How Twitter has opened up Westminster journalism

The idea that the lobby is a semi-secret club conspiring with the government against the people no longer has significant purchase on the public imagination

One of the many wonderful things about Twitter is that it has opened up and demystified “the lobby” – the system by which some journalists are given access to the Palace of Westminster, including the Members’ Lobby (hence the name), and to briefings by the prime minister’s spokesperson.

Once upon a time the lobby was regarded with suspicion by anti-establishment types – including The Independent when it was founded in 1986. The newspaper made a great show of refusing to take part in lobby briefings, although it still maintained an office in the House of Commons.

I think the objection in those days was that lobby briefings were unattributable. Those were the days of talking buildings, when the press was full of “Downing Street says” this, that or the other. At some point, before I became part of the Independent’s political staff in 1995, we had given up our boycott – I think because it was agreed that the prime minister’s official spokesperson could be quoted as “the prime minister’s official spokesperson”, although we were not allowed to name this person, or one of his deputies if they were standing in for him.