As Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute put it in his e-mail to all subscribers this morning:
Journalists trapped parliamentarians in a cash-for-influence sting. So now we're going to have a clampdown on lobbying. (Although no lobbyists were involved. Now you know how laws are made in this country.)Quite so. This was not an example of our courageous boys and girls of the press investigating the wrong doings of our legislators but a case of said hacks and hackettes setting up a sting operation or, if you prefer, being agents provocateurs. Naturally, those being provoked by the agents should not yield to temptation but the whole story has more than a whiff of fishiness.
The government has been wanting to regulate lobbyists for some time though nobody has yet been able to demonstrate that any sort of a register or regulatory body would make the system more honest or acceptable.
The Adam Smith Institute blog summed matters up:
We have seen the result in the United States. Think-tanks carry on as before, but they have to set up a separate 'lobbyist' body comprising any of their personnel who have frequent discussions with folk on Capitol Hill. The effect is to politicise think-tanks and put a wall between their independent policy experts and the politicians. An issue comes up, a think-tank expert has important things to say, but cannot say them directly to the policymakers.But it does give an opening to yet more bureaucratic meddling with the political process.
The government has experienced certain difficulties in passing legislation that would create new rules through Parliament. Now, if you please, we have a synthetically manufactured scandal that does not involve lobbyists but is being presented, very conveniently for the government, as an excellent reason for passing new legislation. The timing raises some questions.
"The government has been wanting to regulate lobbyists for some time though nobody has yet been able to demonstrate that any sort of a register or regulatory body would make the system more honest or acceptable."
ReplyDeleteParameters of legal reality have never stopped politicians from vote fishing, they would pass a law against breaking the law if they thought it could win them an election. Probably would given the apathy of our fellow subjects.
Unfortunately the free market zealots - whose ideology blew itself out of the water five years ago - are in the tiny minority here. The public are sick of big business writing the rules for itself and the pernicious influence of lobbying by the BBA, watering down the much needed reforms of the financial system, will be seen when the next financial crisis happens.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, here's a great little piece on the slaughter in Central America facilitated by your idol Reagan:
http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-nuclear
And another on Thatcher sending the SAS to train Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge:
http://blogs.reuters.com/global/2010/07/30/cocktails-with-khmer-rouge-killers/
Funny ''freedom'' they fought for.
Oh my goodness, our special troll is back. You know, this posting was not about Reagan or Thatcher but I guess you can't be expected you read what you comment on. I am not going to argue that your understanding of the free market is non-existent because I suspect you know that and produce that rubbish in order to annoy people. Childish but often effective. Oh and the day I start listening to that old fraud Noam Chomsky has not dawned, nor will it. Funny gurus you pick.
ReplyDelete