Tag Archives: lobbyist

United Kingdom corruption officially at its worst in modern times | Central Bylines

Backhander: the Tories have repeatedly insisted that apparent corruption that we’ve all observed really isn’t; will Labour do the same if Keir Starmer gets into Downing Street?

The UK is sinking into a mire of political corruption:

2023’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), recently published by Transparency International, shows that the UK has fallen from the 11th cleanest country for corruption in 2021, to 18th in 2022 and is now 20th in 2023 – its lowest ranking since records began in 1995.

In recent times, and unable to gain the support of Conservative moderates, the party has instead chosen to close the gap between itself and UKIP to leverage more radical support. For the sake of balance, I would happily concede that Labour also went off in search of more support from the left. These are not honest attempts to better represent their constituents but cynical attempts to capitalise on emerging power bases – in the case of UKIP, inflamed by the careful stoking of a culture war.

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The neo-liberals of the noughties – with a little help from their friends – started to see just what the possibilities were when it came to flexing the tolerances of our political system and leveraging new technology to influence voters.

For example, Matthew Elliott worked hard as founder of several organisations over years, determined to make the case for a new type of conservatism. Part of the Tufton Street furniture, he founded the TaxPayers’ Alliance (2004), Big Brother Watch (2009) and possibly the most clear red flag of all of his real intentions, the Conservative Friends of Russia (2012).

And – true to form – despite many senior Conservatives’ mysteriously close relations with dozens of Russia’s oligarchs, the Conservative Friends was just re-branded.

They all seem to share a common trait – lack of clarity over how they are funded. Each time a Tufton St associate appears on our screens or writes their next column, this lack of transparency can only lead to questions about the abuse of our trust in the institutions of our country; and each incursion into our democracy (whether as think tanks, research groups, trade groups or even cultural exchanges) creates a new opportunity for corruption.

With the political, business and romantic affairs of so many politicians mixed up with each other, it is difficult to see how we could ever be really sure that entrusted power is not being used for private gain.

So the Central Bylines article quoted above suggests that the Tufton Street “think tanks” are stoking corruption.

We’re also hearing that corruption is being boosted by corporate influence over political parties – with firms currently infiltrating election front-runners the Labour Party in order to persuade or bribe its leaders to follow their lead rather than lift a finger for the people who may actually elect them.

This Writer would suggest the billionaire-owned mainstream media, along with social media platform owners, as another source of corruption.

Can you think of any other sources of corruption?

Source: United Kingdom corruption officially at its worst in modern times – Central Bylines


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Labour ‘for sale’ as it cosies up to big business

Angela Rayner: she once denounced lobbyists acting as advisers to Tory government ministers; now her own electoral ‘battle bus’ is sponsored by a lobbyist and Labour is riddled with lobbyists advising shadow ministers on behalf of their clients.

Those of you who still think voting for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is a good idea need to ask yourselves: who will this party be working for – you, or the big businesses that are buying influence over Labour in advance of the general election?

Solomon Hughes has exposed the increasing influence of some of the worst big businesses on Labour, in Tribune magazine, writing:

Keir Starmer says he wants to clean up politics. Instead, he has facilitated a lobbyist takeover of the Labour Party, where predatory gambling firms, big oil and gig economy giants are buying influence at our expense.

In 2020 the Labour Party issued a press release in which its deputy leader, Angela Rayner, ripped into the Conservative government over ‘reports that lobbyists have been secretly serving as advisers to government ministers and departments’ and other revelations of ‘cronyism’ around ‘businesses and individuals with close links to the Conservative Party’. Rayner said it showed there was ‘one rule for lobbyists and their paying clients and another rule for the rest of us’.

This press release has been deleted from Labour’s website, along with all other pre-2022 notices. But Rayner’s own ‘battle bus’ is now ‘sponsored’ and part-funded by a Labour-connected lobbyist.

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According to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, Pentland Communications, a lobbying firm set up in 2018 by Barrie Cunning, paid Labour HQ £6,000 to fund Rayner’s ‘campaigning’, including ‘the provision of a branded vehicle’, a camper van with the slogan ‘Rayner on the Road’. Since August, Labour’s deputy leader has been using it for campaigning.

