Month: July 2018

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On the referendum #24M: Carole asks me questions, I answer — can MPs handle the truth?

After I published the DCMS report on fake news which itself spreads fake news, misunderstandings, wrong ideas about GDPR and the law etc, Carole commented on my blog. I replied. Both are below unedited for those following the twists of this farcical story…

Remember, the Electoral Commission REFUSED to interview me or any of the 7 Vote Leave staff over 2 years and 3 inquiries. I offered to give evidence to Collins’ committee. He refused to negotiate over dates and demanded a date he knew weeks earlier I could not do. I have made an open offer to MPs to give evidence to any other committee they want on condition only that all of us are under oath. They can make the whole committee Remainers, that’s OK with me, but they have to promise not to lie. Everybody interviewing Collins should ask him — ‘Why don’t MPs call Cummings’ bluff and get him in and all of you do it under oath to get to the bottom of all this once and for all? Wouldn’t it be good for once for MPs to promise not to lie?’

As Jack Nicholson said, ‘The truth? You can’t handle the truth!’

And everybody who interviews Wylie should ask him:

‘You tried to sell Cummings the exact same stuff you now claim is a threat to democracy and he turned you down, YOU admit YOU had access to the notorious Facebook data but Facebook has confirmed that Vote Leave COULD NOT HAVE used that data in their advertising, contrary to what you explicitly claimed, so why should anyone believe a word you say and whom did you flog all that to after Cummings told you to get lost in November 2015?’

FACT: Wylie is a liar, a fantasist and he presented himself to the media as a ‘whistleblower’ without disclosing he tried to sell me his snake oil and assured me he would keep it all ‘secret’. It’s all in writing if a proper court or the MPs ever fancy finally doing a proper investigation of all this…

I see Lionel Barber, editor of the FT which told us repeatedly that our economy would collapse unless we joined the euro, is also yapping about lies and facts. FACT: Barber is happy to publish lies when they’re his lies — I’ve seen him do it many times including about me. During the referendum when an FT’ hack was criticised by a Cabinet Minister for a lack of integrity in the FT’s coverage, his response was a shrug and ‘we’re in campaign mode’. Barber like many mentalist Remainers (and Leavers) lives in a fantasy world where his side are LIGHT AND TRUTH and the other side are DARK AND LIES. Unlike them, I’ve always thought it reasonable to support Remain. I don’t make the mistake of thinking those who disagree with me are evil morons. This is one of the reasons Vote Leave made more rational decisions than the other side which fooled themselves about their environment. These guys are used to getting their own way. They got screwed on the biggest issue in politics when they thought they couldn’t lose. They’re mad partly because they’re rightly embarrassed. And they keep fooling themselves every day…

I see Best for Britain is fundraising for a judicial review demanding a second referendum. This has no prospect of success because the relevant provisions of the EU Act 2011 have been repealed. Raising money for it is arguably fraudulent and criminal behaviour. A hack should investigate…

(For those REALLY interested in this story… There is some comment and I’ve got some emails about why there seem to be VL Facebook ads placed in India/Sri Lanka in June. I haven’t looked at the FB data dump but it’s very likely these were part of the testing for our football contest where we offered a real prize of £50 million if you could predict the Euro football tournament — £50 million a day, you see, because we couldn’t persuade an insurance company to insure us for £350 million prize which is what I wanted to do (we even got in touch with Warren Buffett’s office given he self-insured a  similar prize for his own PR stunt which had given us this idea, but being Buffett’s office they made the smart decision not to get involved damn it). We had to test the infrastructure live without the media seeing so we advertised in Asia including on Asian porn sites to see if the website worked properly, gambling that the British media would probably not see such carefully targeted ads in the middle of the night. This is probably why these otherwise odd looking ads have turned up in the FB data.)

