The same is even true for governmental bureaucrats, who aren't allowed to take freebies. But the industry reps they deal with are delighted to waste their clients' billable hours in chatting about sports or dogs or whatever the bureaucrat likes to talk about.
this post partly sparked by listening to one of my favourite podcasts where someone was saying "hahaha maybe they are just always doing these things because the industry guy is a really great hang, just a fun guy to be with" ... and yes! yes!, that's what's happening!
The great banker can also be sure that the spend on the pub sandwich will be below the threshold that requires ethics/compliance managers to sign off on it.
This post and some comments seem based to me on a huge misunderstanding that politicians get chosen and elected by "the people" and then lobbysts try to suborn them to do the interests of some lobby. But actually politicians are selected by lobbysts and their job is to "sell" to "the people" the policies that are in the interests of the lobbies they work for.
PS: Political scholars call them "gatherers of consensus".
PS: So the gifts are just bonuses/perks from the "sponsors" to those who work for them.
PS: One of the purposes of the noise around these petty rewards is to make it look like that individuals are corrupt but the system is fine when actually the system is corrupt, because the politicians in power have been selected by the more powerful lobbies and that is what matters not the petty tokens of appreciation that they get from their "sponsors" while in office or the much, much bigger ones they get after office.
"Mather worked as a public affairs adviser for the Confederation of British Industry for 18 months before entering Parliament"
The problem is not that that the CBI and Pfizer have their own representatives in parliament, because that recognizes a situation of fact (powers that do no get the influence proportional to their power in Parliament will work hard to get that influence outside Parliament), but it is that workers and customers do not get to select their representatives too.
"You and I tend to work on the basis of getting things and paying for them."
That is what matters to the press: to score a scoop with a bit of misleading demagoguery and to do that they need something relatable to ordinary people, something that looks like a petty personal bribe.
"This is what people ought to be worried about with respect to lobbying of politicians. It’s not the value of the gifts, it’s the amount of face time"
Even that is misleading because bankers are selling to get business from someone on another side but lobbyists and politicians are on the same side. Favours to politicians are in essence not bribes or ingratiating tokens but bonuses, just like the huge consultancy or speaking fees they get after leaving politics.
I think this remains true at very high levels with strategics but the overall mix has been altered significantly by the huge growth in sponsor business which is more transactional. My anecdotal observation of eg senior UK IBD teams is that there are increasingly few senior ‘relationship’ style bankers left (which paradoxically means that those that remain are in a very strong position)
Are there shades of the Maussian gift here though? The gift is, after all, explicitly non-transactional, but implicitly it creates reciprocal obligations and recipients feel this.
I've been making this point about "global cities" forever. It's not the efficiency of communication. It's the ability to eat, drink and sleep with others with whom you are going to deal in one way or another. Everybody (that is, everybody on the inside) comes out ahead, and no one upsets the applecart.
In the "if I were king for a day" fantasy genre: require all people interacting with government officials to write out their communications in double-spaced 12pt courier on 80 gsm paper, and require them to eat two copies in front of a notary public, before the third copy is submitted to the official concerned.
The same is even true for governmental bureaucrats, who aren't allowed to take freebies. But the industry reps they deal with are delighted to waste their clients' billable hours in chatting about sports or dogs or whatever the bureaucrat likes to talk about.
this post partly sparked by listening to one of my favourite podcasts where someone was saying "hahaha maybe they are just always doing these things because the industry guy is a really great hang, just a fun guy to be with" ... and yes! yes!, that's what's happening!
The great banker can also be sure that the spend on the pub sandwich will be below the threshold that requires ethics/compliance managers to sign off on it.
This is also what it takes to be a good rainmaker in private legal practice, and is why I’m not one.
This post and some comments seem based to me on a huge misunderstanding that politicians get chosen and elected by "the people" and then lobbysts try to suborn them to do the interests of some lobby. But actually politicians are selected by lobbysts and their job is to "sell" to "the people" the policies that are in the interests of the lobbies they work for.
PS: Political scholars call them "gatherers of consensus".
PS: So the gifts are just bonuses/perks from the "sponsors" to those who work for them.
PS: https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/art/resources/graphic/xlarge/38_00392.jpg
PS: One of the purposes of the noise around these petty rewards is to make it look like that individuals are corrupt but the system is fine when actually the system is corrupt, because the politicians in power have been selected by the more powerful lobbies and that is what matters not the petty tokens of appreciation that they get from their "sponsors" while in office or the much, much bigger ones they get after office.
«when actually the system is corrupt, because the politicians in power have been selected by the more powerful lobbies and that is what matters»
Some luminous examples among sterling "centrists":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Smith
"In 2006, while still Head of Policy and Government Relations for Pfizer, Smith fought the 2006 Blaenau Gwent by-election."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Mather
"Mather worked as a public affairs adviser for the Confederation of British Industry for 18 months before entering Parliament"
The problem is not that that the CBI and Pfizer have their own representatives in parliament, because that recognizes a situation of fact (powers that do no get the influence proportional to their power in Parliament will work hard to get that influence outside Parliament), but it is that workers and customers do not get to select their representatives too.
"You and I tend to work on the basis of getting things and paying for them."
That is what matters to the press: to score a scoop with a bit of misleading demagoguery and to do that they need something relatable to ordinary people, something that looks like a petty personal bribe.
"This is what people ought to be worried about with respect to lobbying of politicians. It’s not the value of the gifts, it’s the amount of face time"
Even that is misleading because bankers are selling to get business from someone on another side but lobbyists and politicians are on the same side. Favours to politicians are in essence not bribes or ingratiating tokens but bonuses, just like the huge consultancy or speaking fees they get after leaving politics.
I think this remains true at very high levels with strategics but the overall mix has been altered significantly by the huge growth in sponsor business which is more transactional. My anecdotal observation of eg senior UK IBD teams is that there are increasingly few senior ‘relationship’ style bankers left (which paradoxically means that those that remain are in a very strong position)
Are there shades of the Maussian gift here though? The gift is, after all, explicitly non-transactional, but implicitly it creates reciprocal obligations and recipients feel this.
I've been making this point about "global cities" forever. It's not the efficiency of communication. It's the ability to eat, drink and sleep with others with whom you are going to deal in one way or another. Everybody (that is, everybody on the inside) comes out ahead, and no one upsets the applecart.
In the "if I were king for a day" fantasy genre: require all people interacting with government officials to write out their communications in double-spaced 12pt courier on 80 gsm paper, and require them to eat two copies in front of a notary public, before the third copy is submitted to the official concerned.
Last paragraph spot on.
So why would Lord Alli buy some spectacles for Starmer? That is just weird
"buy some spectacles for Starmer? That is just weird"
Because Starmer is their guy.