Analysis of @UKLabour/@Conservatives Twitter output during #GE2017

I write about politics and corruption and what have you, but when I’m not wearing my cape, I also do data analysis on keyword search data for SEO purposes and have done so for years and years and years and years (and years and years and years and y). My job is to recognise significant patterns, particularly those that represent potential real-world opportunities; behind every keyword query is a real person who wants something, and seeing/appreciating this data appropriately, you learn to gauge the intent and mindset of entire crowds, what their desires are, and how they go about getting their hands on what they think they want.

What we are going to do today is look at the text output from the Twitter accounts of the two biggest parties during the 2017 General Election and try to gain a similar understanding of the tribes behind them; basically, how they each pitched their message to a nation of 65 million people, and how some of the 16 million Twitter users in this country responded.

Now, I know some of you have a pretty good idea of what just happened, but trust me: the devil is in the detail.

(Declaration of Interest: I was one of hundreds engaging in the sport of replying to the @Conservatives’ account during one of the worst-run campaigns in living memory, but as busy as I was, my input is a blip on the radar and nowhere near the numbers I would need to skew Replies data in any meaningful way.)

All figures relate to Tweets and Retweets by @UKLabour and @Conservatives throughout the formal/traditional campaign period for the 2017 General Election. The relevant tweets start at 18 April 2017 and end at midnight on 7 June 2017, when all tweets/figures were captured. There was a final burst of activity from both accounts on election day itself because loopholes in social media are a thing, but there was nothing out of the ordinary beyond the predictable focus on mobilising voters on a national and local level, so I saved a copy of these cheeky extras and put them in a drawer somewhere to forget about later.

TOAP (‘Text On a Picture’) is not included in the figures for word counts or any analysis, and I make no apologies for that. It’s so labour-intensive that I’d need an obsessive intern on performance-enhancing drugs just to extract the data, and I can’t afford the amphetamines, even if I go off-brand or generic.

The captured text was edited ONLY to distinguish between the person May and other uses of the verb ‘may’ or the month ‘May’ for reasons that should be obvious.

I am also blocked on Twitter by @CCHQPress (for complaining about bullying) and by @grantshapps (ditto), so any RTs of tweets from these accounts will be missing from my data set, if they occurred at all.

Material retweeted from accounts with many followers (e.g. those of the respective leaders) and accounts with few followers (e.g. first-time candidates) can arguably boost/drag totals and skew averages, but while we will be taking a quick peek at the likely extent of any distortion in this analysis, I don’t think there’s much in it, and in any case I would argue that the robustness of these leader or ‘soldier’ accounts is just as relevant to the final picture.

Finally, before we go into the data, if you are new to Twitter you need to know about something called ‘The Ratio':

The Ratio refers to an unofficial Twitter law which states that if the amount of replies to a tweet greatly outnumbers the amount of retweets and likes, then the tweet is bad. – source | relevant article

In this context, retweets are being artificially inflated through legitimate but atypically overt promotion through party/membership networks and (sometimes) media interest, but there’s no hiding The Ratio, and you’re going to see it again and again.

Obviously, there are exceptions to The Ratio that include unusual outpourings of sympathy and/or solidarity, but you’re going to see that, too.

And so, without further fuss or ado, let’s get onto that beautiful data and the Magic Eye pictures lurking behind it…

BIG NUMBERS

Follower/Following totals for each account at 7 June 2017:
|__ @Conservatives: 265K Followers (while Following 1.6K)
|_____ @UKLabour: 447K Followers (while Following 14.1K)

Total number of tweets and retweets published during election:
|__ @Conservatives: 1,507 – (903 Tweets, 604 Retweets)
|_____ @UKLabour: 1,007 – (757 Tweets, 250 Retweets)

Feedback Totals (All Tweets) : Replies | Retweets | Likes
|__ @Conservatives: 252,848 | 260,347 | 385,534
|_____ @UKLabour: 54,775 | 643,378 | 865,129

First appearance of The Ratio, and comparison shows Tories getting 5 times as many ‘Replies’ as Labour over time, but with less than half the number of ‘Retweets’ and even fewer ‘Likes’.

Feedback Average (Per tweet/RT) : Replies | Retweets | Likes
|__ @Conservatives: 167.8 | 172.8 | 255.8
|_____ @UKLabour: 54.4 | 638.9 | 859.1

Labour were getting maybe 50 replies on the average tweet/RT, but over 600 retweets and near to 900 likes. Conservatives, by comparison, were getting over 150 replies with near the same number of retweets, and just over 250 likes.

The numbers clearly show the Conservatives enjoying far less support than Labour on Twitter and more of what one might kindly refer to as feedback, but you’ll get your chance to make your own mind up about that soon.

A closer look at the data shows just over 100 tweets/RTs through @UKLabour exceeding 1,000 retweets, but only 28 through @Conservatives. There was one tweet from @Theresa_May that we’ll get to in a moment that got far more RTs than anything else from them (over 17,000). If I take the figures out for that tweet and re-calculate averages without it, you’ll see a dip of 5 points in Replies and 10 in Retweets (see revised set below):
|__ @Conservatives: 162.7 | 163.4 | 241.3

This is by far the largest potential skew in the set, and there’s no meaningful dent in what the numbers are telling us. It might be different if one party or the other were repeatedly retweeting from more popular tweets/accounts for the sheer hell of it in order to distort their figures somehow, but nothing like that was going on.

While we’re on this subject, let’s swing to the other end of the scale briefly to visit some of the less ‘popular’ tweets that are letting the rest of the class down, before moving on to a closer look at the top performers:

SMALL NUMBERS

The lowest performing tweet/RT by @UKLabour (with 4 replies, 22 retweets and 61 Likes) was this RT from a Labour candidate who later retained her seat in Westminster North.

The lowest performing tweet/RT by @Conservatives (with 5 replies, 9 retweets 19 likes) was this RT from Eric Pickles, during one of the occasional short barrages that happened when the @Conservatives were busy shouting at the telly.

(Eric, if you’re reading this, we need to have words about Tory fundraising executives who make false allegations of child rape, and why you think that’s something to joke about, and not something to be alarmed about.)

MOST REPLIES

The tweet/RT by @Conservatives with the most replies was an RT of this tweet by Boris Johnson, and you’re welcome to browse through the replies that I have dared to tag as ‘mostly negative':

The tweet above had 7,828 replies by midnight 7 June. The tweet below was in a distant third with 6,121 replies at the time, but it has gained many more replies since the election for some reason (again, mostly negative in my view, but you’re welcome to look):

The tweet/RT by @UKLabour with the most replies was an RT of this tweet by Jeremy Corbyn (1,753 replies by midnight 7 June), and you’re welcome to browse through the replies that I have dared to tag as ‘mixed':

Sure, some people under that tweet are alleging or implying that Corbyn is soft on terrorism (as per the Tory/tabloid campaign against him), but this is the most-replied-to example from @UKLabour by far for the entire campaign, and even if you were to wrongly determine that all of the replies were negative, you would have to accept that vocal anger against Corbyn (legit or not) was totally overshadowed by vocal anger against the Tories, even when the former was at its most intense.

This is also the most-retweeted and most-liked of all tweets that appeared via the @UKLabour account.

The second-most-replied-to Tweet was also an RT from Corbyn, from the very beginning of the campaign. Replies are tagged ‘mixed’ again, but for different reasons, and you’re welcome to check them out for yourself:

MOST RETWEETS/LIKES

The tweet/RT by @Conservatives with the most retweets was an RT of this tweet by Theresa May, which one might describe as ‘newsy’ and perhaps a bit controversial to boot. It had 14,230 retweets by midnight on 7 June, it was only just in 2nd place for ‘Most Replies’ (7,759) and it smashed any competition for ‘Most Likes’ (22,155).

