Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill – What price a LibDem principle?

Lobbying has been at the forefront of the political agenda recently – and especially since Lynton Crosby crossed the threshold of No 10. David Cameron has been under pressure to tackle it. His – and the Coalition’s – response was the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill.

You’ll note that ‘Lobbying’ is not all this Bill deals with: the Tories and LibDems thought it would be a clever plan to include the Trade Unions and their activities in this – no doubt with an eye to stymieing Labour, not to mention diverting attention from the major questions facing the Tories over lobbying.

Well, the plan succeeded – though not perhaps quite as they had intended.

The TUC has called the resulting bill “an outrageous attack on freedom of speech worthy of an authoritarian dictatorship”.

The TUC fear the bill contains clauses which would make organising its…