In March 2021, Fox announced he would stand in the London mayoral elections, in order to “fight against extreme political correctness” and to “end the Met’s obsession with diversity and inclusivity”.
In the mayoral election, Fox finished in sixth place with 47,634 votes (1.9 per cent), losing his £10,000 election deposit.
2021 Scottish Parliament election
The party stood one candidate, Leo Kearse, in Glasgow Pollok for the 2021 Scottish Parliament election; he received 114 votes (0.3 per cent).
2021 North Shropshire by-election > Martin Daubney, deputy leader of the party from 2021 until August 2022, was the party’s candidate in the 2021 North Shropshire by-election. Daubney is a former Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2020, and a former journalist and editor. He finished seventh with 375 votes (0.98 per cent), losing his deposit.
It’s a shame the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate has changed - I found it quite amusing in 2019.
After “Lord Buckethead” was challenged by an American filmmaker over Copyright issues and had to change his name to Count Binface for the 2019 election in Uxbridge, another challenger stepped into the ring and adopted the name of “Buckethead” - he was standing for the Monster Raving Loony Party.
I thought the best “rubbish” quote from that election campaign came from Count Binface saying
he was looking forward to both the hustings and to challenging Buckethead “to take part in a receptacle-to-receptacle debate"
Lloyd White, the returning officer in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, has put on his tie. It’s a sign that he is about to summon the 17 candidates to give them the provisional result.
Posted at 1:55
Lloyd White, has just said a recount has been granted in the constituency.
“A recount has been asked for and granted,” White told the venue where the count’s taking place.
Conservatives hold on to Uxbridge and South Ruislip
We’ve just been told that the Conservatives have held their seat in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, formerly held by ex-prime minister Boris Johnson.
The final count was 13,965 for Steve Tuckwell, of the Conservative Party, and 13,470 for Labour’s Danny Beales.
The result, announced by returning officer Lloyd White, came after a recount.
Liberal Democrats take Somerton and Frome
The Lib Dems have won the Somerton and Frome seat, it has just been announced.
The final count was:
21,187 for Sarah Dyke of the Lib Dems
10,179 for Faye Purbrick of the Conservative Party
1,009 for Labour’s Neil Guild
This win means the Lib Dems overturned a majority of more than 19,000 that the Tories had when the seat was last contested in 2019.
The seat was held by former Tory MP David Warburton. He had won the seat three times for the party before resigning earlier this year.
Labour wins Selby and Ainsty
Labour has won the Selby and Ainsty seat in North Yorkshire, by a majority of 4,161.
The final count was:
16,456 for Labour’s Keir Mather
12,295 for Claire Holmes of the Conservative Party
1,188 for Matt Walker, of the Lib Dems
The final result means it’s one a piece for the Lib Dems, Labour and the Tories after tonight’s by-elections. Plus Labour has made history by overturning its biggest-ever majority of 20,137 at a by-election.
Mather also becomes the youngest MP at Westminster, at 25-years-old.
If it was not somewhat probable that ULEZ expansion would reach as far as Uxbridge and its environs, the Blue Rosette would not have won the election. Labour are missing a golden opportunity by not being highly critical of Kahn trying to expand the existing boundaries of the ULEZ Zone.
People are fickle, they moan about stuff but are not willing to veer away from the 3 party system. I shan’t vote again because they are all knobheads.
It’s like having a smorgasbord full of dangerous bacteria and trying to choose the one that will be the least harmful…
This report highlights that: “48% of the accounts on Twitter, now known as X, mentioning Ulez were created after November 2022, and of those about 90% ‘exhibited signs of inauthenticity’, using generic names and with a high proportion of fake followers. These accounts – called spreaders – were primarily engaged in retweeting anti-Ulez opinions from real people or groups opposed to expansion of the area.”
Two likely sources are energy companies who have a track record of funding anti-climate change messaging and the Conservative party who had a lot to gain from this. It is known that PR companies are happy to take money to run such disinformation campaigns. It is also recognised that such ‘spreader’ campaigns are highly effective - see vaccine theories, Trump campaign, etc.
A team of Israeli contractors who claim to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the world using hacking, sabotage and automated disinformation on social media has been exposed in a new investigation.
The unit is run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge”, and appears to have been working under the radar in elections in various countries for more than two decades.
An investigation reveals extraordinary details about how disinformation is being weaponised by Team Jorge, which runs a private service offering to covertly meddle in elections without a trace. The group also works for corporate clients.
Hanan boasted that his services, which others describe as “black ops”, were available to intelligence agencies, political campaigns and private companies that wanted to secretly manipulate public opinion. He said they had been used across Africa, South and Central America, the US and Europe.
One of Team Jorge’s key services is a sophisticated software package, Advanced Impact Media Solutions, or Aims. It controls a vast army of thousands of fake social media profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram and YouTube. Some avatars even have Amazon accounts with credit cards, bitcoin wallets and Airbnb accounts.
The methods and techniques described by Team Jorge raise new challenges for big tech platforms, which have for years struggled to prevent nefarious actors spreading falsehoods or breaching the security on their platforms. Evidence of a global private market in disinformation aimed at elections will also ring alarm bells for democracies around the world.
As a former IT consultant, I am not surprised that such software is available - social media platforms, in pursuit of profit, have left themselves wide open to such exploitation.
I think that the point is concerning ULEZ, is that there are campaigns all over the country protesting about this scheme Omah despite what Khan alleges has happened on X (twitter)
The Blade Runners have mounted a very successful campaign aimed at disabling the ULEZ cameras. No mis information going on there…It’s a fact.
