PETER MANDELSON emerged as an “unofficial” adviser to Starmer’s team during the botched Hartlepool by-election. Morgan McSweeney, who is close to Mandelson, was Starmer’s chief of staff and is now Labour’s “elections director.”

Mandelson was one of the key — and controversial — architects of New Labour, shifting the party in a right-wing, pro-big business direction. Mandelson was Labour’s campaign director in the 2010 election: Labour lost that election, so, out of a job, Mandelson set up Global Counsel, which he co-owns with former Blair communications director Ben Wegg-Prosser.

Global Counsel promises to help big businesses with “Navigating politics, business and policymaking” and charges corporate clients for advice on how to “manage risk and see opportunities in politics, regulation and public policy.”

Global Counsel needs to show corporations they can work with the current Conservative government, so Mandelson has recently hired a former Tory MP, Seema Kennedy. Global Counsel describe her to clients as a “former UK government minister and senior political aide to prime minister Theresa May.”

Kennedy was MP for South Ribble until 2019 and served as parliamentary secretary to May, before becoming an immigration minister, where she defended tighter post-Brexit migration rules, the Home Office’s poor response to “Windrush” compensation and plans to send asylum-seekers back to “safe third countries.” Kennedy announced she was standing down in 2019 but seems to have maintained good relations with government: she was made a part-time director of water regulator Ofwat last November.

Kennedy told the advisory committee on business appointments — the toothless regulator of the “revolving door” between government and industry — that in her part-time role at Global Counsel she would chair round table meetings with clients and give “general political insights on commercial matters, drawing on my commercial and political experience.”

Global Counsel’s clients, who include Banco Santander and UK Finance, the City lobby group, will presumably be happy the firm is hiring former top Tories. Whether Labour Party members are as delighted to be reminded what their leader’s adviser does for a day job is another matter.