He describes how he consulted both my father and me over a number of months. I took him at face value; as a well meaning, good natured, inquisitive man with a lot of potential, worth my time and the investment. It was a pleasure to see him succeeding in a domain where I never will (and would never wish to), and was happy to do everything in my power to see him go further.
I happen to know that from my dad, he's had nothing but tolerance and encouragement - because he always is happy to teach those who are willing to learn as many of his of readers will confirm.
Over the months I knew him, I was under the impression we had built a friendship - to the point where I could confide in him. Not so it seems. One afternoon I see a number of tweets from him distancing himself from me and then find he has unfriended me on Facebook. I had a feeling that was going to happen because he's not the first person to tap me for my knowledge and stab me in the back. What is galling in this instance is that that Norgrove himself admits that was his plan all along.
The friendships I built with both men, though, had a shelf life. I knew that at some point I would have to discard them for the sake of avoiding toxicity and protecting my own name and employment prospects. Black marks against their names are deeply embedded in the Westminster ecosystem. This is fine for them because they live miles from it and do not job-seek within it. For me the reverse is the truth, and I must look to London to find avenues whereby I can influence politics.
It was never my plan to continue the relationships for very long, which is why ending it was so easy. I got what I needed and moved on. Call this Machiavellian, call it whatever. They are both horrendously bigoted, closed-minded, lacking in self-awareness and pointlessly rude even to those who have not wronged them. It is such a waste of two very clever men that they have about as much in the way of interpersonal skill as an untamed rottweiler.So here we have a kid who has, by his own admission, used both RN and me, exploited our hard work, rebranded it for his own purposes (to enhance his own reputation), and now that he thinks he has a foot in the door he feels able to casually discard relationships. He made a career decision to win the trust of someone and then betray that trust. This is a man who then preens about his personal integrity.
Norgrove, on his blog says "Pete, despite being rude, lazy, weird in company and unspeakably ignorant about welfare state issues, is at least more patient than his father, whose tolerance of error and divergence of opinion rivals that of third world dictators".
The reason I am "weird in company", apart from a mild manifestations of Aspergers Syndrome (which he knows about) is largely because I don't trust friendships I make in this business. I've had the same with Ben Kelly who we invested a lot of time in during the referendum, but in the end decided to hawk his derivative works to the IEA - where he must have known how we would feel about that - and how hurtful it was.
As to the barb about me being "unspeakably ignorant about welfare state issues", I worked three years in a disability benefit appeals clinic, have myself in the past been on the dole long term, and having grown up in (and lived in) some of the most deprived areas in the UK, Bradford especially, I am not going to take any lectures from a well pampered child yet to take his first steps outside the education system.
Mr Norgrove needs to think long and hard as to why the Norths have a black mark against our names. In part it is precisely because of two-faced users like him who live in and around London who like to gossip. It defines the culture. Because both of us have been in the game a very long time, facing people who would very much like us to shut up, there has been a quarantine zone built around us, which Norgrove has elected to be on the other side of.
Admittedly I do myself no favours at times, but as Norgrove remarks, I am not seeking employment in that domain, largely because doing so requires group conformity. I would lose the objectivity that makes me the sort of person that little suckholes like Norgrove need to consult.
There's also the fact that when there are so many feeble minded sheep willing to believe gossip about me, I really have nothing to lose by playing into it. It has not affected the growth of this blog. When it comes to my overall "toxicity" toward those in the "Westminster ecosystem", it is derived from a contempt for the plagiarists, quacks and frauds who claim expertise on the basis of prestige. Duplicitous shits just like Norgrove.
As to to his judgements about my character, he has me at a disadvantage. You see, though Mr Norgrove feels able to divulge that which he believes was told to him in confidence, in order to set the record straight I would have to divulge things about him that I know he would find deeply humiliating. That's not my style.
Mr Norgrove has called me "homophobic" which presumably relates to some Twitter banter we were having just a couple of days before he blocked me. He knows full well that I m not a homophobe (as per my liberal views on gay adoption which we debated) but he has simply elected to take offence in order to weaponise it against me. It is so often the case that those who stab me in the back invest a great deal of time afterwards attempting to smear me.
As it happens, I'm not really all that bothered what the kid wants to say about me. You see there are dozens, perhaps even a hundred or so people now bitching about me behind my back. They will still be gossiping and bitching about me long after I don't even remember their names.
What I would say though is that you should mark Mr Norgrove well. This is a parasite of a man who is dishonest to the core; a user, a manipulator and someone acting purely out of self-interest. For whatever my faults, I would rather be thought of as whatever it is they are saying about me than to be a bottom feeder like Norgrove. If his conduct is what it takes to make it in the bubble then my contempt of it is wholly justified.
Norgrove should also note that those he has aligned himself with would just as readily use him and discard him just as casually. If there is one thing I have learned in this game it is that alliances are fickle. It is interesting to note how Owen Paterson had his Damascene conversion to the WTO option when it became politically and socially more awkward for him to operate among his leaver backbench colleagues. He was willing and able to discard much of what he knows to be true for the convenience of dogma. And that is the sort of man Norgrove is.
Effectively Norgrove has buckled under peer pressure and in so doing has joined the ranks of the Westminster bubble, the very evil that prompted me to take up this cause to begin with. Eventually he will hit a wall where he is no longer useful to the people who are presently exploiting him, and having burned all of his bridges the intellectual currency and prestige he has borrowed from others will dry up, with his reputation as a liar and a user preceding him.
I've seen these types come and go. Plenty of ambitious bright young things have made their way to London to make a name for themselves but in the end become dismal functionaries inside mediocre think tanks, incapable of adding anything original to the debate - and that's only if they conform. They're a dime a dozen.
At the end of the day people of integrity will ignore the smears about me. Virtually every day people remark that they follow me in spite of whatever problems they may have with my style or conduct. The reason being is that I have plenty to say now, plenty of value to add, and long after Brexit is over I will continue to have worthwhile things to say. Not so for Norgrove, who will rapidly find himself with nothing else to say unless he is able to cynically exploit somebody else.
That, it would appear, is his main talent, because when you strip away what we have taught him, there's just an arrogant preening little boy with a vicious and vindictive streak that far exceeds my own. I am not at all surprised he has found comfort in the company he now keeps.
Admin note: I have closed the comments because this is the last I have to say on the matter and the last time Norgrove will occupy a nanosecond of my time.
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