Guido Fawked – Alex Wickham Outed

[Updates, two so far, at end of post]

Those in and around the blogosphere who make their reputation from unearthing others’ secrets, it seems, are not so good at keeping their own, and so it has proved for the Guido Fawkes blog, where flannelled fool Henry Cole, in keeping with his privileged upbringing and reassuringly expensive private education, no longer has to look in on Zelo Street, as he now has a chap to do it for him.

I really need my own gofer, cos I'm on telly!

Yes, despite having to share a flat in unfashionable Kennington, where the landlord wisely keeps occupants on an electricity payment meter, the tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines now has his own tame gofer: step forward Alexander Wickham, fresh out of University after completing a first degree in History at Bath. Subscribers to the Fawkes blog will see his contributions as from “WikiGuido”.

Wickham has already contributed material to right-wing group rantfest The Commentator, and as the screenshot above demonstrates, Fawkes blog regulars can look forward to yet more shaky grammar of the kind so expertly deployed by Master Cole in the recent past. And the level of modesty shared by the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere is set to be maintained.

Yes, according to journalisted.com, Wickham’s favourite subject is Himself Personally Now, so he’ll be good company for the less than dynamic duo. But the greatest expectation they have for their protégé is his current anonymity, or rather it would be if Wickham had not already made himself a right royal pain in the neck to the kind of folks whom it is not always wise to annoy.

Staines and Cole are acutely aware that they are now well enough known to politicians, hacks and their fellow bloggers for all to be on their guard when they are in the vicinity, and their hope is that deploying the as yet unknown new boy will allow them to garner more of that information that less and less people are willing to volunteer. Think about that for a moment.

The image that the Fawkes blog likes to portray is one of MPs and other political operatives queuing up to offer them gossip and information. The harsh reality is that very few of those people exist outside the jerking circle of right-wing ideologues and yah-boo boys which they find so comfortable. And Wickham isn’t as anonymous as Staines and Cole might like to believe.

Seen this blogger? Send us your photos!

There’s his photo on journalisted.com (also used by The Commentator) for starters. And, as with the inevitability of night following day, more of those images will appear (the email address at the right is the one to send them to, folks, and all will be gratefully received). In the meantime, anyone in the Westminster Village should beware of any fresh face having difficulty holding his half of lager shandy.

Another brilliant Fawkes wheeze bites the dust. Another fine mess, once again.

[UPDATE1 9 August 1130 hours: the reaction to this post from Master Cole was as predictable as it was gratuitously vicious: firstly he claimed that there was no secret, and it was nothing new.

He even managed to get an obedient response from a clown called Jim Manning (who is a proud "Boris backer"). But Cole did not dissent from anything in the post, and my information is that his assertion that Wickham is a mere intern is complete crap.

The flannelled fool then demonstrated his ability to demonstrate guilt by shouting "look over there" very loudly, as he made a characteristically nasty suggestion about my motivation. This comes after he made a similarly unpleasant accusation of homosexuality against me the other week, followed by his whingeing that I was, er, accusing his flat mate of being homosexual, which I was not.

Quite apart from Cole's inability to get my age right - third time lucky, perhaps - this is just another attempt to shut me up. It never works, and never will: the only interest this blog has in Alex Wickham is to alert those that may not be aware of his role, and his presence. Thanks to Henry Cole's petulant outburst, this task has been mainly accomplished.

And I won't be taking lectures from someone with an apparent sexual orientation victimhood complex whose leering pleasure in videoing a 19 year old man running round in a chicken suit (together with a hint of misogyny for afters) some might find more than slightly worrying.

As I said the first time, another fine mess, once again]

[UPDATE2 10 August 1345 hours: yesterday evening, after the kind folks at Political Scrapbook noticed this post and Tweeted about it, there were two most revealing asides.

Firstly, Alex Wickham described a conversation he had with someone at Scrapbook, which sounds rather interesting. Anyone who was in the vicinity - the email address at right is the one to send any details, and of course Zelo Street keeps its confidences.

And then there was an intervention by Paul Staines himself, pretending - as did Master Cole - that everyone knew and there was nothing to see, while not taking issue with one word of my post. The clowns at the Guido Fawkes blog know full well that the purpose of that post was to blow the whistle on their new and supposedly anonymous operative, and that the objective has now succeeded.

For the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere, that means only one thing: another fine mess, once again]