IN AUGUST 2019 Ian Austin set up Mainstream, a campaign to “encourage a return to respectable and responsible politics and to banish extremism from British politics once and for all.” Austin recommended voting for Johnson’s Conservatives and against Corbyn’s Labour Party.

Mainstream was a relatively low-budget affair, spending just £134,000 in the 2019 election. But it got incredible bang for its buck.

Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Communication and Culture tallied which political figures attracted the most coverage in national TV news and national newspapers during the election: Ian Austin came in at number 11, just pipping Michael Gove. There was a media enthusiasm, it seems, for an ex-Labour MP denouncing Labour — and Mainstream gave Austin a platform.

We don’t know who funded Mainstream, but we do know, from the Electoral Commission, where they spent money during the 2019 election. Among Mainstream’s largest spending was £23,000 to Public First for strategy, planning and advice, media relations and press-conference support.

Mainstream also paid Policy Points Ltd £6,000 for anti-Corbyn “research.” This is a consultancy run by Steve Hughes. Public First say Hughes has been one of their “associates” for the last four years.

Public First was founded and is led by long-term Tory adviser Rachel Wolf. She actually co-wrote the 2019 Tory manifesto, at the same time as her firm was helping run the supposedly “independent” anti-Labour Mainstream campaign.

A “spoiler” campaign with hidden links to the governing party being central to an election is the kind of thing we saw with Richard Nixon, but seems to have become normal in Britain.