The election watchdog faces calls to investigate Facebook ads about the government’s controversial Towns Fund targeted at key marginal seats in 2019.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

HuffPost UK revealed last year that the government paid for more than 20 ads in swing seats trumpeting £25m investment in “your town”.

The messages, which could still be found on the site when MPs backed an early general election in October, all appeared to be specifically targeted at areas where the sitting MP had a majority below 5,000, such as Milton Keynes, Morley and Workington. 

Facebook pulled the ads after they were highlighted, saying they were not correctly labelled.

“Ads about social issues, elections or politics that appear on our platforms should include a disclaimer provided by advertisers,” a spokesman for the site said. 

Now, Labour has written to the Electoral Commission asking the body to “investigate the circumstances of this alleged misuse of public funds”. 

It follows fresh questions for communities secretary Robert Jenrick, whose Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government runs the scheme, who has repeatedly been called to parliament to answer questions about whether the fund was used to “funnel” cash to target seats.

The government has insisted the process “comprehensive, robust and fair” but a highly critical report by the Public Accounts Committee said the fund was “not impartial” and ministers ignored officials’ advice. 

Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said the system gave “every appearance of having been politically motivated”.

MPs also said some towns were picked by ministers, including Jenrick’s own Newark constituency, “despite being identified by officials as the very lowest priority”.

Cat Smith, shadow minister, has written to Bob Posner, chief executive of the Electoral Commission.

In the letter, seen by HuffPost UK, she says: “On the cusp of a general election, this sort of targeted advertising is clearly inappropriate when paid for out of the public purse.

“This is a clear case of public money being used to advance the political interest of the Conservative Party.

“In light of the recent Towns Fund scandal, we know that taxpayers’ money has been used to benefit the Conservative Party.”

She adds: “In a time of increasing disregard for democratic processes and norms worldwide, it is vital that the UK government is held to the highest democratic standards and acts both legally and transparently.

“I would urge the Electoral Commission to investigate the circumstances of this alleged misuse of public funds, and to report on its findings publicly as soon as possible.

“Ministers must answer these questions and reassure the public that taxpayers’ cash is not being spent by the Conservatives for their own gain.”

When approached the government about the Facebook ads last year, a spokesman said “all towns selected were chosen according to the same selection methodology, including analysis of deprivation, productivity, economy resilience and investment opportunities”.

It said that the ad campaign ended before the official election campaign started, even though posts could still be found.

They said: “The My Town campaign began on 25 October and has now ended in the run up to the pre-election period. While the posts are still be present on Facebook, they are no longer being promoted as the paid-for campaign has ended.”

Figures have shown that the number of people in Devon claiming Universal Credit almost doubled since the start of the coronavirus lockdown.

Colleen Smith www.devonlive.com 

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The figure rose by 95 per cent from 48,190 claimants in March to 93,917 in October. The latest provisional figures from the Department of Work and Pensions have revealed the devastating impact of the pandemic on incomes in the county.

It means one in eight people of working age – from 16 to 64 – are now on Universal Credit. The figure ranges from 10% in places like Exeter and West Devon, to 18% in Torbay.

Sara Willcocks, head of external affairs at Turn2us, said: “These new Universal Credit figures clearly show the pandemic’s profound and devastating impact on people’s income, employment and how close to the cliff edge many of us are – even prior to the first lockdown.

“Recent government schemes have protected some people from the economic consequences of the pandemic, yet there’s more that needs to be done.

“A Universal Credit system that is fit for purpose would do much to help people recover and to loosen poverty’s grip.

“If this government truly wants to stop people from being pulled into homelessness, hunger and debt, we urge them to increase to the child element of Universal Credit, maintain the increase to Local Housing Allowance rates and urgently review policies like the Benefit Cap and Two-child Limit.”

Nationally, there were 5.7 million people across Great Britain claiming Universal Credit as of October. That was nearly double the 3.0 million claimants in March.

