Lambeth is one of the most deprived Boroughs in London, having many vulnerable residents with housing needs including over 400 homeless people. Unfortunately, a flagship scheme intended to solve the crisis, council-owned property developer Homes for Lambeth (HfL), has failed catastrophically according to a review by independent peer Lord Kerslake, a former head of the Home Civil Service, the recommendations from which have been accepted by the council at its Cabinet meeting of 5 December 2022. In the five years since 2017, the company has only begun the construction of 65 homes – a mere 13 a year. Whilst Kerslake did not single out any member of staff he did criticise the HfL’s relationships with the council and communications with the public.

The Witchfinder was amused but also dismayed to discover that his former Labour Party colleague Paul Simpson has been responsible for some of the areas criticised for years, the report only cementing your author’s opinion, formed nearly two decades ago, that Simpson is a serious brand risk, who should not work in management or sensitive roles. There have been general concerns raised about Labour cronyism in the Borough and the governance and spending controls of Lambeth Borough over HfL. The case raises questions about whether appointees to HfL had appropriate qualifications, experience and performance history and whether proper recruitment processes were followed. Casual investigation found further matters, expanded upon below, that underline Simpson’s failures as a communications professional and also child protection issues, around the manner in which he has distributed pictures of his own child online. After careful consideration, I feel there is a compelling public interest in writing about this.

Have you ever had a work colleague, who is particularly difficult and unpleasant to work with, only to experience the frustration that management do not agree? The sort of person who will boast like a contestant on the Apprentice, only to deliver disaster? The sort of person who at a widget company will endlessly extol their widget-making and strategic widget management prowess. Then when their latest model of widget turns out to catastrophically flawed,  a … “plane crash” … as it were and has to be withdrawn from sale, when they can no longer avoid accountability, they will turn on a dime and deny it was anything to do with them! It is not an uncommon experience, whether in corporations or, for example, local government. It is an experience I have shared.

The Short Version
This article, I am afraid, is a deep dive. It is intended for journalists doing background research into the Homes for Lambeth Scandal, HR Departments doing employment due diligence and Lambeth residents / activists. It is necessary to refer with precision to a number of documents and quote from them. However, the super-short easy read summary of what is set out below is this:

Paul Simpson is a ‘communications’ ‘professional’ and former Labour Party staffer. He got jobs at Lambeth and in HfL. There have been concerns raised about Labour cronyism in the Borough. It is not clear from Simpson’s CV as set out on his LinkedIn account that he was fully qualified for the role with which he entered HfL. When I asked what qualifications Paul had for one part of a job he got, he ignored me and HfL replied point blank refusing to answer, leading me to the inference there was no justification to give. In his role at HfL Paul boasted of being in charge of lots of things, many things which the Kerslake review said went wrong. It is to be inferred he had some responsibility for the failures, even if not all of it. When I put questions to HfL, the response which must have been authorised by Paul was dishonest and clumsily attempted to bully by threatening defamation proceedings could be issued by HfL (which is undermined by the fact it is being wound up and the threat was made by an HR officer).

I had similar experiences when I worked with Paul in 2004 to 2005 at the Labour Party and there were similarly bad outcomes for his project – the seat whose election he was responsible for was the only one in Enfield which was lost in the 2005 General Election. Because of his behaviour, I am worried that Paul could really harm some people if he had seniority over them in any role whatsoever. I discovered that Paul’s online presence was shoddy contrary to his own doctrines. He had inappropriately distributed pictures of his child (albeit, I stress, legal images) and those images had been harvested and archived over a period of years by third parties, likely without his knowledge.

I feel morally obliged to raise these concerns in emphatic terms to make them available to anyone else who feels aggrieved and to help organisations which might otherwise employ or engage Paul Simpson to protect themselves. My article will be available as to anyone he has worked with, or works with in future, who feels aggrieved and if anyone chooses to sue Paul or an organisation in relation to Paul, is admissible in court or in the employment tribunal under s1 (1) Civil Evidence Act 1995.

A media inquiry containing the central allegations of this article was sent to HfL, Simpson and other interested parties on 16 January 2023. A near final draft of this article, including an earlier draft of this summary, was put on 24 January 2023. No denial nor objection was received from Simpson nor HfL by the deadline, save as below and that a more junior member of staff asked not to be named (to which I agreed). There was an offer of extension of time for persons named in the article to take legal advice, which was not taken up.

Now to the detail:

The Catastrophic Failures of Homes for Lambeth and the Kerslake Review
Over the last few weeks, after a tip-off, I have been reading the Kerslake Review and also the People’s Audit of the Homes for Lambeth project. Both are devastating and forensic views of the catastrophic failure of the project, which has wasted around £25 million of public money (including around 10.5 million on staffing), overall with almost nothing to show for it. It is a national scandal, particularly at a time of great financial hardship for some families. The council has formally accepted the recommendations of the Kerslake Review.

