Tag: London Assembly

  • Two Bit Tice – ‘Monster’ Fearing Richard Tice Rages In Support Of ‘#LockdownFiles Leaker Lover’ Isabel Oakeshott

    Two Bit Tice – ‘Monster’ Fearing Richard Tice Rages In Support Of ‘#LockdownFiles Leaker Lover’ Isabel Oakeshott

    After Matthew Steeples called out ‘leaky #lockdownfiles sieve’ Isabel Oakeshott, her ‘chlorinated chicken chap’ Reform UK leader and TalkTV host Richard Tice bizarrely enquired of him: “What kind of monster are you?”

    “Let’s Make Britain Great” is the predictably and very clearly ‘borrowed’ strapline used by Reform UK, a ‘political party’ – which actually is just an entity registered in England and Wales as company number 11694875. The Donald Trump-esque mantra is used as part of an attempt to attract swivel-eyed right wingers to an ‘operation’ that didn’t win a single seat in the 2021 London Assembly elections; at that poll, Reform UK laughably finished in tenth position – behind the Women’s Equality, Rejoin EU, UKIP and Animal Welfare parties even.

     

    Now, in the wake of The Steeple Times having covered the scandal of Isabel Oakeshott – whom we branded “a woman who is best known not (as she claims) as a ‘journalist’ but instead as a ‘lobbyist who carries a poison pen’” back in September 2019 – having broken an NDA and released the WhatsApp messages of the equally unctuous Matt Hancock as part of a campaign named #lockdownfiles on Saturday, the ‘chlorinated chicken chap’ that is her current squeeze, Reform UK leader Richard Tice, decided to bat back directly and defend his grubby gym gear wearing lady-love.

     

    Tweeting Matthew Steeples, in several rambling rants likely written after a boozy lunch in Belgravia yesterday, ‘considerably richer than yow’ businessman and TalkTV tittle-tattler Tice very generously shared our article (“thanks, Dicky”) and remarked:

     

    “So @M_Steeples is clearly just jealous of Isabel’s success because he is a 2 bit journo of a 2 bit rag that no-one has heard of. Keep going Matthew!”

     

    Turning to COVID-19 itself, the father of three and regular yellow stickered shopper at ‘Celebrity Waitrose’ Belgavia raged:

     

    “So you do not care about the damage to children, the inhumane CareHome restrictions, the awful funeral constraints, the suicides? What sort of monster are you?”

     

    The response to his tweets has been overwhelming, but likely not quite what Tice was anticipating. Aside from being told: “Save your faux outrage, you hypocrite!” one social media observed: “Right back at ya. Stop spreading misleading information” of his ‘monster’ related question. Now Dicky dear, please do go and pour yourself a British beer and please ease your and grubby gym gear-clad Issie’s “jealousy” with that.

     

    Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

     

    Pictured Top – Richard Tice decided to give Matthew Steeples a “Sunday sermon” about monsters yesterday; he did so late afternoon and likely after a few (British beer only) shandies and perhaps a boozy lunch (with non-European wines only) in Belgravia.

     

    This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “Yesterday, Richard Tice of the Reform Party asked: ‘What sort of monster are you?’ of me after I called out his leaky squeeze Isabel Oakeshott. Who is actual monster in story of #lockdownfiles leaking of MattHancock’s WhatsApp missives?” He gave the options of a) Isabel Oakeshott (32.6%), b) Richard Tice, (8.7%) c) himself (6.5%) and d) Matt Hancock (52.5%). As of 11.30am on Monday 6th March the results were as listed.
    Tweet 1
    58-year-old Richard Tice ‘bigs himself up’ as some kind of man of the people in spite of having a clearly very privileged past and present. Often spotted in the tony taverns of Belgravia, this former Conservative donor has been involved in amongst other things property development and investment. He was privately educated at Uppingham and is the son the late horse trainer Joan Tice DL OBE. That he claims Matthew Steeples “jealous” of his gossipy girlfriend – a woman who falsely acted as a muckspreader when she falsely shared fake news that David Cameron had performed a sexual act on a dead pig – is proof permanent that he’s the one who is actually off his merry rocker. “Keep going Dicky!”
    Tweet 2
    Called out by Steeples after he suggested him a “2 bit journo of a 2 bit rag,” Tice responded: “What sort of monster are you?” He didn’t find a very positive response to his idiotic question from the majority of social media users.

