Liz Truss’s PopCons have started splashing their dark money
The Popular Conservatives have not declared any donors - but have gone on a major hiring spree
Remember ‘the PopCons’? You know, the Liz Truss appreciation society that dominated the news agenda for 48 hours a couple of months back?
At the time, this newsletter was pointing out that the media was missing a really important question - who was paying for the astroturf ‘Popular Conservatives’?
So we did some digging and discovered a well of dark money behind Truss’s new outfit.
We were even able to reveal that the mystery woman behind the company listed as paying for the PopCons promotional bumf was actually Angela Harbutt, a recently departed staffer from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the dark money funded think tank credited with “incubating” Truss’s disastrous premiership.
Harbutt’s husband, Mark Littlewood, used to run the IEA. Now he’s the director of the Pop Cons - after he failed vetting when Truss tried to give him a seat in the House of Lords.
Like the IEA, the PopCons refuse to say who funds them - but now they have started splashing the cash on a cast of characters with a history of links to Tufton Street, dark money and hidden influence.
Harbutt has now been appointed as the PopCons’ head of operations (and fundraising), according to a breathless report on Guido Fawkes.
She’s not the only former IEA staffer joining Truss’s operation. Sam Collins, a former policy advisor to Littlewood, is set to become head of public affairs.
Head of online content, Martin Le Jeune, is a former lobbyist at CT group - that’s the political campaigning machine co-founded by Australian Lynton ‘dead cat’ Crosby. CT Group ran Boris Johnson 2019 general election campaign, which took disinformation “to a new level”.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg will be head of communications at PopCons. Rees-Mogg’s brother is, of course, Jacob. Her father, William, co-wrote the bizarre libertarian tract the Sovereign Individual. She was, briefly, an MEP for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, which was warned that it was at high-risk of accepting illegal funds during the 2019 European Parliament elections.
The PopCons’ new head of campaigns Andrew Allison was chief executive at the Freedom Association, the uber-right wing press group that made its name in the 1970s and 80s campaigning against trade unions and Irish people (I know, right?) and in favour of Apartheid South Africa.
As this newsletter revealed last week, Truss is being paid to give speeches by Trump’s favourite think tank. Now her personal fan club has gone on a major hiring spree months before a general election - without saying where their money is coming from.
Democracy for Sale will continue to shine a light on how dark money pollutes British politics.
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