# Grant Shapps 'founded company selling software that breaches Google code'



## editor (Sep 3, 2012)

Slippery fucker.


> Grant Shapps, the Conservative housing minister tipped for promotion to the cabinet this week, founded a family business selling software that increases a website's advertising revenue by breaching Google's code of practice.
> 
> 
> The $497 (£313) software package, TrafficPaymaster, creates web pages by "spinning and scraping" content from other sites to attract advertising from Google.
> ...


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## Ax^ (Sep 3, 2012)

makes you wonder if he is going to set up charity that helps young people gain essential work skills


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## Quartz (Sep 3, 2012)

A chancer and a cunt.


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## gunneradt (Sep 3, 2012)

Non-story

Plenty of sites scrape content.  Google scrapes content - how would it compile its indexes otherwise?


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## Spanky Longhorn (Sep 3, 2012)

Quartz said:


> A chancer and a cunt.


 
Your third good post, keep up the good work


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## Giles (Sep 3, 2012)

Why is "breaching Google's code of practice" a bad thing inherently?

They are not the moral arbiter of what people should and should not do on the net, are they?

Giles..


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## smokedout (Sep 3, 2012)

if they were running google ads, which is presumably how they made money, then they were in breach of contract, I don't know what the legal position if this would be


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## nino_savatte (Sep 3, 2012)

Giles said:


> Why is "breaching Google's code of practice" a bad thing inherently?
> 
> They are not the moral arbiter of what people should and should not do on the net, are they?
> 
> Giles..


 
This is a feeble defence of the indefensible.


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## pinkmonkey (Sep 3, 2012)

Does this make him a Gentleman Link Farmer?


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## butchersapron (Sep 3, 2012)

That's what wealth creators do. Thieve other peoples shit and say its theirs. The lumpen bourgeois are fences not factory owners.


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## gabi (Sep 3, 2012)

How is this relevant? To anything? Surely this should just be a little note in the 'why the guardian is shit' thread.


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## butchersapron (Sep 3, 2012)

gabi said:


> How is this relevant? To anything? Surely this should just be a little note in the 'why the guardian is shit' thread.


Relevant to what? You have to say that to make any sort of point. It's relevant to having a pop at these these thieves who frame welfare in terms of thievery.


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## treelover (Sep 3, 2012)

Is he American?


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## weltweit (Sep 3, 2012)

Sounds like a dodgy business selling dubious software. And then to cap it all he did not use his real name. BlackHat at best, swindle at worst. Does not speak to high business ethics.


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## treelover (Sep 3, 2012)

What's new? thats the Tory party for you

and Nl, of course...


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 3, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> Non-story
> 
> Plenty of sites scrape content. Google scrapes content - how would it compile its indexes otherwise?


 
You're taking the piss right? He was using stolen content to attract traffic that would in turn earn him advertising revenue. When Richard O'Dwyer does it (in fact what he did was less serious - he only posted links to the content, not the content itself) he gets extradited to the US to face charges that aren't even a crime in the UK. When Shapps, a member of the government that's overseen his extradition, does it then it's a "non-story".

You clueless fuckwit.


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## gunneradt (Sep 3, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> You're taking the piss right? He was using stolen content to attract traffic that would in turn earn him advertising revenue. When Richard O'Dwyer does it (in fact what he did was less serious - he only posted links to the content, not the content itself) he gets extradited to the US to face charges that aren't even a crime in the UK. When Shapps, a member of the government that's overseen his extradition, does it then it's a "non-story".
> 
> You clueless fuckwit.


 
and here speaks someone who's never worked online no doubt.

There are billions of sites thaty scrape content.  We're not talking about video or music here, it's content with ads on.

Try searching a little and you'll see what is available for even 12 year olds to comprehend.


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## butchersapron (Sep 3, 2012)

_...and here speaks the thief._


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 3, 2012)

Not only is this sort of stuff just plain plagiarism and often copyright breach, and reduces the ranking of and rewards (personal and/or financial) from the original, it's also actively harmful to the wider community as the sites clog up and confuse search results. Google hate these sites and they are right to and people who run them are universally spivs.


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## Lemon Eddy (Sep 3, 2012)

Not looking to defend cunty boy, but considering the wholesale copyright theft that went into Google Books I'm not sure they can really claim the moral high ground on this one.


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## butchersapron (Sep 3, 2012)

It's not about google, it's about the thief. If they're thieves too then...they're thieves too.


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## laptop (Sep 3, 2012)

Lemon Eddy said:


> Not looking to defend cunty boy, but considering the wholesale copyright theft that went into Google Books I'm not sure they can really claim the moral high ground on this one.


 
'Course they can't. They only complain when something interferes with their business model. When the law interferes with it, they break it and lobby to legitimise themselves _ex post facto_.

But it's a bit more complicated than that. These "spinner" sites re-word the stories: mostly to try to avoid detection by Google; but also because copyright protects only the *expression*, not the facts and ideas. One day soon, there'll be a very interesting test case.

Bottom line, though, is easy: Grant Shapps is the internet equivalent of a bent double-glazing salescreature, or worse. *Arguably* legal, but very smelly.


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## treelover (Sep 3, 2012)

laptop said:


> Bottom line, though, is easy: Grant Shapps is the internet equivalent of a bent double-glazing salescreature, or worse. *Arguably* legal, but very smelly.


 
I've always thought Shapps came across as a dodgy estate agent, certainly in a dubious profession..


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## smokedout (Sep 3, 2012)

> "Fraud by false representation" is defined by Section 2 of the Act as a case where a person makes "any representation as to fact or law ... express or implied" which they know to be untrue or misleading.


 
If someone signed up to googles t&cs and then knowingly broke them and profited from it (which is basically ripping off google and their advertisers by making a false representation of being a legitimate google ad publisher) could it be fraud?


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## smokedout (Sep 3, 2012)

> *No *blogging (even though the system makes use of other people's blogs for you)
> Instead of all those tired, time-consuming techniques, *Traffic*Paymaster is software which creates highly targeted content, based around the Keyword Phrases that you provide (via Google).


 
http://www.trafficpaymaster.com/


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 3, 2012)

In this case it appears that his company was selling software for _other_ people to create the sites concerned, so he may not be in direct breach of Google T&Cs (he wouldn't actually need to be dealing with them at all).


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## smokedout (Sep 3, 2012)

yes, realised that after posting


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## shagnasty (Sep 3, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> It's not about google, it's about the thief. If they're thieves too then...they're thieves too.


There will be an extra thief come the reshuffle Our friend mr laws.if this goes further call me dave will become Ali Baba


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## butchersapron (Sep 3, 2012)

shagnasty said:


> There will be an extra thief come the reshuffle Our friend mr laws.if this goes further call me dave will become Ali Baba


I was waiting to see if he got any extra money for being in the circle.


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## weltweit (Sep 3, 2012)

smokedout said:


> http://www.trafficpaymaster.com/


 
That is one sucky page


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 3, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> and here speaks someone who's never worked online no doubt.
> 
> There are billions of sites thaty scrape content. We're not talking about video or music here, it's content with ads on.
> 
> Try searching a little and you'll see what is available for even 12 year olds to comprehend.


 
No, I've never worked on the net. I've always had those "proper jobs" so beloved of right wingers such as you. So, just to be clear, if it's video or music footage it counts as a breach of copyright, whereas if it's text it's not? Someone had to write that text. Just like someone had to film the video and record the music. It's that person who should receive the ad revenue - he's stolen it off them.

Not sure how what 12 year olds can and can't comprehend, nor how many others are doing it, affects anything.

I recall you justifying the death of Ian Tomlinson by claiming that all on the demo had to take collective responsibility for the police getting riled up (despite the fact that he wasn't even demonstrating that day - he was on his way home from work) - collective responsibility leading to collective punishment. I suggest we apply the same logic to Tories and have you take collective responsibility for this oxygen and intellectual property thieving parasite so you're spirited off to the USA to reside in one of their forced labour camps prisons just like O'Dwyer.


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## equationgirl (Sep 3, 2012)

Lemon Eddy said:


> Not looking to defend cunty boy, but considering the wholesale copyright theft that went into Google Books I'm not sure they can really claim the moral high ground on this one.


Do you have any links to that, please? I'm a bit rusty on the background.


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## weltweit (Sep 3, 2012)

Automatically creating loads of pages from other people's content is certainly unethical. Even if the software does rewrite and reformat the pages, it is still stealing the content as its base for the new pages.

Anyhow it is a way to "game" adwords and adsense, not a way to build useful relevant websites. These pages will be of no use to visitors, there are plenty of scummy adsense pages around already and it is the bane of adsense really, so it certainly is unethical and anti-google's intent for the program, if Google could find a way to pinpoint it, they will stamp on it which is a good thing.


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 3, 2012)

I wish they'd also stamp on the faces of Cunteradt and Shapps.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2012)

shagnasty said:


> There will be an extra thief come the reshuffle Our friend mr laws.if this goes further call me dave will become Ali Baba


cmd will end up as a lonely rum baba


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## shagnasty (Sep 3, 2012)

Many news sites seem to C%P from each other, but maybe they have paid to do so or do not claim to originate the content


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## weltweit (Sep 3, 2012)

shagnasty said:


> Many news sites seem to C%P from each other, but maybe they have paid to do so or do not claim to originate the content


I think what happens is they all source from someone like Reuters.


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 3, 2012)

shagnasty said:


> Many news sites seem to C%P from each other, but maybe they have paid to do so or do not claim to originate the content


 
I think they do - bit like the way all the local stations seem to use the same pre-recorded shite late at night. And also they might not use Google's adverts whatsit.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2012)

Anyway, as an aside parliamentary candidates don't have to disclose their home address on nomination forms. But (most) company directors do. So of you couldn't find shapps' address before, to send him eg a get well soon card, you can find it simply and quickly now.


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 3, 2012)

weltweit said:


> I think what happens is they all source from someone like Reuters.


The likes of Reuters and also press releases. A lot of 'news' is simply a distillation of press releases.


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 3, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> I wish they'd also stamp on the faces of Cunteradt and Shapps.





Pickman's model said:


> Anyway, as an aside parliamentary candidates don't have to disclose their home address on nomination forms. But (most) company directors do. So of you couldn't find shapps' address before, to send him eg a get well soon card, you can find it simply and quickly now.


 
Oh look, I seem to have accidentally quoted these two apparently unconnected posts for no reason that I can discern - wonder why I did that???


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## junglevip (Sep 3, 2012)

If google catch you they will de-list you afaik.  Bit pointless really; cloaking was another way to get de-listed.


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## laptop (Sep 3, 2012)

weltweit said:


> I think what happens is they all source from someone like Reuters.


 
If it's word-for-word the same text, it's generally come from an agency (like PA or Reuter).

They're allowed to rewrite each other, though, and frequently do. (The nationals all used to have people hanging around King's Cross to nab the first editions of all the other papers as they went on the train to the Far North, but the internet changed all that.)


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## laptop (Sep 3, 2012)

weltweit said:


> Automatically creating loads of pages from other people's content is certainly unethical. Even if the software does rewrite and reformat the pages, it is still stealing the content as its base for the new pages.


 
This is the gist of the forthcoming interesting court case


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## ViolentPanda (Sep 3, 2012)

shagnasty said:


> There will be an extra thief come the reshuffle Our friend mr laws.if this goes further call me dave will become Ali Baba


 
Except there's no chance of this Ali Baba killing the 40 thieves.


