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• Celebrity chef attacks smoking ban 

Antony Worrall Thompson has said that the impending smoking ban is an "infringement of civil liberties" and that pro-smoking campaigners will "fight on" after the July 1 ban.

Speaking before the Revolt In Style Dinner at the Savoy hotel in London, the television chef and restaurateur insisted that smoking is a sociable activity and that the Irish ban had merely driven people on to the streets.

"If you go to Dublin, everybody is out on the pavement - including the non-smokers," he said, adding that the ban was the "start of a slippery slope".

"Tonight's a celebration, it's not a wake, and we intend to fight on and hope one day that we'll be able to get exemption licences. It's an infringement of civil liberties, really. . . .

Simon Clark, director of pressure group Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco), was telling the event's 400 guests that "we have won the battle but we haven't lost the war".

He said say: "We urge the Government to amend the legislation to allow designated smoking rooms in some pubs and allow private clubs to devise a policy on smoking in accordance with their members' wishes."

Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas, was saying: "It is a sign of our small-minded times when the most exciting new idea to come out of politics is banning smoking.

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Smokers in last gasp stand on ban 

Smokers' rights campaigners are to make a last stand against the 1 July ban in England by urging the government to make some exceptions.

Lobby group Forest will call for legal amendments so some pubs and private clubs can provide smoking areas.

Forest director Simon Clark will tell 400 guests at the Revolt in Style dinner in London: "We have lost the battle, but we haven't lost the war."

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Smoking ban - "exclude bingo and clubs"  

Make bingo halls and private members' clubs in Scotland exempt from the smoking ban - that’s the rallying cry from pro-smoking lobby group Forest.

A poll, carried out by Populus for Forest, revealed that 74% of adults in Scotland believe that private clubs, including working men’s clubs, should be allowed to provide a well ventilated smoking room.

Two-thirds of adults (66%) believe that bingo halls should also be allowed the same privilege.

"The ban has been in force for a year now and most people still feel that places like private clubs should be able to permit smoking in separate well ventilated rooms," said Forest’s Neil Rafferty.

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BINGO CALL FOR PUFFERS 

CAMPAIGNERS yesterday called for private clubs and bingo halls to be exempt from the public smoking ban in the wake of a survey. . . .

Smokers' rights group FOREST commissioned a poll of 1004 adults, 46 per cent of whom had never smoked.

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• Scots 'back smoke ban exemptions' 

Three quarters of people in Scotland believe there should be exemptions to the smoking ban, a poll has suggested.

The Populus survey, for the pro-smoking group Forest, revealed 74% of 1,004 people surveyed thought private clubs should be allowed smoking rooms.

It comes a week ahead of the ban's first anniversary, and found that the same percentage backed the idea of specialist smokers' clubs.

But Health Minister Andy Kerr said the ban had been "a resounding success".

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House of Commons Hansard Debates for 05 Dec 2006 (pt 0012) 

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Ivan Lewis): The Conservative party has no shame whatever. . . .

In The House Magazine, the organisation Forest recently had an advert saying, “No thanks” to the nanny state, which, it says, tells people not to eat, drink, smoke or think. It attacks politicians for having a dialogue with people about responsible approaches to their health. Big government, it says, is watching. It says, “Eat, drink and smoke.” At the Conservative party conference in Bournemouth, however, almost 400 people tried to get into Forest’s fringe meeting, and hospital staff were forced to turn people away, citing health and safety reasons.

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Formula One Racing Severs Many Tobacco Ties  

The flurry of activity comes as Formula One draws ever closer to ending its long-term relationship with tobacco companies. With regulators in Europe and elsewhere moving to close some of the last loopholes that permitted cigarette companies to sponsor auto racing, the hundreds of millions of dollars that these brands used to lavish on Formula One are dwindling.

As of next season, two tobacco brands that have long been high-profile Formula One sponsors will be out of the circuit. Mild Seven, owned by Japan Tobacco, has ended its relationship with the Renault team, while a deal between British American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike brand and the Honda team has also expired. Other cigarette brands, like West and Benson & Hedges, previously bowed out.

Tobacco brands had been willing to pay a premium for these sponsorships because Formula One was one of the last marketing options left for the industry. With that money now disappearing, some teams feared a financing crisis. Instead, analysts say, as racing executives prepare to gather next week in Monaco for a conference on the commercial side of the sport, the sponsorship market looks surprisingly healthy.

The departure of the tobacco brands may actually have helped to attract a new kind of marketer

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• Nine out of 10 Scots say smoke ban has gone far enough, poll reveals 

Almost nine out of 10 Scots believe the current smoking ban has gone far enough, according to a new poll.

The research conducted by Populus for smokers’ lobby group FOREST showed that 87 per cent of the Scottish public were opposed to any further restrictions.

It also revealed that a majority were also against a ban on smoking outside pub and clubs (61 per cent), on beaches (61 per cent) and places of work (61 per cent).

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• Give up or we won't operate, smokers told  

Smokers will be denied life-changing operations unless they agree to kick the habit, it was revealed today.

Cash-strapped hospitals say patients will not be given treatments such as hip and knee replacements until they try to give up. Those who fail could be denied treatment all together.

