Keir Starmer made me take up smoking

Sifting for new ideas at the bottom of an ashtray

ABOUT TWENTY YEARS AGO, the (alleged) philosopher and High Tory kitchen-mop-imitator Roger Scruton was paid £4,500 per month to smuggle references to cigarettes and smoking into his writing, and for encouraging other writers to do the same. When this undeclared lobbying on behalf of Japan Tobacco International was revealed, Scruton was gruffly sacked fr…