‘Likes’ aren’t always good, by the way. The same could be said of retweets, especially in this context:

The 2nd-most-retweeted tweet through @UKLabour – with 15,753 retweets at close of play – is another RT from Corbyn, this one involving voter registration (an issue which will come up again in this analysis):

The 2nd-most-liked tweet through @UKLabour was this one with 50,728 likes during the campaign.

Here I choose to also include the 3rd-most-retweeted tweet shared through @UKLabour, not least because they had FIVE top tweets with RTs in 5 figures compared to only ONE from the Tories, and May had to wind up the whole country about human rights to get that.

TWEETS ONLY

So far, it’s been all RTs, so let me also note this…

The most-retweeted tweet from the core @UKLabour account starred AJ Tracey…

… and it was the 6th-most-retweeted tweet overall, with 8,758 retweets.

The most-retweeted tweet from the core @Conservatives account starred Jeremy Corbyn…

… and it was 2nd-most retweeted tweet of the @Conservatives campaign.

Further, the second-most-retweeted tweet of the @Conservatives campaign had a mere 5,461 retweets, and the highest they went was with a controversial pledge to change human rights laws, earning them 14,230. Quite a drop-off.

This 2nd-most retweeted tweet is more representative of @Conservatives’ peak performance overall, and it just so happens to feature the kind of material their campaign was famous for.

THE ISSUES

@UKLabour mentioned tax 61 times, mainly when guaranteeing ‘no rise in Income Tax for 95% of taxpayers, and no rise in VAT or National Insurance for anyone’.
@Conservatives mentioned tax 114 times, in part by predicting ‘huge inheritance tax bills’ (aka a ‘death tax’) under Corbyn, but mainly with arguments centering on corporation tax and how Corbyn increasing it puts families at risk somehow. More on families shortly.

@UKLabour mentioned the economy 18 times.
@Conservatives mentioned the economy 89 times, mainly to lay claim to a strong economy and/or to warn people that Corbyn would wreck it. More on this shortly, too.

@UKLabour mentioned defence 4 times.
@Conservatives mentioned defence 18 times, mainly to lay claim to a strong defence capability and/or to warn people that Corbyn would dismantle it (or sit around singing Kumbaya… no, seriously).

@UKLabour mentioned Trident and/or our nuclear deterrent 0 times.
@Conservatives mentioned Trident and/or our nuclear deterrent nearly 50 times, and each and every time, it was to call upon Corbyn to talk about it, or remark upon the fact that he hadn’t talked about it enough.

@UKLabour mentioned terror/terrorism and extremism 7 times, with a clear pattern of Corbyn personally denouncing violence and calling for unity and a revised approach to extremism.
@Conservatives mentioned terror/terrorism and extremism 36 times. The vast majority of these tweets allege that Corbyn is soft/weak on terrorism or even associated with terrorists, but one or two do take the time to brag about May’s record/approach (example: “Theresa May as Home Secretary excluded more extremist preachers than any other Home Secretary before her”) and a few even promise a stepped-up version of this same approach, but the less said about that ‘human rights’ tweet, the better. There’s so much more to be upset about…

@UKLabour mentioned homes, houses and housing 91 times.
@Conservatives mentioned homes, houses and housing 21 times.

@UKLabour mentioned jobs 42 times.
@Conservatives mentioned jobs 34 times.

@UKLabour mentioned wages 49 times.
@Conservatives mentioned wages 5 times.

@UKLabour mentioned railways/transport 26 times.
@Conservatives mentioned railways/transport 0 times.

@UKLabour mentioned the NHS 196 times.
@Conservatives mentioned the NHS 25 times.

@UKLabour mentioned education 64 times.
@Conservatives mentioned education 7 times.

@UKLabour mentioned young people 75 times.
@Conservatives mentioned young people 6 times.

@UKLabour mentioned family or families 19 times.
@Conservatives mentioned family or families 95 times.

Well done, families, but before you get ahead of yourselves: you were used to defend corporation tax and as a pawn in further attacks on Jeremy Corbyn predicting “#chaos for families across the UK”. Further, of the 95 tweets that mention family or families, 55 used the word to stoke fear of economic chaos or hardship under Corbyn (example), a further dozen merely implied danger (including an increased danger of terror attack under Corbyn), and the rest was May begging for votes to ‘strengthen her hand’ (example). I believe I mentioned a certain Mr Devil would be found in that detail, and here’s a prime example of something that looks a bit good for the Tories until you take a closer look at it and see that their use of the word ‘family’ is as much of a sham as anything else. Back to the list…

@UKLabour mentioned pensions or pensioners 79 times.
@Conservatives mentioned pensions or pensioners 8 times.

@UKLabour mentioned immigrants or immigration 0 times
@Conservatives mentioned immigrants or immigration 33 times

@UKLabour mentioned Brexit 38 times.
@Conservatives mentioned Brexit 454 times.

@UKLabour promoted voter registration 149 times.
@Conservatives promoted voter registration 0 times.

Raise your hand if you arrived at this boring-looking list expecting it to be a long way from interesting and certainly not utterly fucking devastating.

Well, we’re not done yet…

THE LEADERS/THE OPPOSITION

@UKLabour mentioned Theresa May by name, surname or username 39 times out of 1007 tweets and RTs.

The vast majority of these messages referred to her fox-hunting position or called on May to provide answers to questions about social/pensioner care arising from her manifesto.

@Conservatives mentioned Jeremy Corbyn by name, surname or username 536 times out of 1,507 tweets and RTs; more than a third of the time.

The vast majority of these messages condemned Corbyn or called on him to condemn things himself, so it’s pretty clear what the Tories were doing instead of talking about the issues, and in any case the word clouds I published at the height of the campaign tell this exact same story.

There were 83 Retweets from @jeremycorbyn published by @UKLabour.
There were 62 Retweets from @theresa_may published by @Conservatives.

@Conservatives mentioned their own leader Theresa May by name another 300 times besides this, compared to @UKLabour heralding their leader only 10 times.

Ten. Times.

For the rest of the campaign they allowed him to speak for himself, almost as if he were a real leader, leading people. Quite a novel approach in this election, as it turns out.

Figures also indicate that there is some balance in reference to the opposition, just not so focused on the leader where Labour is concerned:

@UKLabour mentioned the word ‘Tory’ 111 times, ‘Tories’ 189 times and ‘Conservatives’ 10 times, totalling 310 mentions of the Conservative party (compared to 39 mentions of May by name).

That’s an 8:1 ratio in favour of party over personality from @UKLabour

Now, consider the number of times @Conservatives mentioned ‘Labour’ by name: 90 times (compared to 536 mentions of Corbyn by name).

That’s a 6:1 ratio in favour of personality over party from @Conservatives

This alone shows how fundamentally different the two campaigns were, and it really bears mentioning that it was Labour and not the Conservatives who had a leader with a personality worth focusing on.

CONCLUSIONS

The Twitter facet of the Tory campaign failed so completely and so thoroughly on its own merits that the only thing that really bears mentioning about @UKLabour in any short conclusion is its comparative normality and evident popularity.

@Conservatives failed to focus on issues and instead focused on personalities, to their evident detriment. The Twitter public was clearly upset by their campaign and expressing specific concerns about it, but no-one was listening, presumably because Mummy knew best. The Tories were deaf to public anger to such an extent that they recycled widely derided and even previously-discredited material throughout the campaign. They also released a notoriously callous and over-confident manifesto into the wider storm of upset and thought nothing of it.

Even if Tories were so paranoid as to ignore the specifics of negative feedback, the numbers alone (that were blindingly obvious very early in the campaign) would have screamed ‘Change direction!’ to any social media manager worth their salt. I can only speculate why no-one changed direction, but my best guess is the kind of raw hubris that comes with never having to face up to responsibility even once in your life.








