Update to my posts about the Guardian, the APPG on Smoking and Health and the Hands Off Our Packs campaign.
Dick Puddlecote has spotted something I hadn't noticed. He writes:
The APPG [on Smoking and Health] bulletin to MPs of October 19 has a dig at Tribe Marketing ... The question is, who told Stephen Williams MP and the APPG/ASH that HOOPs were using Tribe? Did they get the info from the Guardian?
It was never confidential information but it's an interesting point. Who told ASH?
In recent months I have sent two letters to the Department of Health. The second (September 7) needn't concern us here.
The first (August 30) confirmed that "Tribe Marketing Limited was engaged to collect signatures in support of the HOOP campaign".
To the best of my knowledge that letter has not been made public, unlike the letters to Forest from the Department of Health which were released under FOI on September 9.
Consequently, if you exclude Forest itself, I can think of only two sources for the information about Tribe – the Guardian and the Department of Health.
Actually, make that three. Following the release of the DH's letters and emails to Forest we were contacted by the Observer which invited us to respond to one specific complaint about the Hands Off Our Packs campaign.
I sent the Observer the same information I gave its sister paper the Guardian on August 17. It included details about Tribe and our signature gathering process but the paper chose not to publish our response or any of the information we gave it.
So, where did ASH get the information about Tribe? I think we should be told.