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January 2nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
Gareth Finighan
Last updated at 9:45 PM on 1st January 2012
Under fire: Health Minister Lord Howe
Plans to ban cigarette displays in shops were disrupted after a Tory peer contacted a lobbying group for a major tobacco firm, it has been claimed.
And the relationship between ministers and groups representing the interests of powerful industries has now been called into question after emails between Lord Howe and Philip Morris International were leaked.
The correspondence shows that the hereditary peer wrote to Gardant – the Westminster lobbyist for tobacco giant PMI – in March 2009, forwarding a letter from anti-smoking campaigners.
According to a report in today’s
Observer, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) had written to the
then-Shadow Health Minister warning that planned legislation to sell
cigarettes in plain packets risked being bypassed by unscrupulous
tobacco manufacturers taking advantage of loopholes in trading laws.
Just
two days before the House of Lords was to debate the legislation on
March 9, 2009, Lord Howe forwarded the letter to Gardant, asking for a
reaction to ASH’s claims. Within 24 hours, Morris executives were able
to provide the peer with a briefing – just ahead of the crucial Lords
debate.
According to the
newspaper, the Shadow Minister, alongside Labour peer Lord Borrie,
subsequently attended a series of private meetings with Gardant to
discuss how the new legislation could be amended.
And the emails – leaked by a PMI whistleblower – also reveal that Lord Howe intended to kill the proposal for a display ban.
One
memo between PMI and Gardant reads: ‘Earl Howe and the Conservative
party are determined to challenge the POS display ban outright at the
next stage.’
The emails also
show how manufacturers were behind a campign claiming that a display
ban would harm retailers. Cigarette manufacturers ploughed money into
organisations such as the National Federation of Retail Newsagents,
which later warned that commercial factors needed to ‘outweigh other
criteria’ when the new law was being considered.
Up in smoke: Cigarette manufacturers launched an aggressive campaign to derail the anti-smoking legislation
MPs were also advised
of a poll claiming that 80 per cent of shopkeepers believed a ban would
harm their businesses. The poll was produced by a retail organisation
which is supported by the tobacco industry.
And the leaked documents also show how, just before the 2010 General Election, MPs came under further pressure from tobacco lobbyists who recommended that the proposals should be delayed.
After the Coalition came to power in May 2010, a compromise was reached whereby a display ban will be introduced in supermarkets later this year – but newsagents will not have to follow suite until 2015. A planned consultation on plain packaging has also been delayed.
Although Lord Howe denied that the delays are the result of pressure from Gardant or the tobacco industry, the Government’s relationship with lobbysists is now being questioned.
ASH chief executive Deborah Arnott told the Observer: ‘The Coalition Government has committed to live up to its legal obligations to protect its public health policy from the commercial and vested interests of the tobacco industry, but it cannot do so if industry lobbying is covert and hidden from public scrutiny.’
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