Darren Caplan, Simon Nayyar - is this criticism fair?

This story was posted on 1st April (it doesn't look like an April fool) on Yahoo News: Move over MPs expenses, there's a new scandal in town

It says: "Hackney South and Shoreditch Conservative candidate Simon Nayyar is campaigning on a ‘save our local shops' ticket. Meanwhile, the company for which he is head lobbyist, Citigate Dewe Rogerson, represents Asda, owned by US giant Walmart - aka the company that killed off local shops in America." To check Spinprofiles

"Darren Caplan is standing in neighbouring Hackney North and Stoke Newington and, like Nayyar, he is spearheading a "support local businesses" campaign, "so those out of work have more opportunities to find new jobs." Also in common with Nayyar, he heads up lobbying for the PR firm Brands2Life, whose clients include Tesco, the friend of local business!" and B2L seems to confirm this

On this website Caplan says: "The B2L Public Affairs practice is headed by me, Darren Caplan. I have extensive political and influencer campaigning experience in Westminster and local/regional politics." Probably a very normal lobbyists CV, but what influencing has he been doing in "local/regional politics"?