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| The prime minister was at Lord's on Friday, bantering with the BBC's Test Match Special team and enjoying spin bowler Graeme Swann's devastating attack. And maybe, behind his dark glasses, pondering his own problems with Australians and spin. | |
| David Cameron knew lobbying was a scandal waiting to happen, and he's had plenty of confirmation in his three years in office. Yet legislation has repeatedly been knocked back. It's taken three years to see a bill, and it came after it was ignored in the Queen's speech in May, revived in June after yet another lobbying scandal and rushed into print in July in an apparent bid to embarrass Labour over links with the unions. It was the day before MPs departed for the summer holiday and it's to be debated the week they return, thus ignoring all the tenets of sound legislation so clearly established by the notorious Dangerous Dogs Act. Yet it's likely to stop any further attempt to let in the sunshine Mr Cameron once promised on what goes on between politicians and people who want to influence them. Somehow, what should have been a contribution to restoring trust in politics has become another blow to its reputation. No wonder the MPs on the constitutional affairs committee, whose own careful report has been comprehensively ignored, are spitting. | David Cameron knew lobbying was a scandal waiting to happen, and he's had plenty of confirmation in his three years in office. Yet legislation has repeatedly been knocked back. It's taken three years to see a bill, and it came after it was ignored in the Queen's speech in May, revived in June after yet another lobbying scandal and rushed into print in July in an apparent bid to embarrass Labour over links with the unions. It was the day before MPs departed for the summer holiday and it's to be debated the week they return, thus ignoring all the tenets of sound legislation so clearly established by the notorious Dangerous Dogs Act. Yet it's likely to stop any further attempt to let in the sunshine Mr Cameron once promised on what goes on between politicians and people who want to influence them. Somehow, what should have been a contribution to restoring trust in politics has become another blow to its reputation. No wonder the MPs on the constitutional affairs committee, whose own careful report has been comprehensively ignored, are spitting. |
| It's all the more misjudged when Mr Cameron is so clearly uncomfortable under pressure about his campaign adviser Lynton Crosby. He may find solace in the news that hardly anyone knows who Mr Crosby is. But he shouldn't imagine it's only conspiracy theorists who suspect a possible link between a) employing an adviser who also represents Philip Morris and b) making an unexpected policy change about cigarette packaging. It was, after all, Mr Crosby who decided the barnacles needed scraping off the Queen's speech. Of course, as Mr Cameron protests, cigarette packaging was not necessarily a barnacle, and nor, perhaps, was a lobbying bill. But it would be much easier to make the case if this week's bill had been brought forward in an orderly manner. | It's all the more misjudged when Mr Cameron is so clearly uncomfortable under pressure about his campaign adviser Lynton Crosby. He may find solace in the news that hardly anyone knows who Mr Crosby is. But he shouldn't imagine it's only conspiracy theorists who suspect a possible link between a) employing an adviser who also represents Philip Morris and b) making an unexpected policy change about cigarette packaging. It was, after all, Mr Crosby who decided the barnacles needed scraping off the Queen's speech. Of course, as Mr Cameron protests, cigarette packaging was not necessarily a barnacle, and nor, perhaps, was a lobbying bill. But it would be much easier to make the case if this week's bill had been brought forward in an orderly manner. |
| It is not as if it's very hard to work out what lobbying regulation should look like. Australia, Canada, the US – there are a dozen possible examples. The essentials are a broad definition of lobbyists, including not only those who work for a lobbying agency but also those working for charities, industry groups, the CBI or indeed trade unions – and an obligation to declare all clients and every meeting. Instead, only lobbying agencies need to register, and only senior contacts recorded. That, it's reckoned, shelters about 95% of all lobbying activity under the flimsiest veneer of openness. It's a travesty. | It is not as if it's very hard to work out what lobbying regulation should look like. Australia, Canada, the US – there are a dozen possible examples. The essentials are a broad definition of lobbyists, including not only those who work for a lobbying agency but also those working for charities, industry groups, the CBI or indeed trade unions – and an obligation to declare all clients and every meeting. Instead, only lobbying agencies need to register, and only senior contacts recorded. That, it's reckoned, shelters about 95% of all lobbying activity under the flimsiest veneer of openness. It's a travesty. |