Cornucopians unite!

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, believes that having more than two children is “irresponsible” because it puts an unbearable burden on the environment.

In February he announced that he intends to persuade environmental pressure groups to put population at the forefront of their campaigning. How long, I wonder, before parents with three or more children are subjected to the "court of public opinion" or targetted, like smokers, as a threat to the rest of society.

Today Porritt was a guest on Andrew Neil's Daily Politics (BBC1). In the opposing corner ... Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas. "Cornucopians unite," said Porritt, disparagingly, in response to Claire's opening remarks.

Cornucopians? I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia, "A cornucopian is a futurist who believes that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology".

That's me, I shouted. I'm a cornucopian! You learn something new every day.

Full interview HERE.

Smoking ban: New Labour in denial

New Labour's favourite think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), has today published a report entitled Pubs and Places: the social value of community pubs.

Supported by the likes of CAMRA and Alcohol Concern, the report found that the main factors contributing to the rise in pub closures include:

• Competition from shops and supermarkets where alcohol is much cheaper, which has led to more people drinking at home
• The current recession which has reduced pub incomes
• Increases in tax on beer
• The prices that some pub tenants have to pay the large pub companies for their beer
• A fall in beer drinking and a growth in wine drinking
• Increased regulation which small community pubs find the hardest to deal with

To prevent further pub closures, the IPPR calls for business rate relief, eligibility for third sector finance, reform of planning law (to provide greater protection for community pubs), and a change in the relationship between large pubcos and their tenants.

Other recommendations include no further increases in beer duty and a minimum price per unit of alcohol to prevent irresponsible promotions and close the gap between the on and the off trades.

I've only read the advance blurb but I can't find a single reference to the smoking ban. It's as if it never happened.

The report also calls on pubs to "diversify" to keep up with consumer tastes and demand. Er, thanks for that advice.

Here's an idea that would allow them to diversify to keep up with consumer tastes and demand. How about amending the law so that a percentage of well-ventilated pubs are allowed to cater for those who wish to smoke indoors alongside their tolerant, non-smoking friends?

Not interested? You surprise me.

What was the first record you bought?

While I was waiting to be interviewed on BBC Radio Tees this morning (subject: cigarette vending machines), I heard the presenter, John Foster, invite listeners to send him details of the very first record they had ever bought. It got me thinking.

Although I can remember listening to Alan Freeman's Pick of the Pops as long ago as 1965, when I was six, and recording songs on to my father's reel-to-reel tape recorder, it was 1972 before I bought my first single. I bought my first album (actually, a "compact cassette") the same year. In 1978 I bought my first 12-inch single and a year later my first 45 on coloured vinyl:

First single: 'Cindy Incidentally', The Faces (1972)
First album: 'Himself', Gilbert O'Sullivan (1972)
First 12" single: 'Denis', Blondie (1978)
First coloured vinyl: 'Furniture Music', Red Noise (1979)
First cassette single: 'C30, C60, C90, Go', Bow Wow Wow (1980)

What were your first records?

Freedom party? Don't make me laugh

Andreas Mlzer is a member of the European parliament. He's also a member of Austria's far right Freedom Party and last month he submitted a written question to the European Commission, part of which reads:

In accordance with the new law on smoking, since the beginning of 2009 a more stringent smoking ban has been in force in Austria. Under the new law, pubs and restaurants with a floor area of less than 50 square metres must be run either as non-smoking establishments or as smoking clubs, and those with a floor area of more than 50 square metres must physically separate their smoking and non-smoking areas.

Many pub and restaurant owners are complaining of a massive decline in turnover, since smokers are simply choosing establishments where they can smoke [my italics]. The physical separation of smoking and non-smoking areas calls for substantial investments which are hardly realistic in the current economic and financial climate. However, even if conditions were more favourable, fitting partitions, ventilation systems, etc would be beyond the means of many owners ...

