It’s not much of a story that someone who was Prime Minister six years ago lobbied the Treasury on behalf of a business he is employed by, only to be turned down. To make it interesting the ex PM would have to break the rules over conduct out of office, and he would need to be successful in his lobbying. We are told neither of these conditions were met.
The facts are not going to get in the way of those who nonetheless want a debate about lobbying. Energetic lobbying is a part of a healthy democracy. Charities spend large sums on their lobbying for legislative change and access to spending programmes. Businesses organise themselves into trade Associations and nationwide lobbying bodies to get favourable changes of policy for their sectors. Trade Unions spend large sums on setting out their policy demands. The BBC and other media regularly give privileged slots on news and comment programmes for lobby groups to make their case prior to interrogating any Minister who dares to say No to the lobby proposal.Maybe the media is too kind to these lobbyists and ought to question their motives and views more thoroughly before running their demands.
Ministers of course need to understand what the business or other interest of a person is when they talk to them or have a meeting with them. This usually flows from the person having to make clear who they represent or work for to get the meeting in the first place. Ministers need to have shed all their own business interests, or to exempt themselves from any decision where there could be a conflict of interest. Much of the detailed commercial interface between government and business is handled by impartial officials who are trained to assess bids and proposals on their merits rather than favouring friends of the government. It appears that the wide ranging access Greensill had to UK government in the Cameron years was arranged by the Cabinet Secretary himself, the ultimate policeman of propriety and procedure in government. The interesting questions about the arrangements then in government relate to why the UK state needed to introduce supply chain finance, and why if the problem was late payment of public sector bills they did not just pay them more quickly. Tragically the Cabinet Secretary died young so we cannot find out from him what led him to give Greensill such access.
Some want to believe that a few billionaires have particularly favourable access to governments and end up making the policies that rule us. The answer to that is Ministers have free choice about who they listen to and which arguments they find attractive. We need to concentrate on what Ministers say and do, as they have the power. Usually the policies which most annoy the critics are international policies embedded in treaties or set out by membership bodies like the UN. In the case of the EU they are of course strongly binding on member states through their own court and legal system. These are more difficult for governments to amend or ignore as that may entail renouncing the relevant treaty.
Ministers have daily to defend their choices to Parliament, the public and media and if they are taking bad advice they feel the results. Chasing the possible influencers can divert us from the real task of debating and changing what government itself decides to do, or debating any damaging rules and guidance of the international bodies we belong to. Chasing individual outside advisers is only relevant if there is corruption. As Margaret Thatcher wisely said, Ministers decide and advisers advise. That is usually true. Any adviser who overreaches or ceases to please can be dismissed. Oppositions are there in part to call out influence or lobbying which crosses the line from the acceptable.
April 8, 2021
So all is well in the state of Britain, I very much doubt it. The customers, almost all 67 million have diddly squat say in what happens in their governance having elected a government.
For instance, who are the vested interests in HS2 who have managed to keep it afloat to date. None of our citizens who want value for money and a compelling business plan I would submit. None of those living within half a mile of its route whose lives have been upended permanently. Not the citizen tax payers who will get the Ā£100 billion plus bill.
One could go on, page after page, in conflict with your contention that the relationship between vested interests, ministers and government is healthy and beyond criticism. It isn’t, vested interests have access on a daily basis, citizens do not.
April 8, 2021
Precisely. Lobbying is subverting democracy. Period.
April 8, 2021
‘The interesting questions … relate to why the UK state needed to introduce supply chain finance, and why if the problem was late payment of public sector bills they did not just pay them more quickly. ‘ Indeed – and that’s why Greensill should have been shown the door. HMG can finance itself more cheaply than any commercial entity. This affair stinks.
April 8, 2021
+1 as do very many others. Test and trace for example cost Ā£ billions value almost nothing or even negative, HS2 and the Net Zero lunacy a similar cost value ratio.
April 8, 2021
It’s interesting how what are serious imprisonable offences – and people do go to prison – in most modern countries are simply commonplace -quasi-normalised – here, having been effectively legalised by successive Tory governments.
It’s utterly disgusting.
“Traffic of influence” some call it.
April 8, 2021
Give us proof for that claim MiC
April 8, 2021
Good morning.
This is the one I have greatest issue with – Charities. These bodies enjoy great privileges and status. There role is to raise awareness of a cause or causes, seek funding and carry out what work needs to be done to make suitable remedy. Yet today I see so called charities use and abuse their status and are now in receipt of monies from the taxpayer to fund what I see is their largess. They have also become very politically active, and it is that which in my view makes it wrong for them to lobby.
Political parties are elected to fulfill promises made. To date, very few promises made by the Tory party have been honoured and many new policies not promises have been created yet, if I as an independent person wish to complain all I have is an MP, who has zero power, or to protest, for which I can now be arrested.
Still think you live in a free country where we all matter ?
April 8, 2021
Mark B
Agree very much with you on charities. As part of their tax payers handouts should be the clause all vehicles, plant and consummerable should be solely British made. The way they appear to spend our money on foreign imports is in my opinion disgraceful.
