Inside the Westminster networking events where lobbyists and politicians mix

No 10 refused to say who attended a Downing Street business reception. So Dark Arts found out

Welcome to the Dark Arts newsletter.

The new government is off to a mixed start. There have been some positive signs, including pay deals for public sector workers and a small but welcome foreign policy shift on Israel. Moving over to the crap column though, we see Labour cutting a number of infrastructure projects and means-testing the winter fuel allowance – and of course, the continued commitment to the two-child benefit cap. 

Elsewhere, Westminster is braced for a hard-fought Conservative leadership contest, with senior figures including James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat putting themselves forward to captain the good ship Tory. No doubt there will be cash aplenty flowing into the coffers of the candidates – one to watch in the weeks to come.

Last week Dark Arts revealed that the new pensions minister Emma Reynolds was previously a lobbyist at TheCityUK, where she was involved in lobbying Labour over pensions. At around the same time that newsletter went out, chancellor Rachel Reeves and Reynolds sat down with representatives of leading financial institutions to discuss how pensions can be leveraged towards the government’s focus on growth. Downing Street disclosed only a few of the attendees, but Dark Arts can reveal the full list: The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, WTW, Aviva, L&G, M&G, Nest Pensions, Local Government Association, Pensions Lifetime Savings Association, Local Pensions Partnership, Border to Coast Pensions Partnership, Phoenix and the Association of British Insurers.

Dark Arts was unsurprised at the venue chosen by Reeves and City minister Tulip Siddiq for their first joint visit to the City of London last week: Bloomberg’s European HQ. Back in April, I reported that Reeves and Siddiq were among senior Labour Party figures present at a secret Edinburgh meeting, where Bloomberg and a number of other financial services firms were given a sneak peak at Labour’s plans for the industry. The meeting, as I revealed, took place just weeks after Bloomberg donated £150k to the party. 

The next issue to watch RE Labour’s close ties with financial institutions is the sell-off of the government’s remaining stake in NatWest. Former chancellor Jeremy Hunt had declared that individual investors would be able to pick up shares in the bank, but there are rumours Reeves will change tack on this to allow only institutional investors to get a piece of the action. 

Party Politics

Networking is a major part of the lobbyist’s work. While formal meetings are important for putting detailed policy proposals in front of politicians, the personal relationships struck between lobbyists and politicians or their staffers are often key to securing these meetings – and these relationships are forged and maintained on the Westminster social scene. 

Much is made of Westminster’s networking culture, and with good reason. Any given night there are typically at least a couple of events in and around Parliament, where MPs, staffers, journalists and lobbyists mix. Right now, with hundreds of new faces in Parliament and spirits high among many in the Labour Party after their election win, the mood is something like freshers’ week for politicos.

To give Dark Arts readers a sense of the extent of hobnobbing that goes on between lobbyists and politicians in Westminster, here is a rundown of just some of the events that took place at the start of last week in and around SW1.   

On Monday night, dozens of MPs turned up to a drinks reception hosted by SME4Labour, a group that aims to “provide a forum whereby SMEs (small and medium enterprises) can work in partnership with the Labour Party and continue to inform our economic policies”. The event was sponsored by multinational software company Intuit, engineering and tech firm Bosch, Macquarie-backed solar firm Island Green Power and Allica Bank. Former shadow minister Bill Esterson was among those in attendance, and managed to fit in a second event on the same evening, which was hosted by lobbyist Hawthorn Advisors on behalf of the advertising industry body, ISBA. Advertising firms were brought together with a number of Labour MPs, including Esterson and former lobbyist James Frith MP. 

The real big-ticket event on Monday however was the New Statesman’s summer reception, which even saw a surprise appearance from the new PM himself. This event was attended by some of the most senior figures in Labour and leading political journalists, plus, of course, plenty of lobbyists. 

A Tuesday night event hosted by leading lobbying firm Burson on behalf of Labour to Win and Progressive Britain made headlines, literally, for all the wrong reasons. The summer reception took place on the same night MPs voted against an amendment to scrap the two-child benefit cap, with an attendee sharing what many viewed as a celebratory group photo minutes after the amendment was defeated. The picture, which showed Labour MPs, councillors and even a senior civil servant raising glasses or holding their arms up triumphantly, was captioned: “Celebrating putting country before party.” What few people noticed, however, was just how many of the people in it are or were lobbyists. Among the 30 people pictured, Dark Arts counts five current lobbyists and two former lobbyists, one of whom is now Labour’s chief operating officer. Nothing to see here. 