Posted in Geekage, Teh Interwebs, Tories! Tories! Tories!, UK General Election 2017 | Leave a comment

Plan your vote… and get your pencils ready! #votingpencil

And lo, the Electoral Commission did convey their wisdom, saying unto the keepers of ballots:

:
3.18 A ballot paper marked by means other than a pencil should not be rejected simply because of that.
:
source: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/87699/UKPE-doubtfuls-booklet.pdf

It is clear from this and the surrounding guidance that we in this country are free to use pens or markers or Sharpies or anything we please other than the usual pencil-on-a-string to mark our ballots, but there are many reasons to stick with convention, so with that in mind I am here today to ask two things of you:

1. I ask that you plan to use a pencil when you vote.

2. I ask that you vote with your very own special #votingpencil.

Here is a picture of mine. I’m a sucker for puns, so I’ve gone for a proper groaner*, and I have plenty of room left over to mark it with the names/years of future elections, assuming we all live that long:

voting pencil

(*HINT: Mine is the very first #votingpencil. )

There’s all sorts of easy and safe ways to personalise a pencil and some of you are already thinking about them, I am sure; I went old-skool in my example because I’m a nostalgist and I think this method has a certain ease and charm.

I will say to mind anything sharp if you’re a novice, as we wouldn’t want blood on the carpet. Always carve away from the body, people, and this includes fingers! Sandpaper has pencil paint off in a few strokes, so maybe try that.

Now, I will also remind everybody, because there are a lot of a new people here; we are each bound to express ourselves within the law, and further, we will be going out of our way to avoid being a pain in the arse, because my vote and your vote is as valuable as anybody else’s.

So, be sensible and respectful: if you feel that the design/slogan of your pencil is overtly political, and I really hope that it will be for some people, then by all means show it off whenever you please in everyday life… but be mindful to have it tucked away in a safe pocket when you enter a polling station to vote.

Of course, once you’re alone inside the booth, it’s just you, the ballot paper(s) and your #votingpencil, so you’re golden.

That’s the wider plan, but I am beginning today by asking you to (a) get a HB or 2B pencil that won’t let you down, (b) think about the statement you wish to make on your pencil, then (c) think about how you want to go about expressing it on a pencil. Then commit.

Remember: not only is this the pencil that you will be carrying with you during this election campaign (like an analog fidget spinner), but this will also be the pencil that you will hold in your hands when you look back and remember the day that we decided what kind of country we were going to be.

That’s a pretty big deal not matter which way the vote goes, so either way I know you’re probably going to want to be keeping your #votingpencil. That being the case, you might want to knock it out in the moment like I so obviously did, but you might instead choose to invest some time in it and make it real pretty, much to the annoyance of others.

Take the whole week if you like, or publish your personalised pencil porn today. If it’s not too forward of me, any time between now and the election, I’d very much like to see what puts lead in your pencil.

I’m on @bloggerheads on Twitter, and the appropriate hashtag is #votingpencil.

Cheers all.








Posted in UK General Election 2017 | 2 Comments

Word Clouds for Labour/Conservative party Twitter accounts during #GE2017

I thought it would be interesting to have a summary of what the major parties are saying on Twitter during #GE2017, so here’s what I did:

For both @Conservatives and @UKLabour, I took all tweets & replies from every day for the entire month of May 2017, and pasted them into a spreadsheet. I then removed all of the Twitter fittings & furniture and usernames and what have you, so the only words that remained were from the body of tweets.

(Obviously, words that were displayed in image or video files were not detected or counted.)

I then entered each set of words into a .TXT file for upload to wordclouds.com, gave each resulting text cloud the same font, shape, size and pattern, and the results are what you see below: a visual summary of what each campaign has had to say so far, as expressed through Twitter.

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word cloud of @uklabour tweets

Word Cloud of tweets by @Conservatives during May 2017

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Word cloud of @Conservatives tweets

Word Cloud of tweets by @Conservatives during May 2017

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I’ll leave any analysis to others. Personally, I think the data speaks for itself.

Do feel free to use these images to make your point out there, just be sure to link back to the little black duck who did all of the hard work.

Cheers all.

Psst! Look for me in Replies to the @Conservatives, and check out the tag #TheyLie on Twitter, especially if you’re a fan of kicking ass and chewing bubblegum.

(MINI-UPDATE – I should be clear that I gave each set the same instructions. While both data sets are trying to form a circle, one data set clearly looks more organic than the other, and that’s because that data set has more variety in the text.)








Posted in Inneresting, Tories! Tories! Tories!, UK General Election 2017 | 1 Comment

Cam Harris, the Fake News king of Maryland

If you’ve ever watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you may have wondered how Ferris financed his adventure (including fuel, tips, tickets to the baseball game and a very expensive lunch at a posh restaurant). Well, the original script and cut of the movie included scenes of Ferris searching the couch for change and stealing money from his sister’s room, before calling his father and conning him into revealing the location of saving bonds… that he then takes without permission and converts to cash at a local bank.

(Search for ‘bond’ on this page and you’ll see what I mean; Ferris even brags to camera about how easy it was to fool his father by saying: “the guy gave it up faster than a drunk Catholic girl”!)

All of this was cut out of the movie because it made Ferris much less likeable. Similarly, a certain Mr Harris has chosen to omit and even erase a few juicy details from his own adventure, and I am here today to share those details with you.

There’s been a lot of misuse of the term ‘fake news’ of late, but it is utterly clear that Cameron Harris has been caught bang to rights producing entirely false and inflammatory stories (see earlier on Bloggerheads) that he specifically invented to appeal to a target audience in pursuit of profit and the advancement of a political agenda. You are encouraged to read the interview with Cameron Harris by Scott Shane of the New York Times, but for the purposes of this article, you really only need to see this later tweet by that same journalist:

Cameron Harris has since published the following statement on Twitter:

While the initial motivation behind launching a fake news site was financially-based, the lesson I learned from the experience is far more important — and it’s one that can’t be covered in a tweet or even a NYT article.

There are large-scale changes occurring in America, from where we live and where we work to the people with whom we interact and the lens through which we see the world. America has responded to these changes poorly. Instead of engaging one another we have withdrawn into the ideological and cultural circles that support the belief systems to which we subscribe.

Fake news flourished in this election cycle because it served the purpose of reinforcing these biases, and it occurred on both sides. It catered to predispositions that Americans already held, and while fake news has been widely discussed, the dynamics behind it have been largely ignored. Whether fake news remains prevalent or not (and I hope that it doesn’t), our nation cannot move forward from such a divisive election cycle if we continue to seek comfort in our own beliefs and refuse to challenge our personal world views.

I apologize to those I disappointed by my actions, and my wish is that I will be allowed to contribute my informed experience to a larger dialogue about how Americans approach the media, tough issues, and the manner in which we, collectively, will inform our decisions going forward.

Cameron Harris

In short: it’s all your fault, America, and you need to take a long, hard look at yourselves.

The psychological projection may seem mind-boggling to you, but it’s to be expected from Mr Harris, who repeatedly and falsely accused others of producing fake news before, during and after the election, knowing that he was a producer of genuinely fake news. Further, the assertion that it happened on both sides is as misleading as it is self-serving: there may have been inaccuracies on both sides, distortions on both sides, and even a few latecomers trying to fight fire with fire, but the fake news phenomenon was closely tied to the Trump campaign and Trump’s own loose relationship with the truth, and every reasonable and informed person acknowledges that.

As for unhealthy divisions and what dialogue may lead to positive change, I would dare to suggest that some actual regret on Mr Harris’ part will go some way to taking us forward.

