Tory transparency in Cornwall?

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.