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Tony Bliar did help Formula One swerve tobacco ad ban, new document reveals 

Tony Blair personally intervened to secure Formula One's exemption from the tobacco advertising ban just hours after meeting Bernie Ecclestone, newly-released documents reveal.

The Government has always insisted the meeting with Labour donor Mr Ecclestone did not swing the move to offer the exemption.

But previously secret papers show that the day after he met the multimillionaire racing boss, Downing Street wrote to Tessa Jowell, then the public health minister.

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Flashback to 2003: Just when everything seemed lost ... 

A decision by Formula One to drop Montreal from its 2009 racing calendar may have caught promoters, tourism officials and politicians by surprise, but for the Canadian taxpayers who saw $12 million of their money spent in 2003 to keep the race here for three years, yesterday's announcement probably evoked an uneasy sense of déjà vu.

On Aug. 7, 2003, local Grand Prix promoter Normand Legault told reporters that Montreal had been dropped from the F1 calendar for 2004 because of federal and provincial laws that banned the advertisement of cigarettes - ads that appeared on cars competing in the race.

In the two weeks following that announcement, two things became clear. First, that business people were adamant the race - and the estimated $100 million it pumps annually into Montreal's economy - had to be saved. Second, federal and provincial politicians were equally determined that no public money would be spent to compensate a sporting event for obeying Canadian law. . . .

But on Nov. 18, Legault, accompanied by federal and provincial ministers, announced the race had been saved. Both levels of government had agreed to kick in $6 million each to compensate F1 for lost cigarette ad revenue. The use of public money was justified by the fact F1 had not benefited from a federal "transition fund" that had allowed other events financed by tobacco advertising to adjust their sources of revenue.

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Canadian F-1 Race Dropped on Contract `Problem' (Update1)  

Montreal's Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve has hosted a Formula One race since 1978. In 2003, the event was briefly dropped from the following year's calendar because of a federal ban on tobacco advertising that affected five teams. It was reinstated when organizers agreed to provide teams with compensation.

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Canadian Grand Prix dropped from 2009 calendar 

The Montreal race was almost dropped in 2004 because of an impending federal ban on tobacco advertising.

Under the terms of the deal, the ten F1 teams that relied on tobacco sponsorship received up to $2 million to race unbranded cars in Montreal.

With the 2009 cancellation, North America will be without a Formula One race for the first time in 43 years.

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Secret documents prove there WAS a No 10 'cover-up' over F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone's £1million gift to Labour 

Devastating secret documents suggest Tony Blair did not tell the truth over Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone's �1million donation to Labour in 1997.

Government papers released yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act appear to show Downing Street deliberately tried to conceal the way that Mr Blair gave orders for Formula One to be exempt from a tobacco advertising ban just 24 hours after meeting Mr Ecclestone at No 10.

When the controversy erupted ten years ago, Mr Blair said his decision had nothing to do with the meeting with Mr Ecclestone and leaders of Formula One's FIA governing body on October 16, 1997, and was taken 'two or three weeks' later.

But the documents show that he wrote to Health Minister Tessa Jowell the next day to press for a permanent exemption for Formula One from the proposed EU ban on tobacco adverts.

And Mr Blair's chief of staff Jonathan Powell was even quicker off the mark and phoned her straight after the Ecclestone meeting to tell her the Prime Minister had ruled she must give in to Mr Ecclestone's demand.

The Tories last night called for a fresh investigation into Mr Blair's conduct and said he should be hauled before the Commons to explain himself.

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• EDITORIAL: Bernie Ecclestone and Tony Blair, a truth revealed 10 years too late 

"An Ecclestone" is cockney argot for a million pounds - the sum that Bernie Ecclestone, then in charge of Formula 1 motor racing, gave to the Labour Party in 1997. Months later, Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, changed Government policy to Mr Ecclestone's advantage: Formula 1 would be exempt from the general ban on cigarette advertising at sporting events. . . .

Was the million pound donation enough to persuade Mr Blair to change Labour's policy? At the time, Mr Blair denied it.

Famously, he said he was a "pretty straight sort of guy". Most people believed him. Documents obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) nevertheless show conclusively that while Mr Blair may have had many political virtues, being straight with the public was not one of them. . . .

It is a serious indictment of the way FOI operates that it should have taken Christopher Hastings, our reporter, more than two years to obtain the relevant documents. We wonder what other truths the guardians of "freedom of information" are protecting from public scrutiny until they can no longer harm the Government.

The public ought to be told, now. But we can be sure that they won't be.

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MCNULTY: Bernie snubs his pal 

In various interviews over the years, Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone always noted that he could count on Canadian Grand Prix boss Normand Legault because they were "good friends." . . .

Just how F-1 came to be part of those country's sporting heritage is apparent. While the western world was shutting its borders to the spread of tobacco advertisements -- the life blood of F-1 for half a century -- nations in the near and far east were becoming the new best customers of cigarette manufacturers.

No pesky regulations there to keep the citizens from going directly from the corner smoke shop to the city cancer ward.

It is also no surprise that oligarchy is the form of government favoured in the vast majority of these nations.

Ecclestone knows for certain that anything he needs to make F-1 even more elitist will be granted by rulers in these lands.

And he remembers all too well the fight he had on his hands when he demanded the Canadian and Quebec governments hand over tax money equal to what his FOM would lose in tobacco advertisements when Canada had the audacity to outlaw them.

The agreement came over the protests of many but, coincidentally, runs out after next season.

Ecclestone had a choice -- fight to stay in North America where more Ferraris, BMWs and Mercedes are sold than any other place on the planet -- or take a boat load of cash from the ruling families in tiny Abu Dhabi.

There was probably no debate on the matter. Ecclestone, once again, has put his own well being over the well being of F-1.