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## weltweit (Sep 3, 2012)

laptop said:


> This is the gist of the forthcoming interesting court case


Oh, I didn't hear about that.

Of course Google is arguably stealing the copyright of millions of websites by publishing the cached pages of those sites discovered each time they crawl the web. Obviously to generate an index google has to crawl / spider the pages and rank them but it does not have to publish the pages as cached pages on its own website. I think google basically gets away with this copyright intrusion because webmasters know they can't do without a google listing / ranking.


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## gunneradt (Sep 3, 2012)

smokedout said:


> If someone signed up to googles t&cs and then knowingly broke them and profited from it (which is basically ripping off google and their advertisers by making a false representation of being a legitimate google ad publisher) could it be fraud?


 
google has the option of banning them/a site at anytime

a lot of people commetning on a subject they know nothing about here


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## Frances Lengel (Sep 3, 2012)

I don't understand what Shapps has meant to have done at all but is there any chance it could spell the end of his political career?


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## weltweit (Sep 3, 2012)

Frances Lengel said:


> I don't understand what Shapps has meant to have done at all but is there any chance it could spell the end of his political career?


 
I doubt it will end his political career. I don't think he has done anything actually illegal but most of the webmastering community would frown on it, and, if google was able to identify his companies work they would ban it.


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2012)

Frances Lengel said:


> I don't understand what Shapps has meant to have done at all but is there any chance it could spell the end of his political career?


 
Wont take long to see if its at least been a setback to his career, if he doesnt get promoted in the reshuffle then its likely because of this story and its timing.


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## smokedout (Sep 3, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> google has the option of banning them/a site at anytime
> 
> a lot of people commetning on a subject they know nothing about here


 
that doesnt change whether it is fraud or not

you're right that google are likely to ban sites which use Shapps software, not something thats mentioned on his website

so he's built a programme that can only be designed to rip off the many small businesses that use google ads, that rips off content from other small businesses and rips off his customers by lying that they will get huge traffic from google when in fact they are very likely to get de-listed

is this what its come to, snake oil sellers, confidence tricksters and get rich quick merchants are the acceptable face of capitalism now?


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## gunneradt (Sep 3, 2012)

No, no and no

you've missed the point completely



smokedout said:


> that doesnt change whether it is fraud or not
> 
> you're right that google are likely to ban sites which use Shapps software, not something thats mentioned on his website
> 
> ...


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## gunneradt (Sep 3, 2012)

Frances Lengel said:


> I don't understand what Shapps has meant to have done at all but is there any chance it could spell the end of his political career?


 
no


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## Frances Lengel (Sep 3, 2012)

Pity.


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## SpineyNorman (Sep 3, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> No, no and no
> 
> you've missed the point completely


 
Well I don't know about anyone else but that water tight argument convinced me!


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2012)

Argh the self help 'book'. Oh my, feel the quality.

http://www.howtobouncebackfromrecession.com/michaelgreen/BounceBackFromRecession.pdf


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2012)

My favourite scraping from it so far:



> Beware the hungry hippos of the business jungles and swamps!


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## Lemon Eddy (Sep 3, 2012)

equationgirl said:


> Do you have any links to that, please? I'm a bit rusty on the background.


 
Sure.

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/07/30/google-moves-to-end-authors-google-books-copyright-lawsuit/


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## equationgirl (Sep 3, 2012)

Lemon Eddy said:


> Sure.
> 
> http://www.itproportal.com/2012/07/30/google-moves-to-end-authors-google-books-copyright-lawsuit/


Thank you


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## laptop (Sep 3, 2012)

weltweit said:


> Oh, I didn't hear about that.


 
No, so far I'm only imagining/predicting the case


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## elbows (Sep 4, 2012)

The shameless tories have made Grant Shapps the new party chairman.


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## smokedout (Sep 4, 2012)

so trafficpaymaster.com is registered to: Michael Green 1 The Close Brookmans Park AL9 7QN

a false name in breach of US domain registration rules i think

http://who.godaddy.com/whois.aspx?domain=trafficpaymaster.com&prog_id=GoDaddy


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## laptop (Sep 4, 2012)

Private road, not on Streetview 

He could at least have followed protocol for shady websites and used domainsbyproxy...


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## Bernie Gunther (Sep 4, 2012)

laptop said:


> Private road, not on Streetview
> 
> He could at least have followed protocol for shady websites and used domainsbyproxy...


 
I thought that only worked if you were criminal right-wing scum?

Oh wait ....


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## laptop (Sep 4, 2012)

Anyway, bought for £760,000 in 2002.


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## weltweit (Sep 4, 2012)

laptop said:


> Anyway, bought for £760,000 in 2002.


What was ?

eta: Oh, the house ... that is quite a lot. My house cost £110,000


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## gunneradt (Sep 4, 2012)

SpineyNorman said:


> No, I've never worked on the net. I've always had those "proper jobs" so beloved of right wingers such as you. So, just to be clear, if it's video or music footage it counts as a breach of copyright, whereas if it's text it's not? Someone had to write that text. Just like someone had to film the video and record the music. It's that person who should receive the ad revenue - he's stolen it off them.
> 
> Not sure how what 12 year olds can and can't comprehend, nor how many others are doing it, affects anything.
> 
> I recall you justifying the death of Ian Tomlinson by claiming that all on the demo had to take collective responsibility for the police getting riled up (despite the fact that he wasn't even demonstrating that day - he was on his way home from work) - collective responsibility leading to collective punishment. I suggest we apply the same logic to Tories and have you take collective responsibility for this oxygen and intellectual property thieving parasite so you're spirited off to the USA to reside in one of their forced labour camps prisons just like O'Dwyer.


 
Google scrapes content every day in its search engines. Thousands of news sites scrape content every day.

It isn't illegal.


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## butchersapron (Sep 4, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> Google scrapes content every day in its search engines. Thousands of news sites scrape content every day.
> 
> It isn't illegal.


So what?


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## gunneradt (Sep 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> So what?


 
so what are we assuming the right honourable minister has done wrong?


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 4, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> Google scrapes content every day in its search engines. Thousands of news sites scrape content every day.
> 
> It isn't illegal.


So you're either saying that the practice involved here is fine - in which case you're an unethical exploitative cunt - or... well, I don't know actually. What _is_ it that you're trying to say? Be brave.


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## butchersapron (Sep 4, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> so what are we assuming the right honourable minister has done wrong?


 Thievery. But as you're speaking as a defender of thieves and thievery i don't expect you to see that.


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## smokedout (Sep 4, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> so what are we assuming the right honourable minister has done wrong?


 
he's built a programme that can only be designed to rip off the many small businesses that use google ads, that rips off content from other small businesses and rips off his customers by lying that they will get huge traffic from google when in fact they are very likely to get de-listed

as I said


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## shagnasty (Sep 4, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> so what are we assuming the right honourable minister has done wrong?


That arsehole gideon was announced as the honourable yesterday .but as ricky tomlinson characater would say honorable my arse


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## gunneradt (Sep 4, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> So you're either saying that the practice involved here is fine - in which case you're an unethical exploitative cunt - or... well, I don't know actually. What _is_ it that you're trying to say? Be brave.


 
well since a very large proprtion of the web works this way....


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 4, 2012)

gunneradt said:


> well since a very large proprtion of the web works this way....


You're saying you think it's fine and therefore that you are a cunt.

Great. We know where you're coming from then.


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## smokedout (Sep 4, 2012)

wonder if gunneradt is a cunt who works in some dodgy seo firm


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 4, 2012)

smokedout said:


> wonder if gunneradt is a cunt who works in some dodgy seo firm


signs point to yes


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## elbows (Sep 4, 2012)

I've dung it before and Im sure I shall sing it again...

There's no business like SEO business
thats no business at all
it enough to make me start drinking
stop thinking
before my mind returns a 404.


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## Nylock (Sep 5, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You're saying you think it's fine and therefore *that you are a cunt*.
> 
> Great. We know where you're coming from then.


TBF he'd already proven that on many, many threads before this one.


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## shagnasty (Sep 7, 2012)

Nice one Google

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/07/google-blacklists-websites-grant-shapps-family


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## Lemon Eddy (Sep 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You're saying you think it's fine and therefore that you are a cunt.
> 
> Great. We know where you're coming from then.


 
OK.  So can you explain to me what's wrong with gaming Google?  Because I'm kind of confused about this one.  Google make billions out of selling a marketing model that is blatantly flawed.  This chump (among thousands of others) sell software that takes advantage of these flaws.  That's bad because...well, why?

We're talking about one of the richest organisations in the world.  A company that has always been somewhat dodgy, with rumours of NSA funding that persist even to this day.  I can't help but feel that if Shapps/shatts/whatever was just an average joe then his behaviour here would be viewed as a damned good idea.

So seriously, what is wrong with making money from exploiting the dodgy advertising model Google are pushing?


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## Jon-of-arc (Sep 7, 2012)

smokedout said:


> http://www.trafficpaymaster.com/


 
That webpage wont let me shut it without saying "are you sure?  what about your $50 trafficpaymaster voucher?".  

Never trust a webpage that doesn't let you shut it twice as quick as you open it.  In the same way that you would never trust someone that tried to stop you slamming a door in their face (bailiff, salesperson, JW, politician...)


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 7, 2012)

Lemon Eddy said:


> OK.  So can you explain to me what's wrong with gaming Google?  Because I'm kind of confused about this one.  Google make billions out of selling a marketing model that is blatantly flawed.  This chump (among thousands of others) sell software that takes advantage of these flaws.  That's bad because...well, why?
> 
> We're talking about one of the richest organisations in the world.  A company that has always been somewhat dodgy, with rumours of NSA funding that persist even to this day.  I can't help but feel that if Shapps/shatts/whatever was just an average joe then his behaviour here would be viewed as a damned good idea.
> 
> So seriously, what is wrong with making money from exploiting the dodgy advertising model Google are pushing?


I thought I'd been pretty clear on the first page as to what I thought the issues here were, but messing with Google Ads is not something I'm bothered about.


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## Mr.Bishie (Sep 7, 2012)

<adds Shapps to the punch in face & do time for list>


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 7, 2012)

It is hard to avoid this conclusion.


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## Lemon Eddy (Sep 7, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I thought I'd been pretty clear on the first page as to what I thought the issues here were, but messing with Google Ads is not something I'm bothered about.


 
Well, at the risk of being labelled an apologist cunt, I don't think your objection is clear.

You said "it's also actively harmful to the wider community as the sites clog up and confuse search results."  but they do so because Google's results are directly based upon prioritising sites that they can derive advertising revenue from.  That's my point.  Google's search results are based upon showing the sites that pay them most for the highest results.  This software takes advantage of that, running bots that scrape content to generate sites that will appear in the top 20  or so for phrases, and thus earn money by inadvertent click through.

The obvious counter argument is that the people who lose out are the ones paying for their message to be prioritised by Google, but frankly so what?  I want my search engines to return results based upon relevancy, not their google advertising budget.


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2012)

I do not recognise that as an accurate description of how google searches work. Several different things seem to have been conflated together somewhat there, when really google pagerank, adwords and adsense should not be confused. The actual search results should not be confused with the sponsored links. And its not the people who are paying google to have their sponsored links show up in search results who are losing out through this sort of scraping shit at all, its the proper search engine results that get spoilt.


