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Daily Telegraph
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EDITOR'S PICK
Morning from the Editor-in-Chief, William Cash
The Naked and the (nearly) Dead
Sir Olly Robbins’ unflinching testimony to the Commons on Tuesday was like a mucking out of the Downing Street stables. After the hosing down, Keir Starmer was left naked and exposed, only his head and glasses above the ground as if awaiting decapitation. Thumbs up or thumbs down? The mocking laughter and roars from all sides of the Commons this week – Diane Abbott and Emily Thornberry put in bravado knife-twisting performances – suggest that Starmer’s time may be up. A flogging in PMQs on Wednesday only made matters worse, with Starmer refusing to deny No 10 offered his former spin doctor Matthew Doyle an ambassador role.
And yet… the only problem is that with the 7 May elections looming and Labour looking likely to be wiped out in Wales, no serious leadership contender wants to become the new Caesar – for now.
The Telegraph’s exclusive poll on 15 April showed Labour losing control of Wales for the first time since devolution, with Plaid Cymru emerging as the winner and Reform beating Labour into second place. This would reshape the UK political landscape and destroy Labour, with the Red Wall collapsing faster than the Berlin Wall in 1989. The loss of several major Labour-stronghold councils for the first time since the economic recession of the 1970s cannot be put down to another global oil crisis.
Which pretender to the throne – Andy Burnham is not even an MP and Angela Rayner’s tax probe is ongoing – would choose to pick up the pieces after this voter rout? My own view is that the post-elections fall-out is going to be so bad that no one will want to take the rap as new leader. I don’t believe Starmer will be out before summer, so that Labour can anoint his successor in the autumn. But the real plotting has begun in earnest with each candidate using the May elections and media appearances as an unofficial national hustings.
Timing is all in politics, especially when you’re trying to seize the crown. This week’s theatrics have not only been about the Whitehall/Downing Street blame game. It’s also a reminder that betrayal, as much as blame, lies at the dark heart of British politics, and is often the real catalyst of a leader’s downfall.
Infamy, infamy – they’ve all got it in for me
Some things in politics never change, which makes the Westminster stage – and its scaffolding – so intoxicating as political theatre. Writing in his diary entry for 29 October 1980, Tory MP Alan Clark summed up the Machiavellian appeal of his political vocation as an MP in his Pepysian style:
What a rich, varied and exciting world politics is for those who are addicted to it. And how inextricably woven are the different strands of greed, ambition, cowardice and idealism. No one's motives are pure; certainly not mine.
Treachery and self-interest are all part of the game. Michael Gove’s character assassination of Boris Johnson on 30 June 2016 – entering the leadership race himself and Johnson, in an anguished hour, going from party favourite to non-starter – was Shakespearean in its ruthlessness.
Which brings me back to Sir Olly Robbins’ brutal dismantling of the prime minister in the vetting scandal that got him fired. If Starmer finds himself buried by the Mandelson saga, obituarists will note how Whitehall abandoned the PM and also how the civil service struck back.
The reason the former Foreign Office mandarin was so effective on Tuesday, lobbing several grenades – the Daily Mail used the phrase “smoking bazooka” – at No 10’s version of events is because top civil servants have become tired of being thrown under the bus. As our new Westminster and Whitehall reporter Lucy Carrier-Pilkington writes, the casualty list is long and the civil service has every right to be aggrieved for the political scapegoating and series of anti-Whitehall ‘leaks’ when the real issues are incompetence and naked political survival.
The truth is that the Olly Robbins sacking is the latest example of a cornered government pinning responsibility on civil servants for issues of its own making. Robbins said that the prime minister had a “dangerous misunderstanding” of the official vetting process and added that his office had been under “constant pressure” from No 10 to speed up Mandelson’s appointment. The idea that Starmer was naively unaware of the pressure being put on the Foreign Office is absurd, not least because Starmer’s former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, reportedly ordered the Foreign Office to “just f---ing approve” the appointment.