On that note…

This Twitter exchange between myself and Cameron Harris includes an example of his inventing people who don’t exist and writing dialogue on their behalf. This particular example includes his pretending to be a Black Panther intending to target “white women” on polling day:

Mr Harris also actively contributed to false allegations of child rape (which regular readers will know is one of my least favourite things):

Screen capture from 'Christian Times', 2 days before the election

Cam Harris has since been fired from his job working for Republican politician David E. Vogt III, but despite some clumsy attempts to cover his tracks, it can be demonstrated that Mr Harris listed Mr Vogt not as an employer but a client on a website touting professional campaign services under the name ‘Chesapeake Strategy Partners’ (chesapeakestrategy.com):

Chesapeake Strategy Partners screen capture

Mr Harris also listed many other people/organisations as present and previous clients, and I am right now in the process of determining the truth of his assertions in this respect. As regulars will know, I often put trackers on my outgoing emails when I suspect I am about to be lied to or stonewalled, and I can tell you for a fact that there are many Republicans in Maryland who are fully aware of Cameron Harris, his admission of making fake news for profit, and his claim that they are clients of his organisation ‘Chesapeake Strategy Partners’… but they are very busy hiding under their beds at the moment.

At the time of writing, only Mr Vogt has taken any action and/or issued any statement. So when you read the following list, do so knowing that near to everybody* on the ‘current’ set of alleged clients (other than Mr Vogt) has been asked about this and decided to keep their mouths shut for now. I can say with certainty that these people/organisations and/or associated staff have received and read questions about their alleged involvement with Mr Harris, and even engaged in internal conversations about it… but so far, no-one is talking.

You should expect more from your representatives and/or those who campaign on their behalf, which is why I have added hyperlinks to every name to include contact details for every individual/organisation on the ‘current’ list where I can demonstrate that they have been informed of claims by Mr Harris that they are a client of his, but decided not to respond. If you live in Maryland, or even the good ol’ US of A generally, you might want to have a word with some or all of these people about their alleged involvement with Mr Harris and their silence to date.

(*If anything changes, this article will be updated to reflect any belated cooperation/transparency. If there is a hyperlink on their name… they still have questions to answer, and you’re invited to ask them yourself. If the link has been removed, as it has been for Mr Vogt, then they have issued a statement. There is at present one exception, a Haven Shoemaker who has not yet received the relevant email as far as I know.)

Chesapeake Strategy Partners

Our clients

: Maryland State Delegate Jason Buckel
: Maryland State Delegate Brett Wilson
: Maryland State Delegate Deb Rey
[answered via Twitter 15 Feb 2017]
: Maryland State Delegate Haven Shoemaker
[may or may not have received my email, so gets a break for now]
: Maryland State Delegate David Vogt
[has issued a statement]
: Maryland State Delegate Robin Grammer
: Maryland State Delegate Kevin Hornberger
: Change Annapolis PAC
[UPDATED: issued statement on 23 Jan]
: Dave Gyles for US Congress, AZ-9

We have also worked with…

: Kathy Szeliga for US Senate
: Congresswoman Katherine Harris
: Republican Party of Florida
: Florida House Speaker Pro-Tempore Leslie Waters
: Vogt for Congress, MD CD-6
: Wasserman for Congress, NY CD-18
: Allegretti for Congress, NY CD-13
: Gallagher for US Senate, FL
: Katherine Harris for US Senate, FL
: Assemblyman John DiMaio, NJ-23
: Assemblyman Erik Peterson, NJ-23

To close, mainly to avoid anyone rushing to assumptions, I will add that I have asked Mr Harris directly if Katherine Harris is a relation, and I am awaiting a reply.

Updates to follow.

UPDATE (23 Jan) – So far, there’s a lot of internal chatter in Republican circles over Maryland way, but almost no-one’s talking. Still, the Chairman of Change Annapolis has today issued a statement, and that’s a start. The list has been updated accordingly, but there’s still a lot of names to go, and Harris himself refuses to answer any questions about the accuracy of the list of clients he published. Instead, he’s busying himself on Twitter making snarky comments on the media and critics of Trump and why no-one trusts them anymore. (makes face)

UPDATE (15 Feb) – Deb Rey declined to answer multiple emails about this matter, but finally answered the key question about Cameron Harris on Twitter (almost a month after publication of this article), saying: “I was never a client of his.”

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Posted in Donald Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Who censored David Davies’ Wikipedia profile anonymously?

[24 April 2017 – Someone’s still at it. See full update at end of post.]

You may recall David Davies being in the news a few weeks back. Then again, you may not, and given the reason why he was in the news at the time, he’d probably prefer it that way:

Independent (19 October) – Dentists condemn MP’s call for child refugees from Calais to have teeth checked

I know that someone didn’t like this highlighted text being in his Wikipedia profile. It was removed on 21 October.

'When, in October 2016, the UK admitted 15 children from the camp with a legal right to travel to the UK, he asserted without foundation that all were actually adults lying about their ages.'

This highlighted text was also removed at the same time, by the same editor.

'He defended himself against accusations of homophobia by saying that he could not be homophobic as he had once punched a gay man.'

The person who made these edits made them anoymously, and offered no reason/justification for the removal of the highlighted text; presumably, they just didn’t like what they were reading in Wikipedia, so they removed it.

The only clue left behind by the anonymous editor was an IP address, which doesn’t always reveal much on its own… but by sheer chance I had emailed David Davies at around this same time, and the exact same IP address turned up among the recipients.

So I emailed David Davies about this edit, and made it very clear that it could be demonstrated that either he or a member of his staff had edited Wikipedia anonymously in his favour.

David Davies’ response? Well, he didn’t have one.

I made it very clear that if he had no knowledge of the edit and/or wanted to investigate the matter, then he should have the opportunity to look into it and any subsequent article should reflect that.

Instead, David Davies chose to say/do nothing and just wait for it all to blow over for reasons we can only guess at.

I leave you with that mystery and the questions that David Davies chose not to answer:

How often do you and your staff edit Wikipedia anonymously?
:
How often have you personally edited this page anonymously?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Davies_(Welsh_politician)

:
How often do you personally edit other pages anonymously?
:
Assuming you are willing to admit to anonymous edits, how do you defend this action, given that (a) Wikipedia is meant to be a neutral reference site, not a PR site containing only things that you approve of, and (b) MPs are meant to hold to high standards of transparency and accountability?

Of course, I will be sure to update this article if David Davies suddenly thinks of a response to all of this six weeks after the event, but personally I don’t expect much from anonymous cowards and/or MPs who use them to protect their reputations, and neither should you.

[NOTE – I emailed David Davies about the issue of party-political bullying. He declined to comment very clearly on the grounds that it was not a constituency issue.]

UPDATE (24 April 2017) – Since I wrote this article, there have been further multiple anonymous attempts to remove all mention of controversy from the Wikipedia profile of David Davies (link).

Wikipedia discussion about edits of page of David Davies

You can read what Wikipedia editors wrote about their concerns (and how that conversation develops) here, but to be clear on this point for any new readers:

I do not edit Wikipedia under any name, and I do not advise that you go rushing in there in response to any of this, either. It is far preferable that an experienced editor with no dog in the race handle the problem.

That said, you may want to look at the ‘Talk’ and ‘View History’ links on the profile page of your local MP/candidate today and see if this snap election hasn’t prompted a few nervous edits. There are many MPs who struggle to understand the difference between an election pamphlet and something that is supposed to be reference material, and any MP who conspires to secretly censor their own Wikipedia entry clearly struggles with wider issues such as honesty, integrity, accountability, and democracy.

By now it can be demonstrated that David Davies is one such MP: even if he avoided making the edits himself, he was advised of anonymous edits in his favour involving an IP address used by his office/staff months ago, and chose to ignore the issue.

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Posted in Teh Interwebs, Tories! Tories! Tories! | Comments Off

You’re my hero, Anthony Gilberthorpe

My name is John Chefetz. Or maybe Jay Chafetz. Or maybe neither of those things. Names aren’t important these days, even when you’re making allegations of statewide election fraud, so I fail to see why they should matter here.

