Lobbying for a lobbyists’ register

“I certainly think it’s a serious problem and I described it when we last discussed this as a canker on the body politic and I would stay with that,” said Jesse Norman on the World at One earlier today. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s sting, splashed by this morning’s Independent, of executives from lobbying/PR firm Bell Pottinger boasting of their influence over the prime minister has renewed the debate about regulating the lobbying industry, with calls for a public register to be established.

Downing Street has outright denied the allegations, which do sound rather far-fetched. Bravado is, of course, the currency of thin-air merchants. The objection is not to the bragging (how else can one tout ‘influence’?), but to where and how it’s done: behind closed doors or, more likely, over an exhausting lunch. Those fevered conversations are conducted in private to compound the illusion of an exclusive service. It’s a business model based on discretion and it sits uneasily with democratic accountability.

The spate of recent scandals affecting all parties confirms that lobbying, and the money that funds it, is dominant in day-to-day politics. As Fraser wrote after this year’s round of conferences, the monied lobbyists’ ascent has come at the expense of skint activists — that speaks of a dysfunctional system.