The Stain of Nicotine

Nanny, as we all know, absolutely hates smoking; she never ceases lecturing her "charges" about the damage that smoking does to peoples' health.

However, in rather a bizarre bout of "forgetfulness", Blairy Poppins seems to have been a tad amnesic when remembering to register the fact that she holidayed with a leading figure in the tobacco industry.

Dear old Blairy Poppins is very fond of foreign holidays, and even more fond of them when they are at other peoples' expense. Therefore Blairy must have jumped at the chance, two years ago, when Alain Dominique Perrin offered Blairy and his cost conscious wife the chance to stay at a French chateau.

Nothing wrong with that at all, Blairy always makes a point of taking holidays in other peoples' homes; it's cheaper that way!

Unfortunately Blairy forgot two things:

• Monsieur Perrin was chairman of Richemont, the French luxury goods company, which owned 21% of British American Tobacco.



• Blairy forgot, I am sure it was an innocent mistake, to declare the holiday in Parliament’s register of members' interests..oops!

Fortunately the Tories have reminded him of this "error"; Blairy's spokesman helpfully told reporters that if it needed to be registered, then it would.

Poor old Blairy must be getting a little forgetful in her old age, it was not that long ago that she had another "problem" with the tobacco industry. Then she had to return £1M to Bernie Ecclestone in 1997, after it emerged that Bernie had lobbied Blairy to delay a ban on Formula 1 being sponsored by the tobacco industry.

Poor old Blairy needs to learn that nicotine stains are like semen stains; very persistent, and difficult to remove.