    Social media responds to Richard Tice’s rambling rants and questions about monsters…

    Responding on Twitter and Facebook to the missives to Matthew Steeples, social media users observed of Tice and Oakeshott:

     

    “Two-bit? Do you mean The Steeple Times? I read it all the time as do all in the know; distinguished and principled journalism – especially compared to the dross trotted out by your squeeze.”

     

    “You’re a professional troll and so is Oakeshott. Who is paying you?”

     

    “[Oakeshott] had these messages two years ago. Why is she only concerned about those issues now? What sort of monster is she?”

     

    “The problem you have is that you are even more wrong than the government were!”

     

    “Don’t try to kid us you care. You’ve tried to exploit the release of that information with your partner in an attempt to inflict political damage & now you pretend you care? You’re a 2 bit crappy grifter like Farage. I wouldn’t trust you with a lettuce, let alone our rights.”

     

    “Save your faux outrage, you hypocrite! What about the damage to children currently suffering from Long Covid? I don’t hear you utter a bloody word about them!”

     

    “If Isabel had been a decent person, i.e. concerned about what is in the public interest, she would have released ALL the information to ALL media without payment. We see you two for what you really are!”

     

    “You are using those examples of wrongdoing and other peoples’ real human suffering to promote your own ends. What’s worse is that you are gaslighting people by cynically pretending that you are doing it ‘because you care,’ when self-interest is always your real motive. Shyster!”

     

    “What we know is that Oakeshott released these messages at a time that was politically convenient but chose to hide the fact that Banks lied until she was exposed.”

     

    “Disgusting you are trying to manipulate peoples’ suicides for your own benefit and agenda.”

     

    “Serialised in the telegraph to maximise the news cycle/exposure. How is this about any more than @IsabelOakeshott and her personal & political agenda? It’s a massive scoop, dripping with tabloid subterfuge, but why dress it up as a crusade?

     

    “She felt it was in public interest, was disgusted… But not before the book was out. And no doubt her leakage has been handsomely rewarded, possibly even legal protection should MH sue her. She’s the reason journalists will be less trusted with confidential matters.”

     

    “They’re insulting your credibility, I thought you’d recognise that given how often it must occur.”

     

    “You are a charlatan… Trying to make political gain out of peoples’ suffering. What sort of monster are you?”

     

    “[You] didn’t care until you and [Oakeshott] could make political hay and a boatload of cash.”

     

    “None of [the things Tice supposedly ‘cares’ about] are remotely true or relevant. File them under ‘things which ill-informed fight-wingers bleat about but never actually happened. No wonder the ‘UK’ is a global pariah and laughing stock.”

     

    “It’s genuinely painful when dead-eyed sociopaths obsessed with political power no matter the cost lecture others about ‘caring.’ Your entire platform exists and feeds only on negative emotion, reactionary populism with power for its own sake as the final and only goal.”

     

    “You would happily send [sic] asylum seekers drown. F**k off with the faux humanitarianism.”

     

    “You do not care about so-called ordinary people. Stop pretending. I suspect you want an authoritarian far right tax haven complete with subservient work force.”

     

    “You can care about all of this and still think your significant other is a wrong’un. Hope this helps, Dicky.”

     

    “Like your partner, you care when it suits your agenda [Richard].”

     

    “It’s you that’s the monster… A Tory monster. The worst kind.”

     

    “Stop using peoples’ deaths for your own financial gain, you ghoul.”

     

    “[‘What sort of monster are you?’]… That last line, have you ever considered looking in the mirror and pausing to think, [Richard]?”

     

    “Right back at ya. Stop spreading misleading information.”

     

    “Nice one… Brilliant… Keep up the good work, Matthew.”

     

    “Oooh, you’ve got your knickers in a twist… Grow up Tice… You should be the leader of the Whataboutery Party.”

     

    Waitrose Belgravia chlorinate chicken yellow sticker Bollocks to Brexit
    In August 2019, ‘The Steeple Times’ shared an image of Brexiteer Richard Tice buying yellow stickered salmon at Waitrose in Belgravia. We asked: “What next? Chlorinated American chicken?” and suggested he find another yellow sticker… That yellow sticker? ‘Bollocks to Brexit.’
    John Whittingdale Isabel Oakeshott
    In September 2019, ‘The Steeple Times’ condemned Isabel Oakeshott as a “fake news creator” and shared a reader submitted photograph of her next to the “lapdance loving MP” John Whittingdale. For once, she wasn’t wearing her grubby gym gear.
    Reform UK Make Britain Again
    Reform UK bases its message most clearly on 45th POTUS Donald Trump’s message: “Let’s Make America Great Again.” It’s a message that has yet to resonate at the ballot box with the great British public. Perhaps Richard Tice should focus on that problem before worrying about ‘monsters’ that simply don’t exist.
    Grifter bike
    On Twitter, amongst much mockery, this image of a ‘Grifter’ bicycle simply shone out and had to be shared. As Norman Tebbit once argued, it might be time ‘Dicky Boy’ got on it.
  • Word of the Week 2021 – Going to the Polls

