Thread by @WillHayCardiff

[Thread]
Last week I went through former Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns' declarations of interest for the last 10 years.
This is what I found:

In the last decade he has received £15,000 from Ukrainian energy tycoon Alexander Temerko.
The most recent was £5,000 before the last general election.

Only one was from Termerko personally.

The others came through his companies AQUIND Ltd and Offshore Group Newcastle Ltd.

In the last five years another £19,500 was given to Mr Cairns by London based property developer Marc Pennick.

Mr Pennick is a partner at property development company Avanton.

Incidentally, Alun Cairns' former cabinet colleague Sir Michael Fallon is the non executive chairman at Avonton.

Sir Michael was resigned as defence secretary following allegations of lewd and inappropriate behaviour.

Combined, the 2019 donations from Mr Termerko and Mr Pennick, adds up to £8,000, over 50% of the £15,179.20 Mr Cairns spent on the election in December.

Mr Cairns also received two tickets for the Chelsea Flower Show in both 2011 and 2012 worth over £2,200. This came from a Japanese tobacco company. 🇯🇵

This was at the same time he voted against a bill banning smoking in cars carrying children and vocally opposed plain packaging on cigarettes.🚬👶 🏎️

Mr Cairns was replaced as Welsh secretary by Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire MP Simon Hart and there are some strange similarities between the pair.

Mr Hart has also received some serious cash from Mr Temerko. In 2014 he gave Simon Hart £10,000 from his Offshore Group Newcastle company.

In May 2014, Mr Hart also accepted two tickets to the Chelsea Flower show worth £1,404.00 from Japan Tobacco International.

Just three months before that, Mr Hart was one of only 24 MPs who voted against tabled amendments to the Children and Families Bill which would enable the UK government to:

1. Introduce regulations requiring plain packaging for tobacco products

2. Introduce regulations making it an offence to sell e-cigarettes to children under 18

3. Make it an offence for an adult to buy cigarettes for anyone under the age of 18

The similarities don't end there.

They both refused to comment when we approached them.
🚫

Other investigations have also found links between the Conservative Party and major polluters.

The Conservative Party received nearly £1.5 million of donations from polluting interests and funders of climate science denial in the past three months, @DeSmogUK analysis showed.

The latest Register of MPs’ Interests shows Home Secretary Priti Patel was among those who received a total of £21,000 from current or past backers of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s principal climate science denial lobby group. 🏭🏭🏭🏭🏭

Full story is here:
walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-new…