21 July 2011

“I have never had one inappropriate conversation" was the Prime Minister's slippery reply to repeated questions in the Commons over whether he had discussed News Corp's bid for BSkyB with Murdoch & Co.

On top of phone hacking and alleged police corruption, this is now a story about lobbying.

With seer-like powers, Cameron predicted before the general election that “secret corporate lobbying” was “the next big scandal waiting to happen”. I suspect at the time he didn’t picture himself at the centre of it.

“We all know how it works,” he said in a speech in February 2010: “The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear.”

“We don’t know who is meeting whom. We don’t know whether any favours are being exchanged. We don’t know which outside interests are wielding unhealthy influence.

“This isn’t a minor issue with minor consequences,” he added. “Commercial interests - worth hundreds of billions of pounds are potentially at stake.”

“Secret corporate lobbying goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics,” he claimed. “It arouses people’s worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works, with money buying power, power fishing for money and a cosy club at the top making decisions in their own interest.”

“We must be the party that sorts all this out.”

Except that it hasn’t. A coalition commitment to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists, which would be a significant first step in 'sorting all this out', is stuck in the Cabinet Office. More worrying are reports that the lobbying industry has been asked to come up with a blueprint for it.

A robust register of lobbyists would require News Corps to reveal the extent of its lobbying over the BSkyB bid – we wouldn’t have to rely on Cameron to tell us. We’d see who they’ve targeted, and how much money they’ve spent trying to influence politicians and get the deal through.

The current scandal gives us an all too rare glimpse into the UK’s networks of power. If we’re to have sustained public scrutiny of powerful interests like News Corp, a register of lobbyists - as was promised - is a good starting point.