Herr Mlzer goes on to ask what plans the EU has "to introduce an EU-wide smoking ban along the lines of those in force in Italy or Ireland". The implication is that what the hospitality industry needs in is a "level-playing field" (ie a comprehensive ban) otherwise people will continue to choose - at the expense of non-smoking bars and restaurants - an "establishment where they can smoke".

So much for the free market. So much for the "Freedom" Party.

Film of the day

Looking forward to seeing The Damned United later today. I've just finished the book - which was a pretty dark portrait of the brilliant Brian Clough - but I understand that the film shows him in a more sympathetic light.

You might think this is a rather tenuous link, but when my parents moved to Derbyshire in 1980 I was encouraged by memories of Clough's Derby to watch his old club as often as I could. By then, of course, Clough was a two-time European Cup winner at Nottingham Forest, but his shadow was to haunt Derby for many, many years.

I could, I suppose, have driven a little further up the A52 (a stretch of which is now known as Brian Clough Way) to watch Forest, with Clough in charge, but there was something about Derby, what he achieved there, and the circumstances in which he left - that caught my imagination.

In particular, I loved the old Baseball Ground. Somehow it represented another world, a different era. I'd park my car (OK, my mother's car) on some barren wasteland behind the old Rolls Royce factory before walking half a mile to the ground which was surrounded by streets full of Coronation Street-style terraced housing. Only when you turned the final corner could you actually see this rickedy old stadium creaking under the weight of 20-30,000 people.

Unsurprisingly, in view of the rivalry exposed by David Peace's novel, one of my worst football experiences happened at a Derby-Leeds match in the early Eighties. Tickets for home supporters had sold out so I was forced to stand among the away support in a small pen at one end of the ground.

To say that some of the Leeds "fans" had no interest in the football would be an understatement. For most of the match they stood, bare-chested, with their backs to the game, taunting the Derby supporters in the stands above us. Only occasionally would they turn to watch the match, and when they did so they invariably threw something - coins, broken bottles - on to the pitch.

I have been in worse situations - at White Hart Lane, for example, fending off half bricks thrown by Arsenal fans - but I have never forgotten that afternoon at the Baseball Ground. And it may explain why, like Brian Clough in The Damned United, I too hated Leeds, and their "fans", those "cheating fucking bastards".

Update on Saturday, March 28, 2009 by Simon Clark

Enjoyed the film, but I don't think it quite lives up to the hype. Like so many British films it lacks a cinematic quality - best viewed, perhaps, on television on a wet Sunday afternoon. Rod Liddle echoes my thoughts in the Sunday Times HERE.

As Rod says, I can't imagine this is a film for non-football supporters. The problem, for football supporters, is that you tend to notice when the details aren't quite right. Few of the actors, for example, look like footballers, and standing in for the Baseball Ground, which was demolished a decade ago, is the much smaller Recreation Ground (better known as Saltergate) in Chesterfield.

Funnily enough, Saltergate was the first football ground I took my son to. He was four or five, it was Boxing Day, we were staying with my parents and Derby were playing away, so we drove up to Chesterfield in search of a match.

I can't remember who they were playing but I do remember that it was very, very cold and that Saltergate, like the Baseball Ground, had an indefinable character that is missing in many modern stadiums whether it be Wembley or stadium:mk (yes, they really do call it that) in Milton Keynes.

Re-introducing some standing areas would be a start. But that's another subject for another time. For the moment I'm happy to recommend The Damned United - but lower your expectations before you go.

Alcohol and tobacco: two peas in a pod

Earlier this week I had a meeting with a management consultancy whose clients include a well known drinks company. They wanted to know what lessons the drinks industry could learn from the war on tobacco. I was happy to help.

By coincidence, this week's Spectator includes a letter on the subject of alcohol and tobacco. It is written by Rupert Fast, a long-standing supporter of Forest who attends most if not all of our London-based events and is never less than quietly supportive of Forest and the cause in general.

