On Thursday, I published documentation showing that property developer and Legislative Council candidate Gary Clueit made a previously unrevealed donation to then-House of Key candidate, Joney Faragher. The documented facts are clear: During the 2021 General Election campaign, property developer Gary Clueit gave £250 to then-candidate for Douglas East, Joney Faragher. Clueit is now seeking Faragher’s vote to be a member of the Isle of Man’s Legislative Council, and he did not declare this donation until my questions last week.
Instead of taking responsibility, Clueit throws mud
In response, like a desperate man drowning in a mess of his own making, Clueit has resorted to throwing mud at others.
Clueit has lashed out at the messenger. This includes his false claim that I refused “to publicly disclose any of [my] funding sources or amounts”. His claim is false. His claim is not true. Either he lied, or he is ignorant.
Clueit’s could have responded differently. Alan Shea is no fan of mine. But at least Shea had the decency and integrity to ask me before making accusations.
Clueit’s false claim is the desperate ploy of a man who has been caught doing the wrong thing and instead of taking responsibility for his own mistakes – like Faragher did – he is trying to throw mud at others to distract. This makes him unfit to serve in our nation’s parliament.
If Clueit can’t be trusted with small things, Clueit can’t be trusted with big things
On one hand, £250 is not a huge sum of money. But if he cannot even handle such relatively small issues, then the people of the Isle of Man cannot trust him to handle much bigger issues.
It is extraordinary that Gary Clueit does not proactively disclose his donations, but demands that I do – even though I am no longer seeking election to public office.
Despite his hypocrisy, I perform at a higher standard than he does.
Clueit’s claims are proven to be false
His statement includes the false claim that I refused “to publicly disclose any of [my] funding sources or amounts”. He is wrong. He is spreading falsehoods, either lying maliciously or speaking ignorantly.
Election donations that I received in 2021 were publicly disclosed and made publicly available online at michaeljosem.com prior to the election. They were posted publicly online at https://michaeljosem.com/about/ on 14 September 2021. This is verifiable online by use of the Archive.org wayback machine which appears to have downloaded a copy of that page on 17 September 2021. I subsequently received two additional donations in the final days of election week, and they were also posted publicly online on 24 September 2021. The Archive.org wayback machine saved copies of both of these files the following month: First additional declaration and Second additional declaration.
This public online tool does not record the timing of such updates in real-time, but the logs of my web server does. This proves that these files were uploaded on 14 September and 24 September as described above. This proves that Clueit’s claims about me are false:
In addition to me publishing these declarations online for anyone to see at the time, they were also declared to the Government in the same way that Faragher claims to have made her declarations.
The claims that Clueit made about me are false. They are proven to be false by the documentation above. He should apologise for making false claims.
Difference is clear
The difference is clear. I published the handful of donations that I received around 18 months ago – before election day. Clueit revealed nothing, until I raised questions with the President of Tynwald. After being caught, Clueit tried to distract the people of the Isle of Man by attacking the messenger. He is unfit to serve in Tynwald.
Clueit’s donation was not included in Faragher’s register of interests to Tynwald until I raised questions about such donations this week. Clueit’s donation was not included in Clueit’s nomination papers last month.
While Clueit makes unsubstantiated and false claims to throw mud, I provide details and documents to prove the facts. The difference is obvious.
There are two possibilities here.
- Clueit was ignorant of the facts when he made his false claims about me; or
- Clueit knew the facts, and was lying deliberately.
Either case makes him unfit to serve in our nation’s parliament.
Clueit seems to think that that election donations should be publicised when I receive them, but not when he makes them. He falsely accused me of failing to publish election donations that I received. He failed to publish his own donations, despite seeking appointment by someone he paid. He is a hypocrite, and he must withdraw his candidacy.
Gary Clueit’s hypocrisy makes him unfit to serve in our nation’s parliament.