Whilst the London mayoral election rages on, Lynton Crosby, the shadowy lobbyist who runs Boris’ reelection campaign, is suing an Australian MP over a message on Twitter.
Crosby and his business partner Mark Textor are seeking aggravated damages from Mike Kelly, a Labor MP and Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, claiming that one of his tweets libellously accused them of illegal practices.
The message accused Crosby’s company of so-called “push polling”, in which a campaign attempts to alter voters’ views through leading and suggestive questions. The tweet below is vigorously denied by the firm.
“always grate (sic) to hear moralizing from Crosby, Textor, Steal & Gnash. The mob who introduced push polling to Aus”
Meanwhile, back in the British capital, an op-ed piece from the Daily Mail has questioned the conduct of Lynton Crosby during his tenure as Boris’ campaign director. It highlights a number of shaming incidents including:
- Taking Boris’ new £1.4m taxpayer-funded bus to boroughs where it will not be used, as a campaign gimmick.
- Crosby being given a security pass against clear City Hall rules. Questions about it were evaded by Boris, and his team deflected blame onto the (recently deceased) deputy-mayor Sir Simon Milton.
- The campaign’s appropriation of the mayoral twitter account — along with its quarter of a million followers — which resulted in an embarrassing volte-face.
- Politically-restricted staff meeting party campaigners, including Crosby himself, in City Hall offices.
In the words of one City Hall staffer: “There is a culture here of not needing to stick to the rules exactly; that somehow they are not really designed for us.”
