About the author

Simon Clark is director of the smokers’ lobby group Forest.

Born in London in 1959, his father worked at the Nestlé chocolate factory in Hayes. The family lived in nearby Harlington before moving to Maidenhead in Berkshire in 1963. In 1969, after his his father was sent to manage a Nestlé-owned factory in Dundee, the family moved to Wormit in north Fife, overlooking the River Tay.

After attending secondary school in St Andrews from 1970 to 1976, Simon went to Aberdeen University where he studied English Literature, played hockey for the university, and co-edited Campus, an independent student newspaper. He graduated in 1980 and got a job in London with KH Publicity, a PR company. He then worked for another PR company, Michael Forsyth Associates, before leaving in December 1982 to try his luck as a freelance journalist.

After relaunching Campus as a national student magazine in 1983, he produced and edited a number of magazines including the Mensa Magazine for British Mensa, and Capital Account for the London Society of Chartered Accountants. He later edited Freedom Today for The Freedom Association and The Politico for Politicos Bookshop in Westminster.

For five years (1985-1990) he was also director of the Media Monitoring Unit which monitored current affairs programmes for political bias.

Simon joined Forest in 1999 and has been writing this blog since March 26, 2007. The original site (2007-2011) can be found here. In January 2011 it was redesigned and relaunched, and this site was launched in June 2025.