Area	% on UC	January	October
Torbay	18%	6,235	13,707
Plymouth	16%	14,945	26,947
North Devon	14%	3,475	7,889
Torridge	14%	2,488	5,228
Teignbridge	12%	3,786	9,060
Mid Devon	12%	2,263	5,250
South Hams	11%	2,118	5,296
East Devon	11%	3,539	8,528
West Devon	10%	1,361	3,276
Exeter	10%	3,605	8,736

A government spokesperson said: “We are wholly committed to supporting the lowest paid families and our policies, in particular those related to the pandemic, are under constant review.”
They added that they have recently confirmed the £20 UC uplift will remain in place until March 2021, and that they have already taken steps to help ease the burden of UC debt repayments, including reducing the maximum deduction from 40% to 30% of a claimant’s standard allowance.
From October 2021 they will reduce this further to 25%, and will double the time available to repay an advance to 24 months.

The table above shows that while Torbay has the highest percentage of people of working age claiming Universal Credit – other areas are seeing a fast rise, with figures more than doubling this year in many other parts of the county.

Hidden Devon

Devon Live has launched Hidden Devon, a series of campaigns highlighting issues that lie beneath the surface of our county.

The first concerns the issue of homelessness in the county’s cities, towns and villages – exacerbated by the grim impact of the global pandemic.

Not only do scores of people sleep rough on streets, in parks and even on farmland, there are those labelled ‘of no fixed abode’ for other reasons. They may have fled to a refuge, they may have been temporarily housed in a bed and breakfast or they may simply be living in one of region’s dedicated homeless hostels.

How to give

A big part of our campaign is recognising the institutions across the region that are desperately trying to help those in need. In many instances, they are staffed with volunteers giving up their own free time.

You can donate to various charities including PATH Torbay via this link, the Julian House Christmas Appeal covering Exeter and other parts of Devon via this link, or St Petrocks in Exeter via this link.

Are you a charity that would benefit from our fundraising? Contact us at newsdesk@devonlive.com

Find more Hidden Devon stories here

The UK and its “spider‘s web” of overseas territories are responsible for more than a third of global tax avoidance each year, a study has found.

Ben Chapman www.independent.co.uk

Abuse of the tax system by multinational firms and wealthy individuals deprived countries of $427bn (£321bn) for hospitals, nurses, schools and other public services last year, according to advocacy group the Tax Justice Network. Of that figure, more than $160bn was facilitated by the UK and its territories and dependencies.

As coronavirus claims hundreds of thousands of lives and causes governments across the globe to spend trillions of dollars to support their citizens, the research gives the clearest picture yet of the damage wrought by those who funnel profits into tax havens and stash wealth offshore.

TJN analysed the first detailed, international set of data reported by companies showing where they avoid tax.

It calculated that Europe lost the equivalent of one-eighth of its health budget to tax dodging last year.

While wealthy countries are responsible for 98 per cent of tax avoidance, less wealthy ones bear the brunt of the impact. Latin America and Africa lost the equivalent of a fifth and half of their respective health spending, TJN calculated.

Lower-income countries lose the equivalent of 5.8 per cent of the total tax revenue they typically collect a year whereas higher income countries on average lose 2.5 per cent.

The UK maintains its position at the top of the list of jurisdictions helping firms shift vast sums of money away from public  investment and services.

The Cayman Islands – a British Overseas Territory of just 65,000 people – helped multinational companies and individuals avoid paying $70bn, or one dollar in every six that countries are deprived of each year.  

The UK itself, which provides world-beating tax avoidance advice through City of London banks, trust lawyers and accountants is second on the list, responsible for $42bn of tax losses. Together, the UK and Cayman facilitate more than a quarter of the booming tax avoidance industry.

Since the 1950s, when the UK helped to create the world’s tax haven network, ministers have claimed that they have little control over territories like Cayman.  However, the UK has power to veto laws and appoint key government officials, and is also responsible for the island’s defence and international relations.

The Netherlands is the third most damaging country for the global tax system, responsible for $36bn of losses annually. Luxembourg and the US make up the top five, responsible for £28bn and  £24bn respectively. Jersey, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands make the top 20, alongside China, Singapore, Ireland and Hong Kong.

Globally, more than half of tax losses – $245bn – resulted from companies shifting $1.38 trillion of profits out of the countries where they were generated into jurisdictions where they pay little or no tax.

The rest was from individuals avoiding tax by holding $10 trillion of assets offshore. The amount held in secretive, low-tax countries is roughly equivalent to five years of the entire economic output of every person in the UK.

“A global tax system that loses over $427bn a year is not a broken system, it’s a system programmed to fail,” said Alex Cobham, TJN’s chief executive.

