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We know ciggies kill, but who can resist a freebie? We know ciggies kill, but who can resist a freebie?
(4 months later)
• Not much by way of clarity from this coalition, so thank goodness for its decisive stance on smoking. "Smoking causes more preventable deaths than anything else – nearly 80,000 in England during 2011," says a mission statement from the Department of Health. "There's also an impact on smokers' families: each year, hospitals see around 9,500 admissions of children with illnesses caused by secondhand smoke." We will do all we can, ministers say, to make "people aware of the health dangers of smoking". But too much hectoring and no play will always make Jack a dull boy, and so off went Tory MPs Edward Garnier and Nigel Adams to last month's Chelsea flower show, their trip paid for by the people who bring you Silk Cut, Benson & Hedges, Camel and Old Holborn rolling tobacco. According to the latest register of members' interests, Adams and Garnier took more than £2,000 worth of tickets – for themselves and their guests from Japan Tobacco International, who are currently lobbying against further restrictions on advertising or obstacles to the flogging of ciggies. Both Adams and Garnier have been criticised before for taking trips to the Chelsea flower show courtesy of JTI, and here we are again. It's a habit that's hard to break.• Not much by way of clarity from this coalition, so thank goodness for its decisive stance on smoking. "Smoking causes more preventable deaths than anything else – nearly 80,000 in England during 2011," says a mission statement from the Department of Health. "There's also an impact on smokers' families: each year, hospitals see around 9,500 admissions of children with illnesses caused by secondhand smoke." We will do all we can, ministers say, to make "people aware of the health dangers of smoking". But too much hectoring and no play will always make Jack a dull boy, and so off went Tory MPs Edward Garnier and Nigel Adams to last month's Chelsea flower show, their trip paid for by the people who bring you Silk Cut, Benson & Hedges, Camel and Old Holborn rolling tobacco. According to the latest register of members' interests, Adams and Garnier took more than £2,000 worth of tickets – for themselves and their guests from Japan Tobacco International, who are currently lobbying against further restrictions on advertising or obstacles to the flogging of ciggies. Both Adams and Garnier have been criticised before for taking trips to the Chelsea flower show courtesy of JTI, and here we are again. It's a habit that's hard to break.
• Now we know that the Bilderberg beanfest in Watford cost the taxpayer £1.3m to police, what more is there to say about it? Well, it's worth noting that £800,000 of it is money we'll probably never get back, because the organisers have only offered to stump up £500,000. Contrast that with football clubs routinely obliged to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for event policing. Thanks to Kenneth Clarke, the minister without portfolio and a member of the Bilderberg UK steering group, we also know that one of the other party planners was Marcus Agius, the financier and former group chairman of Barclays, who is also a senior non-executive director on the executive board of the BBC. And we know that until his sojourn at the Coleman federal correctional institution in Florida, another man who worked to get the Bilderberg party started was our friend Conrad Black. "I regret to say that Mr Black is, as I recall, the only member who ever attended who has since had the misfortune to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, whereupon he withdrew from the Bilderberg meetings," Ken told the House of Commons. But that was then. Now Conrad has regained his mojo, why wouldn't they call on him again?• Now we know that the Bilderberg beanfest in Watford cost the taxpayer £1.3m to police, what more is there to say about it? Well, it's worth noting that £800,000 of it is money we'll probably never get back, because the organisers have only offered to stump up £500,000. Contrast that with football clubs routinely obliged to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for event policing. Thanks to Kenneth Clarke, the minister without portfolio and a member of the Bilderberg UK steering group, we also know that one of the other party planners was Marcus Agius, the financier and former group chairman of Barclays, who is also a senior non-executive director on the executive board of the BBC. And we know that until his sojourn at the Coleman federal correctional institution in Florida, another man who worked to get the Bilderberg party started was our friend Conrad Black. "I regret to say that Mr Black is, as I recall, the only member who ever attended who has since had the misfortune to be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, whereupon he withdrew from the Bilderberg meetings," Ken told the House of Commons. But that was then. Now Conrad has regained his mojo, why wouldn't they call on him again?
• To the July edition of the Oldie, which spots one notable absentee at the Thatcher ceremonial funeral was Mandy Rice-Davies, star of the Profumo affair. Now renamed Marilyn, she is married to businessman Ken Foreman, once a fellow director of Denis Thatcher in Attwoods, the waste disposal company. Visitors to the Foremans' Lowndes Square home have apparently "noted a number of photos prominently displayed of the two controversial couples enjoying one another's company". She should have been a guest at the funeral, shouldn't she? But then we would say that, wouldn't we?• To the July edition of the Oldie, which spots one notable absentee at the Thatcher ceremonial funeral was Mandy Rice-Davies, star of the Profumo affair. Now renamed Marilyn, she is married to businessman Ken Foreman, once a fellow director of Denis Thatcher in Attwoods, the waste disposal company. Visitors to the Foremans' Lowndes Square home have apparently "noted a number of photos prominently displayed of the two controversial couples enjoying one another's company". She should have been a guest at the funeral, shouldn't she? But then we would say that, wouldn't we?
• It's buzzword corner, for with the very concept of privatising government services now in such bad odour, ministers require a less derided way to describe the stuffing of private pockets with taxpayer's cash. Defence secretary Philip Hammond leads the thinking. We have spent £34m on G4S over the last five years, complained Labour's Barry Sheerman. What is that, if not wasteful privatisation? It is merely, says Hammond, the MoD "civilianising or contractorising" parts of its service. Well done, sir. Different syllables, but the effect is much the same.• It's buzzword corner, for with the very concept of privatising government services now in such bad odour, ministers require a less derided way to describe the stuffing of private pockets with taxpayer's cash. Defence secretary Philip Hammond leads the thinking. We have spent £34m on G4S over the last five years, complained Labour's Barry Sheerman. What is that, if not wasteful privatisation? It is merely, says Hammond, the MoD "civilianising or contractorising" parts of its service. Well done, sir. Different syllables, but the effect is much the same.
• Finally, having asserted its right to open betting shops wherever it chooses, Paddy Power tries to predict how the Julian Assange saga will end. It's been a year since the leaker-in-chief sought sanctuary in the Ecuadorean embassy. How will he leave his refuge? These are the options: in a police car, odds of 11/8; 4/1 by helicopter; 6/1 inside the diplomatic bag; 25/1 by hot air balloon. The odds that he'll deploy a James Bond-style jet propulsion pack are slight but they are there, at 300/1, for every possibility has its price. With his luck, he'd land in Sweden.• Finally, having asserted its right to open betting shops wherever it chooses, Paddy Power tries to predict how the Julian Assange saga will end. It's been a year since the leaker-in-chief sought sanctuary in the Ecuadorean embassy. How will he leave his refuge? These are the options: in a police car, odds of 11/8; 4/1 by helicopter; 6/1 inside the diplomatic bag; 25/1 by hot air balloon. The odds that he'll deploy a James Bond-style jet propulsion pack are slight but they are there, at 300/1, for every possibility has its price. With his luck, he'd land in Sweden.
Twitter: @hugh_muir Twitter: @hugh_muir
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