The wife of Keir Starmer’s comms chief had direct knowledge of Labour Together’s controversial investigation into journalists and their sources, documents seen by Democracy for Sale reveal.
Kate Forrester, a former Labour party advisor, ran the PR firm APCO Worldwide’s London Office in 2023 when it was hired by Labour Together to dig dirt on journalists from the Sunday Times and other outlets. She also sat on the Starmerite think tank’s advisory board.
The controversial investigation was commissioned by Josh Simons who was Labour Together’s director, and is now a minister in Keir Starmer’s government.
Simons has continually refused to answer questions about why he paid a PR firm to dig dirt on reporters investigating Labour Together’s failure to declare £730,000 in donations. That money was used to support Starmer’s successful leadership campaign.
Forrester is married to Paul Ovenden, who was Starmer’s head of communications at the time of Labour Together’s investigation. Ovenden resigned from government last year after explicit text messages he had sent about veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott came to light.
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Simons has also said on Twitter that claims that APCO was asked to investigate journalists are “nonsense.”
But a copy of APCO’s contract with Labour Together, seen by Democracy for Sale, states that the PR firm “will investigate the sourcing, funding and origins of a Sunday Times article about Labour Together, as well as upcoming works by authors Paul Holden and Matt Taibbi.” Holden and Taibbi have both written critically about Labour Together.
The contract, worth at least £30,000, goes on to say that APCO’s “approach should provide a body of evidence that could be packaged up for us in the media in order to create narratives that would proactively undermine any future attacks on Labour Together.”
Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, was aware of APCO’s investigation into journalists during his time running Labour Together. McSweeney resigned last weekend.
Forrester joined Labour Together as an adviser in October 2023, a month before APCO was hired. At the time, Politico reported that the think tank had added “a swathe of heavy-hitters” to its advisory board, including “APCO public affairs bod Kate Forrester”. Forrester said she never attended an advisory board meeting.