Nick Hogan - free at last!

17:00 ... Two hours ago I was sitting in the reception area at Forest Bank prison in Salford. Standing next to me was blogger Old Holborn, in full costume. OH had just handed over a silver metal suitcase. Inside the suitcase was over £9,000 in £10 notes.

One hour ago we were standing outside the prison talking to (former jailed landlord) Nick Hogan and his wife Denise. Around us was a scrum of photographers and reporters.

Full story of the day to follow. First, here's the news release, issued jointly by Anna Raccoon, Old Holborn and Taking Liberties, and released at four o'clock this afternoon:

NEWS RELEASE Wednesday 10th March 2010

Jailed landlord walks free

Nick Hogan, the former landlord jailed after failing to pay fines imposed when he defied the smoking ban, has walked free from jail.

Hogan’s release, eleven days into a six-month sentence imposed by magistrates in Bolton, follows an online campaign to raise the money to secure his freedom.

Speaking outside Forest Bank prison in Salford, Hogan, 43, said: “I was devastated to be sent to jail. The smoking ban has cost me my pub, my job and my liberty.

“I’d like to thank everyone who donated money to get me out of jail, and all the well-wishers who sent me cards and letters while I was behind bars. I can’t thank them enough.

“It’s wonderful to know that so many people feel as strongly as I do about the smoking ban and its impact on ordinary working people.”

The campaign to pay Hogan’s fines was launched by renowned blogger Anna Raccoon with the help of fellow libertarian blogger Old Holborn who set up an account so people could donate online.

Within 36 hours over £5,000 had been raised. A further £1,200 was donated over the next two days before the campaign received a crucial helping hand from Britain’s most popular political blogger, Guido Fawkes, who publicised it on his widely read and influential site.

By the end of last week donations totalled more than £9,000, enough to pay Hogan’s debts.

A host of libertarian bloggers publicised the campaign, which was also backed by the smokers’ lobby group Forest. A Facebook group, Justice for Nick Hogan, attracted over one thousand supporters.

Anna Raccoon, the blogger who proposed the campaign to secure Hogan’s early release, said: “Nick Hogan is free because ordinary, hard-working members of the public, smokers and non-smokers alike, dug deep in their pockets to raise the money to return this man to his wife and home.

“The fact that so many people responded is a powerful message from the voting public that politicians would be well advised to heed.”

Old Holborn, whose blog hosted the fund that paid Hogan’s fine, said: “Debtors prisons were abolished in 1861. To imprison a bankrupt man for his non-ability to pay fines imposed by the introduction of an unjust law is not something the international blogosphere was prepared to tolerate.”

Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ lobby group Forest which supported the campaign, said: “We don't condone people breaking the law but we do condemn the draconian nature of the anti-smoking legislation that has resulted in a previously law-abiding man losing his business and going to jail.

“It’s a scandal that landlords are not allowed to offer customers the choice of smoking and non-smoking facilities, as is the case throughout most of Europe, without the threat of imprisonment hanging over them.”

ends

More to follow, including pictures, as soon as I can. I will make sure that Nick reads all the comments on this thread when he has a moment.

See also Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn's blogs.

Update (for Iain Dale readers!): Nick Hogan - behind the scenes

Update on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Simon Clark

Yes, it really is true. See:

Landlord who defied smoking ban released from jail (Manchester Evening News)

Catch me on Five Live - after midnight

I'm on Five Live tonight between midnight and 12.30. They want me in a studio - Cambridge or Manchester, where the programme is produced. We'll be talking about No Smoking Day.

Update on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Simon Clark

01:05 ... Just back from the BBC's studio in Cambridge where I was the only person in the building apart from Kelly, who was there to let me in and set things up.

Not my finest (half) hour. My opponent, councillor Pat Karney, NHS Director of Smoke Free Manchester, was so smarmy and annoying I lost my rag a bit.

Luckily no-one could hear me shouting at the radio as I drove home, still listening to Five Live and some really imbecilic comments ...

01:37 ... Can't sleep and I've just had a mug of very strong coffee. Not sure that was a good idea.