CAROLE COMMENT

Dom. Great to have your input. If only you could have given that in person to MPs as they repeatedly asked you to. You still have not provided any cogent or reasonable answer about why you refuse to answer parliament’s questions. You campaigned for parliament’s sovereignty and yet you do not respect British laws and you deliberately seek to undermine its authority. Can you explain why?

I was posting on Twitter as I looked through those files last night It would have been great to have had yours or Matthew Elliott’s input at any stage. He was online – smearing Damian Collins – why didn’t he chip in? I knew that the law required imprints on political advertisements. I went and read the guidelines to referendum campaigners and that included digital adverts too…but as others pointed out this morning – and as I updated to make clear – the ones for digital ads are different. They *do not have the force of law*. So, you’re quite correct. There is a loophole.

A loophole that you knew about and exploited because you make no mention of the framing of the 50 million ads. They didn’t have any mention of Vote Leave, did they? Or at least from the information released by Facebook, there was nothing to say who the advert was on behalf of or what it was for? (Anonymously harvesting people’s data.) Can you please display how these were seen on Facebook and explain your rationale for apparently not disclosing who was placing the advertisement or how it was intended to be used?

You mention nothing about the toxic nature of these adverts. Their overt racism. The scaremongering. The blatant lies. Would you like to comment on those?

And can you comment too on the adverts that were shown after Jo Cox was murdered and campaigning was suspended. It appears that some of these ads – including one labeled “Breaking News” – were scheduled during that period. Certainly they reached millions of people. Can you clarify: were you campaigning during that period? Or is there another explanation?

Which of these ads were posted publicly to Vote Leave’s Facebook page? And which were dark? The majority of these have never been seen publicly before so it seems at least some are the latter. Could you clarify? And specify which.

It is really helpful and important to have input – that’s why I’ve repeatedly sent you questions to which I’ve never had any proper replies. I anticipate your fullest response so that we can be sure to get this right.

Thanks, Carole

MY REPLY

1/ I’ve never ‘refused to answer’ questions as you know. I offered to negotiate a date with Collins and he refused the offer. I’ve also offered to give evidence to a different committee — though I’ve suggested we ALL should do it UNDER OATH. Wouldn’t that be a good way to set an example to the nation — political discussions with everyone forced to be careful about the truth?!

2/ ‘I was posting on Twitter as I looked through those files last night It would have been great to have had yours or Matthew Elliott’s input at any stage.’ That’s not how journalism works. You don’t babble nonsense on Twitter accusing people of being racist criminals and expect that they’re monitoring you 24/7 and leap in to fix your repeated errors. It is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO FACT CHECK BEFORE MAKING CLAIMS.

As you know, the Observer and you have had to delete many defamatory claims you’ve made (about others) based on fantasies. Remember how you made claims about ‘deleting the google drive’ that I told you were lies, and you’ve had to delete all that from the Guardian website and your twitter feed AND PAY LEGAL COSTS TO THOSE YOU DEFAMED?

3/ ‘So, you’re quite correct. There is a loophole.’ Glad to see this but how about deleting all your tweets that call us criminals — or do you think it’s OK to accuse people of being ‘criminals’ on the basis of errors and leave the errors spreading across the world?

4/ I don’t remember exactly how the 50m ads were done. I remember there was a separate website. But all Facebook ads have to have a frame so they will have been identified. And remember the POINT of it was to collect data! There HAD to be an identifiable click through for the ads or the whole exercise would have been pointless. So though I can’t remember the detail I know for sure there was a clear identification and a website with a proper legal privacy policy and connection to Vote Leave etc.

5/ ‘can you comment too on the adverts that were shown after Jo Cox was murdered and campaigning was suspended. It appears that some of these ads – including one labeled “Breaking News” – were scheduled during that period. Certainly they reached millions of people.’ Wrong. As I’ve explained on my blog. Ads were not shown in that time. You think it is ‘certain’ — your certainty is unfounded.

6/ Lies? Cameron wanted to ‘pave the road from Ankara’, it’s on film. Fact!

