Robbie MacDuff

Robbie MacDuff is a lobbyist and former parliamentary researcher, who has worked successively at Ian Greer Associates in London (1990-94), moving to Edinburgh after the cash for questions scandal to Strategy in Scotland and then back to London with Precise Public Affairs. In 2008 he was appointed director of the APPC. MacDuff has been at the forefront of the lobbying industry campaign against transparency in both Scotland (where he was Secretary of the Association of Professional Political Consultants Scotland) and in London as head of the British APPC.

From the Precise Public Affairs website:

Robbie MacDuff has been a senior public affairs consultant for 15 years, working for some of the country's leading companies including Kingfisher, Thames Water, British Gas, GNER, Railtrack Scotland, Alfred McAlpine, BHP, Birmingham International Airport and 3i plc. He joined Precise Public Affairs from Strategy in Scotland, part of Grayling Group, where he was Managing Director.

Previous to that, Robbie was based in London, and was a Director of IGA, supporting clients' consultancy requirements at Westminster, Brussels and Edinburgh. Prior to consultancy, he worked for seven years as the researcher for a former MP for Bootle and Labour's Front Bench Spokesperson on Environmental Protection.

Robbie is a former Secretary of the Association of Professional Political Consultants (in Scotland), and the Edinburgh Business Labour Forum, and is a member of the Institute of Directors.

Career

Political Career

Macduff was a researcher for Labour MP for Bootle Alan Roberts for seven years (1984-91?). He tried an failed to wi a nomination to fight a parliamentary seat for the Labour Party. In 1985 the Guardian reported that after a procedural hiccup nominations by the TGWU Westminster branch (to which many labour researchers then belonged) for delegates to particular constituencies would have to be re-run: ‘Left wingers are suspicious that attempts will be made to block certain nominations: for instance, Mr Robbie MacDuff… to Mr Peter Shore's constituency’

Five years later MacDuff attempted to gain the Labour nomination for the Bootle by-election. He reportedly fell victim to a ‘Sun test’ with Labour enforcers asking by-election candidates ‘whether there is anything in their private lives which could embarrass the party if it appeared on the front page of a tabloid newspaper’.

MacDuff, who, according to ’’’The Independent’’’ ‘describes himself as gay’ reportedly ‘received more than a quarter of the local constituency nominations for the forthcoming by-election. But he was excluded from the shortlist by the national executive vetting panel of John Evans, MP for St Helens North, and Eddie Haigh, a Transport and General Workers' Union official.’

‘Janet Pickering, who chairs the TGWU's parliamentary branch - representing MPs' and peers' staff… said the strength of his nominations would normally have guaranteed him a place - if there was no by-election. Ms Pickering added: It could, of course, have something to do with the fact that Robbie is gay.’

Mr Evans… and Mr Haigh said that The Sun was not specifically mentioned when candidates were asked whether there was anything in their private lives which could be used to embarrass them or the party, although Mr Haigh conceded: I suppose it is in the back of people's minds.

Lobbyist

After failing to get a nomination for a seat, by July 1992 (possibly earlier) MacDuff had joined the lobbying firm Ian Greer Associates. Later it was reported that IGA had recruited ‘a real Old Labour name’ in MacDuff. By 1993 he was reported to be an ‘Associate director’ at the firm. .

With Ian Greer

MacDuff joined a lobbying firm with close links to the Conservatives. In 1994 it was reported that ‘43 are members of or sympathisers with the Tories, another seven Labour supporters or members.’

Greer reportedly demanded much of his staff:

One former employee said: "Staff are expected to get up at 6 am to read the morning's Hansard and get all the relevant bits faxed to clients by 8.45 am. On Sundays, he expected you to read all the papers and if there was anything affecting the clients you were involved with, to contact them immediately to see if anything needed to be done." In return, pay is high.

Other people at IGA at the time included Greer’s chief assistant Andrew Smith, ‘who joined as a 19-year-old in 1984 and is described as "the son Ian never had". Plucked from a job as filing clerk in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, he is now deputy managing director with ambitions to become an MP.’ . Greer's lawyer, Andrew Stone, ‘who works for Lewis Silkin, and his auditor and accountant, Ian Mablin, who works for Wilson Wright, are both non-executive directors.’ The three associate directors included MacDuff, Patrick Ferreira, ‘a former airline steward’; and Jeremy Sweeney, ‘a Tory well known for his love of fishing, hunting and shooting.’

