Earlier this week David Cameron promised a two-year lobbying ban on former ministers to limit their ability to influence government policy.He warned that the £2bn lobbying industry was the 'next big scandal' waiting to happen.
Cranmer wonders if such limitations might not also apply to special advisers, or even to 'senior parliamentary advisers', because it is manifestly the case that it is not only former ministers who can boast about their ability to exert influence in the highest echelons of government.
It transpires that David Cameron's former Senior Parliamentary Adviser, the duplicitous, deceitful and disgraced Andrew MacKay MP has become a 'strategic adviser' to lobbyists Burson-Marsteller, permitting them to boast that they are 'uniquely placed to advise clients' after the General Election.
It is a bit rich (excuse the pun) of Andrew MacKay to attempt to cash in on his disgrace and downfall by boasting that he is 'uniquely placed' to lobby David Cameron on behalf of wealthy clients who pay Burson-Marsteller a hefty fee, of which Mr MacKay will doubtless take a very generous cut.
Apparently, the chief executive of Burson-Marsteller is Matt Carter, who was Labour’s general secretary during the cash-for-honours affair.
So, an expenses-scandal MP caught fleecing the taxpayer of a whopping £282,731 has teamed up with a cash-for-honours party apparatchik. According to The Times, Mr MacKay has negotiated a six-figure salary and 'been told to keep close to the Cameron team'. According to The Daily Mail, 'He has been hired to get access to the upper reaches of the Tory Party. He has no other purpose.'
Burson-Marsteller said it has announced the appointment now 'in the interests of transparency and so there can be perceived to be no conflict of interest in his current role as an MP'.
Well, Cranmer's got news for you.
This veneer of 'transparency' is a ruse for Andrew MacKay to continue doing what he has always done best: lying, deceiving and secretly 'putting a bit of stick about' to eradicate whatever gets in his way and whomever he considers to be vermin. There is a manifest conflict of interests, and the possibility of his lobbying David Cameron for anything can only tarnish the Conservative brand with sleaze and corrupt a Conservative government with the stench of MacKay's vanity and arrogance.
Would Mr Cameron give an immediate assurance that Burson-Marsteller will not be granted preferential treatment, privileged access or the ability to influence anyone member of the next Conservative government about anything?