Of course there is plenty of mis information on social media sites like X (twitter) and some of it is deliberately used by the establishment to discredit any whiff of criticism about the vaccines, net zero, climate change and other whoppers the establishment want to foist upon poor old Joe public.
People need to be made aware of how easily social media can be manipulated now.
I found this explanation of how modern software packages can create a pyramid of fake accounts to act as “spreaders” and “followers”, to latch on to genuine account holders and automatically magnify the level of publicity for a particular cause.
The point being made by the analysts who looked into the online anti-ULEZ activity on Twitter is that only about 10% of it is coming from the genuine accounts of anti-ULEZ campaigners. The rest appear to be fake accounts designed to magnify the number of shares and retweets.
The internet and especially social media sites are the perfect tool for both sides in any discussion…Don’t think for one minute that the establishment haven’t used social media to discredit and sway opinion…
But here is the suspicious thing - ULEZ and extending ULEZ was a Tory idea under Johnson. It was and is a sensible change to address air pollution in heavily built up areas. Air pollution that has been proven to be massively damaging to people’s health. So action of the nature of ULEZ is needed. Plus the tory government took away all London transport funding - so the money taken away needed to be replaced by something. In short, the tories created ULEZ and the financial need for ULEZ.
But ULEZ means less people buying petrol - so oil companies have been dead against such environmental measures. And suddenly in one by-election the tories could see a tool to hit Labour with. Two significant vested interests.
And these was no ramp up of pro-ULEZ postings on social media, was there?
New Twitter owner Elon Musk has outsourced several controversial decisions — like whether to reinstate former US President Donald Trump’s account, and if he should leave the Twitter CEO job — to public polling on the network, saying he intends to follow the will of the people. But the results of such surveys can be easily gamed by bots, according to new research.
With less than $100, one can buy tens of thousands of votes for Twitter polls using bot-for-hire manipulation services, according to the nonprofit digital rights group Accountable Tech. The finding, first reported by Bloomberg, could spark new concerns about Musk’s reliance on the tool to chart the future of one of the world’s most influential social media companies.
Musk spent months before the acquisition claiming that Twitter’s user numbers were fraudulent due to the preponderance of bots on the platform; lately he has been claiming the problem is resolved. He has said overall user numbers have gone up under his leadership.
There’s no evidence the number of bots has decreased, though. “Not only are bots flourishing under Musk, it’s now easier than ever to use bots to manipulate Twitter polls,” said Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director of Accountable Tech. “As long as Musk continues to put major platform decisions in the hands of anyone with a few dollars and some spare time, Twitter is unsafe and open to manipulation by bad actors — including foreign governments.”
Nobody said they haven’t.
However, this particular analysis was about manipulating the anti-ULEZ campaign in Social Media.
Nobody is claiming that the genuine anti-ULEZ campaigners were behind this underhand manipulation or that they were even aware of it - the analysts specifically point out they may not be aware that other forces behind the scenes were using the genuine members for their own political or commercial agenda.
They have not pointed any fingers about who was behind it - who knows, it may well have been “the establishment” who was behind this particular manipulation - it certainly benefited the Tory Party in Uxbridge by-election.
Oh dear, where do I start…
Does it really matter who or which government started this idea Lincs…
And I dispute the fact that air pollution from vehicles has been proven to have massively damaged peoples health. Yes I know that you will scour the internet for statistics about deaths and illness from air pollution to progress your point, would this be the same internet that several of you have just slated for producing mis information?
But their are a number of reasons for air pollution, and vehicles are just one of them.
How many planes fly in and out of London each day? How many trains? How many heavy goods vehicles pass very close to London from all corners of the world?
People have to go to work to support their families, transport around cities is a necessary evil, but charging people to drive into cities is not the way forward. Alternative methods of transport should be provided before the rug is pulled out from the common folk and small businessman who has to rely on his vehicle to do his job, otherwise he will pass on the cost of ULEZ to the customer. There are no winners…
So oil companies are dead against ULEZ and have mounted a campaign to flood social media with mis information…Aren’t you wandering close to the world of conspiracy theories with that comment Lincs…
So where do people complain about their lot Lincs? Not on the BBC or other MSM sites because they are not allowed to comment on such matters, and these things are brushed under the carpet. That just leaves Social Media that can be poked fun at and accused of mis information…Whatever happened to free speech? Even GB News are closely censored by OFCOM and if anyone steps out of line they are mysteriously removed and never heard of again.
A child died a few years ago, remember? The stats on respiratory health are all available to read. Certainly there are more sources of air pollution than cars but the very low height of emission and very much outside your house emission make cars, vans and lorries the most serious contributors. Certainly all polluting machines should be addressed but are you seriously suggesting we only tackle the worst offenders after everything else is addressed?
But I do agree that the support for people on low and modest incomes should be more. As you state - better public transport or financial support for changing their old car. Same for businesses. But are you aware that the government cut its support for London in this ULEZ extension. The tories have been planning this use of ULEZ against Labour for a while.
Lastly, you can read up on how oil companies have been using PR companies to promote their anti-climate change agenda for years. Here is just one article on that: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/09/politics/big-oil-disinformation-record-profits-climate/index.html
This is fact rather than a conspiracy theory. Just google “oil company disinformation climate change” and you’ll find dozens of articles. And they rely on social media because it is so easy to manipulate.
And just a note that Khan re-won his mayor position. Comfortably. So the bruhaha around ULEZ back in the Uxbridge by-election can now been seen as faked and not widely supported. Otherwise the London voters would have rejected Khan. I rest my case!
