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From monasteries to ministers: how ‘lobbying’ got its meaning

You no longer have to stand in an actual lobby to ask a politician to change the law in your favour

Since it emerged that vacuum-cleaner émigré James Dyson was texting Boris Johnson last year to clarify that there would be no change to the tax paid by his workers, in the UK temporarily to build medical ventilators, the issue of political “lobbying” has once again come to the fore. But why is it called that?

A “lobby”, from the Latin lobium, was originally a cloister of the sort found in monasteries, not much frequented by the present prime minister. After its introduction in the 16th century it began also to be used to describe any kind of corridor or anteroom. As Polonius says of Prince Hamlet: “You know sometimes he walks four hours together / Here in the lobby.”

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/33cEiA5
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