In those heady days of spring 2010 Nick Clegg told the ITV leadership debate that he wanted “something I’ve supported all my adult political life, which is a complete clean-up from top to toe of politics.” This included an end to murky lobbying and he subsequently convinced the Conservative coalition negotiators of the need for a compulsory register of lobbyists. So it is odd then that the lobbyist Olly Grender has gone to spin for Nick Clegg out of the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office. Grender is in Downing Street covering the maternity leave of Clegg’s gatekeeper Lena Pietsch, which means she will be back on the outside practising the dark arts very soon….

After spinning for the Liberal Democrats in the run up to the 1997 election, Grender turned to the dark-side of lobbying at Neal Lawson and Jonathan Mendelsohn’s scandal ridden and now defunct LLM Communications, which became notorious for their level of access to the Blair government. Eventually she moved on to PLMR – Political Lobbying and Media Relations. Leaving the quack green energy companies represented by the firm aside,  the organisation boasts that they represent Frankenstein doctors  like PLMR client Reneuron who experiment with stem-cells taken from new-born children, and pro-puppy-torturing and mouse-probing animal research organisations like UAR. PLMR also spin for the Brazilian Beef food processing industry, which George Monbiot accuses of “deforestation, slavery and murder”. Classy stuff…

Given the unfettered access that Grender now has and that her appointment is only temporary, what measures have been taken in Downing Street to make sure that her firm’s clients, who until very recently were paying her to represent them, do not have undue influence? The Cabinet Office can instigate a cooling off period after officials leave the government before they can jump through the revolving door. Will this “two years in the cooler” apply to Grender and her corporate lobbying career? With Nick Clegg leading the charge against the spinmeisters, what has he done to get his own house in order?

Guido just asked Ed Miliband at his Labour HQ press conference (with Ed Balls) if the lobbyist Roland Rudd is a producer or a predator? He waffled on about meeting business people all the time but didn’t answer the question. He did promise to reveal who he met at last night’s dinner held off-the-record at the lobbyist’s home. So we will find out if he dined with producers or predators.

Should be noted that Roland Rudd made his millions representing financial service companies as well as predators and prey in takeover battles. Are spinners producers?

After his story earlier in the week about pro-Israel lobby group BICOM, Guido was tipped that their CEO Lorna Fitzsimons, the former Labour MP, was in some serious trouble. He was tracking down an email that was accidentally sent out on Monday to some of BICOM’s media list instead of the intended recipients – the donors. Annoyingly Ephraim Hardcastle beat him to it this morning and reveals how Lorna blurted to the world that she has been:

“…liaising with BBC and Sky to ensure ‘the most objectively favourable line was taken…I briefed Jonathan Ford, the Financial Times leader writer for his upcoming leading article… BICOM had regular contact with the Editor at Large of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, helping to inform him about the forthcoming UN vote on Palestinian statehood…”

We have put the whole email online here. It’s standard lobbyist boasting, but Guido imagines the FT editors will take a dim view of any sign of them being influenced by a PR operation. A BICOM source tried to play down the story as “mildly embarrassing”, but it was the comment given to the Mail that really tickled Guido: “A BICOM spokesman denies that Ms Fitzsimons is to lose her job.” If you have to say it…

It is clear that all is not well at BICOM. The cock-up has apparently gone down rather badly, with some wondering how long Fitzsimmons can cling on. Two respected spinners have recently moved on after very short stays at the organisation – the LibDem Ed Fordham lasted just a month as their public affairs chief, and soon to be Head of Press at the Department of Education, Gabriel Milland, just six weeks. What can you spot in such a short space of time to make you run for the hills like that?

Make sure you listen out for a very important declaration of interest at this afternoon’s Culture Media and Sport Select Committee show trials. Surely Tory MP Damian Collins is going to point out that his wife, one Sarah Richardson, is an employee of Edelman PR – Murdoch and News International’s recently hired spinners…

The spinmeisters have form in this sort of thing, getting into trouble in 2007 when John Hutton was at the DWP. His wife, Heather Rogers – a director at Edelman, lobbied successfully for DWP contracts. Edelman are yet to get back to Guido with assurances that Ms. Richardson is not working on the account…

UPDATE: Edelman stress Ms Richardson is not on the account. The connection must still be declared.

