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A weekly newsletter on campaigning, lobbying and political influence in the U.K.
Hello and welcome to another London Influence, the newsletter that promises to drone on and on until the 2030s. Comments, tips and complaints to @matt_hfoster or [email protected] | View in your browser
— Rise above the SW1 “noise” and get cracking with a plan to ease the squeeze on business, Rishi Sunak is warned.
— Consultancy WPI Strategy bags Luther Pendragon founder Charles Stewart-Smith.
— We check in with the Resolution Foundation as the think tank’s epic look at the U.K. economy hits the halfway mark.
NOISE-CANCELLING GOVERNMENT: Forget the Westminster “noise” and get on with a proper plan to help British businesses through the economic storm. That’s the message the British Chambers of Commerce is making to Rishi Sunak today as its Global Annual Conference kicks off.
Star-studded: The chancellor is joined by International Trade Secretary Trevelyan at the BCC all-dayer underway right now. It also features spots from Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, and a host of business chiefs from around the country.
Lobbying in the drama: It’s not exactly been the easiest time for businesses to get a hearing in SW1, given all the Partygate and er, everything, drama.
But but but: BCC boss Shevaun Haviland — ex-of the Cabinet Office — tells Influence that the business network is keeping up “an excellent relationship with officials,” and that she’s still getting weekly meetings with Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. She’s also been impressed by the outspoken new cost of living tsar Boris Johnson brought in from Just Eat, saying he has “loads of energy and really wants to work with business to try and help consumers.”
But but but No. 2: “Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of noise,” Haviland says. “We’d prefer there to be less noise and more focus on a longer term economic plan. That’s missing. And that’s what we’ll be saying.”
Those woes in full: Haviland says business are being clobbered by rising material and shipping costs, as well as energy prices that are “off the scale.” At the same time, they’re struggling to recruit and worried about what the future will bring.
VAT’s all folks: The BCC previously called for a rethink on Sunak’s National Insurance hikes ahead of the spring statement and reckons the chancellor missed a trick there. But the group is now eyeing a reduction in VAT on energy bills from 20 percent to 5 percent instead. Haviland acknowledges “that is, frankly, a bit of a drop in the ocean, but at least it mitigates a little bit against those costs.”
Labor pains: The BCC is meanwhile urging government to help ease the pressure on firms trying to find workers. Haviland recalls a recent trip to a big hotel in Inverness that could only serve dinner on Fridays and Saturdays because of a dearth of kitchen staff. “When you can’t get people, you can’t grow,” she warns. “It’s just a drag on the economy.”
SOL position: The group wants smarter use of the government’s shortage occupation lists, which allow more migrant workers to be brought in to fill gaps, particularly now the U.K. has greater post-Brexit control of its migration system. Haviland stresses that’s not a long-term fix for the wider aim of “a high-skilled, high-wage economy,” but businesses are struggling right now.
Longer-term: The BCC boss is more positive about the government’s longer-term skills agenda, though. It’s been working with the Department for Education on a bunch of pilot projects meant to get local firms more involved in mapping out the skills and training needed in their area. “It’s quite radical — we’ll move the whole system to a different way of working,” she says.
Trading places: With U.K. trade chief Trevelyan taking to the stage today, Haviland’s also keen for more government help to get British firms exporting — and to take a more pragmatic approach to “ironing out the still difficult costs and red tape” facing those exporting to the EU. She’s a big fan of the government’s push for more trade deals, but wants ministers to actually show businesses how to make the most of them too.
One more thing: Haviland tells us that businesses feeling the squeeze right now are going to struggle to play their part in the government’s other big domestic push — driving down carbon emissions to hit net-zero. “We think it’s probably gone backwards because SMEs are just facing more difficulties with costs and getting people,” she warns. “It just goes further down the list.” That’s another reason she’ll be pressing ministers for a plan.
Weathering the storm: “There is huge power in the partnership between government and business,” Haviland says. “Help businesses weather this storm now — and at the same time let’s build a long-term economic plan. Because that’ll give us the confidence that we’re looking ahead and that they can, at some point, get back to investing once things get a bit easier.”
