Andrew Sabisky And His Defenders

It was not only the spokesman for alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson who declined to pass adverse comment on Andrew Sabisky, the frankly wacko “super forecaster” hired by someone in 10 Downing Street not unadjacent to chief polecat Dominic Cummings: plenty of others have been playing “look over there”, too.

Andrew Sabisky ...

... and his probable hirer

Worse, it seems those in the press who one might have expected to call out this hiring from the word go don’t seem to have grasped the seriousness of the affair. Sabisky was not some mere ingenue; he was a full-on eugenicist crank.

After Gaby Hinsliff of the Guardian mused “If Cummings had just quietly hired some geeks, without writing a self-dramatising blog about it, they’d probably have gone below the radar & nobody [would have] checked their internet histories. That desire to be *seen* to be clever/iconoclastic is his weakness”, Louise Raw took issue with her.

“Sabisky isn’t just ‘some geek’ with a dodgy ‘internet history’. He’s a full-on eugenicist who I discovered gave a paper at the 2015 Conference on Intelligence, alongside white supremacists. Perhaps the Guardian ‘wouldn’t have noticed’- but it should’ve”. Her article for Independent Voices is titled “I warned about the spreading influence of eugenics - yet an advocate was able to work at Downing Street”. The media should have been watching.

Adding her voice to that of Dr Raw, Kate Vasey warned “perhaps the correct reaction to Cummings getting caught appointing eugenicists to government is *not* to suggest how he might get away with it next time”. But the apologists were already gathering.

Not least of those is Raheem “Call me Ray” Kassam, who tried “I just saw what the Sky article originally said. The sterilisation thing I think he made out to be some sort of off colour joke?” Er, no. Louise Raw was soon on the case. “You edit a paper that claims to do ‘in-depth analysis’, but your idea of that is skimming a Sky piece then rushing to defend a eugenicist? Sabisky wasn’t JOKING when he spoke at eugenicist conference in 2015”.

And after James Felton caught the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine trying it on with “Is Andrew Sabisky an example of ‘cancel culture’?” (QTWTAIN), the loathsome Toby Young piped up. “Another victory for the offence archaeologists. I urged Andrew to join the [Free Speech Union], told him not to quit and said we would defend him to the hilt. I wish he had. The defenestration of people from public life for having said controversial things in the past must stop”. See, everyone? It’s all about FREEZE PEACH!

But it isn’t. No-one has abridged Sabisky’s right to speak as freely as he wishes, and former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger put Tobes straight: “He’s free to say anything he wants, Toby. He just shouldn’t be anywhere near Downing Street. Silly cause for [the Free Speech Union] to get involved with”. To which Peter Jukes of Byline media added a coda.

“Why do you and Andrew keep seeking sinecures from the tax payer? Spout your crass eugenics theories all you want but expect other people exercising free speech to ridicule you and don’t expect to line your pockets from the public purse. Get a real job. Stop leeching”. It’s got Sweet Fanny Adams to do with Free Speech.

Hiring Sabisky exposes a rottenness in Downing Street. I’ll just leave that one there.

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