In Britain, an influential think tank previously led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer's chief of staff and a current Labour Party minister has hired a PR firm to investigate the source of leaks to journalists about the group's funding, the "Times" and "Guardian" reported.
The think tank "Labour Together, which helped propel Starmer to power, was run between 2017 and 2020 by Morgan McSweeney, now his chief of staff. The leadership was subsequently taken over by Josh Symons, a current minister.
According to the investigative website "Democracy for Sale, the trust paid a PR firm £30,000 to investigate the sources of stories about the group's funding.
In November 2023, "The Sunday Times" published an article titled "The secret guru who planned Keir Starmer's path to power with undeclared money". It reported that during McSweeney's time "Labour Together" had failed to declare donations worth more than £730,000 to the Electoral Commission. Donors included Martin Taylor, a hedge fund manager whose Cayman Islands firm invested in Russian oil giant „Gazprom“, and Sir Trevor Chin, a philanthropist and friend of Sir Tony Blair.
The work subsequently carried out by the PR firm includes reports of journalists in media outlets including "The Guardian" and The Sunday Times, who reported irregularities in the think tank's funding. The firm has also sought to identify the journalists' sources.
McSweeney and Simons have also been implicated in the recent scandal surrounding the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the US, with allegations that they were involved in approving him without regard to his close links to Jeffrey Epstein.