Lobbying for a lobbyists’ register

“I certainly think it’s a serious problem and I described it when we last discussed this as a canker on the body politic and I would stay with that,” said Jesse Norman on the World at One earlier today. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s sting, splashed by this morning’s Independent, of executives from lobbying/PR firm Bell Pottinger boasting of their influence over the prime minister has renewed the debate about regulating the lobbying industry, with calls for a public register to be established.

Downing Street has outright denied the allegations, which do sound rather far-fetched. Bravado is, of course, the currency of thin-air merchants. The objection is not to the bragging (how else can one tout ‘influence’?), but to where and how it’s done: behind closed doors or, more likely, over an exhausting lunch. Those fevered conversations are conducted in private to compound the illusion of an exclusive service. It’s a business model based on discretion and it sits uneasily with democratic accountability.