Uber was riding high in London in 2014. Two years after its launch, the US private-hire app entered the black cab and minivan business without a huge political backlash.
But that spring, one of Uber’s main political brokers contacted the California headquarters with bad news for Boris Johnson, the mayor of London.
“I saw Boris. The amendment is against us.” The email comes from Jim Messina, a former aide to Barack Obama whose clients include Uber and the UK Conservative Party.
Johnson refused to meet with Uber and sympathized with rivals’ complaints that it was operating on the fringes of the law. A second Uber consultant would later report that Johnson had said of its controversial CEO that “it would be less politically damaging to take a picture with the leader of Isis than with Travis Kalanick.”
Questions and Answers
What are Uber files?
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The Uber files are a global investigation based on a set of 124,000 documents leaked to the Guardian. The data consists of emails, iMessages and WhatsApp exchanges between the Silicon Valley giant’s top executives, as well as memos, presentations, notebooks, briefing documents and invoices.
The leaked records cover 40 countries and cover the period from 2013 to 2017, the period when Uber was aggressively expanding around the world. They reveal how the company broke the law, defrauded police and regulators, used violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments around the world.
To facilitate a global public interest investigation, the Guardian shared the data with 180 journalists in 29 countries through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The investigation was managed and led by the Guardian with the ICIJ.
In a statement, Uber said: “We have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly inconsistent with our current values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we have done in the past five years and what we will do in the years to come.”
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In the years that followed, Uber mounted a relentless lobbying campaign to stop Johnson from introducing tougher regulations.
The scale of the effort – targeting George Osborne, David Cameron and others – was only made public through Uber’s files, a leak to the Guardian revealing how the company gained covert access to politicians worldwide.
The plan to try to influence the mayor was laid out in a 2014 strategy: “The need is for a more positive image of Uber to be conveyed to Boris by people he trusts and respects.” The targets were members of the assembly of the Tories, fellow No 10s and the regulator Transport for London (TfL), chaired by Johnson.
In pursuit of this goal, it hired superstar lobbyists, including Rachel Whetstone, a close friend of Cameron and Osborne, which opened doors.
George Osborne speaks at the Conservative Conference in 2015. Photo: David Gadd/Allstar
One senior in-house lobbyist recalled that he thought they had “the highest possible level of access because one of our senior executives was very close to Cameron and Osborne.
“I don’t know if she was pulling the strings but she was certainly talking and texting her friends because another Conservative member was a problem for us and his name was Boris Johnson. He was mayor of London and he was on the side of black cabs, it’s no secret. And he controlled TfL, so we needed central government, in this case Dave and George, to rely on Boris.’
Whetstone doesn’t deny having occasional relevant conversations with politicians, but her lawyers say “she did not routinely ‘lobby’ … on behalf of Uber in private.”
Uber’s strategy seems to be working. After a campaign by friends of the company in government, Johnson would reveal in an October 2015 column for the Telegraph that he had been “inundated” with complaints from fellow Tories about his proposals.
By January 2016, Johnson’s efforts to regulate Uber much more strictly would have failed.
“Crosby’s like us: he doesn’t lose”
Messina, the former Obama aide who warned of Johnson’s hostility, advised the company to hire former mayoral strategist Lynton Crosby.
“Linton Crosby ran both Boris campaigns and is now Cameron’s campaign manager… His firm lobbies and he LOVES Uber. He can quietly get along with Boris. I say throw him in the water for us. He’s controversial, but he’s like us: he doesn’t lose,” Messina said in an email chain titled “Trouble in London” sent to an Uber executive in February 2014.
Lynton Crosby (left) and Boris Johnson in 2012. Photo: Alan Davidson/Rex/Shutterstock
Crosby met with Uber and his firm CT Group offered advice and surveys, but leaked documents show Uber wasn’t sure it could trust someone so close to the mayor.
Asked about his work for the Tories and Uber, Messina’s spokesman said he provides “global policy advice” and his work for Uber “includes helping them understand the political landscape in certain European countries where the company is looking to grow its business.” . CT Group said: “Uber does not engage CT Partners. To be clear, CT fully complies with the requirements of the Lobbying Act with respect to client disclosure.” A deal was never made. But with growing concern about London’s mayor, Uber began looking for political help.