7/ We ran no ‘dark’ posts despite repeated claims to the contrary. Everything you see in the FB data dump was a normal FB ad. Remember, I asked FB to release everything weeks ago. Are you asking Remain to do the same or are you happy for what they did to stay ‘dark’?

If you really care about facts and truth you will stop spreading fake news across the internet time after time.

Although lots of people call you a liar I don’t agree with them. The whistleblowers lied and have given multiple versions of the same events that would be shredded in open court under oath — e.g Sanni claiming he saw me have meetings with Grimes and AIQ (total invention, no such meetings happened but of course the EC never asked me or Grimes about this or anything else). But I think you just want to believe we’re baddies, you trust the wrong people, and you don’t check stuff properly. If you’re going to write about fake news on a website that reaches millions, you have a particularly strong responsibility to stop spreading misinformation about this story. If you want to be treated like Bob Woodward, you should be careful about facts. If you’d done Watergate, Nixon would have been able to trash the story and get away with it.

In the autumn, you and I should do an interview. You interview me for 90 minutes and ask whatever you want. But then I’ll interview you for 90 minutes about your reporting. All on film so no fancy editing.

And in the meantime you should ask the MPs — why not call Cummings’ bluff and accept his offer for a multi-hour session, no questions banned, with all of you under oath so you can finally nail him?

Best wishes
D

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On referendum #24L: Fake news from the fake news committee, Carole, and a rematch against the public

[Update. More fake news — claims we kept advertising during the ‘pause’ after Jo Cox’s murder. Wrong. The spreadsheet data from Facebook reflects when the ads were created, not when they were shown. AIQ was putting stuff into the system during the pause, not running ads. Again this false meme is already around the world. Alistair 45 minutes Campbell is ranting about moral cesspits. But yet again it’s fake news.

Incidentally, I opposed any pause at the time. I think the right way to deal with terrorism is to carry on with normal life, like Britain used to when it was a more serious country. (I hated the way Cameron would tweet in response to ISIS, giving them just what they want. I hated the way Cameron and Blair read out in Parliament names of people killed which had the same effect. I thought it also reflected SW1’s basic ignorance about how to deal with information operations against terrorist groups in many ways more sophisticated about communication than traditional institutions — eg. Hezbollah often does TV better than the Tory Party.) But I was outvoted by MPs who downed tools and headed back to London, giving Osborne/Dre the chance to use the news as they wished. But they botched it — in a classic case study of people fooling themselves, they thought that the country reflected the mood of Inner London. They started tweeting broken hearts and ‘we love our MP’ at each other. They therefore blew their last chance to recover from strategic misjudgements. Those who would run Remain in a second referendum remain disconnected from reality and on current form would botch a second referendum which anyway would be held in circumstances much more favourable to Leave on almost every dimension.

Also NB. Carole Cadwalladr has commented below and I will answer shortly.

Also NB. contra some reports, I was not sent the report by the Committee. I’m told they did send it to ‘witnesses’ but that did not include me. I was sent it by someone in Parliament fed up with Collins’ dishonesty and blatant use of Carole’s conspiracies for his own end of overturning the referendum result.]

A few thoughts on the last 24 hours of conspiracy theories plus a copy of the DCMS Select Committee report on fake news. They gave it to Carole for Sunday, obviously, but someone appalled at their dishonesty leaked it to me so I publish it below. It is, in keeping with their general behaviour, itself fake news.

Most of SW1 has suffered a psychological and operational implosion because of the referendum. 

Many MPs, hacks and chalatan-pundits on both sides have responded to the result by retreating to psychologically appealing parallel worlds rather than face reality — ‘the frogs before the storm’ prefer the comforting Oblonsky mental fug of groupthink.

