Concerts, clothes and New York breaks: New ministers take £170,000 of gifts

Starmer has accepted more than anybody else since start of 2023, raising questions over what donors get in return

Hello, it’s been a while. Dark Arts enjoyed a break while Parliament was in recess, but as MPs return to Westminster so too does this newsletter return directly to your inbox.

Firstly, an update on our story from a few weeks back, which revealed several senior lobbyists had volunteered with Labour for the duration of the general election campaign, many of them in influential roles at the heart of the party. At the time of publishing, Dark Arts had been able to identify 11 senior public affairs professionals who’d worked with the party. Since then, we’ve found out about one more lobbyist who pitched in, so it seems only fair to name them too. Samuel Riley works for Hanbury Strategy but spent the election campaign working with the press team at Labour HQ. Now he’s back to the day job and has written a post on LinkedIn reflecting on his experience, saying: “I’m using the lessons I have learned to help clients find better ways of working with the government in its mission to get Britain growing!” Hanbury’s clients include investment manager Blackstone, Citibank and gambling giant Flutter, among others.

Secondly, an update on a story I didn’t publish. Regular Dark Arts readers will know that Hakluyt, the corporate strategy firm that spun out of MI6, has long been of interest to me – particularly since Keir Starmer appointed the ‘spooky’ company’s former chairman, Varun Chandra, as his business adviser. For some time, I’d been following up on a tip from one of this newsletter’s readers, who told me Chandra can be seen in the background of the infamous shot of Boris and Carrie Johnson, Dominic Cummings and various government Spads drinking wine in the Number 10 garden during the first Covid lockdown in May 2020. The reader suggested Chandra had been in Downing Street at the time for talks with civil servants on behalf of one of Hakluyt’s big clients. I had intended that story to lead this week’s newsletter but awoke on Saturday morning to find that I’d been scooped by The Sun. You win some, you lose some.

That said, there’s still much to reveal about Chandra, not least what that lockdown meeting was about. Beyond the hypocrisy of Labour criticising Johnson’s government for its conduct during Covid as recently as last week, while employing a business adviser who was seemingly at one of the parties in question, this story gestures toward a much more serious issue. If this Labour government represents such a radical change from the Conservative governments before it, how can it be that the exact same business advisers and lobbyists that were at the heart of Johnson’s Downing Street operation are now at the heart of Starmer’s? Answers on a postcard (or via email).

The Jan Mølby problem

Question: what do the Rugby Six Nations, the Olivier Awards, the Great North Run, a Bruce Springsteen concert, the first night of the proms, Taylor Swift’s Eras tour and a top-of-the-table League Two clash between Wrexham and Stockport all have in common?

Answer: At some point in the past 18 months, at least one member of Starmer’s new cabinet attended each of these events on someone else’s dime.

All but three members of the new cabinet – who, for the most part, held the same roles in the shadow cabinet – have accepted gifts and hospitality worth a total of more than £170,000 since the start of 2023, according to the register of members’ financial interests. This came from the gambling industry, the Premier League, lobbyists and tech firms, among others.

Six ministers accepted more than two-thirds of the total value. They were Starmer, chancellor Rachel Reeves, foreign secretary David Lammy, leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell (who was the shadow culture secretary for most of that time), Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, and Jonathan Reynolds, whose position as business secretary arguably means he is most likely to be approached by lobbyists.

The new PM accepted more than anybody else – taking gifts and hospitality worth a total of more than £50,000 in that period, including tickets to more than a dozen football matches, a Coldplay concert and the Eras tour. Darks Arts supposes all those events gave him occasion to wear some of the £18,000 worth of new clothes and accessories he accepted as a gift from Labour’s fundraiser-in-chief, Lord Alli.

Starmer, Reeves and deputy prime minister Angela Rayner have all also been given access to accommodation by donors.

Labour donor-turned-West Midlands mayor Richard Parker let Reeves use his second home in Cornwall for a week in July, while Starmer enjoyed a week-long family holiday in Wales, which was valued at £4,500, courtesy of Swansea-based Crownhawk Properties. The aforementioned Lord Alli let Rayner use his New York pad for five nights around NYE, an arrangement valued at £1,250, or £250 per night – which seems somewhat on the low side for accommodation in one of the most expensive cities in the world, at the busiest time of the year. During the election, Alli gave Starmer access to another of his properties, with the arrangement valued at more than £20,000.

Some of the hospitality registered by MPs is pretty innocuous, and comes about relatively naturally in the course of their work. A trade union might pay for an MP to stay overnight in a hotel for a conference, for example, or the organisers of a symposium may cover the cost of travel and refreshments for a shadow minister to attend.

