Stephen Carter

Quick fixes aimed at driving the media agenda became the hallmark of Tony Blair’s decade in Downing Street and the cumulative damage which they inflicted on both the authority of Parliament and the standing of the civil service caused widespread unease within the Labour Party.

Early last summer, as he outlined a vision for his Premiership, Brown and his aides did much to promote the idea that the new administration would rein in unaccountable political advisers and put the levers of power back in the hands of civil servants.

The subject of the Aarhus Convention goes to the heart of the relationship between people and governments. The Convention is not only an environmental agreement, it is also a Convention about government accountability, transparency and responsiveness.

The Aarhus Convention grants the public rights and imposes on Parties and public authorities obligations regarding access to information and public participation and access to justice.

David Miller, 9 January 2008

The Lobbyists who run the SPBE: Scobie and Gauld (middle and right)

Writing in the IPT magazine The Bridge, Devin Scobie of the SPBE notes that facilitating the access was not easy: 'Establishing... that an IPT led Programme was a charitable cause and thereby eligible to book meeting rooms in the Parliament took some time but is now firmly in place' (January-March 2008, p. 16.).  Amongst those attending the IPT led programme in Edinburgh was Jane McGirk, lobbyist for SELEX Sensors and Airborne Systems UK .  This is an arms firm (part of the Finmeccanica Group the privatised former Italian state company which now owns Westland Helicopters) which produces 'sensing solutions for fighters, transporters, helicopters and Unmanned Airborne Vehicles (UAVs).'  They also produce 'high power lasers for long range designation of ground targets (selected for the Lockheed Martin Sniper pod and Joint Strike Fighter EO targeting system)' and  'long range target identification systems'.  These weapons are currently used in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the academic research has suggested that more than half a million people have been casualties since March 2003. 

If ever there was a harbinger of an imminent demolition job it has to be Rupert Murdoch’s demand for an easing of the rules which require radio and television services to be politically impartial in their news and current affairs output.

Murdoch knows he is pushing at an open door: newspaper websites are already free to be as partisan as they like in what they report and now that the broadcasting regulator Ofcom has thrown in the towel, the same goes for the burgeoning audio-visual output of press proprietors.

Internet television will soon be available at the flick of a remote control and my fear is that political parties struggling for support will rue the day that the Blair government failed to ensure action was taken to protect balanced reporting on television and radio during general election campaigns.

 Tamasin Cave, 30 November 2007

The first session of the Select Committee Inquiry into lobbying kicked off on Thursday morning (29 Nov) with evidence from three MPs: John Grogan, Peter Luff and Stephan Pound. The Inquiry is looking into the transparency of the lobbying industry, the effectiveness of recent attempts at self-regulation, and whether or not the rules for those in Parliament and government should be changed.

In May, Grogan joined forces with the Association of Professional Parliamentary Consultants (APPC) to encourage the 20-25 per cent of the lobbying industry firms that currently refuse to participate in self-regulation to sign up to the recognised codes of conduct.

Peter Luff, a former lobbyist at Bell Pottinger firm Good Relations, repeatedly took the industry line. In his written evidence to the Committee, he fails to see that there is a problem and has accused the APPC of seeking to “promote concern about this issue [of transparency in lobbying] with a view to enhancing the commercial prospects of its own members.”

Tamasin Cave, 22 November 2007

SpinWatch today condemned the move by UK Liberal MEP Chris Davies to adopt a weak stance on corporate lobbying at the European Parliament.

This morning, the Parliament’s influential Environment Committee voted on whether or not to propose the introduction of stricter rules for lobbyists in Brussels. 

It rejected Davies’ proposed amendment to the Committee calling for the establishment of a voluntary system of registration for lobbyists, compared to a mandatory one. Davies had also argued for a voluntary requirement that lobbyists declare how much they are paid.

Davies defended his position by claiming that “not once” in over eight years in Brussels had he been exposed to inappropriate lobbying. Davies said the US system of mandatory regulation of lobbyists was inappropriate for Brussels. “I do not need a constant supply of private sector money to secure my reelection,” he said.

November 16, 2007 

Its that time of year again – the worst EU Lobbying and Greenwash Awards 2007. Once again all your favourites - oil companies, car companies, nuclear companies, and PR companies are on the short-list. If you want to vote go here.

The ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ Award is to be given to the lobbyist, company or lobby group that in 2007 has employed the most deceptive, misleading, or otherwise problematic lobbying tactics in their attempts to influence EU decision-making.

Time to open up

As the Public Administration Select Committee digest the recent submissions on their inquiry into lobbying at Westminster, news emerges of yet another case of privileged access that the current rules are powerless to prevent.

Last week the Guardian reported that a Labour peer, Lord (Doug) Hoyle, accepted payment for introducing a lobbyist to the defence minister Lord Drayton in 2005. The lobbyist in question is one Mike Wood, of Whitehall Advisors.  The similarities with the ‘cash for access’ scandal of less than a decade ago are rather clear, though nobody now seriously believes that any of our major political parties are ‘whiter than white’ on this issue.

Nicholas Jones, 18 October, 2007

Iain Dale is to be congratulated for highlighting the woeful failure of the left of centre in British politics to exploit the blogosphere. Of the top twenty political blogs featured in the Guide to Political Blogging 2007-8 , fourteen are from the right of centre and only two from the left.

Of even greater concern is the absence of any defining figures on the mainstream left to bridge the gap between "blogging and the traditional media".

Dale’s guide ranks the top 500 political blogs and as he observes with some justification, the "right of centre blogosphere" is in "a rude state of health" with not a single left wing blog having a mass readership anything like the size of the top seven or eight on the right