The Treasury is getting three new Special Advisers following the departure of Philip Hammond’s long-serving aides Graham Hook and Hayden Allan. As reported by the Sunday Times, Hammond has appointed former Treasury minister Jane Ellison, who lost her seat at the election, as an adviser to shore up his position in parliament. Tim Pitt is moving to the Treasury from the Ministry of Justice. He worked with the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss at the MoJ, and is expected to have a combined role advising Hammond and Truss. Kane Daniell, an enterprising CCHQ aide, is also expected to move to the Treasury.

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Jane Ellison is the ambitious nanny stater who harrasses smokers at the Department of Health, George Osborne is the ambitious Chancellor who as far as we know is not a relative. Once you see this, you do wonder…

Last week Guido exclusively revealed plans by tobacco lobbyists ASH to spy on gay people, pregnant women as well as ban smoking in theatres, prisons and private cars. He wrote:

“The anti-smoking lobby group have written a wide-ranging wishlist for the coming parliament and it’s about as authoritarian as you can get. History would indicate that this bunch get what they want; from the smoking ban, to plain packs and restrictions on smoking in cars.”

As if to prove his point, Public Health Minister Jane Ellison will today attend the launch of the draconian plan, giving it her full blessing:

Parliamentary launch

You are also invited to attend the Parliamentary launch of the report on Tuesday 9th June. It will be hosted by Bob Blackman MP for Harrow East and Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health. Other speakers will include:

• Jane Ellison MP, Minister for Public Health
• Peter Kellner, Chair of the report’s Editorial Board and YouGov President
• Deborah Arnott, ASH Chief Executive
• Harpal Kumar Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK
• Mike Hobday, Director of Policy at British Heart Foundation.

The launch takes place on Tuesday 9 June from 4pm to 6pm in the Dining Room A at the House of Commons.

Regular readers will remember it was Ellison that shoehorned plain-packaging through the House of Commons during the dying embers of the last Parliament, without so much as a debate in the Commons. She’s a fully paid up nanny-stater, and clearly has no qualms sharing a platform with the health fascists. 

Smokers’ Rights group Forest asked Populus to find out what voters think about taxpayers’ own money being used to lobby the government. They don’t like it:

If you need to further judge the company that Ellison chooses to keep in her official capacity, also on the platform today is the controversial charity chief Harpal Kumar. The greedy boss has triggered outrage following the Sun investigation that found that he’s on £250,000, taking money directly from donations given to help cure cancer to line his fat cat pockets. Under Kumar’s regime the charity are paying out millions in gold plated executive packages, lifted straight from the collectors’ tins.

There is a growing Tory backlash against Health minister Jane Ellison over her plain pack ambush. “Four letter word, starts in S and ends in T” was the ringing endorsement of one colleague, “she is not a Conservative” claims another, whilst another simply added “she’s a wrong ‘un”. One Tory MP even claims:

“It challenges the imagination that such a grubby little measure could come from members of a party who only 25 years ago waged the moral battle of ideas against Communism heralding the freedom of individuals to choose. Now they have morphed from noble liberators to little nannies.”

The Bill will pass with support of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, though Guido hears that Ellison may not have the last laugh. Not only will there be a huge rebellion on the right, plans for a very well funded campaign to unseat her in her marginal south-west London seat of Battersea are already afoot, with a freedom-loving candidate being sought. Applications on the back of a fag packet…

Word reaches Guido that there is serious consternation amongst a number of senior Tories over the way in which last week’s surprise announcement about plain packaging was squeezed out like an awkward fart. Usually reliable sources suggest Osborne is set to raise it at Cabinet this morning, with Jeremy Hunt in the sights for a proper going over. In an increasingly rare moment of agreement between the Chancellor and the Home Secretary, Guido hears Theresa May is pretty annoyed too about how the move was snuck out with little or no wider consultation of Cabinet colleagues. Big Phil Hammond is also said to be against the Labour-backed measure, sceptically telling the BBC last week that he “will want to look very carefully at the evidence.” The consensus is ‘bat sh*t’ Jane Ellison has gone ‘totally native’ and will do anything to please the do-gooders and pen-pushers that choke up the Department for Health…