(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Arden Strategies: connecting Labour’s top team with arms firms and energy bosses [1] [] Date: 2024-06 Hello again. Here we are, less than a week out til polling day – isn’t that exciting? Can you feel the winds of change in the air? Hear the buzz of optimism as it sweeps through the land? Same, same. This week Labour suspended corporate lobbyist-cum-election candidate Kevin Craig after learning that he’s being investigated by the Gambling Commission for betting against himself in the election – news that had Dark Arts feeling like the Joker (Heath Ledger version, not Joaquin). Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like the real scandal here is Craig giving Labour £100,000, securing major access to frontbench Labour politicians for his lobby firm’s clients and then being ‘selected’ completely unopposed to contest a seat for the party – not that he later had a flutter against himself for what I’d, ahem, wager was probably a pretty insignificant amount of money. I did have a great time watching the rest of the political media slowly catch on that Craig is not just a candidate but also a significant donor, and for the large part failing to ask the next, obvious question. Perhaps this farce will cast a little more light on the issue of lobbyists in Labour among the wider media, though I won’t hold my breath. A quick corrective note, in the interest of balance. In last week’s newsletter, I highlighted that a number of the new members of PR trade body PRCA’s Public Affairs Board work for firms that employ Labour lobbyists, but I neglected to mention that one of the members is actually an election candidate himself – for the Conservatives. Leon Cook of Atticus Partners is standing in Dulwich & West Norwood, a Labour safe seat. Apologies for the oversight. Get our free Daily Email Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up now Tips, tricks and thoughts to [email protected]. But first, read on for a closer look at one of the most influential lobbying shops in Labourland, the major donations from week two of the campaign and how a man who allegedly backed the far right in Germany is getting around the ban on foreign nationals donating to UK political parties. Arden’t you going to declare those meetings? On a Tuesday lunchtime at last year’s Labour conference, former Labour minister and now-water industry lobbyist Ruth Kelly introduced Jim Murphy, “one of her oldest friends”, to the audience of a panel event organised by Policy Exchange think tank. Murphy had been Labour’s secretary of state for Scotland from 2008 to 2010, before serving a short stint as Scottish Labour leader from December 2014. He stepped down in June 2015 – the month after the party lost 40 of its 41 seats in Scotland, including Murphy’s own. But since leaving politics, Kelly told the audience, Murphy “has set up what I think must be the fastest-growing political consultancy I have ever seen, Arden Strategies”. The question the panel was discussing was: “Will Keir Starmer really govern from the centre?” Murphy believes the answer is yes. But moreover, as he told the fringe event, he believes that Starmer will lead “the first truly private sector Labour government”. This is a line he previously rolled out in an interview with Politico weeks earlier, in which he also played down any suggestion that Labour’s proximity to lobbyists – like, er, him – may lead to conflicts of interest. In the same interview, Murphy revealed that he and his team at Arden speak regularly with Starmer and other Labour frontbenchers and that the firm is likely the party’s biggest commercial sponsor. In cash donations, Arden’s contributions have been minimal: just under £20,000 since 2022. But it has sponsored two of the party’s business conferences, paid for the exclusive business lounge at the 2023 conference, and organised a no-press-allowed lobbying event that ran alongside the Scottish Labour conference in February this year. Arden has also sponsored fundraising events for at least 30 Labour candidates, will have two of its current staffers on the ballot next week, and Murphy appeared at an away day for candidates last year to offer advice. In this way, the firm has solidified its access to the party at all levels, from the current leadership to the prospective MPs who may make up the frontbenches of the future. The company’s position in the Starmersphere is not just as a peddler of access to the party, but also as an influencer of it. But little is known about the clients it represents. Arden is not a member of PRCA, the public affairs industry trade association that would not only compel it to publish a list of clients, but also make it accountable to a set of rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest in the sector – womp womp. But Dark Arts can reveal for the first time the