I was sadder than you might expect to read that Graham MacGregor has died, aged 84. The Telegraph focuses on his anti-salt advocacy, but you probably know him better for setting up Action on Sugar.
We sparred on TV and radio many times and I was always happy to let him talk because he was so zealous in his campaigning and so extreme in his demands that it could only put the median voter off. He was a fanatic and he didn't try to hide it. I don't mind that. I prefer a sincere crank to a fanatic who pretends to be a moderate. You knew where you were with Graham. Most of what he said was deranged and he told some outright lies, but he was upfront about his longterm goals, such as plain packaging for chocolate and halving the amount of sugar in all foods.
He was also, I think, an eccentric, and at least eccentrics are colourful. He said something to me once that gave me the strong impression that he was right-wing, which would certainly make him an eccentric in 'public health' circles. His accent and appearance were more military than medical, but he was a proper medical doctor and, as far I can tell, he never profited personally from Action on Sugar.
In 2014, we both appeared on 'Alan's Ding Dong', a Partridge-esque feature of the Alan Titchmarsh Show, to debate the merits of a sugar tax in front of an audience of pensioners who had been bussed in from middle England. It went to a public vote in which the audience were invited to hold up a yellow paddle if they were opposed to the idea. As you can see from the photo below, you should never get between OAPs and their sugar.
I also remember MacGregor and fellow nanny statist Susan Jebb shouting at each other at the 2015 Sugar Summit. I couldn't hear exactly what was being said but it started after Jebb accused him of using "loose words" and "factual inaccuracies" on stage.
I only had a private conversation with him a couple of times, but when we were chatting before doing the Spectator podcast in 2017, he told me with some reluctance that he had agreed with every word of an article I had recently written (unfortunately I can't remember which one). When I asked him about the departure of Aseem Malhotra from Action on Sugar, MacGregor called him "bonkers" and was just getting into his stride when he stopped himself said "Anyway, I'm not going to talk about Aseem - especially to you!"
I met him again at a small conference held by the sugar industry in a London hotel. MacGregor was only required for a panel on public health late in the afternoon but he turned up for the whole thing and ended up listening to industry folk talking about things like fertilisers, the climate and other issues that affect sugar farmers. After a dry and detailed discussion of the global sugar market from an American speaker via videolink, MacGregor raised his hand to talk about how sugar taxes and food reformulation were sweeping the world and asked how the industry was going to cope with the inevitable downturn in sales. The American looked rather baffled and said that he was not projecting any decline in sugar consumption.
His legacy was mostly malign and a lot of what he said was objectively wrong, but I could never bring myself to hate the old boy. At least he was a character. RIP.
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