24 March 2012

So, what does a quarter of a million pounds buy you these days?

According to Tory party co-treasurer, Peter Cruddas, it will buy you secret meetings with David Cameron and propel you into the "premier league" of party donors.

According to Cruddas, who has just resigned: "Things will open up for you”; you can lobby the prime minister directly on business issues and their views are “fed in” to the Downing Street policy machine; you can pick up “key bits of information”; ask Cameron “practically any question" you want; George Osborne will press the flesh with your clients.

In short:  “It will be awesome for your business.”

Filming by undercover reporters for the Sunday Times posing as wealth fund executives, sheds light on a state of affairs long understand by the public, and frankly admitted by Cameron two years ago:

"Lobbying – we all know how it works", he said in a speech on rebuilding trust in politics. "The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear... helping big business find the right way to get its way... with money buying power, power fishing for money and a cosy club at the top making decisions in their own interest."

The undercover journalists were introduced to Cruddas by a hired lobbyist, Sarah Southern, a former Cameron aide. On tape she revealed how she used her personal friendships with former colleagues to help clients. However, she added that things are changing in the UK: "We might end up with this lobbying register," she said.

She is referring to the government's proposals for a statutory register of lobbyists, which it is currently consulting on.

But, anyone who has looked at the government's plans knows that they are a nonsense. The proposals, despite Cameron's prediction that lobbying was the "next big scandal waiting to happen", are less than useless. As they stand they would touch only a quarter of the lobbying industry (and not Southern, as she points out); and then require lobbyists to reveal no meaningful information.

Now, surely, more than ever, Cameron can see the sense in bringing in real transparency in lobbying. We need a statutory register to require lobbyists to reveal who is lobbying whom, what they are seeking to influence and how much money they are spending.

It won't stop the private dinners, but it would let us see who is bending the Prime Minister's ear, and the 'awesome' influence they are having on the way this country is run.