When Uber hired Rachel Whetstone, less than two years ago, it wasn’t just getting a new PR chief.
Instead, for a sum rumoured to exceed £1 million a year, the Silicon Valley firm was obtaining the services of a woman with excellent political connections.
For Whetstone was the wife of Cameron’s confidant and former policy guru Steve Hilton, as well as godmother of his late son Ivan.
She’d also been a key member of his inner circle since the early Nineties.
Now 49, the charismatic political fixer first met the future PM while they worked together (alongside a young George Osborne) at Conservative HQ.
Later, she became political secretary to Michael Howard, the then Tory leader, regarded as Cameron’s early mentor.
By the time the man she calls ‘Dave’ became PM, their families were virtually joined at the hip.
Indeed, Whetstone and Hilton often spent weekends at their £1.2 million Oxfordshire farmhouse, seven miles from the PM’s constituency home, where they’d meet Dave and his wife Samantha and go for pub lunches or load their two kids into a fashionably-battered Volvo, and pop round to have pizza and red wine with their powerful chums.
The appearance given by this cosy relationship may have raised concerns considering the extraordinary — and unprecedented — level of access enjoyed by Whetstone’s then employer, Google.
Senior executives of the trendy U.S. search engine met with Tory ministers on average once a month during Cameron’s first four years as PM, according to Freedom of Information disclosures. This included three encounters with Cameron himself and four with Osborne.
Whetstone first met the future PM while they worked together (alongside a young George Osborne) at Conservative HQ
So astonishing was Google’s hold on the PM’s affections that senior Tory peer Lord Younger (the minister in charge of intellectual property) once complained that the company’s ‘power’ was such that ‘they have access to higher levels than me in No 10’.
There was perhaps further cause for raised eyebrows when, despite public concern over Google’s business practices, Cameron and Osborne did next to nothing while in power to regulate the firm, to curb its vigorous tax-dodging, or to suggest laws that might leave it vulnerable to copyright lawsuits.
Fast forward to May 2015, and Uber — which runs a smartphone app that allows users to hail a minicab at the touch of a button — found itself in need of a helping hand.
The fast-growing Californian company was facing a number of moves to curb its growing domination of the British taxi market.
It stood accused, among other things, of driving traditional cabbies out of business, and clogging London’s streets with extra cars, polluting the air and making the city centre more congested than at any time in its modern history.
Rape or assault claims were being made against its drivers at a rate of one every 11 days, while it also appeared to be flouting a number of rules governing the heavily-regulated taxi industry.
Whetstone (left) also became political secretary to Michael Howard, the then Tory leader, regarded as Cameron’s early mentor
In September 2015, Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, was under pressure from the capital’s black cab drivers and he decided to launch a review of taxi regulations.
Initially, he claimed he was considering several new policies to curb Uber’s aggressive business model.
These included limiting the total number of minicabs in the city, requiring all drivers to pass an English language test (many Uber operators are foreign-born), and requiring taxis to wait at least five minutes between accepting a booking and picking up a customer, rendering the internet firm (which fulfils orders in an average of three minutes) significantly less attractive to clients.
Uber was outraged, launching a public petition against what it called the ‘bureaucratic’ proposals.
In an extraordinary, unprecedented and quite unethical secret lobbying campaign, revealed by the Mail last month, both Cameron and Osborne decided to personally contact Johnson, ordering him to drop any policy which might upset their friend’s internet firm.
‘There were conversations, mainly in text messages from Dave and George, making arguments about free markets and competition,’ mayoral officials later admitted to the Financial Times.
Senior No 10 aide Daniel Korski was assigned to lead secret talks between the mayor, his staff and a range of ministers and Downing Street figures aimed at protecting Uber. He orchestrated meetings in October and November, according to emails obtained by the Mail under the Freedom of Information Act.
He also had a number of ‘abrasive’ disputes with Isabel Dedring, Johnson’s deputy mayor in charge of transport (and a key Uber sceptic) who, say friends, was ‘quite taken aback by his aggression’.
