So unions and charities will be hit (£) by a clampdown on lobbyists? Well, whodathort it?
One can only hope that the consequences of any such new regime, if it ever comes about which I doubt, will mean that bully-unions and fake charities will get less taxpayers' money. Genuine charities will always attract support from millions like me who want to help thy neighbour but object to organised fakery on the public teat.
As for the unions, don't (as they say) get me started. Their political arm is the Labour Party, right? OK, the Eds can do the politicking while the Brothers get out of their Whitehall-bound limos, take a bus back to where the workers are and do what their members pay their subs for - negotiate better working conditions for them. If they want to lobby the gummint, let them stand for Parliament.
All of which is not to say that I am against lobbying by outsiders in principle. It will happen, whatever you call it. People are entitled, in a democracy, to put their views and concerns to ministers, and to band together to do so, appointing a spokesman who is entitled to be paid for his labour on their behalf. To repeat, whatever you call it, it will happen. To assume, as one's default position, that lobbying is ipso facto corrupt is mad.
It is the abuse of the right to lobby which needs examination. Let's hope Dave gets it right. I am not hopeful.
In answer to James's (irony-fail?) question a day or two back, no, I am not now and never have been a political lobbyist and the prospects of my ever being one in the future are nil. I would go further: mwahahahaha…
Which is why, despite their current squawking, Labour were strongly opposed in the last parliament to further regulation of lobbying
ReplyDeletewv : shister!
Well that's cleared that one up then. :)
ReplyDeleteI acted as a "lobbyist", or, more reasonably, a "specialist technical advisor" on two bits of parliamentary business - the revisions to the Computer Misuse Act and the Code of Practice for Part III of RIPA. In both cases, I was paid (at my usual rate - and not entitled to overtime) by my employer to liase with civil servants, trade groups and the occassional rabid weasel. Realistically, we were looking to avoid the "law of unintended consequences" - to explain to the legislators what the words they were using actually meant and the changes they would force to what currently happened.
ReplyDeleteI like to think we didn't do too badly - we got some of the language changed, we got some of the more evil stuff removed from the drafts and we got parliamentary and CPS assurances about the interpretation of some things that were just too complicated.
And then, in the final bills, back-bench amendments undid all of our hard work. Horses, water etc.