Pentland represents big housebuilders like Barratt. Rayner’s responsibilities include Labour housing policy. Pentland says it can help firms achieve ‘commercial objectives’ using its ‘good political relationships’. Paying for Rayner’s battle bus can’t hurt those ‘relationships’.

Pentland says other political events are also business opportunities. It tells clients that each party conference also ‘provides a good opportunity’ to meet politicians ‘in both formal and informal settings and have those important conversations’.

Rayner’s apparent reversal shows how Labour has fully embraced the corporate lobbying it denounced as ‘cronyism’ when it applied to the Conservatives. Concerns about corruption have disappeared as Labour pursues the intense lobbying that has come along with its lead in the polls.

The article goes on to suggest that “‘centrist’ politicians denouncing corporate corruption when in the opposition wallow in it when in government”. And it says:

Cameron highlighted how the ‘revolving door’ of ex-ministers and ex-advisers ‘for hire’ is key to lobbying. Labour has gone further, accepting lobbyists as its current officials. Abdi Duale was elected to Labour’s National Executive last September on the ‘moderate’ slate. The same month Duale became a director at FTI, a lobbying firm. FTI also employs former Labour MP Gemma Doyle, a director of key Labour ‘moderate’ group Progressive Britain. FTI offer clients ‘direct advocacy’ with ‘elected and appointed policymakers’. FTI’s recent clients include Palantir, the American spy-tech firm that is chasing contracts in the NHS.

The list goes on and on:

At the last Labour conference, Alice Perry won a seat on the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC). Typically for Labour, this dull-sounding body has significant power: it decides what debates Labour conferences hear. Perry, who was backed by both ‘moderate’ and ‘soft left’ factions, is also a public affairs director for the lobbying firm Cicero. The company tells clients she will be ‘advising on Labour Party engagement strategies’. Among Cicero’s clients are financial firms like Barclays and Blackrock, ‘buy-now-pay-later’ outfit Klarna, and privatisers like Serco.

In 2021 Rachel Reeves attacked the government over public services ‘being outsourced to a large private company like Serco, which has a poor track record and known links to the Conservative Party’. Now Serco hires Labour-linked lobbying firms. Serco executives shared platforms with shadow ministers at Labour’s 2023 conference. Perhaps we all misunderstood, and Reeves really objected to Serco’s ‘known links to the Conservative Party’ because she thought they should have known links to the Labour Party instead.

There are others, but we’ll skip those because the article goes on to state:

Corporations want to take big money contracts from the government while reducing any regulation or tax on their businesses. They want to shape the policy agenda and have turned to the consultants — as well as their own in-house lobbyists — to do so. Lobbying firms that spent years relying on their links with the Tories are adapting to a likely Labour government.

But – and this is important:

Something big is happening inside Labour as well. The party is welcoming lobbyists as the proof of, and route to, its ‘business engagement’. Under Starmer, Labour takes corporate support as a vote of confidence. If ‘business’ supports ‘labour’, then the party must be doing the right thing — and can hope for friendlier treatment by the corporate-run press.

And it could lead to scandal (again):

Labour is, in effect, using lobbyists to run much of its ‘business engagement’.

The last Labour government ran into a ‘cash for access’ scandal in 1998, when The Observer exposed lobbyists with New Labour links helping their clients get close to the new government. This was the first big blemish on Blair’s government. We are very likely to see a re-run of this scandal.

Worst of all is the possibility that the firms and lobbyists cosying up to Labour will use the connections (if the party wins the next election) to suck up government contracts, siphon off the cash and produce poor work.

This happened before, under Tony Blair’s New Labour:

We might end up with firms that suck money out of the public sector for poor work, giving another generation of future/former ministers jobs. The current wave of junior Labour officials taking corporate lobbying jobs acts as a kind of human promise, showing future ministers that they too can look forward to corporate jobs with a Labour government. This isn’t a theoretical risk: it is exactly what happened when the last Labour government embraced PFI and outsourcing. The lobbying and the jobs-for-the-boys-and-girls sweetened a bitter pill — although the former ministers got the sweeteners; we just got the bitterness.

Is that really what you want?