Rupert writes:

Sir: Everything Rod Liddle says about how the war against smoking was always going to lead to similar ones against other legitimate pleasures is true. The smoking ban was not the thin end of the wedge, though. The rot set in with crude warnings on tobacco products and the banning of cigarette advertising on television. The political crusade accelerated when traditional socialism became discredited. Getting nowhere attacking Big Business in general, the opponents of global capitalism turned their attention to businesses that could be deemed ‘unethical’.

The drinks industry has been asleep during all this, under the false illusion that smoking and drinking are completely separate issues. The last hope is that all industries smeared as ‘bad’ (fast food, confectionary, bottled water and the like) engage with genuine liberals and libertarians and challenge head on those who despise them and wish them to go bankrupt.

I'm not sure that I agree that the war on tobacco, and now alcohol, is entirely motivated by a hatred of big business - although there is an element of that among some campaigners.

What I do agree on is the suggestion that the drinks industry is wrong to believe that smoking and drinking are separate issues. It is clear, however, that the drinks industry wants to distance itself as much as possible from tobacco to the extent that some people are prepared to claim that the impact of "passive drinking" is tiny compared with the (alleged) impact of passive smoking.

I can understand, tactically, why the drinks industry wants to do this. I would argue however that they risk playing into the hands of the "health" lobby which wants to divide and rule, picking off one industry after another.

In a perfect world the food, drink and tobacco industries would stick together. So, too, responsible smokers and drinkers, not to mention every liberal-minded person in the country. Unfortunately the real world is rather different.

A tale of two ...

"Regretting having lunch at the Cinnamon Club. Well, my arse is," twitters Iain Dale (left). Strange, that. I was at the same lunch and my arse is fine.

The politics of modern liberty

I commented last month on the Convention on Modern Liberty. Now that the dust has settled, Brian Monteith offers a more considered response on The Free Society website.

Like me, Brian is tempted to view the campaign not as a cross-party coalition but as a realignment of the left (prior to Labour's almost certain defeat at the next general election).

Like me, Brian believes that social liberties - smoking, eating, drinking, driving - are in danger of being ignored in favour of other civil liberties.

Like me, Brian is prepared to give the Convention on Modern Liberty the benefit of the doubt. But that's as far as we will go, for now.

Full article HERE.

No excuse for violence and intimidation

I caught a bit of the Victoria Derbyshire show on Five Live this morning. The subject was the attack on the home of former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin. I'm not here to defend Goodwin's record (or the size of his pension) but I was struck by how many callers were revelling in his misfortune.

It wasn't just the self-proclaimed "anarchist" or the deluded anti-capitalists. One caller, a "company director", said he "smiled" when he heard the news. Others said the same. What sort of person would "smile" at the thought of someone's house and car being vandalised?

I hold the government partly responsible for encouraging this sort of behaviour. After all, it's only a few weeks ago that Harriet Harman told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show:

"Sir Fred should not be counting on being £650,000 a year better off as a result of this because it is not going to happen ... The Prime Minister has said it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted. It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it's not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that's where the Government steps in."

Politicians should be careful when they target specific groups or individuals for special opprobrium. Needless to say I include smokers, "binge-drinkers" and those who are overweight or "obese". Given the green light by those in power, is it any wonder that some people take that criticism to the next level?

Victims of denormalisation

Yesterday I attended the launch of a study entitled "Outcasts: The Obese and Other Victims of Denormalisation". Written by Patrick Basham and John Luik and published by the Democracy Institute, a public policy research group based in Washington and London, the report "examines the government's increasing use of respective 'denormalisation' campaigns against food, gambling, drinks and tobacco industries".

In practise, denormalisation means that the government attempts to shame adults into changing their behaviour. For the government's denormalisation campaign to succeed these adults must be stigmatised; that is, they will be placed apart from the rest of civilised society until and unless they learn to behave in the approved manner. Denormalisation pushes gamblers, drinkers, smokers and the obese from being a heath hazard to being a moral hazard, nothing less than blots on the nation's moral landscape."

