Lord Paul Tyler writes…Lobbying bill is a major and unexpected advance
Today, the Government published its Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill. It marks a major and rather unexpected advance on the position only a couple of...
View ArticleTom Brake on 38 Degrees and the Transparency and Lobbying Bill
I’m sure some Liberal Democrat members and readers of Liberal Democrat Voice will have recently received a rather alarmist email from 38 Degrees claiming that the Government, through the Transparency...
View ArticleNick Clegg signals changes to Lobbying Bill to address charity concerns
The Guardian and the Independent today report that the government will backtrack over parts of the Transparency of Lobbying, non-Party Campaigning, and Trade Union Administration Bill. The coalition...
View ArticleNick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: And now for something else… Childcare,...
Last week, Syria dominated. This week Nick Clegg uses his Leader’s letter to promote a just-announced initiative – 15 hours’ free nursery care to children from the poorest families – and defend another...
View ArticleTom Brake MP writes: Part 2 of the Lobbying and Transparency Bill, an update
As Nick mentioned to party members in his Letter from the Leader over the weekend, the government has signalled its willingness to accept the principle of amendments to Part 2 of the bill from John...
View ArticleBuying votes – Lord Tyler on the Lobbying Bill
Concerted non-party campaigns now weave more citizens together than the parties can dream of, and raise a lot of money in the process. They do so not with intensely political ‘values’, but with a...
View ArticleJohn Thurso MP: Lobbying Bill to be amended to protect charities and lobby...
Government’s “Transparency” Bill seeks to ensure that those who are not standing in an election, but nonetheless wish to spend money influencing the outcome, are also subject to tight limits within...
View ArticleThe Lobbying Bill – How Lib Dem MPs voted
The controversial Lobbying Bill got a clear majority on its third reading has now moved to the Lords. The current text of the bill was robustly defended by Tom Brake in the Commons but many MPs...
View Article38 Degrees on the Lobbying Bill: Let’s hope the House of Lords sorts it out
It was heartening to see an increased number of Liberal Democrat MPs vote against the Lobbying Bill, or ‘gagging law’, this Wednesday. But the majority of Lib Dem MPs voted loyally in support of the...
View ArticlePaul Tyler writes… Transparency not gagging
I have spent much of the last week meeting with NGOs to discuss the Transparency Bill, in advance of the first debate on it in the Lords today. It’s striking that only the most strident can now use...
View ArticleThe Independent View: The Lobbying Bill threatens grass-roots campaigning
Take a good look at this picture. This is what grass-roots political activism looks like – and you’ll be seeing a lot less of it if the coalition’s “Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party campaigning...
View ArticleLord Greaves writes… We must make the Lobbying Bill work
It is rightly said that this Bill has had a disgraceful lack of scrutiny, and I agree with that. But we are where we are. The Government are not going to withdraw it, and it is not going to stop. If we...
View ArticleThe Independent View: Lobbying Bill protects multinational corporate...
The Robin Hood Tax campaign is facing a tough opponent – not just from the usual source of the financial sector and their allies, but from legislation currently going through the House of Lords. The...
View ArticleOpinion: Why I backed the lobbying bill
Sarah Teather’s interview in the Guardian over the Christmas period talked about the way the political system tends to invent simple issues, in order to give the impression of solving them. She is...
View ArticleLiblink: The lobbying bill is no ‘gagging law’
At the outset, ministers believed the bill would be a fairly non-controversial measure, limiting the political influence of maverick millionaires in elections. It was construed very differently by...
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