‘The in-house magazine of the public affairs industry’
Daily Telegraph
Introduced by
EDITOR'S PICK
Good morning from William Cash, the Mace Editor-in-chief
Checkmate’s smart London move
On Tuesday, as London sweltered, The Mace hosted our first “Meet the Political Party Team” private speaker lunch for 22 public affairs senior team members, ranging from AstraZeneca to Aviva. We plan to host similar events over the next six months for all political party senior teams – which is now as many as five – to meet with figures across major company in-house government affairs teams, agencies and trade bodies.
Our first private lunch, in the closed-off dining room of an old-fashioned St James’s club, was an opportunity for public affairs leaders to be introduced to Matthew MacKinnon, head of external affairs at Reform UK, along with senior members of his team, including Henry Deedes, who, as the Daily Mail’s political sketch writer, we profiled in Mace five years ago in our lobby journalist slot, The Spike.
With the mercury nudging 34 degrees, we lost just two guests in the morning on account of the club’s strict dress code. One notable arrival who was certainly not put off by the tropical heat, resplendent in a smart Savile Row suit and tie after a meeting in Westminster, was Tristan Breijer.
He has been busy in the last month or so – with some help from Coulson Partners – setting up a new London office for Checkmate Government Relations, the leading Washington DC-based public affairs agency founded by Charles “Ches” F. McDowell IV, friend of the Trump family and MAGA insider, who has been described by the Wall Street Journal as "Washington's hottest new lobbyist”.
Due to McDowell’s unparalleled access to the Trump administration and connections to the Donald’s inner circle (“I speak Trump,” he told me in an exclusive interview we are running in our summer issue), McDowell has also been listed in the Washington Post’s recent special report on the US’s top 50 influencers “Shaping Our Society in 2026”.
MAGA Man in Full
McDowell is a personal friend of Don Trump Jr – both are keen hunter sportsmen. Their friendship – the relationship is strictly personal, not political – was forged from first going bear-hunting together in North Carolina in a three-day adventure straight out of Tom Wolfe’s novel A Man in Full. They now own a southern hunting estate together.
That Checkmate Government Relations has chosen London to be its fourth new global office, run by Breijer – who has lived much of his life in London – is an intriguing and welcome development as it confirms that, for all the talk of the US-UK “special relationship” being on the rocks, the reality is more complex.
Breijer, who will be Checkmate’s “Senior Advisor, UK and EU”, has extensive experience at Westminster, the European Parliament and UN convention processes, and is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Checkmate’s latest move suggests that Britain and America still enjoy strong trade and tech ties, especially in sectors like defence. At our speaker lunch, Breijer made it clear there were plenty of unmined “foreign investment” opportunities into the UK that Checkmate could help facilitate.
Political games without frontiers
The move into London for Checkmate gives the US lobby firm its first European base, bringing its global power-broking network – it has offices in Asia, the Middle-East and Latin America – to the “heart of European and multilateral policymaking”. Breijer and his team – I hear they are looking to make some key hires, including a former minister – will serve clients and companies across the UK as well as being a gateway into the EU and other “international multilateral institutions”.
The new London office will offer the firm's full range of services, including public affairs, government relations, regulatory strategy, political intelligence, and crisis and reputation counsel.
The opening of the London office is just the latest bold step for McDowell, who tells me that, like Trump, his family has Scottish roots and that he is an avowed Anglophile, despite never having stepped foot in the Houses of Parliament or spent much time in London. But don’t think McDowell’s lack of hands-on Westminster lobby experience, or his comparative young age of 36, is going to be any sort of obstacle to Checkmate making a seismic impact across government affairs.
“Our clients operate in an increasingly complex international environment, and they need a firm that can move with them across the globe,” says McDowell. “The London office completes our transatlantic platform and gives us the European and multilateral presence our clients have been asking for. No problem is too big or too complex for Checkmate to solve.”
Founded just three years ago, Checkmate is one of the fastest-growing political lobby firms in the world, with more than 100 clients across healthcare, financial services, defence, energy, technology, pharmaceuticals and professional sports, including Binance, the government of Panama, Reliance Industries, UPS, the NFL and Salesforce.
“London is one of the world’s foremost centres for international diplomacy, finance and regulatory policymaking,” says Breijer. “Our new office gives Checkmate clients direct access to decision-makers at Westminster, in the European institutions, and across the multilateral bodies that shape global policy – combining that reach with the firm’s unparalleled relationships in Washington.”
“Companies and governments are navigating a more intricate political and regulatory environment than at any point in recent memory” he adds. “UK and European clients increasingly need partners who can deliver joined-up strategies across multiple jurisdictions; not least in Washington, where Checkmate has built an unmatched operation in a remarkably short space of time. I am delighted to be opening that capability in London and look forward to working with clients who need clarity, access and results.”
To be strictly accurate, Breijer has not yet moved into a new London office yet as he is still looking for the right space. But he can be found most days operating out of a leather armchair and desk in the Carlton Club in St James’s which he is using as temporary corporate digs. Nice bar and canteen as well.
Down and out in Brussels
Our Brussels diarist, Konstantinos Bogdanos, has written an excellent column on how the bills for Europe’s elite political class are finally coming due in a city where the Belgian middle-class can't afford to eat out any more.
Judging from the tone of his diary, the mood in Brussels is far from economically optimistic, with the humid and swamp-like weather offering little release for a city now “suffocating under its own bureaucracy”. The shadow of the war against Iran now hangs over everything, plunging the European Quarter into what Bogdanos diagnoses as a “profound sense of global instability”.
