As some of you know, it's a fishing village just down the coast from St Andrews (where I went to school). A picturesque harbour and the best fish and chip shop in Britain draw us back again and again. Mysteriously, I don't remember it ever raining in Anstruther. If you ever find yourself in Fife, it's definitely worth a detour - at any time of the year.

What are governments for?

Writing on The Free Society blog, Forest's Neil Rafferty attacks the denormalisation of smoking and concludes:

"The proposals laid out in the consultation paper on the future of tobacco control are the enemies of choice. They are simply another stage in the government’s rolling programme of interference and intrusion into the lives of free individuals.

"Governments," he adds, "are not elected to tell us how to behave. They are not elected to bully, cajole and denormalise. If government has a role in public health it is to warn people of potential risks to their health in a measured and matter-of-fact way and then leave us alone to choose for ourselves."

Full article HERE.

Say no to the nanny state

Today we are launching our first viral marketing campaign. For more information and to sign the petition against further punitive controls on tobacco, please click HERE - and pass it on.

Stand and deliver

Closing date for submissions to the consultation on the future of tobacco control in the UK is Monday September 8. The consultation document proposes to ban the display of tobacco in shops, and ban tobacco vending machines. Some anti-smoking campaigners want to go even further - plain packaging, for example, for tobacco products.

In recent weeks the anti-smoking movement has come out all guns blazing and is actively encouraging members of the public to write to DH. Cancer Research has launched a campaign called "Out of sight, out of mind" and is asking people to send an email to the Department of Heath. ASH, which is part of the Smokefree Action coalition, is urging people to send an e-card that is available on the SFA website. The aim, of course, is to demonstrate "the strength of public support" for more anti-tobacco measures.

Our job is to encourage people who oppose such policies to stand up and be counted as well. We have created our own e-card and and have launched it today on the Forest website. The DH has confirmed that it will accept responses using this facility, so our next task is to bring it to the attention of as many people as possible.

This is where we need your help. Apart from sending your own e-card, please send the link to family, friends, work colleagues - smokers and non-smokers - anyone who may feel strongly enough to respond to the consultation. It literally takes a matter of seconds. Click HERE, and pass it on.

Note: if you would like to add the banner above to your own website or blog, with a link to the Forest e-card, please get in touch.

Intermission

Apologies for not posting recently. Not much of a blogger, am I?! It's a bit manic at the moment. School holidays, family holidays, staff holidays - all this while working flat out on a series of Forest (and Free Society) initiatives. I'll fill you in as and when I get a moment - starting tomorrow.

Symbol of impotence

Suzy Dean is co-organiser of the Manifesto Club. Writing for The Free Society blog, Suzy, 22, attacks the government's war on alchol and complains that, "Far from trying to promote a continental style ‘cafe culture’ ... the UK’s political elite would rather try to control who can drink, how much and where, particularly when it comes to teenage drinking.

"Policy," she adds, "is increasingly geared, naively, towards trying to discourage young people from drinking at all rather than encouraging police to deal with silly behaviour with discretion ... Anti-drinking measures are today a symbol of government impotence rather than a nation of hedonists. With no sense of who the public are or how to connect with them in any meaningful way, they try to manage the trivial, everyday decisions."

Full article HERE.

Footballers' lives

How refreshing to read that England manager Fabio Capello has no problem with Wayne Rooney having the odd cigarette. Asked yesterday whether he would encourage Rooney not to smoke because of the health risks, Capello told reporters: "I know a lot of players who smoke, it is part of life. When I was a player, a lot of my friends and team-mates smoked. It depends if he smokes five cigarettes or 20 cigarettes."

Needless to say, in these politically correct times, these comments did not go down well with Capello's paymasters because The Times reports that "when he reappeared a short while later to make clear that he did not endorse smoking, it was plainly at the request of the FA, not because he had suddenly taken evangelically against the weed".

Full story HERE.

