Complaint lodged against Hain lobbyist

Steve Morgan, the political consultant and lobbyist involved in the Peter Hain controversy, and who is now working for Hillary Clinton's campaign to represent the Democrats in the US presidential election, is having a professional complaint against his company considered by the self-regulatory body that governs political consultants in Britain.

At a meeting on Monday, February 4, the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC) will consider the complaint against Morgan Allen Moore, of which Morgan is chairman.

Morgan left the Hain campaign last June - when, despite his efforts, Hain came a disappointing fifth out of six contenders for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party - and is currently working with the Clinton team in its battle with Barack Obama. He has special responsibility for overseas voters.

The complaint against Morgan has been made by James Davenport, a former employee of Morgan Allen Moore, who claims Morgan breached the APPC code of conduct - specifically a clause governing the separation of private and consultancy activities - while working on the Hain campaign.

Members of the APPC management committee first met on January 28 to consider the complaint. A spokesman told The First Post that, as a result, they have asked Davenport to provide more information and substantiate his allegations. On Monday the committee will meet to reconsider the complaint.

Welsh-born Morgan was brought in last April to take over Peter Hain's election drive and - in his own words - "bring order to the chaos" left by others. He demanded a more upfront - and more expensive - American-style campaign, which required an immediate increase in fundraising.

Phil Taylor, who had run the campaign until Morgan’s arrival, left within days. In a resignation email sent on April 7, Taylor warned Peter Hain that he could not see how the higher bills would be met. And he claims to have reminded Morgan that any individual donation of more than £1,000 had to be publicly declared within 30 days.

It has since transpired that donations totaling £103,000 were never declared. Last week, Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, had to resign from the Cabinet after the Electoral Commission passed their file on the matter to the police.

As part of their investigation, the Metropolitan Police's economic and specialist crime unit are expected to examine the Hain team’s relationship with the Progressive Policy Forum (PPF) think-tank, a little-known body that provided £26,000 in donations and an interest-free £25,000 loan to the Hain campaign. The PPF employs no staff and has not published any pamphlets or political work of any kind since it was set up in December 2006.

Detectives will want to know if donors who gave money to the PPF also gave their permission for it to be used for Hain's leadership campaign and, if so, why they did not give money to the campaign directly.

Steve Morgan has worked for politicians on both sides of the Atlantic over the past decade. He helped on Tony Blair's 1997 election victory and was an international media spokesman for both John Kerry and Al Gore during their fruitless bids for the White House.

He told the Sunday Telegraph last month that, among other duties, he was running the Clinton campaign's 'outreach' programme, wooing oversees visitors, including 350,000 in Britain. "There are 6.5m American expats now - that's more than voters than in the state of Masachusetts."