People Against Sugar Tax

A deranged Corbynista with a double digit Twitter following has spent five minutes on Google and written an ignorant and libellous blog post about a small pressure group called People Against Sugar Tax of which I was briefly on the advisory board.

The group was created a while ago by a guy called Brook Whelan with a strict policy of not accepting donations from industry. That is made clear on the website. Nevertheless, our left-wing friend has decided that the group is 'corporate astroturf' on the basis that Brook works in 'communications' (marketing, I believe) and the unpaid board members have links with the evil Conservative party. Alex Deane even defends vaping. Vaping!

This is pretty insulting given that Brook has spent a considerable amount of his own money fighting the sugar tax and so, at the risk of feeding the trolls, I still decided to leave a comment to correct the author. The author has refused to publish it, presumably because his reader would realise he's being hood-winked. Fortunately, I know enough about the far left's difficult relationship with free speech to have anticipated this, so I saved it as the time. So, in case you've come across People Against Sugar Tax and ever wondered, here's the deal...

My name has been removed from the website for the simple reason that I'm no longer involved with the group. I notice you have nothing to say about Brook Whelan - presumably because a look at his background would ruin your little conspiracy theory - but he founded and runs the organisation with the help of some volunteers.

When he set it up, Brook asked some people who knew about campaigning (eg. Alex) and some people who knew about the evidence (eg. me) to act as advisors. A reasonable thing to do, n'est pas? We agreed to do so, unpaid, because we agreed with his aims but after a while I realised that I was unable to dedicate sufficient extra-curricular time to the project and reluctantly dropped out.

Even if I had still been involved I fail to see how it would validate your libellous claim that the group is "corporate astroturf". Brook has been clear from day one that he would not accept a penny from industry or government. Indeed, he has sunk a considerable sum of his own money into the group. You owe him an apology.

I will continue to tweet about the sugar tax because I oppose it, as millions of other PEOPLE do. I hope Alex will continue to tweet about vaping, although what that has to do with the matter, God only knows.

If you're on Twitter, give them a follow.