This Writer can’t see any difference between Starmer’s plan for a Labour government and what we already have under the Tories – apart from the possibility that the names of some of the ex-ministers taking jobs with big business will be different.

It seems clear that under a Starmer Labour government, public money will still be thrown away at private businesses who’ll provide no useful service to the public but will give jobs to the ministers who helped them.

So – please – do yourself and all the rest of us a favour.

Get yourself a list of all the candidates in your constituency and their manifestos, and educate yourself about what they are offering.

Then choose to vote for the candidate who offers the best deal for you.

I wrote the following in another article but it fits perfectly here, too:

Do not consider how other people will vote, either in your constituency or the other 649 around the UK. That is not your concern.

It is not for you to worry about which party will get enough votes to actually enact its policies. This will lead you down the usual garden path to voting in a government that won’t do anything at all for the good of the country, like the one we’ve had since 2010.

BE SELFISH. Bizarrely, it might be the only way to get the kind of government that all of us need.


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Bain Capital advisor Andrew Lansley tries to derail Lobbying Bill. Conflict of interest?

Listening on lobbying: Andrew Lansley proved exactly how trustworthy he is with the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Now he stands ready to hear discussion of his amendments to the new Lobbying Bill.

Listening on lobbying: Andrew Lansley proved exactly how trustworthy he is with the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Now he stands ready to hear discussion of his amendments to the new Lobbying Bill.

This seems nothing more than a filibuster. Now that Lord Lansley has a cushy job working for a lobbying firm, he doesn’t want it coming under scrutiny.

Right?

But doesn’t that raise the issue of conflict of interest? Why is Lansley being allowed to talk about this matter at all?

Come to that, after the atrocity that was the Health and Social Care Act 2012, why is this creature allowed to talk about anything at all, ever?

Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, who now advises health companies, has been accused of trying to stall a parliamentary bill that proposes to expose lobbyists in Whitehall to greater scrutiny.

The Tory peer has tabled 30 amendments to a bill before the House of Lords that seeks to establish a new register for lobbyists who meet ministers, senior civil servants and special advisers.

Labour and transparency campaigners suspect there will not be time for a parliamentary committee to discuss the amendments, and that the changes are in effect an attempt to scupper the bill.

Lord Lansley has denied their claims, saying he wants to ensure that the bill enshrines current regulatory powers and protects those being regulated.

The lobbying (transparency) bill won support from across the Lords last month when it was introduced by the Labour peer Clive Brooke.

The proposed legislation would replace the government’s much-criticised lobbying register with one that would be far more comprehensive.

It would cover in-house lobbyists as well as agency lobbyists, and would be extended to cover meetings with senior civil servants and special advisers. At present, only meetings between agency lobbyists and ministers and permanent secretaries are recorded.

Source: Tory peer Andrew Lansley accused of trying to stall lobbying bill | Politics | The Guardian

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Labour launches plan to attack political corruption

westminsterfromwater

If there’s one area of British life that needs reform, it’s politics.

Every day, Vox Political receives at least one comment from somebody saying that the system is corrupt and desperately needs an overhaul. Today (Tuesday, March 3), Labour is due to announce its plans for tackling this very issue.

The trouble is, of course, that many people are saying Labour is part of the problem.

The claim is that the party and its high-level members have a vested financial interest in keeping the system as it is – and the gravy train rolling along. How will Labour combat these?

Well…

There are plans to consult on new powers for the Speaker to tackle the worst and repeated instances of rowdy behaviour in the Chamber with a so-called ‘sin bin’.

Former Commons deputy speaker Nigel Evans described the idea as “rubbish”, pointing out that the speaker already has the ability to remove MPs in certain circumstances and has lots of discretion at present.

But the Speaker himself, John Bercow, has given a cautious welcome to the suggestion that MPs face a rugby-style “yellow-card” temporary ban for bad behaviour in the Chamber. Answering questions at a Hansard Society event at Westminster, Mr Bercow said: “I think there is merit in it, it’s not for me to decide, it’s for the House to decide.”

