Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: John Profumo, Gambling, Commission for Africa, David Mills and Badgers
John Profumo
Asked if there would be any official comment by the Prime Minister on the death of John Profumo, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he had no doubt that the Prime Minister would be asked this himself at his press conference in Prague and people should look for his words there. However the PMOS expected the Prime Minister to say that he had met Mr. Profumo and visited some of the charitable work that he had undertaken and he recognised the valuable work that John Profumo had undertaken in recent years.
Gambling
Asked if the Prime Minister would be happy to see 8 "super casinos" in the UK, the PMOS said that that was a matter for the gambling authorities to make a decision on, based on the criteria set down. He would not speculate about numbers. Put to him that that sounded like we were giving the go ahead for this expansion, when we had previously said there would only be one "super casino", the PMOS that what we had always said was that the scare stories about a vast expansion were simply not accurate because of the criteria that had been set down. Whenever you set a process in motion, you should allow that process to follow through.
Commission for Africa
Put to him that Oxfam had produced a report, one year on from the Commission for Africa report, expressing disappointment about the lack of progress that had been made, especially in terms of trade, the PMOS said that he was not going to comment on a report which the Government hadn’t seen. However if you looked at the expert opinion across the board, they recognised that compared to where we were prior to the report by the Commission for Africa and the G8, that we had come a long way. The Prime Minister was the first to say that we needed to keep and we would do so. People should recognise the progress that had been made.
Questioned further on progress to do with trade, the PMOS said that the position yesterday, as set out by the Prime Minister and President Lula of Brazil, was that they believed that a meeting of leaders would be useful to try and re-inject momentum into the process. Equally they had to talk to their fellow leaders and work out whether others were willing to participate and the format of any such meeting. The Prime Minister’s commitment on trade was there and that was why he was pushing for further progress.
David Mills
Asked for a response to the announcement that the husband of Tessa Jowell, David Mills, would be prosecuted in Italy, the PMOS said as we had said since last week, we had to separate out the issues surrounding Tessa Jowell, which had been dealt with, and the Italian case which we would not comment on. Nor should we be expected to comment on it any more than we would on any other case.
Badgers
Put to him by the Daily Mail that the Prime Minister had been pushing for the cull of 100,000 badgers despite 25,000 letters from the public asking for the badgers to be spared, the PMOS said that it was best to speak to DEFRA, but there were good scientific reasons behind the discussions that had been going on.
Put to him that there had only been 7,000 complaints about fox hunting compared to the 25,000 complaints about badgers and asked if the Prime Minister was surprised by the reaction, the PMOS said that whist we did many things, giving a commentary on the size of post bags was not one of them.
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