4 ms·

It's just what happens when most of the policies are made up by 'sponsored' lobbies -- the ones with the deep pockets. It's completely bonkers really, most of

It's just what happens when most of the policies are made up by 'sponsored' lobbies -- the ones with the deep pockets. It's completely bonkers really, most of the decisions that people care about are made up in a gray area that doesn't involve them at all; you got an office somewhere making up policies straight out of briefs they've been fed by lobbies (who feeds it to every party too, just in case) A good recent example is Heathrow's third runway. Despite millions of people living underneath, well, someone somewhere made a 'study' that 'proves' it's a good idea, so despite the fact it impacts millions of people -- in fact, millions of the most influential and rich people in the country even (London and the Thames Valley) well, it's likely to go ahead anyway...

djhn 11y ago
Any good links on the Heathrow vs. Gatwick campaigning and lobbying effort?
- buserror 11y ago
  There are quite a few articles about the report ([0] for one of many of them) -- the lobbying efforts themselves are not generally made public anyway, but heathrow hasn't been particularly subtle about it -- It's at least the third or perhaps fourth 'consultation' on the subject. When it get refused, they just try again a bit later. However there are concerted efforts to buy/silence the people most affected -- there's a proposal to buy houses are significantly over the market price for example for people 'most affected' -- however there is no mention of the millions of others in a circle of 15+ miles that are also affected.... let alone the fact they can't just collectively say 'no' like you'd expect in a democracy, for example. [0] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad2918a4-6972-11e4-9f65-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad2918a4-6972-11e4-9f65-00144feabd... Disclaimer: Beside the fact that I'm affected by this particular topic, I'm not an expert on it. The industry lobbying applies to many other topics tho, like planning permissions etc.
  - djhn 11y ago
    The whole concept of campaigning for an issue like this - of "lobbying" the public - struck me as quite novel for a project of this type (when I was visiting the UK and saw the massive PR campaign). I'm really interested in the emergence of this phenomenon, since at least in Europe it seems fairly new. Broadly speaking before 1800s this would be a discourse among the elite and aristocracy guiding the houses' opinion. In the 1700s-1900s paradigm the grey power behind such deals would be in the hands of the industrialists. 1950s-2000s paradigm would be to handle this with cabinet-level lobbying or other kinds of nepotism.. In a way it's an obvious improvement - the power of the people and the relevance of public opinion is sort of respected by taking it into account in the first place. But is trying to influence it at such great a cost really respect? It is a noisy world, it is difficult to get people to care about such projects (advocacy for which doesn't gain you social status or warm, fuzzy emotional satisfaction and self-fulfilment unlike many other grass-root efforts could), but both lobbies hiring consultants to compete in shoving their own message down the public's throat on what should be a pretty straight-forward, apolitical, impersonal assessment/bidding process feels perverse...
robk 11y ago
There are also millions of us who would rather fly Heathrow over other local airports and support the expansion. This isn't all astroturfed support you know.
- buserror 11y ago
  Oh, by local you mean you don't live in Windsor, Datchet or any of the other places directly under the flightpath then, where you can't actually /talk/ outside because there is a plane every 30 seconds? And these aren't even the closest to the airport. Oh and as for takeoff, it's and even larger area as the planes don't climb before making their turn, they climb /after/ turning over 20+ miles of densely populated area to save fuel. Oh and there's night flights, so forget it if you want to open a bedroom window in the summer... Quite frankly, I wouldn't mind going to gatwick, personally.

djhn 11y ago

Any good links on the Heathrow vs. Gatwick campaigning and lobbying effort?

buserror 11y ago
There are quite a few articles about the report ([0] for one of many of them) -- the lobbying efforts themselves are not generally made public anyway, but heathrow hasn't been particularly subtle about it -- It's at least the third or perhaps fourth 'consultation' on the subject. When it get refused, they just try again a bit later. However there are concerted efforts to buy/silence the people most affected -- there's a proposal to buy houses are significantly over the market price for example for people 'most affected' -- however there is no mention of the millions of others in a circle of 15+ miles that are also affected.... let alone the fact they can't just collectively say 'no' like you'd expect in a democracy, for example. [0] http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad2918a4-6972-11e4-9f65-00144feabdc0.html http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ad2918a4-6972-11e4-9f65-00144feabd... Disclaimer: Beside the fact that I'm affected by this particular topic, I'm not an expert on it. The industry lobbying applies to many other topics tho, like planning permissions etc.
- djhn 11y ago
  The whole concept of campaigning for an issue like this - of "lobbying" the public - struck me as quite novel for a project of this type (when I was visiting the UK and saw the massive PR campaign). I'm really interested in the emergence of this phenomenon, since at least in Europe it seems fairly new. Broadly speaking before 1800s this would be a discourse among the elite and aristocracy guiding the houses' opinion. In the 1700s-1900s paradigm the grey power behind such deals would be in the hands of the industrialists. 1950s-2000s paradigm would be to handle this with cabinet-level lobbying or other kinds of nepotism.. In a way it's an obvious improvement - the power of the people and the relevance of public opinion is sort of respected by taking it into account in the first place. But is trying to influence it at such great a cost really respect? It is a noisy world, it is difficult to get people to care about such projects (advocacy for which doesn't gain you social status or warm, fuzzy emotional satisfaction and self-fulfilment unlike many other grass-root efforts could), but both lobbies hiring consultants to compete in shoving their own message down the public's throat on what should be a pretty straight-forward, apolitical, impersonal assessment/bidding process feels perverse...

robk 11y ago

There are also millions of us who would rather fly Heathrow over other local airports and support the expansion. This isn't all astroturfed support you know.

buserror 11y ago
Oh, by local you mean you don't live in Windsor, Datchet or any of the other places directly under the flightpath then, where you can't actually /talk/ outside because there is a plane every 30 seconds? And these aren't even the closest to the airport. Oh and as for takeoff, it's and even larger area as the planes don't climb before making their turn, they climb /after/ turning over 20+ miles of densely populated area to save fuel. Oh and there's night flights, so forget it if you want to open a bedroom window in the summer... Quite frankly, I wouldn't mind going to gatwick, personally.