WPI’S NEW MAN: Westminster consultancy WPI Strategy is bringing in veteran journo and Luther Pendragon founder Charles Stewart-Smith as a senior adviser, as the outfit eyes a post-COVID repositioning in a pretty crowded market.
Backstory: WPI was founded in 2014 by former David Cameron adviser Sean Worth and ex-Policy Exchange comms chief Nick Faith. It’s done punchy political work on business rates with retail giant Tesco and has British Land, Vodafone, London City Airport and the NSPCC on the books too.
True Faith: Faith and his business partner Worth got chatting to Stewart-Smith — a former editor of ITN’s News at Ten — after his stint as a managing director at agency Teneo. They told the comms veteran WPI was itching to “reposition ourselves in the market” in a bid to make it clearer to in-house government affairs teams that it’s an advisory firm “first and foremost.”
Why so? Faith says WPI — which has an economics offshoot — has built a reputation in the past few years for “sexy economic research and public policy stuff,” but less so for its advisory chops.
Call the professionals: “We’re moving to the next stage of WPI’s growth plans,” Faith says. “And Charles coming in as an advisor is going to help us reshape our offer, and really hit market in a much more professional way, I think, than we had been doing.”
Taking the lead: Faith’s also evangelical about Stewart-Smith’s plan to get the firm offering “leadership campaigning” services in the coming months.
What’s that then? Basically, WPI’s hoping to give a better sell to in-house government relations teams who are being “constantly asked” to take a position on big social and environmental issues. “We’ll be coming in and going, ‘look, clearly this isn’t a PR exercise, it’s a genuine desire to take a position on this. But do you have the credibility to do it? Do you have the authenticity to do it?”
Case in point: The WPI boss hopes the consultancy can save companies from some PR own goals like the thorough pasting some firms got on Twitter over their own gender pay gaps while proudly posting about International Women’s Day. “That would be the kind of question we would ask: are you really sure this is necessarily the right issue that you want to be taking a big leadership position on? Because you need to get your own house in order to do that,” says Faith.
“Use the advantages you have at your disposal, deploy them decisively and ALWAYS stay on the front foot.”
RMT press officer John Millington reflects after his boss Mick Lynch got SW1 swooning amid the rail chaos. Here’s Influence’s own take on the Lynch effect.
GAV’S NEW GIG: Former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has taken on a £50,000-a-year second job advising RTC Education Ltd, a firm that runs private schools and colleges and has donated thousands to the Conservative Party, the Guardian’s Rowena Mason spotted.
Watchdog woof: In a classic of the genre, revolving door watchdog ACOBA found that while Williamson “may have access to sensitive information that could present an unfair advantage to RTC,” it believed the risk of that happening is “limited given eight months have passed since you left office.”
Further reading: You can read the full watchdog exchange here. Influence has no views on anything, but Mason’s description of ACOBA as “the watchdog on post-ministerial jobs that even its own chair, Eric Pickles, admits is toothless because it has no enforcement powers” is very good copy.
PROTOCOL FLY ON THE WALL: Mixed reception when Liz Truss hauled in businesses and lobby groups to talk through the government’s Brexit deal-risking plans on the Northern Ireland protocol this week, top Dublin colleague Shawn Pogatchnik reports.
Behind the scenes: Shawn took the temperature on the first behind-closed-doors attempt to sell the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill to business leaders, and found opinion split roughly down geographic lines – with firms in Britain broadly in favor of London’s plan and those in Northern Ireland fearful it could vandalize their own preferential access to EU markets.
In the room: Truss’s briefing at the Foreign Office brought together senior execs from Asda, the Royal Mail, the U.K. Road Haulage Association and, by video link from Belfast, leaders of several business associations including the umbrella Business Brexit Working Group.
But but but: Business participants told Shawn the U.K. government ministers basically said nothing they hadn’t said many times before.