As Downing Street’s Digital Communications guru takes the money and flies off to Dubai to work for mega-spin-shop Hill and Knowlton, speculation turns to policy guru Steve Hilton’s future. Sam Coates in The Times suggests that there is a “50-50 chance” of Hilton walking out within six months, disillusioned with the realities of governing from Downing Street and having lost key battles to Osborne. Hilton was an advocate of big-bang reforms, Osborne is more cautious about securing a Tory majority.

It isn’t only Osborne he has been losing out to, Andrew Cooper has been providing an evidence-based reality check and pulled Cameron on to the right side of the argument over Ken Clarke’s discounted jail terms for rapists. Craig Oliver is also competing successfully for Cameron’s ear. So speculation mounts that Hilton may be on the way out…

Guido has to laugh at the audacity that some of the more brazen members of the lobbying community have shown in defending the new voluntary register of “political consultants”. As Spinwatch said, this is no more than a ”PR stunt from PR experts”.

As the new UK PAC site with public registers went live this week just 251, out of an estimated 14,000 spinners, had  voluntarily signed up. A further 1,362 were put on the list automatically by their companies, but where are the big hitters? Search the register for power-lobbyists like Roland Rudd, Tim Bell, Alan Parker or Matthew Freud and you get “Your search did not return any results.” Francis Ingham, spinmeister for the widely discredited PRCA trade body, makes hyperbolic claims for the nascent self-regulator: “It provides a foundation on which to grow self-regulation. It is – though doubtless our detractors will dispute this – a good thing.” It is an abject failure, with an estimated 90% of lobbyists ignoring the register.

Guido is no fan of government regulation of the private sector but the political lobbying industry thwarts democracy and pollutes the body politic to such an extent something has to be done. Guido’s idea is that all politicians and civil servants should be required to transparently publish all details of meetings with lobbyists – Cameron’s government ministers and Downing Street SpAds already have to do this. The idea should be rolled out as a requirement for all those paid by taxpayers and involved in influencing legislation. Obviously this means the question of identifying political lobbyists will have to be addressed.

To avoid any confusion by ministers or civil servants when unknowingly or inadvertently meeting lobbyists socially, taking up tickets to the opera or lunching at Michelin-starred restaurants and the like, registered lobbyists should make themselves easily identifiable.  The historically tried and tested solution for just this problem springs to mind. They should be made to wear bells around their necks, like lepers…

Tonight is the Public Affairs News Awards where the spin-industry pats itself on the back. Shortlisted for “Trade Body of the Year” is the Local Government Association. Given that Pickles has just successfully gouged out 27% from local councils in the spending review, Guido would love to know what could have gone worse for that trade body. The LGA is not exactly the most successful lobby of all time…

The LGA wastes £14 million of council taxpayers’ money every year lobbying Westminster from a posh Smith Square office. Even Caroline Flint, Pickle’s Local Government shadow, thinks the “LGA should be handed a revolver“. Local councils would better off taking Eric out for curry…

UPDATE : Believe it or not the LGA won.

Back as an MEP Caroline Lucas lamented the European Parliament “dragging its feet on the implementation of the rules for lobbyists.” So why then has she given a parliamentary pass to one?

Granted James Humphreys was a Green candidate at the last election, but he is also a former Downing Street civil servant, and not the first to walk through the revolving door of lobbying, or as he calls it “strategic communication”. He is the director and joint-owner of Woodnewton Associates who have a range of public sector clients. For now.

No mention of Humphrey’s severing any ties with the company while taking the taxpayers’ shilling.

Last year Lucas told the Compass Conference that she was dedicated to “curbing the influence of businesses and lobbyists on political decision-making”. Guido tried to put a call into her office to see how giving a lobbyist unfettered access to Parliament helps with this aspiration. It seems they have closed down until next month. Presumably she has gone to Climate Camp, though James is expected back in Woodnewton office tomorrow morning…

Bell Pottinger’s Peter Bingle has let rip in another one of his helpful memos reproduced here in full:

I said a prayer last night to St Jude the patron saint of hopeless cases but I doubt that even he will know what to do about the Tory Party campaign.

Something is happening with the electorate. Today’s YouGov poll showing the Lib Dems in the lead is astonishing. Perhaps the public anger with MPs over their expenses and the banking crisis will result in the body politic being smashed to bits. What was true on Friday may not be true any longer.

The stakes are now very high. If David Cameron does not become PM on 6/7th May the electoral system will be changed. The first past the post system will be abolished and there will not be a Tory government for a very long time if ever again. Perhaps John Major will go down in history as the last Tory PM.

