BASC has received confirmation from the UK’s largest holiday company that it does not support an anti-shooting campaign promoted by Chris Packham.
TUI Group – which owns Thomson, First Choice and Thomson Cruises – has said it did not reply to a survey hosted by the Ethical Consumer website and it has demanded their logo be taken down from the website.
Ethical Consumer’s campaign against grouse shooting received support in the build up to the Glorious Twelfth from BBC presenter Packham, who used social media accounts to bombard leading high street brands with anti-shooting messages.
But TUI have now joined other major companies – including Waitrose, Premier Inn, Costa Coffee, Next and Allianz – in telling BASC that its position has been misrepresented.
A TUI spokesperson said: “TUI Group is not associated with this campaign. We did not complete a questionnaire and have not given permission for our logo to be used and will be requesting it is removed from this website.”
Garry Doolan, BASC’s Head of Press Relations, said: “The response to BASC from TUI is emphatic. It did not complete the survey and it did not give permission for their logo to be used without permission.
“Yet the Ethical Consumer has been misrepresenting TUI’s alleged support for more than a week, while Packham has backed this anti-shooting campaign with some vigour.
“There is a certain irony in the Ethical Consumer behaving in such an unethical manner. They have clearly attempted to mislead the consumer. It is another example of the anti-shooting extremists taking their bullying to the high street.
“BASC will continue to challenge misrepresentation which tries to damage shooting wherever and whenever it appears.”
Legal and General’s logo also disappeared from Ethical Consumer’s website this week. Of the original companies named by Ethical Consumer as being in support of their campaign, only Aldi have still to respond to BASC’s request for clarification of their stance.
The UK’s largest shooting organisation has now written to Aldi Group Managing Director Giles Hurley and outlined the supermarket’s previous support for the sale of game meat, including pheasant.
WHAT THE COMPANIES SAY:
“We have spoken with Ethical Consumer and asked for them to remove our logos from their campaign.” – Whitbread
“We have not given permission for our logo to be used.” – Next
“Taking part in grouse shooting events is a matter for other organisations and individuals. We did not give permission for our logo to be used.”– Allianz
“We’ll be asking for our logo to be removed from the website.” – SSE
We did not complete a questionnaire and have not given permission for our logo to be used and will be requesting it is removed from this website”. – TUI Group
“We did not complete the questionnaire itself. We simply provided a very brief factual statement.” – Stagecoach
“We are entirely neutral on this issue and are not taking a position in this debate.” – Hargreaves Lansdown