Left-ish press lacks killer instinct: The case of Atlantic Bridge

By Stephen Newton

Earlier this week the Daily Mail intervened in the hard fought Lib Dem/Labour marginals of Manchester Withington and Rochdale, exposing tricks the Lib Dems have pulled to divert taxpayers money to party funds.

To local bloggers this was old news – Chris Paul’s Labour of Love first exposed the Lib Dems months ago – but this didn’t matter to the Daily Mail: Nick Clegg’s performance in the Leaders’ Debates had left them suddenly hungry for Lib Dem sleaze and they didn’t care how old the news was or even if it helped Labour on the ground.

Sadly the left-leaning press lacks this killer instinct and is either far more choosy or too busy setting up diversions – like paying a man in a chicken suit to interrupt Ken Clarke’s lunch – to report election news that matters. Chicken man is front page news in the Daily Mirror, whose associate editor Kevin Maguire dutifully – but apparently half-heartedly – talks up Gordon Brown’s performance in the Leaders’ Debates on TV. It’s all harmless knockabout stuff of no real consequence.

As the Daily Mirror’s chicken stalked senior Conservatives, news that the Charity Commission had referred an organisation run by five shadow cabinet ministers to the IRS in the USA broke quietly on blogs and in the specialist press. The Guardian’s Whitehall correspondent, Polly Curtis, asked what it was all about. The American tax authorities had been advised by the Charity Commission that US laws forbidding tax exempt organisations from electioneering may have been breached. The IRS has been investigating this charity, the Atlantic Bridge, since last autumn following allegations that US taxpayers were effectively subsidising an organisation set up to help senior Conservatives bond with their US allies.

Those same US allies sparked the #welovethenhs Twitter campaign after they told Americans that Britons would rather be rid of the NHS. According to the Daily Mail, the American members of the Atlantic Bridge have claimed the NHS encourages terrorism. The charity spent almost 2,500 US dollars on just one night’s accommodation in London for a US senator the Mail names as a leading critic of the NHS.

So who told the American members of the Atlantic Bridge the NHS encourages terrorism and Britons hate it?

Well, the organisation was founded by former GP Liam Fox and its advisory board includes George Osborne, Chris Grayling, Michael Gove and other senior Tories and major donors. UK charities are forbidden from supporting political parties, but we should not be surprised that its American chief executive has endorsed David Cameron.

There was more. Much more. But Polly had already lost interest.

Remarkably, a set of Atlantic Bridge accounts include a line advising donors that if they give to its British charity, its US non-profit will sponsor them to attend its events in America. Typical events include dinner in LA with Fox News film critic James Hirsen, so given that it costs a higher rate taxpayer £600 to donate £1,000, that’s quite an offer.

The Atlantic Bridge had sponsored a promotional event held in New York for a book written by William Hague, who also sits on its advisory board. US law forbids, “any person… in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the organisation” from benefitting from its largesse. When challenged on why Hague had failed to declare the sponsorship in the MPs register of interests, his PA emailed to say he attended the event because of the organisation’s “links with the Conservative Party” and hadn’t charged them a fee for promoting his own book.

A left leaning Daily Mail would have blown the Atlantic Bridge months ago. “How could David Cameron (who knows all about this) claim to be the man to clean up British politics when his most senior lieutenants are running a think tank that has never published a thought and is so mired in sleaze?”, it would scream. Last summer’s attacks on the NHS, albeit US based, would be headline news again. Heads would have rolled. But the Guardian says it can’t see the story and Daily Mirror reporters would rather run around in chicken suits. How appropriate.