Cameron’s Lobbying Bill certainly leaves a lot to be desired, not least with its failure to address the clear abuse of parliamentary passes by lobbyists working for Lords. Take the case of Lord Kilclooney. The Ulster Unionist peer sponsors a pass for the confusingly-named Edward Lord, a LibDem City of London Corporation figure. Lord was done over by the Indy back in 2011 for his involvement in a deal to lobby for alleged Rwandan war criminals. Yet he is wandering round Parliament…

Lord was the Deputy Chairman of the European Azerbaijan Society, which according to its website specialises in public affairs. In his City of London register of interests he also confirms he lobbies on behalf of four other organisations, indeed Lord declares no less than thirteen links to “bodies whose principal purposes includes the influence of public opinion or policy”. A lobbyist pure and simple, given access to the corridors of power by a peer. This is a scandal the Bill needs to deal with…

UPDATE: Lord responds on his own blog. It was Uzbekistan, not Rwanda and he no longer works with Azerbaijan. He does not deny he is a lobbyist with a parliamentary pass though.