Labour Party Conference Sponsors 2003

fringe party meetings of Foreign Policy Centre (patron Tony Blair) are sponsored by Nestle.
they include speeches by Jack Straw, development minister Hillary Benn, and Peter Hain.
Nestle are accused of aggressively selling unsuitable baby milk in the third world leading to many avoidable child deaths.

Matthew Taylor, new Blair head of policy, is speaking at a meeting on disability with employment minister Andrew Smith and health minister Rosie Winterton. this is sponsored by Unum Provident, who are a huge US multinational specialising in disability and health insurance with obvious interest in cutting back state sickness and disability benefit and who have been fined $1million in Georgia for refusing to pay out to sick policyholders as well as facing nine other class actions. the company's corporate director will also be speaking at the event.

Barclays bank sponsor a Social Market Foundation meeting titled "Labour can bridge the inequality gap". speakers include disgraced minister Peter Mandelson and the bank's executive Martin Mosley.

consumer affairs minister Gerry Sutcliffe speaks about consumer debt sponsored by the Finance and Leasing Association (who represent store card, credit card, and other loan industries).

the Mobile Operators Association sponsor a meeting where environment minister Alun Michael will be talking about how planning decisions can be speeded up. they are a lobby group keen to get mobile phone masts installed against local opposition.

Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, and chair of Labour's Commission for Integrated Transport David Begg, are sponsored by the Go-Ahead Group, operator of Thameslink franchise in a talk entitled "10 year transport plan". another talk by Begg along with transport minister Tony McNulty called "next stop for transport" is sponsored by Arriva (the firm fined £2m for poor service but in receipt of £121m government subsidy).

Health minister Rosie Winterton will be "taking the pulse of the NHS" at a meeting sponsored by BUPA. Superdrug are sponsoring a private breakfast seminar promising senior government indiividuals by invitation only to discuss "democratising health".

culture minister Tessa Jowell is joined by Sky managing director Dawn Airey to discuss "Charter Review and the future of television" - the event is sponsored by Sky and the BBC are not invited. and finally Ms. Jowell also appears with Camelot's chief executive Diane Thompson to discuss whether the lottery is working properly - the event is sponsored of course by Camelot.

thanks to Private Eye for this info.