http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10326409/Labour-accepted-payments-from-tobacco-giant-as-cigarette-packaging-row-rumbles-on.html
Labour accepted payments from tobacco giant as cigarette packaging row rumbles on
The Labour Party has taken payments from the controversial tobacco giant Philip Morris and an industry pressure group lobbying against plain packaging for cigarettes.
The disclosure will leave Ed Miliband open to allegations of double standards after he demanded an inquiry into the Conservative Party’s links to Philip Morris Photo: AFP/Getty Images
By Tim Ross, Political Correspondent
12:52PM BST 22 Sep 2013
Philip Morris has hired a stall in a prominent location in the exhibition hall at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton, at a cost likely to run to several thousand pounds.
The disclosure will leave Ed Miliband open to allegations of double standards after he demanded an inquiry into the Conservative Party’s links to Philip Morris.
The tobacco giant hired the services of the public affairs company run by Lynton Crosby, the Conservative Party’s election strategist.
When the Coalition announced that it was dropping plans for all cigarettes to be sold in plain packages i July, Labour seized on the link as evidence that Mr Crosby had influenced government policy to suit his private clients, claims which both he and the Conservatives have denied.
Health campaigners and doctors criticised the decision to shelve plans for plain packaging. Making cigarettes less appealing in the shops would minimise the number of young who took up smoking, they said.
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Labour’s shadow health minister, Diane Abbott, claimed that “the health of the nation” had been “sacrificed to the interests of big tobacco”.
In the Commons, Mr Miliband described David Cameron as “the Prime Minister for Benson and Hedge funds” as he accused the government of a clear conflict of interests.
However, Labour has also given exhibition space at this year’s conference to the Tobacco Retailers’ Alliance, a pressure group which opposes plans for plain packaging.
The alliance says that plain packaging would be “a gift to the criminal gangs, making branded tobacco products far easier to copy”, according to leaflets being distributed from its stand at the conference.
The literature quotes shopkeepers and news agents from across the country warning that plain packs would “increase tobacco smuggling”.
The alliance describes itself as a “network of 26,000 independent shopkeepers who all sell tobacco products” and seeks to defend their right to sell cigarettes “in a legal and responsible way”.
It is funded by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association and offers free membership to shopkeepers who sell tobacco.
“We campaign on issues of relevance to both their businesses and to the industry,” the alliance says.
The Tobacco Manufacturers Association receives its funding from three manufacturers: British American Tobacco, Gallaher, and Imperial Tobacco.
A Labour spokesman said: “Since David Cameron brought tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby into the heart of Downing Street, his government has U-turned on introducing standardised cigarette packaging.
“Labour has been clear that we back standardised cigarette packaging and our record in government, introducing the smoking ban and banning cigarette advertising, speaks for itself.
“The Labour Party exhibition includes stands from a wide range of charities, companies and organisations putting forward their points of view.”