A subset of the ERG, for example, welcomed the December agreement on the Irish backstop that actually spelled doom for their central ideas about how the negotiations were being conducted. Bernard Jenkin was so confident that he and Cash understood what was happening he cheerfully wrote that he had not needed to read it before welcoming it. This is the same group now ranting about Chequers — which was programmed by the December agreement, as are the imminent further surrenders in the autumn on Free Movement and everything else! This is the same group that tells everyone that people like me who say that serious preparations are needed to leave the EU are ‘like those peddling the Millennium Bug’. Their ideas on preparations are as accurate as their ideas on the December agreement were and of course in order to avoid facing their tragi-comic blunders of judgement over two years they are constructing parallel worlds for their minds to live in.

Hardcore Remainers are similar. They want a second referendum and this requires de-legitimising the first. They therefore hysterically spread false memes while shouting ‘liars’ at Leavers. Cash and Carole have a lot in common.

The last 24 hours has illustrated again how the entire story about Vote Leave / data / digital communications has become a great case study in contemporary politics: ubiquitous accusations of lying by people who either lie or are entirely reckless about the truth, almost nobody figuring out reality before babbling all over social media setting off cascades of false information, MPs clueless about basic legal issues also spreading false memes and so on. 

A few simple points about the new wave of fake news.

Carole has spread countless factual errors for over a year. When I explained how we had followed best practice to safeguard personal data by quickly deleting the VL electoral database containing tens of millions after the referendum, she turned this professional and ethical behaviour (not copied by the Remain campaign which kept it all) into accusations of me ‘destroying evidence’ and perverting the course of justice. This sort of thing has happened repeatedly.

Over the past 24 hours she has constructed new fake memes now spreading across the world. 

1. The latest astonishing ‘crimes’ according to Carole et al is that the VL ads did not have ‘imprints’, were ‘dark’, unethical and illegal. She has tweeted dozens of times along the lines of:

‘[Vote Leave] DELIBERATELY BROKE THE LAW by leaving off who paid for it… No wonder Dominic Cummings wouldn’t come to parliament. No wonder @facebook didn’t want to release this shit. This is truly toxic, dark, absolutely undemocratic shit at the heart of the biggest election we’ll ever see… Look at this stuff. Fake fake fake news. It’s not an ad. It’s not labelled as an ad. It doesn’t say who placed it or who paid for it or who it was targeted at or way. This is the fakiest of fake news. And until today we had no idea about any of this’. 

This is totally wrong and reflects deep misunderstandings. 

a. The campaigns were NOT legally required to carry imprints in the same way as printed  material. Carole is factually wrong about the law again. 

b. This is actually irrelevant because the VL ads that Carole claims were ‘dark’ and criminal because ‘no imprint’ actually were clearly labelled as VL. The images she is pulling from the FB data dump are raw images — they are not images of the actual ads themselves. The images sat within a ‘frame’ which everyone seeing them on Facebook would see. This included ‘Vote Leave’ and other text and also had a weblink. 

E.g Carole posts this as new evidence that I should be locked up — an image ‘without imprint’:

Screenshot 2018-07-27 11.55.21

 

(By the way, you CANNOT trust David ‘pave the road from Ankara’ Cameron on Turkey! Don’t believe me? Watch this!)

 

This is how ads actually appear on Facebook:

Screenshot 2018-07-27 11.57.39

Thousands of people are now spreading Carole’s memes across the internet. They are shocked and appalled — surely the criminal Cummings will finally be jailed etc. 

2. Amid the data dump of Facebook ads, there are claims that VL promoted BeLeave ads. This is a misunderstanding and the BBC has corrected their story. These ads appear in the 0-999 impressions box in the FB spreadsheet because the actual number of impressions was ZERO. They never ran. This issue is related to AIQ’s recent explanation of an error they made with loading audiences for BeLeave. It is detailed and technical and I won’t go into it here but in a nutshell: VL did not promote BeLeave ads. Remain, however, did do this but of course nobody cares. (It is more forgivable to make mistakes about this as it is a tricky niche issue.)