    Word of the Week 2021 – Going to the Polls

    Susie Dent shares the fascinating origin of “going to the polls” just as Count Binface looks to get more votes than Laurence Fox in spite of the latter having a ludicrous £5 million campaign pot

    With voting underway across the country, “that woman in Dictionary Corner” Susie Dent this morning shared with her 753,000 followers on Twitter the origin of “going to the polls” this morning:

     

    Origin of the day: the ‘poll’ in ‘going to the polls’ originally meant ‘head’, referring to the counting of heads or votes. A ‘noddypoll’ was an incompetent fool, a ‘clod-poll’ a blockhead, and a ‘tadpoll’ (later ‘tadpole’) a ‘toad-head’.        

     

    Referencing what a lacklustre bag of bilge Londoners have been offered by the mainstream parties and echoing Nikolay Kalinin’s analysis of Labour’s national multifaceted mess for The Steeple Times yesterday, Inside Croydon declared of the campaign:

     

    “It has been a very long, and very tedious, London election campaign, but for some of the capital’s voters, perhaps bewildered by the multitude of different voting systems employed and vast number of candidates for Mayor or the London Assembly, there has been one bright spot: Count Binface.”

     

    “In elections that were postponed from 2020, among the various races-within-the-race for City Hall, there is a fascination among those who long ago tired of the lies of Tory Shaun Bailey or the deadly dull platitudes of Sadiq Khan (did you know: his father was a London bus driver?), the idea that a geezer with a bin on his head could attract more votes than the spittle-flecked campaign of Laurence Fox has lightened the mood these past couple of weeks.”

     

    “And what’s more, unlike so much of so many of the pointless political campaigns, Binface is actually doing some good, by raising thousands of pounds for homelessness charities.”

     

    Elsewhere on social media yesterday, Count Binface himself shared an amusing video based on Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody asking his followers to make him their first choice today. The Steeple Times’ editor Matthew Steeples duly obliged when he headed to St Columba’s Church of Scotland in Pont Street, SW1 this morning and casted a protest for Max Fosh as his second choice also.

     

    Going to the Polls – Count Binface morphed into Whitney Houston to share his final pitch to be the next Mayor of London “and/or the UK’s next Eurovision entry.” He urged: “Make me your first choice vote, and together we will crush the loopy candidates. (You know who I mean.)”
    Going to the Polls – Susie Dent, as ever, brought a bit of insight on polling day 2021.
    Going to the Polls – Boris Johnson was escorted to vote in Westminster by his latest baby mama Carrie Symonds at just before 8am this morning. Whether she had to help the ‘noddypoll’ PM mark his voting card or not is unknown.
    Word of the Week 2021 – Going to the Polls – Fox v Binface – Susie Dent shares the fascinating origin of “going to the polls” just as Count Binface looks to get more votes than Laurence Fox in spite of the latter having a ludicrous £5 million campaign pot.
    Going to the Polls – Many Twitter users mocked the ex-actor Fox and remarked of their desire for Count Binface to actually be his ex-wife Billie Piper in disguise.
    Word of the Week 2021 – Going to the Polls – Fox v Binface – Susie Dent shares the fascinating origin of “going to the polls” just as Count Binface looks to get more votes than Laurence Fox in spite of the latter having a ludicrous £5 million campaign pot.
    Going to the Polls – The parody Boris Johnson account went further and declared: “To be honest, I don’t care if we take Hartlepool, as long as Count Binface beats that streak of piss, Laurence Fox.” 1,200 clicked “love” in response. Author Emma Kennedy added: “When Count Binface gets more votes than Waitrose Tommy Robinson tomorrow, I look forward to the 3682 5k thinkpieces/profile articles in The Telegraph and Sunday Times telling us what a brave visionary Count Binface is. Also: BBCQT AHOY!” and got 1,600 “loves” also.
    Word of the Week 2021 – Going to the Polls – Fox v Binface – Susie Dent shares the fascinating origin of “going to the polls” just as Count Binface looks to get more votes than Laurence Fox in spite of the latter having a ludicrous £5 million campaign pot.
    Going to the Polls – John O’Connell announced: “Duty done. I voted. Now I can freely spend the rest of the day taking the piss out of Shaun Bailey and Laurence Fox, and cheering on Count Binface.”
  • Bailey Bombs to 64/1