Duncan Bannatyne: I want to break free

Tomorrow is No Smoking Day and here is a video featuring Duncan Bannatyne.

It's good to see that someone in the anti-smoking movement has a sense of humour but ultimately it's too close to the original for its own good.

Also, if you didn't know that this was a video about smoking, would you be any the wiser? Apart from the opening frames, there's not a single cigarette in sight!

Perhaps they were frightened that the sight of a man in drag pushing a Hoover with one hand and holding a cigarette with the other might discourage people from quitting.

Or, worse, might encourage us to start.

Update on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Simon Clark

I understand why the London Fire Brigade want people to take care with cigarettes. But I don't see why their latest press release should read, "For more information and advice on giving up smoking and No Smoking Day visit: www.nosmokingday.org.uk".

Oh, I forgot. When humourless Ian Willmore, former public affairs manager at ASH, left the organisation in 2006, he become head of public affairs for ... the London Fire Brigade.

Forest versus ASH ... seconds out

Well, I enjoyed a bit of a humdinger with my old friend Deborah Arnott of ASH on the BBC News Channel on Saturday.

Great fun. See for yourself HERE. (Apologies for the picture/sound quality.)

H/T Dave Atherton.

Dave, it was your comment on THIS post (which I read on my iPhone moments before going on air) that prompted my reference to the Irish Times article.

As you can see, it went down a treat!

Update on Monday, March 8, 2010 by Simon Clark

PS. I almost didn't make it to the studio in time. I went to the WRONG address because no-one told me that the BBC had moved to new premises (the other side Cambridge) three months ago!

So there I was, standing outside an empty building, when I got a call asking me where I was. It was 4.20 and I was due on in ten minutes!

Fortunately the producers managed to delay the item. This allowed me to drive across town as fast as I could and I was on air - slightly breathless - at 4.47.

Can you tell?

Update on Monday, March 8, 2010 by Simon Clark

I'm not sure if I should mention this but a News Channel producer later rang me and left this message:

"Simon, that was among the most entertaining pieces of TV that we've seen all day, and very informative and balanced ... We really appreciate your input, so thank you very much for participating. We really hope to do business with you again sometime soon."

I've always liked the BBC!!

Still smoking and drinking at 100

I spent £75 on Friday for permission to use this photograph, and it's worth every penny. It belongs to South West News Service (SWNS) and it appeared in the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers on Thursday.

The headline says it all – '100-year-old woman says drink and cigarettes keep her young'.

Full story HERE.

Email of the week

Occasionally we get letters or emails that I can't work out. Is the sender serious? Is it a wind-up? Or has it been planted by the anti-smoking lobby to catch us out? (I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I do sometimes wonder.)

This week we received the following email, allegedly from a secondary school teacher in Surrey:

Hello Forest, as a group tutor I am going to be talking to my 17-18 year old students about the health effects of smoking. Can you advise me on what positive advice I can give to my students to continue to smoke, or to begin smoking?

My wife, who is a teacher herself, suggests that I ignore it.

This media bias really hacks me off

Woke up this morning to find the following story all over the media: "Ash calls for 5% increase in tobacco tax" (BBC News), "Call for 5% rise in tobacco tax" (Press Association), "Anti-smoking group urges 5% rise tobacco tax" (ITN News).

All these stories read like an ASH press release. There is not a single comment opposing the idea of a tax increase on tobacco (large or otherwise). Click on the image above to see the ITN report. It's a classic piece of propaganda. Goerbals Goebbels would be proud.

You would think, at the very least, that someone would have spoken to the Tobacco Manufacturers Association (if not Forest) because the TMA does a lot of lobbying on this issue.

But no.

So, this morning, between eight and nine, while you were asleep or munching on your Weetabix, muggins here has been ringing around the BBC, the Press Association etc to complain (in the nicest possible way) about what I can only call the institutionalised bias that is once again evident in the smoking debate.

Of course it's too late for this story but this sort of thing makes me so cross it actually makes me even more determined never to give up.