These circumstances are a matter into which I have special insight because I worked with one key figure in Homes for Lambeth, Paul Simpson, 18 years ago when we were both Labour Party staff. I also worked with other people tangentially involved. Paul, who had boasted at very great length on his LinkedIn about his responsibilities for specific areas found to be failing, is now curiously unwilling to be so closely associated. Whilst it would be unfair to blame Simpson for all HfL’s many, many failings, it is worth comparing Paul’s boasts to the relevant parts of the Review.

The Kerslake Review raises a number of problems with Homes for Lambeth, many of which it says have have complex causes,

“[…] Although there are issues with how HfL has operated, it would be tempting but wrong to lay responsibility solely at their door. The ambiguity in the original brief, unclear governance and very poor working relationships with the Council have been major contributors […]”

Kerslake does not name, shame or blame any single individual. However, the report singles out for criticism poor relations between Lambeth Borough Council and HfL,

“HFL and LBL are not working as a unified team. There is a history of reported mutual hostility and relationship breakdown. While this has vastly improved in recent months with the appointment of a new senior team in HfL” (2.65) [note this was published in November 2022]

Lord Kerslake also observes that,

“As part of this review we spoke to residents on these estates to ask them about their experience. We did not speak to every resident, and we cannot pretend to represent every view. However, among those we did speak to, feedback was uniformly negative. They spoke of inconsistent approaches, poor communications, delays, lack of consideration, and confusion of responsibilities between HfL and Lambeth Council.”

According to his LinkedIn profile, even before the HfL project was set up on 2017, a key figure in HfL responsible for these functions was Paul Simpson. He describes himself as, “[…] an expert in building partnerships for change between communities, interest groups, local government and businesses […]“. He takes responsibility for these functions at HfL, saying, “[…]I have experience of doing this across the public and private sectors delivering and for the last six years in developing and working for Lambeth Council’s innovative but controversial wholly-owned housing regeneration company Homes for Lambeth”. Indeed, Simpson has been a more constant figure in HfL than senior management, which has changed repeatedly over the lifetime of the company.

Simpson’s LinkedIn profile (archive) claims that he held the following positions in HfL from February 2019 (prior to which he had been a consultant at Lambeth Council working on the project) –

• 02/2019 – 04/2020 – Head of Operations and Engagement
• 04/2020 – 01/2021 – Interim Director of Operations
• 02/2021 – present – Assistant Director for Engagement and Partnerships

In all of these differently titled roles, Simpson claims he held the following specific responsibilities, amongst others –

• Acting as an ambassador for Homes for Lambeth at community meetings and with stakeholders.
• Reported to companies’ boards and the council’s governance structures, including cabinet members, on the companies’ activities.
• Managed the communications and engagement team. This included overseeing the creation and management of all messaging, newsletters, websites, stakeholder engagement, and press office functions.
• Overseeing the responses to FOIs, EIRs and Members’ Enquiries.

Amusingly, since my first media inquiry on these topics Paul has been engaging in attempted DFE (Delete F***ing Everything) across many of his internet profiles, including his Flickr, Medium and Guild profiles (currently gone – archive). Paul’s belief that he can delete his activities on the internet is charmingly naïf, and it was the work of moments to retrieve the profiles, which I comment on below. I even retrieved his personal website (last update 2014). It has not, however, occurred to Paul to delete from his LinkedIn the statement in which he admits his pivotal role in the project’s communications and relationships since its inception.

The statements on LinkedIn are important, because they underline Paul Simpson’s outrageous dishonesty when contrasted with subsequent statements. In the course of preparing this article, I put a media inquiry to Paul and his employer. The only response was a letter, attached to an email from a senior HfL HR officer. It included the following statement –

“I note that you have made a number of unsubstantiated allegations regarding the findings of the Kerslake Review. Specifically, you seem to be trying to link the findings of the report to Paul Simpson personally. We do not intend to respond to such allegations as these are made without any evidence in support and refer to a time prior to our employment of Mr Simpson.”

No evidence aside from his unambigious admission on his LinkedIn profile, HfL! Paul boasts of his, “expert” work in, “building partnerships for change” and, “messaging” for HfL. Furthermore he boasts of doing so for six years – that is from before HfL was formally incorporated. It is therefore preposterous to say that there is no evidence to link Paul Simpson to the findings of the Kerslake Review, or that his actions in relation to the criticised areas wholly pre-dated his employment by HfL. According to the Review there were poor relationships with the council until, ‘months’ before it was published in November 2022. Of course, my inquiry to HfL did also deal with events in 2004-2005 but the paragraph by the HR officer I am citing does not refer to those – it refers to events at HfL covered by the Kerslake Review.

I put that specific criticism to Paul Simpson and HfL by sending them a draft of this article but no response, nor denial was received from them.

These statements made on behalf of HfL are expressly false, and must have been known to be false by Mr Simpson at the time the message was sent. They are reminiscent of Comical Ali, Saddam Hussein’s Minister of Information. It is inconceivable that HfL HR had not consulted Mr Simpson when releasing a statement about him, and he did not deny knowledge, nor authorisation, of the message when I put it to him before publication. These false statements were sent accompanying a threat of litigation. To threaten a civil claim on the basis of averred facts known to be false is serious dishonesty even before we get into the technical problems raised in my last article of suing in the name of a company being wound up.

