“There are too many bossy people in England. It was one of the reasons I started spending more time in Normandy. Bossy people are humourless. This is just madness to me. Why can’t Mr Sunak leave the smokers alone?” says famous artist David Hockney in an article he published in the Sunday Times in which he opposes Rishi Sunak’s plan to phase out smoking in the UK by a generational ban on buying tobacco that would gradually increase the age limit of eligibility.
Continuing in his article “Sunak says smoking kills — but guess what, we’ll all die anyway” the famous painter says “In 2005 I fought to stop the ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants. At the Labour party conference I held up a card saying ‘DEATH awaits you all even if you do not smoke’.” remembering his participation which he repeated with other means in the Forest event in the Labour Party Conference of 2005.
In 2013 Hockney wrote the foreword and drew the pictures of the book “Unlucky Strike – Private Health and the science, law and politics of smoking” by John Staddon of Buckinghamshire University which was presented in 2014 by Forest smokers’ rights group and argues against bans and excessive regulation.
David Hockney is the greatest living British artist, who lives off the coast of Normandy in France and has been smoking for 60 years since he was 18 in high school. He buys Davidoff cigarettes from Germany to avoid the high price the French version of the antismoking campaign has imposed through taxation and plain packaging against which the manufacturer Imperial Tobacco fought hard to preserve the tradition and the history of the product.
“You’re too bossy, chum… People don’t want to live like you do.” David Hockney said to a health undersecretary before the smoking ban in 2005. “Death awaits you whether you smoke or not. You cannot have a smoke free bohemia. Without a bohemia you pay a heavy price. Picasso smoked until he was about 98 and so did Matisse. I smoke for my mental health, so do most people actually. If they are not on it what replaces it? Antidepressants? I’d prefer a cigarette. If it kills me next week, I don’t care. Not everyone can live to be 100. My mother did and she told me it wasn’t too much fun. I am glad of the tobacco manufacturers. I am a big customer of theirs. They make a good vegetarian product. It used to be wanking that caused blindness.” commented David Hockney in 2005.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 