    Bailey Bombs to 64/1

    As ingeniously ironic Old Harrovian wannabe Mayor of London Max Fosh photobombs his fellow Old Harrovian grumpy groaner rival Laurence Fox, their clapped-out Conservative rival Shaun Bailey sinks to likely 3rd place at odds of 64/1

    Late last month, Conservative candidate Shaun Bailey’s chances of becoming the next Mayor of London looked to be improving. Whilst odds on him winning were just 45/1 in January, they’d moved to 31/1 and later to 25/1  – in spite of an endorsement from the irksome, well-known associate of dildo floggers, Karren Brady.

     

    Things seemed to finally be swinging in this bombastic berk’s favour, but now, today, Oddschecker shows he’s retreated into third behind Labour’s laughable Sadiq Khan (1/16) and independent oddity Brian Rose (18/1). Today, Bailey stands at an astonishing 64/1 whilst the Liberal Democrats’ Luisa Porritt has sunk to 999/1.

     

    Elsewhere, earlier this week with a supposed £5 million behind him courtesy of a Vote Leave donor named Jeremy Hosking, angry ex-actor Laurence Fox (250/1) launched his campaign whilst being driven around on a red London bus emblazoned with “Free London. Vote for Laurence Fox. Your London. Your freedom. Reclaim it.”

     

    Amusingly, making a complete mockery of him, a seemingly likeable young chap named Max Fosh (100/1) has come forward and raised the £10,000 deposit required to run. The 26-year-old, who studied at Harrow School with Fox, wrapped his car with text that read “Don’t Believe Everything You See On A Bus” and photobombed Fox’s bus.

     

    Shared subsequently on his YouTube channel and watched already by just under 100,000 viewers, Fosh turned up at Fox’s launch event with his car and then introduced himself to the Reclaim leader.

     

    Speaking to The Tab subsequently of his “Max Fosh to Mash Fox” campaign on Friday, Fosh explained:

     

    “The reason I want to beat Laurence is because he seems like a very upset man. He’s a bit of a grumpy guy…. Politics is just a cesspit of name-calling and anger, and it’s just going to make Laurence grumpier. So, I want to beat Laurence in this election to get him out of politics and get him back to doing what he does best.”

     

    “It’s basically a philanthropic mission at this point. Wouldn’t it be nice to see more of such kindness and sincerity in politics today?”

     

    Today, given the quality of candidates on offer in this election is so dire and thus Khan’s likelihood of returning as Mayor is sadly so high, we urge those eligible to do the only sensible thing left available in the absence of our long since departed favoured choice Rory Stewart. Please don’t spoil your vote, but instead back Max Fosh as you first choice and Count Binface as your second.

     

    Doing so on the 6th May 2021 will send a signal to Laurence Fox that in spite of the millions of pounds in wonga behind him, he shouldn’t be in charge of a bus ticket let alone a capital city, but it’ll also do something else: It’ll tell the Tory Party that they made the worst of choices in Shaun Bailey and it might persuade them not to put a twerp of such epic proportions on a ballot paper ever again.

     

    Join the 19,900 followers of Max Fosh on Twitter at @Max_Fosh and Count Binface’s 20,200 at @CountBinface.

     