Woolly: “I’ve heard Liz Truss give the same speech a dozen times already and still don’t fully believe it,” said one participant. “This wasn’t a consultation as they claimed it would be. We weren’t provided anything specific or tangible to consult on. The U.K. government position remains all woolly ideas and fanciful hopes at this stage.”
RHA sounding chipper: An apparent outlier in the discussions was the Road Haulage Association, which expressed enthusiasm for the bill’s proposal to permit Northern Irish businesses to handle goods that follow U.K., but not EU, rules.
Eek: “The GB [Great Britain] hauliers love the bill because it removes risks and paperwork burdens for them when shipping to Northern Ireland and dumps all those risks all on to Northern Ireland shoulders,” said one participant. “It’s clear Truss is happy to throw Northern Ireland’s EU market access under the bus.”
OLDFIELD BACK ON THE FIELD: Ed Oldfield is back at agency Hanbury after an eventful stint at No.10 as special adviser leading on broadcast. Oldfield did a previous spell at Hanbury from 2017 to 2019 and has also been a CCHQ and Boris leadership campaign spinner. He’s back in action as an associate director in the agency’s strategic and corporate comms team.
Allegra advice: Nosey types can also peer at the ACOBA advice for Oldfield’s ex-colleague Allegra Stratton, now working for Bloomberg, although as we all know doing a political newsletter is not a proper job.
IN RELATED NEWS: The Adam Smith Institute reckons the Cabinet Office is a prime target for civil service cuts in its campaign for a slimmed down civil service. Its structure is complex, confused and unwieldy, and some responsibilities are better suited to other departments, the think tank says.
COMPETITION WINNER: We promised a shiny penny to the reader who could identify a better use of £125 than spending it on covering a party conference. Ben Gadsby, head of policy and research at Impetus, got in touch to point out that you can actually buy a 1797 penny for £125. “Just think of who might have used it during its years in circulation?!”
Serious note: Ben also flagged that a £125 donation to the MAMA Youth Project would cover travel expenses for an unemployed and underrepresented young person to gain proper experience in a media industry that can be notoriously exclusive.
CONTRACTS WATCH: Consultants at PwC bagged £115,300 to go over the Foreign Office’s “Indo-Pacific Strategy,” new transparency documents show.
MID-YEAR’S RESOLUTION: Influence last got nerdy with Resolution Foundation chief Torsten Bell back in May 2021 as the living standards think tank launched its big Economy 2030 inquiry, promising no less than an entire economic plan for the next tumultuous decade.
The project’s just about to hit its halfway mark and landed a bunch of press pickup this week, so we checked in with Research Director Lindsay Judge to see how it’s all going.
Latest focus: The foundation has been getting properly stuck in to the evidence on regional inequality. It’s produced a trio of reports on the theme, mixing hard research with focus groups. Judge says the combo has been “really, really revealing” and is a big fan of the “mixed methods” approach the foundation is taking on all this. “It’s great when you get the quantitative questions you can test with data — and then that data throwing up questions … It’s a virtuous circle really.”
Mind the gaps: The inquiry’s work on incomes threw up some pretty fascinating findings. There’s the familiar story of “substantial” income differences across the U.K.
For example: Income before housing costs in the U.K.’s richest local authority — Kensington and Chelsea — stands at 4.5 times that of the poorest — Nottingham (shout out to the family.)
But but but: The report reveals much more going on beneath the surface. Many “places are in the same position relative to each other today as they were 22 years ago,” Judge says, despite decades of policy interventions.
Why’s that then? It’s tricky. “Unemployment gaps between places have closed considerably over time,” says Judge. “We don’t have unemployment black spots like we did in the 1980s.” The research finds too that the gulf in average earnings between different parts of the U.K. has also “closed over time and that really is very much driven by the national minimum wage.”
And yet: Other factors have really dulled the impact of those wage boosts. “Income, of course, is not just about the money you get from wages and salaries — it’s also the money you get from other sources, pension benefits, investment income, self-employment.”
So … People may be earning more and are less likely to be unemployed than they were, but London and the Southeast rocket ahead when it comes to investment income, and self-employed income is “also becoming less equally distributed across the country.” Judge says of the self-employed: “You get this incredible sort of spike in London at the top end of the income distribution.”
