Labour Activists Paid for Smear Campaign Against Journalists
Sir Keir Starmer is being pressed to say exactly what he knew about a Labour smear campaign targeting journalists. The Telegraph has the story.
The Prime Minister has faced calls to say whether he was aware of an investigation ordered by Labour Together, the group that helped him become party leader, into reporters researching the sources of its funding.
The group, whose former chief was Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff, paid a public affairs firm to investigate the “backgrounds and motivations” of journalists.
A subsequent report, commissioned by a now Cabinet Office minister, falsely suggested they were part of a Russian conspiracy. It was shared with senior Labour figures including advisers, a branch of GCHQ and current members of Sir Keir’s top team. …
The 48-page report was commissioned by Josh Simons, who succeeded Mr McSweeney as the chief executive of Labour Together and is now a minister in the Cabinet Office.
Labour Together was founded in 2016 and was taken over by Mr McSweeney a year later. The group helped oppose Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the party and supported Sir Keir’s push to take over in 2020. …
Labour Together paid Apco, a US public affairs firm, £36,000 to compile the report in November 2023 after the Sunday Times revealed that it had failed to declare £730,000 of donations between 2017 and 2020.
The Electoral Commission found the group had breached 20 campaign finance laws, and fined it in 2021.
In its piece, the Sunday Times raised questions about the role of Mr McSweeney in not declaring the donations. He had been responsible for making decisions at the time as he was chief executive. …
The report included claims about Gabriel Pogrund, the Sunday Times Whitehall Editor, and Harry Yorke, its Deputy Political Editor, who were both named as “persons of significant interest”.
The Sunday Times said there were almost 10 pages of “deeply personal and fake claims” about Mr Pogrund. It also discussed his Jewish ethnicity and included false claims about his upbringing and his personal and professional relationships.
It said Mr Pogrund’s reporting on the Royal family “could be seen as destabilising to the UK and also in the interests of Russia’s strategic foreign policy objectives”.
The report looked into the “sourcing, funding and origins of the Sunday Times story” using documents and “discreet human source inquiries”.
It claimed the emails which backed up the published story could have come from a suspected Kremlin hack of the Electoral Commission. “The likeliest culprit is the Russian state, or proxies of the Russian state,” it stated.
Worth reading in full.
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Ha ha Labour’s Russiagate.
Socialism – be kind, no sleaze – lol
Projecting, that’s all they do. They are just hypocrites. This story alone should be enough to sink Labour, but there has been just so much corruption that I think by tomorrow morning this will be forgotten because there will be something else.
Nah, it was the Russians all along, Helped by Mr Epstein, Andrew and Amelia.
I am reading about a huge cache of papers from the KGB which were published in The Sword and the Shield – The Mitrikhin Archive. On page 406 there is a quote which could not be made today with a straight face
“ There is only one group of people in the world today which is actively and deliberately … committed to the downfall of our society: the group of Russians who form the government of the Soviet Union”.
Clearly threats now are even more acute and come from numerous sources.
He knew nothing about it… it never came over his desk… it was somebody else’s fault… think that about covers it?
Let me guess:
Response 1: “I wasn’t aware”
Response 2: “It didn’t cross my desk”
Response 3: “I wasn’t given the full information”
Response 4: “My Adviser is to blame”
Response 5: “Of course I accept responsibility, so I’ve sacked my Adviser.”
Response 6: My father was a toolmaker you know, and look how successful he was!
Which will they run out of first, advisors to fall on their swords, or swords?
Having not disclosed £730,000, they were taught a severe lesson. A fine of £14,250.
Bet they won’t dare do that again