April 9, 2021
Oh, you must mean one or more of those right wing “think tanks” or “institutes”, which occupy the same address in Tufton Street, and whose recommendations John appears to seek to effect to the letter.
April 8, 2021
You will need to use your imagination for a momment.
Minister to civil service secretary. Whats on the programme today Sir Cecil. Well minister this morning there is a delegation from Middle Twaddle. They are objecting to a new industrial estate scheduled to blight their village. This afternoon the developers, Excellence Plc, of said industrial estate are in to support their project. Minister spends all day listening to the opposing arguments. Excellence Plc are the only ones who can offer a well paid directorship when the minister retires, apart of course from the bank financing it, who can find another well paid directorship slot on their board too. Minister agrees to give due weight to the arguments, but I will leave you to guess, based on previous form, whether the industrial estate is built or not.
April 8, 2021
Indeed but when one looks at the endless stream of mad projects, red tape and the streams of insane lunacy that comes from government (both UK and EU) it is impossible to explain much of it without assuming that corruption, paid āconsultanciesā and lobbying is rife and the main driver of this imbecilic decision making. HS2, the mad net zero carbon agenda, the current lockdown, test and trace and the pushing of heat pumps and premature electric cars for good examples.
On heat pumps some daft journalists & reporters keep talking about having to have houses 10 degree colder. This is not how heat pumps work. They work most efficiently when pumping heat from say 10 decrees from the ground to say 40 degree at the radiators (Carnot’s theorem). If they have to pump from air below zero to hot radiators at say 70 degrees C for rads and 60 c for hot water they are far, far less efficient. To get round this you need much larger but more tepid radiators, so retro fitting can be very expensive and disruptive and makes little economic or practical sense. Also it means they are slow to heat a cold building up which can mean having to keep them warm when not in use (which is inefficient for building not in use all the time).
April 8, 2021
“The facts are not going to get in the way of those who nonetheless want a debate about lobbying.”
Indeed, nor will they get in the way of the small minority of political agitators who post to social media and comment websites who do not so much want a debate on Lobbying -they quite like the idea of Lobbying, on their terms of course, but simply want to rubbish and drag a political foe through the mill so to speak. Such people need to remember there might well be, or have been, people close to their own cause who others are just waiting to spill some dirt on, months, years, even decades later…
April 8, 2021
Why must this only occur with previous governments? This business of investigating Cameron is a prime example of the usual shutting the door after the horse has bolted.
I would much prefer to hear there is an investigation about the lobbying by billionaires, multinationals and the influence of those with a ‘green fetish’ have had and the conflicts of interests that have emerged in the current government, from the PM down.
April 8, 2021
J Bush
+1 especially the green, turbine and EV lobbies
April 8, 2021
Jonathan Sumption today in the Telegraph.
Itās inhuman that weāve been left at the mercy of Sageās garbage models
Scientists and politicians are relying on modelling that ignores evidence of the vaccinesā efficacy.
Exactly right and there is clearly no reason for all this expensive mass testing of health people.
What has happened to the sane words of Allister Heath recently I rather miss them?
April 8, 2021
I wonder why Sumptionās views should be correct rather than others that differ? Apart from the fact that they agree with you of course.
April 8, 2021
He commands respect, Nig l, because he’s a former Supreme Court judge who is no longer on the government payroll. To me, that point is important and helps to make his views credible. In any case, when Lord Sumption says the computer models used by Neil Ferguson and SAGE are garbage, that is scarcely an exaggeration, if you’ve been following the data. Countries, and states of the US, that did not lock down did not experience the massive number of deaths that on Ferguson’s model they ought to have done. It is rather tiresome to have to keep repeating this, for people who will not keep up. After a year, the results are in – even the supposedly independent news site The Conversation (‘Strategic Partners’: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) has recently had to admit there’s no correlation between severity of lockdowns and Covid outcomes.
April 9, 2021
+1
April 8, 2021
Lord Sumption ends his article:- The Government must now make up its mind whether the vaccines are effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths, or not. If they are effective, then the restrictions on our lives are unnecessary and should be lifted. If they are not effective, then they should still be lifted, because in that case we are going to have to live with periodic surges of Covid-19, for the only alternative is to prolong the current assault on our humanity indefinitely.
April 8, 2021
If a present PM can imprison his subjects and take away their human rights and livelihoods.I am darned certain that a former PM can do a little bit of unsuccessful lobbying with impunity.
I expect this has all been stirred up by left wing anti Brexit journos determined to turn their heads away from immediate scandals ( of which they no doubt approve because the country is being destroyed).
Good grief…in the light of what is being done to us I even feel a little sorry for D.C…I mean, a lot of his neighbours are extremely rich. Challenging to keep up with the Joneses, especially when expectations fail!
April 8, 2021
So will Kier Starmer have the gumption to force labour to vote against vaccine passports? Hopefully killing them dead.
April 8, 2021
Amazing how all the rightwing MPs raging about vaccine passports are all in favour of photo ID for elections. Almost like itās politics not principle
April 8, 2021
LP election integrity is infinitely more important than a visit to the pub.
April 8, 2021
ACCESS to elections is infinitely more important than access to a pub.
There, sorted.
April 8, 2021
“ACCESS to elections is infinitely more important than access to a pub.”
