Lobby Life: Inside Westminster’s
Secret Society
CAROLE WALKER
(ELLIOTT & THOMPSON, 352 PP, £16.99)
Tablet bookshop price £15.29 • tel 020 7799 4064

The word “lobby” is a confusing one in its application to Westminster. It can be a noun, as in various gloriously vaulted geographic locations about the palace. It can be a verb to describe the activities of numerous people who hang about the place, hoping to catch someone’s eye, bend an ear and influence the outcome of a vote. Or, as in the case of this book, it can be a bunch of journalists with the job of finding out what is really going on in politics, reporting on and interpreting the significance of political and parliamentary events for the elucidation of the general public. And, yes, all that ­for the better functioning of democracy.