Caged like animals

Designer, photographer, musician ... Dan Donovan writes:

I was at the 2008 punk festival Rebellion, held at The Winter Gardens, Blackpool. The venue had provided a smoking area down the alley that runs next to the venue for the herded smokers to enjoy a beer and a fag hand in hand.

A cage fronted the area so that no one could drift onto the street with their alcohol. The most pertinent moment for me was when the queue had formed inside the bar as the punters restlessly had to wait for the smoking area to clear before they were allowed in, or should I say allowed out.

The designated area must have held up to 300 people and got pretty cosy at times. It’s clear to me that this so called ‘Smoke Free England’ isn’t and however much effort the government makes to curb our freedom and lead us to believe smokers are a thing of the past that they are fooling themselves.

As to be expected there were moments of drama inside. A young shaven haired girl lit up on one of the dance floors. After being pursued by four or five security men she managed to slip away.

The song being played on the jukebox was ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ by The Clash, a fitting song and the iconic smoker, Joe Strummer (Clash front man) would have smiled had he been there. I smiled for him.

Dan's band King Kool is playing the Peterborough Beer Festival on Saturday August 23. Details HERE.

The case against popcorn

"Its smell is all-pervasive, it makes huge amounts of mess, and it distracts and annoys people intensely." So says Nicolas Kent, artistic director of the Tricycle cinema in London, quoted in today's Daily Mail.

No, he's not talking about smoking. He's talking about popcorn. "Popcorn is horrible stuff and I won't have it anywhere near my cinema," he says.

Meanwhile Picturehouse Cinemas - the UK's largest art house cinema chain - is going to introduce "popcorn-free screenings". I quite like popcorn (I had some on Saturday night, at home, watching the DVD of Notes On A Scandal), but any cinema that chooses to ban it has my support.

It's not just the cost that I object to. (The mark-up on a £4 bucket of cinema popcorn is said to be as much as 10,000 per cent.). It's the smell and the mess when some idiot - usually but not always a child - drops his carton on the floor or down the back of my seat (which he's been kicking for the past 30 minutes).

I don't want a blanket ban on popcorn in cinemas. Let those who want to eat it while they're watching a film do so - at the local multiplex, for example. What I want is choice. And for the owners of private cinemas to be allowed to set their own policy on popcorn.

Sound familiar?

It's a mad, mad world

The Times reports that "Ships travelling British waters face a complete smoking ban next year. The Department of Transport is considering banning smoking inside vessels within 12 miles of the British coast. The move would mean that smokers could light up for only 17 of the 29 miles between Dover and Calais." William Gibbons, director of the Passenger Shipping Association, said that announcements would be made to let passengers know when smoking was permitted. "The rules will apply to all ships, whatever the flag." Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? One moment, 12.1 miles out from Dover, it will be OK to smoke. Seconds later, having entered British waters, it will be illegal. What does that say about the UK and the people who run this country? Words (almost) fail me. Story HERE. 

A nation of heroines

"A woman was thrown from a station platform on to an electrified railway line today after telling two youths to stop smoking. The female commuter suffered burns and a suspected broken collarbone, and was taken to hospital after the incident at Farningham Road station in Kent during the rush hour." (Press Association, August 6, 2008.)

I have thought hard before publishing this post because I don't want anyone to think I am trying to excuse what happened to this unfortunate woman. There is NO excuse. Nothing can justify an allegedly violent assault. The youths involved must take full responsibility for their actions - if and when the police catch them.

Nevertheless, I am intrigued that the victim has been described in some quarters as a "heroine". I don't condone people breaking the law. And I'm certainly not suggesting that we turn a blind eye to illegal or anti-social behaviour. But smoking on an open platform should be recognised for what it is - the most minor of minor offences.