Productive stuff: The think tank’s dig into productivity meanwhile warns of a failure of major cities outside of London to make the transition to a services-based economy, leading to massive gaps between different parts of the country.
Woof: The productivity gap between London and Manchester (30 percent) is way higher than that between Paris and Lyon (20 percent), for example — yet the scale of investment required to close that will be huge. “It’s absolutely massive — tens of billions of pounds,” says Judge. Leveling up has a long way to go.
So what next? Expect an interim report from the wider inquiry very soon. Judge will be leading a big series of public chats across the country in the coming months to try and dig deeper into how the public feels about all of this, and what they want politicians to prioritize.
Then comes the policy: The foundation now has a whole bunch of data and research on the shape of the U.K. economy. But Judge says her boss Bell — an ex-director of policy for Labour’s Ed Miliband and a former Treasury official — is all about linking that research to actual policy fixes, the focus of the inquiry’s second phase from July.
“The evidence base is really great, but it throws up a bazillion more questions which keep researchers like me in a job,” she says. “With Torsten it’s very policy-relevant all the time. We’re not really in the business of trying to work things out for the sake of them — we’re trying to work things out for the sake of the country.”
Brian McBride is the new president of the Confederation of British Industry. He takes over from Karan Bilimoria who will now be the organization’s vice-president. Also on the move is CBI senior media and comms adviser Kay Abdilahi, who’s heading to the City of London Corporation to lead on Asia-Pacific comms.
Former government Brexit adviser Raoul Ruparel has been appointed director of the Boston Consulting Group’s new Centre for Growth after a stint at fellow consultancy Deloitte.
Tech consultancy Taso Advisory nabbed Tech UK’s Head of Digital Regulation Lulu Freemont to serve as a director. Freemont’s a former head of policy and public affairs at ParentZone.
Former Scottish Tory MP Ross Thomson is jointing Invicta Public Affairs as an account director.
Purpose Union hired Rebecca Baron as a director, joining from Ben & Jerry’s, where she led the ice-cream maker’s European activism work.
Jack Powell, comms manager for Tory MP Claire Coutinho, is off to FTI Consulting’s public affairs team.
Alex Morden Osborne has been promoted to senior public affairs officer at the Alzheimer’s Society. Tom Redfearn is meanwhile heading for pastures new after than three years in its public affairs team.
Piali Das Gupta has been named as the new strategy director for London Councils after a string of local government gigs.
Toby Porter is the new chief executive of charity Hospice UK, joining from Acorns Children’s Hospice. He previously led HelpAge International.
FDA union General Secretary Dave Penman is succeeding Prospect’s Sue Ferns as chair of Unions21, which aims to map out the future of trade unions.
Agency Cicero/amo appointed Dan Lenton as senior account executive. He joins from lobby group UK Finance. Issie Rees-Davies is meanwhile off to PR firm MHP Mischief‘s financial services team after a spell with Cicero.
Former Yvette Cooper aide Jade Botterill is off to join campaign group 38 Degrees as their new public affairs manager after two years with Yorkshire Water.
Ex-Commons aide Joseph Howe is moving on up to senior account manager at Blakeney.
Cordelia O’Neill — ex-of the Wheatley Group and Scottish Women’s Aid — joined Scottish agency Quantum Communication as a senior account manager.
Jennifer Smallwood is the new senior PR Manager at insurer Standard Life after a fourteen-year spell at agency Lanson’s, including as partner.
Jobs jobs jobs: TikTok’s beefing up its government relations team, with one eye on the U.K.’s online safety law … The Charities Aid Foundation needs a head of external affairs … Unicef UK is hunting for a head of strategic comms … Think tank Demos is hunting for a new director of research and policy … Transparency group DeSmog needs a researcher.
Thanks: Influence is mid-house move and would still be hiding in a cardboard box without handy assists from Annabelle Dickson and Shawn Pogatchnik plus careful edits from Kate Day and Giulia Poloni.
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