“Under pressure from corporate giants and tax haven powers like the Netherlands and the UK’s network, our governments have programmed the global tax system to prioritise the desires of the wealthiest corporations and individuals over the needs of everybody else.  

“The pandemic has exposed the grave cost of turning tax policy into a tool for indulging tax abusers instead of for protecting people’s wellbeing.

“Now more than ever we must reprogramme our global tax system to prioritise people’s health and livelihoods over the desires of those bent on not paying tax.”

TJN is calling on governments to introduce an excess profits tax to recoup money from multinationals that have “short-changed” countries for years.

Those companies that have seen their profits soar while local businesses have been forced to shutdown should be targeted first, TJN said.

“A wealth tax alongside this would ensure that those with the broadest shoulders contribute as they should at this critical time,” Mr Cobham said.

Rosa Pavanelli, general secretary at Public Services International, said: “The reason frontline health workers face missing PPE and brutal under-staffing is because our governments spent decades pursuing austerity and privatisation while enabling corporate tax abuse.  

“For many workers, seeing these same politicians now ‘clapping’ for them is an insult. Growing public anger must be channelled into real action: making corporations and the mega rich finally pay their fair share to build back better public services.”

Boris Johnson was probably right to kick off a much-needed conversation about devolution of power last week, even if the manner of doing so – saying it had been a disaster in Scotland – was for many Tories the kind of quip the head-exploding emoji 🤯 was invented for.

Sam Coates news.sky.com 

In fairness to the PM, you need to highlight this subject in an eye-catching way because it is so immensely dull and complex.

Any question to which well-meaning people can then suggest the answer is a “constitutional convention” (Google it and you’ll wish you hadn’t) is often better not asked in the first place. Devolution in all its forms is a mess – precisely because it is just so boring and complex to sort out.

The coronavirus pandemic has driven home in Westminster what has been obvious in Manchester, Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Birmingham – most places outside of London in fact: That devolution of power is a serious business, and has involved the transfer of serious powers.

Every bit of local regional and national government has had to step up to the plate to deal with the effects of COVID-19, causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Downing Street.

It is presumably no coincidence that London mayoralty has some of the weakest powers of any devolution deal. City Hall and its bully pulpit alone were the travellator which took Mr Johnson from backbench obscurity to Downing Street.

Image: The mayoralty took Boris Johnson from backbench obscurity to Number 10

Westminster was, and is, vaguely in favour of the devolution of power, but cannot decide where and how decisions should be made, and ministers always have an aversion to anything that looks or smells like an alternative powerbase.

So it’s all inconsistent: the devolution settlement with Edinburgh is different to the one with Cardiff (the scale of tax-raising powers in the former being the biggest difference). Northern Ireland operates without directly elected government for years at a time.

Meanwhile in England each “City Deal” is different: NHS spending is devolved to the 10 councils in the Greater Manchester region, but not in Birmingham. Some areas are without mayors altogether, and after the PM’s row with Andy Burnham last month, they seem likely to stay that way.

The uncertain attitude to devolution was captured by Mr Johnson rather brilliantly in his speech to Tory Scottish conference.

“Devolution should be used not by politicians as a wall to sequester, to break away, an area of the UK from the rest,” Mr Johnson said.

“It should be used as a step to pass power to local communities and businesses to make their lives better. It’s that kind of localism which I believe in and want to take further.”

It’s entirely ambiguous who these “local communities” are – be they councils, regional authorities or mayors. He won’t tell us where power should be devolved to. Maybe he doesn’t know.

The Tory answer seems to be putting Union Jacks on everything. Labour’s answer looks like it will be a constitutional convention. Neither answer will go down well with those trying to run services across the country.

Nobody captured this ambiguity better than George Osborne, whose messy legacy Rishi Sunak must now decide whether to clear up. For some he is the champion of the Northern Powerhouse – he oversaw the “City Deals” and was in office when more powers were handed to Scotland.

Yet he was also the chancellor who put an extraordinary squeeze on council day-to-day spending. A breakdown by the Financial Times of council spending between 2010 and 2015 revealed that local government budgets cut by £18bn in real terms.

This trend accelerated. The House of Commons library says this year’s local government finance settlement leaves most authorities “well below” the level of funding that they were receiving in 2015.