Another issue that leaps out from Paul Simpson’s LinkedIn work history is that he went from a purely communications career into a senior operations role, as Head of Operations and Engagement. It would be churlish to claim Simpson does not have a history (on paper) to back appointment to a communications role. He obviously does. However, there appears to be nothing to justify appointing him to a senior operations role – no previous jobs and no qualifications. Lambeth council has been accused of Labour cronyism before, but it occurred to me that since we worked together in 2004-2005, Paul may have done some formal qualification in operations such as an MBA in Operations Management, or perhaps had some relevant responsibility in a previous role. I asked HfL, Lambeth and Simpson what those qualifications might be.

Q – Please can HfL, Lambeth Borough or Mr Simpson identify any formal academic or vocational qualifications Mr Simpson holds which would make him suitable to go directly from a one-man-band consultancy owned by himself to, “Head of Operations” in a publicly owned housing company?

[The question was ignored by all parties except HfL who responded expressly refusing to answer it. No one was willing or able to advance a single qualification Paul Simpson had for the operations part of the role. This is a serious governance concern.]

As set out in my last article, where there have been threats of defamation litigation, no matter how inept, before moving on to talking about my own experiences with Paul, it is worth at this point pausing to summarise and set out the meaning I am trying to impute, firstly for the benefit of the public, and also in order to assist any judge –

• Paul Simpson had, according to his public claims, extensive responsibilities for building relationships between HfL and other organisations including being an, “ambassador” and managing the communications and engagement team, from 2019 onwards at a minimum (he claims 6 years so since 2016 / 2017).
• Lord Kerslake found that until, “months” before 2022, there was, “reported mutual hostility and relationship breakdown”, between HfL and the council.
• It is to be inferred that, since he was essentially in charge of that function, Paul Simpson had significant responsibility for the problem – certainly he had failed to resolve it.
• Furthermore, Paul Simpson had, according to his public claims, extensive responsibilities for relationships between HfL and the public including, “all messaging, newsletters, websites, stakeholder engagement, and press office functions”.
• Lord Kerslake found that, “feedback was uniformly negative. They spoke of inconsistent approaches, poor communications, delays, lack of consideration, and confusion of responsibilities”.
• Given Simpson was responsible for communications with both public and council and in his words, “all stakeholder engagement”, it is to be inferred that he had significant responsibilities for these problems, especially as HfL was the constant party and the counter-parties (the public, the council and so on), varied.
• In response to a media inquiry to Homes for Lambeth, a senior HR officer issued a statement that attempted to deny that Mr Simpson worked at HfL at the time of the failings identified by the Review, claiming preposterously my allegations in the context of the Kerslake Review (as opposed to the ones about 2004-2005), “refer to a time prior to our employment of Mr Simpson”.
• The statement by the HR officer is false. It is inconceivable that Paul Simpson did not see and approve it. Paul must have had actual knowledge of falsity given the statements on his LinkedIn.
• Knowing their statements to be false, HfL threatened litigation on behalf of the company (which is being wound up).
• In my opinion, the claim Simpson did not work at HfL in the periods covered by the Kerslake Review was dishonest, as was the threat of litigation, and an inept attempt at bullying me into silence.
• In my opinion, Paul was cowardly to make these threats through a more junior member of staff (he is an assistant director, the HR officer is not a director).
• Given the the comprehensive failure of the functions for which he was responsible over a period of years, and his clumsy response to criticism, in my opinion Paul Simpson is incompetent.
• Given the fact that they could not advance any justification for his appointment, it is to be inferred – that is in my opinion – that Paul Simpson is not qualified and was not qualified for the operations aspects of his roles at HfL.

Based on the foregoing facts, in relation to recent events, in my opinion Paul Simpson is incompetent, dishonest, a bully and a coward who should not have been appointed and failed in his role. In my opinion, he should not be appointed to any role in management or the public sector and his presence in a senior role in an organisation represents an existential brand risk.

We will get to Simpson’s recently deleted internet activity, but first I now turn to my own experiences of Paul in 2004-2005. This type of historic criticism is not really relevant but it is in this case because of the close parallels with now and then.

My Experiences of Paul Simpson in Enfield
Long ago, from 2004 to 2005, before I held public office, before I did qualifications in IT or Law and before I became a Conservative, I worked for Edmonton Constituency Labour Party (‘CLP’) in Enfield as an organiser. I was paid staff. During this period, I was responsible for helping to organise Parliamentary and council elections in Edmonton, including being legal agent in some local government elections. There were three Parliamentary constituencies in Enfield, each with its own unit of Labour Party organisation and organiser.

Of the three Parliamentary Constituencies, Edmonton was the safest seat, Enfield Southgate was second safest (but more marginal) and Enfield North was by far the least safe, at least based on the results of the (2001) Parliamentary elections immediately prior. The figures are conveniently available online. Edmonton MP Andy Love had a Parliamentary majority of 9,772, Enfield Southgate MP Stephen Twigg had a majority of 5,546 and Enfield North MP Joan Ryan had a majority of 2,291. I was organiser in Edmonton, Paul Simpson was organiser in Enfield Southgate and another man was organiser in Enfield North – he is not named as there are no criticisms.