Other measures will be revealed at an event in Parliament, by Shadow Leader of the Commons Angela Eagle. They include:

  • Overhauling elections with measures including introducing votes at 16 and trialling online voting
  • Changing how Parliament works with a Prime Minister’s Questions for the public and a new process for law-making that gives people a say
  • Tackling vested interests by regulating MPs’ 2nd jobs and creating compulsory rules for lobbyists, and
  • Devolving power across the UK and replacing the Lords with a ‘Senate of the Nations and Regions’.

Some of these measures have already been trailed, like votes for 16-year-olds, public PMQs and regulation of MPs’ second jobs. One has been claimed by the Conservative Party, although Labour’s Austin Mitchell describes the plan for devolution to Greater Manchester as a “deathbed repentance by a government which had centralised continuously in a country that is over-centralised already”. He claimed that a concentration of power in London and the south-east of England “needs to be reversed so the rest of us can have a chance”.

Speaking ahead of the launch, Angela Eagle said: “The recent debate over MPs’ second jobs reminds us that so much needs to change in Westminster. When trust in politics and politicians is already at a record low, only radical reform will restore faith in our political process.

“Labour’s plan will deliver the reform our politics needs. We will reform the Commons to strengthen its ability to hold the government to account. And we will ensure our political system always puts people before rich and powerful vested interests.

“Our politics works on an adversarial system, but sometimes MPs take it too far and it turns the public off. A Labour government will consult on new powers for the Speaker to curb the worst forms of repeated barracking.”

This writer is particularly keen on online voting. It is to be hoped that the trials go well, so that this may help restore interest – and confidence – in democracy.

Does it go far enough? Undoubtedly people will say it does not – but at least, it seems, Labour will do something to arrest the corruption that seems to have seeped into the very bones of the Palace of Westminster (the building will be unusable within 20 years, it seems, unless expensive restoration work is undertaken).

What would you do?

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The Conservatives support big business and corruption rather than the electorate

This cartoon by David Simonds, from The Guardian, illustrates the problem - fat-cat businesses back Cameron while the working-class poor can only watch while they starve.

This cartoon by David Simonds, from The Guardian, illustrates the problem – fat-cat businesses back Cameron while the working-class poor can only watch while they starve.

Looking at the headline, one might thing that is a bold claim – but it is what David Cameron’s party supported with their votes yesterday.

The Tories fended off a Labour Opposition Day motion for Parliament to ban MPs from having directorships or consultancies with private business interests with a vote of 287 against the motion, compared with 219 for – a majority of 68.

Shadow Commons Leader Angela Eagle said the public deserved to be “safe in the knowledge” that every MP was working and acting in their interests – and not for somebody paying them.

But her Tory counterpart, William Hague, pretended that unions were a far greater influence on MPs.

In that case, perhaps he should have explained the amount of influence that unions have held over the Coalition Government during the last five years, relative to big business – to illustrate his point.

No such demonstration was forthcoming – because unions have no influence on Tories while businesses dictate the Conservative Party’s every move.

This is what the last five years of Conservative-led Coalition Government have been about, you see – changing the system to make it easier for big business to make a profit – and to pass some of it on to the Tories in donations to party funds.

You won’t see any change in that while Tories are in office.

Labour has already changed its rules to ensure none of its MPs can hold business consultancies or directorships after this year’s general election.

That sends out a clear message about who voters can trust to make the right decisions.

David Cameron, meanwhile, just can’t get anything right.

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Cameron outflanked and outclassed by Miliband on MPs’ second jobs

Triumph: Ed Miliband had David Cameron on the ropes in Prime Minister's Questions.

Triumph: Ed Miliband had David Cameron on the ropes in Prime Minister’s Questions.

That’ll be another win for Ed Miliband this week, then.

Obviously, the topic of the leader exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions (or Wednesday Shouty Time, for political realists) was always going to be MPs’ second jobs and ‘cash for access’.

Both Conservative Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Labour MP Jack Straw were implicated in a ‘hidden camera’ operation to show they were selling their services as MPs for money.

Ed Miliband acted immediately with a plan to stop MPs taking high-paying consultancies and directorships, saying they cannot serve two masters. David Cameron, on the other hand, did nothing – putting him in a weak position before today’s battle began.

