Prince Charles loves Patagonian Toothfish, but hates badgers. So what? His letters to ministers are nothing compared to the meddling by big business

He loves cows, Patagonian Toothfish, “complementary” medicine and Arctic huts. He hates badgers and worried the army was “under funded” and that kids were being turned into “robots”.

These are the hardly shocking revelations that emerged from the publication of Prince Charles’s “black spider” memos to Labour ministers that Whitehall spent ten years and £400,000 of taxpayers’ money fighting in vain to keep secret.

I applaud the fact that the highest court in the land has partially broken the royal family’s right to sit at the summit of state secrecy as the only people in Britain who were exempted by the Freedom of Information Act.

The Guardian’s success in this battle is undoubtedly a victory for those of us who would like to see greater transparency in government.

But, given we could have predicted what the benign green-crusader Charles might have written – and that his requests would mostly be politely ignored – I can’t help feeling that a lot of time and money has been wasted while far darker forces continue to hide from the light.

I am talking about lobbyists for big business, who spend vast sums trying to tinker with the cogs of government and shape policy and probably undermine our democracy more than the outdated idea of inherited royal titles and privilege.

Why, for example, was the former climate change-denying Environment Secretary Owen Patterson allowed to refuse an FOI request to reveal details about his meetings with the GM food lobby?

And when can we learn the full details of the communications between ministers and those representing defence suppliers, the pharmaceutical industry, frackers and the cabal of privateers now threatening the future of the NHS and our other remaining state assets?

Perhaps, most of all, we should be able to find out exactly how much influence the banks continue to exert on our government.

It has been seven years since the financial crash wrecked our economy, but sadly not our apparent faith in the rapacious form of capitalism that underpinned it.

During the crisis, state-owned RBS used taxpayers’ cash to pay six lobbying firms to put pressure on our elected representatives.

Yet we know scant details of their discussions. Why?

In Coalition, David Cameron’s government passed the Lobbying Act in 2014.

Yet it has been weak, piecemeal and so far only served to scare charities such as food banks into not speaking up for the vulnerable in the run up to the election.

With trust in politicians at an all-time low, we need transparency in government more than ever.