26th April 2010 

The Spinwatch campaign targeting parliamentary candidates with links to lobbying has got under the skin of George Eustice, Conservative PPC
for Camborne and Redruth in Cornwall. Eustice, Cameron’s former press secretary, worked until recently for lobbying and PR consultancy Portland PR.
He writes on his blog how he heard there was to be an online lobbying campaign against him, initiated by “a girl called Tamasin Cave, a political
activist who writes regularly for Lib Dem blogs”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tamasin, a Spinwatch director - who is nearly 40 should
that be of interest to anyone – is in regular touch with bloggers from Left Foot Forward to Guido Fawkes.
Attempting to tie the Spinwatch campaign to Lib Dem activism is, well, the kind of obfuscatory tactic one would expect from a professional lobbyist.
And it’s clearly sticking. When Spinwatch recently spoke to the Falmouth Packet, a local paper covering Camborne, the reporter asked whether we were linked to the Lib Dems.
No, the simple truth is this campaign has focused on the Tories because they have the largest number of PPCs who are professional lobbyists. We believe this is the reason why the Conservatives remain alone among the main parties in refusing to sign up to a statutory register of lobbyists.