It started in civilised fashion: Ed Miliband said the reputation of all members of the House had been “damaged” by the recent revelations, and Cameron responded by saying they were “extremely serious” and it is right they are investigated.

Cameron went on to explain that he is not ruling out further changes on second jobs – but the existing rules should be “properly applied”. Meaning they’re not already? Whose responsibility is that?

Having built up a slight head of steam, Cameron then ruined it by suggesting the government has tightened up the rules on lobbying and introduced a right of recall. We all know that both of these measures pay lip-services to their stated aim, while in fact protecting lobbyists’ access to ministers and helping MPs keep their seats.

Miliband capitalised on this by pointing out that Cameron said – in a 2009 speech before he became Prime Minister – that he would end the practice of “double-jobbing” as he called it then. We all know nothing happened about it after he took office so this was clearly yet another pre-2010 election lie.

Cameron tried to parry by saying Labour’s proposals to ban outside directorships are “not thought through”, repeating a claim made earlier this week that they would allow someone to be a trade union official but not run a family business or shop.

He worsened his position by adding that he believes Parliament is “stronger” if MPs have outside interests. So he’s in favour of the kind of corruption exhibited by Rifkind and Straw?

Clearly, Cameron thought his line on “paid trade union officials” would hammer Miliband down – but the Labour leader batted it away without batting an eyelid. He said he was prepared to add trade union officials to the list of extra jobs that should be banned, in Labour’s motion on the subject to be debated later.

This left Cameron with nowhere to go. He tried to raise the outside earnings of current and former Labour ministers like Tristram Hunt and David Miliband, but the Labour leader said Cameron “talked big” while in opposition and should now “vote for one job – not two”.

Cameron’s final claim, that Labour is “owned lock stock and barrel” by the unions, fell flat following Miliband’s concession on union jobs, while Mr Miliband scored a final hit by pointing out that the Conservatives are controlled by wealthy hedge funds.

Now Cameron is in a corner.

He won’t want to let Labour score a victory by conceding this afternoon’s vote on consultancies and directorships (and now, it seems, trade union officialdom) because it would allow Labour to say it has again changed government policy – and also the rules of Parliament.

But if he opposes the move, then the electorate will see a Conservative Party that works for big business rather than the electorate, and supports corruption.

What is he going to do?

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The biggest threat to democracy since World War II – and they tried to keep it secret

Corporate trade a-greed-ment: Notice that this image of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has mighty corporations straddling the Atlantic while the 'little' people - the populations they are treading on - are nowhere to be seen. [Picture: FT]

Corporate trade a-greed-ment: Notice that this image of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has mighty corporations straddling the Atlantic while the ‘little’ people – the populations they are treading on – are nowhere to be seen. [Picture: FT]

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is bitter pill for anyone to swallow, if they have spent any time defending Britain’s membership of the European Union.

The partnership between the EU and the United States would open America to the kind of free trade deals that have been going on in Europe ever since the original Economic Community was formed – but there is a problem.

It isn’t a problem for businesses; they are in line to get a deal better than anything ever experienced in the world of trade. Citizens and national governments, on the other hand – you, me, and the people who represent us – will be railroaded.

This is because the agreement includes a device called ‘investor-state dispute settlement’, which allows corporate entities to sue governments, overruling domestic courts and the will of Parliaments.

In other words, this could be the biggest threat to democracy since World War II.

In the UK, it could be used by shale mining companies to ensure that the government could not keep them out of protected areas, by banks fighting financial regulation, and by cigarette companies fighting the imposition of plain packaging for cigarettes. How do we know? Because these things are already happening elsewhere in the world.

If a product had been banned by a country’s regulators, the manufacturer will be able to sue them, forcing that state to pay compensation or let the product in – even if this undermines health and safety laws in that country.

It seems that domestic courts are deemed likely to be biased or lack independence, but nobody has explained why they think the secretive arbitration panels composed of corporate lawyers will be impartial. Common sense says they’ll rule for the profit, every time.

Now ask yourself a question: Have you ever heard about this?

Chances are that you haven’t – unless you have read articles by George Monbiot (one in The Guardian this week prompted this piece) or have insider knowledge.