    Bailey Bombs to 64/1 – Shaun Bailey Bombs to 64/1 in London mayoral election – Vote Max Fosh and Count Binface instead – As Old Harrovian wannabe Mayor of London Max Fosh photobombs his fellow Old Harrovian rival Laurence Fox, their clapped-out Conservative rival Shaun Bailey sinks to likely 3rd place at odds of 64/1.
    Bailey Bombs to 64/1 – Max Fosh might not have the financial resources of Lawrence Fox’s £5 million campaign pot, but he’s creative and likeable. We urge readers to support this breath of fresh air.
    Bailey Bombs to 64/1 – Shaun Bailey Bombs to 64/1 in London mayoral election – Vote Max Fosh and Count Binface instead – As Old Harrovian wannabe Mayor of London Max Fosh photobombs his fellow Old Harrovian rival Laurence Fox, their clapped-out Conservative rival Shaun Bailey sinks to likely 3rd place at odds of 64/1.
    Bailey Bombs to 64/1 – Count Binface – formerly Lord Buckethead – has always amused readers of ‘The Steeple Times.’ He’s certainly worth voting for ahead of Sadiq Khan, Shaun Bailey and Brian Rose.
    Bailey Bombs to 64/1 – Shaun Bailey Bombs to 64/1 in London mayoral election – Vote Max Fosh and Count Binface instead – As Old Harrovian wannabe Mayor of London Max Fosh photobombs his fellow Old Harrovian rival Laurence Fox, their clapped-out Conservative rival Shaun Bailey sinks to likely 3rd place at odds of 64/1.
    Bailey Bombs to 64/1 – Shaun Bailey was mocked by ‘THis Is North Kensington’ for “wringing the wrong numbers” whilst his campaign was summed up by ‘From The Hornets Nest’ with the following: “The Conservative Party made a massive miscalculation in backing this man. His appalling record as one of the laziest members of the London Assembly should have been a warning that Bailey was an insubstantial dud.”

  • A Coked Candidate

    A Coked Candidate

    Wannabe Mayor of London Shaun Bailey makes a berk of himself discussing drug use by the poor; he neglected to mention wealthy coked-up Conservative sorts

    In spite of Sadiq Khan having proven himself an utterly incompetent Mayor of London, the Tories are still running in third place behind the frankly Frankenstein-esque whack job Brian Rose.

     

    Now, following on from Shaun Bailey having been reported to the CPS over some dodgy leaflets he’d produced and blundered over giving out burglar alarms for free and forcing homeless people to find £5,000 deposits for housing, this batshit bonkers Conservative candidate has turned his blimp of a brain to drugs.

     

    Featured this morning in the Guardian, speaking before the London Assembly’s economy committee about universal basic income (UBI) yesterday, Bailey bizarrely told those gathered:

     

    “I know some people would absolutely fly if you gave them a lump sum to deal with every week. I know some people who would buy lots of drugs. So where is the care in this, where is the care for the person? How do you get past just universally giving people money?”

     

    Responding to this “extraordinary” baloney, Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform thinktank remarked:

     

    “I’m sure the people spending most of the money are not the poor – they’re the well-off. It’s your City traders and their cocaine habits. Where’s the love for them?”

     

    “There is a trope or a myth that ordinary people don’t know how to spend money, and that people who are poor are, in some way, incompetent at spending money. And therefore, what the state needs to do is control them or their spending in some way. This is utterly false.”

     

    “It’s not just false, it’s clearly unproven. It’s clearly the opposite of any evidence we have about the world.”

     

    Previously last August, Bailey was slammed by associate professor of addiction at the University of York Ian Hamilton for calling for random drug testing of all employees in companies employing more than 250 staff.

     

    Writing in the Independent of a policy pledge that would actually just “punish big businesses” primarily, Hamilton commented:

     

    “Bailey’s pledge to introduce workplace drug testing does nothing for his credibility. He knows, or should know, there is no evidence to support this policy. As with legal markets, the drug market is diverse: those dealing and using cocaine are not the same as those using and dealing crack cocaine and heroin. The latter is associated with violence whereas the former is not. So if the justification for invading employees’ privacy is to make a dent in knife crime, all the evidence suggests it will be a failure.”

     

    “But I suspect that isn’t the point of this announcement. It’s a blatant attempt to capitalise on people’s fears and win their votes.”

     

    Elsewhere, in slightly better news for the brazen bozo, Bailey’s odds of actually winning have moved from 45/1 in January to 37/1 on Oddschecker. Still, however, his chances of becoming the next Mayor of London look as likely as that of seeing Madeleine McCann ride into town on Shergar the racehorse.

