Lobbying giant filmed offering reporter payment for flattering client coverage in national press

5:46 Lobbyists meet undercover journalist to commission newspaper piece – video Lobbying giant filmed offering reporter payment for flattering client coverage in national press Exclusive: Guardian investigation of CT Group uncovers practice that appears to seek hidden influence over public opinion A political lobbying firm founded by the former electoral strategist for David Cameron and Boris Johnson secretly pays journalists to write pieces for British newspapers that are favourable to their clients, a Guardian investigation can reveal. In a practice that appears to create a backdoor for private companies to influence public opinion, lobbyists for CT Group – co-founded by the campaign strategist, Lynton Crosby – told an undercover reporter that they had paid journalists to place apparently independent stories in newspapers. They offered hundreds of pounds in cash incentives to do so for a property industry client and said the deal would grant the lobbying firm increased editorial control. The Guardian began investigating the arrangements after Gavin Stollar, head of CT’s real estate division, approached a freelance journalist and offered to pay him to pitch a piece to a British national newspaper about problems caused for the housebuilding industry by the Building Safety Regulator, set up in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire, a tragedy that claimed the lives of 72 people. Stollar hoped the journalist would write about the human consequences of the UK’s housing shortage and suggest the regulator was making the situation worse. Stollar, a Liberal Democrat activist who was awarded an OBE in 2024, said CT Group would help with research and provide human case studies of people affected by the housing shortage. View image in fullscreen Boris Johnson and Lynton Crosby pictured in 2014. Photograph: Alan Davidson/Rex/Shutterstock Stollar led the journalist to understand that while they would be paid by the newspaper for apparently independent reporting, they would also be paid by CT Group, which has property industry clients. Other CT Group staffers then proposed the freelance journalist could be paid to write stories for newspapers as part of its work for a leading property guardianship company, Live-In Guardians. One said: “You can do it either way. We don’t have to pay you, and you just go off and do how you normally do. Or, we can pay you, but we get more control over it.” They then offered him “£100 for every story that is successfully published (national or trade)”. In meetings with the reporter, the CT Group employees proposed he chair a roundtable for the company for £500 and pitch pieces to national and trade papers that would support the guardianship sector – which sometimes has a reputation for low quality housing with few protections for residents. One suggestion was to write “a call to action from the industry for [Andy] Burnham to be smart about this”. They said they did not want pieces to appear like advertorials – which are transparentl