Managers in Norfolk and Newcastle, where trusts are millions of pounds in debt, say smokers are at a greater risk of complications and the move will help save them money on further care.

But critics accused them of putting its finances before the health of its patients - and warned it could lead to surgeons being "brow-beaten" into breaking the Hippocratic Oath. . . .

Smokers, however, claim they are being discriminated against. Neil Rafferty, of the pro-smoking pressure group Forest, said: "This is blackmail, pure and simple.

"Smokers pay their taxes like everyone else. In fact, because of the very high duty on tobacco, they probably pay a lot more tax than the average person.

"They are entitled to free healthcare and health trusts do not have the right to make up conditions."

Other critics say that while there are valid medical reasons for recommending smokers quit before an operation, finances, should not play a part in the decision to operate.

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Lord Harris Of High Cross 

He was chairman and, in 2003, president of Forest - the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco.

He was no mere frontman for Forest either. In 2005 he wrote a well-researched refutation of the Chief Medical Officer's pronouncements on passive smoking entitled "Smoking out the Truth". In this he declared: "The imposition of a ban on smoking in so-called public places represents a triumph of prejudice and propaganda masquerading as science." He added, ". . . hatred of cancer is no excuse for hatred of smokers nor for stirring up the wholly phantom fear of passive smoking especially by cynical politicians to whip up support for illiberal, intolerant policies of prohibition."

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Pro-smoking group calls for tax breaks for shelters 

Pro-smoking group FOREST is calling on the government to offer tax breaks to businesses, including pubs and restaurants, that want to erect high quality outdoor smoking shelters.

“Forcing smokers outside and denying them any comfort or shelter would be a real kick in the teeth,” said FOREST director Simon Clark. “Some people may jump at the chance to give up smoking, but many more will resent being treated like lepers.

“Tax breaks for smoking shelters would not only suggest some level of compassion towards smokers, a quarter of the adult population, but it would be also be good for pubs and restaurants who might otherwise lose business if smokers choose either to stay at home or spend less time on the premises.

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Free-marketeer Lord Harris dies 

Lord Harris of High Cross, pioneer of Thatcherism and outspoken eurosceptic, has died at the age of 81.

His death on Thursday was announced by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) where he was a founding director from 1956 to his retirement in 1988.

He had suffered a suspected heart attack at his north London home.

Ralph Harris was the first lord appointed by Margaret Thatcher and sat as a cross-bencher. He was also president of smokers' group Forest. . . .

Describing himself as a "lifelong pipe-man", he was an enthusiastic supporter of smokers' rights, writing numerous essays and even a book, Murder A Cigarette, in 1998.

He also campaigned against banning smoking in public places.

He once said: "A lot of people fulfil themselves through sucking at their pipes or smoking their fags. It's part of their personality."

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• Lord Harris of High Cross 

The Lord Harris of High Cross, who died yesterday aged 81, was, with Arthur Seldon, one of the founders of the Institute of Economic Affairs, and perhaps the most successful polemicist of the second half of the 20th century, retrieving and advancing free-market ideas which were initially deeply out of favour and providing the intellectual basis for Margaret Thatcher's reforms of the 1980s. . . .

Harris's other great campaign was for the rights of smokers.

He was chairman of and the prime mover in Forest (the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco), and a member of the Lords and Commons Pipesmokers Club. He was seldom seen without a pipe clenched between his teeth – "You'll like this," he would assure non-smokers around him as he lit up, "it's a meerschaum" – and usually had a couple more in his pockets, in case of emergency.

When in 1995 Network SouthEast introduced a smoking ban on the London to Brighton route, a group of commuters commandeered a carriage and continued to light up. Harris was tireless in raising the subject in newspapers and in the Lords, and produced a 22-page report urging the company to reinstate a smoking carriage.

He then convened a meeting in a pub near Victoria station and heard evidence from both sides in the dispute. "BR is indicted in my view of skulduggery," he declared, pouring particular scorn on a survey which purported to show overwhelming support for the ban.

He was equally sceptical of the claims of the medical establishment that passive smoking was a significant threat to health, publicly challenging the chief medical officer to produce any evidence of harm in a piece entitled Smoking Out the Truth. In 1998 he produced Murder a Cigarette, which was devoted both to extolling the joys of tobacco and casting doubt on the scientific evidence of its dangers.

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Lord Harris 'architect of Thatcherism' dies, aged 81 

LORD Harris of High Cross, one of the most outspoken eurosceptics, died yesterday, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) announced, after suffering a suspected heart attack at his home in London. He was 81.

Lord Harris, who was founding director of the IEA, sat as a cross-bencher in the House of Lords and was a close friend of Baroness Thatcher.

He also served as a president of Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) and campaigned against legislation banning smoking in public places.

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• Lord Harris of Highcross, economist, dies aged 81  

Ralph Harris, the free marketeer, euro-sceptic and peer who was one of founding thinkers of Thatcherism, has died. He was 81.

Lord Harris of High Cross died at his home in north London after a suspected heart attack. . . .

In later years, Harris was to be heard speaking out against plans to regulate smoking as often as he voiced his opposition to the spread and deepening of the EU. A pipe smoker, he served as a president of Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco).

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