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"Not only are the press powerful lobbyists in their own interests, but they wield a powerful megaphone with considerable influence."
The Leveson Report 2014
Labour listens- to corporate lobbyists
Labour listens- to corporate lobbyists
In 2023 Lobby Company Arden Strategies, was able to secure private client roundtables with Labour leadreship before the election. Run by former Labour minister Jim Murphy,the former Scottish Labour leader, who served in Gordon Brown's Cabinet, built up goodwill with party figures in the run-up to Labour's landslide win, helping the party to run business events and put on fundraisers for candidates.
it put its clients in a room with senior Labour figures on at least nine occasions – with politicians lobbied including Reeves, business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Starmer’s head of business engagement. Several MPs benefited from a joint Arden/Budweiser fundraiser during the campaign, according to the British parliament's official register of interests. The firm has sponsored two successive Labour Business Conferences.
After lobbying by groups including Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, the owner of the Sun and Times titles, and the Daily Mail parent company, Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), the government announced in June 2025 it was tripling the proportion of a British newspaper that could be owned by an overseas power to 15%. The change paves the way for the Telegraph to be bought by a consortium including an investment vehicle backed by the United Arab Emirates.
However, ministers took the unusual step of ordering secrecy over the names of four media companies that responded to a consultation on the issue. A crossbench group of peers scrutinising the proposed law change said they had been told not to reveal the companies involved.
The group, which includes Labour peers, said: “We were asked by the department not to reveal the identity of the organisations which responded. We are concerned about the department’s decision to treat information about the respondents to a public consultation confidentially.
The Guardian reported that Rupert Murdoch’s News UK was one of the companies to respond. Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) group, which owns the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the i Paper, has also reportedly given its view to ministers. It is not known what position either company took. News UK and DMGT declined to comment.
The Guardian has already revealed that a UAE delegation met Downing Street officials weeks before the law change was announced.
DMGT has links to the Gulf, where it has focused its events business. Lord Rothermere was also spotted among the high-profile media figures in Doha last month meeting the US president, Donald Trump, and the Qatari emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokesperson said: “In deciding whether to reveal the names of individual consultation respondents we must balance the public interest of transparency with the needs of commercial confidentiality.
2018-19 The Media Lobby in action
2018-19 The Media Lobby in action
There were 206 meetings between Murdoch company staff & Government in last two years
5 personal meetings between Rupert Murdoch & Ministers 2018-19
Murdoch met Boris Johnson three times in last two years, and twice since becoming Prime Minister
42 meetings between Murdoch people and Johnson’s administration in his first six months
3 meetings between Murdoch and the Government in Johnson’s first six months as PM
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