Earlier this year, the Labour Party held a gathering for business leaders at the Oval cricket ground in London. During the event, a representative from Skanska, a construction company, raised concerns about big infrastructure projects affecting Britain’s attractiveness. She challenged Jonathan Reynolds, the party’s shadow business secretary, asking what she could tell her board in Sweden to make them re-evaluate. In response, Mr Reynolds promised to personally go to Stockholm to make the pitch.
This interaction at the Oval cricket ground exemplified the Labour Party’s efforts to build strong relationships with businesses under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer. Sir Keir, along with Mr Reynolds and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, have been actively engaging with almost all of the FTSE 350 companies through a series of breakfast meetings. This approach has been coined the “smoked salmon offensive,” in reference to the similar strategy that Sir Tony Blair employed, known as the “prawn cocktail offensive,” before his election in 1997.