It’s right that we know about these benefits, but it is ultimately quite difficult to argue that this hospitality isn’t part of their role or to imagine a scenario where the act of providing the ‘hospitality’ could be perceived to have the potential to influence them in some way.

But these justifications don’t apply quite so obviously when it comes to MPs having private firms pay for their Glastonbury ticket (Reynolds, courtesy of Google) or for them to watch their favourite football team from the director’s box (Starmer, courtesy of quite a few companies).

In total, MPs have received 249 tickets to more than 100 different events since January 2023 – well over one per week. Here are some of the events new ministers have enjoyed below, just to give you a sense of where and how they are seemingly being wooed.

Sporting events: Premier League, Carabao Cup, EFL, FA Cup, Six Nations Rugby, The Ashes, Womens FA Cup, Grand National, Epsom, Wimbledon, Great North Run, World Snooker Championships

Concerts: Madonna, Elton John, Blur, Glastonbury, Parklife, Coldplay, Hay Festival, Bruce Springsteen

Awards ceremonies: Eurovision, BBC proms (first and last nights), BRIT Awards, BAFTAs, Jingle Bell Ball, Ivor Novello Awards, Olivier Awards

But why does any of this matter? You might say: “Dark Arts, aren’t you just jealous that your line of work doesn’t entitle you to these kinds of exclusive benefits?”

Maybe so, dear reader, maybe so. But there’s more to it than that.

When reporting on this kind of thing previously, Dark Arts has asked people on both sides of the arrangement The Key Questions.

For the donors that question is: why would you choose to either spend your money or give up potential revenue to provide these benefits to an MP? For MPs, it’s why do you think a profit-seeking enterprise would provide you this benefit free of charge?

No one has ever answered either on the record, and I’ve only had one answer off the record.

Some time ago, I had a conversation with a staffer from an industry representative group that has paid for MPs of various parties to attend a wide range of events. They said that hosting an MP at a football match or an awards do gives them an opportunity to discuss the contribution their industry makes to the economy or bring up any current issues in an informal context. The practice, they added, contributes to general positive relations between their industry and the MP and, even in a small way, gives them some leverage; a small favour to call in at a later date, perhaps.

The hand of the lobbying industry is rarely visible in these arrangements, but friends in the industry say it is definitely there. While many of the donations come from relatively benign sources, they often come about through the influence of lobbyists. For example, as part of a wider lobbying strategy, a lobbyist might advise a client company to, say, pay for a politician to go to an awards do or a sporting event. That client may even have the arrangement run through one of their even-more-innocuous-seeming clients. And so on.

The new cabinet members are far from the only MPs to have accepted significant hospitality in the past 18 months, indeed, many backbench Conservative MPs and former ministers have done so too. But it is particularly important to see who has given to the new cabinet during that time, because any hospitality provided to them was given with varying degrees of certainty that the recipients would soon be in positions of considerable power and influence.

It’s also worth noting that many new MPs also received hospitality before they were even elected, suggesting that private companies and lobbyists like to get in early with the next generation of ministers. Brand new MPs accepted around £50,000 worth of hospitality prior to the election, including tickets to the BRITs, several premier league football matches, the Grand National and the Olivier Awards.

Before we move on, a bit of Dark Arts lore. I used to sell industrial lighting for a living. On one occasion, we had a customer who had a very big job coming up and we wanted him to buy the lighting for said job from us, rather than a competitor. As well as providing excellent service, answering technical questions and making sure our price was as good as it could be, we also took this customer out. Specifically, we took him to a sportsman’s dinner at a local working men’s club, where former Liverpool midfielder Jan Mølby was speaking and the raffle prizes were mostly signed sporting memorabilia. As it happened, we ended up getting the job.

Did we get the job exclusively because of the hospitality? Almost certainly not. If the price and the product had been wrong, no amount of anecdotes about Merseyside derbies would have convinced this customer to go with my lighting. But can we say for certain that if there had been two similar offers on the table, the client wouldn’t have gone with us because we’d taken them out and the competitor hadn’t?

And this is the problem that politicians have when they accept gifts and hospitality from private companies and individuals with business links. If and when they have to make decisions that will affect these companies or industries, how can we know that the hospitality they’ve received hasn’t informed their decision-making? The solution, from Dark Arts POV, is simple: ban hospitality and gifts over a nominal value for MPs (who earn, it’s worth remembering, at least £90,000 per year). Hardline? Maybe. If anyone can formulate a good argument as to why we shouldn’t then I’m all ears; please do drop me a line.

Quick hits

The YIMBY lobby: Within weeks of the general election, dozens of Labour MPs had announced their intention to join a newly formed group, Labour YIMBY. Members said the group would focus on making the case for housebuilding and large developments in the battle against NIMBYs, who – as they would have it – represent an outspoken but unrepresentative minority and put unreasonable pressure on MPs to prevent developments in their areas.

