Author Archives: Rees Southern

Labour’s new vape tax is disastrous policymaking

By Rees Southern | Mon 5th October 2026 - 10:16 am

On Thursday, Labour’s new vape tax came into effect. Vaping Products Duty charges £2.20 per 10ml of vape liquid. Because VAT is charged on top of the duty, the real cost at the till is £2.64. In practice, an average £3.00 bottle of 10ml liquid will now cost £5.64, an 88% price hike.

VPZ, the UK’s largest vape retailer, surveyed 2,640 of its customers ahead of the tax coming into force and found that 63% say it will be harder for them to stay off cigarettes and tobacco, 21% say they may return to smoking, and 34% say they will look for “cheaper alternatives”, which in practice is likely to mean illicit vapes, cigarettes or tobacco.

VPZ’s own prices show the scale of the change. Its standard 10ml liquid, which cost £4.49 before the tax, now costs £7.13, a 59% increase. Its standard 100ml liquid has risen from £16.99 to £43.39, a 155% increase.

E-Cigarette Direct, one of the UK’s largest online retailers of vapes also surveyed 2,068 of its customers and found that 28% said that they would not have switched from smoking to vaping if the tax already existed, with 1 in 6 saying they are now more likely to purchase illegal products with the tax in place.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged taxation policy and vaping | 15 Comments

The hidden epidemic among our young men that nobody is talking about

By Rees Southern | Thu 12th March 2026 - 9:57 am

Young men in this country are in crisis. An increasing number are disengaged from work, education and society. An increasing number are being radicalised into the far right through social media. And an increasing number are being signed off on mental health grounds.

There are many factors behind these trends. But there is one that is barely discussed in mainstream politics, one that connects all three. It is a drug. It is not illegal to possess. It can cost as little as £3.50 per week, often purchased through apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram, and posted through Royal Mail. It is incredibly accessible and insanely cheap. It is being promoted to boys as young as 12 by influencers with tens of millions of followers. And almost nobody in our politics is talking about it. That drug is anabolic steroids.

The growth in use is being driven by an online philosophy known as the “blackpill”, promoted through TikTok under terms like “looksmaxing”. This is a part of the wider online manosphere. The blackpill claims that physical appearance is the ultimate form of status, that your looks should be your main, or only, priority, and that your appearance is the reason you lack friends, sexual relationships, financial opportunities and a more fulfilled life. It preys on the insecurities of young men and boys. One of the methods it promotes is anabolic steroids: not just to accelerate muscle growth, but on false claims that artificially elevated testosterone levels can reshape your facial structure. Google searches for “looksmax” are up 300% in the UK since 2023, with steroid-related searches up 30% over the same period.

This is not a niche corner of the internet. The hashtag “looksmax” is associated with over 500,000 videos on TikTok. “Tren” (Trenbolone), one of the most potent compounds, first developed in the 1960s to bulk up cattle, is associated with over 10.3 million videos on TikTok. Arguably the most prominent creator in this space, Clavicular (real name Braden Peters, aged 20), has accumulated 27 million likes on TikTok and earns over $110,000 per month from live streaming alone, before revenue from TikTok, YouTube, sponsorships or his paid looksmaxing course. He says he started injecting testosterone at 14. Any teenager who can navigate social media can source anabolic steroids within minutes.