Seriously, my name really is John. In fact, my full name is John Honesty Johnson, just for the record, and yes, ‘Honesty’ is literally my middle name. I got a really hard time about that at school, believe you me! (Thanks, Mum!!)

In light of recent events, I feel that I must now publish what I personally witnessed in full with my own eyes on a flight in mid October of 1980 … exactly 36 years ago today, as it happens.

I was in Europe that September to attend the Braemar Gathering along with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. No lie! Obviously, we didn’t travel or sit together, as I was only a humble lad from Australia, but I was quite near the Royal Box and within a stone’s throw of her at the time. I even kept the stone.

I will be frank with you and admit that I was on some pretty strong psychoactive medication that year, but the course ended long before my visit to America that same October, when I was flying in to a small town called Riverdale to observe the US Presidential contest between Carter and Reagan.

I’ll even be so honest with you as to point out that I was only 10 years old at the time, but that day did feature my first barrel roll in a commercial airliner, so my memory of the surrounding events is particularly strong.

I remember vividly being guided from my seat through blue velvet curtains into first class. I was on my way to visit the pilots in the cockpit! This was before 9/11, and in the 80s, when they let kids do all kinds of crazy stuff with the controls.

(You can guarantee that pretty much every time you felt ‘turbulence’ before the turn of the century, it was some cheeky kid jiggling the handle. I once hit the air-brakes so hard that everybody spilled their drink and the airline had to give everybody a free round!)

Anyway, this was my first time in the front of a real plane, and I was so excited that I barely noticed the rich American man sitting with a young woman and an even younger man who I could immediately tell was British, but I do recall that there were three of them sitting there playing with their orange-foldaway armrests before I went into the cockpit and amazed the pilots with my ‘accidental’ barrel roll.

However, when I was being escorted from the cockpit by a very cross co-pilot and a very pretty stewardess (who was so amused that she later gave me a free ice cream), only two of them were sitting there. I remember thinking at the time; ‘Perhaps the lady is composing herself in the bathroom after my amazing barrel roll.’

Then I saw it.

The rich and handsome American was giving the younger British man a set of cuff-links. I could tell the subtle way the light shone off them that they were pure gold.

Then I heard it.

The rich and handsome man said something as he closed the young British man’s fist around the gleaming cuff-links, and for as long as I live I will never forget the earnest look on the younger man’s face as he heard these words: “You were never here.”

And that is my incredible story.

You may choose to submit something under the comments about how brave I am to risk all by revealing this (barrel rolls in commercial jets were illegal, even in the 80s) but I am a humble man, so I’d prefer to only publish a small percentage of these and accept the rest of your good wishes privately. I hope you will understand.

And now, some music:

The Conspiracy Song

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Posted in Donald Trump | Comments Off

Cameron Harris publishes falsified evidence of alleged electoral fraud plot

MAJOR UPDATE (18 Jan 2017) – I have changed the headline to include the name of the person who invented this lie and then lied to me about it being an error by a staffer. Cameron Harris was today unmasked by the New York Times, and you can read all of the pathetic excuses he gives for his behaviour here.

“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.” – Proverbs 10:9

For a long time now, Donald Trump and his supporters have been making a series of excuses about stolen elections and broken microphones for reasons that are easy to guess at. Trump himself is championing an ‘election observers’ recruitment drive that I personally suspect is going to result in a similar vibe one gets from ‘vigils’ outside abortion clinics.

Recently the Christian Times published a story claiming that someone had found solid evidence of a Democrat plot to ‘steal the election’ in Ohio:

BREAKING: “Tens of thousands” of fraudulent Clinton votes found in Ohio warehouse (September 30, 2016) – Election officials in Franklin County, Ohio are reportedly stumped over what one maintenance worker found in a dilapidated downtown Columbus warehouse earlier this week. According to sources, Randall Prince, a Columbus-area electrical worker, was doing a routine check of his companies wiring and electrical systems when he stumbled across approximately one dozen black, sealed ballot boxes filled with thousands of Franklin County votes for Hillary Clinton and other Democrat candidates.

The author is very clear on what this alleged evidence indicates:

…it now appears that Clinton and the Democrat Party planned on stealing the state on Election Day.

The story has already been promoted widely by Trump supporters, including this one who runs a major ‘fan’ account called @RealDJTrumpTeam (“The Original DJ Trump Fan Twitter Page!!! Let’s Make America Safe and Great Again!!!”).

A variation of the classic ‘you couldn’t make it up’ line is there, and in my experience, you can usually find this wherever someone is making stuff up (see also: ‘Nothing up my sleeves!’) and this is no exception.

Here’s the main photo from the article, including its caption:

Not a prince

I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that this isn’t an image of Randall Prince from Franklin County Ohio, but instead a photo of an unnamed member of electoral services staff in Sheldon Heath, Birmingham (UK).

Oh, and those boxes he’s carrying? They’re empty.

How can I be so sure of all of this? Because the good people at the Christian Times have rather foolishly used a stock image and claimed it is a genuine photograph of the alleged discovery alongside the primary witness in their story (link to original):

Genuine Image 1 of 2

For the doubters, here’s another image from the same series (link to original):

Genuine image 2 of 2

See that blue door and the adjacent building? You can inspect those for yourself by making a quick streetview visit to the Sheldon Heath Community Centre…

If the publishers of the Christian Times plan on claiming this was an editorial accident that does not impact on the central allegation, they need to explain why the image was reversed in a clumsy attempt to foil an image-based search.

(NOTE – This is why the ‘ballot box’ text looks so poorly photoshopped in the Christian Times version of this image: someone had to transplant and reverse the text, and clearly struggled to do so on all of the boxes.)

What I have published here will no doubt be enjoyed with considerable relish by those who oppose Trump and what he stands for, but today I choose to reach out to those who support Trump and what he says he stands for:

Seriously, you are being had. All politicians lie, but there are many things that you take to be a certainty that are not only lies, but some of the boldest lies I have seen in politics for many years: this is a measure of the level of contempt that Trump and his backers have for you.

I realise that this is a difficult thing to accept. You’ve made a strong emotional investment in fictions to a degree that most of us would be embarrassed to admit to. But, hey, you’re human… and I encourage you to cling to a belief of yours that is more reliable than most: there are people in the media who seek to influence this election through subterfuge.

You’ve got to forge ahead past that flushed feeling of shame and find your anger, because the individual who invented this lie should be called to account, and that won’t happen if the people who published it think their audience won’t care or notice.

The Christian Times needs to take immediate and firm action by retracting this story (i.e. by admitting the fault and publicising this admission as widely as they did the original article) and suspending all parties involved until a full and proper investigation is held, with a full report published. Further, Donald Trump and his campaign team should respond by recognising and denouncing this attempt to influence voters with a lie (not least because they have called upon others to do the same) and suspending all relations with the Christian Times until the matter is resolved.

If you ask for anything less, you are willing to accept lies from one side and not the other, and it is time to admit that to yourself.

If you get anything less, you should have serious doubts about the integrity of both the Christian Times and/or Donald Trump, and I genuinely trust that this is something you will recognise and respond to with healthy scepticism.

(PRO TIP: Watch out for claims/implications that this whole thing was an innocent mistake and/or somehow the work of Clinton campaigners trying to make Trump look bad.)

My closing statement is another quote from a book that’s popular among Christians. If you are a true believer, I wish you well and ask you to ponder on it:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” – Matthew 7:15

A gentlemanly tip of the hat to original spotter Michael Ward, who first brought the badly-photoshopped Christian Times image to my attention.

UPDATE – I have attempted to contact the Christian Times for comment, but there is no obvious email address that I can find. I did, however, discover some added detail as part of that search. The author of this article (published under ‘admin1′) is John Chefetz, ‘owner and founder of Christian Times Newspaper’.

