Tim Allan

This article is part of the Revolving Door project of Spinwatch.

Tim Allan is a former special adviser to the Labour Party and managing director of Portland PR.

Background

Allan studied at Cambridge University and worked for Tony Blair when he was shadow Home Secretary, becoming deputy to Alastair Campbell at Downing Street during the Labour government. He went on to a £100,000 job as Director of Corporate Communications for BSkyB (including writing speeches for Elisabeth Murdoch).

New Labour, lobbying and union-busting

Allan now runs Portland PR. Miller and Dinan note the myriad connections between Allan, lobbyists and the government:

take Tim Allan who was deputy to Alastair Campbell in the Downing Street press office and subsequently took a six figure salary at BSkyB as a corporate spin doctor in 1998. Later Allan set up Portland PR working for - amongst others BSkyB and Asda (Wal-Mart). Allan took his Westminster connections with him to Sky and kept them going at Portland. One of his connections was his friend from the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, Surrey, James Purnell, who was his best man and with whom he worked in Tony Blair's Office up until 1992. After the election that year Purnell went to work for a consultancy and ended up at the IPPR think tank, rejoining Allan in 1997 as a special adviser at No. 10 after a spell at the BBC. When Allan left to join BSkyB, Purnell stayed until 2001 'doing the groundwork' for the Communication Act 2003 and coming up with the name and idea for Ofcom with the result that the media system became more commercialised and BSkyB, amongst others, would be able to exploit the opening more easily. In 2001 Purnell became an MP, following which he hooked up with his old pal Tim Allan again, who by this time had set up Portland PR and was working for his ex-employers BSkyB.

Purnell declares in the House of Commons Register of Interests, 'Speech writing consultancy work in April and June 2003 for Sky, commissioned by Portland'. Purnell is also associated with the Zionist Labour Friends of Israel (as its Chair in 2002) and is on the advisory board the Social Market Foundation. After the 2005 election Purnell was promoted by Blair to Minister for Broadcasting at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. One wonders how Purnell's relationship with commercial broadcasters, and his work for Sky in particular, might colour his views on public service broadcasting?

Meanwhile Allan's Portland PR also worked for Asda earning £50,000 as part of a campaign to de-recognise the GMB union at some Asda stores. An employment tribunal in Newcastle upon Tyne in January 2006 uncovered the fact that Allan had been involved in union busting. 'A leaked email between Marie Gill Asda’s head of industrial relations (distribution) and Mr Allan on 24 December 2004, entitled "Washington – Modern Alternative", reveals that he fully endorsed Asda’s plans to sack workers refusing to accept a 10 per cent [pay] rise in return for quitting GMB.'

Asda was forced to pay £850,000 to employees at its Washington distribution depot in Tyne & Wear for 'unlawfully offering financial inducements to vote away union negotiating powers.' The Tribunal found Portland's leaflets for Asda 'very hostile to trade unions'. The acting GMB general secretary Paul Kenny noted

The tribunal nailed Portland and this email nails Allan as a union buster. That somebody who worked for a Labour Government should be collaborating with the human resource director of Wal-Mart/Asda to sack GMB members, solely for the reason they refused to give up their union memberships, is absurd, bizarre and disgraceful. We are sending the tribunal finding to all Labour MPs and asking them to have nothing further to do with this sell-out merchant.

The GMB subsequently commissioned a report in 2006 to investigate what happened to the early special advisers, asking "Were there no depths that some associated with New Labour would stoop?"

Contact, Resources, Notes

Resources

• Stephen Glover, When you are a defender of democracy, beware the servant of many masters, The Independent, 27 October 2008.