Why was a Labour campaign group spying on journalists?

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0:33This is a Global Player original podcast. There will be a Cabinet Office investigation into the allegations, and quite right to. And so that is already in place. I didn't know anything about this investigation, and it absolutely needs to be looked into. So the Cabinet Office will be establishing the facts. That is Keir Starmer, not for the first time announcing another Cabinet Office inquiry, and not for the first time saying, I knew nothing about it. The story that's emerging about what Labour together did is complicated and pretty outrageous. We're going to try and talk you through what we understand and where it could take us.

1:19Welcome to The News Agents.

1:25The News Agents. It's John. Yay! Yay? Yay a bit. Hello, welcome back. Thank you very much. How many continents have we done? How many weeks? I've been in Australia and I have been in South Africa, so Oceania and Africa in the past three weeks. Those poor Asians, those poor Europeans, not this time. Anyway, I'm glad that while I was away, nothing much happened.

1:53So, OK, we're going to start by talking about Labour Together and these extraordinary allegations about work that that body commissioned. And just to go back a step, Labour Together is essentially a sort of working group, a campaign group. Think tank. A think tank that's got Kirsten Armour to power. In other words, they do the groundwork. They say, this is how people are voting. This is what you need to do. These are the places you need to target. This is what's going on in this part of the country. It's not going on in that part of the country. And they paved the way. Well, they did pave the way, essentially, for the rise to power of Labour.

2:30And, of course, the eminence grise of Labour Together was Morgan McSweeney, who until last week was the chief of staff of the Downing Street operation and the closest person to Keir Starmer. And what happened was the Sunday Times and their brilliant investigative journalist, Gabriel Pogrand, got this story about how monies that had been raised hadn't been declared in the proper way because of the status of Labour Together that should have been declared and what was going on there. And it was a pretty difficult piece of news for Morgan McSweeney to handle. So this was back, we should say, November of 23.

3:09Exactly. Ahead of the election, six months ahead of the election. Exactly. And what happened then? If you cast your mind back to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange and the hack of the Democratic National Committee computers and how suddenly there were these embarrassing emails, Labour together thought something very similar was happening, that the Russians had wanted to discredit Starmer and Labour and the project to get him elected, and that they had got hold of all this information. And it wasn't the good journalism of Gabriel Pogrund. It was the Russians who'd done it. And Gabriel Pogrund was the willing agent of this.

3:43So they contracted this American public affairs company, APCO, to do an investigation into how this story came about. Was it Russian interference? But it went way, way further than that into Gabriel Pogran's background, his religion, his faith, his upbringing and sort of doing a real dirty ops job on a bloody good journalist. It's a very odd place to start, isn't it? When that story appeared, it was about£730 ,000 worth of undeclared fundraising. In other words, it's exactly the kind of work that investigations, newspapers, journalists would do about a kind of newly emerging body. You know, are they who they say they are?

4:32What kind of money is changing hands? And yet the response of Labour Together was not to say, let us look into our own spending or let us look into party funding or let us look into what has actually been going on. the answer, as you say, was to pull in a PR firm to examine the backgrounds and motivations. They said they were looking to establish the facts. Now, look, if you're being generous, you could say, we don't understand where any of the stuff came from, any of the sources. Where were you getting these numbers from? Has there been a massive data hack? Do we need to do something that checks that out.

5:12But as soon as you start getting stuff back from APCO, who, as I say, paid£36 ,000 to investigate, as soon as the stuff that's coming back is about individual journalists, about their religion, about what you perceive to be their motivations, don't you stop and go, we're coming perilously close here to putting a sort of totalitarian thumb on a free press because we're all allowed to investigate you know not just journalists but members of the public we're all allowed to ask questions we're all allowed to kind of go i don't understand what that chain was and where that money came from and i think we're allowed to do that without having aspersions cast over us that we are working for foreign agents no journalism is about asking uncomfortable questions and being a pain in the ass to people in power, whether they be Conservative or Labour.

6:09And I think that, you know, frankly, if we had heard that a right wing think tank had done that kind of investigation and had asked someone to investigate a journalist who was working for The Guardian or whatever it happened to be, you'd say this is outrageous. I mean, there are Nixonian overtones to this. You know, Richard Nixon famously had his enemies list and he famously even there was one stage where it was thought he took out a contract on a journalist investigative journalist called Jack Anderson and there was a whole elaborate plot by which Jack Anderson was going to be bumped off now it's not as bad as that but it's that sort of thing where you're starting to say that because a journalist has come up with a story that is not helpful to you then we must take action against them that That is outrageous.

