Guido Fawked – Mirror Smear Admission

It was always the contention of this blog that the attempt by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes, to go after the Mirror and claim it was involved in phone hacking, was no more than an attempt at retaliation for the misfortune of his beloved Rupe, to get the lefties as payback. In an unexpected display of candour, The Great Guido had admitted that that was exactly what it was.

Still at CNN, just to put you off watching

Penning a leering and characteristically self-congratulatory piece for the serially dishonest right-wing group rantfest that is The Commentator, Staines pauses briefly to claim that Cabinet Ministers give him the time of day, that Phonehackgate was orchestrated by the deeply subversive Guardian and Tom Watson, and that he “briefed” former Tory MP Louise Mensch (who’s no longer speaking to him).

And into Staines’ paranoid mindset – remember, his odious tame gofer Henry Cole was sure that Phonehackgate was an attempt by the left to get payback for Damian McBride – thus came the idea. The Tories “needed to pull the Labour backing tabloids like the Daily Mirror into the mud as well, with a Labour-leaning media villain to counter-balance Andy Coulson”. Thus the admission.

We know from the Operation Motorman material that the Mirror was not the only title outside the Murdoch empire that was indulging in what Nick Davies called “The Dark Arts”, but Staines was not, by his own admission, motivated by anything other than vindictiveness for what “the left” had done to News International. His assertion that he spoke to “ex-Mirror journalists” is also stretching it a bit.

The Fawkes expose of the Sven’n’Ulrika-ka-ka-ka affair that followed managed to miss several sources (covered on this blog HERE and HERE) that confirmed that the Mirror got this story because someone at the Screws, which had been hacking their phones, let it slip. The Mirror scoop was a bargain basement job – it had to be, given the pressure to get it out there before the following weekend. There was no hacking.

And so far, Staines’ efforts to bring down the appalling Piers “Morgan” Moron as revenge for Andy Coulson’s fall have had no effect whatever. Even Matt Drudge has given up on The Great Guido. Moreover, it’s clear that the Coulson story has a long way to run, not least because of his use of the expertise of the likes of Jonathan Rees, something that Staines conveniently forgets to mention.

Staines, who under the headline of the piece is spuriously claimed to have enjoyed some involvement with Operation Motorman, concludes by finding adversely upon independent press regulation underpinned by statute, while saying there are already laws in place. He does not, to no surprise at all, mention the Jefferies, Murat, Stagg or McCann affairs. But he does pretend to be very important indeed.

The reality is that The Great Guido is anything but. Another fine mess, once again.