At the 2005 election it would therefore be reasonable to expect that the seat most at risk was Enfield North. Yet at that election it was Enfield Southgate and not Enfield North that was lost. Stephen Twigg lost his seat whilst Joan Ryan retained hers. Such an unexpected turn of events requires some analysis.

At the count, the winning Conservative candidate in Enfield Southgate, David Burrowes, rightly mocked the under-resourcing of Enfield Southgate compared to Edmonton.

In my opinion, much of the blame for the unexpected results can rightly be laid at Mr Simpson’s door. Before going into that, I appreciate that not everyone agrees with me. In particular, the allegations I am about to make were put to Paul Simpson’s former boss Stephen Twigg, the MP who lost his seat. He did not deny the specific allegations in my letter or below, but he did on the day of my letter on 16 January 2023, endorse Mr Simpson on LinkedIn and it is only fair that I reproduce that endorsement below. Since then Simpson has obtained other endorsements, but they are not relevant to this article because they do not cover his time at HfL or Enfield. Mr Twigg said –

“Paul was always hardworking, dedicated and highly conscientious. He built, nurtured and strengthened relationships with local community and residents’ organisations in Enfield Southgate on key local issues. For example, he coordinated my local work on a set of issues relating to the section of the North Circular Road running through the constituency. This involved liaison with residents organisations and various public agencies. Paul is a highly capable communicator and was a great asset to my work in the local constituency.”

For those of you who don’t know who Stephen Twigg is, it is worth introducing him and his political beliefs so readers can make their judgements about him. I have tried to pick some of his most important policy positions and outcomes at the time to give a flavour of what he and Paul were fighting for. Twigg asserted as a priority fighting for his view of ‘equality’, and broadly many of the things currently advanced under the rainbow flag. At the time I worked in Enfield some of his positions and stated achievements were as follows:

• he was the first openly gay MP at the time of his election, according to Stonewall
• he supported and voted for the reduction in the age of sexual consent for male homosexual sex to 16 in 1998, making it the same as heterosexual consent
• he also praised and supported the repeal in 2000 of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which added section 2A to the Local Government Act 1986. The provision he supported repeal of stated that a local authority (in effect public schools), “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality”. This provision had made it unlawful for schools to promote homosexuality to school children. As a result of the repeal, it is now lawful to promote homosexuality to school children.

An article by Twigg confirming these policy positions is here (archive).

I am disappointed that as a purported advocate for equality Twigg did not engage with my concerns, and regret that he would choose to discount my lived experiences. However, as he quite properly spent much of his time in Parliament, he may not have had a full picture of what Paul did (and did not do) on his behalf. On many occasions Paul and I were the only ones present. Ultimately, in my view Stephen’s position is generous given he lost his seat, therefore I have chosen to include it for balance.

My experience of Paul was rather less positive that Stephen’s. As a young man, I was very different from the person I am known as now. I had come from a Labour Party family background and at University I had been Chair of Queen Mary Labour Students. I had political ambitions, a love of politics and I had wanted to work for the Labour Party and pursue a career in it.

The year I spent in Enfield was the year I finally fell out of love with the Labour movement and my heart inclined to the Right, although that change had very little to do with Paul Simpson or any other named individual. It was more to do with an exposure to the reality of left wing politics and policy. It is also important to note that there were good people in Enfield Labour Party who I have refrained from naming here. Nonetheless, for a surprisingly accurate portrayal of Labour politics in general as I saw it from inside, you could do worse than read, Mutiny in Space by Rod Walker, and consider the bits about the ‘Social Party’. The picture of charismatic ‘Social Party’ leader Ducarti, who could barely conceal his contempt for Party members and sadistically sends the hero’s brother to his death, is compelling.

The job I took was relatively low paid, albeit interesting, because of the limited resources available to the CLP. It was, theoretically, part time, a 2.5 day week job although I frequently worked much longer hours. At the time, the Labour Party had just started organising a training course for aspiring organisers, but unlike the others I had not had the chance of going on it. I was a completely green organiser. If there was a bigger budget perhaps someone better qualified would have applied and I would not have got the job. The deal in effect was that I got experience which would otherwise be very hard to come by, and they got a cheap enthusiastic recent graduate.

I joined Edmonton CLP in late April 2004, in the middle of the elections for the Greater London Assembly (GLA). There was also a council by-election. The fact that I had joined an election in progress and also a by-election in which I had to be legal agent created a steep learning curve. Indeed one of the first things I felt I needed to do was to transcribe the Grid (essentially a project plan for the election campaign) to get a mental grip on the various activities. Paul was tasked with introducing me to the GLA election and various aspects of Enfield.