…. and shops, theatres, cafes, swimming pools, gyms, cinemas, restaurants, skating rinks, arts centres, museums, youth clubs, martial arts academies, climbing clubs, sports centres… and on and on…
But however we vote we’ll end up with Prime Minister Whitty and a cabinet comprising Sage who will do anything to keep those closed.
April 8, 2021
Bull’s eye, I think, Len!
April 8, 2021
No
I MiC think agricola has the best response.
April 9, 2021
Nah, it’s rubbish.
April 9, 2021
So you don’t want fair and corruption free elections MiC.
I know the leftvis desperate to get into power but I’m still surprised.
PS
Now over 40 polls in a row showing a 10 point lead for the Conservatives.
April 8, 2021
Equally astounding is how many of those demanding vaccine passports are the same who think that ID for elections is discriminatory.
Doctrine will out
April 8, 2021
Boris will be watching what President Joe Biden does and Kier Starmer hasn’t the bottle to say anything against covid policy – we’re led by donkeys
April 8, 2021
Even if the entire Labour opposition votes against ‘covid passports’, the government will win: Blackford has announced that all 40 SNP MPs will vote at Westminster on the government side in order to enforce covid passports *in England* There are currently only 41 Tory MPs who are known rebels against this profoundly illiberal and sinister measure.
We trusted Westminster politicians to sort out the West Lothian Question. They have lazily done nothing except make up vague ‘conventions’ the SNP just laugh at. You should all be ashamed.
April 8, 2021
There is too much there for a simple comment.
It has long been felt that the lobbying system was open to corruption and far from transparent — Why are organisations that receive public money allowed to use it to lobby for more?
Charities have no business lobbying.
Lobbying badly needs reform – too much is hidden.
This doesn’t work as well as it should because MP’s close rank around their party, often without fully understanding the issues.. The recent votes around the lockdown measures and laws are but one example of Parliament supporting measures either already decided upon or through outright propaganda which only provided the governments view……
April 8, 2021
Bryan,
āLobbying badly needs reform ā too much is hidden.ā
Donāt expect an open discussion here. This is just a PR exercise to pretend the system is fine and to play down criticism.
People are not mugs though. They are capable of figuring things out and doing their own research.
April 8, 2021
Some want to believe that a few billionaires have particularly favourable access to governments and end up making the policies that rule us.
But you must concede that these few billionaires and other lobby groups have a level of access and therefore the opportunity to put their case that the general public do not; this is in itself problematic.
When George Osborne stole child benefit from “high earners”, I wrote him a polite, detailed and informative letter outlining the existing take home difference that a household with two earners each being paid Ā£30K (total Ā£60K) had over a household with a single earner being paid Ā£60K due to tax and NI thresholds and the higher rate of tax. The difference was about Ā£6K per annum and he wished to further punish the Ā£60K earner by removing child benefit because they were substantially better able to carry the load than the two Ā£30K earner household. The broader shoulders argument was demonstrably wrong and the single earner was hampered in the competition for housing costs and living expenses.
Your Chancellor and his “aides” did not even acknowledge my letter, they certainly did not consider the issues I raised otherwise a different approach would have been taken.
Access is an issue, whatever you say about influence Sir John.
April 8, 2021
That made me spit my coffee out. We have had our civil liberties removed in a way that the CCP would be proud of – and ministers donāt have to ādefend their choicesā daily, or at all, to anyone. Parliament may as well be disbanded. MPs are taking salaries under false pretences at the moment.
When Johnson gives a press conference, flanked by his bosses, journalists are not allowed to press a point. They ask a question, he waffles without providing any sort of answer and they are not allowed to take him to task.
The whole article today made me feel slightly nauseous with a somewhat sanctimonious tone. When you think how contracts have been awarded in the last year, to plead that lobbying is all very innocent and necessary seems so bare-faced that one is left bemused.
April 8, 2021
Mike, your last paragraph sums this subject up brilliantly.
April 8, 2021
Very much agree, Mike Wilson. I also felt that SJR was treading rather gingerly round a lot of what is going on at the moment with the Covid response. ‘Advisers advise, Ministers decide’: Really? I’ve been hearing different.
He is right that there will always be lobbying, but governments have to be judged on how much they succeed in keeping it at arm’s length. This one is always going to play the Covid card, but that shouldn’t let it off the hook. Johnson’s one-time university chum Simon Stevens, in charge of the NHS, allowed PPE supplies to run down, then the Covid emergency was declared, then and only then could contracts be awarded in that constructed emergency situation, without being out out to tender. Etc ed
April 8, 2021
@Mike Wilson;
And that comment made me spit my coffee out. Most of those press conferences are time constrained [1], whilst I agree there is to much political waffle (there has even been some silencing of the “bosses”, when they were likely to go against the govts line), there is no shortage of being held to account by the media in the hours after, immediate comment from the broadcast pundits to reams written on the internet or in the press, what is more the PM and SAGE have no immediate right of reply or clarification.
