When the Coalition’s Lobbying Bill appeared in public for the first time, just before the summer recess, much attention was focused on Part I. Most critics agree that it represents an utterly feeble attempt to address the problem of corporate lobbying. Indeed, if the Bill is passed in […]
It’s been a fascinating and frustrating few days in politics. On Thursday lunchtime I discovered that Claus Offe, one of the world’s most famous political sociologists, as giving a lecture entitled Participatory inequality in the austerity state about a hundred metres from my office late on Thursday afternoon. […]
Lobbying is corrosive. The lobbying industry adds nothing of genuine value to society. It is insidious because it undermines citizens’ belief that democracy is transparent and that politics seeks to serve the public interest. It fosters the impression, if not the also the reality, that policy is being […]
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