It is worth introducing Labour at that time as riven by various factions including the Blairites, the old left and others. Enfield also has a number of distinct cultural groups with political identity including Greek and Turkish Cypriots. A number of individuals in the area did not like each other, and regardless councillors, MPs, GLA representatives and others would all have competing and conflicting calls on resources. Since Edmonton was a safe seat it had most members and volunteers. Neighbouring Enfield North and Enfield Southgate, which had fewer resources, naturally both sought support for their campaigning activities. There were also issues around responding to consultations on the redrawing of parliamentary constituency boundaries, where CLPs and MPs had competing interest in having safe Labour areas included.

I was uncomfortable with Paul from the beginning. We had known each other in student politics and my main memory was being omitted from invitation some London event he was organising. When I pointed it out, I felt that he had been somewhat surly and defensive. On renewing our acquaintance, my first impression was one of inappropriate factional gossip. Paul was a member of internal party networks such as Progress and the New Politics Network. He was quick to share his opinions on Andy Love, Joan Ryan and various councillors. Suffice to say that Simpson, amongst many many other things, disagreed with Mr Love’s position on Parliamentary boundaries and was disdainful of Joanne McCartney’s rivals for selection.

The second thing I noticed was that Paul was far from confident of a good outcome in the upcoming general election – we were are the time dealing with the 2004 campaign but Paul repeatedly emphasised the marginal nature of the seat and a number of challenges from resources to limited membership. It was as if he was rehearsing excuses from day one.

During that induction I travelled with Paul in his car in the neighbouring Enfield Southgate constituency, including on an unexpected visit to a tip or incinerator. I cannot remember which, but I can remember being asked to help Paul lift a number of boxes out of the boot. When I asked what they were Paul glibly said that it did not matter and to do as I was told, but one ‘fell’ out – it was a Labour Party leaflet. Paul was throwing them away. They were brand new for the current election – straight from the printer to the skip. Paul explained they were flawed and would be replaced but asked me not to tell anyone as that would, “ruin our credibility” – meaning Paul’s. I never saw a replacement. As far as I am aware, they were reported as delivered.

It was quite obvious thereafter something of my discomfort communicated itself because Paul cooled towards me markedly even though I did not drop him in it at that time. I was new and not in a position to get into the battle of reputations with a favoured employee of Stephen Twigg MP, who had significant pull in the Party hierarchy.

A second source of tension, as the election wore on, were differing views on where resources should go – with councillors and others wanting volunteers going to different places. Although Paul was the overall agent for the GLA elections, I did not report to him and there were other, longer term considerations. For example, when workers canvassed in a particular area, contact and voting intention information would also be available for future Parliamentary elections. Councillors were more enthused about the council by-election than anyone else, whilst everyone else was focused on the GLA elections. I took my instructions from CLP officers and no one else although in practice I had to take anything Andy Love MP said very seriously.

This meant that at times I could not get give Paul Simpson what he wanted. Paul’s response was to yell, sometimes in front of others, that as the GLA organiser, “that gives me the authority” to order people about. He also chose the very unfortunate term, “respect my authority”. Unfortunately, Paul chose to do this sometimes in front of others such as members of Young Labour.

A difficulty Paul faced was that I was not the only person to find his manner sometimes unfortunate. Paul had unwisely chosen a catch-phrase also favoured by Eric Cartman of South Park. South Park was a popular cartoon at the time and Eric Cartman was a fat, curmudgeonly, obnoxious eight year old. In one iconic episode he is for some reason employed as a police officer in which role he would violently assault random members of the public shouting, “Respect my authoritah!” The result was that some members of Young Labour, who privately expressed utter contempt for Simpson, used the phrase rather a lot.

Of course I did not make a formal complaint – the Labour Party has always been far less kind to complainers than many other organisations. The recent Forde Inquiry confirmed its difficulties with this type of issue in some detail. Hell – the Labour Party was far from helpful even to women who had been raped, as (for example) Bex Bailey’s experience shows. I did discuss some of the challenges informally with senior colleagues, but I was reassured that Simpson’s behaviour had not persuaded. Paul did not seem to realise that sometimes people only pretend to agree with you, so you continue to tell them your thoughts, or even to give you rope.

There were other incidents – for example disproportionate complaints about the non-delivery of a targeted mailing. Unlike Simpson, I had just left undelivered materials in the office so we had a picture of what was delivered and what was not, instead of sending them for, ‘special’ delivery. The shocking finding of one mailing that had not been delivered was, to Paul and his friends, a high crime.

But Paul did not persuade. My initial contract was for 6 months and was in effect within a probationary period, so after the GLA elections it could have been allowed to lapse or terminated on short notice. The idea was that if I did alright in the GLA elections, the contract could be extended. However, due to budgeting I had been warned at the outset it would almost certainly not go beyond the Parliamentary elections. The decision after the GLA election was this – I was not let go. I was formally commended and my contract was actively extended to cover the general election. Despite complaints from some quarters we had delivered good activist turnout, high rates of contact and delivery. Swings had been favourable compared to the national trend.