     

    A Coked Candidate – Tory wannabe Mayor Shaun Bailey on the poor and drugs – Wannabe Mayor of London Shaun Bailey makes a berk of himself discussing drug use by the poor; he neglected to mention wealthy coked-up Conservative sorts. Trailing in 3rd behind Brian Rose and Sadiq Khan.
    A Coked Candidate – Later, plainly seeking to justify Shaun Bailey’s latest balderdash whilst failing to respond to the point about coked-up Conservatives, a spokesperson for him arrogantly answered: “Shaun won’t take any lectures from career politicians on what life is like for those struggling to get on.”
    A Coked Candidate – Tory wannabe Mayor Shaun Bailey on the poor and drugs – Wannabe Mayor of London Shaun Bailey makes a berk of himself discussing drug use by the poor; he neglected to mention wealthy coked-up Conservative sorts. Trailing in 3rd behind Brian Rose and Sadiq Khan.
    A Coked Candidate – That Shaun Bailey is trailing even Brian Rose – a genuine oddjob who was arrested in January for “unlawful campaigning” – speaks volumes as to his sheer incompetence and unsuitability to be the next Mayor of London.
    A Coked Candidate – In January, on LBC, Shaun Bailey was “tied in knots” after saying “London is unsafe and also the best place in the world.” Responding to his all-over-the-shop contradictory comment, presenter Iain Dale commented: “You sound like Donald Trump.”
  • Borwick is Back

    Borwick is Back

    Former Kensington MP Lady Borwick returns to the fray and is branded a #FearlessPillarOfTheCommunity in spite of her bizarre comments linking the Grenfell Tower tragedy and gangs

     

    “Triple dipper” – branded as such because at one time she was paid nearly £100,000 of public money per year as a councillor, Member of Parliament and member of the London Assembly concurrently – Lady Borwick has now bizarrely branded #FearlessPillarOfTheCommunity on Instagram.

     

    No doubt part of an attempt to resurrect her deservedly dented public profile, this former MP for Kensington – once one of the safest Tory seats in the land and a place where previously even a pig in a blue rosette would have easily won – Lady Borwick most recently was criticised for describing survivors of the Grenfell Tower as “rather like gangs.”

     

    In addition, ‘Call Me Victoria’ – whose son The Hon. Thomas Borwick sold an app to the now disgraced election manipulators Cambridge Analytica and was also Vote Leave’s chief technology officer also – it must be remembered went further. She pompously claimed that a “lack of education” among the residents “compounded confusion over circumstances surrounding the fire” and was even condemned as “completely wrong” by her fellow Conservative and council leader, Elizabeth Campbell.

     

    Lady Borwick is, given the evidence, out of touch with the modern electoral landscape and if the Conservative Party are to have any chance of electoral success in Kensington again, they should jolly well send her off back to a safe space where she can happily “tinkle on [her beloved] ivories” in peace.

     

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    Borwick is Back – Former MP Victoria Borwick returns to the fray –Former Kensington MP Victoria Borwick returns to the fray and is branded a #FearlessPillarOfTheCommunity in spite of her bizarre comments linking the Grenfell Tower tragedy and gangs Borwick is Back – Former MP Victoria Borwick returns to the fray –Former Kensington MP Victoria Borwick returns to the fray and is branded a #FearlessPillarOfTheCommunity in spite of her bizarre comments linking the Grenfell Tower tragedy and gangs Borwick is Back – Former MP Victoria Borwick returns to the fray –Former Kensington MP Victoria Borwick returns to the fray and is branded a #FearlessPillarOfTheCommunity in spite of her bizarre comments linking the Grenfell Tower tragedy and gangs

  • Analysing Borwick

    Analysing Borwick

    The Cambridge Analytica connection you’ve most likely never heard of; meet The Hon. Thomas Borwick, son of ex-Tory MP Lady ‘Call Me Victoria’ Borwick

     

    The Hon. Thomas Borwick is a figure in the Cambridge Analytica scandal you’ve probably never heard of.

     

    Bizarrely largely overlooked by the mainstream media, the son of the ousted ex-MP for Kensington Lady ‘Call Me Victoria’ Borwick is an extremely well connected man who keeps himself under the radar on social media. The 31-year old has just 500 followers on Twitter – a surprisingly low number given he has been described as a “computer specialist” and was put in a position of huge power as Vote Leave’s chief technology officer from August 2015 to July 2016.

     

    Educated at the University of Richmond, Virginia from 2006 to 2010, with a period studying law courses at Cambridge briefly during 2008, Borwick subsequently worked in IT for the financial services company Killik & Co in 2012 and simultaneously “developed music technology for interactive lessons.”

     

    More interestingly, this youngster’s move into political data profiling came also in 2012 when he founded a company named Kanto Systems with an aim of “bring[ing] UK Campaigning into the 21st century.” Here, Borwick developed a “mobile canvassing app” and came into contact with Cambridge Analytica in order to provide them with “digital services,” according to The Huffington Post. In turn, he sold an app to Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL, and now, in March this year, his firm was brought in by Ireland’s Save The 8th anti-abortion campaign group as part of their efforts “to persuade Irish voters to keep the country’s strict anti-abortion laws.”