Mr Osborne raided local authority budgets with impunity because he knew there was very unlikely to be political repercussions in parliament, unlike squeezing the education and welfare budgets which both came to his cost.

This legacy, on top of present day problems, is unsettling leaders of Tory councils in Conservative heartlands.

Keith Mans, the Tory leader of Hampshire council, told me that he wished his party had been more concerned with local government. Now they want sums which sound eye-watering.

“We would expect with the annual funding round going on at the moment to expect at least the same increase as the health service is getting because our increase in demand is very similar,” Mr Mans said, adding: “The NHS has got £30bn more. Local government has got £20bn less.”

There are similar views from the Tory leader of Leicester Council Council, who said the government made a promise at the start of the pandemic it now looks in danger of breaking.

“When we first started off with the coronavirus – the government said whatever it takes, and I took that to mean that whatever we spent would be covered by grant,” said Nicholas Rushton.

“They have been relatively generous but they’ve possibly only funded 50% of our increased costs. The problems are entirely about money. We need money to carry on what we’re doing.”

He spelt out which services were at risk. “20% of our budget is spent on things that people appreciate that isn’t protected (in law so could be cut). Subsidising buses isn’t protected, filling potholes isn’t protected, cleaning road signs not protected, repainting markings, not protected. Libraries are not protected. We need money to ensure we can provide 20% of services unprotected by statute.”

There are two fronts when it comes to fighting coronavirus – one for national government, the other local councils.

But council leaders are worried that they don’t have the same megaphone or the same representation round the cabinet table, as, say, the Department of Health, which the Treasury confirmed on Sunday would get £3bn more in the spending review.

Mr Sunak was once a local government minister, but budgets are tight, and the reason Mr Osborne was able to squeeze local authority budgets was because it came with no political cost to the Tories in Westminster. So the dilemma continues.

For ministers, local councils are often seen as a cost centre. For voters, an everyday lifeline. Will the pandemic mean warnings are heeded this time?

I live in Frome in Somerset – where, in 2011, a town council with an annual budget of about £1m was wrested from the Tories and Lib Dems. A new group of self-styled independents began running things, with an accent on participation, sustainability, community wellbeing, and the rejection of traditional party politics. The same basic idea has now spread to about 15 other places: its name, coined by an inspirational councillor called Peter Macfadyen, is “flatpack democracy”.

John Harris www.theguardian.com 

About eight months ago, a fascinating social change began to ripple through hundreds of British neighbourhoods. Given the deluge of news that has happened since, it is easy to forget how remarkable it all seemed: droves of volunteers who were gripped by community spirit coming together to help deliver food and medicines to their vulnerable neighbours, check on the welfare of people experiencing poverty and loneliness, and much more besides. From a diverse range of places all over the country, the same essential message came through: the state was either absent or unreliable, so people were having to do things for themselves.

A couple of tantalising questions were triggered by all this. Would at least some of the energy and creativity that had been unleashed be sustained beyond the pandemic? And if that happened, might any of the people involved shift their attention to politics? Unfortunately, before any answers started to become clear, the end of the first lockdown saw many local efforts apparently being wound down or fizzling out.

Look closer, though, and it’s clear that in plenty of places, the basic structures of self-help have remained in place. And, in some areas, what seems to have kept the early lockdown spirit intact is the fact that on-the-ground work has been based around town and parish councils that were once barely visible; these are now run by energised community activists who have used recent localism laws to push their work way beyond such staple responsibilities as parks and bus shelters. They’re now blazing a trail for a new kind of ultra-local government.

I live in Frome in Somerset – where, in 2011, a town council with an annual budget of about £1m was wrested from the Tories and Lib Dems. A new group of self-styled independents began running things, with an accent on participation, sustainability, community wellbeing, and the rejection of traditional party politics. The same basic idea has now spread to about 15 other places: its name, coined by an inspirational councillor called Peter Macfadyen, is “flatpack democracy”.

In the first phase of the pandemic, the agile, open way that the town council now works came into its own. The town centre venue previously used for gigs and indoor markets was turned into a bustling food depot. Banners suddenly appeared everywhere, suggesting we all check in on five of our neighbours. Cyclists raced around town dropping off food and prescriptions. This work, which also includes help for local businesses, has carried on; the town council is now thinking hard about how to sustain it beyond the pandemic.

