ABSTRACT
The ‘Lobby system’ with which this short book deals has become the central mechanism for national political reporting from Westminster to the British people. Yet until about 1960 this Lobby mechanism was shrouded in almost complete secrecy. The Lobby correspondents throughout the twentieth century have had a certain aura of mystery – quite different from the Westminster Gallery reporters, whom Macaulay specifically called in 1828 a ‘fourth estate’ and whose struggles to report the debates at Westminster occupy a prominent place in British political history.