extent of the access to Labour that Arden is able to offer its clients, and who some of those clients are. On 23 October, not long after his panel appearance at the Labour conference, Murphy sat down with “clients and colleagues” for dinner in the Stephenson Room of One Great George Street, a Grade II-listed Edwardian venue in Westminster favoured by politicians and lobbyists for schmoozfests. For £1500 or so, companies like Arden can put around a dozen people in a chandelier-lit dining room with dark-oak panelling and be served immaculately presented meals of confit duck leg, peppered vegetable wellington or, for a £2.50(!) per person supplement, roast beef fillet with blue cheese and leek potato croquette, grilled king oyster mushrooms and baby carrots. Mmm. Murphy’s guests included the shadow secretary of state for Scotland, Ian Murray, and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. The presence of both Murray – a Westminster MP – and Sarwar – a Holyrood MSP – meant that in theory, two different sets of lobbying transparency rules were in effect. Under Westminster’s rules, every quarter, a lobbying firm must declare the names of any clients on whose behalf they have lobbied the government. But there is no requirement to declare who they were working for when lobbying opposition MPs. So, Arden had no obligation to name its clients present at Murphy’s event in its filing to the Office for the Consultant Registrar of Lobbyists, the UK’s severely underpowered lobbying watchdog. (Unless it had also contacted the UK government on their behalf during the same three-month period.) But Sarwar’s presence meant that Arden, and potentially some of its clients at the event, should have published an entry in the Scottish lobbying register detailing the encounter. Quelle surprise then, that Arden’s information return with the Scottish lobbying register in late February – which should have detailed not only this meeting but all the firm’s meetings with Holyrood politicians over the previous six months – simply read: ‘Nil Return’. A handful of photos from the dinner shared on LinkedIn provide the only glimpse inside the room. Several of the 12 or so attendees are unidentifiable, but Dark Arts recognised three faces. Basil Scarsella, the CEO of UK Power Networks, one of the largest electricity distribution firms in the UK, with a turnover of more than £1.1bn last year Mark Wild, the CEO of SGN, another major player in the UK energy sector as a gas distributor, which turned over almost £1.3bn last year Nick Chaffey, the CEO for the UK, Europe and Middle East operations of Northrop Grumman, a world-leading manufacturer of machines that kill people, and a major exporter of said machines to Israel, including many components for both the F-35 and F-16 warplanes Chaffey isn’t smiling in the pic, but he had plenty of reason to be. In the weeks before this soiree, his firm’s share price had been rising rapidly, up around 60 points since Israel launched its massive retaliatory offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ 7 October attack. For context, on the same day as the meeting at One Great George Street, multiple news organisations reported that the death toll in Gaza had passed 5,000, including around 2,000 children. It has since surpassed 37,000, with more than one in 50 of all the children in Gaza having been killed in six months. Chaffey was also present at another private Arden event some months earlier, when the firm introduced “clients and special guests” to Pat McFadden, who was then Labour’s shadow chief secretary to the Treasury and has since become the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. McFadden is set to be a major player in Starmer’s administration, while his wife is Labour’s deputy campaigns director and previously worked alongside Murphy at the Tony Blair Institute. It’s all so very cosy. It’s worth remembering at this point that the Labour leadership has declined to back a ban on the UK exporting arms to Israel, which would prevent the UK subsidiaries of companies like Northrop Grumman from being able to sell weapons to the Israeli Defence Force. And, despite scaling back many policy pledges and essentially committing to the continuation of austerity in order to adhere to its strict fiscal rules, Labour has announced a major increase in defence spending if it is elected. Arden has held at least eight meetings of this kind in the last 12 months or so, putting its clients in front of key Labour frontbenchers including shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds and shadow treasury minister James Murray. Last June, Arden staffers brought clients to an event in Edinburgh where Starmer, Reeves and Sarwar delivered a major announcement on green industrial policy. This February, the firm hosted a breakfast with a key member of Starmer’s staff who manages business