Something similar has happened in Queen’s Park, the London “civil parish” where a new community council held its first elections six years ago, and has dedicatedly worked on helping people through the crisis. But perhaps the most vivid story of all has transpired in Buckfastleigh – a small Devon town on the edge of Dartmoor with high levels of deprivation, and a town council run by a new force called the Buckfastleigh Independent Group, whose prime mover is former civil servant Pam Barrett.

Devon county council, she told me last week, gave the town only £500 for Covid response work during the first lockdown, about 13p per resident. But by that point, the independent-run town council had already directed £20,000 into a relief programme that stretched from supplies of food and medicines, through activity books for local children, to YouTube videos capturing the start of spring for people trapped indoors.

Now, Barrett says, new parents are worrying that their babies are becoming toddlers without having meaningfully socialised with other children, so the council is turning its attention to early-years provision. “We don’t have any public sector in Buckfastleigh any more,” she explains: she and her colleagues are not just filling gaps left by austerity, but basically reinventing local government from the ground up.

There and elsewhere, the key story of the Covid crisis has been that of town and parish councils enabling people to participate in community self-help. But as Macfadyen, Barrett and other flatpackers see it, the next chapter is about moving in the opposite direction, and trying to get people who have been involved in mutual aid to start running the places where they live. As part of the local elections scheduled for May 2021, there will be elections for a huge number of town and parish councils. So, online launch meetings are now being organised to bring people together, and mentors are being put in touch with those who might fancy standing for office. There is an accompanying initiative, partly rooted in the activism around Extinction Rebellion, called Trust the People, which has just started running courses in community organising, grassroots democracy and how to get involved in local decision-making.

These are early, tentative moves. But even in more orthodox parts of politics, you can sense something of the same mood. In the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, the Labour-run council has worked on a new way of collaborating with voluntary and grassroots groups that was a huge help in dealing with the pandemic (as the left-of-centre pressure group Compass put it, “a council working hand in hand with the community unleashed purpose, speed and agility”). From the other side of politics, it is worth reading a recent report by the Tory MP Danny Kruger, commissioned by the government to look at “sustaining the community spirit we saw during lockdown, into the recovery phase and beyond”. Kruger proposes a new Community Power Act, using deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting and citizen assemblies “to create the plural public square we need”.

Last week I spoke to Adam Hawley, a maths teacher who is trying to galvanise people to run for office in Hull, the city that has lately become a byword for the virus and the crisis it has caused. His focus goes beyond the town and parish level, to seats on the city council. Party politics, he says, seems “awful and embarrassing, and just unhelpful at a local level”. He talks about people’s experience of the Covid crisis, and “a sense that our institutions didn’t know how to respond in a very direct, or even human way”.

If the grassroots politics of 2020 can be boiled down to their essence, he says, it’s been “a big increase in the number of people getting involved in where they live, and looking for ways to do more of it”. These sound like simple enough things. But whether we can reshape our systems of power and politics to accommodate them strikes me as one of the key questions of this crisis, and the uncertain, turbulent future to come.

• John Harris is a Guardian columnist

The NHS is heading into winter with the fewest hospital beds in a decade – leaving jam-packed A&Es and patients lined head-to-toe in corridors, came a warning last night.

John Siddle www.mirror.co.uk

New figures show a 13,500 fall in general beds since 2010 as exhausted staff battle unprecedented demand.

The British Medical Association warned: “The NHS needs proper support, now more than ever. Otherwise we face a hard winter like no other.”

Data published this week by NHS England revealed there were just 94,787 general beds in September – down more than 5,500 from 100,370 in 2019.

In 2010 there were 108,349.

It was reported this week that patients in Manchester, including those with Covid, had been kept “head to toe” on trolleys, with some forced to wait 40 hours for a bed.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates the NHS has 10,000 fewer beds than it will need this winter.

Vice-president Dr Adrian Boyle said: “It was bad last year before Covid – people picked up flu, norovirus. It’s doubly dangerous now.”

NHS chiefs say there are fewer beds because of Covid distancing measures.

But critics blame under-investment by successive Conservative governments.

NHS Providers, which represents trusts, warned some hospitals will have 20 per cent less capacity this winter.

Chief executive Chris Hopson said: “We have been arguing for a long time that the NHS is short of beds. One key reason for the gap is the deepest and longest financial squeeze in NHS history we have seen over the last decade.”