Dinner in Silicon Valley
London taxi drivers brought the capital to a standstill in the summer of 2014 in protest against lax regulation of Uber, accusing it of operating outside the law.
Around that time, Whetstone, then head of public relations at Google, who was one of Uber’s major investors, sent Kalanick a memo about how to win British political attention.
Whetstone – a friend of Cameron’s and the wife of his former strategist Steve Hilton – had invited Kalanick to a private dinner in Silicon Valley, apparently at the suggestion of Osborne, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was billed as the star guest.
Rachel Whetstone. Photo: PA Images
An American Uber associate told Kalanick in an email in August 2014: “We were going to put you in front of Osborne when you’re in London, but it’s a much more personal affair, with no employees or subordinates.” Is this an official meeting? was it? The guidelines are vague but not declared by the Treasury.
According to the documents, Whetstone believes Uber’s relationship with Osborne will be fruitful. She wrote to Kalanick in September 2014: “As you know George, this is most of the problem solved by the government.”
Of Johnson, she made some suggestions: “George would probably know best who has his ear, but he’s pretty uncontrollable…Eddie Lister runs his office (good guy). Boris will care a lot about the Evening Standard, so it’s worth seeing the editor there.
Within the year, Kalanick had found Whetstone for Uber. She will become head of communications and policy and help take Uber’s lobbying to the next level.
“Who is Matt Hancock?”
Osborne agreed to see Kalanick again in January 2015 at Downing Street. An account by Uber executives characterized the chancellor as “very welcoming to Uber,” asking, “How do I get more out of it?”
They claimed he was “open to helping with any barriers we may encounter”, while stressing it was best to discuss London regulation with Johnson.
Uber looked to Matt Hancock, then business secretary who was close to Osborne, as another ally. One of Uber’s UK PR managers described him as “a good friend of ours” in an email.
Lottie Dexter, an associate of Hancock’s who later became Uber’s PR chief, reportedly told one of the company’s executives in April 2015, “Matt Hancock loves Uber and wants to meet soon.” She had no comment when contacted by the Guardian.
One of Uber’s lobbying firms, Westbourne, also had a relationship with Hancock. The company’s 2014 list of lobbying targets notes: “Westbourne spoke to Matt Hancock about Uber over dinner.”
It was not announced, but his spokesman said the dinner was political and therefore unannounced.
Westbourne was owned by James Bethel, a hereditary Tory peer who later became Health Secretary under Hancock. Asked about his work for Uber, Lord Bethel said: “I hope we never turn our backs on innovative companies that are looking to make their case to government and the media.”
While Hancock was seen as a friend, Uber appeared sensitive about which government ministers Kalanick should meet.
One Uber executive in Europe asked in an email: “Who is Matt Hancock and why are we suggesting that Travis meet him?” In December 2014, Downing Street suggested to Uber that Hancock could meet Kalanick at Number 10. The internal response from the Uber associate organizing Kalanick’s schedule came back: “Matt Hancock must be crazy if he thinks we’re going to send TK to meet him.”
These were prime ministers, chancellors or nothing.
Party of sexy fishes
Uber’s problems worsened in 2015. First, TfL applied for a legal ruling on whether Uber’s fare-calculating app counted as a taximeter – which only black cabs are allowed to use.
Then, in June, Johnson attacked “the brazen attitudes of these giant American Internet companies and the way they think they can come in and disrupt the market.”
Within weeks, TfL announced a consultation to limit the number of minibus drivers and ask customers to wait five minutes between booking and boarding the vehicle.
Uber responded by going into lobbying. Whetstone and David Plouffe, another former Obama adviser who works for Uber, came to London this winter to target people connected to City Hall and Westminster, including Zac Goldsmith, the Tory candidate hoping to replace Johnson.
David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s US presidential campaign in 2008. Photo: Wenn Rights Ltd/Alamy
Plouffe was also able to – finally – see a member of Johnson’s team: Isabelle Dedring, Deputy…
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