6:57That is not accepting that in this country we have a free press and the journalists are meant to be pains in the arse to people in authority. Yeah. And a curious twist in this story is that at the head of APCO was Senior Director Tom Harper, who was formerly of the Sunday Times. He was employed by the Sunday Times. So I don't know, was there an animus, a broigus? Was there something personal going on? Or did he think that he understood how the Sunday Times was operating? But I think to start that investigation into the individual journalists, it wasn't just Gabriel Pogrand, his co-author of his book.

7:37It was Harry York as well. I think that's where it starts getting really uncomfortable. And I also think that the reason this is now complicated is because the person who commissioned this investigation at the time was Josh Simon, used to be at Labour Together. he is now not just a Labour MP, but also a junior minister. And so... Well, he's a Cabinet Office minister, and there's going to be a Cabinet Office inquiry, which might also kind of make you raise the odd eyebrow. I mean, I'm sure it will be done. There'll be a Chinese rules, there'll be a separation. But the Cabinet Office minister is now sort of investigating himself.

8:19Well, we've put a branch out to Josh Simons, as you can imagine. Very welcome on the podcast. We'd love to hear his side of the story. And the way he has explained it is he said, oh, it went too far. It was overreach. You know, I commissioned something that just checked it wasn't foreign Russian interference. You can see why I did that. But it was overreach when it went into all those quarters. I guess the problem is nobody said that at the time. Right. This is now 18 months ago. Nobody said that at the time. Did anyone say we've got to throw away the whole thing because I think it's gone too far?

8:51So I think that's the first question. The second question is, and it is kind of where journalism always takes you, cui bono. Who is profiting now from all this coming out? Why is it important that it's coming out now? Because Morgan McSweeney has just left. Is it a sense that those who actually never believed in the Morgan McSweeney project or plan? And were victims of it. might have been victims of it, are now shoving all this stuff out, right? So I think it's fair that we ask about the timing. It's fair that we look at questions of who stands to gain from all this coming out now. Is it more about unsettling the prime minister again?

9:32Now, Keir Starmer, I think, you know, probably didn't know anything about this. Who knows? But it's not a great look, again, for the head of the government to go, Oh, I don't know. I knew nothing about it. because it, as we've said before, it shows a lack of curiosity. And actually what you really want to hear was, even if I didn't know about it, I'm so on top of this now, I'm absolutely going to get this bang to rights. I mean, he's opening the investigation. Fair cop, you know, he's saying there'll be an investigation. I don't know what an investigation looks like. As you say, the cabinet office is going to look at the cabinet office.

10:06Let's see what the cabinet office finds. Yeah, and that's the problem, isn't it? I mean, for Keir Starmer, okay, Keir Starmer saying, I knew nothing about it. And as you say, Emily, probably absolutely had no idea. And this has all come as a shock to him. But it comes after Peter Mandelson. And I didn't know that much about the relationship with Epstein and the Matthew Doyle, which you covered on the episodes while I was listening in South Africa last week. And, you know, all of that. And why wasn't that properly investigated? So it ends up that Keir Starmer is looking a little bit hapless again when what he needs to project is strength.

10:42And I'm on top of things. And of course, there are questions for the Labour leadership because, yes, Morgan McSweeney was a key figure in Labour Together. Steve Reid, Housing Secretary. Lisa Nandy, Culture Secretary. They're very close to Labour Together. And so there are a lot of characters are on the board. A lot of characters are in a pretty vulnerable position over their relationship with Labour Together when something, as you say, pretty heinous went on. Yeah. So I reached out to somebody fairly close to number 10 and I said, this doesn't look good, right? This looks pretty dodgy. And this person said, look, if the agency overreacted without being asked to, I guess it's slightly less dodgy.

11:25But in the current environment, it looks like there's another scalp to come. In other words, you know, either a Josh Simon or somebody like that. And I said, if the agency had overreached, wouldn't you say that at the time? You know, my point just now. And this person said, exactly as ever, trying to say nothing much to see here won't work. But it's also true, this person says, anything that looks dodgy gets amplified now since Peter Mandelson. So the Peter Mandelson thing has, I think, opened the floodgates for people to start thinking things that they didn't think before. And it's about proximity.

12:05It's about collusion. It's about corruption. These are all big words, you know, but as soon as you start thinking, did he know about this without saying, then that question becomes more applicable to any of the other scandals that start to emerge. I suppose in journalism, I've always pretended to believe in cock up rather than conspiracy. And I do think it is, you know, do I think there has been corruption in government over Mandelson's appointment? No, there was a distinct lack of curiosity. Matthew Doyle should. I mean, there are just bad decisions made. And I think you made the point on the podcast last week that, you know, getting a seat in the House of Lords should not be the consolation prize because you've been fired.

