IF YOU want an example of how British politics is a sealed system, designed to keep out popular demands for change, a recent article by Claire Ainsley in the Guardian is as good a starting place as any. 

Ainsley was writing as Keir Starmer’s former policy chief, but the fact she is also a corporate lobbyist working for a Tory-run firm was hidden. 

Starmer’s former “brains” was lecturing Labour supporters that Starmer was right to offer little to workers, while working for a firm offering to help corporations with “influencing” the government. 

Once you notice that it makes the dominance of politics by a big club trying to do favours to big business too obvious.

Ainsley’s article said that “Keir Starmer promised he would turn the Labour Party around and give it back to the British people. Three years on from becoming leader, he can credibly claim to have done just that.”  

Starmer had returned Labour to the “centre ground, and it is an “iron law” that you must stay on that centre ground.

The Guardian told its readers: “Claire Ainsley is director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s centre-left renewal project and was Labour’s executive director of policy from 2020 to 2022.” 

Ainsley was Starmer’s policy director when he was elected Labour leader in 2020 until December 2022. To Guardian readers this article might seem to be written by a “progressive” who is sympathetic to Starmer, arguing he is doing the right thing.

But in June Ainsley was hired as a “senior adviser” by WPI Strategy, a lobbying firm. WPI Strategy, founded in 2014, is run by Sean Worth and Nick Faith. 

Worth was David Cameron’s former adviser on NHS privatisation and a one-time head of the Conservative Party policy unit, while Faith founded Tory think tank Onward.

WPI Strategy clients include the Pennon Group, owner of South West Water — which was fined £2 million this April for illegally dumping sewage in the sea — giant commercial landlord British Land and Vodafone.

WPI offers clients help “influencing change” in “regulatory and political environments” using its “highly experienced team drawn from the most senior roles in government.” 

Nick Faith said Ainsley and another new WPI hire, former Lisa Nandy aide Jade Azim, would “advise clients” on “how to prepare for a potential change of government.” The prospect of a Labour government means even Tory lobbyists want Starmer-linked consultants.

Ainsley’s Guardian article relied on some crudely manipulated polling to show Starmer had found the “centre ground.”

Ainsley said: “Overall, voters characterised themselves as 4.6 out of 10 on a scale where 0 was left wing and 10 was right wing. They placed Keir Starmer as 3.9 on the same scale, Sunak on 7.3, and their parties not far behind with Labour on 3.3 and the Conservatives on 7.6.”

For all the “science-y” sounding numbers, this is meaningless. If you poll actual policies, rather than vague concepts, the story is very different. 

Polling shows public ownership of public services is very popular, even with Tory voters — 68 per cent of Tory voters want water in public ownership; and 62 per cent of Tory voters want energy nationalised. Public ownership of the Royal Mail, rail, energy, water and buses has majority support across the board. Yet Starmer has reached the “centre ground” praised by Ainsley by abandoning nationalisation. 

The actual polling Ainsley quoted was carried out by WPI Strategy. As its clients include private water firms, it obviously isn’t going to poll fairly on nationalisation. 

Taxing the rich and corporations to boost the NHS also have broad public support, and so are subjects avoided by WPI.

Ainsley advised Guardian readers that under Labour’s “current plans, there aren’t the tax receipts to redistribute to new or more generous social programmes,” so “the task, then, for the centre left is to advance a new role for government that has the backing of the people and creates the conditions for innovation and prosperity.” The simpler argument — that Labour should increase taxes on the rich and corporations to fund social investment — was mysteriously absent.

Ainsley said: “The new centre-left agenda has to make improving the working and living standards of working-class communities its mission, which requires concrete plans to raise wages, lower costs and increase people’s prospects of a better life for them and their families,” but ruled out any but the vaguest ideas of how to do this. Instead of advising Labour to be tough on corporations, Ainsley told Guardian readers the party should be tough on migrants instead.

However, politics does at least transform some lives — like Claire Ainsley’s. She worked in media and comms for charities, writing some vague policy papers on the way. 

Hired by the Labour leader to develop policy — he had little coherent political thought of his own — Ainsley helped Starmer move away from his “soft left” and pro-EU pledges made in the leadership election, with her emphasis on the need for voters “to be heard” on “concerns about identity [and] immigration.” 

However, Ainsley was herself dumped in December 2022 and took a part-time job for a US think tank pondering “centre-left renewal.”

Then she took what I assume is the well-paid job with WPI. Ainsley advises against politics that can transform working people’s lives, but enjoys the politics that have changed her life.

Many say Ainsley left Starmer’s office because she was not up to the job and that Labour’s lack of policy “offers” during Covid was partly down to her indecision. 

Critics say when Ainsley was asked to develop policy, she often could only refer to focus group discussions rather than draw up solid proposals. 

If WPI wants Ainsley for her contact book rather than her skills, this kind of weakness won’t be a problem.

One of the striking features of Starmer’s leadership is how much it relies on dishonesty — on running for leader on a set of “soft-left” pledges  that were abandoned without any consultation. 

Ainsley hiding her actual role as a lobbyist seems to be another example of this way of working.

Follow Solomon Hughes on X at @SolHughesWriter.