Polling Firm Founded by Key Starmer Ally Rakes in Millions in Government Contracts – Guido Fawkes

Polling Firm Founded by Key Starmer Ally Rakes in Millions in Government Contracts

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Eyebrows are raised in SW1 over a massive increase in the value of contracts awarded to a firm founded by key Starmer ally Deborah Mattinson since the election. Mattinson was crucial in defining Starmer’s election strategy and was “influential in putting green policies at the front and center of Labour’s vision for Britain”…

Mattinson served as director of polling firm BritainThinks from 2010 to 2021, at which point she stepped down (she is no longer affiliated with the company) – at the same time as taking up a crucial role as Starmer’s Director of Strategy until the election last year. Mattinson held substantial shares in the company until it implemented an employee-owned trust structure (EOT) and her shares were transferred over a period to that trust, which has a controlling interest in BritainThinks and holds its employees as beneficiaries. Since the election the company has been doing well…

BritainThinks, which was renamed Thinks Insight and Strategy in 2024, received taxpayer-funded contracts valued at £3,651,000 in the six months prior to July last year. In the months from July to December 2024 that figure shot to a whopping £14,608,000…

That’s a four times increase, with contracts coming from a wide range of state arms including the Energy Savings Trust, Nuclear Restoration Services, and Care Quality Commission. There is no suggestion that Mattinson – who was made a life peer by Starmer in the 2024 political peerages list – is currently benefiting from contracts awarded to Thinks Insight, or of any wrongdoing on the part of either her or the company. A rising tide in government polling contracts could be a matter for UK DOGE…