DAVID CAMERON AND BIG TOBACCO; WHEN DOES EVASION BECOME A LIE?
Evasion is the least
effective of a politician’s tool kit; it is so often nakedly obvious and
irritates voters. This has not deterred David Cameron who seems to view evasion
as a cunning and subtle device for deflecting difficult questions.
Given our Prime Minister’s consistent refusal to answer a straight question on the tobacco industries involvement, if any, with the decision to drop plain packaging, I thought I would have a go my self. Well why not? I couldn’t do any worse than a string of backbenchers or professional media pundits.
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Given our Prime Minister’s consistent refusal to answer a straight question on the tobacco industries involvement, if any, with the decision to drop plain packaging, I thought I would have a go my self. Well why not? I couldn’t do any worse than a string of backbenchers or professional media pundits.
I made a Freedom of
Information request along the following lines:-
‘What representations
formal or informal had the Prime Minister received from the tobacco industry
respecting plain packaging?
What representations
formal or informal had other government ministers received from the tobacco
industry respecting plain packaging?
Fairly straight forward
questions you might think. The response I got was as clear as the Thames at low tide. I was pointed in the direction of a quote the Prime
minister made on channel 4 on 18th July:
‘The
decision was made because there was too much legal uncertainty surrounding this
issue as we stand today and there isn’t enough positive evidence, and as I
explained in the House of Commons yesterday that was the reason the last
government decided not to go ahead – ‘for the time being’ – with this issue. So
that is, I think, a very, very clear explanation, but a decision made by me. If
you don’t like the decision you should blame me or you should blame the Health
Secretary, but I haven’t been lobbied by anybody.’
The letter then goes on to
direct me to the Department of Health website, where information has been
published relating to meetings with the tobacco industry. I will come to this
information a shortly.
Leaving aside the fact
that the Prime Minister’s statement is a matter of public record and that if it
had answered my question there would have been no need for an FOI request, the
quote simply fails to answer the questions I have raised. Everything of course hangs
on the last sentence “but I haven’t been lobbied by anybody.” [my
emphasis].
Surely this statement has
to be patently untrue; if I had asked the same questions substituting Action on
Smoking and Health instead of the tobacco industry, the Prime Minister could
surely not have made such a response. Though of course if he acknowledges that
he was lobbied by anti smoking groups or the BMA it would be inconceivable that
he did not also allow himself to hear the voice of big tobacco. He could not in
truth say publicly I was only lobbied by those concerned by the damage done by
smoking. As I say simply not credible.
Everything turns then on
the Prime Minister’s use of the word lobby, and why he answers questions about ‘representations’
or ‘meetings’ with the stock response I was not lobbied.
I believe that if he came
across a representative of Gardant, the Westminster lobbying firm representing
Marlboro manufacturer Philip Morris, at a Whitehall reception, and this
representative said, “this plain packaging business is going to cost the
government a fortune, more trouble than it’s worth,” he has convinced himself
that this would not constitute lobbying. This is tricky thinking indeed. I
believe that once you have reached this level of deceit there is no turning
back, evasion becomes a way of life. I’m not sure the Prime Minister is any
longer able to make the distinction in his own mind between everyday conversation
and lobbying in. He has ceased to be a credible witness.
I did visit the Department
of Health website which is worth viewing https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/meetings-between-department-of-health-and-tobacco-companies-de766508.
One thing is clear from
the redacted minutes of the meeting with Imperial Tobacco that took place on
the 9th January this year, their terror that information disclosed
in such meeting should enter the public domain, in particular the implications
of FOI requests are worth noting. Not keen, Imperial Tobacco, on the Prime
Minister’s ‘disinfectant of sunlight.’
Big tobacco has a long
history of heavy duty lobbying and of nobbling legislation by getting at
ministers.[1]
We are asked to believe this has not happened this time. We are asked to
believe that a meeting took place in which members of the tobacco lobby got
together and said, “Listen the Prime Minister is his own man on this one, further
representations are a waste of time.”
It is certainly possible
to believe that the decision taken by the Prime Minister was indeed taken by
him alone, but to believe that he had no representations from big tobacco at
all surely stretches credulity?
[1] Though sometimes ministers
seem to sact on their own initiative see :-http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/31/health-minister-tobacco-lobby-display-ban
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