Guido Fawked – Grovelling To Uncle Rupe

There is a very thin dividing line between loyalty and crawling, and veering across it in no style at all yesterday were the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his obedient rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, in what may at first appear a routine piece of knocking copy aimed at Labour MP Tom Watson, but is in reality a shameless exercise in sucking up to their new boss.

You want more for that column? Jump a bit higher, Poms!

“Hipster Watson Makes Friends Down Under” jeered the Fawkes folks, while recycling an article from The Australian (prop: guess who) which was, to no surprise at all, slanted to paint Watson’s visit to Oz in the worst possible light, not that this has anything to do with the MP having co-authored a book exposing the Murdoch empire’s less than ethical behaviour, oh no.

“Mr Watson, in Australia as a self-appointed policeman of election coverage, was caught by surprise when he appeared on Melbourne ABC Radio with mornings host Jon Faine yesterday” tells Murdoch lackey Christian Kerr, while not managing to mention that the only surprise was that The Australian had sent a photographer to pursue the Member for West Bromwich East.

This, of course, is the kind of behaviour that, had it been used on the Fawkes rabble’s favourite Tory MP (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries, would have had them howling “Stalker!” in short order. “He kept darting about trying to avoid The Australian’s photographer Stuart McEvoy” whine the Murdoch hacks, while glossing over their crude attempt at harassment.

All that remained was for Rupe’s down under troops to spray around a few insults – accusing Watson of being overweight and vain, an area where more than one of the Fawkes folks would be skating on very thin ice – and there was the complete hatchet job. All that remained for The Great Guido to do was to recycle it, and add a suitably derogatory comment from a partisan talking head.

Who might that be? Well, how about Mark Textor, business partner of good old Lynt, of whom we have already heard? Textor was directly abusive, as befits the level of subtlety inherent in the campaign modus operandi of Himself and Croz: this was then eagerly relayed by the Fawkes rabble as the words of an “Impartial observer”. That’s impartial, as in not really impartial at all.

All of which adds up to another shameless display of grovelling at the feet of Uncle Rupe: after all, if the Fawkes folks want to retain that lucrative column in the Sunday edition of the Sun, they need not only to jump when their new master tells them to, but also ask “how high?” as well.

What a bunch of crawlers. Another fine mess, once again.