"Chloe Smith is a pawn in the firing line" - attributed to Graham Allen MP. Pawns, of course, don't actually fire. They are, though, often sacrificed, as Ms Smith was in September last year when she was effectively demoted from the Treasury to her current post.
Perhaps "catspaw" (defined by Chambers' as "a person who is used by another") would be a better description of Ms Smith's rôle. Mr Allen is seriously worried about the way the Transparency Of Lobbying [etc.] Bill fails to meet the coalition agreement's statement of intention. I don't think he sees the deputy prime minister, the man nominally in charge of constitutional reform, as the manipulator behind the scenes, but someone rather higher up. As chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee, Mr Allen is sufficiently concerned that he has recalled its members ahead of the resumption of Commons' sittings next month. He will hold special sessions to elicit evidence from leading figures in the industry, evidence which he hopes will be sufficient to stall the Bill at Second Reading on 2nd September.
More in the Indy's report here and its previous background comment here.
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