engagement (see: lobbying). From what Dark Arts can tell, Arden is one of the most plugged-in lobbying shops when it comes to Labour. As ever, Dark Arts asked Labour what was discussed at these meetings and who else was present, but got no reply. Arden similarly tight-lipped. Northrop Grumman did not respond when pressed on whether Chaffey raised arms export licences in the October meeting with Sarwar and Murray. It would be very unusual to see the kind of companies involved in these meetings donating directly to Labour – or any political party, for that matter. But here’s a thought: if they are paying clients of Arden, and Arden funnels significant amounts of money into Labour through corporate sponsorship and fundraising, then what’s the difference? Answers on a postcard. Getting in on the ground floor As referenced above, a little-discussed aspect of how lobbying firms secure networks within political parties is by forging links with prospective parliamentary candidates. This is a particularly low-risk strategy in elections like this one, where so many Labour candidates are basically guaranteed to win their seats and a large number are being widely tipped to waltz straight into junior ministerial roles, at least. One way companies do this is by sponsoring fundraising events for candidates. These events bring together local party members, businesses, lobbyists and their clients, the candidate’s team and often one or two senior Labour MPs. Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting, Jonathan Reynolds and Rachel Reeves have all made appearances at such events in the past year. Dark Arts is aware of at least 45 Labour candidates who’ve had these kinds of events sponsored by lobbying firms including Arden, Whitehouse Communications, PLMR and more. These events present a double opportunity for lobbyists; not only are they yet another avenue to get their clients in front of the senior Labour MPs who turn up to work the room, but the lobbyists themselves can solidify a relationship early on with someone who may go on to be a very valuable contact in years to come. But there are other ways for determined lobbyists to help shape the way incoming MPs think about policy areas that affect their clients – before they’ve so much as touched the green seats of the Commons. An example. Back in March, 15 Labour hopefuls arrived at the offices of Grayling lobbying firm for a packed-out day of training on energy and climate policy, hosted in partnership with the Labour Climate and Environment Forum. The day included a roundtable event with Grayling clients from the “renewables, nuclear, flexible generation, and grid infrastructure sectors”, in which the candidates were joined by a key policy adviser to shadow net zero secretary Ed Miliband, plus Alistair Strathern, a parliamentary aide to Rachel Reeves and Miliband. This was all followed by an evening social event where Ed himself made an appearance. Grayling’s relevant clients include National Grid, Calor Gas and several small renewable firms. Another is Drax, the operator of a major power station in a small North Yorkshire village of the same name, which pockets billions in green subsidies from bill payers, despite being the UK’s largest single source of CO2 emissions. Here’s how it works; because Drax burns biomass pellets (see: wood) instead of coal, the UK doesn’t count these emissions. Drax’s wood pellets are produced overseas – mostly in the US and Canada. In 2022, BBC’s Panorama revealed Drax had obtained logging licences in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The programme filmed logs being taken from what it said was a primary forest (a woodland that had not been disturbed by human activity) to a pellet plant owned by Drax. The company put out a punchy response, which in the interests of balance, you can read here. The firm is known to have an extremely active UK lobbying operation that seeks to protect its reputation as a green energy producer – understandable, with billions of pounds of subsidies on the line. The issue is undeniably complex, as is so much of the conversation around energy policy, climate and the environment. Which is why it is perhaps concerning that a host of future MPs are being got at by a lobbying firm that represents the interests of industry – and industry bosses themselves – before they’ve even entered Parliament. Show me the money: week two If the election was directly decided by which party received the most money from wealthy donors, Keir Starmer would already be unpacking his bags in 10 Downing Street. The party of organised labour and the working man received millions of pounds from a handful of wealthy donors in the second week of the campaign. But there are levels to this shit; Lord Sainsbury of Turville gave more than all other donors combined, including the mega-wedged Gary Lubner of Belron vehicle