     

    Hiring Thomas Borwick to create and manage a website is like employing the SAS to run security at a school hop or bringing in Einstein to tot up your shopping bill,” comments journalist Fintan O’Toole in The Irish Times, and in further revelations in the Evening Standard late March, Borwick himself admitted to also having worked with the equally controversial Canadian data firm Aggregate IQ – an operation that earned £3.5 million working for Vote Leave during the 2016 referendum campaign.

     

    The public and press need to wake up and smell the coffee. The manipulation of politics in America, Britain, Ireland and elsewhere runs far deeper than even the most avid viewer of the Daily Politics could imagine. Figures like Thomas Borwick may well operate in the backrooms but it is increasingly becoming apparent that with doorstep canvassing all but irrelevant, such people are worryingly our new political powerhouses.

     

    Follow The Steeple Times on Twitter at @SteepleTimes.

     

  • Poore Borwick

    Poore Borwick

    New contributor Mark Newton shares his views on the “dubious record” of Lady Borwick, Conservative parliamentary candidate for Kensington

    Kensington, Kensington, its name beats the drum of the Conservative heartland of London. Tory grandees have worked long and hard to be fortified in this Bastion with greats like Alan Clark, Michael Portillo and Malcom Rifkind amongst its previous tenants. To be given Kensington is to be awarded one of the safest, and most convenient seats in the land – a prize to be won by only the hardest working, and most industrious of MPs and this, to my mind, makes the continued selection of Lady Borwick (née Victoria Poore) as the Tory candidate even harder to understand.

     

    Known locally by the epithet ‘Lazy Borwick’, this latest MP is cast quite differently from the usual Kensington mould. Lady (‘Call me Victoria’) Borwick’s stance on Brexit, lousy debate participation and letter response history, questionable use of public funds and ongoing links to shady businesses is creating quite the heated storm in the chattering leafy private gardens of Kensington. Over the next three articles, I’ll be taking a look at Lady Borwick to try to get to the bottom of how and why one of the safest Tory seats of the land came to be held by the one of the least worthy occupants.

     

    Lady Borwick succeeded in getting her hands on Kensington after Malcolm Rifkind stepped down at the 2015 General Election. The circumstances of that coup are somewhat strange, not least because of the history of Kensington in selecting high profile and hard working MPs. What seems to have happened is simple nepotism. Lady Borwick, having twice failed to make the selection list for London mayor during Steven Norris’ candidacy, finally slid into the London Assembly in 2008 as one of three London-wide Conservative members. From there it was an easy promotion from Boris Johnson to the Deputy Mayorhood, and it seems no-one less than the great ‘BoJo’ himself shoe-horned her into the Kensington seat ahead of better qualified and more industrious candidates.

     

    So why then is the epithet ‘Lazy Borwick’ doing the rounds in the Royal Borough? Surprisingly, it has very little to do with her controversial Brexit stance in a strongly Remain constituency. What’s got Conservatives up in arms is her uselessness as a constituency MP. According to the MP tracking website TheyWorkForYou, Lady Borwick’s response rate to written enquiries is just 18% – an abysmal score that places her 618th on a list of 641 responding MPs. If there’s one thing the well-to-do residents of Kensington don’t like it’s an MP who is too busy or lazy to respond to their well-meant enquiries, particularly a Member of Parliament who manages to be significantly less efficient than her much busier, high profile forbearers.

     

    So, what, might you ask, is taking up so much of Lazy Borwick’s time that she can’t manage to get to her mail bag? Some suggest that it may be her tireless work for charity, yet, strangely, Lady Borwick’s parliamentary voting record seems to spit in the face of the charitable causes she purports to support. Recently, she has jumped on the laudable activities of @CleanAirLondon, a much needed initiative to clean up London’s diesel rich environment, yet in the Commons ‘Lazy Borwick’ has consistently voted against climate change measures, and against a greater public control of bus services. Hard to reconcile with the self-promotional pictures of her backing smart energy meters.

    Lady Borwick also claims to support local hospitals and to regularly visit the elderly residents of Kensington. She even spoke at a recent debate in favour of mental health and mobility support. Yet in the House of Commons she has almost always voted against paying benefits to those unable to work due to illness or disability and has consistently voted against the terminally ill being given assistance to end their lives.