3. Another criminal conspiracy Carole is spreading across the internet concerns Brexit Central. This was set up after the vote (not by me). Grimes went to work on it and merged the BeLeave page into the BC page hence FB labels them confusingly as ‘Brexit Central/BeLeave’. Without asking anybody what it means, Carole and others have screamed ‘aha this organisation secretly existed before the vote and was illegally advertising, LOCK UP CRIMINAL CUMMINGS.’ Wrong again.

There are many other false memes spreading but there’s no point going into all of them.

Also NB. I asked months ago for Facebook to publish everything in the interests of transparency. Will Will Straw do as I did and ask Facebook to publish EVERYTHING they have about the Remain campaign? I’m not holding my breath.

HERE IS THE DCMS REPORT ON FAKE NEWS. IT IS… FAKE NEWS

The report knowingly/incompetently makes false claims regarding Vote Leave, AIQ and BeLeave. Despite nobody ever producing any evidence for Carole’s original loony conspiracy theory that I was secretly coordinating with Arron Banks, Bannon and Robert Mercer, the Committee also asks for yet another inquiry of this and of course they want the police involved to give credibility to their fantasies and legitimise their campaign for a second referendum. The MPs know Facebook has explained to them that VL COULD NOT HAVE used the notorious Facebook data acquired by Cambridge Analytica but they try to provide credibility to these conspiracy theories.

Further, these MPs have littered their report with errors and misunderstandings about the legal framework for elections, thus spreading further confusion. They haven’t even bothered to understand GDPR, which they mis-explain badly. Collins et al have shown no interest in the truth. Now MPs publish a document after months of supposed work that makes basic errors about electoral law which will debase public debate even further.

NB. I HAVE SUGGESTED TO MPS THAT I COME AND GIVE EVIDENCE AND WE ALL OPERATE UNDER OATH. NOT A SQUEAK FROM THEM.

JUST LIKE THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION REFUSED TO SPEAK TO ME OR ANYBODY ELSE FROM VOTE LEAVE OVER TWO YEARS AND THREE INQUIRIES.

WHY?

AS JACK NICHOLSON SAYS, ‘THE TRUTH? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!’

If the MPs really want to get to the bottom of this, all they have to do is promise to tell the truth. Come on guys, step up to the plate…

If SW1 put 1% of the effort it’s put into spreading fake news about Vote Leave into FIXING THE LAWS as I suggested BEFORE Carole’s conspiracy theories got traction, we would be in a much healthier state. But SW1 is rotten…

Hugo Rifkind says ‘Whatever you think of the referendum result, we can’t ever let there be a campaign like this again.’

Tough luck Hugo — if your side gets its way and there is another referendum, Vote Leave 2 will be much much worse for your side than VL1 was. VL2 will win by more than VL1 and the logical corollary will be to morph into a new party and fight the next election ‘to implement the promises we made in the referendum because the MPs have proved they can’t be trusted’. At a minimum VL2 will win the referendum and destroy the strategic foundations of both main parties. The Tories will be destroyed and maybe Labour too. The rotten civil service system will be replaced and the performance of government will be transformed for the better. Investment in basic science research will flow. Long-term funding for the NHS guaranteed by law. MORE high skilled immigrants, FEWER low-skilled. An agenda that could not be described as Left or Right. The public will love it. Insiders will hate it but they will have slit their own throats and have no moral credibility. Few careers will survive.

Is there enough self-awareness and self-interest among MPs to realise the consequences? Hard to say. I’m more critical of SW1 than almost any Insider and even I have been surprised by the rottenness. It will be no surprise if they slit their own throats.

So far the MPs have botched things on an epic scale but it’s hard to break into the Westminster system — they rig the rules to stop competition. Vote Leave 1 needed Cameron’s help to hack the system. If you guys want to run with Adonis and create another wave, be careful what you wish for. ‘Unda fert nec regitur’ and VL2 will ride that wave right at — and through — the gates of Parliament.