People say the law's the law, and the law must be upheld, no matter what. Have those same people never, ever, exceeded the speed limit (for example)? How would they react if they were driving at 80mph on a motorway in clear conditions and another driver flashed at them to reduce their speed to the legal limit? Only a thug would respond by forcing the other driver off the road, but - if it was me - I'd be thinking, "Mind your own business, I'm not doing anyone any harm".

Unfortunately, the incident at Farningham Road station was waiting to happen. The smoking ban has legitimised even the most trivial complaint. Today, anti-smokers have all the power. They have the law on their side and, boy, are they going to use it.

Ironically, Forest was founded following a complaint by a woman who objected to someone smoking on a railway platform. Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris, a veteran World War II fighter pilot, was so annoyed to be told to put out his pipe, he decided to set up a group to defend smokers' rights. 

Throughout his life Sir Christopher was a courteous smoker. If he was alive today, he would, I'm sure, be horrified by this week's incident, and he would be quick to condemn the aggressive behaviour of the youths involved.

I suspect, however, that he would also view it as the sad and inevitable consequence of a draconian restriction that leaves no room for common sense or compromise.

Update on Saturday, August 9, 2008 by Simon Clark

"A 34-year-old woman taxi driver who twice lit up in her parked car was left with a £775 bill yesterday. On the second occasion, Mary Astles hurled her cigarette out of the driver's window when she was approached by a Conwy council licensing enforcement official. The official had been shopping and felt duty bound [my italics] to report what she had witnessed as she drove past the taxi."

Is the council official a heroine too? Full story HERE. 

Update on Sunday, August 10, 2008 by Simon Clark

Victoria Coren writes about the Farningham Road incident in today's Observer. See HERE. Recommended.

All in the family

My paternal grandfather died 36 years ago. I was 13. He was 72. When he married my grandmother in 1928 they spent their honeymoon on a ship bound for India where they lived for eight years. (My father was born in Calcutta in 1930.) 

After they came home they lived in Sheffield. When war broke out my grandfather joined the army and was one of 330,000 soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk. He later served in the Middle East and became a colonel. After the war the family moved to Sussex and, much later, my grandparents retired to Dorset where they had a beautiful thatched cottage with a large garden full of strawberries, apple trees and roses.

In retirement my grandfather spent much of his time in the garden but he had lots of interests - music, painting, sailing ... I still have some of his many comic illustrations and I can hear him now, playing the piano and singing one of his own Flanders and Swan style ditties.

Perhaps I was too young, but the one thing I don't remember him talking about was politics. Yesterday, however, going through some of the many scrapbooks and papers he left behind, my aunt found a number of short essays he had written. They were typed on the same old-fashioned mechanical typewriter that was given to me to use when I was ten or eleven. 

It was the first time my aunt had seen the essays, and they were certainly new to me. One is entitled "Socialism". Written in 1950, it reads: 

No one can convince a socialist. His arguments, his theories, are unanswerable. He has a cast iron case. Equality of opportunity for everybody, raising the standard of living of the underdog, pooling wealth; you cannot say these things are wrong. 

The more I see of socialism, the less I like it ... Its ideals are so commendable that it has enabled its clever intelligentsia to gain the support of masses who see in it an easy way of getting some of the wealth of others. It is a breeder of revolution, of mutiny, and of mass movements. It is next door to communism ... 

Someone will say, "What about the evils of private monopoly?" My answer is that private monopoly is to be preferred to government monopoly. Freedom of enterprise will cure private monopolies if they are a nuisance, but government control only creates an army of officials and the removal of the human touch ...

The theory that because coal is found in the ground it should be owned by the government on behalf of the people, is going to lead to everything that comes out of the ground being government owned, and the land itself, and the houses which stand upon the land ...

A government's job is to guide, govern and co-ordinate, not to run businesses. Quite obviously if six different companies are trying to run buses on the same route their efforts will require co-ordination. And if their combined efforts threaten to put the railway out of business, that again will require co-ordination. That is where the referee blows his whistle.