Dangling Man
There were 162 questions asked during Tuesday’s hearing. We were most intrigued by this one: Why did Sir Philip Barton, Robbins’ predecessor as permanent under-secretary of the Foreign Office, leave his role some eight months earlier than expected? The question was asked by Richard Foord, the Lib Dem MP, who said he was “curious to know” why Sir Philip left so abruptly.
The question was loaded. Was the real reason Barton collected his carriage clock early because he had opposed the appointment of Lord Mandelson as British ambassador to the USA, which wouldn’t fly with No 10? And did this duly lead to Robbins being fast-tracked into his role with a tacit understanding that he wouldn’t get in the way of Mandy’s appointment?
When put on the spot, Robbins wouldn’t say why Sir Philip’s tenure was cut short by eight months other than to say that the powers above thought it may be “time for a change”. That phrase may well turn out to be the takeaway of the week as Starmer, with each day that passes, more alone as ministers anonymously brief against him and the betrayal machine grinds on.
As Starmer clings on with increasing desperation, loyally dangling at his side is Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the PM. You can read our Mace Cabinet profile of Jones, Starmer’s Downing Street enforcer, here, as well as his Mace Questionnaire where he reveals that his favourite song is D:Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better”. Let’s face it, they can’t get much worse.
Fix the broken Lobbying Act
Further to our recent op-ed piece by Alastair McCapra, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), calling for lobby industry reform, new polling information of 250 public affairs professionals has just landed in my inbox that makes it clear that there is majority backing for radical reform of lobbying rules to make the profession more transparent, with tighter and tougher controls.
Nearly two-thirds of lobbyists canvassed had reservations that the current lobby reporting regime was able to “identify and act upon breaches”, with 81% noting the impact on public trust in politics.
“It’s clear from our survey that the lobbying industry speaks with one voice when it says that the 2014 Lobbying Act is fundamentally broken and needs to be overhauled” is McCapra’s damning conclusion in the CIPR’s latest research published yesterday.
The poll of 250 public affairs professionals comes as the government has instructed the Ethics and Integrity Commission to review lobbying rules in the aftermath of the Mandelson affair, which also saw his corporate advisory lobby firm Global Counsel fold almost overnight as a result of toxic Epstein emails. Conducted by Opinium, the poll reveals that 66% of lobbyists support expanding the lobbying register to include both consultant and in-house lobbyists.
The report discloses what has long been a thorn in the side of the industry. Namely, that under the 2014 Lobbying Act, only consultant lobbyists (ie, agencies) are required to disclose their correspondence with ministers and permanent secretaries. With in-house lobbyists exempt, the register – intended to let the public see who is seeking to influence whom – is estimated to capture fewer than 4% of lobbying activity. Businesses not registered for VAT and those that can show lobbying is only a small, incidental part of their activities are also exempt (meaning that management consultancies and law firms consider themselves outside the remit).
This means that vast amounts of correspondence and communication with MPs, special advisers, lords and other senior civil servants – including the sort of correspondence that lies at the heart of the Mandelson files – is not available to the public or media.
The new CIPR poll reveals that:
• 80% of lobbyists believe correspondence with MPs should be captured, rising to 84% for the Lords
• The poll also revealed support for capturing the lobbying of director generals (civil service) (76%); directors (civil service) (80%); spads (76%); opposition leaders (81%); members of the shadow front bench (80%); Select Committee chairs (78%); APPG chairs (79%)
• 72% believe that expanding the registration and transparency requirements would be proportionate
Almost two-thirds (63%) of lobbyists lack confidence that, under the current regime, breaches of lobbying rules will be identified and acted upon. These figures build upon previous research published by the CIPR, which found that the six key exemptions in the Lobbying Act ensured that fewer than 4% of investigations into suspected unregistered lobbying resulted in a civil penalty being imposed.
CIPR CEO Alastair McCapra says: “When the Act was being hammered out under the coalition government, it was blindingly obvious that it simply wouldn’t work. The Act isn’t so much undermined by the odd clause here, or a strange bit of wording there, but is a total failure of design. There are six key exemptions baked into the text – everything from not being registered for VAT through to being able to show lobbying is only a small part of your business – that conspire to keep the overwhelming majority of lobbying off the register and out of public view.
