Via Blairwatch. What I think is important about this is if at that time (1997) the country had understood how dishonest he was he could not have pulled off the Iraq war lies. And of course the standard trick is again repeated here, the truth will trickle out, but make sure it takes years and you can get away with it, whereas if the full facts were known at the time, not such an easy ride. It is repeated now over Iraq, but it’s always too late once the damage is done, they know that, so lie and lie again to achieve your objective knowing full well the personal consequences to them will only catch up years later (if at all). With every cover up is the opportunity to lie again another day and that impunity paved the way for lies that grew until Blair committed the enormity of the the war crime against Iraq.
The documents – released to The Sunday Telegraph after a two-and-a-half year Freedom of Information battle – reveal that Mr Blair personally intervened to secure Formula One’s exemption from the tobacco advertising ban just hours after meeting Bernie Ecclestone, the motorsport’s billionaire boss. The Government has always maintained that the meeting with Mr Ecclestone, a major new Labour donor at the time, did not influence the final decision to offer the exemption. However the previously secret papers show that Mr Blair did order ministers to find ways to implement the “derogation” for Formula One after the meeting.
The revelation casts doubt on the version of events given by officials both to Parliament and to lobby journalists when the sleaze scandal first broke in 1997. The documents also show that civil servants believed draft statements on the affair, which were about to be made public, were “disingenuous”.
The Ecclestone Affair was New Labour’s first major scandal and a test of Mr Blair’s leadership and his claim to be cleaning up British politics after John Major’s government. As the affair deepened with the revelation that Mr Ecclestone had donated £1 million to the Labour Party just months before the tobacco advertising climbdown Mr Blair faced calls to resign. The Prime Minister appeared on the BBC’s On The Record Programme to defend the exemption and to insist he was “a pretty straight sort of guy.”
At the time the Government insisted that the decision to exempt Formula One was not decided by Mr Blair following his meeting with Mr Ecclestone on 16 October 1997. They insisted it was a joint decision made with the Department of Health at a later date. However, the newly released documents prove conclusively that Mr Blair ordered his Government to prepare for the policy change immediately following his meeting with Mr Ecclestone – a fact which was not revealed at the time of the scandal.
Within hours of the meeting, the Prime Minister had instructed his Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, to inform Tessa Jowell, then the public health minister, of his decision. The following day, Ms Jowell was informed in writing by Downing Street that: “The Prime Minister would like your ministers to look for ways of finding a permanent derogation for sport in particular, F1.”
