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’.

When I was a child my family rarely if ever watched ITV so sitcoms such as Man About The House starring Richard O’Sullivan largely passed me by.

Nevertheless, O’Sullivan - who died on Friday, aged 82 - was a big star in the Seventies and Eighties so I knew who he was and he always seemed extremely likeable, on and off screen.

A couple of months ago I recorded a podcast with Elise Rasmussen, founder of the World Nicotine Congress whose inaugural conference in Brussels I attended last year.

It has now been uploaded to the WNC website where you can watch it in full.

I’ve never seen The Rocky Horror Show (on stage or on screen) but I did see Tim Curry - the original Dr Frank-N-Furter who died this week - in Spamalot in 2005.

I was in New York and Spamalot was a hot ticket - so hot that it was officially sold out and I had to pay the concierge at my hotel rather more than the advertised price to see the show.

You may be aware that there is currently a ‘public’ consultation designed to elicit ‘views on proposals to regulate tobacco, vaping and nicotine products under the Tobacco and Vapes Act’. 

Vaping advocates have been vocal in their opposition to proposals that could result in further restrictions on the sale and marketing of vapes, but cigars are also under threat.