“The Act only applies to consultant lobbyists, meaning the many thousands that work in-house, be it at banks, law firms or charities, are able to fire off as many messages to Ministers as they like with no obligation to sign. There is no ability to log correspondence with various civil servants, MPs or spads. The Lobbying Act fails to shine even a little light on the unillumined corridors of power.
“To put it another way, Westminster – supposedly the mother of all Parliaments – has the least transparent lobbying regime in the West, which is a cause for national shame. What we need isn’t a register that captures a small number of lobbyists, but a register of lobbying activity. We need to ensure that it captures correspondence with spads and civil servants, not simply ministers and permanent secretaries.
“If a decade-long string of scandals weren’t enough, the events of this year alone have built an unanswerable case for reforming the Lobbying Act. If we want to rebuild public confidence in the political system, which has been repeatedly rocked, we need to start with lobbying. This government claims that sunlight is the best disinfectant, so it’s beyond time it pulled back the blinds.”
The research has been published as part of the CIPR’s Lobbying for Good Lobbying Campaign, which seeks to overhaul Westminster’s lobbying laws. To improve public confidence in politics, which 81% of lobbyists say has been impacted by recent lobbying scandals, the CIPR is calling for:
• A register of all lobbying activity that includes in-house lobbying as well as consultant lobbying
• The lobbying of special advisers and senior civil servants to be included in the register
• The removal of the VAT exemption and the incidental lobbying exemption
The Opinium Research poll was conducted online with 250 public affairs professionals in the UK between 10-13April 2026.
Anyone for lunch?
On Tuesday 26 May, we are launching our new series of cross-party “Meet the Public Affairs Team” lunches and breakfasts. We are hosting events with the public affairs teams of major companies and political parties, and we start with a business leaders’ lunch at an SW1 private members’ club to meet Reform UK’s public affairs team.
This special Business Leaders’ Engagement Lunch will be an opportunity to meet Matthew MacKinnon, director of external affairs at Reform UK, and other senior members of the public affairs team.
The three-course lunch is a chance for public affairs leaders, policy makers and think-tank heads to hear about Reform’s plan to engage with British business and find out more about Reform’s pre-conference Business Day and Business Dinner at the Birmingham NEC on 3 September. The lunch will be Chatham House Rule and will include presentations from key members of the Reform team.
Linking Up
Another event for your diary is our Political Business Leaders Summer Lunch on Wednesday 10 June at the UnHerd Club in Westminster with special guest speakers Jann Schwarz, Senior Director of Thought Leadership and Strategy at LinkedIn, and his UK-based colleague Mimi Turner, Head of Marketplace Innovation. Jann attended Harvard Business School and is flying in from New York for our event at which he will speak on “The corporate value of corporate reputation in an AI age”, as well as telling the story of how LinkedIn has transformed the world of corporate communication and networking.
Book now. Invitations for the three-course lunch, including wine, are extended to all Mace subscribers and corporate members. At £125 per head, including lashings of Provence rose, seats are flying. We are also offering an opportunity for a corporate sponsor to headline-sponsor the VIP lunch and invite a table of six guests.
Please email wendy.coumantaros@macemagazine.com for more information about both events and invitations.
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Forty years after the Big Bang, the City cannot write its own rules, says Mick McAteer. Read more >
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Editor's Note: You’re receiving this because you’ve appeared in, or been shortlisted for, one of our Westminster Indices – described by the Telegraph as ‘an influential Who’s Who’ of Westminster’; or written for us, come to an event of ours, have connected on social media, or else are on our radar as a Leading Individual working in politics, public affairs and strategic comms today. We did write to everybody and thanks for all the positive feedback.
Credits: copy editor Piers Martin, digital editor Oliver Dean, associate publisher Wendy Coumantaros, captain of IT Dan Colburn Smith, designer Cath Mackenzie, managing editor Emelia Wild and editorial assistant Madeline Dabbah.
