Guido Fawked – Wilful Blindness

[Update at end of post]

Goings-on at the Leveson enquiry are, as I write, not being reported by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole at the Guido Fawkes blog. This may not be unconnected to the allegation made earlier by actor Hugh Grant that the Mail On Sunday must have hacked his phone: the Fawkes blog has a nice little earner with the Dacre press.

What do you mean I have to stay awake?

And it isn’t the only news item where the less than dynamic duo are behind the curve today: the appointment of a political editor for the BBC Newsnight programme is apparently imminent, so the Fawkes blog has to show that it has the contacts and the knowledge. This consists of recycling a Tweet from Adam Boulton of Sky News (“first for breaking wind”).

This by itself might, however, give the game away and demonstrate that Staines and Cole haven’t a clue (again), so there are a couple of paragraphs of accompanying verbiage where the supposed candidates pass before inspection before the Fawkes blog so that its superior insights may be applied. Eventually, readers are told that “Guido would put a readies [sic] on [John] Piennar [sic] if there was a book open”.

No doubt this is completely unconnected to another Tweet, this from Neil Midgley, that Pienaar had already been appointed, according to rumours coming out of the Beeb. But this is a mere taster for the routine hypocrisy exhibited by Cole this afternoon over Leveson. Responding angrily to a wind-up Tweet by Alastair Campbell, he leapt to the defence of the Mail.

Big Al had suggested that, following Grant’s assertion that the Mail had been hacking his phone, the law should in short order be heading in the general direction of Dacre Towers. This caused Cole’s humour circuit to overload and short out, as he fired back “er the evidence being?” as Campbell chortled into his BlackBerry. Thus the double standard was exposed.

Cole and Staines have churned out post after post in their attempt to pin phone hacking on the appalling Piers “Morgan” Moron, and none of them has contained even a sliver of original information. No new evidence has been provided, and they are yet to follow through on their laughable claim that “we’re taking our evidence to the Metropolitan Police”.

But as soon as someone suggests the rozzers home in on their new best pal Dacre, the evidential bar is hoisted rather higher. Staines and Cole are not merely clueless, they’re blinkered tribalists who can’t bring themselves to look at Phonehackgate unless they can pin something on those rotten lefties. Which paper was top of the Operation Motorman charts, lads?

Have to hurry you, no conferring ...

[UPDATE 22 November: the Curse Of Guido has struck again, as John Pienaar did not get the Newsnight job, which went instead to the Guardian's Allegra Stratton. Whether Staines and Cole actually put any money on their hunch is something that probably won't see the light of day. Another fine mess]