Angie Bray, aged 39, formerly Chris Patten's assistant at Conservative Central Office, is a recent recruit. Others include Perry Miller, formerly special adviser to Malcolm Rifkind, the Defence Secretary, who switched careers five months ago.

Paying No Poll Tax in tower Hamlets

At Ian Greer MacDuff a former tower Hamlets resident was reportedly responsible for losing a potential lobbying contract with Tower Hamlets local authority when it was ‘on the point of tying up a deal with Ian Greer Associates, the parliamentary lobbyists well versed in currying favour with the Conservatives’.MacDuff’s name, ‘regrettably enough, is well known in the council's poll tax collection office. The latter has even had to go to court to try to persuade MacDuff to pay the charge (a snip at pounds 147 in 1991-92). Amused, we asked Tower Hamlets for its view of this lapse - and the council rather over-reacted. In fact, IGA was told yesterday afternoon its services won't be required after all.’

Cash for Questions

MacDuff was involved in the row over the unethical lobbying practices of IGA. 

In the Cook Report, TV researchers posed as British representatives of an American company which wanted to launder the proceeds of art treasures amassed by Soviet former Communists to buy up Whitehall's Insolvency Service.

Ian Greer agreed to act for the bogus company for pounds 10,000 and offered to arrange meetings with Trade Minister Neil Hamilton; David Amess, parliamentary private secretary to Michael Portillo, and Sir Graham Bright, then PPS to John Major. He also boasted on film about his ability to get parliamentary questions tabled for clients and wrote to the firm promising to obtain confidential information from Whitehall.

Faced with the scandal that engulfed IGA MacDuff wrote to ‘several MPs attacking the Guardian for printing the story and promising MPs that Ian Greer "has at no time, nor will it at any time in the future, pay MPs to table questions."’ MacDuff went on to say:

"I hope you will understand how disappointing it is that one company within the lobbying industry can be singled out by one journalist working for one newspaper and then being engaged by a television company, for the apparent purpose of undermining the commercial operations of that company."

That the exposure of the undoubtedly unethical lobbying fostered at IGA was deprecated by MacDuff raises questions about his stated attachment to ethical lobbying in his subsequent incarnations with the APPC. Instead of dealing with the issues raised MacDuff attempts to explain the story away as the obsession of one journalist.

In 1996 it was revealed that Greer, ‘sent his staff out to work for MPs and ministers during the [1992] general election campaign.’ These included MacDuff who reportedly worked for Chris Smith.

As well as making cash donations to MPs' fighting funds, Mr Greer encouraged staff to leave the office for the three-week duration of the election battle and to work for prominent politicians. They continued to receive full pay from his firm, Ian Greer Associates, and their services were provided to the MPs for free… "It was great work experience for them," explained Mr Greer.

To Edinburgh

MacDuff left IGA in 1995/6 and set up a new lobbying firm in Edinburgh in 1996 in anticipation of the creation of a Scottish Parliament:

Robbie MacDuff, managing director of Seiga Political Consultants, represents one breed of which we can expect to see considerably more once a parliament is set up in Edinburgh. The lobbyists, influencers of political opinion, have set up camp outside every legislature since that meant the royal tent.

Most of us assume that we will be able to bend the ear of our Assembly person as they go about our business. That laissez-faire attitude is also evident in the business community, which has failed to address the wide range of issues for which it should be setting down markers, according to MacDuff.

"Late last year, businesses felt they were not part of the process of shaping how an assembly would affect Scotland," said MacDuff. He attributes that to a concentration by the Scottish Constitutional Convention on the issues of framework and numbers, but finds growing interest in the issues of what an Assembly would decide and how it would do it.

"I assume that people would want a Scottish parliament to be a radical and reforming legislature, and if we want it to start with a bang everyone should be ensuring good and close co-operation between the business community and our existing parliamentarians," he said.

For MacDuff the touchstone here is business as that is what provides the main income for lobbying firms and represents the overwhelming bulk of their clients.