Sources told the BBC the US public affairs firm’s report included information about journalist Gabriel Pogrund’s Jewish beliefs and claims about his ideological position.
It also claimed, the sources said, that Pogrund’s previous reporting, including on the royal family, “could be seen as destabilising to the UK and also in the interests of Russia’s strategic foreign policy objectives”.
Pogrund is currently the Sunday Times Whitehall editor, and was named Political Journalist of the Year and News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Press Awards.
The report was allegedly prepared by a former Sunday Times employee who now works for APCO Worldwide.
It was commissioned by the then-head of Labour Together, Josh Simons, who is now a Cabinet Office minister.
In a contract addressed to Simons, seen by BBC News, APCO Worldwide agreed to investigate “the sourcing, funding and origins” of the Sunday Times reporting, as well the journalist, Paul Holden, who has since published a critical book on Keir Starmer and his former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, and Matt Taibbi, an American reporter.
McSweeney was a former head of Labour Together.