Guido Fawked – Plebgate Hacks Not Hacked

As the press wakes up to the realisation that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) can give the Police the ability to order the release to them of their phone records – something that James Ball and his colleagues at the Guardian had been trying to tell them for some time – some uniquely creative spin has been put on the whole business by the Guido Fawkes blog.

Fart in lift inquiry resumes

One might think that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble knew by now what the terminology meant – it is, after all, well over five years since Nick Davies’ revelations signalled the beginning of Phonehackgate – but that thought would have been misplaced as his tame gofer, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, decided yesterday to ignore reality and make it up as he went along (as usual).

“Met Hack Phone of Sun Journalist” tells the headline fraudulently, as what happened to the paper’s non-bullying Political Editor Tom Newton Dunn is retold, including the repeated assertion “the Met legally hacked his phones”. This would be a rather difficult thing to do, because, as any fule kno, phone hacking is illegal, full stop, no asterisks, end of story.

What actually happened is rather more prosaic: the Met obtained an order under RIPA to force the phone companies to hand over the relevant call records. As Press Gazette noted, “It obtained the mobile phone records of Sun political editor Tom Newton Dunn and a log of calls made to the Sun newsdesk into order to track down and then sack two police officers”. No hacking was required.

Why should the Fawkes folks tell such a blatant whopper (that is, blatant even by their own low standards) that can so easily be disproved? Ah well. The Great Guido has a column in the Sunday Sun, as part of that selling out to the previously hated MSM, the alleged Dead Tree Press. This requires them to be especially obsequious to Creepy Uncle Rupe at every opportunity.

So, as well as the wave of horror that has gripped those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet, which I noted yesterday, there has to be the suggestion that the rozzers are doing something underhand, which is of course totally different to what the now-defunct Screws did for several years to boost its circulation and intimidate its victims – which really was illegal.

Because owning up that the cops have the ability to – quite legally – reach the more private parts of our lives – including journalists – and that they had managed not to notice that the power was there, even when alerted last year by the Guardian, is something that The Great Guido and his masters in the press are unable to do. It has to be someone else’s fault, someone else behaving badly.

And if Master Cole has to lie, well, so be it. Another fine mess, once again.