Update on Saturday, March 6, 2010 by Simon Clark

For the benefit of any journalist or politician reading this (no, I haven't completely lost my mind - Vince Cable is one of Forest's followers on Twitter!), here is my response to ASH's call for a five per cent hike in tobacco taxation:

"The only people who will benefit from raising tobacco taxation are the criminal gangs who will smuggle millions of cheap cigarettes into the country from Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

"These cigarettes, some of them counterfeit, will go on the black market where they will be sold in pubs and on street corners, often to children.

"As a result of smuggling the Treasury could lose up to £3 billion a year, which the country can ill afford in the present economic climate.

"Raising taxation on tobacco hits the elderly and the low paid the hardest. Why should they be discriminated against?"

Update on Saturday, March 6, 2010 by Simon Clark

09:26 ... The Press Association has just sent me an email: "Your statement is now running on the PA wires". Thanks but unfortunately it's too late. The story has already run.

09:36 ... The BBC says it will update its report to include a quote from Forest but no sign of it so far.

10:13 ... I have just emailed the BBC to ask them to let me know when they will be updating their story to include our response. I hope I don't have to phone the newsdesk again. This is the weekend, for heaven's sake!

10:40 ... BBC story updated HERE.

Time for a strong coffee and the Saturday Telegraph. Damn, I've missed most of Danny Baker on Five Live!

Update on Saturday, March 6, 2010 by Simon Clark

I should have kept my mouth shut. I have just been asked to take part in a discussion on this issue at 4.00 4.45pm on the BBC News Channel. (According to a producer, I have been invited "in the interests of balance".)

So now I have to drive to the BBC studio in Cambridge. The original plan - a late lunch and a quiet afternoon in Ely - has been shelved. I am not very popular at home!

Nick Hogan - target reached!!!

I am delighted to report that our combined efforts to raise £8,669 to release former landlord Nick Hogan from jail have succeeded. And it took less than seven days. Old Holborn has an update HERE.

Please note: the nature of PayPal is such that it will take a few working days to access the money - and as I reported a couple of days ago, the authorities want the money in cash before they will release Nick.

Everything has gone very smoothly. Anna Raccoon, who wrote the post that kick started the campaign last Saturday, has spoken every day to Nick's wife Denise. Nick too has been kept informed and all is well. We look forward to seeing him when he is released next week.

Congratulations to Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn for a fantastic effort, and thanks to everyone who made a donation or publicised the campaign on their blog or website.

More to follow next week when Nick is released from jail. The process is well under way. Please be patient - and please leave everything to OH and Anna Raccoon.

PS. As Anna says elsewhere, thanks too to Guido Fawkes for help with the final push.

Woo-hoo!! Government unblocks Forest website

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Conservative party chairman Francis Maude had tabled a question in which he asked the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to explain why "websites featuring tobacco content are banned; if he will give examples of the types of tobacco sites which are banned; and whether the internet ban includes the Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) website".

Hansard has just published the reply from Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South and Minister for Sport in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It reads (wait for it):

Mr. Sutcliffe: The filtering software used by my Department has a standard range of categories that are blocked by default. Filtering is switched off for those categories that are directly related to the work of my Department, currently tobacco remains blocked. The tobacco category covers tobacco promotional websites such as www.marlboro.com.

The Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) website was inadvertently covered by this category by default. It has been unblocked.

Woo-hoo!!

PS. To see what other sites the Department of Culture, Media and Sport blocks click HERE.

Nick Hogan - every little helps

You could be forgiven for thinking that it's gone a bit quiet on the Nick Hogan front - and it's true that donations have temporarily stalled - but behind the scenes a lot has been going on (not all of it welcome, I have to say).

Old Holborn posted THIS update last night. Donations currently total £6,224 and if Nick is to be released early next week we need another £2,500.

If you haven't contributed yet, or if you can afford to make a further donation, however small, please do so TODAY. Every little helps. Click HERE.

This morning we will be sending a second email to Forest subscribers, many of whom have already been very generous (see HERE). We will also be emailing the 2,500 registered supporters of the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign. Fingers crossed, we can reach our target very soon.