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2012)

I'm a little surprised that some people here didnt know that those who do content scraping sites are generally regarded as scum already, regardless of whether they are tory. 

People whose content is ripped off are the first in line to get upset. There are some grey areas at the edges but Shapps shit software and websites are firmly in the unambiguous zone where decent justification of such behaviour is hard to come by.

People who want their web searches polluted as little as possible and would rather read content from its proper original source dont like this stuff either. And so Google try to do something about it when they can, because they recognise that the quality of their search results matters to their business and certain revenue streams. They dont need to get it perfect, but they do need to keep the amount of crap in their results below a certain ratio.


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## treelover (Sep 8, 2012)

No fan of Shapps, but bit baffled by concern for content providers, etc, plenty of people on here DL pirated music, games, etc by the bucketful...


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## YouSir (Sep 8, 2012)

treelover said:


> No fan of Shapps, but bit baffled by concern for content providers, etc, plenty of people on here DL pirated music, games, etc by the bucketful...


 
Openly/freely sharing content for the sake of the content/culture/art <-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Plagiarising solely for personal profit, demeaning the medium, asset stripping the content and inflicting that on the internet at large.


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## shagnasty (Sep 8, 2012)

YouSir said:


> Openly/freely sharing content for the sake of the content/culture/art <-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Plagiarising solely for personal profit, demeaning the medium, asset stripping the content and inflicting that on the internet at large.


The amount of  stuff sold on the internet that is not the  property of the seller is huge.Take for instance you need a driver for a card you have added to your computer ,try a google and see the amount of people willing to sell you what belongs to company that made the card


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## editor (Sep 8, 2012)

Now this is lovely:


> *Google has placed almost twenty websites owned and operated by the wife, sister and mother of a prominent British politician on a black list after an investigation has found that they have been illegally harvesting other people's content in order to increase search rankings and hit rate.*
> 
> Here’s a story for those who feel letdown by American politicians and the moral standing of same: While it’s true that our elected officials have been known to cheat, lie and generally fail to live up to the standards that they themselves try and portray themselves of possessing in order to win our votes, we can at least take some small amount of solace in the fact that none have yet found themselves embarrassed by Google announcing that it has blacklisted their family following revelations of copyright infringement.
> 
> ...


----------



## editor (Sep 8, 2012)

And he keeps on getting more slithery:


> The ubiquitous and social media savvy new Conservative chairman Grant Shapps appears to have found a technique to boost his Twitter followers to more than 55,000.
> It appears that Shapps, at regular intervals, increases the number of people he follows by as many as 5,000 and if they do not follow him back, he unfollows them.
> 
> Analysis of his activity on Twitter shows regular, sudden surges in the number of people he follows succeeded a week later by a sudden decline. The research was conducted by Yatterbox, a political marketing consultancy firm specialising in monitoring all social media activity of politicians.
> ...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 8, 2012)

elbows said:


> I do not recognise that as an accurate description of how google searches work. Several different things seem to have been conflated together somewhat there, when really google pagerank, adwords and adsense should not be confused. The actual search results should not be confused with the sponsored links. And its not the people who are paying google to have their sponsored links show up in search results who are losing out through this sort of scraping shit at all, its the proper search engine results that get spoilt.


Yes. I've heard some odd suggestions as to how Google works before but "put more google ads on and your rank goes up" is new to me.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2012)

http://howto-findhappiness.com/

lol, fuckin shysters.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2012)

internet spammer lol, fuck him


----------



## nino_savatte (Sep 8, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> http://howto-findhappiness.com/
> 
> lol, fuckin shysters.


I bet Dr Phyllis Gold got her doctorate from some bloke called Cletus in South Carolina.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2012)

we have this kind of cunt running the country? "find happiness and achieve the meaning of your dreams"? really?


----------



## nino_savatte (Sep 8, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> we have this kind of cunt running the country? "find happiness and achieve the meaning of your dreams"? really?


----------



## smokedout (Sep 8, 2012)

treelover said:


> No fan of Shapps, but bit baffled by concern for content providers, etc, plenty of people on here DL pirated music, games, etc by the bucketful...


 
so what, he's tory party chairman, its about gunning the cunt down, not moral outrage


----------



## smokedout (Sep 8, 2012)

sort of ironic that the day after he gets banned by google he gets an SEO spivs wet dream by having his sites linked to from major media outlets all over the world


----------



## laptop (Sep 8, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I've heard some odd suggestions as to how Google works before but "put more google ads on and your rank goes up" is new to me.


 
To be fair, that's not what I read elbows saying.

The people who will lose out from Shapps's scam _are_ those with honest ("organic") search results. Not those who've paid for ads.

Those who lose out most are likely those who've paid money to Shapps, as Google gets better at filtering scrape-and-spin sites.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 8, 2012)

laptop said:


> To be fair, that's not what I read elbows saying.
> 
> The people who will lose out from Shapps's scam _are_ those with honest ("organic") search results. Not those who've paid for ads.
> 
> Those who lose out most are likely those who've paid money to Shapps, as Google gets better at filtering scrape-and-spin sites.


I know that's not what he was saying - that was what he was replying to. I shall put in an explanatory "yes".


----------



## 1%er (Sep 8, 2012)

I don't know why people try and fuck about with Google, it doesn't work (for long).

I get about 25 emails like this every month,

"Hi,

I'd like to inquire about purchasing a sponsored blog post on your site.

We own a couple of sites, in a # of different industries from entertainment, hobbies and news to jewelry and toys/gadgets and are looking for some blogs that have a similar audience to promote our sites on a monthly basis.

We would write the post, and all you would have to do is post it on your site.

We do 300 - 500 of these kinds of posts a month. If you have other sites that you own, that you'd be open to a sponsored blog post on, please send those over as well and we might be interested in doing a bulk buy.

Please let me know your price on the one site and also (if you have more sites) if we buy 30+ posts at once.

Regards,

James"

When I tell them I want 40$ a month they seem to go away. My competitors who use "tricks and gimmicks" tend to loose their ranking and disappear.

Relevant content is king and that is the be-all and end-all with Google, I read more and more about how facebook and twitter can help but I don't and have never used them, yet that doesn't seem to have effected my ranking.

Good links from other high ranking sites, with the "correct anchor text" is the 2nd best thing.

Don't try and trick Google it doesn't work in the long term


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2012)

next I'll be getting emails from david cameron telling me to pay him £100, give him my bank details and have the entire value of the UK economy placed into my bank account. That's the sort of level we're looking at here


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2012)

"I am David CAMERON, Prime Minister or the UK and leader of the Conservative Party. Recently my father died in a plane crash. You as the UK taxpayer have become eligible to some of my inheritance. All you need to do is give me your bank details: sort code, account number, mothers' maiden name, etc, and send me £100 by Western Union money transfer, and I will get you £1,000,000 in your account. THIS IS NOT A SCAM! No more than the rest of our policies anyway."


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Sep 8, 2012)

He's a right ugly posh looking cunt. Would like to see that ugly mug after somebody doused it with acid.


----------



## shagnasty (Sep 8, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> next I'll be getting emails from david cameron telling me to pay him £100, give him my bank details and have the entire value of the UK economy placed into my bank account. That's the sort of level we're looking at here


What would the interest be on that ,doesn't bare thinking about


----------



## nino_savatte (Sep 8, 2012)

Jeff Robinson said:


> He's a right ugly posh looking cunt. Would like to see that ugly mug after somebody doused it with acid.


He's half rat.


----------



## weltweit (Sep 8, 2012)

Jeff Robinson said:


> He's a right ugly posh looking cunt. Would like to see that ugly mug after somebody doused it with acid.


 
Going a tad too far perhaps Jeff?


----------



## miss giggles (Sep 8, 2012)

Whatever his software company is doing, he ought to be shot for that 'self help' book...


----------



## laptop (Sep 8, 2012)

weltweit said:


> Going a tad too far perhaps Jeff?


 
We're supposed to save up the bad-taste anger until Thatcher is dead?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 8, 2012)

Massively arselicking profile of him on Radio 4 right now - related to musicians - so he's all, like, _punk_ - survived a car crash and lymphoma, ambitious, go-getting, blah blah. They just mentioned the online stuff now, and on each issue, simply had a talking head to answer it saying "doesn't really matter", then moved on.

Ooh! He's "Nando's-crazy!" He's a man of the people! I may vom.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 8, 2012)

That was really fucking awful. They even managed to turn an accusation of being "a bit of a Tory Boy" into a positive. It was like This Is Your Life - just a procession of his family and mates saying how great he was. Thank christ it was only 15 minutes.


----------



## shagnasty (Sep 8, 2012)

Some more of grunty's escapades the man as more fiddles than the london philharmonic

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/08/grants-shapps-altered-wikipedia-entry


----------



## editor (Sep 8, 2012)

He's the little shit that keeps on shitting.


> New Tory party chairman Grant Shapps altered O-level entry and information about donors to his private office
> The internet activities of the new Tory party chairman, Grant Shapps, were under renewed scrutiny after it emerged that he secretly altered his Wikipedia biography to edit out references to his performance at school, political gaffes and the identity of donors to his private office.
> 
> The_ Observer_ has established that Shapps deleted a whole range of information from the online encyclopedia, including, curiously, a reference to his time at Watford Grammar School for Boys where the site had claimed he "obtained four O-levels including an A in CDT". Without revealing his identity, in contravention of the Wikipedia code of conduct, Shapps variously justified his edits on the page as the removal of politically slanted or unreferenced "info" and by claiming "content must be verifiable".
> ...


----------



## treelover (Sep 8, 2012)

FFS, he is Mick Jones cousin!


----------



## DexterTCN (Sep 9, 2012)

It gets better.

http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2007/07/grant_shapps/

He apparently made up a youtube account posing as a libdem voter and posted about how he was switching to tory as he was disillusioned.   Except when he posted the he had forgotten to log out of his _own_ account. 

From a tom watson tweet.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)




----------



## treelover (Sep 9, 2012)

looks like the internet which has made his family money is about to return and bite him on the arse, it does prove the 'new' adage, you can't hide from the web!


----------



## laptop (Sep 9, 2012)

Fast work - his suspected sock-puppet gives


> This channel was closed and is no longer available.


 
E2A: Er... not fast. That story is from 2007. But still good to recirculate...


----------



## articul8 (Sep 9, 2012)

Haven't read the whole thread - but Schapps's cousin is Mick Jones of The Clash


----------



## nino_savatte (Sep 9, 2012)

The question is: who is the real Grant Shapps?


----------



## nino_savatte (Sep 9, 2012)

The thing is, Shapps' site is hardly original. It looks like he stole some ideas from [Fr]Ed West.

