Revealed: Tories have held cosy meetings with Google every month since election

• David Cameron has met web giant three times; George Osborne, four times
• In total, 23 meetings between Tory ministers and Google since June 2010
• New embarrassment for Conservatives after NI debacle
  

By Daniel Martin and Claire Ellicott

PUBLISHED: 22:01, 18 May 2012 | UPDATED: 09:56, 19 May 2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2146552/Tories-held-cosy-me...

Tory ministers have held meetings with Google an average of once a month since the General Election.

The revelation of the extraordinarily close relationship increases concerns that the internet giant has the ear of the Government on a host of sensitive topics.

Official records show that David Cameron has met Google executives three times and Chancellor George Osborne four times.

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has met the firm no fewer than seven times while his Culture Secretary boss Jeremy Hunt – currently under pressure over his links to another media giant, News Corp – has held four meetings.

The Tories' close relationship with Google goes back to David Cameron's first months as party leader. In 2006 and 2007, he spoke to the annual Google Zeitgeist conference (above)

George Osborne has met Google executives four times; Culture minister Ed Vaizey (centre) has met them no fewer than seven times; and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt - currently under pressure over his links to another media giant, News Corp - has held four meetings with the web giant

In total, there have been at least 23 meetings between Conservative ministers and Google since June 2010.

The links are so strong that in recent years at least three senior figures have moved between the Tories  and Google.

Links with media giants are a highly  sensitive topic for the Tories. The current section of the Leveson inquiry into Press standards is focusing on the painfully close ties between Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and the Conservatives.

Revelations have included the toe-curling text messages between the Prime Minister and the company’s former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks.

In addition, a series of emails have lifted the lid on the close relationship between News Corp’s top lobbyist and Mr Hunt’s department during the company’s abortive attempt to take over satellite broadcaster BSkyB in 2011.

Labour has also accused the Conservatives of going soft on online porn because of its close relationships with firms such as Google.

Last month a Google executive caused outrage when she said it was the fault of parents if their children saw adult content online.

The executive in question was Naomi Gummer, who until recently was Mr Hunt’s political adviser.

Google was approached by the Tories to store patients’ records after the failure of Labour’s health IT scheme.

And it has been repeatedly criticised for paying tax on less than a quarter of its UK income. In 2010 it generated £2.1billion here but locates its international operations in Ireland, where it can take advantage of the 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate.

Along with many other media companies, Google is anxiously awaiting the Government’s long-delayed Green Paper for its proposed Communications Bill which will have major implications for digital media in the UK.

Google has been repeatedly criticised for paying tax on less than a quarter of its UK income. In 2010 it generated £2.1bn here but locates its international operations in Ireland (above), where it can take advantage of the 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate

Last night Helen Goodman, Labour’s media spokesman, said: ‘Of course it is important for ministers to listen to business, but a meeting with Google every month does look like the sort of privileged access that small businesses can only dream of.

‘Ministers must disclose what they discussed. Did they challenge Google over their repellent tax avoidance, which was uncovered by the Daily Mail?’

The record of meetings, obtained from research into departmental websites, shows other Tory ministers to have met Google are further education minister John Hayes, universities minister David Willetts, policy minister Oliver Letwin and business minister Baroness Wilcox.

Two Lib Dems – Business Secretary Vince Cable and Ed Davey, then an employment minister – have met the firm.

The close relationship goes back to Mr Cameron’s first months as party leader. In 2006 and 2007, he spoke to the annual Google Zeitgeist conference.

On the second occasion, Google picked up the bill for hotels and flights between London, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles.

Last night a spokesman for Google said: ‘It’s absolutely right that governments speak with companies about issues that affect their citizens.

Links with media giants are a highly sensitive topic for the Tories. Leveson Inquiry revelations have included the toe-curling text messages between the PM and News Corps' former chief executive, Rebekah Brooks (above)

‘The British Government makes the list of those meetings publicly available – including the Daily Mail’s 34 meetings over the same period.’

Last night a Tory source said the Government was working with internet firms to install higher-speed broadband, to crack down on online porn, and to draw up a major Green Paper on communications, and that it was wrong to say Google had any special access because of Mr Cameron’s relationship with Steve Hilton.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: ‘All these meetings have been properly declared and it is normal for relevant ministers to meet with a company of this size.’

Steve Hilton and Rachel Whetstone have been linked to Mr Cameron since 1992

First it was Murdoch, now Tories 'get too close to Google'

The number of meetings between Tory ministers and Google executives raises questions because of David Cameron’s close relationship with his oldest political friend Steve Hilton and his wife Rachel Whetstone.

Mr Hilton was until recently the Prime Minister’s most trusted adviser in Number 10, and Miss Whetstone is global head of communications at Google HQ in California.

The three met in 1992 when they worked together on John Major’s successful election campaign.

Mr Cameron then became a Whitehall special adviser, alongside Miss Whetstone, while Mr Hilton set up his own consultancy firm.

The three became lynchpins of the ‘Notting Hill Set’.

Mr Hilton even became godfather to David and Samantha Cameron’s late son Ivan, and the PM is godfather to the Hiltons’ second son.

It was Steve Hilton who persuaded Mr Cameron to run for the Tory leadership in 2005 after Michael Howard – for whom Rachel Whetstone was by this time working as chief of staff – stepped down.

Mr Howard’s resignation prompted Miss Whetstone to join the private sector, and she got a communications job at Google.

Mr Cameron took on Mr Hilton, who had been working for advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, as chief strategic policy adviser, where he became known for his ‘blue sky thinking’ and came up with the idea of the Big Society.

But questions soon grew over whether Mr Hilton’s wife’s position at Google was giving the internet giant too much influence on Conservative policy.

Mr Cameron addressed the firm’s annual conference twice, in 2006 and 2007. Around this time he began to talk about encouraging patients to store their medical records with companies such as Google.

The then Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb, now a minister in the Coalition Government, said: ‘It leaves a nasty taste in the mouth that there are repeated references to Google, given the closeness of Team Cameron to that organisation, and it leaves concerns about commercial advantage.’

Mr Hilton moved with Team Cameron to Number 10 on the formation of the Coalition.

Many of his policies were described as ‘bonkers’ by colleagues, and angered senior Lib Dems as well as civil servants.

He wanted to slash protections for workers to help business, advocated ignoring EU laws and most recently called for the welfare budget to be slashed by a further £25billion.

The arch-Thatcherite also wanted to sack two in three civil servants, and urged ministers to fly with ‘upstart’ Virgin rather than ‘fat cat’ British Airways.

The shaven-headed son of Hungarian immigrants stood out in Number 10 as a result of his propensity to walk around shoeless and in a T-shirt, a get-up which caused Barack Obama to call him a ‘beach bum’.

Mr Cameron and Mr Hilton spoke every Sunday and one insider said they were so close that he was the only person who could get the PM to change a policy within minutes.

While Mr Hilton is an outsider in high society, Miss Whetstone had a privileged upbringing more akin to Mr Cameron’s.

However, the relationship was not helped in the early 2000s by rumours of an affair with Viscount Astor, Samantha’s stepfather, before she got together with Mr Hilton.

In March it was announced that Mr Hilton was to take up an academic post at Stanford University in California to be near his wife. He plans to return next year.

Rachel Whetstone is not the only senior Tory official to have links to Google.

Naomi Gummer, daughter of Mr Cameron’s Oxfordshire neighbour Lord Chadlington, worked with Miss Whetstone in Google’s public policy division and is still an executive there. She was previously an adviser to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

Amy Fisher, Caroline Spelman’s special adviser since last year, did a stint at Google as a press officer with Miss Whetstone.