This conflict has triggered a new EU energy shock, reducing to dust any remaining hope of an economic recovery. With inflation spiking, the Commission’s newly released Spring Economic Forecast has slashed growth projections to near zero.
Our correspondent reports that down at Place Flagey, the local bistros are half-empty, as the cost of living crisis has hit Brussels professionals and lesser-ranked Eurocrats who are thinking twice about even eating out these days. “Even the local pittas along the Rue de la Loge are becoming too expensive for students, as the cost of basic ingredients continues to soar,” he laments.
Belgian blues
The mood in the smoky bars around Rond-Point Schuman is no better among the diplomatic corps. For over four years, Brussels has rehearsed the same rhetoric about standing with Ukraine, but the reality on the ground can no longer be ignored. Leaked cables circulating through the European External Action Service on Rue de la Loi reveal deep panic over a crumbling front line in the Donbas. “We are trapped in a war of attrition we have no capacity to win, precisely at the moment Washington is openly shifting its focus toward the Middle East.”
Meanwhile, Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius walks the corridors talking about a “European Defence Union” by 2030, but his grand speeches are “treated as a joke” by realist observers. Across the street in the Justus Lipsius building, Bogdanos notes, national diplomats are quietly killing off any attempts at unified procurement, preferring to shield domestic defence companies rather than build a genuine European force. On the rain-slicked platforms of the Brussels-Luxembourg station below, weary officials catch trains back to their national capitals, whispering about a dangerous post-Nato world.
The “total failure of European leadership” is even more blatant when it comes to the crisis in border control, where things have reached a “breaking point”. Despite the endless “solidarity pacts” discussed ad nauseam at the European Parliament on Rue Wiertz, illegal migration continues to surge across the Mediterranean.
“Brussels technocrats treat this civilisational crisis as a mere administrative math problem,” writes Bogdanos. “They remain completely blind to the reality outside their windows, where the changing demographics of neighbourhoods like Saint-Josse and the Matongé underscore a systematic erosion of Europe’s traditional heritage.
Worse, “freedom of speech” has now become the latest casualty in the defence of the Brussels bubble. Under the guise of fighting disinformation, the EU’s digital controllers are building a massive censorship apparatus to target anyone who questions the official narrative on migration, the climate or the war, warns our correspondent.
Read our Brussels Diary here.
Screen-age kicks
The public consultation on social media came to a close on Tuesday, and Keir Starmer has since committed to take “decisive action” to tackle the impact of social media on children.
Our Westminster reporter, Lucy Carrier-Pilkington, has spoken to various lobby groups about this political hot potato of banning social media. There is far from being any consensus about what is best for those under 16 and the debate is likely to rage on.
The consultation, launched at the beginning of March, investigated whether social media should be banned for children, as well as investigating the effects of gaming, AI chatbot features and night curfews. At the time, technology secretary Liz Kendall said: “We know parents everywhere are grappling with how much screen time their children should have, and when they should give them a phone.”
The consultation received over 80,000 responses from charities, campaign groups and members of the public. In its submission, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges cited the physical and mental health problems caused by watching extreme violence online.
The likelihood is that following the failure of the Australian social media ban to work, with many children under 16 simply faking their age, it seems that the government will fall short of a flat-out ban. The National Head Teachers Union (NAHT) told The Mace: “The risks of the online world will persist and could worsen if any ban is not supported by other measures and robust government action to compel online companies to make their platforms safer.”
They added: “NAHT members have raised concerns about solely focusing on a ban at the expense of wider safety measures and restrictions, highlighting that it could create a false sense of safety while pushing children into less regulated online spaces.”
What government should do about the social media and smart phone/screen addiction problem affecting millions of children is a tough call. Lobby interests on either side of the debate are fighting hard to try and sway politicians, with Reform, for example, being against any ban in the name of “freedom of speech”.
The Great Switcheroff ?
As somebody with two children, aged 10 and 9, both often to be found during this half-term under the duvet covers glued to some device, can I make a parental contribution to the debate? Simply turn off the house internet router for most of the day. This can be done by investing in a cheap digital timer plug so that everyone can enjoy being free of any form of digital access for most of the day.
If you want the best – and most terrifying – analysis about the dangers of screen addiction, read the brutally candid and insightful recent piece by Sam Leith, the Spectator’s literary editor, about how television doesn’t ruin childhood these days but screens and phones will.
Read Lucy’s full report into the social media ban controversy.
William.cash@macemagazine.com
The Advocate
Jessica Lennard, Head of External Affairs, Competition and Markets Authority – ‘I’m an obsessive starter finisher”. Read more >
Leader in UK Public Affairs
Nick Laitner, Senior MD, Teneo: “Money doesn’t buy influence”. Read more >
From the Archive
Back in 2020, The Mace dared to wonder what Downing Street policy would be like if Siân Berry, co-leader of the Green Party, had been handed the keys to No 10 rather than Boris Johnson. Read more >
Join the community shaping British politics - including public affairs teams at leading companies, political consultants, trade associations, think-tanks and polling.
Stay ahead of what’s really happening in UK public affairs, with expert analysis, breaking news, and insider insights from Westminster and Brussels.
Subscribe to The Mace at a special 30 % discount as a newsletter subscriber. Please email wendy.coumantaros@macemagazine.com.
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.
