Topham Guerin

The Guardian reports:

There are also questions over how Crosby’s firm uses arm’s-length companies to run its digital campaigns. Since 2016 it has outsourced work to two rightwing New Zealand political activists called Ben Guerin and Sean Topham through their Auckland-based consultancy Topham Guerin, which bills CTF Partners for the work they do on behalf of Crosby’s company.
Guerin and Topham, both in their mid-20s, are regularly based in CTF’s Mayfair office. They also ran the digital campaign for New Zealand’s National party in the country’s 2017 general election, ultimately failing to stop the Labour leader, Jacinda Ardern, becoming prime minister.
Documents seen by the Guardian suggest Topham Guerin was also involved in running online pro-coal campaigns on behalf of mining giant Glencore to encourage the construction of coal-fired power stations, in addition to working in India and Malaysia.
Topham was previously the chair of the National party’s youth wing, while Guerin was a digital adviser to the office of the former New Zealand prime minister Bill English.

Russell Brown is alarmed:

Topham and Guerin, both young men making their way in the booming industry of digital persuasion, may not feel that they’re doing anything wrong here; that it’s all in the game, that working on contract for Darth Vader is just a hell of a career opportunity. But the rest of us might feel that the material involvement of politically-connected New Zealanders in such a deceptive and deeply cynical covert politics project brings things a little too close for comfort.

I have a very different view. I think we should celebrate the success story of two young Kiwis.

I of course know Sean and Ben. Sean was Chair of the Young Nationals. Like many Young Nats he volunteered a few years ago to help out on a UK election campaign with our sister party. He came back with lots of ideas and information about online campaigning he picked up there, and impressed Steven Joyce enough (a difficult thing to do) that Steven involved him in some of the 2014 campaign.

A few years ago when Sean was finishing law school I asked him what he was going to do for a job. I expected it would be the traditional role in a major law firm. Sean replied he didn’t want to work for someone else and that he and Ben were going to set up a company in their early 20s, based on what they had learnt. I was hugely impressed that you had a couple of guys in their 20s who were willing to take the risk of going into business for themselves.

So they set up Topham Guerin. And you know what – they were bloody good at what they did. They gained National as a client. They did work for the UK Conservative Party. We’ve used them at the Taxpayers Union because they’re bloody good (they were involved in the very successful anti-CGT campaign) and Crosby Textor uses them, because again these two guys in their 20s have established themselves as really smart and effective online campaigners. They’re a huge success story that we should be proud of. There is a huge number of firms and people claiming to be experts at online political campaigning and Sean and Ben have carved out a significant reputation for excellence and have picked up a lot of work due to it.

If they were on the left of politics, they would probably be feted for what they do. But if you’re on the right, anything you do is seen as suspect.

What they do (at least for NZTU) is not dark arts. It is simply science. They help test different messages to see which ones get the best response rates. They are skilled at knowing what gets people to click on links and donate. They understand how you can target ads on Facebook etc etc.

So well done Ben and Sean. To get your own hit piece in The Guardian shows you have come of age.

UPDATE: Also worth highlighting that The Guardian has done a classic 2+2=5. They have said Crosby Textor worked on Brexit campaigns and that Crosby Textor sometimes use Topham Guerin and have assumed this means Topham Guerin worked on Brexit campaigns. As with many assumptions it is a wrong assumption.

Also Ben never worked for Bill English. He had left Parliament before Bill became Prime Minister.