Guido Fawked – Routinely Rabid Racism

Back in his college days, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines once sought an alliance with the BNP. This has been spun since that time along the lines of uniting against rotten lefties, but after today’s pisspoor hatchet job on Labour MP Chuka Umunna (yes, another one), some are beginning to wonder, given that the pay-off line in the post is so very reminiscent of the 1960s.

Nah, Alex wrote it 'cos I was on the piss, shit no, phone, ordering some booze, sod it no, food, for a piss-up, bollocks no, lunch. To eat with the vino. Oh sod it

And, to make things worse, Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog never, but never, say sorry or withdraw unless they get leaned on, and so anyone passing adverse comment just gets told to eff off. So what is the latest Umunna schtick? It’s about him owning more than one watch. And they’re rather noticeable, probably because blokes’ watches tend to be. It’s that lame.

The post shows the MP wearing what are inferred to be as many as seven different watches, although there may actually be only two or three (changing the strap doesn’t count as more than one watch, Fawkes folks). And that is the extent of The Great Guido’s imagination, completed by “We’re not winding you up. Everything you’ve heard is true, Chuka really does have a big watch”.

This is, it has to be admitted, marginally more subtle than the cover of Private Eye Issue 182, but then, that was from December 1968. And it was making a serious point: Enoch Powell had just been ejected from the shadow cabinet by Sailor Heath following his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech, which was widely regarded as having been explicitly racist.

The clear suggestion from the Fawkes folks – “black man has a big one, know what I mean, nudge nudge” – was immediately called out by Rob Davies, business journalist at the Daily Mail. In response, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole was delegated to do the e-kicking (nothing sticks to Staines if at all possible) and was roundly abusive (no change there, then).

Davies stuck to his guns, though, pointing out that the Fawkes rabble were reaching no higher than Jim Davidson, and so the buffoon Cole was relieved of his smearing duties so Staines could take personal charge, hauling himself up to his full quota of bellies (Shurely “height” – Ed) before telling his accuser “Do F*** Off”. Thus the lofty intellectual heights of The Great Guido.

This was obediently retweeted by newly anointed teaboy Alex Wickham, who wrote the offending post. And that’s the worst thing about it: clumsy race jokes can occasionally be expected from those who grew up in the 60s, but from someone not long out of University – that’s well out of order. And what makes it worse is that Wickham will think he’s dead cool for writing it.

But it isn’t cool or clever, so just like the rest of the Fawkes blog. Another fine mess.