Sleaze scandal claims four scalps

The Westminster lobbying scandal has claimed four scalps. Following a sting by The Sunday Times newspaper, in which three peers offered to lobby ministers, ask parliamentary questions, and host receptions in return for cash, Lord Laird has resigned the Ulster Unionist whip and Labour has suspended Lord Cunningham, the former cabinet minister, and Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, the former police chief.

All three denied wrongdoing and referred themselves to the House of Lords sleaze watchdog. Patrick Mercer, a former Conservative MP, has already quit the Tory party after a separate investigation by Panorama and The Daily Telegraph revealed he had tabled parliamentary questions and motions and then declared just £2,000 of a £4,000 fee. Yet he intends to retain his seat for the next two years and carry on drawing his MP's salary.

In opposition, David Cameron warned of the "far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money". But he has failed to do anything about it, says Patrick Wintour in The Guardian. "Nothing has emerged from Nick Clegg's constitutional reform unit on the right of recall of MPs or the statutory register of lobbyists." Not that a register would necessarily do much good, says Jim Pickard in the Financial Times. In fact, had one existed, Mercer could have checked it and avoided the sting.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up

The question of recall is tricky too, says The Times. If an election could be forced by just 10% of voters, there would be a risk of the process being hijacked by political opponents. "One solution would be a hybrid." When MPs have been censured, elections could be forced by a petition of 10% of constituents. But if constituents wanted to take the initiative, the number of signatures needed would have be much higher, and be collected in just a few weeks to prove strength of feeling.

These revelations are a "welcome reminder" of the value of an "unfettered" press, says The Independent on Sunday. But most importantly, they show the need to reform the "bloated and debased" House of Lords, the majority of whose 759 members are government appointees. Its very composition is "founded on the notion of patronage and cronyism". Taken together with the "absence of any official salary and the impossibility of dismissal" (Jeffrey Archer being the prime example) and "is it any wonder that the blandishments of lobbyists prove so attractive"?

As for lobbying, there is nothing inherently wrong with it. Businesses have every right to communicate their views. Indeed, their perspective "may refine and improve government policy". But this should not happen in secret or be bought and sold. "Only an outright ban on paid advocacy, a mandatory register of lobbyists, a statutory code of conduct and a legal requirement for all meetings with lobbyists to be registered can excise the canker."

Tell us what you intend to do, Mr Miliband

This complacency is misplaced, says Adam Boulton in The Sunday Times. The latest YouGov poll does suggest that Miliband's personal poll ratings aren't good. He rates worse on strength, competence and trustworthiness than former prime minister Gordon Brown at his "2010 defeat nadir". But polls also show that David Cameron's party looks "less certain of re-election than the Conservatives were before 1983, 1987 and 1992".

Nevertheless, Miliband's "sorry" ratings are "rooted in a hard-headed assessment" by the public, not least that he has failed to articulate "a credible economic policy", says Martin Bright in The Times. That could change. Chancellor George Osborne's announcement on 26 June of spending plans that will run until 2016 is a "moment of truth" that Miliband cannot avoid. "He will have to reveal his hand or face ridicule". By spelling out more clearly the kind of government he would lead and what plans he has for the economy, he can yet turn the public view around.

The signs so far are quite encouraging, says Dan Hodges in The Daily Telegraph. Until this week, Miliband "didn't have a strategy at all". Instead he was pinning his electoral hopes on a series of conceits that have successively been demolished: that "the electorate was moving Left", that "the economic and political cycles had moved out of alignment" and that "all Labour had to do was sit tight to secure the 35% of votes required for victory".

Then, for the first time, on Monday, in a speech delivered at financial news company Thomson Reuters, shadow chancellor Ed Balls confirmed that a Labour government would stick with Tory spending limits for the first year of the next parliament. The penny seems to have dropped. Now Miliband must tell the country what he intends to do.