The Department for Health and Social Care said it had put £450m towards A&E upgrades, on top of £31.9bn announced in July for health services to cope with the pandemic.

A spokesman insisted: “We are working hard to provide the NHS with everything it needs this winter.”

[Under Covid restrictions should that read: “an elbow bump on the funny-bone away”? – Owl]

John Arlidge www.thetimes.co.uk 

It started with a one-line email that was designed to look casual, almost an after-thought. “Completely unrelated,” wrote David Bass, who was then working for the lobbying and communications firm Bell Pottinger. “Do you have an interest in South African business and politics?” I replied: “Keen but need to know in advance who’s your client(s)?” Bass wrote back: “Probably better if we tell you more over a drink, or lunch.” So began my introduction to the dark world of influence-peddling.

Over a £60 bottle of Nyetimber sparkling wine in the Gilbert Scott bar at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, London, Bass and his colleague Victoria Geoghegan dangled a juicy story: a chance to travel to South Africa to talk to business leaders and politicians for The Sunday Times Magazine. There was only one problem: they would not say who they were working for or why their clients were so keen to open boardroom doors to me, from Pretoria to Cape Town.

“They prefer to remain anonymous,” Bass said. I declined the invitation.

Good job too. Bass and Geoghegan had been hired by the Johannesburg-based business magnates Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta to come up with a plan to distract attention from their corrupt relationship with Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s leader at the time. Bass and Geoghegan aimed to create the impression that the Guptas and Zuma were victims of a smear campaign by racist white business interests who did not wish to see Asian-owned businesses or the ANC government succeed. They recruited business leaders who would spread the — entirely bogus — narrative.

Lobbying — influencing decision-makers either directly or via other participants such as the media — is a big global business, and London is at its centre. Almost 100,000 people work in the sector, which is worth more than £20bn, analysts estimate. Of those 100,000, a third focus on government relations, brand management and reputation management.

Lobbying is riven with conflict of interest and prone to abuse. In recent weeks, The Sunday Times has exposed how George Pascoe-Watson, the chairman of Portland, a London-based communications outfit, secretly served as an adviser in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the pandemic. Pascoe-Watson took part in daily calls with Lord Bethell and Baroness Harding, the two heads of the UK’s NHS Test and Trace system. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, was on several calls.

Pascoe-Watson’s role, which lasted from April until October, was never publicly declared, although he has insisted that he declared his position to the DHSC. Days after formally completing his role, he was able to disclose to clients that “decision-makers have told me personally” that London’s recently announced tier 2 restrictions would remain in place until at least next year. Portland later wrote to clients to provide detailed information on the debate raging in No 10 about the possibility of a second national lockdown. It was three days before the news became public. Pascoe-Watson has said none of the information shared with clients was connected to the test and trace calls in which he participated.

The Gilbert Scott bar where John Arlidge met Bass and Geoghegan

Lobbying is legal and, some argue, serves a useful purpose. “Everyone, every company, every institution, is entitled to and should try to get close to power and influence and to get their point of view across to lawmakers, media and the general public,” says Alastair McCapra, the chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Getting your point across can make the difference between good and bad government decision-making, McCapra adds. He points to Rishi Sunak’s much-praised furlough and financial support schemes for businesses hit by lockdown restrictions. “Those schemes that have saved millions of jobs and livelihoods came about because MPs and ministers listened to people with detailed, specific knowledge of particular sectors. Representatives of hospitality firms, manufacturers, travel companies — you name it — all lobbied on behalf of their sector. What about this? Have you thought about that? You need that to have an informed democratic process and good outcomes.”

But there’s a familiar problem: money. “Companies and individuals are prepared to offer money like you would not believe to get lobbyists to do things they shouldn’t,” says Oliver Bullough, the author of Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World & How to Take It Back.

It was a £1.2m a year retainer, plus generous expenses, that tempted Bell Pottinger to work for the Guptas.

Conflicts of interest, such as Pascoe-Watson’s role at the DHSC, risk corrupting the political process and decision-making, says Peter Geoghegan, the author of Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics (and no relation of Victoria, he stresses). He criticises the “revolving door” between government and the private sector, with former MPs turning lobbyists and vice versa.

