Several 38 Degrees members have been in touch to say that their MP has replied to them about the forest sell-off – not only saying they do support selling the forests but also describing 38 Degrees as “the Labour campaign website 38 Degrees”.  So I am pasting below a copy of an email I just sent to Charlotte Leslie MP, one of the MPs to make this allegation.

It’s worrying that this seems to bepart of a firm response used by several different Conservative MPs – does that mean it’s a coordinated smear? Or do some MPs just seriously believe that the only reason to oppose forest selloffs is being part of the Labour Party? In any case, just to be clear – 38 Degrees is independent of all political parties.

If your MP has been in touch to claim that 38 Degrees is part of the Labour Party, please let us know and please get back to them to set them straight.

Dear Charlotte,

Several 38 Degrees members have forwarded emails from you in which you describe 38 Degrees as an “Labour campaign website”.

38 Degrees is independent of all political parties. 38 Degrees members are supporters of many different political parties, or none at all. The reason we are running a campaign against the government’s proposals to sell off public forests is because 38 Degrees members asked us to when we consulted them.  You can read a lot more about 38 Degrees here: http://38degrees.org.uk/pages/about/

I understand that you strongly disagree with our stance on the issue of forests office, but I hope you will accept that it is possible to disagree with government policy without being part of the Labour Party. 38 Degrees has in the past campaigned against plenty of Labour Party policies – for example, when the Conservatives were in opposition, 38 Degrees members contacted their MPs asking them to vote in favour of a Conservative Opposition Day Motion calling for Parliament to support the 10:10 campaign. On that occasion, a couple Labour MPs accused 38 Degrees of being a Conservative organisation – I sent those MPs a message rather similar to this one!

I hope now I’ve been in touch to explain you will avoid sending inaccurate information about 38 Degrees to your constituents in the future. I’d be very happy to chat further about 38 Degrees if you would like to do so — my number is below.

Yours sincerely,

David Babbs

Here’s a video made by Spinwatch that shows how big healthcare companies’ lobbysits are influencing government on the future of our NHS:

The film asks whether Andrew Lansley’s planned reforms for the NHS are being shaped by big healthcare companies’ lobbyists.

It explains that big businesses can influence government in three main ways:

• Funding think tanks to put together ‘evidence’ to support the view of big business
• Pay lobbyists to put pressure on government to adopt certain policies
• Help their employees become MPs, or advisors to government

Last week we discovered that Jeremy Hunt had entered into confidential meetings with Rupert Murdoch over the future of Murdoch’s BSkyB bid.

In November 38 Degrees handed in 60,000 messages to Ofcom asking them to get the bid in front of the Competition Commission. At Christmas an Emergency Petition was put forward pointing out that Jeremy Hunt would not make an impartial judge. On New Year’s Eve Hunt got Ofcom’s report and has been sitting on it ever since.

It has now emerged that Hunt has been having meetings with Murdoch’s people. He could be trying to find ways to make a deal with Murdoch’s advisers.

Now it’s our turn to get involved. Together we can get in touch with our MPs and ask them to put pressure on Hunt to ensure the report goes public and into the hands of the Competition Commission. But we don’t have long.

This is a fast moving campaign that needs quick responses. We’ve already had success in standing up to Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB power grab and now we need to do it again. To take action click here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/hunts-secret-meetings

Here’s Robert Peston’s blog outlining more of the details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2011/01/ofcom_says_news_corps_sky_bid.html

Image by Worst EU Lobby Awards

38 Degrees members have campaigned against secret lobbying in the UK parliament. Earlier this year we had a big campaign win when the new government pledged to introduce tighter rules. However shady lobbyists also work in Brussels.  Here you can read about and vote for the EU’s Worst Lobbyist 2010.

Who will you vote for?

> Will you go forGoldman Sachs who lobbied against tighter regulations after the financial crises caused by banks?

> How about the hedge funds who fought against EU laws that would  control their tactics which have destabilised economies in the past?

> Or why not vote for Britain’s favourite bank-the Royal Bank of Scotland? RBS have purposely kept their lobbying secretive and have recently employed a former EU Industry Commissioner as an ‘advisor’.

Or you could go for one of the three energy companies who consistently lobbied against effective climate change laws?

Its your choice!

Health Minister Andrew Lansley: have private healthcare lobbyists been helping him write the NHS Whitepaper?

