Was your Reform candidate a fake?

[noblegiraffe]

We know that the election was called unexpectedly and that small parties had to rush around last minute to find people to stand in all the constituencies. We know that Reform had problems with (lack of) vetting and some of theirs had to be dropped mid-campaign due to being problematic.

I saw a couple of amusing videos on twitter about someone worried that their Glaswegian Reform candidate Helen Burns didn't actually exist
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808772750938448124?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808857245456773492?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

This morning I see that the North Northumberland Reform candidate Katherine Hales was suspiciously absent from all proceedings.

https://x.com/josiahmortimer/status/1809583328049168541?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Clifford Ronald Thomas Bond in York Central also had no photos and the same generic leaflet as Helen Burns.

Helen Burns got 1655 votes, Katherine Hales got 7688 votes, Cliff Bond got 4721 votes. These start stacking up when you are talking about vote share and they're not the only missing candidates.

Did your Reform candidate appear to be a real person standing for election? Are there rules requiring people standing for election to actually do anything apart from be a name on paper? It seems suspicious, particularly if that party is now banging on about their vote share, if it came via dodgy means.

Rio Goldhammer is an excellent name for an MP

Overnight the number of unverified candidates with no official photo or presence at the count has risen to 50. At best, these may be ‘paper candidates’ - but it is still bizarre that they require no photo ID or verification, unlike voters

https://x.com/BylineTimes/status/1810593673626755203

1:51pm Update - now at 80

Our Reform candidate had an address in Derbyshire, we had a leaflet but no appearance at all, she got 8000 votes. Our new Labour MP was parachuted in from London although did go to school here, not sure what he knows about rural issues ….

Huh, so Mark Matlock exists then. It's amazing what you can do with airbrushing isn't it?

Amazing recovery from pneumonia as well.

Mark Matlock makes The Times. It appears the original photo was taken outside the Ashmolean but is that one the real one???? 🤔😂

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d7da65db-d1d1-47ca-a711-1f6aef869e7f?shareToken=2ddbab3864932f4ac08c627861d12ca1

Looks like it could be. He's filtered the bejesus out of it though to get what he ended up with. Lord knows I like to tweak my selfies but that's a whole new level. Looks like a character from the sims. 😂

This is all so weird! The financial motivation would certainly explain it, if true.

It's giving me flashbacks to two things.

The first is UKIP's Christine Hewitt falsifying EU parliamentary expense claims, and justifying it to herself and others as morally OK – because UKIP were the good guys and were Robin-Hood-like "repatriating" EU money to the UK. (Though it was noticeable they didn't actually pay the extra money to the Kent restaurant... just paid the restaurant's normal bill but asked for a massively inflated receipt.) That was in 2015.

UKIP suspends MEP Janice Atkinson over expenses claim
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-31976343

UKIP activist Christine Hewitt admits restaurant expense fraud
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-37299467

The Reform twaddle upthread that people are voting for the Party [company] not a candidate, and that in their heads this is Proportional Representation, has a distinct flavour of the same. It wouldn't be at all surprising to me if, like the UKIP official, they are telling themselves the story that this makes fraud OK. (Should any prove to have occurred.)

The second thing it reminds me of is the bizarre tale of Jennifer Arcuri and the apparently AI "Cyber marketing specialist", Annie Tacker. That was in 2019, and lots of public money changed hands in that instance, as well.

This is a must read:
Boris Johnson, Jennifer Arcuri, and the mysterious Annie Tacker
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50095698

Among the bonkers – and interesting – features of that story is that, when challenged, the "Annie Tacker" LinkedIn account tried to deflect with a tantrum about being trans. It was so push-button for the moment (as well as so poorly executed) that, frankly, any benefit of the doubt evaporated immediately. I don't know exactly what was going on, but it was very obviously dodgy as fuck.

[ETA article titles]

This woman is a star!
She has found Reforms address is also a front 🤣

Highly recommend her videos, funny

https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1810332007823487459/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1810332007823487459&currentTweetUser=kbfilms92&mode=profile

Not a robot eh 🤔

Someone should get him to pick out all the squares that contain motorcycles

That photo in front of the Ashmolean looks absolutely nothing like the dancing guy vid that's supposed to prove he is a real person.

I think it does - I just think its about twenty years out of date

Yes, perhaps he thought he was creating a Tinder profile rather than standing for parliament.

https://x.com/josiahmortimer/status/1810964994273497572

Previously invisible Reform UK candidate Mark Matlock had a website in his name suspended... as the hosting service "was not able to match the registrant's name and/or address against a 3rd party source".

In other words, they couldn't verify the ID 😆

Isn’t Matlock supposed to be 30 today ? He looks 30 in the old photo.

He appears to still have his baby teeth so who knows?

More strange business

https://x.com/Bounce_BackLoan/status/1810639022106230834

The very murky world of Mrs Sunak… As a Director of Digme Fitness, her Co-Director was Rupert Lowe, a newly elected Reform Party MP. Not only did the company go bust after taking £630,00 of furlough cash, owing creditors including the taxpayer £6.1 million but look at the correspondence address.

That stinks.

I'm being dim. 22 York Buildings sounds somehow familiar, but I can't place it – and for some reason Google isn't enlightening.

Someone please explain?

It’s the address of a company of liquidators, so I think it appears quite often?

Oh I see. That makes sense given the company went bust.

Is it 83 Victoria Street which is causing the attention? The same serviced offices or virtual office service as Reform?

Why is that strange, given the guy is heavily involved in Reform? They all know each other so all use the same virtual office for correspondence?

I do think it's weird that Reform only has a virtual office, but surely it's not that odd for the fitness company to use it?

Because it was Rishi Sunak’s wife’s company that had the same address as the Reform headquarters.

I suspect the Victoria Street address is home to a lot of virtual offices. Not sure why Sunak’s wife needs to be linked to the address when she’s already linked directly to Rupert Lowe through both being directors of a company that went bust.

True!

Rishi also used that address. It must get a lot of post!