During the subsequent period, the CLPs mostly worked on their own campaigns. Unfortunately, I still had to deal with Paul Simpson because he would regularly come over to use the Edmonton CLP Risograph (basically, a one colour printer / copier suitable for running off many cheap leaflets). This left me frequently alone with him. During this period Simpson was deeply unpleasant to be with. He could be snide, make veiled threats to my career if resources were not delivered to Enfield Southgate in the General Election and on a few occasions sing whilst he worked – the song being the tune to the 2005 Honda advert, “Hate Something, Change Something”. Of course, he insisted it was not directed about me.

Paul would also go on, and on, and on about the West Wing – a toxic American TV show written by leftists. I have always thought it particularly unhealthy for Labour supporters because it reinforces their world view. The world of the West Wing is the world as leftists saw it (given the constantly shifting leftist Narrative it is probably heresy in some woke quarters now) in which they were beautiful heroical noble saviours. Suffice to say I find Rod Walker’s take more accurate. I certainly do not have any West Wing box sets. I have all eight seasons of Dexter instead as well as others such as the complete set of the best TV show of all time, Point Pleasant.

In contrast, Enfield North was a pleasure to work with. Whenever we went there and dealt with them, the more senior (and better thought of) organiser I have made a point of not naming was always kind, humble and welcoming as was the MP. If he had opinions about MPs, councillors, activists or me, the organiser kept them to himself and focused on his job of winning the difficult election in that area.

Let us be clear at this point, although I was commended for my work in the election, it would be a fantasy to say I was the best organiser ever. I was the entry-level guy at the bottom of the totem pole who had chosen to take a lower salary in exchange for an opportunity to get rare experience that could open many doors. All I had to offer was enthusiasm and a little experience as a Labour Student activist. For all I know, the organiser of Enfield North could have thought of me well, or kindly for working hard despite my plain inexperience, or held me in total contempt. The point was he behaved like a professional not a caricature of an obnoxious 8-year-old, and as a general rule unlike Paul refrained from sharing his opinions about his colleagues. If I search for the guy’s name today, I find he is in a decent job and unlike Paul Simpson, there are no 130-page reports in the news about the catastrophic failure of his organisation.

As the election drew nearer, work increased and I worked far longer than my contracted hours. The party regionally decided to twin constituencies – safe with marginal. We asked to be twinned with Enfield North. It was right for three main reasons – firstly, the constituency to the north was more marginal and in need of support, secondly, we had better working relations and thirdly we felt that resource would be better used due to greater confidence in Enfield North’s campaign team. The decision, incidentally, was not mine – but I was given the opportunity to deliver it.

The regional office did not object to the twinning. Whilst some people there had a tendency to try to curry favour, Joan Ryan and Stephen Twigg were of roughly equal standing and the Enfield North organiser was himself very well connected indeed. We needed to be twinned with another seat and we had made our choice. There was no overrule and no retaliation. To be fair, Edmonton CLP officers were very professional and still wanted to support Southgate CLP and attempts were made but there was limited enthusiasm.

On the day of the election as the votes began to close a desperate call came out. The numbers in Enfield Southgate were not good. It was asked that more activists be sent from Edmonton to Southgate. That request was declined – a decision not taken by me. I do not think by that stage it would have made a difference. If relations had been better earlier that might have changed the outcome. It might not but certainly on the night it was far too late.

Edmonton and Enfield North were held by Labour. Enfield Southgate was lost. The numbers are important. Enfield North was held with a majority of 1,920. That means despite a fabulously unpopular war which lead to protests estimated as including up to two million attendees, the Labour vote in Enfield North fell by just 371. Edmonton was held with a majority of 8,075 – a fall of 1,697. Enfield Southgate was won by David Burrowes with a majority of 1,747 – meaning that a Labour majority of 5,546 was completely destroyed and replaced with a Conservative majority. The inference I draw was that there was something different in the campaigns between the three seats and I do not accept it was solely due to (for example) demographics. My analysis is that likely, less work was done in Southgate, partly due to less activist resource, and the communication was less enticing, for example because some of it was delivered hot off the printer to the skip.

It had always been made clear to me from day one that there was, for me, no ‘after’ the General Election. The CLP had limited funds and they were spent. The contract had always been fixed term. Even so, the CLP officers and the MP made clear they appreciated my work. The contract was due to lapse but was extended a second time ex-gratia by a final month and I was allowed to take extra holiday in lieu of my overtime during the election. After I left, I was given a glowing reference and after a councillor passed away, I was asked to stand for office myself as a Borough councillor in my own area of Welwyn-Hatfield.

During the election Andy Love MP and Edmonton members came and campaigned beside me. He did not have to do that. Based on national swing at the time, I should not have been elected. The seat was elected on four year terms of office, with one councillor being elected a year and year off in every four. It was a marginal seat – the selection had been hotly contested and I had beaten the CEO of a national charity. However, the Conservatives should normally have taken it. Because of the hard work of some local activists and those from outside, we bucked the statistical trend and the seat was held for one last election, for me. I was elected for the three years remaining of the former incumbent’s term. As a Christian I personally always felt it was a kind of divine response to my work for the Labour Party. It was the last thing of significance I ever took from the Party.