[1] a follow-up question by one will likely mean someone else doesn’t get to ask their question, and there is nothing to stop the hack from a following publication or broadcaster putting aside their own question to follow up on something raised by a previous question. There is no indication that the MSM questions are pre-selected
April 8, 2021
+++
April 8, 2021
+1
April 8, 2021
Yes MW your last paragraph sums it perfectly, my efforts to say similar ,though offered at sparrow fart, still await moderation. It seems to me that our host has tried to sell the unmarketable and been overwhelmed by rejection.
April 8, 2021
@agricola; “It seems to me that our host has tried to sell the unmarketable and been overwhelmed by rejection.
Probably because many of our hosts usually attentive, understanding and dutiful audience have mistaken what he was attempting to sell – clue, it wasn’t “Jobs for the Boys”.
April 8, 2021
Agricola,
You are not the only one with posts on this article held in moderation.
April 8, 2021
+1
April 8, 2021
Mike,
āThe whole article today made me feel slightly nauseous with a somewhat sanctimonious tone. When you think how contracts have been awarded in the last year, to plead that lobbying is all very innocent and necessary seems so bare-faced that one is left bemused.ā
Agreed.
April 8, 2021
And very worryingly indeed, it demonstrates that the most senior civil servant considered public sector reform, in this case to pay invoices on time, so out of reach that he brought in a private sector solution that would have cost either the Exchequer or Pharmacies unnecessarily.
Again ācorruptā in the sense that he preferred extra costs to stepping on other bureaucrats toes. Once again you are looking at things from a very narrow perspective, this time Thatchers quote. Ministers sign and take ultimate responsibility but decide, I donāt think so. If only because many of them have demonstrated they are not bright enough and are given the job for political reasons/talent not business, technical experience etc.
April 8, 2021
MW, what do you expect of someone who has been in the system practically since 1973 when he came out of university?
O/T: I got today the leaflet from the CUP candidate in my ward for the 6 May local elections. She says she is proud of the Wokingham district balanced budget but funnily enough not mentioning that the annual rise over the last ten years had always been at the very top of the possible range, and certainly not the 6% rise from 01/04/2021. What are the CPI/CPIH/RPI supposed to be? And apart from the weekly messages from the Thames Valley Police regarding this that and the other happening over the District (whether it is actual crime, theft of catalytic converters, or the coming propaganda interactive event open to the public) I cannot see much where this money is going, given that one is told that the money paid by the developers building up all over the district is the money used for improving roads, parks and other facilities.
April 8, 2021
If anyone wants a scandal how about Council Tax rises?
Nothing to do of course with the rises in council fat cat salaries.
April 8, 2021
Don’t forget their inflation proof pensions.
April 8, 2021
Yes, mine has gone up 10% and yet many services over the last year have been non-existent.
Figures will be available to show the rise in pay and numbers of each grade in the public sector over the last twenty years. Iāve seen it so often whereby pay restraints in the public sector are circumvented via promotions and re-grading.
Whatās happened to investigative journalism in this country?
April 8, 2021
I thought that you right wingers were all in favour of regressive taxation if it offsets the progressive kind?
I’m sure that the Tories know just to whom to give the money saved in central funding for Councils, aren’t you?
April 8, 2021
No
I think we are in favour of low taxation.
April 9, 2021
Why to you vote for exactly what I describe then?
Come on?
April 9, 2021
Because I will never vote for socialists.
April 8, 2021
Taxpayers Alliance reports – At least 2,802 people employed by local authorities in 2019-20 received more than Ā£100,000 in total remuneration, an increase of 135 on 2018-19. 693 received over Ā£150,000, 26 more than the previous year
April 8, 2021
Sefton Council – 11 employees suspended between 2019 and 2020, and 5 2021, cost est Ā£1 millionā¦ā¦but its only taxpayers money and its only in the public sector so it doesnāt matter
April 8, 2021
Ps. People should really look at technological progress. Instead of closing their minds to the end of the internal combustion engine. Even now thermal cooling has been developed to enable charging to reduce to ten minutes with battery life extended to a vast amount.
A spray on covering with photo voltaic capabilities, one hundredth of the thickness of a human hair to enable surfaces like windows to generate electricity.
And so it goes on amazing considering in how shorter timescale and in development time, mere minutes, driven in part by our government setting a demanding time scale.
Scientific discovery is littered with people saying it could never happen. Methinks too many on this blog.
April 8, 2021
We were all for the manifesto pledge of zero carbon by 2050 but the banning of new ICE cars in nine years came as a bit of a shock.
April 8, 2021
And no one, especially the labour voters voting tory, read the manifesto….it was all about getting brexit across the line, a single issue election
Thats why this government should hold an immediate general election – it has no mandate to continue nor present new laws
April 8, 2021
Agreed there is no mandate for this draconian garbage.
April 9, 2021
It gets weirder.
You claim that a multi issue binding election with a manifesto was a single-issue vote, and yet an expressly single-issue advisory referendum was a binding vote on everything from removing cycle lanes to deporting East European tradesmen.
What truly strange people you are.
April 8, 2021
NLA
The 2030 decision on ICE vehicles came after the general election result.
It was a Boris announcement out of the Blue, or should I say Green !
From memory even the car manufacturers were unaware of it at the time !
