PM struggling to shut down plain packaging story

Written By Simon Clark

Six days ago, shortly after health minister Jane Ellison announced the Government was going ahead with plain packaging, journalist Iain Martin tweeted:

So, how's that going?

Well, Thursday saw an avalanche of opposition – from Forest, the IEA, the Institute of Ideas and others.

Friday revealed ruffled feathers among leading Conservatives such as LBC presenter Iain Dale and Nigel Evans MP:

Over the weekend the Sun on Sunday exposed more opposition among Tory MPs:

Columnist Tony Parsons also weighed in:

On Monday former Sunday Telegraph editor Dominic Lawson led the opposition with an excellent article in the Daily Mail:

Quoting extensively from this blog Breitbart reported:

This morning the PM woke up to find Guido Fawkes tweeting:

This afternoon, despite a feeble attempt to play down Guido's story, the bad news kept on coming for the PM.

First there was this tweet by the Spectator:

An hour later the Telegraph's Christopher Hope tweeted:

And shortly after that Telegraph Politics tweeted:

Finally, I did I mention this letter from Forest supporter David Hockney in today's FT?

So, your plan to introduce plain packaging quietly and without fuss is going well, Mr Cameron?

Simon Clark
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