UKIP chairman and North Devonian Steve Crowther was heavily involved in campaigning against a windfarm out in the Bristol Channel, and worked with the local CPRE group, as I described in a previous blog.
At that time I had singularly failed to find out much at all at Crowther’s pre-UKIP history. Thanks to help from friends, I have found out rather more.
Although I have found out nothing about Crowther during the 80s other than that he was a press officer for someone, and a trade journalist, he does appear in the record in 1991. At that time he joined Marketing firm Holmes Marchant, who now describe themselves as a brand design consultancy. Crowther was at Holmes Marchant for 10 years, and became a Director of a Subsidiary, Holmes Marchant Communications Limited, from 1995-2000.
In 2000 he left Holmes Marchant, with another H-M director, Fiona Shepherd, and they set up April-Six limited. April Six, a tech marketing company, was sold in 2007 to the Mission Marketing group. By the time it was sold it had 54 staff and Mission paid £9.55M for April Six, with another £9.45M if they performed as well as expected. Given that the crash happened before the second payment I don’t know whether it was paid, but Crowther and Shepherd would have done very well from the first payment, part of which was in H-M shares.
April Six provided consultancy marketing and comms services, to the software, reseller and telecomms industry. No, I don’t know what it means either.
Here’s the information release about the acquisition. Gives a little more detail on what April Six were doing. And from this it looks like the company was owned 50/50 by Crowther and Shepherd.
Also, somewhat bizarrely, he was, for 9 months in 2001, Marketing Director of the Shark Trust, a conservation charity set up to conserve sharks rays and other elasmobranchs in the UK. But he appears to have been a trustee/director, rather than an employee director. Sadly Charities Commission online records don’t go back to 2001 for the Shark Trust which is a pity. If anyone can enlighten me about this episode in the Crowther story, I would appreciate it.
So it seems that Crowther made a small fortune providing marketing services to big players in the software and internet industries during the heady days after the dot com crash and before the credit crunch crash. And he has used his media/marketing nous to great effect, both as a campaigner against wind farms, as well as the brains behind the UKIP project.
a new nature blog 
I suspect sadly that like many politicians in for own agendas he will have what we might be forgiven for describing as an ‘interesting’ background, one assumes that he’ll be contributing to funding UKippers campaign with all this self made wealth? Conversely might he be adopting a marketing approach to raise his own profile which will help his business aspirations or links as well as political aspirations – oh dear, I’m a sceptic or should that read an agnostic realist with years of analytical observation of the political species which is at an all time effective low (reduced to two and a half on a good day)?
thanks mud-lark.
Crowther will only be contributing to UKIP’s coffers if he managed to sell the Mission Marketing shares he was partly paid in, back in 2007. They were worth 138p a share when he received them; now they are worth 40p each.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=TMMG.L#symbol=TMMG.L;range=my
Incidentally Chief arsonist of the bonfire of the regulations, Cabinet Office Enforcer Francis Maude, was chair of the Mission Marketing Group during the time when its share value literally evaporated (2006-2009). No wonder Crowther has no love for the Tories.
Reblogged this on nearlydead.
Hi Steve,
Why don’t you make it a certainty to get Nigel into No. 10 by promoting the real issues concerning the British public. A few suggestions would be to cap wages and salaries to a multiplier of 20 to the lowest paid employee’s. This would get a 95% of the votes because that is where we are all sitting. Overworked and underpaid. It would also bring about a turn in the economy as people will have more money to spend. The big bosses don’t spend their huge earnings because a loaf of bread costs the same as someone on benefits!