Ps. One hack who does actually pay attention to facts on this subject is Jim Waterson. It can’t be comfortable pointing out facts at the Guardian on this story so double credit to him.

[Pps. Sorry for mis-remembering Tom Cruise/Jack Nicholson to those who messaged.]

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On the referendum #24K: Observer fake news and a suggestion — I and the MPs discuss this with all of us under oath

Very short blog re the Observer story…

As usual the news these days is very confusing.

I have never refused to give evidence to MPs.

I offered to give evidence to MPs in writing.

Collins refused to discuss a suitable date, insisted on a date he knew I could not do, and chose to issue a formal summons instead of figure out when I could come.

I therefore said that his Committee was plainly behaving unreasonably, that I would not attend it, but I would consider speaking to another Committee:

‘If another Committee behaves reasonably and I can give evidence without compromising various legal actions then I will consider it. Once these legal actions have finished, presumably this year, it will be easy to arrange if someone else wants to do it.’ HERE.

Since I wrote that, MPs have not taken me up on their offer. Collins’ Committee has continued to spread fake news across the internet. Collins has misled Parliament about Vote Leave.

If MPs want to hear what actually happened — from AIQ to Cambridge Analytica to BeLeave — all they have to do is ask and I will be VERY happy to talk to them. Surely there is a Committee there that can make time if MPs are really so desperate to know? The Collins Committee is only into ‘fake news’ and data whereas these issues in many ways are much more fundamental than that and touch on many committees. They could even form an ad hoc Special Committee — and I don’t mind if they stack it with all Remainers if they like, as they have with Collins’ Committee. Collins could be on it too.

There is only one complicating factor. The Electoral Commission told me last week that I have never been investigated by them. This will seem astonishing given their report essentially is a claim that although they cannot provide any evidence for it I somehow must have devised a ‘common plan’ with Grimes. They have concluded this without ever investigating me or interviewing me and after rejecting my offer to talk to them. Further, the EC says they have referred ‘others’ to the police as well as the VL ‘responsible person’. I am told this refers to me. But the EC is under legal obligations to investigate people before they refer them to the police and they have not investigated me, according to them. Baffling…

If the EC confirms that they have not referred me to the police, and my only future involvement is therefore as a witness in the VL/Grimes appeals and further investigations, then as far as I understand it there is no barrier to me giving evidence to Parliament.

I would also be happy to do this UNDER OATH which the whistleblowers have not done — and THE MPs SHOULD ALSO BE UNDER OATH and therefore obliged not to say things they know, or reasonably should know, are false. Collins could therefore be on this Committee but he could not repeat falsehoods. Ditto Bradshaw, Lammy, Grieve or any of the rest who tell all sorts of lies about the referendum. Wouldn’t it be an improvement over the usual Parliamentary process for everybody there to be under an obligation to tell the truth, particularly at a time when so many in public life lie as a matter of course?! We’d all be forced to up our game for many hours on end and avoid lots of the usual silliness in such events. This could only be a good thing.

Also note that the whistleblowers have provably lied — so much that the Observer has been forced to delete many of their original allegations from their website and forced Carole to delete many of her tweets and the Observer has coughed up substantial legal fees (not mine, I have not hired any lawyers or threatened any hacks with lawyers).

The normal pattern is for people to say ‘Cummings is bluffing’. When people say this it always turns out I wasn’t. Remember last year when I said the EC had written to VL saying we could make donations? Carole and @Jolyon said I was lying/bluffing for a year. What happened? The documents were produced in the High Court as part of the judicial review: I wasn’t lying and I wasn’t bluffing, though much of the media has not realised this fact and still reports fake news. I don’t bluff when my bluff will obviously be called.

If the EC confirms they have not referred me to the police — which logically they cannot have done given they have never investigated me (unless they are lying which surely is extremely improbable?) — and MPs get in touch to fix a date I will be more than happy to answer every question any of them have.

I will blog further about this weird affair this week.