Shapps
http://www.howtopickupwomennow.com/

West
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Pull-Wo...=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347180927&sr=1-4


----------



## DexterTCN (Sep 9, 2012)

Between last night and this morning someone called Top Tory Tweets started following me on twitter


----------



## Wolveryeti (Sep 9, 2012)

shifty as a shit-house rat


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 9, 2012)

DexterTCN said:


> Between last night and this morning someone called Top Tory Tweets started following me on twitter


To be fair, this is a pretty standard Twitter scam - follow loads of people from an account in the hope that some have auto-follow-back on or just feel that they should - and not by any means unique to Shapps or Tories. There are loads of bots doing it all the time.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)

> Do you want to know why women reject men? Man, it sure can be frustrating to go up to some girl and tell her some awesome routine or story that you learned only to get blown out of the set. What’s going on?
> Well, the biggest reason why women reject men is because the men just aren’t calibrated correctly.
> Calibration refers to your mindset when you’re interacting with a group of women. Basically you want to be on the same wave-length mentally.
> If you go in with too much energy you’ll risk looking like some weirdo on speed or something. And if your energy level is too low, then you look like some boring nerd. You want to get it just right.
> During those first critical moments of an interaction, try to get a good understanding of where the woman or the group is at overall, and set your energy to that level. This can be a bit tricky, but with some practice you’ll get it and it will just seem like you and the woman are in complete sync with each other.


 
wow


----------



## Schmetterling (Sep 9, 2012)

He amended his Wiki entry, anonymously ... and that fact has now been added to Wiki:
*Internet activity*

In September 2012 it emerged that he had been surreptitiously editing his Wikipedia biography, including details of his school qualifications and the identity of financial donors to his private office.[31] It also emerged in research carried out by Yatterbox, "a political marketing consultancy firm", that he – or a person who was able to use his account – appeared to have been periodically adding 5,000 people at a time to those he followed on his Twitter account, including "the organisers of a beekeeping project in Morocco".[32] If the people he followed did not follow him, he then "unfollowed" them.[32]

What a weasel!


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)

> Women like to talk about “juicy” emotionally charged topics like relationships, annoying things people do, and celebrities. It’s almost always a safe bet to talk about travel, pets, and creative things like art and poetry too. I don’t know what it is but it seems like every girl I’ve every woman I’ve ever met has traveled to Europe (or wants to), has some kind of pet that they obsess over, or does some kind of artwork or craft like knitting or paining.
> Once you get a girl talking about one of these subjects, you pretty much just have to smile and nod while she just talks on for hours.


----------



## treelover (Sep 9, 2012)

Froggie and other female Urbs, when was the last time you discussed a 'celeb'?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)

depends what you mean tbh  I do talk about celebrities sometimes though. it's the cholmondley warner tone of the article that gets me


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)

> First, guys don’t take control of the relationship – Men are naturally leaders and women naturally follow the man’s lead.  I’m not trying to be sexist here.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)

*1. Where to Meet Single Women: Anywhere and Everywhere*
Women are everywhere. Finding places you can meet women shouldn’t be too difficult. You can find them at the grocery store, the gas station, at a coffee shop and anywhere else. Go get lunch at the cafe across the street. Go to a coffee shop and read a book. Go to the gym. Go sign up for art classes at your local community college. Go take your dog for a walk in the park. Go to a local festival. Go to art galleries. Women are similar to men, they have things to do and places to go.


----------



## nino_savatte (Sep 9, 2012)

frogwoman said:


>


It's the way he offers the disclaimer of "I'm not trying to be sexist here" at the end that gets me.


----------



## equationgirl (Sep 9, 2012)

He's a cock. I'm not trying to be sexist here.


----------



## Idris2002 (Sep 9, 2012)

[/quote]


frogwoman said:


> *1. Where to Meet Single Women: Anywhere and Everywhere*
> Women are everywhere. Finding places you can meet women shouldn’t be too difficult. You can find them at the grocery store, the gas station, at a coffee shop and anywhere else. Go get lunch at the cafe across the street. Go to a coffee shop and read a book. Go to the gym. Go sign up for art classes at your local community college. Go take your dog for a walk in the park. Go to a local festival. Go to art galleries. Women are similar to men, they have things to do and places to go.


 
Just mention folk music, abstract art, or civil rights, and you're in like Flynn.


----------



## DexterTCN (Sep 9, 2012)

Where's the _integrity_ eh?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)

This cunt is the chair of the tory party.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2012)

Please telle me that he will have to resign now?


----------



## laptop (Sep 9, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> Please telle me that he will have to resign now?


 
I very much doubt it. Not enough MPs understand the questions, or believe their constituents do. And nothing mentioned so far is illegal - just very sleazy, to those who do understand the question.

Now, if someone found an author whose work had been "spun" by Shapps's program, and who was prepared to ask a court to make new law... I'm sure Mr Justice Colin Birss of the Patents County Court would be fascinated


----------



## smokedout (Sep 9, 2012)

apologies for self-linkage, but he might have broken the law http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/did-grant-shapps-spam-scam-break-the-law/


----------



## laptop (Sep 9, 2012)

smokedout said:


> apologies for self-linkage, but he might have broken the law http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/did-grant-shapps-spam-scam-break-the-law/


 
You're on the nail here:




> it will probably take a court case at some point in the future to decide.


 
...as I've been saying.

Ideas and facts are not protected by copyright, the expression of the ideas is. So does the "spun" text constitute a "significant part" of the original?

In other words "Spinning" is right on the borderline of the idea/expression dichotomy in the horribly-named "intellectual property" law.

Answer: expensive to find out.


The case that it's fraud ... need to think more, but seems thin so far.


----------



## smokedout (Sep 9, 2012)

if copyright violation was proved then the fact he used a fake name to register the domain means up to seven years in jail in the US, although perhaps he could bunk up with julian in the embassy

the question of adsense fraud is untested but i think has legs





> *Fraud by false representation (Section 2)*
> 
> The defendant:
> 
> ...


 
the sites have stated they will abide by google adsense t&cs, if they dont, knowing they havent and intended not to then id suggest they have made a representation that was or might be untrue or misleading and furthermore that it was done with intent to make a gain for themselves or another

theres no evidence shapps has done this, but his company have incited it, aided and abetted it and profited from it

as to advertising regs, i suppose thats down to the ASA


----------



## gunneradt (Sep 9, 2012)

treelover said:


> looks like the internet which has made his family money is about to return and bite him on the arse, it does prove the 'new' adage, you can't hide from the web!


 
you make money on the web - it stops - you move on to the next thing on the web - it's how it works


----------



## Quartz (Sep 9, 2012)

Are these civil offences or criminal ones?


----------



## laptop (Sep 10, 2012)

Quartz said:


> Are these civil offences or criminal ones?


 
The criminal provisions for breach of copyright are hardly ever used, so in this borderline case a civil case is by far the most likely.

Fraud would be criminal... though the idea of a purchaser of the software suing him (probably for the purchase price only?) is appealing...


----------



## Quartz (Sep 10, 2012)

It's a pity 'obtaining money by deception' is now not illegal. But perhaps it's covered by 'Fraud by false representation'?


----------



## Nylock (Sep 10, 2012)

nino_savatte said:


> He's half rat.


OI!

...don't be mean to rats..


----------



## Schmetterling (Sep 10, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> *1. Where to Meet Single Women: Anywhere and Everywhere*
> Women are everywhere. Finding places you can meet women shouldn’t be too difficult. You can find them at the grocery store, the gas station, at a coffee shop and anywhere else. Go get lunch at the cafe across the street. Go to a coffee shop and read a book. Go to the gym. Go sign up for art classes at your local community college. Go take your dog for a walk in the park. Go to a local festival. Go to art galleries. Women are similar to men, they have things to do and places to go.


 
Barffffff!

Something tells me he is not very tall of height.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2012)

Looks like he took his false persona on the road:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/sep/21/grant-shapps-posed-web-guru



> Grant Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, posed as a "multimillion-dollar web marketer" named Michael Green who spoke to reveal the secrets of his trade at a $3,000-a-head internet conference in Las Vegas while he was the Tory party candidate for Welwyn Hatfield.


 



> But at the age of 35, Shapps claimed already to have established "the world's largest internet marketing forum". A few years later while a member of the shadow cabinet, he also had time to run phone lines where for $297 an hour Green would give tips to aspiring entrepreneurs.
> 
> Casting himself as an internet marketing "guru" with products and coaching services guaranteed to generate income, Shapps owned and ran until 2008 a series of websites making claims that have continued to dog him despite later attempts to downplay his personal role.
> Using the website MichaelGreenConsulting.com, which operated from 2004 until it was removed from the internet in 2009, Shapps claimed to run the "world's largest internet marketing forum" with his company How To Corp.
> While serving the constituents of Welwyn Hatfield, shadowing the housing brief and taking charge of Tory byelection campaigns, Shapps also ran phone lines offering expert advice on internet marketing. "The fee for my one-hour phone consultation is $297 (US). I make the call to you, no matter where you are in the world," the website read.


----------



## agricola (Sep 21, 2012)

I didnt think that anything this government (or Parliament, for that matter) could come up with could leave me speechless anymore, but then Shapps/Green goes and does this.  To repeat an increasingly tired joke, Armando Iannucci must be tearing what remains of his hair out.


----------



## weltweit (Sep 30, 2012)

So, now the newspapers have caught up with it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...tions-despite-business-alter-ego-8191193.html

Bit late in the day.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 1, 2012)

.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2012)

It hasnt gone away. But dont worry, using another name was just a joke.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...s-my-Michael-Green-alias-was-only-a-joke.html



> The probe into Mr Shapps is focusing on his claims to be a self-help guru called Michael Green on a website called howtocorp.com.
> 
> A complaint to the ASA alleges that the website misled the public by presenting Michael Green as a genuine businessman with a personal fortune of £17 million, who would share the secrets of his success for a fee.
> 
> It relates to a website entitled “Sebastian Fox’s How To Corp – The Home of Great Toolkits on the Net”, which includes links to articles on each advertised “toolkit” which it says are written by Michael Green.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2012)

Pretty low attempts to rubbish the ASA complaint:




> A spokesman for the Conservative Party said: “Mr Shapps hasn’t been involved with this company for four and a half years.
> “These websites are no longer online and *any blogger can make a spurious complaint about any website*, which then has to be investigated. This is in the hands of the ASA.”
> Tory sources said that How To Corp has been in discussion with the ASA and the matter is "almost certainly going to be resolved informally" today.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...stigated-by-Advertising-Standards-Agency.html


----------



## shagnasty (Oct 6, 2012)

elbows said:


> Pretty low attempts to rubbish the ASA complaint:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...stigated-by-Advertising-Standards-Agency.html


for them to write these stories shows that the pressure is getting to them


----------



## Fedayn (Oct 7, 2012)

Apparently Michael Crick has a piece in the Channel 4 News tonight, doorstepping Shapps.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2012)

Fedayn said:


> Apparently Michael Crick has a piece in the Channel 4 News tonight, doorstepping Shapps.


 
Thanks for the tip. lol he kept calling him Mr Green.

http://www.channel4.com/news/shapps-all-get-rich-quick-testimonials-were-genuine


----------



## Santino (Oct 8, 2012)

I laughed when he was refused access to the first two doors he tried to use.


----------



## Psychonaut (Oct 10, 2012)

hes booked for question time tomorrow


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 10, 2012)

Psychonaut said:


> hes booked for question time tomorrow


Unless they also have someone who knows shit about the Internet, and a question about the evils of content farming and search engine gaming, I suspect the little cunt will have no problems.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 10, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> ... I suspect the little cunt will have no problems.


Oh I think a question on using the name Micheal Green (or whatever it was) and claiming to have made a £17m fortune from his techniques would be interesting enough.


----------



## nino_savatte (Oct 10, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Unless they also have someone who knows shit about the Internet, and a question about the evils of content farming and search engine gaming, I suspect the little cunt will have no problems.