April 8, 2021
Correct – Something this monumental needs a referendum or general election
This shift to electric and green needs consent from the majority not just the single green MP and the girlfriend of the PM
The banning of ICE will fundamentally change the landscape, working conditions and our leisureā¦..the choice needs to be that of the people not just a couple of elites
April 8, 2021
I am not saying it could never happen just that it should not be rolled out early by red tape and tax payer bribes. When it works and is economic & practical fine people will buy it anyway.
April 8, 2021
Well said.
Science can be amazing. Can be a great gift. Let’s believe more in it – what it can do (being a luddite is a heresy). Especially now as we move more and more into quantum physics and stuff like that.
April 8, 2021
(Science can also abused too like anything good)
April 8, 2021
Critics of international policies.
Some are very critical of the policies being set out by the UN which the country has to follow. Who polices the UN policy makers? Their decisions are not an exactly one size fits all. Agenda 21 comes to mind. The same concerns can be levelled at the WHO. These agencies like the EU cannot by definition, be all things to all people
April 8, 2021
Exactly.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
And not just the UN. Even at national level, the thin veneer that UK is supposed to be a democracy is now becoming transparently clear it is not.
April 8, 2021
Know not a lot about the lobbying process, but it would seem to me that such an advantage can be made by getting close to Government Ministers, and the decision making process, that a whole industry has been built up to serve the need to try and gain advantage of such a process.
You mention big business, charities, trade unions and the like, but you forgot the green and climate change mob, also the so called honours system, another farce where it would seem who you know is more important than what you do.
Seems to me if you are big enough or rich enough, you can play the system to your advantage, and to hell with the small guy with no such contacts.
Is this really democratic where one group automatically have an advantage over others, hardly a level playing field is it.
April 8, 2021
Sir John,
I am really surprised you want to step into this arena. You rejected my first 2 comments on the reporting of suggestion that all was not right regarding that recent runaway PM of your party. I pointed out it became front page of the Sunday Times and you finally relented without real comment or opinion. Of course he should not have allowed access in the way it was granted, and indeed stating ‘he spoke for the PM’ should have meant instant cancellation of any dubious access privileges.
My advice would have been not to try applying fine plaster to a gaping crack – leave well alone.
April 8, 2021
not published I see – – thinking about it? – – or just your choice of being selective when close to home?
April 8, 2021
In a nutshell, Sir John, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Would, for example, the Conservatives truly be pursuing aggressive green policies the electorate (of all colours) simply haven’t voted for, if the PM’s partner and “preferred” lobbyists, didn’t have direct access to the power brokers in Westminster?
In the real world, the reputational issues surrounding the concentration of power and split loyalties intrinsic to conflicts of interest, are recognised and ruthlessly rooted out from top to bottom.
April 8, 2021
You say āMinisters have free choice about who they listen to and which arguments they find attractiveā. Well yes perhaps, but alas so few gov. ministers seem to have any real understanding of science, engineering, maths, real economics or much else. So they are sitting ducks for con merchants, pressure groups, corruption and paid consultants. All but a handful voted for Net Zero and the Climate Change Act for example. Look at the insanities pushed by the committee for climate change now, the hugely net damaging lockdown, the test and trace joke, HS2…
So innumerate and irrational are government ministers that they even allowed circa 1000 extra people to die (this year so far) and wasted Ā£ billions in this process. This just by failing to vaccinate men five years younger than women as logic dictated. This even after it was explained to them.
April 8, 2021
“Charities spend large sums on their lobbying for legislative change and access to spending programmes.”
So ….. charities spend large amounts of taxpayer cash ….. in order to gain access to …… large amounts of taxpayer cash ?
April 8, 2021
Sir John
“Energetic lobbying is a part of a healthy democracy” I would suggest in the way here in the UK it is implemented, it seeks to destroy a healthy democracy. It does in the first instance mean that those with wealth get to bombard the legislators with their views, needs and asperations. This is always done at the expense of the People that parliament is there to serve.
It might seem perverse of me to have said that, but I am looking at it from an association I have with a lobby firm and seeing the inner workings. In my situation the consumer got and gets stung for no net gain, Country doesn’t gain, the People don’t gain – quite the opposite, while those few individuals behind the lobby group get to fill their wallets. That to me sums up a perverse form of freedom and democracy when money ‘does’ buy influence.
Lobbying in a free fair and equal democracy should be restricted to constituents expressing their views and asperation via their local representative – their MP. Anything else is wealth and power trying to distort for personal gain
April 8, 2021
Lobbying is essential part of a political process. For example charities, people or companies objecting to or asking for help.
However this needs to be transparent. Ministers (and maybe MPs) need to publish full and clear transcriptions of what is being asked for. I can imagine charities or companies would on the main part be grateful to have their requests published.
Those companies of people who are trying to lobby the Minister simply to improve their own profits need to be exposed.
April 8, 2021
This is all just so depressing, my parents have always been resolved to the way things work in Britain, it is who you know rather than what you know, class is a bigger problem than race, especially in England, and having no connections to people that can influence is a disadvantage and that’s why people buy education, it is as much for connections as the classtime which is often reduced with more weeks holiday. This happens as much on the left as the right if you know the right Councillors, trade unionists, heads of the public sector, masons etc.