PS. I spoke to the prison yesterday on OH's behalf and was told that Nick will be released within two hours of the money being provided in CASH. Seriously. They won't accept any other form of payment. Welcome to 21st century Britain.

Update on Thursday, March 4, 2010 by Simon Clark

Guido Fawkes is running the story HERE. I'd give the comments a miss, though.

Update on Thursday, March 4, 2010 by Simon Clark

12:47 ... Great news. A combination of this morning's emails and Guido's support has resulted in a surge of donations. Current total is £7,571, an increase of £1,500 in just three hours ...

Smoker given four year jail sentence

The BBC is reporting that "A man who pushed a woman on to a live railway track after a row about him smoking has been jailed for four years." I'm sure we all remember this story and nothing (I repeat, nothing) can excuse a reckless and potentially fatal assault.

But there's something about this incident - and the outcome - that worries me. It doesn't excuse what followed, but I can't imagine anything more priggish than walking up to someone in the open air and asking them not to smoke (unless you are paid to do so).

According to Linda Buchanan, "My intention was only ever to politely explain ... that it is against the law to smoke at this station."

But this is what she actually said to carpenter Ionel Rapisca: "I don't like the smell of cancer."

Sentencing him, the judge told Rapisca, "You could easily have killed this victim." He's right, which is why I can't condone Rapisca's reaction.

But I hope the judge took into account the fact that Rapisca "dragged her [back] on to the platform" and he and his brother-in-law, who was with him, "retrieved her mobile phone before both men fled".

I wasn't there, but does that sound like the behaviour of two complete thugs?

In a written statement Buchanan said, "I am delighted with the result of the court case today and glad to have closure after 18 months ... This had a major impact on my life and I now look forward to moving on to the next chapter."

I wonder how Ionel Rapisca feels about the next chapter of his life. After all, until Linda Buchanan stuck her nose in, he was doing nothing more than smoking a cigarette in the open air.

Today he's behind bars.

Full story HERE.

When Eamonn met Brian

In his new book The Alternative Manifesto (published on 25 February) Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute has an entire chapter devoted to the subject of 'the bully state'. He mentions Brian's book (see previous post) and says of the author:

Small, round, avuncular, ever smiling and with an enormous delight in causing mischief, he entered Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University thinking he was a leftie before he realised that he had been a libertarian all along.

He decided to promote those ideas through a career in (Conservative) politics, though his colleagues in the Scottish Parliament did not always share his delight in mischief. Now he has made a new career as an energetic and skilful campaigner for The Free Society and other bodies that support the cause of personal freedom ...

"Today's politicians," he tells me over a pint of heavy in a well-known Edinburgh watering hole, "say we are mature enough to elect them into office, but not mature enough to decide for ourselves what we should eat, drink, smoke or drive.

"They have given officials draconian powers of entry and surveillance to terrorise householders into using the right rubbish bin and to force shopkeepers into hiding their cigarette stocks under the counter.

"In many places you cannot even have a glass of wine at an open-air picnic. And it is not just a left-wing thing - politicians of all colours seem to want to bully us into doing things their way."

The Alternative Manifesto will be reviewed shortly on The Free Society website. A reception to marks its publication takes place in London next week.

The Bully State: another view

Published late last year by The Free Society, The Bully State continues to attract interest while the phrase "the bully state" - coined by Ranald MacDonald of Boisdale following a particularly boisterous Forest event in Bournemouth in 2006 - is increasingly being adopted by other writers, journalists and bloggers.

Written by former Conservative MSP Brian Monteith, The Bully State was recently reviewed by a readers group featuring the likes of Brendan O'Neil, editor of the online magazine Spiked, and Austin Williams, director of the Future Cities Project.

Now Suzy Dean, founder of To The Point and a member of the Manifesto Club, has written a review which is interesting because it reflects what I guess is the view of the libertarian left.

