Cabinet minister accused of hiring PR agency to investigate journalists’ sources
A government minister has been accused of paying a public relations and lobbying firm to investigate journalists’ sources before entering parliament.
Josh Simons, a cabinet minister and chief executive of pro-Starmer think tank Labor Together, used global consultancy and advocacy firm APCO Worldwide to try to establish how reporters discovered details about the group’s finances.
APCO Worldwide confirmed it would “investigate sourcing, financing and origins of a project” Sunday Times In addition to the article “About Labor Together” there is also a contract about the future work of two political journalists. BBC.
Investigative website Democracy for Sale was the first publication to report the allegations. The site analyzed Labor Together’s response to media outlets, which covered the fact that the think tank had declared no more than £700,000 in donations between 2017 and 2020.
In September 2021, Labor Together was fined £14,250 by the Electoral Commission for late reporting of donations.
According to Democracy For Sale, APCO was paid at least £30,000 to carry out the investigation in 2023, when the think tank was run by Mr Simons.
In a briefing to Labor Together, the website identified two potential sources of the story: either a leak from the Electoral Commission or the think tank, or “illegally collected information collected from the Electoral Commission’s 2023 hack and passed on to the author.”
APCO reportedly discussed “defensive” points over some reporters in its briefings, while describing other journalists as “persons of significant interest.”
APCO also produced a memo aimed at discrediting South African journalist Paul Holden, who collaborated on The Sunday Times report, according to its website.
In the leaked contract, APCO Worldwide said it aimed to “determine who and what was behind the coordinated attacks on Labor Together.” BBC.
The firm said it would use open source and digital forensics to “deliver a body of evidence that can be packaged for use in the media to create narratives that will proactively undermine future attacks on Labor Together,” the publisher reported..
Mr Simons said claims he wanted to investigate journalists on social media platform X were “absurd”. He said he had asked APCO Worldwide to “investigate a suspected case of illegal hacking that has nothing to do with British journalists at the Sunday Times, the Guardian or other glossy British newspapers.”
“APCO’s investigation never fully got to the bottom of this matter,” he wrote to X.
“Those who know me know that I think the work of journalists is vital to our democracy.”
Labor Together and APCO Worldwide did not respondThe Independent’s requests for comments.
