With the Labour Party conference taking place in Liverpool this week, I’m reminded of a fringe event, hosted by Forest and the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union (CIU), that took place in the city 15 years ago.

Organised to promote the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign, we joined forces with the CIU because we knew that hosting an event under the Forest banner was unlikely to attract a large number of Labour delegates, especially if the party declined to include the event in the fringe listings, which is what happened in Manchester the previous year.

If you have not already done so, you have until 11.59pm on Friday to respond to the Government's latest tobacco and nicotine-related consultation.

Bizarrely, some of the proposals could result in further restrictions on the sale and marketing of vapes and other reduced risk products including heated tobacco, but what has gone largely under the radar, until recently, is the potential impact on cigars.

I know I do a lot of looking back on this blog. I think it’s probably an age thing but it’s not deliberate. More often than not I hear or read something which prompts a memory I then write about.

Two weeks ago, for example, there was an item hosted by Adrian Chiles on Five Live concerning students going off to college for the first time. That, in turn, reminded me that 50 years ago I experienced my own first week at university.

The Great British Pub Awards took place this week and the overall winner was the Tamworth Tap in Staffordshire.

My interest in the awards goes back to a three-year period (2011-2013) when I was on the panel of judges that chose the winner of the Best Smoking Area award, a category that was sponsored by JTI and Forest’s Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign.

I was on GB News this morning discussing the Conservative Party’s plan to ban benefits claimants from spending their welfare payments on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.

According to the Telegraph, Kemi Badenoch says the proposed reforms would be tough on those who exploit the system because welfare has become a “lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered”.

This week Chester is hosting the 2026 World Town Crier Tournament. I’m familiar with the city because, six years ago, my mother moved to Chester to be close to my sister who has lived there for almost 30 years.

Interestingly (for me at least), the tournament is being hosted by David Mitchell, the city’s own town crier, who I interviewed in 1995 when he was the deputy town crier.

I was interested to read that Guardian Jobs, the Guardian’s recruitment platform, is closing after 25 years, with the paper citing ‘a “fundamental shift” in the UK’s jobs landscape’. According to the trade magazine Press Gazette:

‘The Guardian launched one of the UK’s first online recruitment sites in 1996 and Guardian Jobs went live five years later … At the time of writing there remain almost 15,000 job listings on the site across key categories including media, education, government, charities, marketing, social care and arts.’

Postscript to Reform UK’s annual conference in Birmingham.

Greeting delegates as they entered the main hall was a stand dubbed ‘Labour’s Inconvenience Store: for a blander, safer, nanny state’.

Featuring a series of ‘nanny state’ warnings plus products, including crisps and drinks, ‘mocked up in cigarette-style plain packaging’, it was a neat if not exactly original idea designed to promote a series of messages including ‘Plain packaging, plain thinking’ and ‘The nanny state is coming for you’.