Yesterday's event took place at Portcullis House (above), which has offices for 210 MPs and their staff. Of the dozen people who took the trouble to attend, I counted one MP and one member of staff. (Oh, and one journalist - from The Grocer magazine.)

Draw your own conclusions.

How our universities are failing us

A few weeks ago I commented on an email sent out by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Westminster concerning smoking on university grounds. Dennis Hayes, founder of Academics for Academic Freedom, has now written an article on the subject for The Free Society. Dennis writes:

Under New Labour’s political interference [universities] have incorporated the political values of the last twelve years with enthusiasm. Universities now seek to be socially inclusive, green, sustainable, healthy, sober and safe places. To put it another way, universities are more like schools ...

What academics have to learn, if they are not to end up as snitches, is to defend the civil rights of people whether we like what they do or not. It’s hard, but being an academic makes you a special sort of citizen, with a duty to defend academic freedom and free speech and every other freedom you can.

If academics, whose job embodies the freedom of intellectual inquiry, fail in their duty to defend other freedoms, then there is little hope for the rest of society.

Full article HERE.

Picture of paradise

Brian Monteith has sent me this photo. He thinks it will cheer me up (see previous post). He took it in Trinidad - where he is currently working - and he describes the location thus:

"It's the 'local' beach of Port of Spain - although it's over a mountainside to get to it. It's called 'Maracas' and as well as being beautiful it has a wonderful local delicacy called Bake n' Shark. It's a sort of fried leavened pitta bread with a slice of grilled shark meat served with hot pepper and chilli sauce, garlic and salad - all folded together - it's delicious. Probably a UN research paper is being written up to say it's a threat to sharks and will cause heart disease. Fuck 'em, I say!"

In sickness and in health

I'll spare you the details but yesterday the winter vomiting bug caught up with me and I spent most of the day in bed. Come the evening I still couldn't face the thought of "proper" food but I did manage the following three-course meal - tomato soup, mango sorbet, and a bowl of, er, jelly beans.

It seemed to do the trick because this morning I was up at five, feeling OK, and now I'm in London for a book launch at Portcullis House followed by a Very Important Meeting to discuss a possible new project. I've felt better but, fingers crossed, I hope to get through the day without accident (if you know what I mean).

Update on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 by Simon Clark

9.48 ... Feeling a bit queasy, if I'm honest. It's going to be a long day. Pass the sickbag, Alice ...

Who runs Britain?

At risk of alienating any more readers, I was a guest last night at a dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London. The speaker was Colin Myers, editor of the News of the World and formerly editor of the Daily Mirror. I can't repeat what was said - it was a private dinner - but there was an interesting exchange of views about who or what represents the "Establishment" these days.

Most people would agree, I think, that the Establishment has changed from what it was 30 or 40 years ago. The old boy's network is not what it was. The question is, who is running the country today? My own view is that we're being run by a left of centre "liberal" elite who dominate the universities, the media (the BBC in particular), and an increasingly politicised civil service.

I could go on but if you know differently, or have your own ideas, let's have a heated debate ...

Writing worth reading

Rod Liddle has written a piece in this week's Spectator (The smoking ban was always going to be thin end of the wedge) which sums up what many of us, including Rod, have been saying for years. In fact, I'm sure we had this very conversation when we shared a table at Forest's Revolt In Style dinner at The Savoy a couple of years ago.

Tom Utley, another recipient of Forest's coveted Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year award, also writes about the war on alcohol HERE.

Of course Rod and Tom - both heavy smokers who enjoy a drink or two - might be expected to write in this vein, not least because it provides an entertaining article and, as Tom is always reminding us, it pays for his children's school fees.

What we also need is for people who have hitherto kept quiet to make their views known. The longer they stay silent, the worse things will get. Writing on blogs and message boards isn't enough. People must write to their MP, to newspapers, and vote with their feet.

Oh, and they might also write to Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health, Room 114, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London SW1A 2NS.