Tory Bullying - Very Dirty Tricks

As if the fallout from the death of young Tory activist Elliott Johnson could not get any more bizarre - not to mention creepier and nastier - the source of the leaked Police report that was used by the Daily Mail’s Andrew Pierce has become all too clear at the same time as the Mail’s Sunday sister paper has revealed that so-called “Tatler Tory” Mark Clarke’s mistress fetched up incognito at last week’s pre-Inquest hearing.

India Brummitt (second left) - incognito appearance

While all eyes were on the Johnson parents Alison and Ray, and the knowledge that Clarke’s henchman André Walker would turn up at Ampthill court house as part of his pretence that he was in a relationship with the dead man right up until the day he died, there was the thought that Clarke might have appeared. The idea he might be represented by mistress India Brummitt was not on most pundits’ radar.

But there she was, as the Mail On Sunday’s political editor Simon Walters has told: “The mistress of 'Tatler Tory' Mark Clarke attended the court hearing where a failed bid was made to force her lover into the witness box over claims he bullied a Conservative activist who committed suicide … India Brummitt, a former adviser to a Tory Minister, sat behind Ray and Alison Johnson, the parents of Elliott Johnson, who killed himself last year”.

And there was more: “Mr Clarke, 38, an Election aide to David Cameron, stayed away from a pre-inquest review at Bedfordshire coroner's court in Ampthill on Tuesday. But loyal mistress Ms Brummitt, 25, was present. Dressed in a black coat with a beize [sic] shawl and furry bobble hat, and a polka dot dress, she went unnoticed by most of the media scrum that had gathered outside the court”. That much is true.

And it gets worse: realising her identity, Simon Usborne, who was also present at the hearing, has Tweeted “If this is as seems, she sat right behind parents typing away on an empty row while media kept respectful distance … I noticed her and should have asked who she was. She could have sat anywhere else. So creepy”. Whether or not Clarke put her up to it, Ms Brummitt’s actions appeared designed to intimidate the Johnsons.

That much is bad enough, but then comes the leak of the Police report into Elliott Johnson’s death. Who leaked it to Andrew Pierce? Simon Hattenstone had a very straightforward observation to make: “Police report to coroner in Elliott Johnson case was leaked 2 press. Only one other interested party at inquest: Conservative Way Forward”. Unless the cops leaked it themselves, it can only have been CWF.

This adds up to some serious pressure on the Johnsons through the use of the most unpleasant tactics. And remember, we are supposed to believe that CWF’s former head man Donal Blaney, and André Walker, had fallen out with Clarke, so the appearance of both Walker and Ms Brummitt must therefore have been a coincidence. I don’t buy that for one moment. Something smells particularly rank about this whole business.

That makes it important that Ray and Alison Johnson hold their nerve. More later.