For my part, I honoured the work that was done for me by activists. By then, I was long past my starry eyed youthful support for Labour. However, despite my doubts I gave the Labour Party a chance for the remainder of my term of office. I voted on the whip, always, and kept any doubts about policy inside the party. Even as I did so it was obvious to me that John Dean’s Conservative group was doing a vastly better job as the group running the council. As the election approached I was asked to stand again. However, the two candidates after me in the rotating election cycle had lost (largely due to the national trend), and I declined. There was no point fighting a bitter selection for a lost cause. A new candidate was taken up and duly fought and lost the seat. The day of the election, I posted my resignation from Labour. A year later, having given it a decent period, I joined the Conservatives.

I thought long and hard about whether I should write the 2004-2005 section of this piece. In those days I was inexperienced and in some ways personally gauche. I felt the relationship was one of mutual hostility and had broken down. However, in terms of the difficulties with Paul and Enfield Southgate it takes two to tango they say. Also, people change. However, here we are again nearly twenty years later and there is a hundred-and-thirty-page report about the total failure of relationships which Paul boasts of being in charge of. Paul’s dance partners have changed but the missteps are the same.

I also had in mind the tragic case of Elliott Johnson. Elliott Johnson was a Conservative Party member who killed himself after serious bullying by Mark Clarke, who was subsequently expelled from the Conservative Party for life. It occurs to me that whilst I am relatively thick skinned and Paul’s behaviour backfired badly on he and his employer, another young activist in my position might have been driven to an extreme, tragic solution. I have refrained from using terms like bullying or harassment in relation to Paul’s behaviour set out above because those are subjective, and of course I was myself far from thin-skinned. However, I can see (for example) a local government officer or an intern who caught Paul Simpson’s bad side have a much worse time.

My own MP Grant Shapps actually took responsibility over the Johnson case and resigned for a time, to my mind unfairly. One point Grant made to the Telegraph was that he did not take on board a number of smaller concerns, “I cannot help but feel that the steady stream of those who raised smaller, more nuanced, objections should have perhaps set alarm bells ringing sooner”. I think that is entirely understandable – in any political party there is often a lot of bitching and it is often hard to separate signal to noise – Grant is back in the government now and I feel that is right.

The point is that sometimes problems need intensely, emphatically highlighting or they get lost in the noise. People like Paul Simpson are often hard to detect and escape notice until something catastrophic happens like a suicide or – ooh – say the collapse of a £25 million housing project. They are often adept at obtaining support and hiding problems. It needs someone with significant power to speak up and call out problematic behaviour.

In light of the Kerslake report and my own experiences I am morally driven to say that in my opinion Paul Simpson should never be employed in management.

So, what meanings am I trying to impute as regards my description of my own employment at Enfield Labour Party?

• During my employment as a Labour Party organiser in Enfield between 2004 and 2005 I observed Paul Simpson to destroy leaflets and ask me not to tell anyone. Although he said they would be replaced, I saw no evidence this occurred.
• During my employment as a Labour Party organiser in Enfield between 2004 and 2005 I observed Paul Simpson to engage in aggressive or otherwise nasty behaviour towards myself, particularly when there were no witnesses.
• During my employment as a Labour Party organiser in Enfield between 2004 and 2005 I observed Paul Simpson to level criticisms at me in ways not accepted by colleagues during and after my employment.
• From the forgoing facts I have formed the opinion that Paul Simpson is dishonest (for concealing the issue with the leaflets), a coward (for engaging in bad behaviour where there were no witnesses) and a bully.
• During my employment as a Labour Party organiser in Enfield between 2004 and 2005 I observed poor relationships between Paul and others who are no longer in the party.
• During my employment as a Labour Party organiser in Enfield between 2004 and 2005 I observed that Enfield Southgate Constituency was lost when the more marginal seat of Enfield North was won.
• Given the relative performance of Labour in Enfield North and Enfield Southgate and the factors set out above I have formed the opinion that Paul Simpson is incompetent.

Based on the forgoing facts, and reinforced by recent events, in my opinion, Paul Simpson is incompetent, a bully, a coward, dishonest and failed in his role.

This section reports my own personal first-hand experiences with Paul and is therefore automatically admissible, where relevant, in any court or employment tribunal pursuant to s1 (1) Civil Evidence Act 1995. That means that any employer or client taking on Mr Simpson will have to risk assess the prospect that, should he get into a dispute with another employee, this article may be used in evidence against them.

Paul Simpson’s Deleted Online History
We now at last turn to Paul Simpson’s online activities and internet history. This is a shorter bit, but a few things are worth noting. Firstly, Paul speaks often about the vast importance of digital presence. This is true in the area of his clients or employers, and true in the area of promoting his own services. I had skimmed some of Paul’s social media a day or two before sending my inquiry but not got around to archiving it. I was surprised to note that despite the attempt to talk tough by the interim Head of HR at HfL, Paul had gone all DFE. As set out above, his Flickr and Guild profiles disappeared and his picture disappeared from LinkedIn.

