However, after yesterday's revelation that Labour despise the working man (and woman) so much that they will lie to deprive them of their meagre pleasures, I couldn't help but notice this exchange in the commons yesterday.
Angela Eagle (Wallasey, Labour): Many of us were shocked by the omission from the Gracious Speech of the promised legislation to ensure plain packaging for cigarettes. The public health Minister, Anna Soubry, publicly supported the proposal, and when the Leader of the House was Secretary of State for Health he said:
“The evidence is clear that packaging helps to recruit smokers, so it makes sense to consider having less attractive packaging. It's wrong that children are being attracted to smoke by glitzy designs on packets.”Note: Anna Soubry supported the proposal when she had no business doing so as a minister before a public consultation has been concluded. If this was done by a Tory about a policy Labour disagreed with, they would be scandalising Soubry and calling for her resignation.
Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire, Conservative): The hon. Lady asked about standardised packaging. I initiated the consultation on standardised packaging, and I did so, as I said at the time, with an open mind. As my right hon. Friends have made clear, no decision has been made in response to the consultation on that. I think that the hon. Lady will recall that the nature of the Queen’s Speech is to put forward proposals for legislation where the Government have decided what their policy is, not to venture into legislation where no policy decision has taken place. It is completely false to imagine that there was ever a question of including reference to standardised packaging in the Queen’s Speech; there never was, and it would not have been appropriate to do so.As we see above, Labour are desperate to bypass a consultation (to which half a million citizens objected) because they couldn't give a flying fuck what you think. And they are brazenly happy to employ bare-faced lies in doing so.
While Tory Lansley - to his credit - at least recognises that the public are a feature of something which is called, err, a public consultation.
Why do Labour hate the electorate so much that they will lie their arses off to ignore their views? Wasn't their movement originally set up in objection to Tories and Liberals doing exactly that to working people?
Clever man, that Orwell.