More likely than not, it will be an audience member who pulls him up.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 10, 2012)

I don't have very high expectations of QT. They wouldn't let unplanned questions come through, so it will either be a specific question (unlikely, and would need another panel member who knows about what is going on) or somebody on the panel will find some way to skewer him on it when he makes an unwise answer to something else (slightly more likely but would also need expertise and won't last as long).


----------



## weltweit (Oct 12, 2012)

Just reviewing Question Time - it looks so far as if Shapps got away with it, slithery slithering thing that he is!!


----------



## treelover (Oct 12, 2012)

Yes, easy ride from Dimbledore, making light of it, awful...


----------



## weltweit (Oct 12, 2012)

treelover said:


> Yes, easy ride from Dimbledore, making light of it, awful...


Oh well, perhaps the ASA will nail him.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2012)

The vanishing of the websites is maybe the only significant consequence of the ASA angle, we shall see.

Meanwhile a little more quality juicy gets squeezed from the alter-ego aspect of the story 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/12/grant-shapps-parliament-michael-green



> The Conservative party chairman, Grant Shapps, gave a guided tour of parliament to his internet business associates as his alter ego Michael Green and bought them dinner in a Commons restaurant when he was a Conservative backbencher, the Guardian can reveal.
> Shapps, in his guise as the multi-millionaire web guru in charge of the internet marketing company How To Corp, invited three internet entrepreneurs — Harvey Segal, Mani Sivasubramanian and Martin Avis — to Westminster in 2006 for the tour and an evening meal. Details of the event emerged on an internet forum run by Segal, but disappeared from the site just hours after the Guardian approached him for a comment.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2012)

I had missed this latest explanation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-showed-up-at-london-seminar-too-8219880.html



> "We wanted to create a brand name, so – a bit like Colonel Sanders with his chicken – Michael Green was the brand name that we attached," he said in an interview with The Sunday Times.


----------



## smokedout (Oct 24, 2012)

wonder if kfc's internet domain is registered to colonel sanders?


----------



## 1927 (Oct 25, 2012)

Ironic really then that French and Brazilian news sources are stopping Google from aggregating their news stories to maximise advertising revenue!


----------



## el-ahrairah (Sep 19, 2013)

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2013/...t-shapps-exposed-over-failed-science-o-level/

Grant Shapps edits his own wikipedia page to pretend he passed science o level.

of all the petty nonsense...


----------



## editor (Sep 19, 2013)

What a nasty little liar he is.



> Contrary to the Shapps’ initial claims to journalists, it *turns out he had six O-levels, not five*. The episode can be added to the charge sheet for *Westminster’s leading spiv*:
> 
> 
> Posting political propaganda under false names
> ...


----------



## Santino (Nov 1, 2013)

Could be another revelation this evening:

*Michael Crick* ‏@*MichaelLCrick* 15m
Just doorstepped Tory Chairman Grant Shapps about extraordinary letter I've received about his internet software business. More later ...


----------



## brogdale (Nov 1, 2013)

Can't wait!

He's up there, isn't he?

have we ever actually tried to establish a tory cunts 'premier league' ?

Surely Shappsy/Greeny is vying for a champions league place?


----------



## The Pale King (Nov 1, 2013)

*Michael Crick* ‏@*MichaelLCrick*  9m
EXCLUSIVE: Police decide not to investigate allegations about Grant Shapps' software firm but ... 1/2
*Michael Crick* ‏@*MichaelLCrick* 7m
EXCLUSIVE 2/2: But Met say their lawyers concluded selling of Shapps firm's software "may constitute an offence of fraud"
So... maybe fraud but not going to investigate? Guess we'll find out the full story later on...


----------



## elbows (Nov 1, 2013)

http://blogs.channel4.com/michael-c...te-offence-fraud-police-drop-case-shapps/3588


----------



## Gingerman (Nov 1, 2013)

A face one would never get tired of punching.....


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Nov 1, 2013)

He's an outstandingly sleazy example of a bottom-feeding internet entrepreneur. 

I've seen some really scummy ones in my time, but he makes people selling pirated scat-porn look classy.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 1, 2013)

So why would the OB drop the case eh?


----------



## brogdale (Nov 1, 2013)

teqniq said:


> So why would the OB drop the case eh?


 
Mitchell.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 1, 2013)

If so that is more than a little unfortunate.


----------



## elbows (Nov 1, 2013)

To pursue a case I think they need to find more victims for a start. They could do so without, but I don't think it would be so easy. Plus I get the idea that this sort of crime is often not taken at all seriously. The sort of fraud that runs close enough to standard capitalism that it almost meets applause from some quarters.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 1, 2013)

brogdale said:


> Mitchell.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 1, 2013)

nah eez a pleb

(edit) sorry, a sleb


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 1, 2013)

teqniq said:


> nah eez a pleb


----------



## teqniq (Nov 1, 2013)

lol


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 1, 2013)




----------



## taffboy gwyrdd (Nov 1, 2013)

Have we had this yet? Small consolation for a lack of charges, but Michael Crick rips the piss out of Green/Shapps very deftly

http://link.brightcove.com/services...p_Vh4qBcIZDrvZlvNCU8nxccG&bctid=2793035898001


----------



## youngian (Nov 1, 2013)

What a joy watching the weasely little spiv squirm.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2013)

youngian said:


> What a joy watching the weasely little spiv squirm.



In some ways last years squirm was funnier.

http://www.channel4.com/news/shapps-all-get-rich-quick-testimonials-were-genuine

Longer piece from back then with added excruciating details and the same corridor chase:


----------



## teqniq (Nov 2, 2013)

Squirming is all very well but being kicked out of office and prosecuted would be better.


----------



## Divisive Cotton (Nov 2, 2013)

He's been caught out again:

The quest for Grant Shapps's "extremely rare manuscript"
http://adrianshort.org/2012/10/11/the-quest-for-grant-shapps-extremely-rare-manuscript/

You wouldn't believe how much of this happens on the net by those who proudly call themselves entrepreneurs


----------



## killer b (Nov 2, 2013)

Have you checked. the date on that? Or watched that old Michael crick clip?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 2, 2013)

Pirate scat porn? Brownbeard


Bernie Gunther said:


> He's an outstandingly sleazy example of a bottom-feeding internet entrepreneur.
> 
> I've seen some really scummy ones in my time, but he makes people selling pirated scat-porn look classy.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 2, 2013)

Watch him squirm. 


Here's one Crick did earlier.


----------



## editor (Nov 2, 2013)

Superb pwnage.


----------



## Gingerman (Nov 7, 2013)

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...pps-software-firm-dissolved-labour?CMP=twt_gu
Mere co-incidence of course......


----------



## teqniq (Nov 7, 2013)

That all looks proper bent as fuck. It says in the article that you can't wind up a company if it's under criminal investigation. 



> the police confirmed that "legal advice … concluded that the selling of the software may constitute an offence of fraud" but that officers had decided not to instigate a criminal investigation.



Co-incidence indeed. 



> ...If standards in public life are to be maintained...



What fucking standards?


----------



## laptop (Nov 7, 2013)

teqniq said:


> That all looks proper bent as fuck. It says in the article that you can't wind up a company if it's under criminal investigation.



What struck me reading the _Grauniad _story was that Shapps presumably spotted a narrow window of opportunity to wind it up, between the end of that investigation and the start of the next. _Possibly_ legally.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Nov 7, 2013)

Never seen at the same time and in the same room as...


----------



## King Biscuit Time (Nov 7, 2013)

Or


----------



## ItWillNeverWork (Nov 7, 2013)

DaveCinzano said:


> Never seen at the same time and in the same room as...



 A finger on the pulse of contemporary culture, I see.


----------



## ddraig (Feb 7, 2014)

waaaahahahahaha


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 7, 2014)




----------



## Awesome Wells (Feb 7, 2014)

Lovely stuff


----------



## Brixton Hatter (Feb 7, 2014)

"internet genius"


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Mar 16, 2015)

Sleazy internet bottom-feeder more like


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Mar 16, 2015)

A few years old, but still good for a laugh.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 16, 2015)

Bernie Gunther said:


> A few years old, but still good for a laugh.



see post #197


----------



## peterkro (Mar 16, 2015)

"over firmly" denied second job claim,even for a tory that is fucking sleazy.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 16, 2015)

He's the kind of twat that looks, to me, like a total liability for any political party.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 16, 2015)

"Over firmly" - laughably pathetic. Reveals him to be both a shameless bullshitter and an enemy of the english language.


----------



## Betsy (Mar 16, 2015)

peterkro said:


> "over firmly" denied second job claim,even for a tory that is fucking sleazy.


 I sincerely hope his "over firmly" denying brings about his downfall. He has got to be up there with the smuggest people in public life. I detest him.


----------



## Betsy (Mar 16, 2015)

Just reported on the BBC news... David Cameron has 'full confidence' in Grant Shapps.


----------



## laptop (Mar 16, 2015)

Betsy said:


> Just reported on the BBC news... David Cameron has 'full confidence' in Grant Shapps.





10, 9, 8, 7...


----------



## xenon (Mar 16, 2015)

peterkro said:


> "over firmly" denied second job claim,even for a tory that is fucking sleazy.



"Over firmly denied." The fucking slime.

Incredible the willingness of some to buy this shit. not all those who just as bent but seemingly regular people. TBH I'm basing this on a phone in on LBC. the amount of people trying to nievely argue this was the same as using a pen name, pseudoname. Like what we do here. And the rest "you just hate business" wankers.


----------



## xenon (Mar 16, 2015)

Betsy said:


> Just reported on the BBC news... David Cameron has 'full confidence' in Grant Shapps.



Course he does. The posh spiv cunt.


----------



## Betsy (Mar 16, 2015)

Have just seen this on Twitter....

*Michael Rosen* ‏@*MichaelRosenYes*  12 mins12 minutes ago

*Grant Shapps* has announced that he won't resign but Michael Green will.


----------



## nino_savatte (Mar 16, 2015)

Fill yer boots.
https://vine.co/v/OVMwLjPL1IX


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

I'd like to point out his denunciation on this matter was issued over a year ago by Proletarian Democracy, the party of the class had him nailed a long time ago. Bourgeois justice, however, is a slower moving affair.


----------



## Betsy (Mar 16, 2015)

From Twitter...

*Patrick Wintour* ‏@*patrickwintour*  30 mins30 minutes ago

PM spokesman The PM thinks *Grant Shapps* has done the right thing in acknowledging he has made a mistake.
===========================================================

 Not sure if this is a joke or not


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 16, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> I'd like to point out his denunciation on this matter was issued over a year ago by Proletarian Democracy, the party of the class had him nailed a long time ago. Bourgeois justice, however, is a slower moving affair...



...and over firmly non-brutal.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

ViolentPanda said:


> ...and over firmly non-brutal.


we likened his code scraping ways as akin to a man who adds arsenic to bread.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 16, 2015)

Sleazeball Shapps is MP for Welwyn Hatfield, with a majority of 17,423 .. perhaps that electorate can not be relied on to boot him out! I suppose he could be deselected though, there is always hope!


----------



## Betsy (Mar 16, 2015)

Just one more tweet...