38 degrees teamed up with Spinwatch last year to demand tougher rules on lobbying – a hugely successful campaign which had a huge breakthrough back in May when government agreed to tougher rules to ban secret lobbying. They’re yet to implement these – it is likely we’ll need to put further pressure on next year.

Now Spinwatch have started looking into the links between the health minister, Andrew Lansley, and private health companies who would stand to gain from his proposals to change the NHS.

Last week the coalition government announced that they’re planning to bring in a statutory register of lobbying interests - a ban of secret lobbying.  This is a big breakthrough for the thousands of 38 Degrees members tbhat have been campaigning for this for the last few months. If it’s introduced big business will be forced to be more transparent about lobbying. We’ll be able to see who is meeting whom, who they’re working for and how much they’re being paid.

Our friends at SpinWatch have been in touch to say “this would not have been possible without the thousands of 38 Degrees members across the country who campaigned for the register”. There are still some big risks that the register won’t be introduced (see the Guardian article here) but here’s a rundown of everything 38 Degrees members have done to get us to this point.

* Nearly 10,000 of us signed petitions to key decision makers. During the expenses scandal thousands of us signed a petition to Angela Smith, Cabinet Office minister urging the Labour Government to clean up politics by introducing a compulsory register of lobbyists. Thousands of us also signed a petition to Cameron.

* We’ve sent over 15,000 emails to party leaders, election candidates and minsters urging them to bring in the ban. In March thosuands of 38 Degrees members sent emails to election candidates, as part of a campaign with the Alliance for Lobbying Transparancy and SpinWatch, urging them to come clean on their links to lobbying companies.

*38 Degrees members launched local campaigns targeting individual election candidates who wouldn’t back a ban of secret lobbying. Pritti Patel, Conservative Candidate (and now MP) for Witham faced a local campaign after she was the only local candidate to refuse to back the ban – in the face of growing pressure she changed position and backed the ban. George Eustice, Conservative candidate (and now MP) for Camborne and Redruth faced big pressure from a local campaign that highlighted the fact that he was the only candidate who was refusing to back a ban.

* Our friends at Spinwatch teamed up with Don’t Panic to expose lobbying links of local election candidates, see the video below

We’ve nearly won – but there are two problems left:
*The timescale to introduce the ban hasn’t been announced. Right now big business is still allowed to lobby in secret. We need the rules passed into law quickly.
*Big business pressure could change the government’s mind again. Hours after the plans were announced a powerful group of lobbying firms vowed to fight it. [2]

Take action now. People power is needed to make sure we ban secret lobbying this year. Please e-mail David Cameron and Nick Clegg now and urge them to introduce the new rules as soon as possible. Just click the link below to get started:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/ban-secret-lobbying-now

A screen shot of the website giving George Eustice's email address as george.eustice@conservatives.com (taken on April 26th 2010)

Yesterday, George Eustice, the parliamentary candidate for Camborne and Redruth bad-mouthed a local 38 Degrees campaign. For the last few months Eustice has been under growing pressure from the successful grassroots campaign to ban of secret lobbying. Now all the local election candidates, except Eustice, back the ban.

In his blog “The first rule of online lobbying: get the email right” Eustice claims he has received no emails from local members about the campaign due to 38 Degrees’ incompetence in spelling his “email address wrongly on their system“.

If we made a mistake we’d be the first to admit it. We expect George to do the same.

George is clearly under pressure and his rambling blog post makes various factual errors. The email address we used for George (george.eustice@conservatives.com) wasn’t misspelled, it came from the Conservative website as we told him on Saturday.

In his blog he attempts to dismiss the campaign claiming “there are already strict rules that mean MPs must declare all their financial interests from clients to directorships and major shareholdings.”

This exposes a deep lack of understanding of the campaign to ban secret lobbying. The local campaign calls for a statutory register of lobbyists interests, as recommended by the Parliamentary Public Administration Select Committee. The Committee stated that this must include:
*names of lobbyists
* who they are working for
* any previous employment in the public sector
* which decisions they are trying to influence

George disagrees with the parliamentary committee saying “When it comes to so called “lobbying”, the answer is to make sure that any financial interests of MPs are declared so there is no conflict of interest.” It seems he has misunderstood our campaign. The register is intended to let the public know what is going on behind closed doors in Westminster. If the expenses scandal has taught us one thing, it is that we can’t just trust our MPs to do the right thing: we need transparency so we know they’re doing the right thing.

