Welcome back.
Dark Arts was in Parliament on Tuesday evening, discussing with a very seasoned hack the current state of play. The hack observed that in his decades spent covering politics, the one trend that has held constant is the increasing proximity between big business, the corporate world and Westminster – a trend he felt had been imported largely from the US, and that he fears is now irreversible. His words were still ringing in my ears later that night, as news came through of Donald Trump’s likely victory, his campaign having been bolstered by the US oligarch class.
So a cheerful night, all in all.
Tough Anacta follow
If there’s one thing UK politics needs, it’s another corporate lobbying company. Luckily a new outfit, referred to in The Times as the “first Starmerite lobbying firm” (that’s gotta sting, Arden Strategies), has launched after months of whispers about a new kid on the block with close ties to the Labour leadership. Though officially unveiled last week, Anacta Strategies UK Limited was incorporated in May 2023, suggesting it has been in the works for at least 18 months.
Anacta UK is the new arm of Australian firm Anacta Strategies, co-founded by former Australian Labor politician Evan Moorhead and David Nelson, an adviser and campaigner with strong ties to that party. The Australian firm’s client list is varied, though it has several major private healthcare companies on its books, as well as TikTok Australia, natural resources giant Glencore and a handful of asset management companies focused on energy.
Nelson had attracted some press interest in the UK due to his role supporting Keir Starmer’s team in the year or so leading up to the election and during the campaign itself. He is said to have worked very closely with Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s top adviser, and Pat McFadden, Cabinet Office minister and an influential member of Starmer’s top team.
Anacta UK will be led by Teddy Ryan, a former Labour official who has held a few senior roles within the party in recent years, but in the months before leaving had been “focusing on expanding Labour’s commercial offer”, as he wrote on LinkedIn. This meant building on his work for the party’s business conference, which enabled Labour to raise millions through corporate sponsorship and flogging lobbyists exclusive access to senior party figures. So he should be well-prepared for the new role.
Shonagh Munro joins Anacta UK from Arden Strategies, which was the lobbying shop deemed most plugged-in to the party, though this mantle could now be at risk with the launch of Anacta, as Munro’s departure would suggest. Announcing the move on LinkedIn, Munro wrote that the team “specialises in helping global businesses to fully understand how Labour governments operate across the UK, Australia and New Zealand” and is “made up of some truly fantastic individuals who have come from senior roles across government relations, comms and Labour HQ”. Responding to the post were well-wishers from Shell, Goldman Sachs and arms manufacturer Leonardo.
A head start in journalism
Dark Arts has previously discussed lobbying companies’ efforts to forge ties with journalists, as much of their work requires pushing their clients’ messages and talking points in the media. This might involve feeding a friendly journalist some ‘exclusive’ polling that supports a policy proposal a client wants to achieve, for example. Another benefit of keeping journos close might be a broader lack of coverage of the lobbying industry and its at times corrosive impact on democracy, but who’s to say?
One firm in particular has sought to get in on the ground floor with the next generation of hacks by hosting an annual networking event for junior journalists. Cub reporters from the likes of The Telegraph, Sky News, City AM and the BBC were at Headland’s third event of this kind last month, where one of the firm’s directors, former BBC political correspondent Jonathan Blake, gave a talk. Writing on Linkedin, Headland thanked attendees, adding that it “look[s] forward to continuing to foster these valuable connections between PR [public relations] and journalists!” Valuable indeed.
FOI watch
Labour entered government promising to restore trust in politics, in part by improving transparency through mechanisms such as Freedom of Information. The FOI Act allows members of the public and journalists to request information directly from public sector bodies, including government departments and councils.
From Dark Arts’ vantage point, the party’s warm words on FOI are yet to translate into action. A number of relatively routine requests filed by Dark Arts have either been delayed extensively – including a request to the Treasury for details of a meeting between Starmer, Rachel Reeves and the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, which was filed back in August – or outright rejected, such as a request for copies of meeting invitations received by Reeves during her first few days in office.
And it seems Dark Arts is not alone in facing obfuscation from the Treasury. FOI whizz George Greenwood of The Times has also had several requests blocked on what feels like highly spurious grounds. Public bodies can reject FOI requests where the cost of paying staff to find the information is too high, and they can treat separate requests for the same or similar information as a single request for cost purposes. But the Treasury has lumped together completely different requests from Greenwood, on subjects ranging from cryptocurrency to non-doms and sanctions, on the basis that they all involve the work of ministers and therefore collectively cost too much to answer. It has then blocked each of the requests.
The upshot is that Greenwood has had to drop some of his inquiries in order to prioritise the most urgent requests. Not a bad result for the government, given Greenwood’s track record of producing striking scoops from his FOIs, but not exactly the kind of increased transparency Starmer and Co. promised.
BVCA latest
Dark Arts has previously written about the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA), and its many ways of winning the support of MPs. One method at its disposal is ‘the MP Connect programme’, which involves the BVCA arranging for parliamentarians to go on site visits to businesses in their constituencies that are backed by private equity. Reeves and Angela Rayner have previously taken part in these visits. In the past few weeks, three more MPs have been on visits, including former Tory minister Damian Hinds and two new Labour MPs. One of the new MPs, Danny Beales, was so impressed by what he saw that he name-dropped the business, Allye Energy, in the Commons and asked energy minister Michael Shanks to meet with the firm.
This is the first half of an article in our new regular series, the Dark Arts Dispatch, which shines a light on the world of corporate influence, lobbying and money in politics, with a handful of incisive, exclusive stories delivered directly to your inbox.
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