Lynton Crosby takes Australia's defence procurment minister, Mike Kelly, to court over tweet
The prime minister's head of strategy, Lynton Crosby, is "heading down the path of a famous defamation case" and into further controversy over a libel case he is pursuing against an Australian defence minister concerning a tweet.
A judge in an Australian court hearing the case said last week that a lack of apology from an Australian Labor party politician who wrote a message at the centre of the legal battle meant a high-profile trial appeared to be imminent.
The case centres on a tweet in which Mike Kelly, now Australia's defence procurement minister, accused Crosby, who is Australian, and his colleagues in a lobbying firm of using "push polling", where an organisation attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll.
Kelly, who wrote the tweet in 2011, has refused to apologise two years into the dispute and a trial now could prove a highly unwelcome distraction for David Cameron and his Downing Street operation. Crosby, who was brought in to lead the Tory strategy team last year following his success in helping Boris Johnson get re-elected as mayor, has already been criticised by Lord Ashcroft, a former Conservative deputy chairman, for "becoming the story".
The strategist was criticised last week for his alleged role in removing minimum alcohol pricing and plain cigarette packing from the Queen's speech. He is a co-founder, with Mark Textor, of a lobbying and PR firm whose clients have included alcohol and tobacco firms.
Sarah Wollaston, a Tory backbencher, asked on Twitter last week whether Crosby "still has any connections to lobbying firms which act for alcohol and tobacco".
The questions over Crosby's role caused Kevin Barron, a Labour MP, to write to Cameron asking the prime minister to clarify the position of his adviser, who works for the Tory party for five to six days a month.
The tweet at the centre of the row, sent by Kelly in 2011, read: "Always grate [sic] to hear moralizing from Crosby, Textor, Steal and Gnash. The mob who introduced push polling to Aus.''
Crosby filed his legal claim against the politician in November that year and the case has been continuing in the Australian courts ever since, only to now be on the brink of trial.
Lawyers for Crosby and Textor both told Australia's Federal court last week that they were willing to accept an apology from Kelly to bring the matter to an end. But lawyers for Kelly told Justice Graeme Foster that they had no specific instructions on the issue of an apology. Foster responded by warning that the only defence would be that the tweet was true and that the matter was "heading down the path of a famous defamation''.
Crosby has been credited by MPs for bringing discipline to the Tory party and getting ministers to stick to core messages. However, he is a highly controversial figure and has been accused of trying to "out Ukip" Nigel Farage's party by emphasising hard policy lines on immigration, welfare and crime in campaigns.
His tough talking has also been seized upon by his critics. Last year, Crosby stressed that he had "absolutely no recollection" of supposedly using the term "fucking Muslims" when talking about winning ethnic minority votes during the London mayoral race.
Kelly, who is understood to be in receipt of some funding from his party for his legal costs, previously lost a high-court bid to have the case thrown out, on the basis that the federal court did not have jurisdiction. The high court found against Kelly, and ordered him to pay more than £65,000 in legal costs. The case will return to the federal court on 7 June.
Kelly declined to comment on the story. A spokesman for Crosby and the Conservative party also declined to comment.