UPDATE – As noted in the comments, the website calling itself ‘Christian Times’ is not associated with the Christian Times Newspaper, neither is it associated with the Christian Media Corporation Company. The bio details I quote above (and other text on their website, and the domain of the site itself: christiantimesnewspaper.com) may give a false impression about this, so I have taken pains to avoid/remove any mention of the word ‘newspaper’ adjacent to the name ‘Christian Times’ in my article, but also wish to add this statement for clarity in light of what the quoted bio claims and what the associated domain name implies.

MAJOR UPDATE (13 October) – I was in touch with the owner and admin of this site about the above story (not an easy thing to do, as the site carries no contact information). They claimed to be on an overseas trip and pledged to follow the matter up with staff as soon as they got back to their hotel room.

Then, instead of issuing any correction or retraction, they simply removed some text for a few days, and then, later, the entire page. They then uploaded an entirely different story that also used evidently fabricated evidence to support a further allegation of election fraud, this time taking BBC footage of election fraud in Russia and pretending it was a discovery of election fraud in the US. The relevant video ‘evidence’ has even been clipped to remove an obvious Russian flag in the foreground!

This comment under one of the copies of this video on YouTube tells you everything you need to know about the state of mind of many people who are taken in by these audacious lies and clumsy forgeries. Being told outright that the claim is false – even by people in authority – does not faze them at all.

screen capture of comment

It is often hard to determine intent in cases such as this, but here it could not be more obvious. The following is a series of screen captures of christiantimesnewspaper.com (no connection to the actual Christian Times Newspaper) ranging from February 2016 to October 2016. Note how the site has gradually shed any mention of satire over time in order to present itself as a credible news site as the election approaches. Despite claiming that they make it ‘abundantly aware’ (sic) that the site contains fiction, this has always been presented as fine print, even when the site carried such text, and it clearly stopped doing that a long time ago. In fact, the current version of this fine print promises “accurate news and information”.

screen captures of so-called Christian Times

Further, it should be immediately apparent to anyone who shows the slightest bit of interest in inbound links to the relevant site/articles that the allegations made about election fraud are being widely accepted/presented as both genuine and credible by some very emotional people who are by now utterly convinced that any defeat of Trump in November will be the result of election fraud. This is the kind of thing that not only undermines democracy, but can and often does lead to violence.

Here I will highlight the rather hopeful arse-covering statement in the aforementioned fine print stating that the site author “does not take responsibility for any of our readers’ actions that may result from reading our stories”.

Also, every page at the so-called ‘Christian Times’ loads the following pop-up declaring a previous fraud to be a certainty (“We already know that Hillary stole the primary. We can’t let her steal the presidency.”), and inviting unwitting readers to be alerted to further ‘evidence’ of alleged election fraud.

screen capture of Stop the Steal

(That link to a ‘Privacy Policy’, by the way, goes nowhere. I checked. There is none.)

The owner states their name as ‘John Chevetz’ on the site but in private emails they give their name as ‘Jay Chafetz’. Either one name is an alias, or they both are, but the author has clearly been publishing their stories and the entire site under an alias (PRO TIP: this is not the same as using a ‘pen name’).

Finally, while the site owner (‘John’ or ‘Jay’ or whatever) refuses to give any details about a physical address for their so-called news organisation, there are forensic indications that ‘John’/’Jay’ is based in Delaware… even when he claims to be busy overseas.

Ah, the grandiose lies of habitual liars; how I have missed them*.

(*I wish to make it ‘abundantly aware’ that this sentence may contain sarcasm.)

UPDATE (18 Jan 2017) – Headline changed to include the name of the shameless liar behind this and other fake news stories: Cameron Harris

MAJOR UPDATE (19 Jan 2017) – I have written a new article that covers a few items that Cameron Harris would rather you didn’t know about: Cam Harris, the Fake News king of Maryland








Posted in Donald Trump | 2 Comments

Theresa May, the ‘nasty party’, and a path to kinder, gentler politics

“You know what some people call us: the nasty party.”
– Theresa May, speech to the Conservative Conference, 2002

For more than a decade I’ve been publishing warnings about the dark places social media will take us when politicians do not take threatening behaviour seriously, deliberately turn a blind eye to it from their own supporters when it suits them, and/or even engage in it themselves. On that last point, I’m aware of several incidents where a serving MP has sought to answer, damage or even intimidate critics through use of anonymous comments/accounts. In doing so, they seek to avoid accountability and undermine a key component of our democracy.

This is something we should be taking very seriously. It has also grown much worse in recent years because (a) the village has been getting bigger and there are more idiots to go around, (b) social media gives these idiots opportunities that did not exist 10 years ago without at least the tacit approval of a publisher with an audience but without a conscience, and (c) people watch and take note when others get away with it, resulting in everything from immediate mob formation to later mimicry.

Worse, the problem peaks during emotional highs such as elections, referendums and leadership campaigns, which is when we need our democracy the most.

Currently, Jeremy Corbyn is being called upon to answer for the poor behaviour of just about everybody who ever leaned to the left. Similarly, Theresa May’s supporters recently felt the need to call upon fellow Conservatives to sign a “clean campaign pledge” during the Tory leadership contest, but May’s own Chief Whip continues to protect one of her former executive fundraisers (a man who continues to target me and others), purely because she fears the political cost of admitting to a mistake involving a very dirty campaign where an innocent man was branded as a paedophile.

This is only one example of that party’s neglect over decades of abuse and harassment from its members. I say this not to engage in political whataboutery but to highlight the fact that this is not a party or political problem, but a widespread, long-standing and worsening problem that will only get better when people in authority finally grasp the nettle and take responsibility rather than see bullying as something to be played down when it happens in your own ranks, and capitalised on when it appears to originate from the opposition.

This bias/opportunism and the bullying itself are very human responses. We’re not divine beings; we’re selfish animals with social concerns. We are wired to behave this way when we think we can get away with it. Therefore, the only credible and effective response is a measure that not only acknowledges the bullying from all sides, but addresses the human element including the problem of inherent bias.

If I may beg your patience for a few moments, I’d like to focus on this single example from direct experience just long enough to give you a sense of perspective and purpose…. then I would like to get on with the important business of proposing what I think is a workable solution. (It’s in bold below if you have a short attention span and no care for detail.)

You may find the following hard going if you are a Conservative, but I will try to remain objective if you can promise to do the same, and (as usual) I will stick to what I can demonstrate with evidence if Anne Milton or David Cameron anyone else wishes to challenge it:

In 2006, two fundraising executives in Guildford were working under campaign head Jonathan Lord (now MP for Woking) for the recently-elected MP for Guildford: Anne Milton.

These two fundraising executives, Mike Chambers and Dennis Paul, also put themselves forward as Conservative candidates in a local council election. They both deny authorship of an anonymous website that accused their opponent and a critic of Anne Milton of paedophilia, but it can be demonstrated that an email address administered by Mike Chambers was used in an attempt to anonymously publicise the site, and that Dennis Paul linked to it from his own site early in the campaign and referenced the allegations on the eve of the relevant election. For now, let’s afford them the benefit of the doubt to the extent that we allow for the potential involvement of an unidentified third party who created an anonymous website making false allegations of child rape in order to damage a candidate in an election (which is a crime, by the way). At one stage, the anonymous site author revealed some shocking prejudice that most reasonable people would describe as a hate incident if not a hate crime: the candidate outed themselves as gay, and the site author quite clearly asserted this as confirmation that they were a paedophile as alleged.

At the time of my original complaint about this behaviour, Cameron’s office responded by saying that he was ‘confident that the issue was being investigated a local level’, but on that same day he formally endorsed both Mike Chambers and Dennis Paul as Conservative candidates and had his picture taken with them as part of that process.

