Guido Fawked – Piers Morgan Porkie

The exertions of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer, the flannelled fool Henry Cole, at the Guido Fawkes blog have taken so much out of the less than dynamic duo that they have left the field of play, with the Fawkes blog at present in the less than seasoned hands of intern Alex Wickham. So there can be no pretence of exclusivity, or closeness to whispers from the corridors of power.

Don't worry, he's not coming back just yet

Intstead, Wickham is falling back on scouring the web and inflating gossip and rumour into what appear to be full-blown stories. But, as this morning’s attack on the appalling Piers “Morgan” Moron shows, they are nothing more than the usual mix of exaggeration and smear. “CNN Put Piers On Probation” says the headline. But they haven’t. So what’s the actual story?

The source of the Fawkes blog post is an article in the New York Post, which to no surprise at all is under the less than benign stewardship of Rupert Murdoch, who has a personal stake in the cable news business, being the owner of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). So Rupe and his troops trying to destabilise the opposition should surprise nobody.

No they haven't

Moreover, while the Fawkes blog asserts “June saw Piers drag the channel’s viewing figures to a 21-year low”, the fact of the matter is that Moron, like or loathe him, is CNN’s highest rating host over a one-hour time slot (the only way that Anderson Cooper’s numbers can be made to look better is to add the figures for both his slots together). Your highest rating host doesn’t drag anything.

And, while it would surprise no-one, given CNN’s dreadful recent managerial record, if they were to sack Moron tomorrow, it would make little sense, given they are already having to rely on Cooper to cover two weekday evening slots, and replacements are likely to be harder to persuade than to identify. And the new ideas that the Post is talking about are late night and weekend ones.

Really quality captioning there

As to the quality of the Post report, I will comment no further, other than to observe that the top photo is captioned “FACES OF FUTURE: CNN’s only two stars right now are Anderson Cooper (above)”. That kind of guff may satisfy the Fawkes blog, but should not trouble anyone who wants to take the subject seriously. So why does Staines encourage his latest gofer to recycle and exaggerate thus?

Simples. Staines has set his sights on downing Moron as a way of showing that he really has the power, although he’s got nothing to go on, and more than likely never will have. But, as with Chris Huhne, he’ll claim credit should anything happen to Moron in the near future. In this way, the self-perpetuated myth of The Great Guido is duly burnished and then sold on to the foolish and gullible.

Until then, it’ll be more second-hand rumour. Another fine mess, once again.