The European Commission has done its utmost to keep the issue from becoming public knowledge. Negotiations on the trade and investment partnership have involved 119 behind-closed-doors meetings with corporations and their lobbyists (please note that last point, all you supporters of the government’s so-called Transparency of Lobbying Bill), and just eight with civil society groups. Now that concerned citizens have started to publicise the facts, the Commission has apparently worked out a way to calm us down with a “dedicated communications operation” to “manage stakeholders, social media and transparency” by claiming that the deal is about “delivering growth and jobs” and will not “undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment” – meaning it will do precisely the opposite.

Your Coalition government appears to be all for it. Kenneth Clarke reckons it is “Scrooge-like” to inflate concerns about investor protection and ignore the potential economic gains – but if the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement is any yardstick, exports will drop and thousands of jobs will be lost.

Green MP Caroline Lucas has published an early day motion on the issue – signed by a total of seven fellow Parliamentarians so far.

Labour MEPs are doing their best to cut the ‘investor-state dispute settlement’ out of the agreement, but they are fighting a lonely battle against the massed forces of greed.

So now ask yourself a second question: Why is the European Commission lying to Britain when we are already halfway out of the door?

Britain is not happy with the European Union or its place within that organisation. People think too much of their national sovereignty – their country’s freedom to do what it wants – is being stripped away by faceless bureaucrats who do not have the best interests of the population at heart. Now the European Commission is trying to foist this upon us.

For Eurosceptics in Parliament – of all political hues – this is a gift. For those of us who accept that we are better off in Europe – as it is currently constituted and without the new trade agreement – it is a poisoned pill.

Are we being pushed into a position where we have to choose between two evils that could have been avoided, if only our leaders had had an ounce of political will and an inch of backbone?

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‘Gagging Bill’ put on hold as government fears defeat

[Picture: PR Week]

[Picture: PR Week]

The Coalition government’s latest attack on democracy has been halted before it reached the House of Lords, after ministers realised peers weren’t going to put up with it.

The ‘Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration’ Bill was due to be discussed by peers this week, but the part dealing with third-party campaigning such as that carried out by charities and popular organisations has been put back until December 16 after a threat to delay the entire bill for three months.

The government wants to “rethink” its plans to restrict campaigning by charities, it seems. Hasn’t it already done so twice before?

Andrew Lansley tabled a series of amendments, including one reverting to wording set out in existing legislation, defining controlled expenditure as any “which can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure electoral success”, on September 6.

But the plan was still to “bring down the national spending limit for third parties, introduce constituency spending limits and extend the definition of controlled expenditure to cover more than just election material, to include rallies, transport and press conferences”, as clarified by the government’s own press release.

Lansley published further amendments on September 26, claiming that these would:

  • Remove the additional test of “otherwise enhancing the standing of a party or candidates”. This is to provide further reassurance to campaigners as to the test they have to meet in order to incur controlled expenditure. A third party will only be subject to regulation where its campaign can reasonably be regarded as intended to “promote or procure the electoral success” of a party of candidate,
  • Replace the separate listings for advertising, unsolicited material and manifesto/policy documents with election “material”; this is the language used in the current legislation that non-party campaigners and the Electoral Commission are already familiar with, and on which the Electoral Commission have existing guidance,
  • Make clear that it is public rallies and events that are being regulated; meetings or events just for an organisation’s members or supporters will not be captured by the bill. “We will also provide an exemption for annual events – such as an organisation’s annual conference”,
  • Ensure that non–party campaigners who respond to ad hoc media questions on specific policy issues are not captured by the bill, whilst still capturing press conferences and other organised media events, and
  • Ensure that all “market research or canvassing” which promotes electoral success is regulated.

But this blog reported at the time that anyone who thinks that is all that’s wrong with the bill is as gullible as Lansley intends them to be.

As reported here on September 4, the bill is an attempt to stifle political commentary from organisations and individuals.

New regulations for trade unions mean members could be blacklisted – denied jobs simply because of their membership.

Measures against lobbyists – the bill’s apparent reason for existing – are expected to do nothing to hinder Big Money’s access to politicians, and in fact are likely to accelerate the process, turning Parliamentarians into corporate poodles.

