Labour<\/a> adviser, who is a senior consultant for Strand Partners.<\/p>\nThe relationship was first reported by Sky News, which said multiple sources had told the news organisation that Allan and Baldwin have discussed politics since the communications chief joined No 10. Labour said the idea that Allan had done anything to benefit Strand while in his government job was \u201ccategorically false\u201d.<\/p>\n
Baldwin is primarily a journalist and does not do lobbying or public affairs for Strand Partners, with his role limited to speaking at events for its corporate clients.<\/p>\n
Tom Baldwin has worked for the Sunday Telegraph and the Times, and was once a senior adviser to Ed Miliband. Photograph: Leon Neal\/Getty<\/p>\n
Sources said Baldwin and Allan do not discuss Strand Partners business and that Allan has undertaken to not receive dividends or get involved in the running of the company while he is in government. Allan resigned as chair on his appointment to No 10 at the start of September.<\/p>\n
However, the links between Strand Partners and Downing Street have led to cross-party calls for an investigation.<\/p>\n
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, told Sky News: \u201cI think it\u2019s extraordinary that someone still has shares who\u2019s at the heart of Downing Street \u2026 I think there\u2019s lots of questions still to be asked. I think it\u2019s important to know what these supposed appropriate mitigations are, what exactly are those and do they pass the public sniff test?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lisa Smart, a Liberal Democrat frontbencher, said: \u201cI\u2019ve written to the cabinet secretary today because this appears to be a clear conflict of interest right at the heart of government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt cannot be the case that the executive director of communications for the government has shareholdings in a lobbying firm and is continuing to have conversations with senior consultants at that firm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative party chair, said: \u201c[There] should be a full Cabinet Office investigation. I think the public need to see there are no conflicts of interest and no perceived conflicts of interests, and that\u2019s not where we are right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Labour spokesperson said: \u201cThe allegation that Tim Allan has done anything to benefit Strand whilst in No 10 is categorically false.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom Baldwin is an established journalist, author and commentator, who regularly appears on Sky News. Any interactions with him are in his capacity as a journalist and have not related to Strand, its business or its clients.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: \u201cThere is a rigorous process to capture any potential conflicts of interest and ensure appropriate mitigations are in place to reflect specific circumstances. Ahead of his appointment, Tim Allan fully complied with this process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is set out in the special advisers\u2019 code of conduct and lists of special adviser interests are published annually.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Strand Partners spokesperson said: \u201cTom Baldwin is a journalist and the biographer of the prime minister. He does not engage in government relations for Strand and this is not part of his terms of engagement with us.<\/p>\n
\u201cTim Allan sought advice on his interests from the Cabinet Office and followed every element of the advice received. He receives no financial benefit from Strand and is not involved in our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No 10 is facing calls for an investigation into whether Keir Starmer\u2019s communications chief should be allowed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-260618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}