Remember folks, no matter how well they can play the avuncular Uncle, they are still evil f**kers hell bent on your impovirishment.
George Moinbot has the goods.
f someone told you that the Conservatives would form the next government, then asked you who you would like to see as their leader, what answer would you give? I suspect that most Guardian readers would choose Kenneth Clarke. Opposed to the invasion of Iraq, sympathetic to the European Union, liberal, avuncular, Clarke is the obvious antidote to the swivel-eyed ideologues who have run the party for much of the past 30 years. You were doubtless glad to hear that he will declare his candidacy over the next few weeks and that, if he joins forces with David Cameron, he could win.
There's just one small problem. To see him as a credible candidate you must forget what he has been doing for the past seven years. Since 1998 he has been deputy chairman of British American Tobacco (BAT). It seems to me that this renders him unfit for public office.
A spot of smuggling anybody?
At first it looked as if BAT's involvement was indirect. The papers discovered in the company's archives by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists suggested that it supplied cigarettes to wholesalers in the expectation that they would find their way on to the black market. In some countries, they indicate, it knowingly advertised the smuggled brands. But in 2001 the journalists discovered a series of letters which suggested that BAT subsidiaries were organising smuggling operations. One set of papers shows that cigarettes were dispatched to BAT's agents on the Caribbean island of Aruba, then shipped by BAT's exclusive distributors to the South American mainland, then smuggled by middlemen into Venezuela and Colombia. Until 1997 proceeds from this operation appear to have been collected by a BAT branch based in Surrey. After that they were channelled into a subsidiary based in Geneva. By 1998, the year in which Clarke joined the company, the documents suggest that 8 billion BAT cigarettes a year were leaving Aruba, harvesting an annual $200m for the Geneva operation.
Now, you may be a smoker and liable to shrug this off as the actions a lovable old rogue who is just doing his darndest to get you some cheap smokes.
BAT's relationships with its suppliers bear certain resemblances to its relationships with its consumers. Christian Aid has published two reports detailing the company's treatment of tobacco farmers in Brazil and Kenya. The farmers are tied to contracts obliging them to buy their chemicals, seed and equipment from BAT's subsidiaries. The company also determines the price it gives them for the tobacco they produce, and is widely accused of paying far less than the market rate. The result is that many farmers end up owing the company more money than they receive. Partly as a result, some are obliged to employ their children in the fields. Many of the farmers contracted to the company, lacking proper protective clothing, suffer from pesticide-related diseases. A fax from BAT Kenya's regional director reveals that a Kenyan law forbidding farmers to grow tobacco for more than one company (and therefore to seek higher prices) "was actually drafted by us". In Brazil, Christian Aid reveals, BAT's subsidiary was claiming, on the tobacco growers' behalf, the government credit intended for small farmers.
Ken Clark is an evil Tory Bastard. And this is what this evil Tory Bastard has been doing to line his pockets after the British people threw his
ass out of office. And that ass kicking was
well deserved ( speaking as somebody who marched for the ambulance drivers ). One of my main regrets about 1997 was that is was Portillo and not Clarke who got humiliated.
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