16 Mar 2014 21:18:41
This would certainly constitute "a quiet word", the title of a book by two activists who have sought to shed light on the shady world of the lobbyist. There are three main concerns about lobbying. Should it have to exist at all? Surely a healthy democracy should find other vehicles for influencing the debate? To which the simple answer would be: life isn't perfect and you should use every (legal) vehicle at your disposal.
The more convincing objection is the lack of transparency. Here the authors are at their most persuasive. As they point out, there is no justification for granting lobbyists (often former MPs or political journalists) passes to the Houses of Parliament, to roam as they please. Lobbyists' meetings with ministers should be closely logged, the information released for the public to see. The authors make a compelling case for radical improvements. Sad to note, therefore, that the new bill on lobbying passed recently by parliament is likely to make a bad situation worse.
The authors insist at the outset that they have not allowed their own political views to dictate their views about these dark arts. The problem is that they do, almost on every page. They fulminate about the extent to which the climate-change deniers have damaged or destroyed the green agenda. They don't like Michael Gove's education reforms and blame the internet giants for selling IT "solutions" and other corporates for lining up to open new schools. They bemoan the government's flip-flopping over minimum alcohol pricing, under pressure from the drinks firms. They are right to raise concerns about these examples and more. Yet I don't read complaints about the highly successful lobbying to introduce gay marriage – because it produced a laudable outcome.
The research they conduct is assiduous. Pointing to the success of the Taxpayers' Alliance, the authors note that in one seven-week period in 2010, the low-tax, pro-deregulation group secured 13 front pages and more than 150 articles in the Daily Express. In 2009 the Daily Mail quoted it in 517 articles, the Sun 300 times. They show also that the man formerly in charge of Britain's tax system, Dave Hartnett, became known as Whitehall's most wined and dined civil servant. On 107 occasions in two years he accepted the hospitality of some of the UK's biggest banks, law firms and accountancy firms. "Hartnett was a pivotal figure in the recent 'sweetheart' tax deals with large corporations agreed to by the Revenue," they comment. In a sweet irony (pardon the pun), a reception for the British Nutrition Society was funded by Nestlé, with refreshments provided by Coca-Cola and Mars.
Yet the sum total of these parts, compelling though many of them are, does not add up to a convincing whole. The roots of the lamentable state of British politics go far deeper than this. Why do so few people of talent and experience of the wider world bother trying to get elected to parliament? And when they do, why do they find themselves so cowed and hamstrung? The answer to those questions goes beyond the antics of a coterie of sharp-suited lobbyists.
