TPA attacks "bogus veneer of support"
Monday, January 5, 2009 It seems that our message ("Government 'fixing health consultations' with taxpayer-funded groups") is slowly getting through.
The influential Taxpayers Alliance is the latest group to speak out against this scandalous practice. According to chief executive Matthew Elliott:
"This is the Government funding bodies to lobby itself. The consultations appear to be biased in favour of the Government's preferred position. It's ludicrous that public money is being spent on forming a bogus veneer of support. At a time when patients wait weeks for doctors' appointments and cannot get the right drugs for their ailments, why on earth is the Department of Health spending so much of our hard-earned cash on these pointless exercises?"
Elliott's comments in the Daily Telegraph follow THIS press release which was distributed last month to MPs, journalists and broadcasters with the 2008 Forest Christmas card ("Someone's taking the piss"). They also follow THIS blog post, and THIS letter in the Sunday Telegraph (14 December).
Reader Comments (3)
It's a start Simon. A very good start and it even got in The Telegraph. Glad you pursued this one and you shouldn't let it drop. It was downright scandalous what they did.
I wonder how much money that cost us tax-payers and was just obviously wasted?
Good work Simon, well done! It is so crucial to get the message across that so much of what we read is propoganda and not fact.
Well done Simon for showing up Labour govt lies and spin on poll statistics that give out a false reading to the population to form a bogus veneer of support for smoking related illnesses.
I hope your article will start an enquiry and go some way to put an end to the brainwashing bombardment that we have to suffer daily through every media outlet on anti smoking, anti drinking and obesity propaganda.
Hopefully some honest politician (if there's one left) will see the suffering of 12million smokers and have the courage to follow this disgraceful scam through to a fair solution for everyone.
And he puts a law into force immediately banning state funded bodies from lobbying in future and groups receiving government grants only allowed spend money raised by other means.
Otherwise we are going the same way as the Lisbon treaty vote, like in Holland and France, where if you didnt vote for the party line, they voted for you, leading us all to the race to the bottom and the united states of europe.