I was wrong.
In my post about the initial Ofcom letter that revealed the LGB Alliance receive post at 55 Tufton Street, I said the obvious assumption was that somebody based at 55 Tufton Street was trying to use their considerable influence to help them get a meeting with Ofcom.
The reality is much, much worse.
If the LGB Alliance hoped to shut down the discourse that caught fire on Saturday afternoon with their statement, then they were once again unsuccessful.
If anything, they pissed petrol all over the flames.
I can understand why LGB Alliance are annoyed. If my secret address, that showed I shared offices with some of the worst humans in the country, was revealed due to the consequences of my own actions, I’d be furious too. Let’s be clear, if LGBA had not complained to Ofcom, then Ofcom would not have had to reply, and we would all be none the wiser.
As usual, they have done this to themselves.
Anyway, let’s take a closer look at the statement the LGB Alliance issued on Saturday evening via email.
Dear Supporter,
You may have seen that the address of our London office was shared on Twitter this weekend.
The LGB Alliance state their address on their own website as 124 City Road, London. That’s a virtual office, which is perfectly fine when directors wish to conceal their own address for privacy and safety reasons.
But that isn’t what is being hidden here. They are hiding the actual address of their office which is not located in a residential building.
This opening line, and one further down, confirms that their office is actually in 55 Tufton Street. There is no denial of that. They are embedded.
We have preferred that it not be public to ensure the safety of volunteers who come along to help us prepare for events, take part in training or want the chance to meet with us in Person.
If volunteers are allowed to turn up at 55 Tufton Street to carve up Progress flags, I will eat my hat. The brown one.
Tufton Street welcomes some of the biggest political names in the UK on a regular basis. MPs are forever just dropping round. As are Prime Ministers. Do you honestly think LGBA are painting their banners in one room while Michael Gove is having a cuppa in the other?
LGBA ‘preferred that it not be public’ because of the reasonable and obvious conclusions people would draw.
I hope you will understand that’s why I won’t be repeating the address in this note.
They don’t repeat the address because they don’t want to draw further attention to the fact that their address is 55 TUFTON STREET.
They want their supporters to think something else is at play here over an ordinary address. Trans activists just causing trouble, as usual. They certainly don’t want LGBA supporters, who consider themselves left-wing, to know the truth and the reasons for that are obvious.
I can tell you we’ve rented a single large room that is ideal for our purposes. The office is fantastically well-served In terms of transport links. In addition, we spend a lot of time trying to make our case to politicians and the office is just a few minutes walk from the Houses of Parliament.
Name me another not-for-profit charity, that has been unable to do anything to help its core group, because it has no money, that also feels it needs to be within walking distance of parliament. I’ll wait.
You will be unsurprised to learn that our detractors will seek to draw conspiratorial conclusions from our address. I can tell you that the office was chosen because it, handy. flexible and that it became available at the right time.
Leaving aside the obvious attempt to deflect on to their critics, a classic right-wing tactic, you’ll notice LGBA say that the room was “Handy, flexible, and that it became available at the right time.”
Now, ignore the fact that LGBA want you to believe that 55 Tufton Street rents out space to anyone who needs it, do you notice how their statement doesn’t mention that it was “affordable”? Isn’t that a key consideration for most charities, and their supporters, even when there isn’t a cost of the Tories crisis? Yet here, it’s not even mentioned. Why is that? LGBA’s accounts will certainly be interesting.
We’re really pleased to have a base to be able to build on our work and hope we may have a chance to meet you there soon.
This will never happen, at least not at 55 Tufton Street, unless they need to do damage limitation. Then it might happen once for a photo op, but that would require drawing more attention to the fact that the LGB Alliance are based at 55 Tufton Street.
The building is owned by Richard Smith and has been home to right-wing lobby groups and think tanks for the last decade.
You won’t find a charity like the Samaritans able to get a room in 55 Tufton Street because that’s just not what they do. Despite how LGBA would like to spin this, 55 Tufton Street is not just a regular office building up for grabs to anyone.
You need to be invited in and you only get that invite if you are useful to their cause.
Even some on Mumsnet seemed to realise the implications as cracks started to appear in their addled brains. It didn’t take long, however, for the rest to turn on the detractor.
The last I checked, the GC who dared criticise the LGBA for taking an office at 55 Tufton Street, was being accused of being me in disguise. Everything I’d said in my article and on Twitter could, apparently, be dismissed because I have pronouns in my bio.
These people have no interest in facts and truth and they declare it with pride on a regular basis.
More on 55 (and 57) Tufton Street through the week so make sure you are subscribed.