    Finally, there are those who suggest ‘Lazy Borwick’ may simply be too busy with parliamentary duties to answer constituents’ letters, yet she spoke in just 15 debates in the last year, well below average amongst MPs, and dramatically lower than previous high profile Kensington MPs.

    Whatever it is that keeps Lady Borwick entertained, it can’t then be serving the interests of her constituents, so to get answers we need to dig further, into her bizarre and odd beliefs about Europe, and her odd use of public funds and ties to ‘Big Data’ business.

    Coming up next – ‘Brexit Borwick’ and residents’ anger in Kensington; the constituency with the greatest proportion of EU nationals of any London borough.

     

    Pictured above – ‘Woman of the people’ Lady Borwick – a “director and member of Poore and Second Poore Ltd; holding companies limited by guarantee” – aboard a 40-metre yacht in 2014 with Sunseeker Cheshire’s Jonathan Kingsley. At the time Mr Kingsley commented: “It was a wonderful opportunity to promote our iconic brand and reinforce the British success of Sunseeker to this high profile, influential Lady. She, and her son, adored the boat”.

    #LazyBorwick

     

  • The Busy Borwicks

    The Busy Borwicks

    Son of Kensington MP Lady Borwick’s curious connections to the people who ensured both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump revealed

     

    On Sunday, Carole Cadwalladr of  The Observer published a lengthy and well researched article that, amongst other things, examined the connections between The Hon. Thomas Borwick – the son of the Conservative hereditary peer The Rt. Hon. The Lord Borwick and Kensington’s Member of Parliament Lady ‘Call me Victoria’ Borwick – and the controversial US hedge fund titan and backer of Donald Trump, Robert Mercer.

     

    A director of a multitude of companies, in spite of being just 29 years old, “new media expert” Thomas Borwick – whose mother was forced to apologise “after using City Hall resources to promote her husband’s [now defunct] electric vehicle business” in 2009 – it now transpires, was not only Vote Leave’s chief technology officer but previously worked with SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ. Borwick currently touts himself to his 202 followers on Twitter as the founder of a political canvasing consultancy named Kan.to, an organisation that he boldy claims “will out-organise, out-plan, out-leaflet, out-twitter, out-work and out-vote all of its opponents”.

     

    Mercer, one of the owners of the far-right Breitbart News Network as well as being a major shareholder in Cambridge Analytica, is a man whose “sinister” connections to both Trump and Nigel Farage have rightly been widely criticised. On that basis, that the son of fervent Brexiteer Lady Borwick – a woman whose constituents voted 69% to ‘Remain’ and whose domain was home to a greater proportion of EU nationals than any other London borough in 2016 – has links to this billionaire and his activities should only encourage the voters of Kensington to ditch her and her out-of-touch party.

     

    We urge Kensington based readers to support Annabel Mullin of the Liberal Democrats on 8th June. This principled lady is the only person who can realistically unseat Lady Borwick and she is the only candidate who will support the beliefs the majority in this constituency continue to hold dear.

     

    #DumpLadyBorwick #VoteAnnabelMullin

     

  • Victoria Borwick MP (AKA “VB” and “Lady Borwick”, née Victoria Poore)

    Victoria Borwick MP (AKA “VB” and “Lady Borwick”, née Victoria Poore)

    Victoria Borwick MP (AKA “Lady Borwick”, née Victoria Poore)Flame-headed and a mother of four, Victoria Borwick became Conservative Member of Parliament for Kensington in May 2015. (more…)

  • Boris comes out kung-fu fighting

    Boris comes out kung-fu fighting

    Boris Johnson hosts Rupert Murdoch at the Olympics

     

    The Daily Mail and other titles are in uproar today. It has been revealed that the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has invited Rupert Murdoch and his wife, Wendi Deng, to be his guests at the women’s 800m freestyle swimming finals of the Olympics this week.

     

    Boris Johnson

    Accused of “appalling judgement” by Jenny Jones, a Green Party member, further criticism came from Len Duvall, leader of the Labour group on the London Assembly, who stated:

     

    “There are serious questions as to the appropriateness of Boris Johnson taking Mr Murdoch to the Olympics.”

     

    I wholeheartedly disagree. Mr Murdoch, like or loathe him, happens to own what remain the most influential media outlets in this country. He is a man of influence and unlike Mr Cameron, Boris realises how to utilise both him and the power of the press.