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Labour quizzed over Ecclestone cash  

The Tories today stepped up the pressure over fresh allegations that Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown lied over a £1 million gift from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone.

The Tories today stepped up the pressure over fresh allegations that Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown lied over a £1 million gift from Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone.

Downing Street last night dismissed the claims - made in a new book about the Labour Government - over the row which rocked Mr Blair's fledgling administration in 1997.

However Shadow Chancellor Michael Portillo described the allegations as "very serious" and called on Mr Blair and Mr Brown to issue detailed statements explaining what had really happened. . . .

The latest allegations appear in an extract from Servants of the People by the Observer's chief political commentator Andrew Rawnsley which was serialised in today's edition of the Daily Mail.

They relate to the political storm which broke over the new Labour Government in November 1997 after it was disclosed that it was planning to exempt Formula One from a potentially damaging ban on tobacco advertising in sport.

As journalists began to ask questions about Labour's relations with Mr Ecclestone, Mr Brown was asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme whether the tycoon had given money to the party.

Mr Brown replied: "You'll have to wait and see like I'll have to wait and see when the list (of Labour donors paying more than £5,000) is published."

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• Revealed: the truth about Tony Blair's role in the Ecclestone Affair  

The truth about Tony Blair's actions during the notorious Ecclestone Affair - New Labour's first sleaze scandal - can be revealed for the first time after the release of previously secret Government documents.

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 reveal that Mr Blair overrided the objections of then Health Secretary Frank Dobson who claimed that exempting Formula One could result in "serious damages to the Government".

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: "There is nothing new here. All these issues were debated at the time."

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The Ecclestone Affair: Labour's first funding scandal  

The hitherto secret government documents obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act, after a two-and-a-half-year battle with the government, lift the lid for the first time on the key period following Mr Blair's meeting with Mr Ecclestone on 16 October 1997. They show beyond all reasonable doubt that Mr Blair decided on his preferred course of action on the same day he met Mr Ecclestone, railroading the F1 exemption through and brushing aside any alternative plans put forward by ministers and officials at the Department of Health.

They throw a new light, too, on Mr Blair's assertion, at Prime Minister's Questions on 12 November, that "no decisions" were taken at the 16 October meeting and that "it was only at the beginning of last week that the specific exemption for F1 was decided upon". In addition, the documents show how civil servants were forced to dissemble massively to find a form of words to answer a parliamentary question by John Maples . . .

The full story of this and other scandals may well prove to be even murkier,

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How the Ecclestone Affair unfolded  

January 1997: Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone donates £1m to the Labour Party. The donation is not made public at the time.

May 1: Labour wins landslide victory in the general election, promising to end government sleaze after a series of scandals under the Conservatives.

May 19: Health Secretary Frank Dobson announces the government will ban all sports sponsorship by tobacco companies.

Summer months: Labour fund-raisers in secret talks with Ecclestone over a possible second donation. . . .

September 2000: Blair and Brown are accused in a book by Andrew Rawnsley of lying to cover up details of the £1m donation. Both deny this.

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Secret papers reveal Tony Blair’s F1 tobacco deal  

Tony Blair personally ordered an exemption for motor racing from a tobacco sponsorship ban after Labour received a secret £1m donation from Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One boss.

New documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show he demanded a change of policy within hours of a meeting with Ecclestone on October 16, 1997, and his aides went on to blur the truth.

The affair was the first sleaze scandal of the new Labour era. At its height, Blair feared the episode would end his premiership and went on television to defend his reputation, saying he was a “pretty straight kind of guy”.

The new documents expose the extent to which he was the driving force behind plans to exempt F1 from Labour’s manifesto pledge to end tobacco sponsorship of sport, pushing a reluctant Department of Health into agreeing. Before Ecclestone’s £1m donation, Labour had planned a universal ban. . . .

The papers also suggest No 10 set out to mislead the public, via the media, about the prime minister’s role in the affair. . . .

The episode took place before political donations had to be publicly declared. For days, Labour refused to reveal whether Ecclestone had given money to the party. As the controversy raged about whether government policy had been influenced by a donation, Gordon Brown, who knew of the gift, found himself denying all knowledge in a radio interview. He was later reported to have returned to the Treasury in anguish, claiming his credibility would be “in shreds” if anyone discovered he had lied.

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No more tobacco logos for Ferrari 

It is likely that a cigarette brand will never again be outwardly visible on the livery of a Formula One car.

Other teams - notably Renault, McLaren and Honda - farewelled their tobacco-fuelled dollars a couple of years ago, as anti-advertising laws swept Europe and the world.

Ferrari, however, opted to renew its association with Philip Morris, and until recently has been displaying Marlboro logos where possible, including in places like Monaco and China. . .

Reportedly, Philip Morris, owned by Altria Group, decided that the 'barcode' livery should be permanent.

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• End of the Tobacco Road In Formula One 

But at the recent Bahrain grand prix, where local laws theoretically would have allowed Ferrari to run tobacco branding, the two F2008 cars instead displayed the so-called 'barcode' livery -- reminiscent of the Marlboro signage but using white markings instead of letters and logos.

According to Autoweek magazine, Ferrari has confirmed that Marlboro logos "will no longer appear on its cars".

Reportedly, Philip Morris, owned by Altria Group, decided that the 'barcode' livery should be permanent.

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• Singapore's ban on tobacco ads will apply to Grand Prix: report 

Singapore's strict laws banning tobacco advertisements will apply to the city-state's inaugural Formula One Grand Prix in September, a report said Sunday.

The sport's first-ever night race around Singapore's streets will take place on September 28.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Trade and Industry told the Sunday Times "the publication or display of any acknowledgement of sponsorship of a tobacco company would, as a general rule, be prohibited."

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