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Winston Churchill’s Family Speaks Out Against UK Anti-Smoking Laws

Par La rédaction,
le 28 August 2026

“My grandfather loved cigars, and no doubt he would have violently disapproved of any alteration such as this,” says Lord Soames, Winston Churchill’s grandson.

 

Sir Winston Churchill would have “violently disapproved” of the plain packaging for cigars proposed by the Labour Party, his grandson Lord Soames told the British daily The Telegraph.

Lord Soames added that reports regarding the impact on small retailers were “concerning,” noting that his family—including his mother, Mary Soames, the youngest daughter of Winston and Clementine Churchill—had been customers of the James J. Fox shop in St James’s, London, for generations. “My family have always used them: my father and grandfather and even my late mother bought cigars – she did not like the nanny state”

“I cannot say what [my grand-father] would say about it as he has been dead for more than 60 years, but he loved cigars and no doubt he would have violently disapproved of any alteration such as this,” he added, as reported by The Telegraph.

In the same article, American influencer and cigar enthusiast Kirby Allison also believes Sir Winston would “absolutely turn in his grave over all this”—referring to the proposal for plain packaging across all tobacco products, currently under consultation: “Packaging is where you see the expression of history in the labels and the artwork and the beauty of them. To take all of that away would be like telling Winston Churchill he should drink his favorite champagne out of a paper milk jug.”