No Smoke Without Finance

Some business colleagues of the Minister for Beer, Skittles and Justice have admitted funding a newsagents' organisation which lobbied against the Government's plans for forcing shopkeepers to sell cigarettes from under the counter. Yesterday the chair of British American Tobacco confirmed that the group threw money at the National Federation of British Newsagents and discussed the campaign with them and their PR agency. The PR agency did not disclose BAT's involvement, and the day before yesterday British American Tobacco denied claims that it was involved in "underhand tactics and the funding of an independent retailer organisation, via a PR agency". Twizzler Lansley, who is forbidden by a World Health Organisation treaty from being as courteous to Big Tobacco as he has been to Big Pharma, Big Junk and private health companies, but who is almost certainly the sort of chap with whom Big Tobacco can do business, will soon be asked whether he was aware of BAT's influence on the issue. At this very moment, no doubt, various convenient memory lapses are falling neatly into place.