glass repair firm and the equally wedged retired hedge fund investor, Martin Taylor. The total that these three men alone have given the Labour Party since the start of 2023 now comes to more than £15m – with that kind of outlay, one has to wonder what the expected return is. Elsewhere, the only major party that took in less donations than the Conservatives was the Green Party. Yes, you read that correctly. There is a slight caveat to that though. Reform UK’s main donor, Britain Means Business, is actually party chairman Richard Tice’s company. Without his contribution, Reform would lag behind the Lib Dems and just slightly behind the Conservatives, too. This does beg the question – why doesn’t Rishi Sunak, likely the richest politician in British history, not simply pour money into his party from a ltd company? Perhaps because, for all his faults, Sunak seems like a fairly shrewd investor. Oh, btw, Reform donor Holly Vukadinovic is the real name of early-noughties popstar Holly Valance, whose billionaire property developer husband Nick Candy is a former Conservative donor who more-or-less came out in support of Starmer a few months back. Plenty of fallouts over politics in that household you’d have to imagine, but I’m sure they Kiss Kiss and make up soon afterwards. (Sorry.) Labour and Co-operative £4,443,400 Lord David Sainsbury £2,500,000 Gary Lubner £900,000 Martin Taylor £700,000 Nick Razey £100,000 ASLEF train drivers’ union £100,000 Reform UK - £742,000 Britain Means Business: £500,000 David George Plumer Lilley: £100,000 Holy Vukadinovic (aka Holly Valance!): £50,000 Robin Marcus Birley: £25,000 Liberal Democrats - £335,000 Adam Management Holdings: £150,000 John Faulkner (deceased): £100,000 Rumi Endowment Company: £30,000 David C Prime: £20,000 Conservatives - £292,500 The Spring Lunch: £50,000 Bestway Wholesale: £50,000 Hamish J G Mair: £40,000 Kenneth E Davy: £25,000 Lord Michael Hintze: £25,000 Sir David C Ord: £25,000 Kenneth J Costa: £25,000 Greens - £20,0000 Mark Tucker: £20,000 QUICK HITS: Dark money latest: To be fair, by the standards of political donations, most of the money flowing directly into the coffers of the main parties in this election so far has been relatively clean. Though there are other ways it infects our politics. Back in August, openDemocracy reported on the Carlton Club, an elite private members’ club in London that has long funded the Tories, handing out hundreds of thousands of pounds since 2019. Our investigation found that half their declared donations in that time came from two companies run by wealthy foreign nationals – a workaround to the rule that only UK citizens are allowed to make political donations. The most recent Electoral Commission data shows one of these companies, property investment firm Strandbrook, gave a further £50,000 to Carlton earlier this year. Strandbrook’s only directors are tycoon Henning Conle and his daughter Johanna Conle. In 2018, Henning was at the centre of a scandal in Germany after he allegedly made donations totalling €132,000 to the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. Poacher turned gamekeeper: A public affairs firm held an event in Glasgow this week offering advice to help professional spinners and reputation managers when dealing with the scourge of, well, people like Dark Arts. Grayling’s ‘A PR’s Guide to Navigating Investigative Journalism’ promises to help handle “hostile media attention and forensic questioning, as well as manage brand reputation and shift the narrative”. Speaking at the event was a former news editor of The Sunday Times. Dark Arts readers take note; if at any point in years to come you hear that I’m advising lobbyists on how to help their corporate clients evade scrutiny, you have my express permission to [redacted] me. Bloomberg bust-up: Dark Arts’ highlight from the Bloomberg debate that took place earlier this week between Jon Reynolds and Kemi Badenoch, where the two slugged it out in front of a room full of business lobbyists? Reynolds referring to the audience as “sophisticated” – as opposed to those uncultured oiks that make up the audience of most debates, better known as ‘the general public’. Watch that back here, if you’ve really nothing better to do. Now this Read: An excoriating take on the election by the FT’s Martin Wolf. His verdict? “Democracy should deliver more than cynical public relations exercises. By these standards, this election is a flop.” Listen: The last ever episode of the fantastic Longform podcast, featuring John Jeremiah Sullivan of New York Times Magazine. RIP to both the podcast and Dark Arts’ dream of one day appearing on it. Watch: England’s galacticos advance through to the quarters after another turgid display and a 1-0 win against Slovakia in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday. 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