12:46But that was what was happening. And there was just not enough. you get this sense that it's so difficult governing right now that there are so many decisions being made that you're not really on top of anything and you're running as fast as you can just to stand still and i just think this is the sort of i don't know whether we've become ungovernable or whether kia starmer is uniquely unsuitable to doing that but it just feels that this is a government that just keeps getting blown of course you know yeah on saturday he makes a an important speech at the Munich Security Conference, but by Sunday we're talking about Labour Together and the scandal that's unfolded.

13:25He can't seem to buy a break where he sticks to a topic that he wants to stick to. I thought it was really revealing, actually, that the interview he gave The Sun said, I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to fight the next election. And I almost felt, whatever you think of Keir Starmer, That's what's been missing in this whole coverage for the last few weeks is a sense of somebody saying, look, this is all just noise. I'm getting on and I'm going to stay here and I'm going to do this. And frankly, I mean, the fact that people are still talking about the runners and riders of who's going to replace him when there clearly isn't anyone that is kind of vaguely suitable or vaguely possible right now, ready to either wield the knife or or do the job.

14:14I think should tell us that actually he's not going to go. I don't think he is going to go now. I mean, I genuinely believe that the rest of the cabinet or the rest of the runners and riders haven't got their shit together to do anything that will remove him. And I think that is the default position of Labour. You know, it was thus under Gordon Brown. There were a lot of people around Gordon Brown who didn't think very much of him, didn't think he was up to the job. I mean, they came at him with spoons rather than knives. You know what I mean? Water pistols. Yeah, kind of scooping a little bit.

14:44But there was nothing that was going to hurt him. And sure enough, he did. He stayed in the job. He went on to fight the next election. He lost, you know, brought in Peter Mandelson to try and shore up support, ironically. But he stayed in it for the whole course until that election date was set. Look, there is such a cultural difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. And broadly speaking, I think it is this, that the Labour Party venerates its losers and abhors its winners. And, you know, Tony Blair won three successive general elections. Is he a hero of the Labour movement?

15:17Is he hell? The Labour movement loves Michael Foot. It loves Neil Kinnock. It loves Gordon Brown losing the 2010 election. It loves, you know, Corbyn. It doesn't like winners and it doesn't like Keir Starmer because he's been in power and let them down. And what Labour likes is the pureness of principle, not the mucky business of governing. And I kind of think that it's got to a ridiculous extent now where the hyperventilation of so many Labour backbenchers and even cabinet ministers, a kind of jockeying proposition because you've had a bad week of headlines. Governing is tough. You know, you've got to weather the storm.

15:54And that's why I think you're right, Emily. I think Starmer's absolutely spot on to say, yeah, you know what? I'm staying. I'm not going anywhere. It's a tough job. I'm getting on with it. I mean, to your point, Tony Blair for Labour should, in sort of theory, be Thatcher for the Conservatives. Completely. But there is absolutely no way that he is canonised in the way that Thatcher is for the Tories. And I suppose part of that is that endless sense of disappointment that Labour has with its own sort of leaders, really. You know, the ones that have have gone on to sort of change the world, which is this sense of like, we thought we were getting this, but that's what we've got.

16:37We thought Tony Blair would be this, but it turns out that he was messianic about Iraq or greedy for money or a lot of the stuff that has now followed Tony Blair out of office. And I think the thing that's following Starmer is this sense that he was a man with a plan and actually he looks quite hapless in government. Now, part of this is, as we've said before, you know, if you don't spell out your story, if you don't take the opportunity at every time to say, this is what I've done for children in poverty. This is what I've done for defence spending. This is what I've done to change laws on this.

17:12This is what I'm looking at now. Then it's kind of your fault. You know, if people are filling the vacuum in because you haven't been able to tell them, then I think that is a problem. But I also think that we are getting to a point where everyone feels disposable, expendable. Right. Every everyone. Got a problem. Get rid of it. We'll have someone else. Yeah. And that's what the Tories did. And I think that if Labour go down the same route of, you know, having three prime ministers in the next year or two, it'll be catastrophic for the party. I just think I did think from a few thousand miles away.

17:46It's interesting, isn't it? Your sort of sense from afar. This has all gone absolutely bonkers. I took a 14 hour flight from Australia to Johannesburg last Monday when there was the kind of coup that wasn't. And the day started with Keir Starmer as prime minister and the day ended when I landed. There was no Wi-Fi on the plane and he was still prime minister. Nothing had changed except everything had changed. And it was just this kind of whole. There was a coup. It was breathless. He was going. There was going to who was going to rise up. And then the cabinet comes out and says, we support him.

18:15And it all went away again, all in the space of one flight. You think this is a bit kind of everything is moving too fast. Just everyone take a breath. We'll be back in a moment.

