Prospective MP: Penny Mordaunt
Party: Conservative
Constituency: Portsmouth North 
Links to lobbying: Director of media and lobbying firm, Media Intelligence Partners and ex-lobbyist with consultancy, Hanover
Recent clients: 'Healthcare clients'; unknown

Penny Mordaunt is Conservative candidate for the Labour-held Portsmouth North, one of the Tories’ top target seats.

Penny describes herself on her campaign website as a “healthcare consultant”.  However, she hasn’t been completely straightforward with voters about her links to lobbying.

She is officially registered with Companies House as a director and minority shareholder  of a London-based communications and lobbying firm, Media Intelligence Partners (MIP), which she co-founded six years ago.  MIP boasts of its “excellent contacts among senior Conservative politicians”.  

MIP’s website describes Penny as a Partner  and “specialist in government relations and crisis management”. It also gives her current mobile phone number as a contact  for her at the company.  Until enquiries were made, Penny’s own campaign website also said she “currently runs her own media company based in London”.  

However, Penny says she is no longer a director of MIP and hasn’t worked for the company since late 2005 or early 2006.  MIP also says that she has left the firm, but “about two years ago”. However, Penny’s profile on the MIP website suggests that it was written in 2009 at the earliest, years after both she and MIP say she left the company.

Penny was also, until very recently, employed by PR and lobbying consultancy Hanover.  Again, she doesn’t mention this job in her campaign literature.

Hanover promises to be able to help clients shape government policy, defend their reputation, and drive sales.  Current clients of the firm include Microsoft; alcohol giant Diageo; and the arms company and Portsmouth employer, Lockheed Martin.

Penny worked with a range of Hanover’s healthcare clients, including the pharmaceutical companies sanofi-aventis and Schering Plough as well as the charity Heart UK. Hanover’s other big clients in health include the American Pharmaceutical Group, which represents the interests of large US pharma companies; the NHS National Screening Committee, which advises on medical screening policy, and Alliance Medical, a private company contracted to do medical scans for the NHS.   

Penny says she is particularly interested in policies affecting older people and recently helped set up a ‘commission for older people’  being run by the Centre for Social Justice – Iain Duncan Smith’s think tank and a client of Media Intelligence Partners.