Graham Linehan retweeted

 *Adam Bienkov* ‏@*AdamBienkov*  3 hrs3 hours ago
Congratulations to *Grant Shapps* for "over-firmly denied," possibly the greatest ever euphemism for lying, ever made.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

remmber this walking moral vacuum also telling us proles he'd cut the bingo tax and beer:







what a cunt he is, patronising, duplicitous and fucking tory


----------



## Favelado (Mar 16, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> remmber this walking moral vacuum also telling us proles he'd cut the bingo tax and beer:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Free packets of lard and a bag of scraps from the chippy for everyone!


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

I'd like to choke him with a bingo ball. He's just an out and out thief. Some tories have principles. I don't like those principles but they do hold them. Shapps is just bent.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 16, 2015)

weltweit said:


> Sleazeball Shapps is MP for Welwyn Hatfield, with a majority of 17,423 .. perhaps that electorate can not be relied on to boot him out! I suppose he could be deselected though, there is always hope!



It's almost impossible for Tory constituency associations to de-select standing MPs or prospective Parliamentary candidates any more - Cameron, once he was party leader, made sure that the Tories took the new Labour route to internal democracy, and got rid of it.


----------



## editor (Mar 16, 2015)

He's one of the slipperiest and slimiest shitebags in an ocean of slippery slimy Tory scumbags. Vile man.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 16, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> I'd like to choke him with a bingo ball. He's just an out and out thief. Some tories have principles. I don't like those principles but they do hold them. Shapps is just bent.



"All the threes, Dead MP!"


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

https://proletariandemocracy.wordpr...rner-grant-shapps-never-forgive-never-forget/

also takes the time to slate Frank Turner. I forgot we'd declared him Enemy of the People as well. His status will not be rescinded.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 16, 2015)

IIRC Shapps / Green's business was essentially a lying or fraudulent even get rich quick scam scheme to lift cash from people who should have known better, on that basis alone he should have been prevented from standing as an MP in the first place, that he has become tory chairman is nothing short of bemusing.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

weltweit said:


> IIRC Shapps / Green's business was essentially a lying or fraudulent even get rich quick scam scheme to lift cash from people who should have known better, on that basis alone he should have been prevented from standing as an MP in the first place, that he has become tory chairman is nothing short of bemusing.


who can forget so quickly his forays into Dapper Laughs territory:
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2012/09/grant-shapps/



> I’d really like to know more about his relationship with ‘Chuck Champion’ of howtopickupwomennow.com:



Chuck Champion


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2015)

I'm not surprised the Tories ended up with someone of his calibre as chairman, just gotta remember quite how lost the party looked for many of its post-97 wilderness years.

From the greenest government ever to Michael Green, they should probably think themselves lucky they ended up in a coalition so they didn't have to find quite as many tory MPs who were capable of being ministers.


----------



## smokedout (Mar 16, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> who can forget so quickly his forays into Dapper Laughs territory:
> http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2012/09/grant-shapps/
> 
> 
> ...



not true unfortunately, he might have been John Hilton though


----------



## Streathamite (Mar 16, 2015)

ViolentPanda said:


> "All the threes, Dead MP!"


"over firmly", number thirty


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

ah, I'll just have to be content with his proven wankery then. Shame. Says something when one can easily believe the chuck champion story of an elected senior party member


----------



## King Biscuit Time (Mar 16, 2015)

Jeremy Hunt thinks that what Michael Green does is 'Wealth Creation'. And that cunt has got a first in PPE for Oxford.


----------



## Buckaroo (Mar 16, 2015)

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...at-to-sue-constituent-over-michael-green-post


----------



## two sheds (Mar 16, 2015)

Wonder whether that would class as Abuse of Process.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 16, 2015)

King Biscuit Time said:


> Jeremy Hunt thinks that what Michael Green does is 'Wealth Creation'. And that cunt has got a first in PPE for Oxford.



thats cos the PPE is a degree designed for eton leavers and is basically fucking wank.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 16, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> thats cos the PPE is a degree designed for eton leavers and is basically fucking wank.


it's more intellectually demanding than land economy.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 16, 2015)

King Biscuit Time said:


> And that cunt has got a first in PPE for Oxford.


from. not for.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 16, 2015)

Buckaroo said:


> http://www.theguardian.com/politics...at-to-sue-constituent-over-michael-green-post


he should ask for both 'michael green''s patellas.

btw i suspect there are people named michael green up and down the country whose lives have been ruined by their being erroneously mistaken for grant shapps. the first two to apply in person to mr shapps' constituency office can each obtain a finger of their choice from shapps' left hand.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Mar 16, 2015)

King Biscuit Time said:


> Jeremy Hunt thinks that what Michael Green does is 'Wealth Creation'. <snip>



Bear in mind, 'wealth management' appears to be NewSpeak for organised tax evasion and money laundering, so presumably 'wealth creation', if you're talking to a tory, actually means being an internet bottom-feeder so sleazy that people who pirate scat porn for a living are embarrassed to be associated with him.


----------



## Buckaroo (Mar 16, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> he should ask for both 'michael green''s patellas.
> 
> btw i suspect there are people named michael green up and down the country whose lives have been ruined by their being erroneously mistaken for grant shapps. the first two to apply in person to mr shapps' constituency office can each obtain a finger of their choice from shapps' left hand.



Quite a few of them on Wikipedia, there's a theologian, a humourist, a physicist and a cunt!


----------



## Santino (Mar 16, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> he should ask for both 'michael green''s patellas.
> 
> btw i suspect there are people named michael green up and down the country whose lives have been ruined by their being erroneously mistaken for grant shapps. the first two to apply in person to mr shapps' constituency office can each obtain a finger of their choice from shapps' left hand.


The second might want the finger that's already been claimed by the first, so you can't guarantee complete freedom of choice.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 16, 2015)

Santino said:


> The second might want the finger that's already been claimed by the first, so you can't guarantee complete freedom of choice.


terms and conditions apply. paragraph 3, section d., subsection v. states quite clearly that in the situation you describe the person unable to obtain their finger of choice may opt for a pair of toes, excluding the hallux, the big toe.


----------



## bemused (Mar 17, 2015)

Who doesn't have adblock these days?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 17, 2015)

King Biscuit Time said:


> Jeremy Hunt thinks that what Michael Green does is 'Wealth Creation'. And that cunt has got a first in PPE for Oxford.



Jeremy Hunt exemplifies the possibilities of private education for a certain nice-but-dim tendency in the ruling classes. The learn-data-by-rote and regurgitate method of learning he was inculcated with at Public School served him in good stead at university, the "interesting" thing about PPE being that it's a subject with very few "wrong answers" except in terms of the economic component.


----------



## nino_savatte (Mar 17, 2015)

ViolentPanda said:


> Jeremy Hunt exemplifies the possibilities of private education for a certain nice-but-dim tendency in the ruling classes. The learn-data-by-rote and regurgitate method of learning he was inculcated with at Public School served him in good stead at university, the "interesting" thing about PPE being that it's a subject with very few "wrong answers" except in terms of the economic component.


Exactly and this is why we always see a lack of critical thinking and a disdain for evidence from these idiots.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 17, 2015)

nino_savatte said:


> Exactly and this is why we always see a lack of critical thinking and a disdain for evidence from these idiots.



No need to engage in critical thinking when you already *know* that your views are the "correct" ones, is there? Hunt's entire adult life is a testimony to the fact that following the rules of your _milieu_ is more productive for members of his class than thinking critically.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 17, 2015)

ViolentPanda said:


> No need to engage in critical thinking when you already *know* that your views are the "correct" ones, is there? Hunt's entire adult life is a testimony to the fact that following the rules of your _milieu_ is more productive for members of his class than thinking critically.


I think it's a bit of a mistake to focus on early life and education with people like this. University ought to be the start of a critical examination of the world, not the end. To me, what is more revealing of someone like Hunt is what he did _after_ uni. Straight into a job as a management consultant! Which itself is madness - what value can a recent graduate bring to such a role? Brief sojourn in Japan teaching English (which is the only bit of his biography that is even a tiny bit interesting), then a job in PR.

So, a job applying abstract rules absent of any real-life context, followed by a bit of time travelling, followed by work that is solely concerned with the appearance of things. Along the way, any critical thinking he may have started doing at uni will have evaporated away, and he probably now barely remembers any such time.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 17, 2015)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think it's a bit of a mistake to focus on early life and education with people like this. University ought to be the start of a critical examination of the world, not the end. To me, what is more revealing of someone like Hunt is what he did _after_ uni. Straight into a job as a management consultant! Which itself is madness - what value can a recent graduate bring to such a role? Brief sojourn in Japan teaching English (which is the only bit of his biography that is even a tiny bit interesting), then a job in PR.
> 
> So, a job applying abstract rules absent of any real-life context, followed by a bit of time travelling, followed by work that is solely concerned with the appearance of things. Along the way, any critical thinking he may have started doing at uni will have evaporated away, and he probably now barely remembers any such time.




From Hunt's CV you miss a few pertinent facts; upon returning from Japan he started several business ventures, they all failed. He then used family connections to set up the PR business.

Also at Charterhouse at the same time as Hunt, but a couple of years below was Douglas Carswell.

If that's not enough to put you off sending yer kids there, the founding members of Genesis met whilst at Charterhouse.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 17, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> thats cos the PPE is a degree designed for eton leavers and is basically fucking wank.


Many employers would disagree with you


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 17, 2015)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> From Hunt's CV you miss a few pertinent facts; upon returning from Japan he started several business ventures, they all failed. He then used family connections to set up the PR business.
> 
> Also at Charterhouse at the same time as Hunt, but a couple of years below was Douglas Carswell.
> 
> If that's not enough to put you off sending yer kids there, the founding members of Genesis met whilst at Charterhouse.


so what you're driving at, though you don't come out and say it, is that carswell may have fagged for hunt


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 17, 2015)




----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 17, 2015)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Many employers would disagree with you


TBF though, "many employers" still believe an MBA is a meaningful qualification.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 17, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> so what you're driving at, though you don't come out and say it, is that carswell may have fagged for hunt



Hunt probably pimped Carswell out to his contemporaries.
"Need your boots and your knob polished, Trumpington-Smythe? Carswell will do that for you once he's finished blacking the grate!".


----------



## weltweit (Mar 17, 2015)

ViolentPanda said:


> TBF though, "many employers" still believe an MBA is a meaningful qualification.


TBF I think if you did a degree in MFL and then decided you wanted to go into business, an MBA could still be useful but as with many things there is still snob value to getting one from a "good" institution.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 17, 2015)

weltweit said:


> TBF I think if you did a degree in MFL and then decided you wanted to go into business, an MBA could still be useful but as with many things there is still snob value to getting one from a "good" institution.



Although, surprisingly, some of those "good institutions" provide very crap MBAs. From what I've gleaned, the OU's MBA is supposedly one of the toughest, while Oxbridge MBAs are more "just remember to write your name at the top of the blank sheet of paper".


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 17, 2015)

ViolentPanda said:


> TBF though, "many employers" still believe an MBA is a meaningful qualification.



If enough believe it is, then it is.


----------



## Streathamite (Mar 17, 2015)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> From Hunt's CV you miss a few pertinent facts; upon returning from Japan he started several business ventures, they all failed. He then used family connections to set up the PR business.


In the sake of fairness, I give him grudging credit for hotcourses, which has some utility


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 18, 2015)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> If enough believe it is, then it is.



