Nicked

Nicholas "Call me 'Nick'" Boles is one of the potential Conservative candidates for Mayor of London.

Nick is widely tipped as the favourite to be chosen by the Tories to run against Ken Livingston, but currently he is forced to stand hat-in-hand with a number of other Tory hopefuls while the Conservatives stuff about trying to decide when the ring will be open for business.

Still, he's using his time in limbo constructively; he is using email and a special website - hosted at nickboles.com - to ask the London public what they're concerned about... before, we can safely assume, he decides he is concerned about exactly the same things:


That's not to say that Nick doesn't have his own opinions; he recently sat on a panel joining ex-London mayoral candidate Steve Norris in calling for City Regions across the country. While there, Nick "was keen to draw a distinction between the approach of a Conservative London mayor and Ken Livingstone's micro-management of many London issues."

Manic is curious to know how this differs from The Smith Institute allegedly helping to formulate an anti-Cameron campaign strategy, and how this all fits in to a certain broadcast outfit run by Iain Dale (and championed by 'Guido Fawkes') suddenly deciding to run an anti-Livingston ad... especially when Iain Dale is a trustee of Policy Exchange and Nick Bowles is the Director of that same outfit (which also happened to be a part-sponsor of the event mentioned above), but he will let all that go for now.

Manic does not wish this post to become 'long and boring'!

Last night, Iain Dale was asked if Nick Boles was still in the running for the London mayoral candidacy, and he seemed very reluctant to answer, so Manic went to have a look for himself.

On his travels, Manic had a poke around the WHOIS information for the domain names relating to Nick Boles' campaign-preparatory website (nickboles.com, nickboles.net, nickboles.org and nickboles.co.uk) and he discovered that each and every one of them was registered using a Policy Exchange email address, the Policy Exchange mailing address and/or the main phone number for Policy Exchange:


Imagine for a moment the shit you would be in with your boss - even in an everyday job - if it was discovered that you were using work details, time and/or facilities to register domains intended for personal/political use... then consider this:

1. Nick Boles is no lowly employee; he is the Director of Policy Exchange.

2. Policy Exchange bills itself as an independent think-tank and it is a registered charity, and - as Unity points out here - "Registered charities are permitted, in Charity law, to engage in political activities but - and this is important - they may do so only on the basis of well-founded research and only in a non-partisan manner. Charities can ‘do’ politics but not party politics."

3. Nick Boles used details, time and/or facilities provided by Policy Exchange to create a home for a personal website with a clear party-political purpose.

Therefore, if he is a man of honour, he should either resign as Director of Policy Exchange or formally withdraw as a potential London mayoral candidate to save that organisation further embarrassment.... but Manic suspects he will instead try to spin the nickboles.com website as an extension of his research duties for Policy Exchange and/or offer a pissweak apology for 'a unfortunate oversight' (which was perhaps the work of an overzealous underling).

Manic is waiting, Nick; what's it going to be? Spin or substance? If you offer the latter, there are still all those tasty safe seats to look forward to!

Manic has spoken. End communication.

UPDATE - Now you've read that, read this:

We're going to have a little competition, oh yes we are. Click here for your chance to win!

Manic has spoken again. End communication again.

UPDATE (21 Feb) - Bloggerheads - Nick Boles steps down! (Nothin' to do with me, Guv'nor...)