Henry Dyer

Henry Dyer is an investigations reporter at the Guardian who focuses on how political power, money and influence operate around Westminster and the wider British state. His reporting centres on the structures that enable politicians, parties and affiliated organisations to move funds, secure access and avoid scrutiny, rather than on day-to-day campaign or parliamentary coverage. He brings a document-led approach from the investigations desk, working through records, correspondence and internal papers to surface unresolved questions about political conduct.

Opaque political funding and Labour Together

A recurring strand of Dyer’s work is the funding and influence of Labour Together, a thinktank linked to figures close to Keir Starmer. He was the reporter who first raised concerns about undeclared contributions to Labour Together, setting out what was known about its finances and why the gaps mattered for public understanding of the organisation’s role in party politics.

His subsequent coverage has tracked the fallout from that initial story, including the revelation that Labour Together went on to investigate journalists who had scrutinised its funding.

That reporting includes detailed explanations of how the thinktank monitored journalists and why this behaviour sits uneasily with the group’s proximity to the party leadership.

Dyer’s work in this area continues to return to concrete evidence: donation records, corporate and organisational filings, and the timelines of when funding was disclosed or withheld. Across these pieces he positions Labour Together within a wider pattern of political organisations operating in the grey zone between party infrastructure and independent campaigning bodies.

Lobbying, standards and the Westminster ecosystem

Dyer’s investigations often sit at the junction of lobbying, political standards and the culture of Westminster. He contributes reporting and analysis that examine how lobbyists, thinktanks and corporate clients gain access to ministers and senior party figures, and why promised reforms to lobbying rules repeatedly stall. In briefing pieces and interviews, he breaks down the web of relationships that underpin lobbying operations, highlighting the long-term links between advisers, MPs and external firms rather than treating individual scandals in isolation.

His evidence to parliament’s Procedure Committee reflects the same concern with accountability, focusing on how corrections to the official record are made when ministers and MPs give inaccurate statements. In that forum he describes the role of reporters on the investigations desk in pushing for errors to be acknowledged and corrected, and how this work ties into broader reporting on standards in public life. Taken together, his coverage and public testimony position him as a reporter who treats rules, corrections and enforcement as core subjects rather than technical footnotes to political stories.

Security vetting, intelligence briefings and elite access

Another distinct theme in Dyer’s work is the intersection of security vetting, intelligence briefings and access granted to senior political figures. His reporting on Peter Mandelson shows this approach clearly: he documents how Mandelson received sensitive security briefings on Foreign Office work and held discussions with the head of MI6 before his developed vetting process was complete. The piece breaks down what vetting is supposed to involve, what happened in this case, and what remains unanswered, structuring the story around specific questions about process and risk rather than personality alone.

Coverage of that episode sits within a wider interest in how the state shares information with politically connected individuals, and how formal procedures can be bent or waived. He revisits these issues in newsletter briefings that place the Mandelson story alongside other examples from the British security and technology landscape, such as debates over Palantir’s role in government data systems. Across this work he returns to the same core problem: who is allowed inside the circle of trust, on what terms, and with what checks.

Power, money and political leaders

Dyer’s investigations frequently follow money and access around individual political leaders, not only organisations. His work on Boris Johnson sets out how the former prime minister built lucrative relationships and opportunities through speeches, business agreements and dealings with foreign actors after leaving office. In podcast formats he explains the underlying reporting in detail, including the review of emails, letters, spreadsheets and official diary entries that underpins the narrative.

This focus on records and contracts, rather than gossip or speculation, is a consistent feature of his coverage.

Beyond Johnson and Labour Together, Dyer’s wider body of work covers politics and the media, often homing in on cases where the press, parties and commercial interests intersect. Before joining the Guardian’s investigations desk he worked as a politics reporter for Insider, covering Westminster politics, and he has written as a freelance for a range of national titles.

Across those roles he has kept the same core beat: the structures that shape political communication, the organisations that operate around parties, and the details that show how influence is exercised in practice.