You forgot about the insolvent company and the bounceback loan and also the likelihood of Simon also getting paid for work by Mid and South Essex ICS (where the aforementioned business partner and former ECC employee) went.Recap:
Well, we were all just puttering along in the doldrums of the New Year, when Mr Bates vs the Post Office aired on ITV. And Simon, in his infinite wisdom, decided what better opportunity to start a new GoFundMe, for the Horizon Scandal Fund (which provides grants to those affected by the Horizon Scandal (post office accounting system Kafkaesque nightmare)). Thing is, the Horizon Scandal Fund aren't registered as a charity on GoFundMe, so Simon got together with the folks at GoFundMe UK and decided that they would have the fundraiser for the GoFundMe UK Charity, who would then give the Horizon Scandal Fund a 'grant' (inverted commas Simon's own).
But the Horizon Scandal Fund do have a fully functioning website with donation function (GiftAid included).
When questioned about this, Simon said it was preferable because his high profile would mean it got promoted further by GoFundMe.
Enter the investigative journalist who wrote the book and numerous articles about the Horizon scandal, who is a trustee of the charity. (January 5th)
View attachment 2695886
This rippled out into the corners of the Internet. Simon then promptly closed the fundraiser 'because it reached a £1000" (the original target was set to 10k).
Then the talk of the £500,000 payments from Essex County Council to run Facebook pages (possibly authorised by someone who is possibly Simon's mate and/or business partner) rippled out into the corners of the Internet.
On the night of the 5th, Simon deleted everything. Man Behaving Dadly Twitter, Man Behaving Dadly Facebook page, Southend News Network. Gone. Locked down his personal Facebook account which is used to run the Essex Council Facebook pages.
Oh and it hit the nationals, and Lee Anderson got to stick the boot in.
Council paid social media prankster £500k to run Facebook group during pandemic
Social media star Simon Harris, 40, was paid a whopping six-figure sum to help Essex County Council run their Facebook page, among other duties, during the coronavirus pandemicwww.mirror.co.uk
Essex County Council and then Simon released statements which only muddied the waters further, the key point being "payments were made to Simon Harris for expediency".
Oh and Jackie Weaver defended him on TalkTV, mysteriously without mentioning that she was one of the 'very famous people' that provided content for the ECC groups.
ETA oh and there's 24k sitting unaccounted for in the baby formula GoFundMe.
Oh god I did. We should all just defer to this section of the wikiYou forgot about the insolvent company and the bounceback loan and also the likelihood of Simon also getting paid for work by Mid and South Essex ICS (where the aforementioned business partner and former ECC employee) went.
God, there's so much....
Unless, of course, there is a last minute change to the programmeWell, I don't know about you folks but I am really looking forwards to this one:
A rivetting 20 minute overview of the topic "Leading local transformation of societal resilience" from whoever but Kirsty O'Callghan
...and impressing people at conferences is the very same skill as persuading the Chief Executive, that it was a good idea to give £500k to Simon HarrisI heard Kirsty give a talk at a conference I attended last year, she was very good and very
passionate about her topic to be fair.
Still does not excuse her if she was taking back handlers though.
I'm bored of people being passionate about things. I'd like them to be honest and competent instead.I heard Kirsty give a talk at a conference I attended last year, she was very good and very
passionate about her topic to be fair.
Still does not excuse her if she was taking back handlers though.
I suspect it was for free... If so, the real issue is the "day rate" he charged for sorting it out - based on income of £192K in one year (minus disbursements of course - whatever they might be!) he could have been charging £1000 a day - which is nice work if you can get it.Carole Baskin was charging 149 USD for a Cameo according to the Wayback archive of her page on July 1st 2020. (No offence, but come on Matt, that was an easy look-up!)
According to Exchangerates.org.uk - on 7 July 2020, $1 was £0.79
So Simon would have paid around £117.
Just because I was curious. It's still ridiculous he did that essentially for lols and Internet clout. I doubt social media managers working for the council would have been allowed to do that, because is it really the best spend of public money?
Yes, the Labour councillor quoted in the article does make a good point - if it was for free, or even if it was 'just' 117 quid, then what was the rest of the money spent on?I suspect it was for free... If so, the real issue is the "day rate" he charged for sorting it out - based on income of £192K in one year (minus disbursements of course - whatever they might be!) he could have been charging £1000 a day - which is nice work if you can get it.
Covid gave us the worst financial crisis in post war history, which every single person in the UK has been hit by, and the council were chucking out money like this as if it was nothing.Carole Baskin was charging 149 USD for a Cameo according to the Wayback archive of her page on July 1st 2020. (No offence, but come on Matt, that was an easy look-up!)
According to Exchangerates.org.uk - on 7 July 2020, $1 was £0.79
So Simon would have paid around £117.
Just because I was curious. It's still ridiculous he did that essentially for lols and Internet clout. I doubt social media managers working for the council would have been allowed to do that, because is it really the best spend of public money?
According to the page at the time the council didn't pay for it (although I wonder if they said that because Simon/whoever paid for it and they knew that people would (quite rightly) kick up a stink about the council paying for something like that?)I suspect it was for free... If so, the real issue is the "day rate" he charged for sorting it out - based on income of £192K in one year (minus disbursements of course - whatever they might be!) he could have been charging £1000 a day - which is nice work if you can get it.
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