Secondly, Why have we not started investing in our own energy. We have a huge supply of free energy surrounding our shores because we are an Island and the moon kindly supplies all the energy we need. It just needs a few walls built on some of the main estuaries to harvest this power, and it will be free for as long as the moon goes round the earth. Just imagine, the electricity being governed by the state, would we get a 95% discount in our energy bills. Again, another way of getting the finances back on track. (Also reducing the Co2 emmissions)
Lastly, when you get into power why not make it law that every county council has to build more homes. They can be built on council land and sold as freehold only. These could be affordable housing where the rent would be controlled by the government and would include a 40% saving and a 60% rent. The saving part of the deal will go into government coffers until the tenant is ready to buy, or they get refunded the full amount if they move out. This would also take people off benefits as the houses have to be built and just imagine how many youngsters would welcome the chance of an apprenticeship, after all we are paying for them to be on the dole, aren’t we. So why not pay them apprenticeship money and build up our British industry again. Bring back the Council builders department in all councils.
I could go on, but I would like you read this and get back to me for more ways of making certain that the doors to number 10 will be open to UKIP.
Mike Carrington
thanks for your thoughts Mike. somehow I don’t think any of your sensible proposals will go down well with Steve Crowther or many in the UKIP elite.
Nonsense, I suspect all of them would appeal to UKIP who are above all for social justice and equality for its people.
Thanks Charles. That’s the first time I’ve seen the words UKIP, social justice and equality all in the same place. Are we talking about the same party?
Absolutely, as any member of UKIP will tell you. Ignore the nonsense and vilification from the pro-EU media and study their literature before commenting further.
I have studied much of UKIP’s output, especially on environmental and agricultural policy. You can find various posts on these subjects if you use the search facility.
I thought UKIP was the peoples party, if the elite in your party do not agree with getting this country back on its feet then I think they are just holding back the capabilities and the wishes of Nigel and holding back the party. I was devastated when Nigel said he would retire after gaining the right to leave the EU. In Nigel’s travels he often mentioned these sort of things in his speeches about leaving the EU, but when the manifesto was publicised it said nothing but a load of promises just like all the other parties.
I am writing this reply because of Hinckley Point. What is the government thinking about? This should have been a no starter from the beginning. Imagine having the largest nuclear plant in the world sitting very nicely on British soil and being controlled by the Chinese, unthinkable. Why would we pay the French to build something on our land when we won’t have any control over it, and what about the cost to us normal people who have to pay for electricity whatever the cost. It is already guaranteed to be twice as much as we are paying now, goodness knows what is going to be the real cost in 10 -15 years when it does come on line. Get Nigel into number ten to sort out this mess.
We already have the turbine knowledge as it works very well in Wales. Why not put the first turbine in England south of the Port of Ramsgate to the outskirts of Sandwich where it would not interfere with any shipping lanes, it would not be visible from the coast and it would supply the whole population of the Thanet and District Council with very cheap, clean electricity. The Council would keep control of the cost of electricity and no doubt take a fair proportion out of the income to support the project and let the rest of the population of the district benefit by reducing their bills to 10% of what they are today. Why should we be held to ransom by overseas countries controlling our utility bills.
Cost? I am quite sure if UKIP was in power there would be plenty of money about to support this project. Even this Government at the moment cannot really have any real opposition to such a scheme. Use the money they have put aside for HS2 and get this country back on it’s feet. Once we have cornered the power requirements of this country then we can think about HS3 which would of course be linear powered. (London to Manchester in 15 mins).
Why are hospital beds being taken up by the elderly because they haven’t any where to go while they are getting better? I would suggest bringing back the convalescent homes, with the cost of a manager and a few nurses many homes could be opened up to relieve the pressure put on the NHS by people just recuperating or getting over minor operations.
Please, oh Please try and get Nigel Farage back on track, the majority of people trust him as a politician, he’s honest, trustworthy, likable and knows what is best for this country.
Mike Carrington
Excellent constructive comment – we need more positive suggestions of this sort. As to a return of Nigel Farage unfortunately he evidently feels, from his comments before leaving about the party NEC, and those of Steve Crowther when resigning, that the party leadership has been taken over by less desirable elements and thus probably wouldn’t see much point returning. Indeed a tragic irreplaceable loss.
Snip (off topic)