I’m always more curious why the media and politics turn on someone like DC at this moment in time.
April 8, 2021
WHY? – because he only gave in to a Ref because it was becoming likely that the Tories would lose the GE. Then he put a poor, cap in hand position to the EU, instead of shouting at them (in private) we’ll lose and leave the EU. He failed to ensure that steps were taken to have an in-depth readiness should the Ref reject EU – and it was quite likely needed. Then, on losing, he like a spoilt brat threw his toys out of the pram and quit. Days later he even abandoned his constituency….
Now you know why millions ‘turned on him’ – – any clearer?
April 8, 2021
Spot On Fred H
April 8, 2021
I agree with you Fred about Why the public turned against DC I never liked him and if I were a Member would not have voted for him, but why now after all this time are the media turning up the heat?
April 8, 2021
DC made the shocking mistake of actually keeping an election promise and giving the people the chance to express their wish. That was bad enough! But telling ‘the stakeholders’ (WEF-speak) that it would all be OK because Project Fear would produce a win for Remain, and then when it came to it, fouling up so miserably, that was inexcusable. He is obviously a thoroughly bad man. And his ‘green crap’ statement won’t be forgiven either. Woke historians of the future will probably have him down as the modern-day Neville Chamberlain.
April 8, 2021
The problem is, Sir John, that what the lobbyists wants (we surmise) is often at the expense of what the people want. The CBI and others who would displace us while subsidising the wages of others; charities whose would have our taxes spent in inefficient ways overseas. We are only listened to – not even that – once every 5 years, then forgotten about. All the current changes – who is asking us whether we want this? Even democracy is a sham now we have ‘executive orders’. That’s not to say there aren’t dedicated MPs who work dilligently in the interests of their constituents, but I have never had one.
April 8, 2021
There is an article on WIKI, “List of political scandals in the United Kingdom”. Sleaze. A number of political scandals in the 1980s and 1990s created the impression of what was described in the British press as “sleaze”: a perception that the then Conservative government was associated with political corruption and hypocrisy. This was revived in the late 1990s due to accounts of so-called “sleaze” by the Labour government. It is a good reminder that nothing has changed for centuries at Westminster.
April 8, 2021
Trade Associations, Charities, Trade Unions, Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all get access to Ministers to try to change law in their favour. The missing link is the poor old paying, voting public, with no access worthy of the name. Write to your MP about any policy (rather than say a personal problem) and if you get any reply at all, it is a load of old cobblers, basically the Party Line and like it or lump it. No consideration given to your point or a proper answer. . That’s democracy?
April 8, 2021
Absolutely right Graham. I’ve never had a proper reply addressing my points or concerns over any topic either in Scotland or here in England. All replies seem to be the same letter sent to everyone no matter what their concerns about a particular policy are. It’s a waste of time.
April 8, 2021
āThe BBC and other media regularly give privileged slots on news and comment programmes for lobby groups to make their case prior to interrogating any Minister who dares to say No to the lobby proposal.ā
This is fine provided the lobby group at the beginning of the interview discloses how they are funded and importantly they and the BBC (and other media) do not pretend they are a randomly selected member of the public walking past the interviewer.
April 8, 2021
āMinisters have daily to defend their choices to Parliament, the public and media and if they are taking bad advice they feel the results.ā
Is this statement true? We have a biased media that seems to believe in the Green agenda, an ineffectual opposition and a Government ruling by statutory instruments.
Ex-Prime Ministers and deputies are given a huge amount of money annually from the tax purse and yet they lobby against the wishes of the people. Take Brexit as an example.
A true democracy is a country like Switzerland where all major decisions are put to a referendum. Iām sure the people of this country would not vote to give up their cars and gas boilers but this Government is ploughing ahead with these policies regardless. Even if there was a viable alternative to oil, how many people could afford to switch. We are heading for a situation whereby only the privileged will be driving on our roads.
April 8, 2021
Christine
As none of this nonsense we are being exposed to was ever in a manifesto why are the people not rising up and taking the government and parliament to task and demanding a general election?
Covid was a gift to parliament to do whatever,whenever they want. We the electorate are to blame as we are being taken to the cleaners big time and basically do nothing.
April 8, 2021
If it is not much of a story, is Rishi Sunak and the Treasury open to all 67 million citizens of the UK who feel the need to lobby them. Should Joe citizen have any less a voice than large organisations that have lots of money to throw at the process, and lots of directorships to offer MPs and Ministers in retirement. I contend emphatically no. All cases put should be on a single sheet of A4. It is up to the Minister to reject or take further. There should be no reward however distant.
Ministers rarely answer questions in Parliament, such that question dodging is part of their basic training.
The current system is open to corruption and is occassionaly proved. So better put up a firewall against it.
Consider the case of Brexit. The electorate wanted it, but then having made that clear, had to fight for five years to get it. All because those better placed than the man on the 49 bus could lobby, threaten and lobby to the point where it is less than clear that we have the Brexit we voted for. It is not clear that those who negotiated Brexit on our behalf have not pandered to those who wanted less of a Brexit or none at all. They have finessed it when they had a clear mandate to do it. That is the anti democratic aspect of lobbying as we know it. Democracy is an ongoing process/flower bed, it needs to be weeded occassionaly. Lobbying is one such weed.
