Where's Kerry? The curious case of the missing MP
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 8:55 Red faces at the New Statesman following the non-appearance of Labour MP Kerry McCarthy at a fringe meeting organised by the left-wing magazine and the Tobacco Manufacturers Association.
The NS had invited the Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury to speak at an event entitled 'The smoking ban: success or failure?'. Other speakers were Chris Ogden, chief executive of the TMA, and a representative of the Working Men's Clubs & Institute Union.
Details of the event – giving Kerry McCarthy top billing - were published in the fringe listings of the Labour conference brochure. On Friday, however, just four days before the meeting, McCarthy pulled out, leaving the organisers without their star attraction.
Keen observers of the smoking debate are wracking their brains to work out the reason for this volte face.
Speculation is rife. It is known that a speaker at another New Statesman/TMA meeting (at the Lib Dem conference in Birmingham last week) was contacted by ASH and urged not to share a platform with the tobacco industry.
Did ASH speak to Kerry McCarthy as well? I don't know, but perhaps she would like to comment on her blog and clear up any misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, referring to the tobacco control movement at yesterday's meeting, TMA chief executive Chris Ogden declared, "They cannot tolerate debate".
How true.
See also: A Labour MP writes
Simon Clark
I have posted a comment on Kerry McCarthy's blog:
Hi Kerry, curious to know why you didn’t speak at yesterday’s fringe meeting, ‘The smoking ban: success or failure?’, organised by the New Statesman and the Tobacco Manufacturers Association. You were listed as a speaker in the conference magazine and I was looking forward to hearing your views.
It is currently awaiting moderation. See here.
Update: I posted my comment shortly after 9.00am. Seven hours later it has yet to appear.
Simon Clark
Kerry McCarthy has replied as follows:
Did that fringe meeting even happen? They got in touch a couple of weeks before conference and starting trying to negotiate a different time, possibly even a different date because they were flying experts in. They seemed to settle on 11am on the Tuesday, which was difficult for me as I was already committed to something else off site, but then stopped replying to our emails asking for confirmation. Also, I wasn’t impressed to discover from fringe guide it was being sponsored by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association, which had at no stage been mentioned before (I knew someone from TMA was speaking, and happy to debate him/ her, but not happy about appearing on a TMA platform). If it did go ahead at 7.30pm on the Tuesday I could have done it, but as far as I know it wasn’t going to happen then, and as I said, they didn’t reply to any of the calls or emails from my office trying to find out what was happening, or do anything about advertising a different time. Bad organisation.
Reader Comments (7)
Not only do the anti smoker, left do not like debate but ASH especially when they are forced to debate become rude and abusive.
Is this your interesting development?
"It is known that a speaker at another New Statesman/TMA meeting (at the Lib Dem conference in Birmingham last week) was contacted by ASH and urged not to share a platform with the tobacco industry."
Perhaps someone from ASH reminded her of Article 5.3. of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
"The measures recommended in these guidelines aim at protecting against interference not only by the tobacco industry but also, as appropriate, by organizations and individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry."
http://www.who.int/fctc/guidelines/article_5_3.pdf
Which seems to include anyone who might disagree.
As Deborah Arnott informed us in March ( Brave New Tobacco Plan for England)
"The [previous]Government says it takes very seriously its obligations under Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and that “the tobacco industry has not been involved in the development of this Tobacco Control Plan”.
As a members of the public, we are allowed to talk to anyone on the subject, but they might not be allowed to listen.
The anti-smoker may dislike the smell of tobacco smoke, but it does not compared with the stench from Tobacco Control. Time and time again, they refuse to debate the issues in an open forum.
What are they so frightened about? Surely they have won the war against the evil weed? The truth is that TC is terrified of the untruths and weak science that supported the introduction of the smoking ban. A pack of cards comes to mind!!
I see this has made the front page of Guy Fawkes' links. At the top of the page on the right.
http://order-order.com/
Excellent work Simon. I hope you all had a great time and thanks for making the effort.
As for Kerry McCarthy, she hates smoking and probably smokers after she got more than she bargained for when patronising the poor, Poor after the first Forest event at the HoC in 2008.
To be fair, it doesn't look like she's been near the place for nearly three weeks. Too busy on twitter probably.