Sadly true.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 21, 2015)

Grant Shapps faces legal action from constituent he threatened to sue


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2015)

Can we get Grant Shapps adopted as rhyming slang for dodgy apps?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 23, 2015)

Shapp is what you do when you shit yourself while wanking


----------



## teqniq (Mar 25, 2015)

Hehehe

The possible legal action is looking better by the day 



> Grant Shapps, the Tory party chair, did not “permanently publish” his full name alongside the alias he used when he operated as an “online marketing millionaire” despite claiming that he did so, according to an analysis of hundreds of pages of his website.
> 
> The cabinet minister – who as chairman has a pivotal role in the party’s election campaign – has defended casting himself as Michael Green of software firm How To Corp by saying that his real name was “permanently published on the company’s main website”.
> 
> Until recently this claim could not be easily verified as the company’s webpages have been removed from the internet....


----------



## laptop (Mar 25, 2015)

teqniq said:


> Hehehe
> 
> The possible legal action is looking better by the day





> However, the Guardian has discovered a web archive...


----------



## teqniq (Mar 25, 2015)

Yeah dontcha just love it? The Interwebs comes back to bite him on the arse.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2015)

The internet never forgets the amazing hypnotising sales power of red and blue fonts.


----------



## editor (Mar 31, 2015)

The slippery scumbag gets his arse handed to him by Evan Davis:



> Davis said the Conservatives had chosen a "ridiculous way of calculating" a supposed Labour tax rise. "Everybody respectable does it per year," he said.
> 
> "Is this how you're going to fight the rest of your campaign?" Davis asked. "It is obviously a ridiculous figure. The IFS are quite sensible, quite independent. They wouldn't say a much lower figure if it wasn't a better figure to use, they don't say that because they know this figure is ridiculous."
> 
> He added: "Who do you think the public should believe? Should they believe you, or should they believe the independent fiscal experts of the IFS?"



http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...from-grant-shapps-on-newsnight_n_6973490.html


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 31, 2015)

please wake me up when grant shapps hangs himself or otherwise does away with himself.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 31, 2015)

editor said:


> The slippery scumbag gets his arse handed to him by Evan Davis:
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...from-grant-shapps-on-newsnight_n_6973490.html



Yeah, I saw that last night. Trouble is, they don't care really, do they?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 31, 2015)

The Newsnight interview is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=tGaTm2epsAQ&app=desktop


----------



## Belushi (Apr 21, 2015)

lol

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...sed-of-editing-wikipedia-pages-of-tory-rivals


----------



## brogdale (Apr 21, 2015)

Belushi said:


> lol
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/politics...sed-of-editing-wikipedia-pages-of-tory-rivals


all hail the wiki ban-hammer of truth!


----------



## ddraig (Apr 21, 2015)

Belushi said:


> lol
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/politics...sed-of-editing-wikipedia-pages-of-tory-rivals



that is proper good reading!!


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2015)

Shapps is such a liability to the tories, I continue to be gobsmacked that they can't see it!


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 21, 2015)

weltweit said:


> Shapps is such a liability to the tories, I continue to be gobsmacked that they can't see it!


i continue to be chuffed he remains with them


----------



## treelover (Apr 21, 2015)

Is he now toast?

maybe after the election?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2015)

treelover said:


> Is he now toast?
> 
> maybe after the election?


If what has already been disclosed about him didn't do enough damage I doubt this new item will.

More Teflon that Teflon tony, more is the pity.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 21, 2015)

Yeah he's a proper sleazebag but somehow this seems to be a mere technicality or something.


----------



## killer b (Apr 21, 2015)

it's good that the tories have this ringpiece as their chairman, surely? I don't want to see him canned.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 21, 2015)

No indeed he can keep behaving like the dickhead he is all day long as far as I'm concerned, I just wonder how much more before he's a complete liability and they decide to drop him somehow. For my part his general shiftery and modus operandi passed an acceptable level pretty much from the word go.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 21, 2015)

That rarest of things: a LibDem press release worth reading


----------



## teqniq (Apr 21, 2015)




----------



## brogdale (Apr 21, 2015)

C4 News had fun with this. Crick was very good, but Jon Snow's concluding remarks were hilarious. Well worth a look if you're a fan of Shappsy-based mirth!


----------



## brogdale (Apr 21, 2015)




----------



## brogdale (Apr 21, 2015)

...but this is the funniest thing...



> ....a third of the contributions made by this user were to Shapps’ own Wikipedia entry while *the rest are made up largely of unflattering changes to the online pages to senior political figures – including prominent figures in the Tory party such as Philip Hammond, Justine Greening and Lynton Crosby.*



lol


----------



## maomao (Apr 21, 2015)

treelover said:


> Is he now toast?
> 
> maybe after the election?


He has a majority of 17,000. He can do what the fuck he likes. He could commit murder and still be returned as an MP.


----------



## redsquirrel (Apr 21, 2015)

weltweit said:


> Shapps is such a liability to the tories, I continue to be gobsmacked that they can't see it!


Is he, how many people would even recognise him.


----------



## agricola (Apr 21, 2015)

redsquirrel said:


> Is he, how many people would even recognise him.



Thats not that unusual, given that the bloke has at least three identities.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2015)

redsquirrel said:


> Is he, how many people would even recognise him.


He has been on question time two or three times just recently ..


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 21, 2015)

killer b said:


> it's good that the tories have this ringpiece as their chairman, surely? I don't want to see him canned.


Except perhaps to the noggin with a catering-size tin of baked beans live on TV at his constituency count


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 21, 2015)

brogdale said:


>



And looks like _Newsnight_ intends having fun with it too...


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## brogdale (Apr 21, 2015)

DaveCinzano said:


> And looks like _Newsnight_ intends having fun with it too...


Kuenssberg reckons that Shapps is threatening to sue the Guardian.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Apr 22, 2015)

maomao said:


> He has a majority of 17,000. He can do what the fuck he likes. He could commit murder and still be returned as an MP.



Let us hope his hubris lives up to this and a libel action is forthcoming...


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## Bernie Gunther (Apr 22, 2015)

Will he be suing as Michael Green, Grant Shapps or someone else entirely?


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## Ted Striker (Apr 22, 2015)

maomao said:


> He has a majority of 17,000. He can do what the fuck he likes. He could commit murder and still be returned as an MP.



How many of those are aliases?!


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## DotCommunist (Apr 22, 2015)

surely one of us must in fact be a shapps front?


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## The Octagon (Apr 22, 2015)

I AM SHAPPTACUS


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## Smangus (Apr 22, 2015)

NO! I AM SHAPPTACUS!


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 22, 2015)

Can't wait for the film version of this whole affair


_Altered Ego_
_Grant Expectations_
_SEO Brother Where Art Thou?_
_Star Wars Episode VIII: Revert Of The Self-Help Guru _(with NPOV Wan Kenobi leading the resistance against the might of the Imperal Shapptroopers)
_Multiplied Green Tomatoes At The Whistlestop Internet Cafe_


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## DotCommunist (Apr 22, 2015)

faces/off


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## brogdale (Apr 22, 2015)

This looks promising.



> A Labour candidate has written to the director of public prosecutions calling for an investigation over edits made to his Wikipedia article by an account purportedly linked to the Tory party chairman, Grant Shapps.




...and blimey, not even an expression of 'full confidence' from dave. Fucked.



> Taking questions after a speech in Bedford, David Cameron was asked whether he had “full confidence” in his chairman, and replied: “*Grant does a great job. He has made a very clear statement about this and I have got nothing to add to that.*”


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## maomao (Apr 22, 2015)

brogdale said:


> ...and blimey, not even an expression of 'full confidence' from dave. Fucked.


Cameron's full confidence is normally the kiss of death so the lack of it may bode well for Shapps.


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## brogdale (Apr 22, 2015)

maomao said:


> Cameron's full confidence is normally the kiss of death so the lack of it may bode well for Shapps.


I suspect dave knows the truth.


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## Puddy_Tat (Apr 22, 2015)

brogdale said:


> I suspect dave knows the truth.



i suspect dave would not know truth if he was clouted round the ear-hole with it


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## Santino (Apr 23, 2015)

I'm starting to believe the rumours that Cameron doesn't really give a fuck about it. He doesn't really care about much, just fancied being PM for a lark but it's turned out not to be as much fun as he thought.


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## brogdale (Apr 23, 2015)

Santino said:


> I'm starting to believe the rumours that Cameron doesn't really give a fuck about it. He doesn't really care about much, just fancied being PM for a lark but it's turned out not to be as much fun as he thought.


IMO that's not how the minds of narcissistic psychopaths work....and I'm even more suspicious that much of this 'noise' is coming from sections of his his own party. What I'm starting to believe is that the vermin's campaign has been undermined by factional war over the (post-Cameron) Brexit that consumes the vermin.


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## Teaboy (Apr 23, 2015)

Santino said:


> I'm starting to believe the rumours that Cameron doesn't really give a fuck about it. He doesn't really care about much, just fancied being PM for a lark but it's turned out not to be as much fun as he thought.



Me too.  But I get the impression he likes the PM bit it's the being leader of the tories he's had his fill of.  That being said you'd have to be some sort of sociopath to lead that rabble and not get depressed by it.


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## brogdale (Apr 25, 2015)

Shappsy has gone very quite for a few days now. Odd...almost like they're trying to keep the chairman out of the media eye for some reason?


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## Spanky Longhorn (Apr 25, 2015)

that doesn't make any sense


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## ViolentPanda (Apr 25, 2015)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> that doesn't make any sense



It does if Central Office are worried about the co-Chairman *becoming* the story rather than promoting the Tory narrative.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Apr 25, 2015)

I was being sarky


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## brogdale (Apr 27, 2015)

Still nothing later than 22nd. Quiet....too quiet!


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## brogdale (Apr 28, 2015)

Pulled out of hustings meeting...because of parents' evening...hmmm

http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/home/elect..._jw3_event_in_wake_of_wikipedia_row_1_4052137


> The chairman of the Conservative Party pulled out of a much-anticipated pre-election Q&A in England’s most marginal constituency as a row continues over accusations he edited the Wikipedia pages of his rivals.


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## DotCommunist (Apr 29, 2015)

so thats the chairman and a senior minister who are such liabilities they can't attend thier own hustings. These lot are shit.


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## laptop (Apr 29, 2015)

brogdale said:


> Pulled out of hustings meeting...because of parents' evening...hmmm
> 
> http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/home/elect..._jw3_event_in_wake_of_wikipedia_row_1_4052137



And then...



> Hampstead and Kilburn Conservatives were expecting the party chairman, Grant Shapps, but a family commitment called him away, so GrayThing was dispatched to Hampstead instead. Tackled by a member of the public about the absence of Tory billboard advertisements in the constituency, GrayThing’s reply - as reported in the Camden New Journal - was “the billboards are in marginal seats.”
> 
> In 2010, Labour held Hampstead and Kilburn by 42 votes, which was the tightest result anywhere in Great Britain. If the Conservatives do not think that is a marginal, they cannot be hoping to take any seats from Labour at all.
> 
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ons-inspiration-brought-to-book-10210952.html



http://www.camdennewjournal.com/whynobillboards

OK. Back to Shapps...


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## weltweit (May 11, 2015)

Grant Shapps has been given Minister of State at International Development.

Is that a demotion?


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## twentythreedom (May 11, 2015)

For him it will most certainly be a promotion


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## killer b (May 11, 2015)

It isn't a cabinet position, so yeah.


