Leo Hickman has a fascinating report about a series of "networking" meetings at which businesses paid up to £1800 a head for access to ministers, government officials and special advisers.
Among the public sector employees to have attended the networking evenings is Ben Moxham, David Cameron's special adviser for energy and the environment and a former employee of BP, who was at an event on climate change in November.
The club charges senior executives from energy companies, consultancies and technology businesses between £1,300 and £1,800 per person for each event, although it invites some from the public sector to attend for free.
Senior executives from companies including BP, Shell, and the Russian oil giant Gazprom have attended the company's climate change events, while Apple, Google and Citigroup executives were among those at other networking evenings.
Helpfully, the full list of attendees at the meetings has also been published. Familar names are:
As someone once said:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
If civil servants are involved too, doubly so.