What are the alternatives? To stop trying to standardise life. To recognise quality as well as quantity. To encourage private enterprise and private ownership, the kind which made a man bring up his son in a way that would fit him to carry on the tradition with a proper sense of his personal responsibility to his dependents, his employees, and not in the fear that he will be legislated out of existence.

To rule by persuasion and not by regimentation. To fix minimum standards, by all means, but not uniform standards. To treat England as it is, an old country with a solid backbone, and not as though it were a Russia or an India ...

Let the laird live in his castle and the poet in his cottage, but don't expect them both to live in a council house. I shall probably be told that they can still do so, and that all the socialists are doing is to remove some of the more glaring inequalities. My answer to that is that the planners will not be satisfied until they have ironed out everybody to a uniform standard of living, irrespective of breed, taste, position, culture and attainments. It is the thin end of the wedge towards communism, and state ownership of everything; the end of all personal liberties.

Any movement which starts trying to kill private enterprise must be wrong. Without private enterprise you may as well cease to live. The growth and increases of government departments is also another bad sign, and if I am told it is necessary for the all-out effort of recovery from the war I shall say that I don't believe it and that the restrictive effect of government control will more than off-set its theoretical advantages.

What do we want? Not the kind of die-hard conservatism which refuses to entertain any change, but the kind which will preserve valuable traditions which are now being thrown overboard by the socialists and adapt them to modern conditions.

What can I say ... it runs in the family!

Campaigns update

Thanks to everyone who has signed THIS e-petition on the Downing Street website. Since I mentioned it two weeks ago, numbers have risen from 400+ to just over 1,000, putting it among the top 150 petitions. (To put this in perspective, there are currently 5496 petitions on the site.)

Already in the top 50 (with 5072 signatures) is THIS petition which calls on the government to "Amend the smoking ban to allow a limited number of smoking licences to be obtained by owners of pubs, restaurants and clubs from their local council".

One or two people have commented that they don't like the wording of the point of sale petition, and there will be others who don't like the idea of smoking licences (because of the cost etc). I share their concerns but, in my experience, it is very difficult to devise a credible petition that satisfies everyone.

What you have to ask yourself is this: it may not offer the perfect outcome, but if a particular campaign succeeds, will the situation have changed for the better? In other words, don't withhold your support just because you don't agree with every dot and comma. 

As it happens, I have similar reservations about the Campaign for Separate Smoking Rooms - an initiative that would allow separate smoking rooms in private members' clubs (including working men's clubs). In a perfect world smoking would be permitted in pubs as well as clubs, but - in the short term - CSSR offers a limited (and therefore realistic) solution to the current impasse. For that reason, we must support it.

Thanks for the memory

I am staying - for one night only - at the Royal Bath Hotel in Bournemouth. The hotel has good memories for Forest because in 2006, at the Conservative party conference, it was the scene of our biggest event to date. We called it 'Politics & Prohibition' and we hired a local events company to dress the De Vere ballroom in the style of a Chicago speakeasy. 

We also hired - from London - the Boisdale Blue Rhythm Band, plus a troop of amateur thespians whose job was to "raid" the premises in the guise of the police, "arrest" one of our speakers (Boisdale MD Ranald Macdonald, above) on a charge of inciting people to enjoy themselves, and then finish by singing the Monty Python song "Always Look On The Bright Side of Life".

The size of the ballroom was a little daunting, but we gave it our best shot. We were joined by a small team of publicists and for two days we enticed delegates with flyers, postcards, and the offer of free champagne and "politically incorrect canapes".

Come the hour we crossed our fingers - and, lo and behold, despite intense competition from 20 or so events elsewhere, some 400 people turned up. In fact, so many people tried to get in that hotel staff eventually had to turn people away on the grounds of health and safety!

Ranald, as you can see, got himself arrested, and occasionally, when I wake up in the dead of night, I can still hear the sound of 300+ voices bellowing out those famous lyrics. 

Our finest hour? No, but it was great fun.