I wondered what Paul was hiding so I took * steps * and retrieved everything. Let us start with Paul’s personal website, https://www.paul-simpson.org. As far as I could determine it was last updated no later than 2018, most likely 2014 and thereafter the domain lapsed. Looking at the website as it was in 2014 it looked like some sort of newsfeed –

Paul extols the importance of digital channels of communication – a comment which is true but somewhat trite in the digital age. Which was why I was surprised at the shoddiness of the other elements of his profile (aside from LinkedIn). Paul had a Guild Profile which was notable only for its absence of content and general laziness –

Similar words could be said for the Flickr profile. It was shoddy – for example it reveals Paul’s personal email address, which is going to be fun for him, I suspect, very shortly. I have redacted it below, not that it will make a difference. The other thing was it was hopelessly out of date and still linked to his long defunct website.

The last and most serious failure concerns the licensing scheme used on Paul’s personal Flickr. When you upload images to Flickr, you have the option of selecting a license under which to offer them. For reasons which escape me, Paul has used CC-BY-2.0 for all his images, including those of his child (fully clothed, legal images, although that does not end the concerns). CC-BY-2.0 is an irrevocable commercial-use Creative Commons copyright licence. The terms of CC-BY-2.0 are that license is granted to anyone at all for free, provided they comply with the two terms. The granted rights are any use, including royalty-free commercial use, and derivative works. The conditions are attribution, a link to the license, and not putting DRM or similar on your usage of the image that would prevent someone else using it.

Because the license is irrevocable, even if Paul reinstated his Flickr and changed the options, as long as someone could prove they had seen the image under the old license, they could still use the CC-BY-2.0 license. Irrevocable.

That means that I can use (for example) the picture at the top of this article. Forever. It also means that members of groups opposed to HfL (for example residents) could overwrite the top of the image with the word, ‘C*NT’, print it off on musical greetings cards, and sell them outside HfL’s offices and keep the fees, provided the small print on the back page thanked Paul and linked to the license URL. This is not abstract, given the popularity of HfL and perceptions of its communications functions, there may be a market for such a thing on Lambeth’s council estates. One of my future articles in this series may include a for-profit t-shirt run.

If you worked at an agency, and released an image of your CEO on those terms, you could get fired for Gross Negligence, especially if the CEO is controversial. That is the least of Paul’s problems. He also released images of his own child under the irrevocable license. Theoretically, I could use the images in this article for shock value and would have the law and point 6 (iii) of the Editor’s Code of Practice on my side, given Paul’s irrevocable general consent to any commercial use. However, I have decided that would be wrong. I have decided to redact the image and child’s name – but just produce a screenshot of Paul’s attribution line from the archive I now have –

Understand, dear reader, validly licensed photographs are a useful thing. There are companies, organisations and online groups that for a variety of reasons run robots that scan Flickr and other image sharing sites for photographs with permissive licenses. Some are just photograph archives, some are (for example) historic projects. Some are far more sinister. If Paul cannot notice this kind of oversight when dealing with the protection of his own child, he is far less likely to notice such for a mere client.

As an example of the potential threats, in some countries, especially in the United States, paedophiles have a very detailed knowledge of the law that pertains to their … interests. I have written numerous articles here about arch-paedophile Joshua Conner Moon / James Gabriel Potter’s carefully written terms of his one of his own depraved webforums /phile/. This sort of group knows that textual paedophile stories of children are legal and finds fully clothed pictures of little girls and boys to be very useful indeed to accompany them.

Paul has released images of his child with no control – even for those who care about the law. I have reflected on this, and I am assuming it was negligence rather than some improper intention. In many cases, my sympathy for someone who had done this would be with the parents. However, Paul is supposed to know this stuff.

A cursory investigation revealed that the images had already been harvested by automatic scanners over a period of years and I found multiple copies of pictures of Paul’s child on another website, although thankfully not an exploitation site. However, my ability and willingness to investigate this is limited. It is not possible to scan the whole internet and darknet, and of course there are ‘private’ collections.

Paul’s online behaviour with the pictures of his own child was analogous to handing them out in the street to random strangers in dirty macs and telling them, “do what you want”.

In short, Paul’s online profiles were shoddy, out of date and contained one catastrophic error.

Paul’s employer is shutting down. He needs a new one. Caveat Emptor.

This article was put directly to Paul Simpson, also to senior officers at the London Borough of Lambeth, to senior officers at HfL to former MP Stephen Twigg, to the Deputy Mayor of London Joanne McCartney and to other interested parties. No denial was received. The HfL HR officer said on 19 January 2023 Simpson had seen my inquiry and would reply directly, but at the time of writing no response nor date for a response has been received. One Enfield councillor who is not named was given a week to respond, but then asked for an extension. As the councillor is a peripheral figure not named in the article and Simpson had not denied any of the allegations, I did not give the councillor a further extension.

Edit 06/03/2024 – In an attempt at rebranding, Paul is now going by Paul Hutchinson Simpson. Category added for clarity.