Concerns over donations to Bristol MPs are about more than just freebie Taylor Swift tickets
This article has been lightly edited from its print version in response to a complaint about its focus, to emphasise that the reason it solely covers Labour MPs is because the party is in national government. The author did also look into Bristol Green MP Carla Denyer’s interests but found nothing to merit their inclusion. Based on the same complaint, we have also added a few words to clarify the meaning of the word ‘Zionist’.
As it approaches six months in power, the Labour government has faced a number of controversies around political donations.
Gifts including clothing worth thousands to the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and his wife, led to widespread outrage during the autumn that there’s a special club to which ordinary citizens are not invited.
Other MPs have come under fire over the acceptance of freebies – such as Taylor Swift tickets, valued at £3,400 – provided by the FA to Bristol North West MP Darren Jones.
But a closer examination of gifts and other benefits received this year by Bristol’s Labour MPs – some of whom, like Jones, now hold government offices – reveals more widespread issues than simply a few gratuitous luxuries.
These raise concerns about how wealthy and powerful individuals and entities are shaping British democracy via political donations. They also highlight how elite interests may be overriding public concerns around crumbling infrastructure and an increasingly bloody genocide in Palestine.
Consultancy firms and conflicting interests
Consultancy firms have long loaned staff to MPs through pro-bono secondments, a practice banned under Jeremy Corbyn but revived by Starmer. In 2013, a select committee criticised the practice, calling it an “unhealthily cosy” relationship.
Economist James Meadway, a former advisor to ex-shadow chancellor John McDonnell, tells the Cable that Labour banned these arrangements to avoid conflicts of interest. “If you think you’re going back to your old job… are you going to sit there in your seconded role doing stuff your employer won’t like?” he says. “Of course not!”
Jones, the secretary of the Treasury since July’s general election, was supported by seconded staff from two firms, Arup and Baringa, as well as a chief economist from Labour-right think tank Labour Together, while in opposition. These secondees gain access to MPs and lobby journalists, creating a close network within Westminster. “You’re part of that system where informal relationships actually operate,” says Meadway.
Arup, an engineering consulting firm, seconded its head lobbyist, Paul Addison, to Jones between November 2023 and July 2024. While his background lies in communications rather than engineering, Addison was involved in Jones’s pre-election infrastructure review. Arup’s UK chair Paula Walsh was then appointed to the review’s ‘expert independent advisory panel’.
The Cable can reveal that a recent client of Arup in Tees Valley, a consortium including oil company BP, is one of three projects to benefit from a £22 billion government investment for carbon capture despite concerns around the technology’s efficacy. Arup may also profit directly, having made £272m from the now failed HS2 phase 2. It currently leads a consortium aiming to restart work on the HS2 project which Jones now directly oversees.
The Cable asked Jones about these secondments and the potential conflicts of interest. A Labour spokesperson responded: “This individual was temporarily seconded to provide support ahead of the general election.” They said he no longer works for Jones and denied any wrongdoing.
Arup’s operations extend beyond the UK. It has sparked controversy for its work on Qatar’s World Cup, where more than 6,500 migrant workers lost their lives, and for working on Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup. Baringa, another firm which seconded staff to Jones, has partnered with BNP Paribas, a bank accused of financing genocides in Sudan and Rwanda.
Neither Jones nor the spokesperson responded regarding the ethical concerns around such links.
Lord Mendelsohn and Dan Norris: same old New Labour?
Personal donations to Bristol MPs have also raised eyebrows. Dan Norris, West of England Combined Authority (WECA) mayor and MP for North East Somerset and Hanham, has been embroiled in sleaze scandals over donations he received from Lord Mendelsohn.
A former chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a lobby group which promotes Israeli interests and gambling lobbyist, Mendelsohn was embroiled in the 1990s ‘Lobbygate’ scandal. He and his partners at Lawson Lucas Mendelsohn, a public affairs and political communications consultancy otherwise known as LLM Communications, were recorded offering access to the Blair government for substantial sums. They claimed influence over policy, helped Rupert Murdoch shape law and offered suggestions on how to greenwash polluting infrastructure proposals.
It’s not simply a quid pro pro – here’s some cash and you do what I want – it’s about creating a relationship of mutual interest
Tom Mills
Tom Mills, a researcher on political donations, attributes such scandals to a systemic shift in Labour after 1997. New Labour figures “wanted to insulate themselves” against political pressure from the party so sought funding from “high net-worth individuals” rather than unions, Mills argues. He adds that the party’s increased reliance on wealthy donors may have limited its responsiveness to ordinary members.
