No one should be surprised that the highly profitable UK gambling industry is intensifying its lobbying efforts, with a view to avoiding both higher taxation and stricter regulation of its activities, including advertising. Establishing a presence, and a voice, in parliament is what the leaders of growing business sectors do, and have done at least since the 18th century, when the brewing interest began to shift from a loose grouping of MPs with family links to breweries, into a national campaign.

In the five years since Michael Dugher, a former Labour MP and shadow culture secretary, became chief executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, the £11.5bn-a-year industry has seen off a Tory white paper that threatened to curb its advertising, and resisted

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