In the not so distant past, Iain Anderson was a stalwart Tory with the CV to match. In a 2012 ranking of the UK’s most powerful financial lobbyists by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Anderson came in at number five. His lobbying firm, H/Advisors Cicero, represents some of the City’s apex predators, including Blackrock, Santander and abrdn.
Over the course of a 40-year love affair with the Conservative Party, Anderson worked on two of Ken Clake’s leadership campaigns, was appointed the UK’s first-ever ‘LGBTQ+ business champion’ under Boris Johnson and later threw his considerable political weight behind Liz Truss’s Tory leadership campaign, sharing a picture of the pair on Twitter, with a gushing caption. “I’ve worked with Liz on economic reform and boosting opportunity, " he wrote. “She has fresh ideas and real energy. She does what she says and is strong and loyal. That’s why I’m backing #LizForLeader.”
In the months after the collapse of Truss’s government, the writing was on the wall: Labour was going to win the next election. Around this time, Anderson had a conversion. Now, he seems for all the world an influential player in the Starmer project.
