Following reports that the Tories’ beer and bingo Budget poster was signed off at the highest levels of government, Michael Dugher MP, Labour vice-chair and shadow Cabinet Office minister has written to the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury Sir Nicholas Macpherson to clarify who was at the meeting that approved it.

 

 

“The bingo-beer Budget poster once again showed the true face of David Cameron’s Conservatives - a party run by an out of touch privileged few. We now learn that this patronising piece of Tory propaganda – which described working people as "they” - was made in the Treasury and approved by George Osborne himself.“ 

 

 

Dear Sir Nicholas,

You will have noted that following last week’s Budget, the Conservative Party produced a political poster aimed at publicising changes to bingo taxation. This poster has since become a matter of some controversy.

Reports in the press today, Sunday 23 March, suggest that this poster was "designed in the Treasury and signed off by the Chancellor”. The Telegraph newspaper reports that staffers from Tory headquarters were allowed into the Treasury to work with the Chancellor’s aides on devising political messages. The paper also states that the poster was signed off by the Chancellor, Stephen Gilbert, the Prime Minister’s political secretary, and by Lynton Crosby, the cigarette lobbyist and David Cameron’s chief strategist.

Given these reports I would be grateful if you could answer the following questions. Did a meeting between aides of the Chancellor and Conservative Party staff take place within the Treasury? Who was present at this meeting?

Given the public interest in this matter I am releasing a copy of this letter to the media.

Yours sincerely

 

Michael Dugher