The Cabinet Office minister at the centre of a rising scandal over an alleged smear marketing campaign through which he falsely linked journalists to a “pro-Kremlin” community is going through mounting questions over the candour of his public statements.
Josh Simons ran Labour Together, a thinktank that confronted press scrutiny in November 2023 over £730,000 in undeclared political donations.
Simons commissioned an American public affairs firm, Apco, to analyze the sourcing of the story, which appeared in the Sunday Times. The story was based mostly on paperwork obtained by the freelance journalist Paul Holden, which had been because of function in additional tales revealed by an American journalist, Matt Taibbi.
The Labour minister has conceded that Apco “never fully got to the bottom” of the sourcing of the story. But in January 2024, after receiving the PR agency’s report, Simons emailed the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a division of GCHQ, and falsely linked a lot of journalists to a hack of the Electoral Commission and Russian propaganda. Here are the key unanswered questions.
1. Why did Simons say Apco was employed to analyze an ‘illegal hack’?
One of Simons’ first public feedback since the story broke this month was a flippant tweet on 6 February through which he mentioned: “A thinktank paid a PR firm to find out if it’s private [information] were obtained through an illegal hack. HOWZATT”.
However, the contract Apco agreed with Labour Together made no reference to a suspected hack. Apco is a reputation-management firm, not a specialist in cybersecurity investigations. The contract stipulated that Apco would, for £36,000, present “a body of evidence that could be packaged up for use in the media in order to create narratives that would proactively undermine any future attacks on Labour Together”.
Did Labour Together actually fee Apco to analyze a hack? And if that’s the case, why was that not talked about in the contract?
2. Why did he say Apco’s investigation had ‘nothing to do’ with the Sunday Times?
Simons additionally tweeted on 6 February: “Apco were asked to look into a suspected illegal hack, which had nothing to do with UK journalists at Sunday Times, Guardian or any other brilliant UK newspaper. Apco’s investigation never fully got to the bottom of this.”
Simons’ contract with Apco explicitly mentions the Sunday Times, stating the agency ought to “investigate the sourcing, funding and origins of a Sunday Times article about Labour Together, as well as upcoming works by authors Paul Holden and Matt Taibbi to establish who and what are behind the coordinated attacks on Labour Together”.
If Apco’s investigation by no means obtained to the backside of the sourcing of the story, why did Simons report the journalists to the NCSC? And if the matter had “nothing to do” with the Sunday Times, why did Simons reference the Sunday Times – and title two of its journalists, Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke – in emails to the NCSC?
3. Why was it claimed the Apco report solely contained details about one journalist?
On 11 February, a authorities supply near Simons supplied the Guardian with a press release on background, presumably authorized by the minister, which mentioned: “Labour Together never received a report with information about any journalist other than Gabriel Pogrund.”
However, the Apco report is known to have contained details about at the least three different journalists: Holden, who’s member of the National Union of Journalists, Taibbi and Andrew Murray, who was at the time a journalist at the Morning Star.
Does Simons now settle for the Apco report contained details about a number of journalists? If so, why has he not corrected the file?
4. What was ‘untrue’ about the Guardian’s report about Simons’ emails with the NCSC?
On 20 February, the Guardian reported particulars of Simons’ communications with the NCSC, quoting from emails that he and his then chief of employees, Ben Szreter, exchanged with officers. In response to that story, a spokesperson for the minister mentioned: “These claims are untrue.”
The spokesperson declined to say on the file what about the Guardian report was disputed. The Guardian is in the present day publishing full extracts from Simons’ emails with safety officers.
The emails present Simons and Szreter wrote to intelligence officers in an effort to get them to analyze the sourcing behind a narrative in the Sunday Times, which they steered might be linked to a hack and Russian propaganda. Labour Together advised officers that Holden was “living with” Jessica Murray. She is the daughter of Andrew Murray, who Simons and Szreter advised officers was “suspected of links to Russian intelligence by MI5”. (Murray has mentioned the suggestion he’s linked to Russian intelligence “is a lie”.)
A supply near the minister mentioned he approached the NCSC as a result of he had real issues a couple of potential hack. They disputed he was personally concerned in any try and smear journalists by reporting them to the NCSC or falsely linking them to a Russian disinformation marketing campaign, placing the blame for any errors on the PR agency.
The supply near Simons didn’t instantly handle the accusation that, after the NCSC indicated it could not examine the matter, Simons proceeded to transient newspapers – together with the Guardian – with false allegations about Holden and his materials.
The NCSC by no means opened an investigation into the points raised by Simons. So why did a legislation agency representing Labour Together inform one other newspaper in mid-February 2023 that it couldn’t touch upon questions about the donations “due to ongoing investigations by the UK Intelligence services”?
