OK, this won't come as a surprise ...
1. Tobacco programme manager at the Department of Health writes to Forest about Hands Off Our Packs campaign
2. Tobacco control group (or campaigner) submits Freedom of Information request to see correspondence between DH and Forest
3. DH releases correspondence and publishes it online
4. Friends in media publish misleading report about correspondence and fail to give Forest right of reply
5. ASH circulates report to everyone on its daily news mailing list
6. Anti-smoking campaigners tweet and re-tweet misleading information on Twitter
To be continued ...
Update: I have just read a very interesting post on Nannying Tyrants that reveals, among other things, that the tobacco programme manager's name has been removed from the correspondence released under FOI on Friday. How odd. (I hadn't noticed!)
If that is the protocol so be it. (I have made some amendments to my previous post as a result.) But it does beg the question - why?
Update: Dick Puddlecote exposes the hypocrisy and double standards at the heart of tobacco control, He who casts the first stone, and all that. Essential reading.