Pivot from Mandelson: the advice from Global Counsel

A TOP consultant from Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm Global Counsel suggested Business Secretary Peter Kyle was acting too like Peter Mandelson and should “pivot” away from being so Mandelson-y, in conversations with one of Kyle’s officials.

Mandelson founded Global Counsel in 2010 with his assistant Ben Wegg-Prosser, to cash in on his political contacts: Global Counsel said they would — for a big fee — help corporations “see opportunities in politics.”

Mandelson’s association with US billionaire sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein finally collapsed Global Counsel. Especially when it was revealed Wegg-Prosser had, like Mandelson, sought Epstein’s advice on how to run the company.

Apparently, they viewed Epstein as an expert in how to make money from having influential networks. Nobody wants to be associated with Global Counsel or Peter Mandelson now, but they were happy to mix with them a few months ago.

The comments about Peter Kyle being too like Mandelson appear in documents from an October 2025 meeting between Caleb Deeks, director-general for “regulatory reform” at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), and Global Counsel senior adviser Geoffrey Norris to “discuss regulation.”

Norris is a former special adviser on business for Blair and Mandelson in the last Labour government who became a Global Counsel “senior adviser.”

The one-on-one meeting was one of many between top officials and Global Counsel before Mandelson’s firm imploded over their Epstein links.

Deeks kept notes of the meeting, which were released to me under Freedom of Information. They say Norris was “overall V positive about PK” (Peter Kyle).

Norris said Kyle was “a bit like Mandelson in his first incarnation at DTI — all new economy. Needs to pivot a bit”: Norris appears to have suggested Kyle was too like Mandelson when he was business secretary in the New Labour years and needed to “pivot” — move away from — being just a “new economy” cheerleader.

Norris was using the meeting to press the government to push for more deregulation. Norris advised deregulation should be dressed up more as helping consumers than business. The notes say he spoke “on regulation. Framing. Don’t present solely as helping business. Action to help the cost of living too.”

Norris also implied Keir Starmer was not pushing deregulation enough.

Discussing Labour’s target to reduce business regulation by 25 per cent, Norris said this was “not a problem with high level intent if you have the PM [Prime Minister]. But who will invigilate?”

Norris was implying Starmer was not fully on board. Norris also said Starmer’s “thickets of regulation quote” — referring to a Starmer article on deregulation — was “a great start but need to follow up.” Norris was again implying Starmer was not up to the job.

The fact that Global Counsel could meet with top civil servants to criticise the Prime Minister for not being pro-corporate enough shows how influential the firm was, before Mandelson’s name became mud.

That Global Counsel, with so many corporate clients, wanted to push deregulation was unsurprising. Their adviser saying Peter Kyle was too Mandelson-like is surprising.

Insider access: tales from Arden 
Global Counsel may have exploded in the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, but other lobbying firms, acting as hired guns for corporations, still have access to the top. And they seem to rely on hiring “insiders” to get that access.

When lobbyist Arden Strategies approached Department for Business and Trade (DBT) bosses to arrange a meeting with their clients, the firm made clear they also gave careers to former DBT directors.

The meeting was described as a “roundtable with senior business leaders,” with neither Arden nor the DBT admitting they were mostly the lobbyists’ clients.

Arden Strategies, founded by former Labour minister Jim Murphy, are best known for strong Labour Party links.

But their approach to Sam Lister, DBT industrial strategy director-general, for a meeting last December emphasised their Civil Service links: Arden Strategies director Nasrine Fielding wanted Lister to come to their roundtable.

In an email released to me under Freedom of Information she told him “I am personally interested in all things DBT, having been the DD [deputy director] of economic regulation, but I left soon after you started,” adding “my former colleagues tell me that you are an excellent speaker!”

This looks to me like a quite open attempt to show Arden had, via the “revolving door,” an inside track into government. It could even be seen as a reminder that Arden offers comfortable jobs to future ex-Sir Humphreys.

I asked Arden about this exchange. It told me: “It’s important that British business as well as trade unions engage with civil servants to hear first-hand about how to grow the UK economy.

“Publicly declared information by Mr Lister shows that this meeting is precisely the same as lots of events that he spoke at hosted by very many other consultancies like ours. There are hundreds of such events with civil servants hosted by consultancies throughout the year across the UK, all of which are rightly publicly declared.”

Lister agreed to join Arden’s “roundtable” on “industrial strategy” held at One Great George Street, an upmarket conference centre in Westminster.

Documents show the event was dominated by Arden’s recent clients, including data farm developer Ark Data Centres, IT outsourcer ATOS, gas firms Centrica, Scottish Gas Networks and Cadent, Jim Ratcliffe’s petrochemical firm Ineos, management consultancy Newton and the British Holiday and Home Parks Association. A few firms not listed as Arden clients — including Amazon Web Services and US arms giant Northrop Grumman — attended: Arden may have seen them as prospective clients.

Sam Lister’s preparatory notes for the event say that “partnership with business” is at “the heart of” the industrial strategy, treating the roundtable as part of the DBT’s “business engagement.”

But this approach gives Arden and other lobbyists a lucrative role as gatekeepers, selecting which businesses meet government.

The “roundtable” manoeuvre also gets around government “transparency” measures: government “transparency registers” only listed this as a meeting with Arden: I only discovered which of their clients were involved much later via a Freedom of Information query.