While Rupe’s allegedly upmarket troops at the Sunday Times try to get readers to “look over there” at the claim that alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, while he was London’s very occasional Mayor, wrote a letter recommending Jennifer Arcuri for a £100,000 a year job paid out of public funds, the more interesting news is that Ms Arcuri’s network of friends is coming under further scrutiny.
It was already more or less certain that one of those friends was deeply unpleasant man-baby Milo Yiannopoulos, now in both disgrace and debt following his recent fall from grace. But more interestingly, she also appears to have been close to the Vote Leave campaign, which Bozo The Clown joined after he abandoned his previously pro-EU stance and decided that he could become PM rather more rapidly by backing the Leave side.
The Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr picked up on former Vote Leave CTO Thomas Borwick getting all Ron Hopeful about a second referendum, claiming “I am looking forward to the second referendum. Given the polls are about the same as in the week of the referendum there will be a significant swing to leave on current focus group data”.
Thomas Borwick
She commented “This is the ex-Cambridge Analytica contractor who was Vote Leave’s head of technology. He’s harvested every single person’s electoral register data in UK...but says he did nothing with it. You not going to [not] use it all over again, Thomas?” And guess who’s been hanging around with Jennifer Arcuri? Yes he has.
The Tweeter known as Facts Central asked “Asking again: Who's that guy next to [Boris] Johnson's favourite hacker? (Innotech Summit/Lawrence Lessig at Second Home/2014) … Does he look "ThomasBorwicky" - Or is it just me?” No, he did look like Thomas Borwick. Because he was Thomas Borwick. Who’s dealt with Cambridge Analytica.
So perhaps Bozo was being courted by the Leave side rather earlier than was previously thought. As to what data Borwick might have had about his person at the point he was snapped with Ms Arcuri, Fionna O’Leary asked “The bigger question is what has happened to ALL the Leave data including UKIP’s database and WESS Digital Ltd (started by Matthew Elliott, Andrew Whitehead - a co Director of at least one of Borwick’s companies and who worked on Vote Leave - Guido’s Paul Staines and Jag Singh.)”
On top of that, Martyn McLaughlin of the Scotsman brought it all up to date at the end of last month as he mused “There are some, er, very interesting tweets from Matthew Hickey, the co-founder of Jennifer Arcuri's cybersecurity firm, Hacker House. I wonder if hacking voting machines was covered in the prime minister's 'technology lessons’?”
What we appear to have here is a cast of less than totally principled individuals who have hitched their wagons to Team Bozo, and may still be in its vicinity. Added to which are questions about how all that computer hacking expertise may be used in future. We do not use voting machines in the UK. But we do have a Leave team willing to play dirty.
And the Sunday Times doesn’t want to cover it. But Ms Cadwalladr just might.
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All of which illustrates why the voting process should be very closely monitored from ballot box to count. Plus open monitoring of electronic voting.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't want us to have a British equivalent of the "hanging chads" saga that got DumboBush2 "elected", would we?