Quite why Downing Street thought this activity appropriate is anyone’s guess. Uber, after all, pays almost no UK tax, using creative accountants to funnel its earnings to Bermuda via a so-called ‘double Dutch’ structure, meaning it legally avoids paying its fair share for the roads its services rely on.
It has only around 100 employees in Britain, while many of its tens of thousands of drivers (who are in theory independent contractors) earn so little they have to rely on tax credits, placing further burden on the Exchequer.
And what’s more, since transport policy in London is devolved entirely to the mayor, the city’s private hire regulations are, in theory, nothing to do with No 10.
In September 2015, Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, was under pressure from the capital’s black cab drivers and he decided to launch a review of taxi regulations
Nonetheless, in what could have given the appearance of a stark illustration of the so-called ‘chumocracy’ at the heart of Cameron’s administration, the lobbying campaign continued.
It culminated in a December 16 showdown between Johnson, Business Secretary Sajid Javid and Korski, at which an official note, again released under Freedom of Information laws, records that ‘different views were exchanged’.
Then, on December 22, 2015, Cameron, Osborne and their wives attended Whetstone’s lavish Christmas party, at an exclusive Mayfair sushi restaurant called Sexy Fish.
Also at the intimate soiree was Tim Allan, head of Portland, a lobbying firm retained by Uber.
A few days later and — hey presto! — Boris Johnson caved in.
Early in January last year, in what newspaper headlines described as a ‘major victory’ for Uber, he decided to drop almost all the proposals the Californian firm had disliked because, as he put it, ‘we can’t turn our back on technological progress’.
Uber was, of course, delighted.
However, traditional cabbies, who believe the loss-making firm is deliberately charging low fares in order to drive rivals out of business and establish a monopoly, were dismayed, holding a protest in Westminster days later.
Then came a second extraordinary twist. Early last year, Christopher Morris, a Lib Dem aide working at the London Assembly, got wind of the secret lobbying campaign by Downing Street, and filed a Freedom of Information request with Downing Street asking to see copies of ‘all correspondence’ over the previous year between Korski and either Johnson’s office or Transport for London [TfL].
In response, Nicholas Howard, the PM’s assistant private secretary, sent him a letter saying: ‘We do not hold information in relation to your request.’
However, Morris had also asked TfL if it held any ‘correspondence’ from Korski.
It gave a very different response, passing on a dossier of relevant messages, including three that the Downing Street aide had written to TfL staff in October 2015 and four that were sent to him from TfL email accounts at the same time.
In other words, as the Daily Mail again revealed last month, Downing Street’s apparent claim that such emails didn’t exist turned out to be completely untrue.
While No 10 has denied wrongdoing, the Information Commission is now looking into the potential cover-up, revealing yesterday that it has now contacted Downing Street and is seeking to establish whether officials broke the Freedom of Information Act.
A growing number of MPs, including Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, are calling for a full parliamentary inquiry to establish the full extent of the lobbying campaign on behalf of Uber by Cameron and Osborne
Meanwhile, a growing number of MPs, including Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, are calling for a full parliamentary inquiry to establish the full extent of the lobbying campaign on behalf of Uber by Cameron and Osborne — who, it should be noted, has now taken a £650,000-a-year part-time job with one of Uber’s major investors, the U.S. firm BlackRock.
As for Whetstone, a number of factors are said to be at play in her decision to quit yesterday, including the PR disasters to have affected Uber in recent months and her relationship with the firm’s abrasive billionaire boss, Travis Kalanick, which is said to be fractious.
Surely playing a prominent role, however, are the questions raised by her links to Cameron and Osborne in light of their lobbying campaign — leading to the allegation that they granted her special favours.
For the Mail’s recent disclosures mean that she herself has ‘become the story’, as the old saying goes, thereby breaking the oldest rule in the public relations book.
Uber, for its part, may feel that Whetstone’s departure can potentially limit future damage from what is now a serious and growing political scandal.
Perhaps, more to the point, the Silicon Valley firm also feels that Rachel Whetstone has outlived her political usefulness.
For now that Cameron is no longer PM, this rapacious internet giant no longer benefits from having the best mate of the country’s leader on its payroll.
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