The Parliamentary Lobby yesterday had the usual afternoon briefing scheduled with the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS). This is where the gentlemen of the Lobby are spoonfed some copy to take down or, as they see it, perform a vital service to democracy by holding the executive to account. The finest of the free press toiling for democracy and truth!

The Lobby is a self-selecting privileged cartel given access to briefings denied to the rest of the media, with their own secret rules to protect members and exclude competitors. The justifications are varied, sometimes they argue that they want to reserve the cartel for professional inquisitors not politically motivated bloggers with an agenda. That must be why the Morning Star and the unprinted Tribune newspaper are Lobby members.

Yesterday at the Lobby briefing not one single question was asked of the executive and a bemused PMOS wandered back to Downing Street untroubled. A proud day for the Lobby and British journalism. Nothing to see here…

UPDATE: A senior Lobby correspondent writes, presumably on non-attributable Lobby terms:

The lobby is almost always a useless waste of time. It is a chore not a secret pleasure. Leaving was a statement about the pointlessness of a Number 10 press operation that refuses to say anything rather than about the corruption of the lobby.