This is the most inept Tory campaign in living memory. I know there have been some dud campaigns in the past. William Hague’s was pretty awful but in a way it didn’t really matter. Nobody believed he was going to win the election. This time all the Tory Party had to do was to ask the electorate a very simple question: “Do you want five more years of Gordon Brown?” The answer would be no. The election campaign strategy was therefore all about giving the electorate the reasons for voting against the PM. The M&C Saatchi adverts were a good start.

As I have mused before the Tory opinion poll lead was always based on the public’s loathing of the PM rather than any real affection for David Cameron. The election campaign should therefore have been negative in tone and focused entirely on the PM’s failings. Whatever the focus groups may say negative campaigning works.

There doesn’t appear to be any strategy. The ‘big society’ idea has come and now disappeared. The most popular Tory politician Ken Clarke has become the invisible man. He may be campaigning in marginal seats but he should be on our TV screens every morning, noon and night. And then there is the policy that dares not speak its name. Immigration. Every canvasser I have spoken to from every party has told me that the issue that keeps coming up on the doorstep is immigration. This is a Tory issue and yet I am told that there will only be one day when it is raised. What is going on?

The decision to agree to the televised debates may well have cost the Tory Party the election. It has elevated Nick Clegg from nowhere to equal footing with the PM and David Cameron. Whichever adviser or guru advised David Cameron to take part made a terrible mistake.

So is the election campaign lost for the Tory Party? I don’t think it is. Nick Clegg’s policy agenda is very attackable. As Alan Johnson put it in Saturday’s Times: “The Lib Dems are soft on crime, inept on asylum and bloody dangerous on national security.” How Labour candidates must wish he was the PM …

The Tory Party needs to mobilise its key assets such as Ken Clarke and talk about Tory issues such as low tax, immigration and Europe. It needs to connect with Tory voters and indeed anybody who doesn’t want Gordon Brown for another five years. Thatcher’s great strength was her ability to connect with ordinary voters, particularly those who wanted to better themselves. Politics is all about helping people to realise their dreams. We seem to have forgotten this.

Winning the election didn’t seem that difficult a task until the televised debate which should never have happened. Even now there is a simple message. Only a vote for the Tory Party will prevent Gordon Brown being PM for the next five years. Nick Clegg is never going to become PM but he could help Gordon Brown stay PM. This is all very reminiscent (in reverse) of the US presidential election when Ross Perot enabled Bill Clinton to beat George Bush.

I attended a lunch on Saturday at which many Tories were present. The conversation inevitably focussed on the election. There was a mixture of gallows humour and real concern. Nobody could understand why with the most unpopular PM ever and an economy on its back the Tory Party is polling at the same level as Michael Howard when he lost in 2005. The only solution was to have another glass of wine.

Perhaps this is all some terrible nightmare and I will awake to discover that I have missed the real campaign and that David Cameron is PM with a majority of 52.

Is the game up for the Tory Party? What does the Tory Party need to do to regain the political initiative? Will the Nick Clegg bubble burst?

Guido is sure all his advice was most appreciated in CCHQ this morning…

As the Prime Mentalist took to the stage at his Pyongyang  style manifesto launch he was introduced by his chief cheerleader the famous-for-Twitter Ellie Gellard. Some might know her better as the self-titled “BevaniteEllie“, Labour’s 24/7 twittering foghorn. While she may tweet her way through the ups and downs of Brown’s last days, some might consider the choice less than appropriate. Given that Labour last week sacked a candidate for inappropriate jokes on Twitter, there seems to be some double standard for poster girls. Making jokes about Thatcher breaking her neck is fine apparently, and gets you a spot on the top platform.  But who is this dyed in the wool Labour activist?

Reading between the lines you can see why Labour wouldn’t want this well spoken, rich-girl socialite on television before. She’s hardly your average Labour voter. Growing up on the mean streets of Holland Park and attending one of the most selective schools in the country, Bevan must be turning in his grave. How many “average students” Labour are trying to reach out to can quaff champagne when flitting between London and Paris to go clubbing whenever she chooses? Does Gellard really relate to working people whilst sipping cocktails on a yacht?  She is more Mandelsonian New Labour than anything Old Labour’s Nye Bevan would recognise…

UPDATE: Seems Sky News are a little grumpy that reams of press officers wouldn’t let them get anywhere near Gellard for an interview. The whole painfully stage managed affair is unravelling. She was only trusted to read from a script and perhaps that plummy accent wouldn’t have gone down so well on the lunchtime news…