Antiques Roadshow expert gives Rachel Reeves advice – it's not good news for smokers

Antiques Roadshow expert Andy McConnell had some strict words of advice for Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

The BBC’s glassware expert wasn’t afraid to get political when interviewed by This is Money, who quizzed him back in 2023 about the financial advice he’d give to the Chancellor of the Exchequer – then Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt.

But since the advice was never implemented, it’s fair to say it still applies to Labour’s offering, Rachel Reeves.

Andy said: “As a smoker of 30 cigarettes a day for 50 years, I think cigarettes should cost £500 a packet. I've got emphysema now. I've smoked 490,000 fags in my lifetime and I regret it now.”

Emphysema is a chronic lung disease that damages the air sacs in the lungs, making it hard to breathe.

In the same interview, Andy was asked which “little luxuries” he likes to treat himself to – and couldn’t resist sprinkling a bit of politics in his answer.

He said: “Disappearing for six months every winter to South East Asia. It's a luxury but it is also a money-saving exercise because I don't have to pay to heat my house in winter. Last year, I went to Cambodia and Thailand, the year before that I went to India.

“I go because of Brexit – I'm so ashamed of my country and that decision, I feel I need to get out.”

He’s not the only antique expert worried about leaving the European Union. Thomas Woodham-Smith, founder of the Open Art Fair, warned in 2023 that the previous government “have basically thrown the antiques and art world to the wolves with Brexit”.

He added that in place of London, “Paris will take on pre-eminence in Europe.”