“This kind of in-out, in-out access comes at a price: not for the lobbyist but for taxpayers, who can find themselves picking up the tab for bad decisions made by ministers at the urging of their former colleagues,” he says.

A National Audit Office report revealed last week that companies that had links to ministers, often via lobbyists, were fast-tracked contracts to supply PPE — personal protective equipment — at the start of the Covid-19 epidemic, with little due diligence. More than half of the £18bn spent on pandemic-related contracts was awarded without competitive tender, the watchdog found. Not enough was done by ministers and other government officials to address potential conflicts of interest, it warned.

In other cases, lobbying — usually accompanied by hefty donations to political parties and “good causes” — can allow crooks to “launder” their reputations and transform themselves into what look to the untrained eye to be pillars of the Establishment. Tom Burgis, an investigative journalist and the author of Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World, points out that “Boris Johnson and his party count among their major donors figures who grew rich in ex-Soviet kleptocracies”.

Sometimes nation states get in on the act. In Moneyland, Bullough reports how the European Azerbaijan Society, run by the son of an Azerbaijan government minister, “spent tens of thousands of pounds flying [British] members of parliament to Baku, putting them in top-class hotels and showing them around. When those MPs came back, they almost invariably spoke favourably about Azerbaijan in the House of Commons, which seemed strange, since this former Soviet republic is a hereditary dictatorship [that] jails journalists who reveal the business dealings of the country’s ruling family”.

The power of lobbying can damage the political system in other ways too. Instead of staying and fighting to revive the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats after he lost his Sheffield seat in the 2017 election, Sir Nick Clegg, the former Lib Dem leader and former deputy prime minister, quit the UK. He became a spokesman for Facebook, a company many condemn for its impact on democracy and good government because it provides a platform for and encourages political extremism. Why did he move from London to Silicon Valley? Money, most say. He is estimated to earn more than £1m a year, plus bonuses. The former MPs Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna, once rising stars who found themselves unable to remain in the Labour Party during the Corbyn era, have quit politics for the PR firm Edelman.

Most of the time, lobbyists get away with plying their trade in the shadows. Regulation is narrow and there is no central register of lobbyists and few requirements to keep a public register of clients or fees. For every scandal that is exposed, thousands more go undetected. But sometimes lobbyists are so badly exposed that they are forced to fall on their sword. That’s what happened to David Bass and Victoria Geoghegan after I met them in the bar of the Gilbert Scott.

When news emerged of their attempts to portray the Guptas as victims of racism, rather than the two men who looted South African state coffers with the connivance of Zuma, Bell Pottinger found itself accused of stirring up racism in South Africa. Clients of every moral hue deserted the firm and it collapsed into bankruptcy. After he lost his job, Bass emailed me to say: “I am hoping we can continue our working relationship. I wondered whether I could interest you in breakfast or lunch?”

Matt Hancock has failed to declare that he appointed his closest friend from university, who is the director of a lobbying firm, as an adviser — and later gave her a £15,000-a-year role on the board of his department.

Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Correspondent www.thetimes.co.uk

Gina Coladangelo, 42, is a director and major shareholder at Luther Pendragon, a lobbying firm based in central London that offers clients a “deep understanding of the mechanics of government”. She is also communications director at Oliver Bonas, a fashion and lifestyle store founded by her husband.

Hancock, the health secretary, first met Coladangelo, a public relations consultant, while involved with radio at Oxford University and the pair remain close friends.

In March, he secretly appointed her as an unpaid adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on a six-month contract.

She has since accompanied Hancock, 42, to confidential meetings with civil servants and visited No 10 Downing Street.

One source said: “Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina. She knows everything.” Another added: “She has access to lots of confidential information.”

In September, Hancock appointed Coladangelo as a non-executive director at DHSC, meaning that she is a member of the board that scrutinises the department. There is no public record of the appointment, which will see her earn at least £15,000 of taxpayers’ money and could rise by a further £5,000.

March 23: Matt Hancock in Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster, with Gina Colandangelo, days before the national lockdown

Since April, Coladangelo has had a parliamentary pass, giving her unregulated access to the Palace of Westminster. It bears her husband’s surname, which she does not use professionally, and is sponsored by Lord Bethell, the hereditary peer, health minister and former lobbyist.

However, Coladangelo is understood to play no role in Bethell’s team.

Yesterday, the DHSC could not explain why he had sponsored her pass and had to ask this newspaper for help in finding the documents showing that he had done so.

