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His work for a tobacco giant shows he lacks morality and judgment
Jump to full article: The Guardian (uk), 2001-06-25
Author: David Leigh
Intro: Back from Vietnam, Kenneth Clarke is expected to say whether he'll run for the Tory leadership. But it is difficult to understand why anyone in his party would vote for him. How will their fortunes improve if they are led by a moral defective with poor judgment?
For that is what Mr Clarke is. He was in Vietnam on behalf of British American Tobacco, who want to penetrate that third-world market and twist arms to be allowed to build a cigarette factory there. The former health secretary and chancellor gets, it seems, some £100,000 a year as BAT's deputy chairman. . .
BAT's disreputable behaviour was revealed in the Guardian last year following detective work by the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who waded through 11,000 documents BAT was forced to hand over in their Guildford headquarters . . . And, Mr Clarke should be embarrassed to be reminded, some of the most incriminating files concern BAT's decade-long struggle to break open the market in the small, poor country of Vietnam from whence he has just returned. . .
And on his constituency turf of Nottingham, a deal with which his name has been linked has been brokered for the university to take a BAT donation of £3.8m. This has sent academics fleeing in droves from a "tainted" university.
Not only, therefore, is Clarke's morality inadequate. So is his political judgment. If Tories vote for him as their leader, they'll be gluttons for punishment.
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