Carol Vorderman - Activist Extraordinaire

A deep dive into Vorderman's "later-life renaissance"

Is Carol Vorderman a “spontaneous” political activist?

In other words, when she launched into politics in 2023 (at 100mph), was this a woman having a “later-life renaissance”, as The Guardian put it. Or someone whose activism is a bit more coordinated?

As many of you may know already, I think there’s a fair amount of organising behind the scenes - and it’s not as if anyone’s hiding this:

joshfwd

A post shared by @joshfwd

The big clue is the fact Vorderman is part of a group titled The Movement Forward (MVTFWD) (also titled Forward Democracy Limited and Swap My Vote, as you’ll see).

MVTFWD is basically a network of annoying left-wing people on X, some of whom promote tactical voting.

Below you can who’s apparently involved, including Jemma Forte, Marina Purkiss, India Willoughby, Emma Kennedy, Femi Oluwole, Peter Stefanovic, Liz Webster (Founder of Save British Farming) Patsy Stevenson and (the exceptionally annoying) Supertanskiii:

Vorderman was literally the poster girl for MVTFWD, as you can see from its online resources: https://themovementforward.com/resources/:

The Movement Forward was registered on the Electoral Commission by a man named Tom de Grunwald, who has - according to his X profile - worked for a number of other organisations, including The Good Law Project (which Vorderman has also worked with. Small world!).

While registering Forward Democracy Limited, de Grunwald gave it two other (campaigning) names - Movement Forward and Swap my Vote. Activists also use the website “stopthetories.vote” - thus it looks as if one entity is four. This “splintering” tactic is a classic among the Left; it’s about making “the few” look like “the many”, giving the impression that political views/ ideas are more popular than they really are.

Here is Vorderman sharing the website Stop the Tories:

Best for Britain seems linked to this movement, as you can see from this tweet below from Vorderman:

Vorderman has spread the word about all four of de Grunwald’s campaign groups on her social media channels and LBC Show:

One past advert for Forward Democracy read “Subject: An election message from Carol Vorderman/ Reply-To: hello@forwarddemocracy.com”.

Media outfits that promoted Vorderman’s tactical voting initiatives include Byline Times, Politics Joe and The London Economic (the latter two being run by the same people, and all of them being heavy on Vorderman content.)

Another person behind The Movement Forward is Josh Russell, who was at Vorderman’s recent book launch (second to left below).

I think it’s fair to say he doesn’t like Tories very much:

Vorderman acknowledges him in her book Now What?

She writes “‘Stop The Tories’ was our first adventure, I’m sure we will have many more”...

Which I’m sure won’t be too hard as Russell is well versed at setting up private limited companies (albeit mostly dissolving them):

Joshua Herschell RUSSELL - total number of appointments (2)

• GEEK SPACES LIMITED - Role: DIRECTOR, Status: DISSOLVED

• DASH LABS CONSULTING LTD - Role: DIRECTOR, Status: DISSOLVED

Joshua RUSSELL - total number of appointments (5)

• UNCONTRACTY LIMITED (09502057) - Role: DIRECTOR, Status: DISSOLVED

• RADICAL OUTCOMES LTD (08315096) - Role: DIRECTOR, Status: DISSOLVED

• START BONFIRE LTD (06936437) - Role: DIRECTOR, Status: DISSOLVED

• THE TECHFUGEES FOUNDATION (10085961) - Role: DIRECTOR (Resigned), Status: ACTIVE

• METRANET COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED (04708765) - Role: DIRECTOR (Resigned), Status: ACTIVE

Josh RUSSELL: Total number of appointments (2)

• INDIVISIBLE TECH LTD (12224845) - Role: DIRECTOR, Status: DISSOLVED

• BAKER STREET COFFEE LTD (12094965) - Role: DIRECTOR, Status: DISSOLVED

Some the individual companies also have previous company names inside the link - eg: 

Here are some pics from his website below (where he has published a piece titled How to be an activist):

It’s hard not to notice the incestuous nature of some of these outfits.

Take THE TECHFUGEES FOUNDATION (10085961)

It’s run by Mike Butcher, who regularly promotes Vorderman content on his feed:

… as well as a Swap Your Vote campaign…

… that Vorderman recently plugged, retweeted by de Grunwald:

Is this what a later-life renaissance looks like, then?

More:

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