The disclosures come as the government faces allegations of “chumocracy” and a lack of transparency in appointing friends from the private sector to key roles.

Lord Evans, the ex-MI5 boss, has warned that a “perception is taking root” that “some in our political leadership, are choosing to disregard the norms of ethics and propriety that have explicitly governed public life for the last 25 years”.

Last week, The Sunday Times also revealed that George Pascoe-Watson, chairman of Portland Communications, another lobbying firm, had advised a minister in Hancock’s department for most of the pandemic.

Shortly after leaving his role, he passed sensitive information about lockdown policy to paying clients. They include McDonald’s, which says that it has ceased all work with the firm and placed their relationship under review. Pascoe-Watson has insisted he did not gain the information through his role.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, responded by calling for an inquiry into how lobbyists are able to serve as government advisers, saying: “The public need answers now.”

May 15: The pair arriving at No 10 for the daily press conference

She redoubled those calls last night as the government declined to dispute any aspect of the latest “chumocracy” story.

Instead, a government source said that Coladangelo — who studied economics at Oxford and is not known to have a health background — worked to “support DHSC in connection with its response to the current coronavirus global health emergency”.

Hancock and Coladangelo were pictured together as recently as last Monday. However, the source said that she had “previously” worked for Hancock, implying that her advisory role had come to an end. They added that she had signed a “volunteer’s agreement”, meaning that she is bound by the Official Secrets Act.

Left, June 7: Heading for The Andrew Marr Show at the BBC. Right, July 5: Arriving at BBC HQ again

The DHSC did not respond to questions about a number of possible conflicts of interest arising from her role.

Luther Pendragon, the lobbying firm in which she is a director, boasts clients who have secured lucrative contracts during the pandemic, including British Airways (£70m) and Accenture, which received £2.5m to help build the NHS Covid-19 app.

Trade publications have described Oliver Bonas, for whom she works as communications and marketing director, as something of a “poster boy” for the government of late.

In June, for example, a blog was published on the government website entitled: “Oliver Bonas: Fashion and homeware store reopens safely.”

Then there is Coladangelo’s appointment as a non-executive director of DHSC, which appears in just one place publicly: her LinkedIn page. The role makes her responsible for “overseeing and monitoring performance” — in effect, scrutinising matters of concern to Hancock, with whom she attends Christmas drinks, birthday parties and family dinners.

Left, September 20: Using a socially distanced greeting at the BBC. Right, September 24: Returning to parliament on the day Rishi Sunak presented his winter economy plan

Coladangelo’s role does not break any rules — because there are none. As Peter Riddell, the commissioner for public appointments, noted recently, such appointments are “not regulated at all” and increasingly take place “without competition and without any form of regulatory oversight”.

Ministers, in other words, are free to create a process or, as Hancock has apparently done, reward their closest friends with roles.

MPs also do not have to declare such advisers on the register of MPs’ staff and secretaries, which is designed to ensure transparency. On Hancock’s register, the West Suffolk MP lists three people. Coladangelo is not one of them.

Alex Thomas, who was right-hand man to Jeremy Heywood, the former cabinet secretary, and is a programme director at the Institute for Government, said: “It’s reasonable for ministers to take advice from a range of sources, but advisers should be transparent, accountable and appointed on merit.”

The former senior civil servant added: “Non-executive directors are appointed to bring in commercial and other expertise to departments, and to help ministers and civil servants deliver high priority projects. That’s where they add most value.”

During his time as a student journalist at Oxford, Hancock overslept on the day he was supposed to cover a rugby match at Twickenham. Instead of making it to the stadium, he got off the train early, found a nearby pub and watched the match on television, before writing the match report as planned.

In an interview on the BBC in April, in which she did not disclose her role, Coladangelo, a colleague of his at Oxygen FM, recalled: “He told a white lie, pretended he was at Twickenham watching the rugby, when in fact he was in a pub in Reading.” She added: “Successfully. Nobody ever found out.”

More than two decades later, Hancock is one of the most powerful officials in government and a member of the “quad” of cabinet ministers who determine Covid-19 policy. Some even credit him with persuading the PM to return to a second lockdown.

Coladangelo is now a successful businesswoman. And yet she finds herself facing questions, again, over what Hancock has and has not disclosed.