(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . General election: Labour and Tory donors ‘bought’ selection in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich [1] [] Date: 2024-06 What do the Tory and Labour candidates for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich have in common? Both were selected to run in the constituency after they (or their dad) made six-figure donations to their respective parties. In Labour’s case, lobby firm boss Kevin Craig handed £100,000 to the party before being selected unopposed. The Tories, meanwhile, chose Patrick Spencer after his father, a billionaire Tory peer and former treasurer, as well as a longtime donor, gave the party £250,000 — his largest donation in several years. The candidacies have raised questions over whether both Labour and the Conservatives are allowing those with private wealth and political connections to pay their way into Parliament. openDemocracy reached out to both candidates and their respective parties for comment, but did not receive any replies. Get our free Daily Email Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up now The co-leader of the Green Party, Adrian Ramsay, has accused both parties of allowing the candidates to “effectively buy their seats”. Ramsay said: “Make a donation to the Labour or Conservative Party and, it seems, as a reward, you can get parachuted into any seats that come up at the last minute before a general election without the democracy and scrutiny of a full selection process.” He continued: “Such seats undermine democracy and can be used as a reward for wealthy people wanting to raise their profile who have done either party a big favour.” Transparency campaigners have also called for policy change to prevent seats being handed to wealthy donors. Rose Zussman, senior advocacy manager at Transparency International UK, said: “We know the public thinks large donations come with strings attached. When it looks like donors are being rewarded for their support, this drives the perception that our democracy is for sale. “To avoid further diminishing trust in politics, the next government should introduce common sense reform of the political finance rules including a cap on individual donations to politicians and political parties.” The Labour lobbying boss In February of this year Kevin Craig, the founder and CEO of Westminster lobbying firm PLMR, brought Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves to speak with local business leaders in Suffolk. The event was a major public affair coup for PLMR – and a serious boost for the campaign of one of its staffers, lobbyist Jack Abbott, who is running to be the next Labour MP in Ipswich. The following week, Labour announced Craig as its candidate for the neighbouring constituency, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. The party had not mentioned a selection process or a vote on who should represent the seat on any of its local and regional social media pages – suggesting he was selected from a shortlist of one. Two Labour sources who spoke to openDemocracy on condition of anonymity confirmed Craig was the only candidate. The party changed its rules around selections in November to allow members of the ruling National Executive Committee, which is controlled by Starmer, to effectively unilaterally impose candidates in non-priority seats. Craig was already in a pretty exclusive political club even before his selection: He is one of Labour’s top 20 private donors (companies and individuals) of last year, having made a donation of £100,000 in May 2023. The week after that large donation, Labour shadow minister Jonathan Reynolds, the man who is likely to become the UK’s next secretary of state for business and trade, appeared at an event organised by PLMR to field questions on the economy, his party’s developing manifesto and, of great interest to those in the room, how best to engage with Starmer’s Labour. In attendance were dozens of the lobbyists’ clients, who pay the firm to help them get their message across to politicians and, in that way, affect policy to their benefit. Over the next nine months before Craig was announced as a Labour candidate, his firm PLMR hosted similar meetings with seven more senior Labour figures. Extensive analysis by openDemocracy of publicly available data suggests that only one other lobbying firm has been able to secure as much access to the party as PLMR; Arden Strategies, which is run by former Labour minister Jim Murphy and has provided significant financial support to the party in recent years. The £100,000 Craig gave to Labour in May 2023 is his largest ever donation to the party – almost doubling in one day his total contributions over the previous 19 years. But the lobbyist has a relationship with Labour going back some time, having stood for Parliament in South Suffolk in 2005 and served as a councillor in the London borough of Lambeth for more than a decade. In a now-deleted media pack on Craig’s website, he claims to have worked at Labour Party HQ during the 2001 general election campaign. Craig began donating to the party in 2005, providing non-cash donations of premises, advertising and consultancy services worth a total of £11,254 that year. His next set of donations came in 2015, when he gave around £17,000 in cash, followed by £16,399.95 in 2017 and £10,000 in 2019, according to Electoral Commission data. Since the £100,000 donation last year, he has committed to providing shadow health secretary Wes Streeting with £39,000 toward staffing costs, paid in instalments of £13,000 between April and October this year. His firm PLMR describes itself as the “leading health and social care specialist communications agency” and provides a range of services, including crisis and reputation management, stakeholder engagement and public