Bad Politics

Labour Lies

The Labour government in the UK came to power in 1997 promising a clean break from the years of Conservative rule and a new era of accountable government which kept its promises. Among the promises on animal issues, they had pledged to reduce and eventually end animal experiments. However once in power the Blair government came under the influence of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

A pledge to establish a Royal Commission to investigate the validity of vivisection and professional malpractice within the industry was shelved and no convincing alternative was offered to take its place. The reneging on promises did not end there.

Evidence provided by undercover investigations to demonstrate the extent of malpractice, shoddy science and extreme animal suffering behind the walls of vivisection laboratories has been ignored by the Home Office.

Instead, faced with this catalogue of irrefutable evidence, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) asked the government to organise a pro-vivisection advertising campaign; this, naturally, to be funded by us, the taxpayers.

It was also the DTI that opened up an account with the Bank of England on behalf of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company exposed time and again for shocking animal cruelty, as well as for falsifying records of experiments on animals and thus putting human life at risk as well over a period of decades.

Not only have they broken their promises regarding animal testing, but this year the number of animal experiments actually increased for the first time in almost 30 years, the largest total of 'procedures since 1994, meaning under this government the number of experiments annually is larger now than when they came to power. And this trend shows no sign of abating.

Much of this is a result of the heavy influence of one figure, a junior minister within the DTI, the science minister David (now Lord) Sainsbury. Sainsbury, a billionaire who has extensive investments in the bio-tech industry, has donated over £11.5 million to the Labour party, which in effect bought him a life peerage and the influential role of science minister.

Sainsbury, a Cambridge graduate, has used his huge influence with Tony Blair, a Oxford graduate to try to push through the plans for more laboratories in the UK in defiance of democracy and public opinion.

Time and time again we have seen that those in power do little for the animals and that it is the duty of compassionate individuals to band together to ensure changes for the better. We can only rely on ourselves to stop the suffering.