The Cabinet Office will be ‘looking into’ claims a Labour-linked think tank paid for an investigation into journalists reporting on ‘secret’ donations to the group.
Labour Together, which helped Sir Keir Starmer get elected as Labour leader, is said to have hired APCO Worldwide to investigate reporters from The Sunday Times, The Guardian and other outlets to identify their sources.
The investigation is said to have taken place after stories were published about the think tank’s failure to declare more than £700,000 in donations.
The Sunday Times said APCO was paid £36,000 to carry out the probe in 2023, when Josh Simons, who is now a Labour MP and Government minister, ran the think tank.
Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, described press freedom as ‘essential’ as she faced questions today about the role of Mr Simons.
‘Personally, and as a Government as a whole, we absolutely value the freedom of the press,’ Ms Kendall told Times Radio.
She added: ‘It’s right that this issue is being investigated by the relevant body here, the regulatory body, which is looking at public affairs companies.
‘And the Cabinet Office will also be looking into this to make sure all the facts are established.’
Labour Together, which helped Sir Keir Starmer get elected as Labour leader, is said to have hired APCO Worldwide to investigate reporters
Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, said press freedom is ‘essential’ as she was quizzed about the role of Josh Simons – a Government minister who previously ran the think tank
Asked whether Mr Simons’ position – as a minister in her department and also the Cabinet Office – was ‘tenable’, Ms Kendall told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘He has welcomed the investigation, rightly so, by the regulatory body, the body responsible for regulating public affairs.
‘As I said, the Cabinet Office will also be looking into the facts of this case, but it is absolutely essential that we protect the freedom of the press.’
According to The Sunday Times, APCO’s probe resulted in a 58-page report, which included details designed to discredit reporters who had investigated campaign finance breaches by Labour Together.
The think tank was fined £14,250 in September 2021 over late reporting of donations, totalling £730,000 between 2017 and 2020, after referring itself to the Electoral Commission.
Ben Taylor, The Sunday Times’s editor, told the Today programme: ‘When the report came in, Labour Together people, some of whom are now in the Cabinet, were quite happy to talk about its conclusions widely around Westminster, claim that the Sunday Times was being used by the Russian state to run disobliging stories about Labour and, frankly, cast doubt on both the title and its reporters in the run up to the general election.
‘I would like some honesty from people at Labour Together.’
Claims that the newspaper was being used by a foreign state were ‘absurd’, he said.
He said senior Labour Together-linked figures, including ministers, ‘need to be honest about what the motivations of this were’.
He continued: ‘But crucially, when the report landed, why was it that our reporters around Westminster were then subject to a whispering campaign about their motivations?’
APCO was hired to to examine the personal, political and religious ‘backgrounds and motivations’ of the reporters behind the story with a view to discrediting their work, the Sunday Times reported.
Gabriel Pogrund, the Sunday Times’s Whitehall editor and Harry Yorke, the newspaper’s deputy political editor, were named as ‘persons of significant interest’ in the 58-page report.
In it, there were nearly 10 pages of deeply personal and false claims about Mr Pogrund – linking him to Russian sabotage campaigns, commenting on his status as a Jew and making claims on his personal relationships, The Sunday Times said.
In November 2023, Mr Pogrund and Mr Yorke revealed that Labour Together had failed to declare £730,000 of donations between 2017-2020.
The article questioned whether this had been a deliberate cover-up by Morgan McSweeney, who was the think tank’s chief executive until 2020.
McSweeney resigned last week as Starmer’s chief of staff as it was revealed that he had pushed for the appointment of the scandal-mired Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.
APCO’s report was shared with key Labour politicians in 2024 – including present Cabinet ministers and special advisers.
These reportedly false accusations seemed to be believed and repeated by key figures and formed the basis of a whispering campaign against Mr Pogrund, Mr Yorke and The Sunday Times, the paper said.
Mr Simons was the man to order Apco’s investigation, days after the article appeared.
By this point, he had succeeded McSweeney as head of Labour Together, but his predecessor was still aware of the decision to begin the probe, The Sunday Times said.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) has called for the ‘creepy Labour Party spy minister’ to be sacked.
Mr Simons, now the Labour MP for Makerfield, said APCO had overstepped its brief.
He said: ‘I was surprised and shocked to read the report extended beyond the contract by including unnecessary information on Gabriel Pogrund.
‘I asked for this information to be removed before passing the report to GCHQ. No other British journalists were investigated in any document I or Labour Together ever received.’
He said he welcomed the investigation launched last week by the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA).
