Nottingham Skeptics in the Pub brings us a timely post-Brexit talk as Tamasin Cave came to answer the question, “Does Lobbying Distort Our Democracy?” GAV SQUIRES went along to give his take on this months discussion.
At the moment, we don’t have a political system to lobby but lobbyists were involved in both the Leave and Remain EU referendum campaigns and also the coup against Corbyn. Although we should remember that there are different levels of lobbying – technically Tamasin is a lobbyist as she lobbies against the lobbying industry. Lobbying is any attempt to influence the decisions of the government. So, even if you write to your local MP, you’re a lobbyist. However, of more interest is the £2 billion corporate lobbying industry (the third largest in the world after Washington and Brussels) that comes into play whenever they smell an opportunity (such as the NHS) or a threat (such as smoking) However, most lobbying is actually really dull, for example minor tax changes.
In Washington there is the notorious “K-Street” full of lobbying firms. We don’t quite have the same thing in London but there is a clear eat-west channel where a lot of the big firms are based and also a lot of “think tanks” around Westminster itself. It’s all about access and getting close to politicians as that’s how you get the ear of government. The easiest way to get this access is to employ someone who knows the right people such as ex-SPADs or even former MPs – people who know people and what they like. For example Google employed Rachel Whetstone, who used to go riding with David Cameron and Naomi Gummer who worked on internet policy in government and is also friends with Cameron. How on earth was Dave ever going to raise the tax question with two of his best friends?
Another lobbying company employs Cameron’s former chief of staff. Meanwhile over at the NHS carve-up, Mark Britnall who wrote the NHS reforms now works for KPMG advising people to “cash in” on the NHS. Alan Milburn, the former health secretary now works for PWC as they also look to get their hooks into the NHS.
All of these people know that sometimes a quiet word with a minister works but sometimes you have to use the media. Lobbyists are adept at manipulating the media and they know that sometimes they have to avoid public attention. For example, when Tony Blair planned on introducing a tax on pesticides, the lobbying agency didn’t go to the national press as they didn’t want to attract the attention of the environmentalists. Instead they placed stories into only the farming press and, through the pressure that these generated, convinced Blair to change his mind.
The last referendum that we had in this country was about changing our voting system from first past the post to an alternate vote (AV) process. There was a big “no to AV” campaign that included adverts in newspapers featuring pictures of a baby in a incubator with the strapline “she needs a new cardiac facility not an alternative voting system” along with claims that AV would cost £250 million. There was no debate about the actual pros and cons of AV vs 1st past the post, just the lie about how much it would cost (when in fact it wouldn’t have been any more expensive than the system that we still have) But this was ground on which they could win and whoever controls the ground sets the agenda for the debate. In these cases emotion is more powerful than reason. It’s no big surprise to discover that many of the people involved in the anti-AV campaign were also involved in the Brexit campaign.
Lobbyist campaigning for the High Speed 2 rail link from London to Birmingham ran a series of adverts that read “their lawns or your jobs” – painting as rich southern NIMBYs vs jobs in the north. There is absolutely no evidence to support this and in fact HS2 will probably draw more people to London. They also used smear tactics against anti-HS2 campaigners. The quote they used to describe their strategy to diminish the anti-HS2 campaign was that they were going to “shit them up”
The other key lobbying strategy is using the third party technique – getting other people to say what you want to say. This puts distance between the self-interested corporation and the message. For example Pru Healthcare wanted more people to take our private health insurance so they went to Reform, the think tank. Reform is a big fan of privatisation and top-up payments and they sent some “doctors for Reform” onto the Jeremy Vine show to talk to his five million listeners. The doctor on the show said that we can’t afford the NHS, which is exactly the same message that Pru Health want to get across but people are less suspicious of hearing it from a doctor.
The tobacco industry has been doing this sort of thing since the 1960s. It means that we don’t know who is ultimately funding the people who are giving the message and these third parties even end up in parliament. For example, a group of corner shop owners was recently in Westminster campaigning against plain packaging for cigarettes but they were funded by the tobacco company Philip Morris.
Lobbyists are always looking for ways to tip the scales of justice – ways to deal with the “antis”. Philip Morris has a ten year plan called “Project Sunrise” which strategizes ways to attack people who disagree with them. They find ways to diminish their funding (eg the recent lobbying for restrictions on charities), they look for ways to weaken their credibility. They also seek to drive a wedge between “anti” groups be seeking isolate the extremists and identifying moderates such as NGOs, where they will engage in constant dialogue.
Matt Elliott, formerly of the Tax Payers Alliance was involved in the Brexit campaign, and it was a campaign that made use of astroturfing. This is where you create fake grass roots movements in order to pitch ordinary people against each other. However, Brexit is just stage 1. Stage 2 will be getting rid of environmental controls and removing tax regulation (corporation tax has already been cut to 15% following the referendum result) Clearly there is a large correlation between the long term goals of the leave campaign and the Tax Payers Alliance.
Corporate lobbying has a much larger voice than anybody else and they have crowded everyone else out. Regardless of whether it is “right” or “wrong” they still have far too much influence and there is far too much secrecy surrounding it. It’s also all about cash – a company like Black Rock can afford to get Gideon Osborne’s right hand man, Oxfam can’t. Although to be a successful lobbyist, you still need the “political wind” with you.
So, what can we do about this? Well, the big thing that lobbyists fear is grass root campaigns. They find it really difficult to deal with them, especially those started by traditional Tory voters. They also find it hard to control the flow of information as things like social media are much harder to manipulate that traditional media. So, get out there, gather together, share information and get stuck in!
Nottingham Skeptics in the Pub returns to The Canalhouse on the 2nd of August at 7:30pm where Sydney Padua will be taking about “The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage – The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer) For more information visit the website: http://nottingham.skepticsinthepub.org/
By Gav Squires
@GavSquires