April 8, 2021
One of the problems in this country is the way politicians and charities have a symbiotic relationship. Just look at how many ex-politicians get six-figure salaries in charitable organisations once they leave office. Also, we see charitable foundations making their founders into multi-millionaires. Charities arenāt like they used to be, they are now multi-million-pound operations. Itās time to stop giving them tax payersā money. The whole thing stinks.
April 8, 2021
Charities are in because in many cases they do what government have failed to do. Ergo they have government by their extremities.
April 8, 2021
@Christine
+1
April 8, 2021
Useful insights, Sir John, but I’d take issue with “Ministers have daily to defend their choices to Parliament, the public and media and if they are taking bad advice they feel the results” I don’t think this is happening now over the government’s catastrophic and immoral response to Covid. Parliament is only given a yes/no vote over emergency powers extensions. What the public thinks about lockdowns and vaccination passports is discoverable only by polls, which are unreliable and are in any case dominated by lobbying groups. The public has, in any case, been deliberately frightened by government propaganda. The media has become a damp squib and, as you say, almost always lobbies on behalf of statism and environmentalism, and never in favour of small state, conservative principles. I feel we are at the mercy of a government which has chosen to listen to terrible advice/lobbying from authoritarians of various stripes – mad scientists, technocrat, corporatist utopians like Gates and Schwab, and doomsday Greens. The lack of criticism is deafening, and amplified by the increasing social media deplatforming of scientific perspectives which do not reinforce the government’s chosen experts. Why on earth is any government claiming to be conservative committing the following abominations, for example:
1. coercing young healthy adults to have a treatment only given emergency authorisation
2. destroying the hospitality industry
3. forcing people to wear masks which are known to be ineffective
4. introducing some nightmare ID scheme for daily life.
The checks and balances we thought were preserving us from bad governments have proved to be almost useless.
April 8, 2021
Off topic but topical, I have a letter in today’s Maidenhead Advertiser under the accurate heading:
“EU deal has created a hard border in Ireland”.
Referring to this short BBC video:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-56606751
“What it’s like driving across the new Irish trade border”.
If these new installations in Belfast are not to be considered a “hard border” then what is?
The letter also quotes the Irish politician who rejected out of hand Boris Johnson’s tentative suggestion that to minimise the threat of renewed terrorism that was being invoked by the Irish government there could be customs clearance sites set well back from the actual land border with this ludicrous claim:
https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0930/1079268-reaction-non-paper/
“No matter where you locate check sites – they amount to a hard border.”
That’s unless they are located in Northern Ireland so they will disrupt its goods trade with Great Britain, when they are not only OK but allegedly the solution to the problem allegedly caused by Brexit.
Let’s be absolutely clear about this: whatever Irish border problem there is has not been caused by Brexit but firstly by Irish politicians with their absurd, extreme and intransigent reaction to Brexit:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2017/12/04/two-views-of-brexit/#comment-905136
and secondly by Theresa May deciding to use the largely fabricated problem of the Irish border as a pretext to keep the whole of the UK under swathes of EU laws in perpetuity, and thirdly by Boris Johnson foolishly agreeing to do what even Theresa May had said no British Prime could ever agree to do.
April 8, 2021
I see that Brandon Lewis is now on his way to calm things down. It’s obvious, really, if there’s an argument over a new hard border on the island of Ireland the ideal person to sort it out is somebody who denies that there is any new border let alone a hard border:
https://twitter.com/brandonlewis/status/1345057483887411200?lang=en
That man is an absolute menace, every time he opens his mouth he puts his foot in it.
April 8, 2021
No I cannot agree the problem is as always Englands involvement in Ireland- and looking at the scenes on tv I think it’s about time we cut the place off. One hundred years ago it was the Irish rebellion and their war of independence and now that we want brexit which the DUP Unionists voted for but now they don’t agree the whole thing is a bloody mess and it’s still not finished. We’ll never be free of them and able to do our own thing until we let it go. In any case it’s costing us a fortune just for 1.8 million people and for no real or strategic value or otherwise
April 9, 2021
I’m sure that many Conservative and Unionist Party members would agree with you.
April 8, 2021
Scrape the All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG)
They are a goldmine for the lobbyist and a blessing for the corrupt politician
Lets be honest ā they donāt actually achieve anything apart from providing a platform for the media, lobbyist and politician to make decisions on the nod with a bung
April 8, 2021
Reverse lobbying should also be considered, like the EU’s very public spat with AZ.
AZ should go after the eu for slander and damage to reputation based on the figures from the reports on EMA database. AZ is NO worse than Pfizer and certainly a lot better than Moderna, but no mention is made of any other of the other vaccines death rates, please feel to check EMA numbers.
The key question that AZ, MSM and UK should be asking of the EU is “how many of your stockpiled AZ doses are you having to discard because you are not jabbing them in arms quick enough, due to shelf life being reached?” My guess is it’s more than they are/have banned for export. Blood on their hands!