There is broad consensus that Britain needs more housing and the group certainly makes some reasonable points, but critics are concerned that it could become little more than a lobbying front for big developers whose ultimate interest is not solving the issue of affordable homes for all, but making big profits. These concerns are yet to be assuaged, particularly in light of recent events.

While Parliament was in recess, the group held a summer reception along with the Fabian Society think tank. The event was hosted and sponsored by international lobbying firm FTI Consulting, which represents Keepmoat Homes, property developer Hammerson, “whole life cycle real estate company” Impact Capital Group and asset managers such as Macquarie and Vanguard. FTI employee Abdi Duale, who is currently standing for reelection to Labour’s National Executive Committee, gave a speech at the reception. The YIMBYs held another reception, this time in Parliament, this week. Duale was again present, as was Mike Katz, the director of lobbying firm Field Consulting, who is also chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, and Paul Brocklehurst, the chair of LPDF, an industry lobbying group for some of the biggest developers.

Lobbying spouses: In recognition of the fact that an MP having familial links with the lobbying industry can lead to potential conflicts of interest, parliamentarians must declare if their spouse or any other close family member works in the industry. Before the election, 11 MPs had declared such a link – that number has now risen to 17.

Of particular interest are those MPs whose spouses are lobbyists, as being an MP’s spouse entitles you to a parliamentary pass. This is a useful thing for a lobbyist to have as it allows free movement around Parliament and, in particular, access to the bars and terrace where much schmoozing takes place. Dark Arts previously gave credit where it was due to Mark Glover, the husband of new Labour MP Johanna Baxter and the director of SEC Newgate, who turned down a pass. Credit is also due to the spouses of Labour MPs Jen Craft, Uma Kumaran and Lucy Rigby, who have all turned down passes on the same basis.

Spadwatch: Another Labour Together secondee finds themself in government. This time – seemingly in a bid to tick all the boxes in Dark Arts bingo – she’s a former lobbyist who will now work in the very ministry she would have lobbied during her previous roles. Full house!

Stef Lehmann was only at Labour Together for six months, having joined as director of transport from Flint Global in February. And during that time she was seconded to work in (then-shadow) transport secretary Louise Haigh’s office, at a cost of more than £50,000 to Labour Together.

Lehmann’s role, she wrote on LinkedIn, involved “advising major corporate and investors in the [transport] sector on policy and regulation” and, in particular “on Labour’s policies and thinking in the transport, environment and sustainability spaces”. Her clients, she added, “included leading corporates and investors in automotive, rail, bus, aviation, and private hire”. She’s now a Spad in the Department for Transport.

Revolving door go brrr: On the subject of Spads and Flint Global, here’s a fun one. While Labour ministers have been busily appointing a new team of advisers in their departments, dozens of former Tory advisers who left government have begun job-hunting. Some of them haven’t had to look very far.

Take Pierre Andrews, who was a Spad in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport under former culture secretary Lucy Frazer from June 2023 until she lost her seat at the election. Despite being in the role for only a year, Andrews managed to rack up more hospitality than any other government Spad during that time – attending three breakfasts, seven lunches, four dinners, 17 receptions and 22 events, including film premiers, the BBC Proms, the theatre and the opera, courtesy of the likes of YouTube, NewsUK, ITV, Netflix and lobbying firms FGS Global and Pagefield. Andrews averaged more than two freebies a week during the latter half of 2023.

Now, having done his time serving the public, Andrews is headed back to – you guessed it – the world of lobbying! Having previously worked for the firm in 2022/2023, Andrews returns to Flint Global, which “works with major players in the media, sports and entertainment sectors”, helping them respond to “opportunities and risks created by change in policy, regulation and politics”.

Double-jobbing: As pointed out by Dark Arts and many others before the election, former Labour minister Jim Murphy’s lobbying outfit Arden had two candidates to become Labour MPs in its employ: Anna Turley, who was previously an MP from 2015 to 2019, and Blair McDougall. As it happened, both were elected, and Turley has since been made a government whip. Neither declared any earnings from Arden in the register of interests, which suggests they stepped away from their roles at least a month or so prior to election day. No issues there.

Interestingly though, Turley’s entry in the register does include a redundancy payment – received after she was voted in as an MP – for a previous role as a parliamentary staffer in the office of former Labour MP Conor McGinn, who stepped down at the election. To receive such a payment would suggest she’d held the role for a relatively significant period, which would mean there was an overlap between her time working for a Labour MP and her time working for a lobbying firm – a highly unusual and problematic arrangement. Dark Arts has reached out to Turley for clarification but is yet to receive a response.