18:48that matters from the UK and around the world and why it matters to you. Listen on our free Global Player app or the LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation. When people turn to healthcare for weight loss, they're looking for real support. That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com. Orderly Meds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzepatide. No guessing, just a more supportive experience. And all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research. Ask questions. Then visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer.

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19:35The news agents. No, I don't have confidence in her. She hasn't got any sort of accountability there at the DOJ. When I asked her specifically who redacted Leslie Wexner's name from the one document that mattered, she couldn't give me an answer. She wouldn't give me an answer. But ultimately, it's her who was responsible for the document production, according to our law, the attorney general. It's not Todd Blanton. That is Thomas Massey. He's a Kentucky representative and he is Republican and he is one of the leading voices in Congress in terms of getting the release of the Epstein files. And he has very direct questions right now for the head of the Department of Justice, Pam Bondi, who he says is still sitting on stuff she needs to release.

20:27Now, we think we've got three million or so pieces of information from this latest tranche of the Epstein files. That is half the number that were submitted. There was, I think, six million that they were talking about letting us see in November when the law by Congress was passed to release the Epstein files. And according to some of the reporting that's come out recently, clearly on Channel 4 News, even that is a tiny percentage of what we know overall to be the communications between Epstein and his ring. I mean, his paedophile ring, his consorts over that sort of 30 year period. And what you're seeing now is pressure, political pressure from both sides, which is really critical, I think, here, that is taking the administration to task and saying, don't just give us something and then wash your hands with it.

21:26Tell us what you're going to do now. And even some of the stuff that has been published has been so heavily redacted that you kind of think, well, hang on, I can't make head nor tail of what it is that has come out. And so you've had the ridiculous situation where, you know, the identities of girls, young women now who were sexually abused have been released, which was against the law because they were protected in law from having their identities revealed. Whereas some billionaires have had their names covered up. So the whole process has been a mess. And Pam Bondi, her Valentine's Day present to America, was to say, that's it.

22:08No more. That's it. We're done now. We've released everything we've got and there was going to be nothing more released. We're drawing a line under it. And you know this administration didn't want the files released in the first place. Congress then overruled the president and said, screw you. We've got to release these to the public. Now we've got Pam Bondi saying you've had everything you're going to get. And it's not satisfying anyone. And the other thing that Pam Bondi did, which was just extraordinary, was to publish a list of famous names of people whose names appear in the Epstein files, whether they were relevant or not.

22:40So, for example, the singer Janis Joplin, who died of a heroin overdose, her name is in the Epstein files. Epstein was like 16 when Janis Joplin died. She played no role in any of this. But there are certain names. So, for example, Biden's children are named, but none of Donald Trump's children. But Donald Trump's children are named in the files as well. Why hasn't those names been released? Why have others been made public? It smells, it just smells absolutely rotten. It's not a good look for Pam Bondi at the moment, particularly if I take you back to those scenes last week where she was confronted by Epstein survivors and their relatives in Congress who all raised their hands when they were asked by the Democratic representative if they'd managed to get time with Pam Bondi.

23:33Had she responded to any of their requests for meetings or time? And Bondi stood with her back to them as they all said that they had tried and failed to get her to sit down. Now, look, her response is, this is performative. This is theatre. This isn't getting to the bottom of things. And frankly, I think she'd have a point. I mean, the thing was staged. I think she'd have a point in saying that if it didn't look as though she was trying at every possible moment to stop the truth getting out. So when you hear from her deputy, Blanche, Tom Blanche, that there is no real impetus to start digging up more details and looking for more prosecutions, you kind of have your head on your hands and you're thinking, why not?

24:26every reporter, every journalist and many members of the public are right now sifting through these files and saying well that doesn't look good, are they calling him in for questioning? Well that doesn't look great, have they called her in for questioning? Why isn't the Department of Justice having that same gut response to what we're all reading? Why aren't they sitting there saying this stuff is appalling, right? We don't want to be on the side of a paedophile cover-up. We don't want to be on the side of a paedophile ring conspiracy. Why are we getting to the bottom of this? And this was the point, actually, that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was giving a speech in Berlin, raised just this weekend.

25:09It's just shocking to see all of this, and we cannot let it go, and we cannot allow them to desensitize us to this. It does not surprise me that the same authors of the quote-unquote anti-cancel culture movement, right, all of these people who have been trying to tell us that basic humanity and upholding standards of dignity is cancel culture, it's not surprising to me that they say, oh, you can't speak out against this or that. You can't hold that person accountable because it's cancel culture. Now, I'm sure they don't want us to hold pedophilia accountable, and they think having an anti-pedophilia stance would be cancel culture.