Public First Ltd as a Snake Inside the British Government, Shoehorning Microsoft Surveillance and Rogue Deals
A bit like BECTA
4 days ago we showed what Microsoft had sneakily done and what Microsoft then did to press coverage about its corruption in the UK ("After Microsoft Exec Given Advisory Role, UK Prime Minister Says Regulators Need to Favour Growth"). They effectively bribed CMA to allow a takeover which they lied the FTC about (also got the judge in their back pockets).
See, at Microsoft the corruption is pretty much the norm and instead of hiring mentally-capable techs they hire lots of perverts, stabbers, and men who strangle women. It's generally a very sick company which attracts rather sick people. Morality can implicitly disqualify one from the job. Morality may mean one wouldn't get along with the group (colleagues). Judges have already made statements to that effect. They could not stand Microsoft's behaviour.
"I'd encourage adding to the original article or making a second one," one person told us, "rather than cross-linking."
The latest incident in the UK was covered in many sites and discussed in some forums, blogs, aggregators etc. But what exactly happened?
"Microsoft conflict of interest and infiltration of governments is an important topic with serious negative repercussions for national defense," an associate remarked. We saw that in CISA (US) this year [1, 2, 3, 4], to name just one example.
While the media spreads SPAM or FUD about Linux, giving or leaving people with false impressions and expectations, Microsoft is invading even the Linux Foundation to 'speak' for it. This is what Microsoft is good at: infiltration. Microsoft does this everywhere, all the time, as it inherently operates like a cult and even takes over opposition sites. One might say that these tactics go a long way back because the mother of Bill Gates was on the board of IBM and this is how Microsoft really took off. Microsoft did not need any spectacular products, just Microsoft inside the board of IBM.
In the case of the UK, Microsoft needs seats in the government, the Labour Party, CMA etc. It is called entryism and it is a real thing. It's a known problem, no matter what word gets used to express or refer to it. This is why vetting and transparency are so important. This is where journalism becomes vital.
Why would the UK start spouting out the same buzzwords Microsoft stands to benefit from? Knowing "the surveillance aspect and that the LLMs leak like crazy," [1, 2, 3] to quote an associate, they clearly have no place in the public sector. When my wife first saw that news (before I saw it) she was upset by that framing and thought the response to that needs to be as effective as possible to rationalise giving exposure to "the news" (which she refused to do because of utterly promotional language; it's like Microsoft wrote the statements for the British government!). It is in https://news.microsoft.com/source/emea/features/microsoft-and-uk-government-sign-five-year-agreement/ (non-clickable link, intentionally).
An associate said: "The conflict of interest with the UK having Microsoft embedded and giving policy advice should be included in the rebuttal. The rebuttal should not be too short and is worth spending time developing."
Well, the article (the response/rebuttal) is incomplete and we sat on it for a few days, hoping for a breakthrough to come from some investigative journalists. None came.
What a disaster. What's left of "the news" seems like press releases, maybe rewritten a little by LLMs.
As usual, Microsoft works through proxies in the UK. That's what Microsoft almost always does. Days ago we focused on the press being gagged (changing headlines that state the obvious in order to appease Microsoft). Aside from the "above links about LLMs breaching privacy and corporate confidentiality," the associate found, there is entryism. But in the media they don't directly deal with the entryism. Almost all press coverage is mindless, shallow PR. It just parrots whatever Microsoft says (or the government, in effect a target of entryism).
What needs to be understood is the context. "More details about the "London Event" mentioned in the Tech Radar article are needed before a well thought out response can be made," the associate said. "LLM is not the main issue, but it is one aspect of the UK gov making a decision against its own best interests to the favor of Microsoft" [vapourware] [1, 2]. Either way, there is now more than enough information about the "Microsoft AI Tour London event" to make a rebuttal to parrots.
"Microsoft obfuscates its skulduggery as much as it can," the associate noted, "more with each passing year". In this case, Microsoft has "invested" in the UK (nice words for bribing with money that does not even exist!) and got a 5-year commitment to vapourware and privacy violations, not to mention horrific data breaches.
The associate asked: "What is the "Public First" marketing org?" (blocked by JavaScript)
This page about Public First Ltd says it's not even purely based in the UK, so what public? Whose country? To quote: "Commercial lobbying firm. Set up in 2017 by former Portland and Westbourne lobbyist James Frayne and ex-govt education adviser Rachel Wolf. Frayne worked at Policy Exchange as director of policy, immediately before setting up Public First. Public First specialises in public persuasion campaigns to support corporate ends. It promises to create campaigns that will ‘mobilise people’ on its clients’ behalf. With public opinion onside, they argue, government can be persuaded down a particular route. By ‘positioning ordinary people against elites’ he claims to have successfully lobbied against government plans to increase taxes and regulation on businesses. Who his clients are today isn’t known. Public First announced a partnership with Washington DC-based FP1 Stretegies, aimed at "helping businesses understand" forthcoming UK-US negotiations on a new Free Trade Agreement. The two firms released a YouGov poll showing "clear majorities" in the US and the UK favour a deal being made. Read "crafted a narrative and put a spin on the trade deal to counter public prejudice". Public First are clearly planning to earn their no-doubt enormous bill-to-be. Public opinion determines corporate reputation and sets the parameters in which politicians approach policy. We help organisations understand and influence public opinion through research and targeted communications campaigns. And we help businesses craft policy ideas that govts can realistically apply to difficult issues. Since our launch we have worked with a number of the world’s biggest businesses, for govt departments and agencies, and for trade associations, think tanks and charities. In the past two years Public First has made a number of hires including top Whitehall media operator Gabriel Milland and last week it announced a partnership with leading Washington D.C.-based agency FP1 Strategies."
Moreover, "there is a list of names there," the associate said, "but I am not familiar with UK politics"...
They're not well known politicians and they just engage in lobbying. They try to 'monetise' their links or networks or connections in government.
This looks like an exceptionally corrupt pipeline of so-called "public" "servants":
Well, seeing that some are connected to Microsoftism, this certainly looks like progress and a "PR consultancy" with private clients now tells the government what to do. Free software does not have outfits like these.
The associate has said that "from the little I can see, the deal appears to involve heavy conflict of interest".
Then there is the guarantee of privacy scandals and blunders. See how Microsoft exposed the US government to Russian and Chinese spies on the same year. Data breach is only a matter of time. "The surveillance argument is weak, but not so much on its own rather because the public has been actively trained to ignore such complaints."
So government data is basically being outsourced (again) to Microsoft and this time it'll be even easier to break into. But this is the outcome of corrupt systems wherein decisions are made by "moles", lobbyists and infiltrators instead of honest, well-meaning people. █