The Hills are alive with the sound of Tories! An adaptation of a childhood favourite (apologies to Julie Andrews et al) sprung unbidden to my mind whilst I read the Hansard report on yesterday’s Emergency debate ‘EU Referendum: Electoral Law’
The dearth of Tory bottoms on the government benches was in stark contrast to the debate’s gravitas, I note I wasn’t alone in in my observations as Labour’s Geraint Davies commented
Geraint Davies
“For the record, the Government Benches are virtually empty. They may be 1% full—I do not know—but, frankly, it is pathetic. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to point out that the Government do not seem to care about the integrity of democracy and the law.”
Perhaps their absence can be explained by Matthew 7:16 “By their fruit you will recognize them.?” Often quoted “by their works ye shall know them”, hence I suspected the Tories had taken to the hills!
You see their ‘works have been exposed over recent days, rather like a public drawing and quartering of the political beast that is the Tories, the entrails (Cambridge Analytica et al) of which are spread across all media outlets, not least the Guardian and Channel 4.
Refuting any underhand rigging Mrs May was quick to give a carefully caveated answer “As far as I’m aware the Government has no current contracts with Cambridge Analytica or with the SLC group.” Which contrasted sharply with the denial of a party spokesman quoted in the Independent as saying
“The Conservative Party has never employed Cambridge Analytica, or its parent company, nor used their services,”
Denials about links to Cambridge Analytica is a red herring deployed to lead attention up the company structure rather than down the way, why? Well down the way we come across the Vote Leave companies and of course the link to a non-descript Canadian firm AggregateIQ set up by then Cambridge Analytica employee in 2013 (Now whistle-blower) Christopher Wylie.
AggregateIQ is maybe the only company to do well out of Brexit, having received around £3.4m from Vote Leave companies.
Vote Leave (the official campaign) had amongst its key people Messrs Boris Johnson and Michael Grove, which perhaps explains their absence from yesterday’s debate?
Despite his absence Bojo was quick to tweet
“Observer/C4 story utterly ludicrous, #VoteLeave won fair & square – and legally. We are leaving the EU in a year and going global #TakeBackControl #GlobalBritain”
Prompting the SNP MP Tommy Sheppard to comment
“…I am left wondering whether this was just his attempt to be the English Donald Trump or whether this is someone using one of the highest offices in the land to bring their power and authority to bear to intimidate those who would criticise him and make these allegations,”
Then there’s Vote Leaves CEO Matthew Elliott, who (no doubt coincidently) is the founder of the Tax Payers Alliance (TPA), a pressure group campaigning for a low tax country, and described by the Guardian as “arguably the most influential pressure group in the country”
Discussion around TPA seems like ‘mission creep’ premia facie, until that is, till one considers the timing between Brexic and EU The Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive, which becomes Law on Jan 1st 2019 a mere mad hares dance away from our planned exit on 29 March 2019, but hey that’s just coincidence huh?
No doubt the next few weeks will see more whistle-blowers, perhaps emboldened by the sheer courage of Shahmir Sanni and Christopher Wylie, and more dirty tricks like the outing of Shahmir, more blatantly false denials from the likes of the Foreign Minister aka The English Donald Trump.
Meanwhile we have to rely on the Electoral Commission to conduct its investigation (an institution that had to be forced by the courts to investigate an ongoing case) and in the spirit of all things public school, gave Cambridge Analytica, a rather good sporting head start
Maybe I should be reassured on the commissions’ slow start by the proverb of the Hare and the Tortoise, but then again, what if it’s a Mad March Hare?
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