As some of you know, I am a huge fan of XTC, the title of whose first hit single in 1979 is currently being banded around as part of a bizarre dispute between Reform's Nigel Farage and the Green Party’s Zack Polanski.

As I understand it, Polanski shared a social media post that included multiple images from a Green Party event, one of which was a photo of a man wearing a t-shirt that featured an illustration of a French-style guillotine accompanied by the words ‘We’re only making plans for Nigel’.

It was reported last week that Restore Britain, the ‘far right’ party led by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, supports separate smoking rooms in pubs.

Headlines suggested the party ‘wants to bring back smoking in pubs’ which was technically true, but the proposal is actually a little more nuanced than that.

Just back from a seven-day cruise aboard Cunard’s Queen Victoria.

We flew to Rome and boarded the ship at the port of Civitavecchia, which is about an hour’s drive from the airport. First stop was Livorno (Italy), followed by a day at sea, then La Seine-sur-Mer (France), Ajaccio (Corsica), another day at sea, and, finally, Valencia (Spain) before we disembarked at Barcelona and caught our flight home to Gatwick.

I’m currently reading Iain Dale’s very enjoyable memoir, Have I Said Too Much? My Life in Politics and the Media.

Today Iain is arguably best known as a political commentator and the presenter of a long-running show on LBC, but his career has taken numerous twists and turns, and there have been so many ups and downs (and tears!) it’s hard to know where to start.

A few weeks ago someone suggested I might like to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) currently taking place in London.

CPAC is an American organisation whose conferences bring a touch of American razzle-dazzle to the political sphere. The GB version – led by Liz Truss – was supposed to bring the same energy to the UK but I wasn’t really attracted by the list of speakers.

The 2026 edition of Smoke Signals, the annual newsletter of the Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipe Makers & Tobacco Blenders, was published on July 1 and includes a feature about the generational tobacco ban.

Written by Fran Morrison, former head of corporate communications at British American Tobacco and, before that, a presenter on Reporting Scotland, BBC Scotland’s early evening news programme, it features several quotes by me plus the results of some polling commissioned by Forest last year.

I was sorry to hear that Ken Bates, the former chairman of Chelsea Football Club, had died, albeit at the grand old age of 94.

In September 2000 I interviewed Bates for Freedom Today, the Freedom Association magazine I edited for two years before I was sacked for being too libertarian. (Seriously.)

Last month I recorded an interview for BBC Look North (about hospital smoking bans) but they sat on the story for three weeks until it was broadcast on July 2 when it was also reported on the BBC News website.

It followed reports that, despite declaring its five hospital sites ‘smoke free’, the Humber Health Partnership (HHP) seems to be fighting a losing battle because people continue to smoke on the grounds “despite repeated warnings and multiple public appeals”.