Embodying this trend, Mendelsohn worked as a fundraiser for then-PM Gordon Brown during the 2007 ‘Donorgate’ scandal, which revealed he was seemingly aware for months that a wealthy donor had anonymously funneled over £600,000 to Labour through proxies.
In 2018, Mendelsohn was sacked from the front bench after attending the all-male President’s Club dinner, where hostesses were harassed and groped. Mendelsohn denied witnessing inappropriate behaviour at the event which began with a compere declaring it “The most un-PC event of the year”.
Despite Mendelsohn’s chequered past, Norris received £16,000 from him in 2024, along with a £5,000 donation in 2022. In June, Red Capital Ltd, owned by Mendelsohn and his wife Nicola, a Meta executive, donated another £5,000 to the dog-loving mayor.
These are not the only donations to Norris that might raise eyebrows. In July, he received £5,000 from Buoy Property Ltd, owned by Sakina Buoy, a director of the Somerset Toiletry Company. As WECA mayor, Norris has twice visited the company, and has promoted it through official communications channels. Norris did not respond to questions from the Cable.
Foreign policy, Labour Friends of Israel and Zionist donors
The idea of an ‘Israel lobby’ remains controversial. Yet groups such Labour Friends of Israel clearly have significant political ties, including to Bristol MPs – Darren Jones, Karin Smyth, and Dan Norris have all been listed supporters.
LFI and its Tory counterpart Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) advocate for British support of Israel. In 2022 it was reported that over 10 years, 320 MPs’ trips to Israel had been funded mostly by LFI and CFI.
In March, during Israel’s escalating use of violence in the Gaza Strip, Damien Egan, MP for Bristol North East, accepted an LFI-funded trip costing £2,400, a month after his by-election victory in the now-defunct Kingswood seat. He justified it as an opportunity to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In response to questions from the Cable, Egan noted that, as someone with a local government background, he “was grateful to join a delegation by [LFI] to meet politicians, NGOs and peace activists in both Israel and the West Bank.” He added that “although the delegation was focused on meeting people from the political left,” there were “balanced” perspectives “not shying away” from the region’s “difficult complexities”.
LFI-linked donors have also donated to other local Labour MPs. Sir Trevor Chinn, a prominent British Zionist (or advocate for the existence of an independent Jewish state), longtime LFI supporter and funder/director of Labour Together, donated £2,000 to Dan Norris in July 2024 and £2,500 to Egan in August 2023, and £50,000 to Starmer’s 2020 leadership campaign.
Other prominent Zionist donors, including Gary Lubner and Stuart Roden, have more recently started contributing to Labour’s Bristol MPs. Former Autoglass boss Lubner donated £5,000 to Damien Egan in July 2024 on top of the £4.5 million-plus he has donated to Labour and £600,000 to Labour Together since 2023.
Lubner has been a patron of United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA), an influential Zionist NGO, since at least 2016. UJIA, where Chinn is president for life, describes itself as having “decades of experience in sending young Jews in the UK to Israel on rite of passage programmes” including “birthright” to strengthen relationships with the country. The organisation faced criticism in 2022 for housing participants in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Roden, a chairman of Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm Hetz Ventures, contributed £5,000 in July 2024 to Dan Norris, and more than £1.5 million to Labour overall since 2023.
In December 2023, Roden’s firm boasted of volunteering for Israel’s war effort. By then over 27,000 civilians, including 12,000 children, had been killed. Just a week later, the International Court of Justice began a case examining Israel’s actions, concluding they plausibly amount to a genocide.
Mills warns against simply seeing political donations as a “quid pro quo – I give you some cash and you do what I want”. Instead, there are powerful individuals wanting access to “a party they’re [ideologically] committed to… it’s creating a relationship of mutual interest and presumably a social and political relationship”.
Money, power and democracy
Even so, donations from individuals promoting Zionism in the UK or with direct connections to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians raise concerns about the Labour government’s political direction.
Before taking power, Bristol Labour MPs called for a halt on arms sales to Israel yet since taking power have failed to meaningfully deliver.
Mills advocates for a significant cap on political donations because “money in politics is an affront to democracy”. He argues that people from the top 1% or 0.1% should not get to have an “oversized say in our politics”.
In government, Bristol’s Labour MPs wield real power. The donations to senior party figures raise questions about patterns of influence on that power, relating to both domestic and foreign policy.
If Bristolians don’t feel heard, these networks may offer clues as to who has really got the ear of their representatives.