Where the public wanted a curb on corporations corruptly influencing the government, it is instead offering to rub that influence in our faces.

In fact, the Government’s proposed register would cover fewer lobbyists than the existing, voluntary, register run by the UK Public Affairs Council.

And now a bill tabled by Andrew Lansley has been given a “pause” for reconsideration. Is anybody else reminded of the “pause” that took place while Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act was going through Parliament? In the end, the government pushed it through, regardless of the screams of outrage from the medical profession and the general public, and now private health firms are carving up the English NHS for their own profit, using Freedom of Information requests to undermine public sector bids for services.

In the Lords last night, according to The Independent, ministers were pressured to include in-house company lobbyists in the proposed register, if it is to have any credibility.

But Lord Wallace said the proposed “light touch” system would be more effective and the register was designed to address the problem of consultant lobbying firms seeing ministers without it being clear who they represented – in other words, it is intended to address a matter that isn’t bothering anybody, rather than the huge problem of companies getting their chequebooks out and paying for laws that give them an advantage.

We should be grateful for the delay – it gives us all another chance to contact Lords, constituency MPs and ministers to demand an explanation for this rotten piece of legal trash.

If they persist in supporting this undemocratic attack on free speech, then they must pay for it at the next election.

Incrementalism – we think we’re winning victories but in fact we are losing freedoms

Loss of freedom: Every day the Coalition government tries to take something away from you; at the moment, it's your right to criticise.

Loss of freedom: Every day the Coalition government tries to take something away from you; at the moment, it’s your right to criticise.

Here’s a long-standing Conservative policy that has served that party very well over the years and continues to be alive today: Incrementalism.

This is the process of putting several changes into a single policy – or using one change as an excuse for another – so that, even if the main aim is defeated by public opinion or Parliament, others are achieved. Their plans progress by increments.

This week we are seeing it in several ways.

Did you think Chris Grayling’s announcement about Legal Aid was a victory for common sense and freedom? Think again.

He announced yesterday that plans to cut the Legal Aid bill by awarding contracts only to the lowest bidder have been dropped, after they attracted huge criticism.

The policy had been mocked because it meant smaller legal firms would be priced out of the market and replaced by legal outbranchings of large firms like Tesco or even Eddie Stobart. For these companies, there would be no financial incentive to fight any cases and they would most probably advise defendants to admit any crime, even if they were innocent. Meanwhile, habitual criminals, used to accepting the advice of their regular representative, would distrust that of the man from Eddie McTesco in his ‘My First Try At Law’ suit and would most likely deny everything. Result: The innocent go to jail and the guilty go free.

That was the headline issue; it has been defeated.

But Grayling still intends to cut Legal Aid fees by 17.5 per cent across the board. How many law firms will find they can’t operate on such lowered incomes?

The government’s war on immigrants will be stepped up with a residency test; only those who have lived in the UK for more than 12 months will be eligible for Legal Aid. Otherwise, for poorer immigrants, there will be no access to justice here.

Thousands of cases brought by people who have already been imprisoned will no longer be eligible for legal aid. Grayling says it won’t be available “because you don’t like your prison”. One supposes we are to hope this loss of one more right will not adversely affect people who are fighting wrongful imprisonment, or who have crimes committed against them while they are in prison, but we should all doubt that.

There is one block on Legal Aid that we may support, in fairness: An income restriction meaning that people with more than £3,000 left over every month after paying their “essential outgoings” will not be entitled to it. That’s a lot of money, and people earning this much should definitely be paying their own legal fees and not asking the taxpayer to do it for them.

According to the BBC report, Labour’s shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said the dropping of ‘price competitive tendering’, as the plan to award contracts to the lowest bidder was known, was “a humiliating climbdown”.

It would have been better for him to take a leaf out of the charity Reprieve’s book. Its representatives said blocking Legal Aid to immigrants who have been here less than a year would deny justice to people wronged by the UK government, ranging from victims of torture and rendition to Gurkhas and Afghan interpreters denied the right to settle here. Legal director Kat Craig said the government wanted to “silence its critics in the courts”.

Another attempt to silence critics of the government is the Transparency of Lobbying, non-Party Campaigning, and Trade Union Administration Bill, which is due to be discussed in Parliament next week.

