BORIS Johnson’s powerful chief adviser was unrepentant yesterday despite the sharp exit of his first Downing Street “weirdo”.
Andrew Sabisky left his post as a “contractor” on Monday night following days of rows over his views on race and eugenics.
Reports yesterday suggested the final straw for Number 10 and the Prime Minister was The National’s exclusive story on the 27-year-old’s Reddit posts, covering subjects including incest and paedophilia.
Certainly his resignation came just hours after we put the unearthed comments to Downing Street.
Pressed on Sabisky’s departure, Dominic Cummings (below) told reporters to “read Philip Tetlock’s ‘Superforecasting’ instead of political pundits who don’t know what they are talking about”.
Actually answering press questions was left to Johnson’s relatively junior Business Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng. He claimed Sabisky had “jumped before he was pushed”.
He told Sky News: “I don’t know how this man appeared on the horizon, I don’t know how he was recruited ... what I do know is that his remarks were offensive and racist and as soon as they came to light he left the Government pretty quickly. I think we should prevent racists from coming into No 10 or wherever he was working. I think we do need to look at these processes.”
Kwarteng promised that “the vetting will be much more severe” after Sabisky’s resignation.
Kirsty Blackman, the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster, said Johnson needed to “come clean” over the recruitment process.
She added: “It is beyond shameful that a man with a well-documented history of unapologetically offensive, misogynistic, and racist remarks was considered by Number 10 to be an appropriate hire.
READ MORE: Andrew Sabisky made vile claims about women and sex on Reddit
“Special advisers do not have the power to hire contractors or to appoint advisers without ministerial approval so there must now be full transparency and the Tories must set out which government minister signed off on hiring Sabisky?
“What vetting was carried out during the process? And, what role Sabisky was hired for and what his main duties would have been?”
Former Tory minister Caroline Nokes, chairwoman of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, criticised the “silence” from Downing Street.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m relieved that Mr Sabisky has resigned.
“I was disappointed that yesterday there was silence from Downing Street regarding his previous comments and it does seem that when the call went out for misfits and weirdos that was exactly what Downing Street got.”
At the start of the year, Cummings posted a blog calling for “weirdos and misfits with odd skills” to apply for new jobs within No 10.
Sabisky was one of the thousands who applied. Downing Street has refused to say what work he was given to do for the Prime Minister, though its been suggested he was working on the Government’s upcoming defence review.
Ministers were uncomfortable after becoming aware of comments made by the new recruit, including claims in a 2014 blogpost that there are racial differences in intelligence. He also suggested that black Americans are on average less intelligent than white Americans.
READ MORE: READ: Andrew Sabisky's vile Reddit posts about women and sex
Sabisky also suggested introducing compulsory contraception under a blog post by Cummings as a means of preventing a “permanent underclass”.
In yesterday’s National we shared details of posts in which Sabisky apparently advised a woman that her boyfriend liking pornography about incest, paedophilia and rape was not “that much to worry about”.
Sabisky also said he had “a thing for incest erotica myself”.
In a now deleted tweet, Sabisky blamed “media hysteria” for his resignation, and said he was leaving to avoid being a distraction.
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