affairs. Its clients include a number of medical device manufacturers and HC-One, a major care home provider that has been embroiled in a number of scandals relating to patient safety and abuse. Other clients include the Independent Schools Council, which has lobbied hard against Labour’s plan to impose VAT on fees. As PLMR’s CEO and founder, Craig is sold as the firm’s leading man on engaging with Labour. On the firm’s website, potential clients are encouraged to contact Craig directly to “find out how we can help you deliver real results from engaging with the Labour Party.” In July 2023, the firm published ‘Sealing the Deal’, a guide for clients on how to lobby the party in which Craig praises Starmer’s “transformative leadership” and in particular how Starmerhas changed the party’s stances toward “business, job creation, aspiration and a long-term industrial strategy”. In the foreword, Craig says the report explains “how PLMR can help you engage with Starmer’s Labour Party”. openDemocracy approached Labour HQ and Kevin Craig on several occasions but received no response. The Tory nepo-baby When Craig was selected as Central Suffolk and North Ipswich’s candidate for Labour, the constituency was considered a non-priority seat that the party was very unlikely to win. Its Tory MP, Dan Poulter, had won by more than 23,000 votes at the 2019 election. But for a public affairs professional, even an unsuccessful candidacy can have tangible benefit – bolstering his claims to have a network of strong Labour contacts that potential clients could benefit from. Then, in April, Poulter defected to Labour and announced he would not be standing at the next election. Craig’s chances of winning the seat arguably improved considerably. Now, the latest YouGov MRP poll, which predicts the largest national Labour majority in history, shows the Conservatives on 37% the vote in the constituency and Labour on 35% – within the standard margin of error for opinion polling. Local Conservative politicians had been left blindsided by Poulter’s defection, with reports that even staff in his office were unaware of the controversial move until minutes before it was announced. Similarly surprising was Rishi Sunak’s decision weeks later to call a general election on 4 July, which left Conservative Associations floundering to find candidates in hundreds of seats across the country. As the 85th safest Conservative seat in this election by current majority, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich became one of the most attractive available prospects for would-be Conservatives candidates. Neighbouring MP Tom Hunt was reported to be considering a switch to the constituency, and Tory party Chairman Richard Holden made a high profile attempt to flee his at-risk seat in the north-east for it. As late as the evening when the selection meeting took place on 3 June, Holden’s name was still on the paperwork handed out to local Tory party members, according to reporting by Michael Crick on the TomorrowsMPs account on X. But the chairman bowed out at the last moment and later found himself on a one-man shortlist in the even safer seat of Basildon and Billericay. So who was left? Members voted on a shortlist of three potential candidates: Yasmin Al-Atroshi, Samantha George and Patrick Spencer. Both Al-Atroshi and George are Conservative activists who have attempted to win selection in several other seats across the country, with Al-Atroshi eventually being selected to contest a seat in the north-west – the other end of the country from Central Suffolk and North Ipswich. In the end it was Spencer – who though relatively unknown could claim a local connection, as well as experience working in government as an adviser to former minister Gavin Williamson – who won out. Three local sources who spoke to openDemocracy on condition of anonymity said they didn’t recognise the names of any of the prospective candidates, and were surprised at the omission of some individuals with significant local profile, including Matthew Hicks, leader of Suffolk County council. Parties on all sides have been known to ‘massage’ candidate shortlists in the past: supplying local branches with a shortlist made up of one candidate preferred by the leadership and others who are perhaps not as qualified or well-suited, while overlooking any local candidates who may have posed a threat to the preferred pick. In this way accusations of interference can be plausibly denied, if not entirely avoided. Less than a fortnight before the selection meeting, The Daily Telegraph reported that former party treasurer Lord Spencer, Patrick Spencer’s father, had given the Conservatives £250,000 – his largest donation since 2019 – when the election was called. He was quoted in the article urging others to contribute as well. George Havenhand, senior legal researcher at Spotlight on Corruption, said: “Political parties should scrupulously avoid any perception that donations can buy candidacies – and be transparent about any processes they have in place to ensure that donors don’t get privileged treatment. “If the pathway to becoming a legislator appears to be smoother for those most able to donate, there is a risk that MPs will become even less representative of the UK population and the health of our democracy will suffer.” openDemocracy has previously reported that Conservative treasurers seem almost guaranteed a peerage, with the majority of those who’ve held the role since 2010 giving the party at least £3 million and being elevated to the lords. Neither the Tory Party nor Patrick Spencer responded to a request for comment on this article. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/central-suffolk-north-ipswich-labour-conservative-donors-selected-kevin-craig-patrick-spencer/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/