She writes:

The Bully State’s biggest disappointment is that it does not really explain why there has been a ‘creep of lifestyle control’. In his introduction Monteith asks why politicians are such liberty takers but never really answers this question. Although in one breath Monteith makes the point that ‘it is politicians of all parties who are to blame’ he more often links the development of increased government interference and policing of private lives to socialism and the welfare state, which he refers to as a cost of welfarism.

Monteith gives lifestyle interventionism an ideological backbone when he associates it with the ‘social democrat who, in employing centralised planning of the state…incrementally removes our freedoms’. Yet in associating increased regulation of our private lives with ‘socialists of varying hues’, Monteith fails to acknowledge the lifestyle interventions introduced by the right and so fails to analyse the development of lifestyle interventions and new authoritarianism as a trend in itself.

Monteith ignores Thatcher’s introduction of seat belt law and moralisation around AIDS/promiscuous sex – which was the first apparently evidence based panic undertaken in a style not dissimilar to the way in which the passive smoking junk science was used to justify the smoking ban. The consequence of blaming the left is that Monteith does not allow himself the room to explore where and why the trend towards increased intervention has emerged.

Full review HERE.

Chris Snowdon previously reviewed the book HERE.

Get Nick out for No Smoking Day!

At nine o'clock this morning donations to secure Nick Hogan's release stood at £5,029.50. Some people are speculating that he could be out within 24 hours but I would caution against excessive optimism. The finishing line is in sight but we're only half way towards the target.

We'll see what happens today when the initial euphoria dies down, but my guess is that it will be difficult to maintain the same momentum we had yesterday - unless one of the major, largely libertarian bloggers like Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale or even Devil's Kitchen gets behind the campaign.

In my view a more realistic target for Nick's release is No Smoking Day (Wednesday 10th March). That may seem a lifetime away but imagine the photo opportunity!

Just a thought.

Update on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by Simon Clark

Old Holborn has an update HERE. As I predicted, the donation rate has dropped sharply today - not helped, perhaps, by the suggestion that donations could be used for something other than Nick's early release.

"Help get Nick Hogan released" - that's what we urged Forest subscribers in an email yesterday afternoon, and many of them rallied to the cause in the belief that getting him out of jail was the sole purpose of the fund.

Libertarians ... like herding cats.

The true cost of the public smoking ban

Patricia Gidlow grew up in a pub and she used to work in pubs and bars, servicing fruit machines and pool tables. A couple of weeks ago she received Forest's monthly newsletter and wrote to us saying, "Thanks for your email. I was beginning to feel like the only body who cares anymore."

This morning Save Our Pubs and Clubs supporter Sean Spillane (who used to run Luton Social Club) sent me the response he received to an email he sent John Healey (the so-called minister for pubs) concerning the impact of the smoking ban.

Written by someone called Suzanne Walpole of the Planning for Business Team (Communities and Local Government), it reads:

Ministers recognise the important role pubs can play in maintaining community life and there is concern across Government about the number of community pubs that have been forced to close during the recession. Ministers are determined to tackle this and give them a helping hand during these tough economic times.

However, there is no evidence showing that smoke-free laws, either in this country or internationally, have caused the closure of pubs or bars and by far the biggest drivers of success in the pub trade go well beyond the fact that pubs are now free from second-hand tobacco smoke. Indeed, there are some indicators that the smoke-free law has been good for pubs, especially where they have diversified, for example by serving food.

No evidence? Patricia Gidlow would beg to differ. She writes:

Post ban the income from the [fruit] machines dropped drastically; the pubs were all empty with the non-smokers and smokers all outside often causing noise problems in their neighbourhoods ...

I was made redundant last July. I wonder how many other job losses are a direct result of the ban. There's the licensees, the bar staff, cellar and kitchen staff, cleaners, window cleaners, dray men, deliverers of crisps etc, the sanitary disposal bods, bottled gas deliverers, engineers to fix machines, collectors to empty and upgrade them.

And other suppliers from glasses and optics to janitors' supplies and drip mats. Not to mention the bar fitters and carpet layers, the decorators and the gardeners. I wonder how many of them are feeling healthier? I am certainly not.

Full article on The Free Society website HERE.