Chambers and Paul were not suspended pending an investigation because there was no investigation. Later, Cameron had no response to Jonathan Lord’s own admission that he had decided against an investigation purely because an election was in progress and he didn’t want the candidates or the party to be damaged by what he described as a threat that the facts would somehow be ‘distorted’ and used against them unfairly (more/detail).

Police were involved at the time, but declined to investigate some key authorship issues based on the false assertion by an unnamed Tory party member that a key witness did not exist and had been invented as part of a plot to fabricate evidence against Mike Chambers. Dennis Paul also made quite specific allegations about my hacking his computer and illicitly making changes to his website(s). This apparent conspiracy to pervert the course of justice alone is a matter that warrants investigation.

At the tail end of my article I have included a further letter that I sent to David Cameron in 2015. The blasé response to this letter – that I should refer my concerns to police – completely ignored the statute of limitations on relevant offences and implied that the Conservatives would tolerate any behaviour from their members and candidates that was technically legal… but my main issue was the leaking of this private and sensitive correspondence.

I have found this to be a common problem with a series of Chairpersons during David Cameron’s time as Conservative Leader. It is part of a Gentleman’s Club mindset where formal investigation is rejected in favour of a quiet word off the record. Too often the full body of the complaint is shared illicitly as part of this process, putting the alleged victim at the mercy of their alleged bully. I am aware of multiple victims of this pattern of behaviour within the Conservative Party, and you will no doubt be aware of Elliott Johnson, who took his own life in the wake of similar behaviour, but even now the Conservatives refuse to acknowledge or investigate this widespread and long-standing issue.

Immediately after my initial complaint in 2006 I was the target of relentless attacks on anonymous websites and through the use of anonymous comments on the then up-and-coming websites of a range of Conservatives, some of whom sought to take advantage of the situation. It wasn’t until 2009 that I discovered that a further fundraising executive working for Anne Milton was also involved to the extent of smearing me as a paedophile. And an extremist. And a cyber terrorist. And a stalker.

In 2012 I complained to the President/Chairman of the relevant fundraising committee. Within 24 hours of that email being read, I was again anonymously smeared as a paedophile.

That now-former* fundraising executive’s name is Dominic Wightman, and his behaviour has grown well out of control over years of bullying because nobody in the party took the matter seriously. In fact, the behaviour has continued unabated for close to if not more than a decade by now. There has been no admission of fault or error by Anne Milton, Jonathan Lord or David Cameron, and it is in this climate of neglect that behaviour like this escalates. In fact, Wightman is so confident that he can say what he likes and do what he pleases that he goes around telling people all sorts of rubbish. The following is an extract from a recent email from Glen Jenvey, a man that Dominic Wightman (aka ‘Dominic Whiteman’) has repeatedly convinced to publish false allegations on his behalf:

“To be quite truthful whiteman is linked directly to Cameron that’s why the police never act against him.” – Glen Jenvey

Obviously this is bullshit, but in the absence of any real threat of contradiction or accountability, it is very effective bullshit. Wightman fed Jenvey and other people similar fictions about links to Lord Ashcroft, and it took that peer nearly four years to merely contradict Wightman’s claims about knowing him.

The absence of any real threat of contradiction or accountability also led to escalation of other aberrant behaviour, up to and including Wightman’s years-old obsession with ‘downing’ me on behalf of Milton and other members of the party. I have spoken to witnesses who describe Wightman not merely voicing the allegation of paedophilia as a passing comment, but relating long and detailed fantasies about my imagined crimes. Take a moment to consider this. It is not something said in the heat of the moment; it is cold and calculated behaviour that involves the creation of complex, perverse fictions. It is far from healthy, and we are at this insane stage mainly if not only because a range of Conservatives repeatedly put party-political concerns ahead of principle.

It is on this note that I arrive at my proposed solution, and I challenge Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and any other party leaders to respond to it:

1. A wholly independent investigation into the handling of bullying complaints by all parties going back at least 10 years. A public consultation with victims of alleged bullying/harassment should be central to this process, as there will be cases where no internal record of their complaint exists/survives.

2. A report detailing what measures might be taken to improve current protocols for all parties and how they are followed.

3. A specific option that should be considered is the creation of an independent body to cover all parties and handle all initial complaints of harassment, bullying, abuse and similar behaviour. Obviously their powers, protocols and funding are issues to be informed by the initial independent investigation and debated in Parliament, but in my view, the body should at the very least have an investigative arm and the capacity to make fast and credible recommendations about what actions relevant parties or authorities should take in response to any given complaint.

What I am working towards is something that allows aberrant behaviour to be initially assessed/addressed by people who do not feel an overwhelming need to protect any particular person or party from political damage. I cannot take credit for the core idea, as it was something proposed by Ray Johnson following his son’s death.

I close in reference to my 2015 letter to David Cameron that was leaked to some of the parties involved while my concerns were ignored (below).

In the subsequent election, I was not only targeted by a series of anonymous Twitter and WordPress accounts making false allegations of criminal behaviour, but the neglect at a party level was so bad that one MP (Nadine Dorries) saw fit to endorse and publicise these anonymous accounts, and another MP (Grant Shapps) saw fit to repeat some of these allegations in his official capacity as co-Chairman of the party. In other words, the man who handled my complaint to the party’s leader went on to engage in the same bullying campaign I was complaining about and involve the party directly in the process.

(Psst! If you wish to take a good guess at his motive, take a look at this site I published shortly before his outburst.)

Throughout this affair, people have been targeted with fabricated evidence causing them needless concerns for their safety. One of these people is Nadine Dorries, and I take this behaviour against her as seriously as anything else, but it is too late for police to act on it, and I fear that only belated intervention by her party is likely to alleviate the ongoing problem for her, myself and others.

This is a rare, near-to-perfect** and long-overdue opportunity for Theresa May to detoxify her party and politics generally. If she doesn’t take it, and if she sees fit to pretend there is no issue to address, then she cannot say or do anything about the current level of bullying in politics with any credibility. Further, she will have to admit that the Conservatives’ reputation as the ‘nasty party’ is well earned due to widespread behaviour at every level that she has personally refused to address.

(*One hopes.)

(**Cameron has exited humming a carefree little tune, but Jonathan Lord must answer for his failure to investigate two candidates/fundraisers and Anne Milton must answer for her failure to address serious concerns about another of her fundraising executives.)

16 February 2015

Dear Prime Minister,

Please excuse the impertinence of my writing directly to someone as important as your good self. In my defence, the last time I wrote to a standing Prime Minister, it was to warn Gordon Brown about some chap named Derek Draper, and I do not think my concerns were misplaced.

Back in 2006, I wrote to you as leader of the Conservative Party with concerns about two executives on a fundraising committee and campaign team for the Conservative Member for Guildford Anne Milton. I presented initial evidence and offered further supporting evidence to support my allegation that they had involved themselves in an months-long campaign to smear a critic of that MP as a paedophile and child rapist. While both parties sought to use false identities to avoid accountability for their behaviour, one party knowingly published and retained links to the offending site on their personal/political blog, and another sought to publicise the same site on a local student forum after originally signing up for that site using an email address containing a domain registered in their name, and at their home address. These individuals then involved themselves in a series of false allegations against me when I dared to confront them about their conduct.

At the time, I presented you with the evidence linking them to this behaviour and offered further supporting evidence. You declined to act yourself and instead referred the matter back to Jonathan Lord, who was then Anne Milton’s campaign manager (he later became Conservative MP for Woking). You were so satisfied by his response that two days later you posed for photos with these two individuals and personally endorsed their candidacy for local council.

However, Jonathan Lord’s only answer to the allegations in 2006 was (a) that the victim of the smears had not complained to him about it, and (b) that I had not put my own complaint in writing (i.e. I had ‘only’ emailed him about it). Lord reiterated this response in 2009.