The publicised aim of this legislation was to curb what comedy Prime Minister David Cameron himself has called “the next big scandal” – but none of the measures in the first part of the Bill would achieve this. A statutory register of all consultant lobbyists – those working for independent companies who represent the interests of others – as recommended by the Bill, would have prevented none of the lobbying scandals in which Cameron has found himself embroiled during his premiership.

Instead, it seems likely that this will make lobbying by smaller-scale individuals and organisations more difficult, while larger concerns, with in-house lobbyists, may continue to walk through the doors of Number 10, chequebook in hand, and buy any policy they deem beneficial to their business. If this Bill becomes law, they’ll be rubbing our faces in it.

The Bill was introduced on the very last day that Parliament sat before the summer recess – and ministers waited until the very last moment to bolt two new sections onto it. There had been no consultation on the content of these sections, and the timetable proposed for the Bill meant there could be only limited discussion of them.

These were the provisions for gagging political campaigners who do not belong to a political party, and for tying up trade unions in excessive and unneeded red tape. The only possible reason for the first of these is to stop anyone from publishing material that criticises the government in the run-up to the next election – a totalitarian move if every there was one.

And the restriction on trade unions, having their memberships audited independently, is totally unnecessary as the unions already adhere to very strict rules on membership. The real reason would appear to be a plan to make union membership a matter of public knowledge in order to allow businesses to ‘blacklist’ anyone in a union – stop them from getting jobs.

The Bill “will now undergo more detailed scrutiny from MPs”, the BBC website story states. This scrutiny will last a mere three days, next week. This is far too short a period, and rushed onto the Parliamentary schedule far too early, for MPs to subject it to proper scrutiny.

Some of the provisions will be altered, but the Tories are sure to get their way in others. The possibility that union members will be ‘blacklisted’ seems extremely likely, since this is something Coalition partners the Liberal Democrats are not keen to oppose.

And then there is Iain Duncan Smith, who came under fire from the National Audit Office yesterday, over his extremely expensive and utterly unworkable bid to remake social security in his own image – Universal Credit.

The report hammered the project for the poor leadership shown throughout – nobody knew what Universal Credit was supposed to do or how its aims were supposed to be achieved, the timescales imposed for it were unrealistic, the management structure imposed on it was unorthodox and (it turned out) unworkable, there were no adequate measures of progress, and nobody working on the project was able to explain the reasoning behind any of these decisions.

Smith himself, whose likely inadequacies as a bag-carrier in the Army have led to him being labelled ‘RTU’ (Returned To Unit, a sign of shame in the armed forces), was revealed to have lied to Parliament last year, when he claimed the process was running smoothly just weeks after having to order a rethink of the entire project.

How did he explain himself?

He blamed the Civil Service.

So now the issue is not whether Universal Credit will ever work (it won’t) but whether the British Civil Service – described in this blog as “the most well-developed, professional and able government organisation on this planet” – can do its job properly.

The article in which that description was made also described ministerial attacks on civil servants as “the Conservatives’ latest wheeze”. Michael Gove has already hammered morale in his Education department by making huge staff cuts and then employing his ignorant mates to impose their stupid views on the professionals.

It also foreshadowed RTU’s outburst this week, quoting a Spectator article that said, “If Universal Credit is a flop, then it will prove our current Whitehall set-up is failing. But if it succeeds, it will be no thanks to the Civil Service either”.

So the scene is set for the government to attack the very people who try to enact its policies. This blog stands by its words in the previous article, when the plan was described this: “Blame the Civil Service for everything, cut it back, and leave the actual mechanics of government unusable by anybody who follows”.

Meanwhile, ministers such as Mr ‘Denial’ Smith have made the British government an international laughing-stock.

Sydney Finkelstein, Professor of Strategy and Leadership at the Tuck School of Business in Dartmouth, in the USA, tweeted the following yesterday: “Shocked to hear top guy not take full responsibility for bad execution. Never happens in America.

“140 character twitter not enough to convey amateurism of leader who can’t lead.”

He might not be able to lead, but – by devious means – he and his odious ilk are getting almost everything they want.