If you think it’s time to clean up politics and ban secret lobbying sign the petition to George here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/george-ban-secret-lobbying

Update: Spinwatch respond to Eustice

SpinWatch have responded to Eustice’s blog. Below is an extract. You can read the full article at: http://www.spinwatch.org/

He writes on his blog how he heard there was to be an online lobbying campaign against him, initiated by “a girl called Tamasin Cave, a political  activist who writes regularly for Lib Dem blogs”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tamasin, a Spinwatch director – who is nearly 40 should  that be of interest to anyone – is in regular touch with bloggers from Left Foot Forward to Guido Fawkes.

Attempting to tie the Spinwatch campaign to Lib Dem activism is, well, the kind of obfuscatory tactic one would expect from a professional lobbyist.

And it’s clearly sticking. When Spinwatch recently spoke to the Falmouth Packet, a local paper covering Camborne, the reporter asked whether we were linked to the Lib Dems.

No, the simple truth is this campaign has focused on the Tories because they have the largest number of PPCs who are professional lobbyists. We believe this is the reason why the Conservatives remain alone among the main parties in refusing to sign up to a statutory register of lobbyists.

George Eustice (far right) with the other candidates for Camborne & Redruth

Secret lobbying of our MPs is a massive problem. It’s outrageous that big business can spend millions on lobbyists that get their voices heard – and we have no right to know who is meeting who, who representing who or how much their spending. 38 Degrees members decided earlier this year that banning secret lobbying should be one of our top priorities in the election campaign.

In Cornwall, local 38 Degrees members have been campaigning hard to ban secret lobbying. The campaign in Camborne and Redruth has been a very successful campaign so far – all the candidates except George Eustice (Conservative) have pledged to back a ban of secret lobbying.

So at the local “question time” last night I tried to ask George why he’s ignoring the local campaign and is refusing to back the ban. He wouldn’t comment – instead saying he’d email through a comment “soon” (nothing received yet). I asked him to explain why he won’t support a ban of secret lobbying in a video – but he refused that too.

I tried to catch up with him outside the venue but, in true politician style, he (and his team) charged out so quickly there was no chance of catching him. All the other candidates were happy to speak to me on camera – I’ll try to get those clips online soon.

With his background as a lobbyist and David Cameron’s former spin-doctor, Eustice is well placed to try to duck tough questions like he did last night. But he’d do well to remember that this issue isn’t going to go away. As David Cameron said a few months ago “Lobbying is the next political scandal waiting to happen”. The local campaign is growing fast (sign the petition here: www.38degrees.org.uk/camborne) and pressure is growing on Eustice every day.

So George, if you’re reading this (which I’m sure you are – your team told me you get all our emails) please let us know why you don’t back a ban on secret lobbying.

Note: You can see a full list of the candidates running for the seat of Camborne and Redruth on the “Your Next MP “site: http://www.yournextmp.com/seats/camborne_and_redruth

Tonight in Camborne, 38 Degrees members will challenge the Conservative candidate, George Eustice to back a ban of secret lobbying of politicians.

I’m on the train on the way down to see meet everyone that has been campaigning hard over the last few months to ban secret lobbying. The campaign has been a huge success, thanks to local pressure now the Labour, Lib Dem, Mebyon Kernow, Green and UKIP candidates have all pledged to back a ban on secret lobbying – only George has refused. Instead he tried to use spin to attack the campaign of being a “lib dem slur”. A ridiculous accusation since it’s a grass roots campaign that has successfully persuaded 5 candidates from different parties to back a ban on secret lobbying.

In response to Eustice’s spin 38 Degrees members have started a “back the ban” petition at http://www.38degrees.org.uk/george-sign-the-pledge urging George, who used to be Cameron’s spin-doctor and recently left his job at a top London lobbying firm, to join his local rivals and support the ban on secret lobbying.

It’s such an important campaign because today big businesses can pay lobbyists millions of pounds to get their views represented and to secure influence of politicians. Today we have no right to know who is meeting who. If we’re to regain trust

in politics we need to stamp out back room secret meetings and bring transparency to Westminster.

Tonight, I’ll be at the hustings where Eustice will come face to face with all his local rivals and hundreds of members of the public keen to find out why he won’t support a ban on secret lobbying.

I’ll be blogging, tweeting (twitter.come/38_degrees) and updating the Facebook page www.facebook.com/peoplepowerchange throughout the day.