Guido Fawked – A Self-Confessed Drunk

As the questions continue to be asked over the sting on Tory MP Brooks Newmark, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines continues to deflect and project. What he and his pals at the Guido Fawkes blog told, or did not tell, the Sunday Mirror is now likely to form part of the first major test for supposedly new press regulator IPSO. And what Staines has revealed is that his behaviour has changed little in the past six years.

Fart in lift inquiry detects an ill wind

Moreover, he drops himself in the mire at the very start: “it is illegal under the Communications Act” he declared in response to one Twitter questioner. Wait, what? “Sending pictures of your penis via a smart phone”, apparently. Well, well, O Great Guido, I do believe you might not have wished to say that. Does that mean his newly anointed teaboy Alex Wickham solicited an illegal act from Newmark?

Because if sending “dick pics” is illegal, and the fictitious “Sophie Wittams” asked for one, Wickham is toast: In response to the question “Have you mentioned it was criminal?” Staines responds “We knew it”. He also deflects the question “Why doesn’t [the] Mirror claim what Newmark did was a criminal act” with abuse. So why didn’t the Mirror get the rozzers involved?

Meanwhile, the level of projection is astonishing: Staines calls his questioners “deluded”, yet deludes himself that he can get out of this, whatever happens to the Mirror. His attempt to link Newmark to Chris Rennard cannot be justified. His claim that the Fawkes blog’s apologia for the Newmark sting was a “commendation” is bizarre. And, as the man said, there’s more.

He is especially obsessed with bed-wetting. “IPSO is for bedwetters” he claims (the term is also used to smear author Peter Jukes, among other abuse which centres around his belief that Jukes and campaigner Evan Harris have a singular obsession with Rupert Murdoch, who just happens to employ the services of, er, Paul Staines).

But then we get to the main event, the confession that Staines is still fond of his wine, admitting that “Have had a decent Croze [sic] Hermitage ... I can hear the cork in a bottle of [Chateau] Margaux calling”. It was the problem with his thirst – it’s a fact, not a myth, folks – that resulted in Staines appearing at Tower Bridge Magistrates’ Court in 2008 for his second drinking and driving conviction.

Only now, it seems his taste is rather more expensive. But the delusion is still as cheap and nasty as it was back then, as this highly prescient assessment of his modus operandi shows. Staines has indeed become the UK version of Matt Drudge: a sell-out to the right-wing establishment. But all the upmarket bottles of wine in the world cannot mask the truth about this deeply unsavoury individual.

Paul Staines projects on subjects like bed-wetting. He confirms he’s still a lush. His rabble gives off the whiff of criminality. And now he’s in the last chance saloon.