April 8, 2021
Sometimes it is the opposite of lobbying that concerns me. The general lack of comment about Bitcoin concerns me. Are the silent making money out of it? Even the Greens are quiet despite Bitcoin miners’ consumption of electricity. The only unhappy group are computer gamers who note the high price and lack of availability of graphics cards.
I’d be interested in your thoughts about Bitcoin and the like.
April 8, 2021
Yes, I wonder about that very thing too.
April 8, 2021
The nonentity Labour shadow chancellor – Mrs Dodds I think – wants to waste money on a public enquiry about this complete non-event.
Here’s a few things which would be of more use to hold a public enquiry on:-
– the Iraq war – a proper one where we ask how the worst foreign policy and defence error since WW2 was made
– the sale of the gold. Brown flogged over 1/2 the nation’s gold at a 40-year low, costing Ā£10s of billions, despite clear warnings about how not to do it
– the crashing of the economy. Labour ran deficits of 5% of GDP (inc off balance sheet) at the height of a boom and allowed / encouraged bank leverage to rocket to 50x which bust the economy. they then carried out an unnecessary and hugely expensive bank bailout for which we are still paying. I think we need to understand the catalogue of errors so we don’t make them again
– signing 3 federalising EU treaties without referenda in clear violation of electoral pledges
– botching devolution so feeding the virus of Scottish separatism
– (theres probably more)
So Mrs Dodds lets clear the backlog of public enquiries into the catastrophic period of Labour govt before we go chasing after trivia like this.
April 8, 2021
My business did some work, on and off, over a 10 year period for a large public sector organisation. I was very happy to take on work from them because invoices were invariably paid in 7 days.
April 8, 2021
There may be a legitimate role for the Treasury here. The bankruptcy of Grennshill will have left some innocent parties severely short of funds as a result of a lack of payments for invoices purchased.
There is obviously a role for lobbyists to Ministers who otherwise would not have a clue as to what is going on in the real world where Arts and Politics degrees count for naught as they do not represent useful skills or experience.
The British government needs to explain why it signed up to the UN “Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration”, why they listened to lobbyists advocating this barefaced attack on my country, who those lobbyists were, why the government listened to them and why it did nor immediately resign from this organisation which has clearly been totally perverted from its original purpose by insiders.
April 8, 2021
I think far too many MPs are ex-lobbylists – too cosy. I suspect many lobbyists have just become lobbyists without experience of anything else. It’s part of a trend in the last few years of people who are beoming MPs as a career move with no real political opinions -if you are centrist and pc that will do for any of the major parties.
April 8, 2021
āIām talking about lobbying ā and we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism. We believe in market economics, not crony capitalism.ā
David Cameron 2010
April 8, 2021
David L,
Mr. Cameron has not been very successful at lobbying has he? Whereas his former colleague Mr. Osborne is earning money hand over fist and, has more well paid jobs than you can shake a stick at.
An unattributed comment from an MP in todayās media said āeverything Cameron touches turns to dustā
April 9, 2021
Yeah! Iād forgotten that one. But not āthe bonfire of the QUANGOsā.
Politicians have brass necks.
April 8, 2021
Lobbying needs to be totally reformed, it’s become out of control
I would prefer it if NO MP had any business interests at all or be in any way involved with a business. MP’s are paid far enough money without having any personal business.
The same applies to MP’s who are associated with Trade Unions – they should not be members or have any involvement with them.
Many MPs are millionaires and MP’s salaries should be subjected to means testing, so if you are a millionaire and want to be an MP don’t expect a salary just paid expenses.
MP’s generally are not good value for the tax payer they cost too much.
April 8, 2021
How can that happen when most MPs do not survive more than one or two election terms?
Would you close down your successful business or career to get elected?
Would you?
April 8, 2021
@ David Brown
“MPās generally are not good value for the tax payer they cost too much”
…. there are too many of them.
April 8, 2021
It’s predictable how people are sanctimonious about just those issues that they are very unlikely to be involved in personally.
I think I ought to post some very snooty, aloof stuff abut the awarding of Olympic medals, or Nobel Prizes.
April 8, 2021
What bugs me is that people and organisations who lobby are allowed to do so in secret. Let Mr Cameron and his ilk lobby but let us know about it – without somebody having to leak the fact.
April 8, 2021
+1
April 8, 2021
Often, the lobbyists are in effect the government lobbying itself to do what it wanted to do in the first place. They offer plausible deniability. āWell, it isnāt our fault … x y z told us to do itā.
April 8, 2021
Well, after having a scan of the letter late this evening ( Thurs) I get the feeling your party is doing what it can to never get elected again. After lies lies and more lies – and people mentioning your pal DC and his lies and walking off after his “promises” it all shows you lot have absolutely NO concern for the people you want to vote for you – and whose tax you so eagerly take – while importing the world for a free life and telling us yet MORE lies about stopping the invasion of those who want this country – AND ARE BLATANTLY BEING GIVEN IT.
April 9, 2021
Ministers decide advisers advise. Ministers are not permitted to have vested interests but advisers can have them, but ministers have free choice who they listen to, so thatās ok then. Policies which most annoy the critics are set out by membership bodies like the UN. Who funds the UN?