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## weltweit (May 11, 2015)

Yes, indeedy - the Guardian says:

Grant Shapps sacked from cabinet in Cameron’s reshuffle
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/11/grant-shapps-sacked-cabinet-cameron-reshuffle


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## brogdale (May 11, 2015)

weltweit said:


> Yes, indeedy - the Guardian says:
> 
> Grant Shapps sacked from cabinet in Cameron’s reshuffle
> http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/11/grant-shapps-sacked-cabinet-cameron-reshuffle


Have you checked Wiki, though?


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## laptop (May 13, 2015)

brogdale said:


> Have you checked Wiki, though?



You need to check all 15 edits on 11 May and 6 on 12 May, mind...


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## equationgirl (May 13, 2015)

laptop said:


> You need to check all 15 edits on 11 May and 6 on 12 May, mind...


Someone's been busy...


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## brogdale (May 13, 2015)

equationgirl said:


> Someone's been busy...


c0ntribexmemberofcabinet


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## Belushi (Nov 28, 2015)

Resigned Grant Shapps resigns over bullying scandal


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## nino_savatte (Nov 28, 2015)

Zelo Street highlights the Tories' desperate damage limitation exercise.
Zelo Street: Tory Bullying - Behind The Spin

I've been aware of Donal Blaney for some time. He was once a Tory councillor at Hammersmith & Fulham and claims to be some kind of lawyer.



> *Donal Blaney*: the founder of the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) has been frantically erasing all reference to Mark Clarke from the YBF website. This, too, will not wash. Clarke was awarded the YBF’s highest honour, the Golden Dolphin award, which was in the personal gift of Blaney. He, too, as the photo shows, had no problem being in Clarke’s company. His excuses are craven in the extreme.


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## gosub (Nov 28, 2015)

Belushi said:


> Resigned Grant Shapps resigns over bullying scandal



anyone know anything his replacement as Minister - Michael Green?


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## The Boy (Nov 28, 2015)

nino_savatte said:


> He was once a Tory councillor at Hammersmith & Fulham and* claims to be some kind of lawyer*.



Does he post here?


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## nino_savatte (Nov 28, 2015)

The Boy said:


> Does he post here?


LOL! Very good. 

I actually posted this in the wrong thread.


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## existentialist (Nov 28, 2015)

The Boy said:


> Does he post here?


I heard he was a...star geezer. Maybe better than that, even


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## coley (Nov 28, 2015)

existentialist said:


> I heard he was a...star geezer. Maybe better than that, even


Diamond gadgy by all accounts


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## quiquaquo (Nov 28, 2015)

Resigned from one job but the dodgy bastard remains an MP and Privy Counsellor. And they made a fuss about Corbyn and the Privy Council... Tory vermin have no shame.


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## brogdale (Nov 28, 2015)

quiquaquo said:


> Resigned from one job but the dodgy bastard remains an MP and Privy Counsellor. And they made a fuss about Corbyn and the Privy Council... Tory vermin have no shame.


Cunt still professes his 'innocence' but goes on to say..


> I have come to the conclusion that *the buck should stop with me*.”


That's blood on his hands.


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## existentialist (Nov 28, 2015)

brogdale said:


> Cunt still professes his 'innocence' but goes on to say..
> ​That's blood on his hands.


I think this fulsome acceptance of responsibility - something I imagine to be rather alien to the world of Grant Shapps - has an ulterior motive. My suspicion is that he's been told to throw himself under the bus in order to bring this business to a close, and dissuade too much public interest in the degree to which this might be a quite normal state of affairs in the vermin underclass.

After all, it's not such a huge step from making someone fuck a dead pig to humiliating and threatening someone else to the point of suicide. It seems to me that it goes quite nicely with the general mindset - you know, young, thrusting, and hungry for the glittering baubles of right-wing supremacy, so pretty much any means are justified by the end. And if you're weak...well, you were never cut out for glory anyway.


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## brogdale (Nov 28, 2015)

existentialist said:


> I think this fulsome acceptance of responsibility - something I imagine to be rather alien to the world of Grant Shapps - has an ulterior motive. My suspicion is that he's been told to throw himself under the bus in order to bring this business to a close, and dissuade too much public interest in the degree to which this might be a quite normal state of affairs in the vermin underclass.



Spot on, but I don't think it will work...there'll be more casualties, I feel.


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## existentialist (Nov 28, 2015)

brogdale said:


> Spot on, but I don't think it will work...there'll be more casualties, I feel.


It's a mark of the naivety of those making these decisions that they think it will. They may be able to limit the damage somewhat, but I cannot imagine that any reasonably independent journalist could look at that and really say "Yup, clearly an isolated occurrence, nothing to see here". I have a feeling that at least a corner of the curtain is going to be lifted on the seething, festering greed and back-stabbing ambition that fuels the system on top of which ride the likes of Cameron and Osborne.

They know what's going on down below - they're part of the same kind of system. To their followers, those two are the epitome of everything they are striving to imitate. Pushing someone to the brink of suicide is positively a badge of honour to someone who long ago sacrificed humanity or honour in favour of ambition and power. A Faustian pact, perhaps.


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## brogdale (Nov 28, 2015)

Shapps is such an arch-cunt that he even takes a pop at Cameron( & Coulson) as he goes...



> In his resignation letter, Shapps writes that he had given Clarke – who as far back as 2010 had been the subject of complaints about his behaviour – *a “second chance”*.


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## existentialist (Nov 28, 2015)

brogdale said:


> Shapps is such an arch-cunt that he even takes a pop at Cameron( & Coulson) as he goes...
> 
> ​




Remorseless.


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## Louis MacNeice (Nov 30, 2015)

existentialist said:


> I think this fulsome acceptance of responsibility - something I imagine to be rather alien to the world of Grant Shapps - has an ulterior motive. My suspicion is that he's been told to throw himself under the bus in order to bring this business to a close, and dissuade too much public interest in the degree to which this might be a quite normal state of affairs in the vermin underclass.
> 
> After all, it's not such a huge step from making someone fuck a dead pig to humiliating and threatening someone else to the point of suicide. It seems to me that it goes quite nicely with the general mindset - you know, young, thrusting, and hungry for the glittering baubles of right-wing supremacy, so pretty much any means are justified by the end. And if you're weak...well, you were never cut out for glory anyway.



I think the Shapps discussion was probably along the lines of 'if you throw yourself under the bus then you'll be rewarded down the line...if you don't, then we'll throw you under the bus anyway'.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


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## two sheds (Nov 30, 2015)

"The buck stops here" is a weaselly way for him to resign. As in "I'm not really responsible for all this but because I'm such an ethical and high-minded person I'm going to take the rap for someone else".


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## 8den (Nov 30, 2015)

two sheds said:


> "The buck stops here" is a weaselly way for him to resign. As in "I'm not really responsible for all this but because I'm such an ethical and high-minded person I'm going to take the rap for someone else".



No I think it's more I've been thrown off the bus and onto my sword


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## gimesumtruf (Nov 30, 2015)

I'll bet he's dying to rat out the others involved, but has probably been threatened he'd be put on a business blacklist.


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## brogdale (Nov 30, 2015)

gimesumtruf said:


> I'll bet he's dying to rat out the others involved, but has probably been threatened he'd be put on a business blacklist.


I'm pretty certain that the party would have more than enough dirt on Shapps to make persuasion straight-forward.


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## existentialist (Nov 30, 2015)

gimesumtruf said:


> I'll bet he's dying to rat out the others involved, but has probably been threatened he'd be put on a business blacklist.


He could just use a different name


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## 8den (Nov 30, 2015)

I'm a legitimate  businessman selling dodgy software under an alias. Arthur Fucking Daly.


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## agricola (Nov 30, 2015)

Poor Shapps, he didn't even make a decent sacrificial lamb.


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 1, 2015)

8den said:


> I'm a legitimate  businessman selling dodgy software under an alias. Arthur Fucking Daly.



I'm not having that!
Arthur Daly, a little dodgy maybe, but underneath he's alright!

Grant Shapps on the other hand - dodgier than a dodgem car with faulty steering.


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 1, 2015)

agricola said:


> Poor Shapps, he didn't even make a decent sacrificial lamb.



Makes quite a decent sacrificial slug, though.


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## DaveCinzano (Dec 1, 2015)

agricola said:


> Poor Shapps, he didn't even make a decent sacrificial lamb.


More like a cheap döner


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## 8den (Dec 1, 2015)

ViolentPanda said:


> I'm not having that!
> Arthur Daly, a little dodgy maybe, but underneath he's alright!
> 
> Grant Shapps on the other hand - dodgier than a dodgem car with faulty steering.



In fairness flogging dodgy adware is a scheme worthy of my 2016 Minder reboot with Neil Morrisey and Danny Dyer


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## DaveCinzano (Dec 1, 2015)

8den said:


> In fairness flogging dodgy adware is a scheme worthy of my 2016 Minder reboot with Neil Morrisey and Danny Dyer


If nothing else we can all agree that Shapps' face would look great up against the Winchester


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## brogdale (Mar 21, 2016)

To celebrate tory chaos this World Poetry day, I offer last year's gem from Michael Rosen...if only for the opening 2 lines!



> _*Grant Shapps
> 
> is several chaps.
> 
> ...


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## DotCommunist (Mar 21, 2016)

brogdale said:


> To celebrate tory chaos this World Poetry day, I offer last year's gem from Michael Rosen...if only for the opening 2 lines!
> 
> ​


world poetry day? that deserves a thread more than shapps deserves a swift trip to the lime pits. I'm on it.


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## maomao (Sep 25, 2019)

His statement on Thomas Cook today was apparently identical in places to Grayling's statement on Monarch three years ago but with names and numbers changed. You couldn't make it up. And neither could he.

Grant Shapps lifts sections of speech from Chris Grayling


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## editor (Sep 25, 2019)

maomao said:


> His statement on Thomas Cook today was apparently identical in places to Grayling's statement on Monarch three years ago but with names and numbers changed. You couldn't make it up. And neither could he.
> 
> Grant Shapps lifts sections of speech from Chris Grayling


He's such a fucking sleazy useless cunt.


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## Badgers (Sep 25, 2019)

maomao said:


> His statement on Thomas Cook today was apparently identical in places to Grayling's statement on Monarch three years ago but with names and numbers changed. You couldn't make it up. And neither could he.
> 
> Grant Shapps lifts sections of speech from Chris Grayling


What will happen to him? Loss of 'reputation'?


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## equationgirl (Sep 25, 2019)

Badgers said:


> What will happen to him? Loss of 'reputation'?


Snort.


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## maomao (Sep 25, 2019)

Badgers said:


> What will happen to him? Loss of 'reputation'?


With the sheer number of useless incompetent twats who've held ministerial posts in the last three years there's a good chance a lot of people will have forgotten quite what a vapid and pointless shitcunt Shapps is.


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## MrSki (Jul 18, 2020)

Good poem here.


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## stavros (Jan 15, 2021)

From the man himself this morning:

"Testing is only part of the process, whereas quarantine is 100% of it."


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 15, 2021)

maomao said:


> With the sheer number of useless incompetent twats who've held ministerial posts in the last three years there's a good chance a lot of people will have forgotten quite what a vapid and pointless shitcunt Shapps is.


He certainly seems nothing unusual now.


----------