On Wednesday, lobbyist Grayling hosted an event in cooperation with the Labour Climate and Environment Forum (LCEF). Dark Arts readers may remember that Grayling represents energy firms including Drax, and hosted a day of policy training with LCEF and a number of prospective MPs before the election. At last week’s event, held on the sunlit terraces of Parliament and sponsored by major energy firm EDF, MPs new and returning mixed with Grayling clients, while Kerry McCarthy, a minister at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, was the main speaker. Esterson, who has announced he is standing to chair the Energy Security and Net Zero select committee, was once again in attendance. 

A few tube stops away at Riverside House, near Southwark Bridge, another lobbying firm was holding another event in partnership with another Labour group focussed on energy policy. Awkward! Hanover Communications and Labour in Energy and Industry (LEI) weren’t able to attract a minister to speak, but nonetheless had a good turnout of MPs and lobbyists. LEI is an “informal group of Labour members…working in and around the energy sector and for energy-intensive industries”. It launched earlier this year with an event sponsored by another lobbying firm, FTI Consulting, and support from Beyond 2050, a public affairs outfit set up to push hydrogen. LEI’s chair is a lobbyist for US-based manufacturer of engines and generators, Cummins, while one co-chair is a lobbyist at major Swedish power generator Vattenfall and the other is a director at Hanover, whose clients include oil firms Valero and Prax. 

These events are almost never reported on by journalists, or promoted on social media by the MPs who attend. Surprisingly, Dark Arts has never been invited – and what little information I can get on them generally comes from conversations with industry sources and details posted on social media. We have no right to know who attends these events, or what is discussed. This is perhaps frustrating, given that they may play some role in influencing politicians and the government, but it is ultimately understandable. They are, after all, private social gatherings and to expect full transparency around them would, even to Dark Arts’ mind, be asking too much. 

But what about official events held by the government, where business leaders mix with senior politicians? Do we have a right to know who is attending these events? I would suggest yes, we do. Number 10 Downing Street disagrees. 

Last Tuesday, a few dozen bigwigs gathered in the Downing Street garden for the new government’s first business reception, hosted by Keir Starmer. A note sent out to lobby journalists said of the event:

“This evening, the Prime Minister is holding a reception at Downing Street for business leaders, in support of the government’s central mission of wealth creation, to stabilise and grow the economy and ultimately make people better off – key to which is creating a pro-business environment. The Chancellor and Business Secretary are also expected to attend – alongside a range of CEOs from across UK public companies and small businesses.”

One attendee was veteran lobbyist Iain Anderson, a former adviser to Boris Johnson who switched sides to support Labour last year and worked with the party on a report about engaging with business. He posted on LinkedIn that it was “a real honour to be at 10 Downing Street tonight with other business leaders to hear from Keir Starmer on the plan for a new partnership with business from his government”. Anderson’s lobbying outfit, H/Advisors Cicero, specialises in financial services and counts among its clients some of the biggest names in the sector, including Santander, BNY Mellon, abrdn and BlackRock. 

A video posted to Twitter/X by Number 10 includes quotes from a few of the attendees, including gig economy boss Will Shu of Deliveroo. Deliveroo workers have been engaged in a near constant campaign of industrial action against the platform in recent years, in a bid to attain better rates of pay and basic workers’ rights such as holiday and sick pay. “There are a lot of different stakeholders out there, business being one of them,” Shu says in the video, “and we just want our voice heard, that’s all.” 

Intrigued, Dark Arts asked Number 10 to provide a full list of attendees after the event had taken place. What came back was a list of 13 names, including the managing director of Google UK, Dragon’s Den star Deborah Meaden, the CEO of Octopus Energy and a senior figure at Netflix. Interesting. But 13 people does not a summer business reception make. 

So, in the interests of transparency, Dark Arts set out to find out who else was there. Handily, Number 10 published several photos from the event, which can be seen on the government’s official Flickr account. One picture seems to show most of the attendees gathered together listening to Rachel Reeves speak. There seems to be around 80 people there.

Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

Having pored over the pictures, Dark Arts has been able to identify around three-quarters of the firms that sent senior executives to the event. They include the CEO of Bharti enterprises, a telecoms billionaire who has been heavily involved in UK-India trade talks; the head of ‘Big Four consultancy’ PwC, which has donated more than £200,000 to Labour since 2022 in staff costs and pro-bono work; plus the heads of two major arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin and Babcock – that have previously applied to export arms from the UK to Israel.

Dark Arts will break down the other firms represented at the reception by industry.

Financial institutions: BlackRock, Macquarie, IFM Investors, Aware Super, Barclays, Nationwide, Lloyds, Aviva, Legal and General, Starling Bank, Novo Holdings

Energy and fossil fuels: Shell, ENI, Scottish Power, Octopus, RWE, National Grid, SSE, Siemens Energy

Construction and housing: Barratt Homes, Persimmon, Lendlease 

Media: Warner Brothers Discovery, Netflix, Universal UK Music 

Tech: Amazon Web Services, Google, Oxford Nanopore, Vantage Data Centers, Arm Holdings 

Manufacturing: Make UK, Nissan, Environmental Street Furniture, 

Retail: British Retail Consortium, Sainsburys 

Quick Hits

Carried interest U-turn? The pledge to close the ‘carried interest’ loophole that allows private equity funds to pay a lower rate of tax on their bonuses did make it into Labour’s manifesto, despite the major lobbying effort revealed by Dark Arts, but it looks increasingly likely to be scaled back. Rachel Reeves already softened her stance slightly by saying the lower rate of tax will apply when fund bosses have their own capital at risk. Financial lobbyists are preparing for a final push to further water down the measure, after the Treasury opened a consultation this week. The wording of the consultation is interesting, as it states: “the Chancellor… announced a commitment to take action in respect of the ‘carried interest’ loophole,” and “the government will seek to protect the UK’s position as a world-leading asset management hub, recognising that the sector channels vital investment across the UK, and will play an important role in this government’s mission to boost economic growth”. Dark Arts’ prediction? Fudge incoming.

Revolving door latest: In what is likely to become a regular feature in these newsletters, Dark Arts has more news of MPs who either stood down or lost their seats at the election signing up to work for lobbying firms. Last week it was former Labour shadow minister and Halifax MP Holly Lynch joining Arden Stragies, this week it is former Labour minister Ben Bradshaw joining Teneo, and SNP Westminster chief whip Owen Thompson heading to Pentland Commuications. Announcing Thompson’s appointment on Linkedin, Pentland’s MD said the SNP man’s “vast network of political contacts across the political divide… will be a real asset to Pentland”. I’m sure. 

SpAdwatch: The process of appointing Special Advisers (Spads) to work in government departments continues apace. Plenty of long-serving staffers are losing out to figures who have been favoured for their experience, either due to careers in the civil service or time spent in government under previous Labour administrations. Of the 60 or so SpAds appointed across Number 10 and all the government departments, Dark Arts counts around a dozen former lobbyists. These include the business secretary’s head of business engagement, who was director of public affairs at UK Finance before returning to work with Jon Reynolds not long before the election was called, and two inHouse Communications alumni working in Number 10. 

Labour back Together: And what of the small army of secondees we discussed in last week’s newsletter? Many have returned to their private sector roles, but Dark Arts had a feeling that some of those staffers seconded from Labour Together might well find themselves reunited with their respective ministers after the election. And so it goes. 

Two Labour Together secondees have gone to work as political appointees under Shabana Mahmood in the Department for Justice. And Emily Middleton – who was also a policy fellow at Labour Together – will become a director general in Peter Kyle’s department, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, having worked in Kyle’s office for six months prior to the election while seconded from Public Digital. The latter case in particular is raising eyebrows in Westminster; making a former secondee a SpAd is one thing, but appointing them to a senior role in the ostensibly impartial and non-political civil service is quite another.

Now this

Read: A sensational piece of investigative reporting by US outlet Drilled that shows, with documentary evidence, that fossil fuel firms know carbon capture is not a climate solution. And, on openDemocracy, a detailed explainer on Limited Liability Partnerships, and how fixing them could go a long way toward fixing the UK’s dark money problem. 

Listen: Dark Arts made an appearance on the TrashFuture podcast last week to talk all things lobbying. I won’t be listening to it, on account of a visceral aversion to the sound of my own voice, but you can check it out here. 

Watch: I’ve been enjoying the BBC documentary ‘On Thin Ice: Putin v Greenpeace’, about the 2013 Russian oil rig protest – available on iPlayer.