The lobbying bill is a pernicious attack on freedom. All good men (and women) should oppose it.

Sometimes, you know, I come close to despair. These are the times when you think the Reverend I.M Jolly was right. About everything. I mean, you could read Benedict Brogan’s column in today’s Telegraph and think that with friends like these the free press – to say nothing of the freedoms of the ordinary citizen – have no need for enemies.

To begin with, the headline is not encouraging. Shining a light on the shadowy figures who shape our politics. It’s just a little too close to the sort of thing you might find in a BNP newsletter. But perhaps, you may think, as is so often the case the headline is a misleading teaser. If only that were the case. Mr Brogan is writing about the government’s Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill and the bad news is that he’s all in favour of it.

Because, as he writes, the bill’s real purpose is to:

[A]ddress a problem that drives Conservatives mad, namely the way the Left now commands the heights of civil society, and from there lobs turnips at David Cameron. […]  Policy