...is a very nasty piece of work indeed.
Let's start at the start. I knew about Grant Shapps and his various online activities quite a while ago; he was one of a number of criminals trying to sell get-rich-quick work at home internet schemes. I say "trying", but unbelievably, he was remarkably successful in selling his shit and I dare say he got pretty rich, pretty quick, but I doubt anyone else did. This was when he was variously calling himself "Michael Green" (at commercial events) and "Grant Shapps" (at political events).
Grant has said that he cut off any relation to the "Michael Green" business prior to becoming an MP, but this is a lie. He was still running illegal internet schemes whilst he was an MP and was lying about it whenever questioned.
He - or one of his "assistants" - has been frantically deleting his old websites, but that just shows how stupid he is. He doesn't seem to realise that a lot of historical mirroring of the internet goes on. There's not just the Wayback Machine, Grant. There's a lot more than that you'll have to block to cover up your crimes. But you don't know where it is, do you? And nor should you, because you would almost certainly try to compromise it some way.
Anyway, Grant is obviously very paranoid. Here's what I asked him on Twitter:
I didn't get a response, although it was a polite request about something that he obviously knew about, i.e. his illegal internet activities. I expected some sort of response. I mean, is he really so out of touch with the public that he simply doesn't care how he appears online? For an "online guru", that seems unlikely. Obviously, the guy just isn't into answering questions, however vaguely posed. I thought I'd give him a bit of a push:
But he still wouldn't answer.
My final message to him was this:
And that was it. I don't think any of it was offensive and certainly not a reason to do this:
Thanks Grant. Or Michael, or whatever you're calling yourself today.
