A political consultancy is asked, fairly often, to do things it should not do. Not usually in those terms — the request arrives as a question about what is possible, and the answer determines whether the conversation continues.
What we decline
- Fake accounts, bot networks and coordinated inauthentic behaviour of any kind.
- Creating or knowingly spreading misinformation, including as a response to misinformation.
- Paid trolling or organised harassment.
- Any activity designed to suppress voter participation.
- Facilitating inducements to voters.
- Impersonation of individuals, organisations or media outlets.
- Paying for editorial coverage presented as independent journalism.
These are not aspirations. They are the reason certain engagements do not proceed past the first meeting, and that has a real revenue cost.
The harder cases
The clear prohibitions are easy. The genuinely difficult questions sit in the middle of the range.
Targeted messaging
Telling different segments different things is legitimate when both statements are true and consistent with the same platform. It becomes deception the moment the messages contradict each other. The working test we apply: would this campaign survive every targeted message being published side by side? If not, it should not be sent.
Negative campaigning
Drawing attention to an opponent’s documented record is a legitimate part of democratic competition; voters are entitled to that information. Fabricating a record, or amplifying an unverified claim because it is useful, is not. The distinction is whether the claim is true and sourced, not whether it is unkind.
Emotional appeal
Politics is legitimately emotional, and campaigns that pretend otherwise are ineffective and slightly dishonest about human beings. The line sits at manufactured grievance — constructing an antagonism that does not exist because it mobilises well.
Why this is written down
A code that lives in people’s heads is a code that bends under pressure at 11pm eleven days before polling. Ours is published, it is a condition of partnership for anyone we work with, and it is the reference we point to when a client asks for something we will not do.