In 2011, I recorded Jonathan Lord admitting that no formal investigation took place because the parties involved had already been selected as candidates for a campaign in progress. His exact words:

“I said (to the parties involved): ‘It’s lucky you guys have already been selected, otherwise, you know, we’re in the middle of a campaign now’…”

“This is all off the record, OK? In the middle of an election, you know, you don’t obviously want to give succour to your opponents…”

“If we hadn’t already been in the middle of an election campaign… then it might have been a slightly different story.”

Crucially, whatever Lord said to these individuals back in 2006 was said informally and privately, and there was no public-facing acknowledgement that anything untoward had happened. The entirely predictable result was that a further fundraising executive for Anne Milton repeated the exact same stunt (in 2009), this time with me as the target. I have since secured emails where the individual concerned sought to justify their actions to a then-associate by saying quite specifically that Milton and her supporters wanted me ‘downed’.

I originally suspected the person involved in this second event was a donor and confronted Milton about their behaviour with questions about their donor status; she denied that they were a donor and refused to take any further action… while knowing that they were an executive member on one of her fundraising committees.

Once again, I contacted you and key members of your party for action, but once again everyone in a position of authority was diving for cover with cheap excuses. Anne Milton claimed she couldn’t act or even comment because the person involved was a constituent. Jeremy Hunt claimed he couldn’t act or even comment because the person involved *wasn’t* a constituent. Jonathan Lord was still of the view that none of it was anyone’s concern because as far as he was aware, technically, no crime had been committed.

It is at this stage that I will remind you that what Derek Draper and Damien McBride planned wasn’t ‘technically’ illegal… it was ‘merely’ morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, your entire party was up in arms about their plot and demanding accountability. At the same time, I was actively and relentlessly being smeared as a dangerous criminal while you and your members sought to avoid responsibility.

The relevant behaviour continues to this day, almost 10 years after the original event. Further, we have a rather important general election on the way, emotions are bound to run high, and my concerns extend beyond my own experiences.

I have watched this cancer grow within your party, I am concerned about the conduct of your candidates, their campaigners and their fundraisers, and today I ask only three things of you, all desired to send a clear message to your members about such behaviour:

1) A formal acknowledgement from Anne Milton, Jonathan Lord and Jeremy Hunt that they did not deal with this behaviour as stringently or as thoroughly as they should have during either event. (I’d be grateful for any apologies that might accompany this, but appreciate that your influence is limited in this respect.)

2) A formal acknowledgement from you and your party Chairman that there have been some regrettable failures in leadership and oversight throughout this matter.

3) Your personal assurance that any further evidence of such behaviour will be investigated and dealt with quickly, firmly, and in good faith.

I’m sure that even with our vastly differing opinions about social justice, we can agree that using false allegations of criminal behaviour as a political weapon is entirely unacceptable.

I am equally certain that we can agree that false allegations of child rape are especially unhelpful given the recent allegations of paedophile rings inside Westminster.

I look forward to a prompt and considered response to my concerns. Should you require further evidence to support any of the above, I am at your disposal.

Regards,

Tim Ireland

UPDATE (27 July) _ Some added detail and context from Richard Bartholomew: Online Harassment by Conservative Party Activists: A Decade of Mishandled Complaints








Posted in Anne Milton, Teh Interwebs, Tories! Tories! Tories!, UK General Election 2015 | Comments Off

The Conspiracy Song: lyrics and background

Today, I release the sixth and final music video from The Cautionary Campfire Songbook (Amazon (UK) | Amazon (US)), and the associated album produced in conjunction with Koit: Cautionary Campfire Songs (Amazon | Google Play | iTunes).

Today’s lesson: Not everything you read on the internets is true. Don’t expect everyone to be reasonable about this.

The Conspiracy Song

I have made the artistic decision to refrain from any comment on the alleged merit of any of the conspiracy theories referenced in this song. Similarly, I have no comment to make on the alleged significance of any images used in this or any other music video. I make this statement of my own free will, and under no duress.

THE CONSPIRACY SONG
Lyrics by Tim Ireland


The Pope is a lizard
And so is/was the Queen
Who murdered Diana
And got away clean

Obama’s a Kenyan
And Reagan caused AIDS
George Bush had abortions
(or so people say)

They knocked Norma Jean off
They killed JFK
Who got shot and poisoned
By the CIA

They faked the moon landings
But Roswell was real
There’s drugs in the water
And worms in our meals

They can’t hide the chemtrails
We can’t trust vaccines
We all know that jet fuel
Can’t melt through steel beams

And the New World Order
Will brainwash your kids
And use MKUltra
To hide what they d…

[Singer(s) to suffer a sudden and shadowy but ultimately unexplained death/disappearance by an unknown hand. Examples include: sudden and lethal mushroom poisoning event, forced abduction by hooded men, a laser from the woods appearing on a chest moments before a shot rings out.]








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The Password Song: lyrics and background

Today, I release the fifth music video from The Cautionary Campfire Songbook (Amazon (UK) | Amazon (US)), and the associated album produced in conjunction with Koit: Cautionary Campfire Songs (Amazon | Google Play | iTunes).

Today’s lesson: Keep your password safe, and logout when you’re done.

The Password Song

Actually, I should say passwords, plural, as in more than one; a recent poll suggested that 55% of adults use the same password for most if not all websites (source). This means that if someone discovers your password for Facebook, then they also have potential access to your banking details… but I figured that young’uns especially would care more about damage to their social life than their bank balance, thus the focus on the leaking of nude selfies in the saga of Peter and his passwords.

Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, I will mention here that part of keeping your passwords safe is making sure that they are not easy to guess. On that note I will mention that the 5 most popular passwords of 2014 were:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345
4. 12345678
5. qwerty

You can see the full list here, and an earlier list from the same source here. The first thing you will notice: the only improvement in near to 5 years is that ‘password’ no longer tops the list, and is currently in second place.

It also bears mentioning that if you are ever going to be away from your computer or device, lock the damn screen, in the same way that you’d lock your car or your front door.

THE PASSWORD SONG
Lyrics by Tim Ireland


Peter went on Facebook and he chatted with his Mum
He didn’t lock his screen or
logout of accounts when done
Peter went on Facebook
and he chatted with his Mum
But he ain’t gonna chat no more

CHORUS
Keeeeep your password safe, and logout when you’re done
Or your so-called friends will get online, and have a little fun
Keeeeep your password safe, and logout when you’re done
Or you ain’t gonna chat no more

His friends accessed his Facebook page and posted all his nudes
They were racy they were sexy and let’s face it they were rude
His friends accessed his Facebook page and posted all his nudes
And he ain’t gonna chat no more

[CHORUS]

They got into his Twitter feed and messaged with his ex
Then chatted with her followers and pleaded for some sex
They got into his Twitter feed and messaged with his ex
And he ain’t gonna chat no more

[CHORUS]

They clicked through to his Myspace page but no-one else was there
They posted all his nudes again but no-one really cared
They clicked through to his Myspace page but no-one else was there
But he ain’t gonna chat no more

[CHORUS]

A short vid of him shagging went to YouTube and to Vine
It ended up on porn sites where they thought it was divine
A short vid of him [bleep]ing went to YouTube and to Vine
And he ain’t gonna chat no more

[CHORUS]

The images on imgur went viral naturally
They tumbled out on tumblr just as easy as can be
There were front page links on reddit for the redditors to see
And he ain’t gonna chat no more

[CHORUS]

The story soon went global, it was clickbait news for sure
The people came to point and laugh and search his name for more
The story soon went global, it was clickbait news for sure
And he ain’t gonna chat no more

[CHORUS]

It all could be avoided if he’d only taken care
But now the world had seen him in his dirty underwear
It all could be avoided if he’d only taken care
And he ain’t gonna chat no more








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