ANDREW PIERCE: Lord Mandelson, high priest of the black arts of political spin and once the most influential figure in Tony Blair 's 'kitchen cabinet', was unable to suppress a sly smile.
Gliding around his lavish cocktail party, Lord Mandelson, high priest of the black arts of political spin and once the most influential figure in Tony Blair's 'kitchen cabinet', was unable to suppress a sly smile.
The reception was paid for by Mandelson's lobbying outfit Global Counsel, which has advised oligarchs and Middle Eastern potentates and has close links to Russia and China. It was the first time his company has held court at a Labour conference. Only hours earlier, Rachel Reeves had made her keynote conference speech. As she boasted to loud applause that she would become Britain's first woman chancellor, cameras panned to the delegates.
Yet an unrepentant Mandelson denies elbowing his way to the front. He told me at the conference he was invited but never said by whom.'I did so with great enthusiasm. I was put there with Sadiq Khan . We were like book-ends. I never thought I'd be a book-end with Sadiq Khan.' One senior Labour source told me: 'Starmer talks to Mandelson all the time, but he doesn't want the evidence of it all over the TV. He knows how unpopular Mandelson is with many Labour Party members, not to mention voters.'
More than 40 business groups, including leading banks such as Barclays, bought exhibition spaces for as much as £16,500. Mandelson was spotted touring the stands. Proximity to power is everything to a lobbying company. And Mandelson's open line to Starmer proves he has better access than most. Not that he reveals much about who he does business with.
Apart from anything else, this suggests he has no significant government contracts — for if Global Counsel had lobbied a government minister or permanent secretary on behalf of its clients in return for money, it would have had to declare the client. That, he must hope, will change with any incoming Labour government.
Global Counsel is a member of the more transparent EU lobbying register, which reveals his clients include the European Round Table for Industry, a lobby group for Europe's biggest corporations. Mandelson is advising them on an EU 'industrial strategy'. Mandelson had a close professional relationship with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, and has advised international clients on navigating Russian politics.
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