Thank you to everyone who attended our reception in the House of Commons on Wednesday. In particular, huge thanks to Giles Watling MP who stepped in at short notice to sponsor the event.

Welcoming guests to this invitation-only occasion (numbers, unfortunately, were strictly limited), Giles gave a very amusing speech, and was followed by Baroness Fox of Buckley, director of the Academy of Ideas and a non-affiliated peer, and Reem Ibrahim, communications officer at the Institute of Economic Affairs, who explained why the generational tobacco ban and the ban on disposal vapes are so ridiculous.

According to Tobacco Reporter magazine, 'The UK’s proposed generational tobacco products sales ban was variously described as nuts, insane, ludicrous, mad, illiberal, impractical and petty minded.'

That sounds about right! Full story here.

We were delighted too to welcome guests from the Adam Smith Institute, TaxPayers Alliance, Consumer Choice Center, Students for Liberty, the LSE Hayek Society, and Blue Beyond, the latter a grassroots think-tank created to engage young Conservatives in politics.

There was a broad consensus that the Government is going too far and both the ban on the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults, and the disposable vapes ban, are not only illiberal but will almost certainly prove counter-productive.

You can't do that!

There was an amusing 'incident' on our way into the Palace of Westminster when security staff confiscated our 2x2m banner featuring our campaign caricature of Rishi Sunak dressed as a nanny.

In the 'mother of parliaments', a supposed cradle of democracy, we were told: “You can’t have a banner with the prime minister pushing a pram”. How bizarre.

Clearly, security staff are unaware of Britain's centuries old tradition of using caricatures of politicians to make a serious political point.

Guido has the story here, with a quote from Forest director Simon Clark.



Our beer mats and leaflets, on the other hand, escaped similar close scrutiny, despite featuring the very same illustration as the banner. 

The beer mats proved especially popular with our guests!

For a digital copy of the leaflet, click on this link – and please forward it to anyone who might be interested, including MPs and journalists.

Let's get the message out there before the Tobacco and Vapes Bill has its first reading in parliament, probably later this month.