Starmer under pressure over journalist smears

Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls to order an inquiry into a Labour think tank's investigation into journalists as he struggles to move on from the woes facing his premiership.

- KATE DEVLIN

Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said it would be “only right” to have a probe into Labour Together, which helped Sir Keir win the Labour leadership.

The calls heap pressure on government minister Josh Simons, who commissioned the 2023 report on reporters investigating the group's funding.

The Sunday Times reported that the contents of an investigation by PR consultancy Apco were informally shared with Labour figures in 2024, including current cabinet ministers and special advisers. Apco was paid £36,000 to carry out the investigation in 2023.

The paper said it contained pages of “deeply personal and false claims” about one of the journalists, Gabriel Pogrund. It also discussed his Jewish background and included false claims about personal and professional relationships. It was also reported to have made “baseless claims” that the emails underpinning the journalists' story were likely to have come from a hack of the Electoral Commission, suspected to have been carried out by the Kremlin.