TESCO – from the horse’s mouth

Now that the story about Tesco giving £30,000 to the debauched and aggressive 2012 London Gay Pride Parade (called ‘World Pride’ this year) is almost two months old, some of us have forgotten that (or even whether) they stopped supporting the ‘Race for Life’ organised by Cancer Research just days before announcing their cash for the gays.

Here is a bit of the confusion reaching us: Fred says: ‘Tesco has not stopped supporting Cancer Research UK, indeed 2012 is likely to produce the biggest sponsorship ever after £7 million in 2011’.  Another correspondent takes a sideways line: ‘£30,000 is not much out of Tesco’s total charitable giving budget.’

Last point first.  It does not matter how much Tesco are giving to ‘Gay Pride’.  If they made a charitable donation of £500 to the National Secular Society or gave £750 to the Euthanasia fanatics, or £1,000 to the abortionists at Marie Stopes, Christians and other decent people would be outraged, even if Tesco said ‘But we are giving £64million to other good causes’ (which is what they do say).

So what is the truth about ‘Race for Life’?  The Daily Mail stated on 11th November: ‘Tesco has triggered outrage by ending its support for the Cancer Research ‘Race for Life’ while deciding to sponsor Britain’s largest gay festival.
‘Tesco has worked with Cancer Research for more than ten years, raising hundreds of millions of pounds to help combat an illness that will affect one in three of the population.

‘The chain’s main contribution was support for the annual fundraising Race for Life, the UK’s largest women-only charity event, which has raised more than £400million for the fight against cancer since it began in 1994.

‘But shortly after Tesco announced the partnership would end, the firm said it would be a headline sponsor of Pride London.’

The Mail continued by quoting both Cancer Research and Tesco to back up their story:  ‘Cancer Research UK, which gave no sign of disappointment about losing Tesco’s support, is looking for a new partner for the Race for Life.

‘Emma Gilbert, who organises the event, said the partnership ‘came to a natural end’ for both parties.

‘But she added: ‘Tesco employees have taken part in events across the UK, raising over £7million for our life-saving research, and we hope they will continue to take part in the events.’

‘Tesco said it was in talks with the charity to support its work in other ways and would encourage staff to continue taking part in the Race for Life.

‘A spokesman said the decision to drop its support ‘is not connected to our £30,000 sponsorship for Pride, which is one of hundreds of community and charitable events that we will be supporting next year’.

So Tesco could not and did not deny that they had ended their support for Race for Life and days later announced the sponsorship for ‘Gay Pride’ (note how their spokesman leaves out the ‘gay’ bit).

We understand very well that one cannot take what this newspaper says at face value, and we uncovered some Daily Mail spin in their story about atheism at the BBC.  But letters and emails from Tesco have confirmed the Daily Mail’s take on the giant superstore.  An email dated 22nd November 2011 from Matthew Maycock, Customer Service Executive on behalf of the Chief Executive, Philip Clarke, said:

‘We remain very proud of the work we have done with Cancer Research UK and Race for Life. Since 2002 nearly two-thirds of our staff have taken part in or supported races, raising over £7 million. Though the nature of our relationship has changed, we will continue to support Race for Life in the years to come through the thousands of our staff that enter the event each year – paid for by Tesco.

‘We took a decision to support Pride London with a donation of £30,000 because our Out at Tesco network asked us to help.’

So there we have it.  The Mail’s story, and our story is true.  Tesco themselves have confirmed that they have indeed ended their formal support for Race for Life (‘nature of our relationship has changed’) and are now relying on their staff to take up the slack.  As to the London (Gay) Pride donation, they admit this was lobbied for by the demanding, anti-Christian Tesco homosexual contact group ‘Out at Tesco’.  It was rolling over when ‘Out at Tesco’ asked for a few pounds for their gay jamboree that has landed Tesco in this mess.  Tesco should have been strong enough and smart enough to have said, ‘Sorry, guys, we just don’t sponsor divisive political statements’.

We are distributing these LEAFLETS at Tesco stores and you can click HERE for other prayer and action, including the email addresses of Tesco executives.

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