Guido Fawked – IPSO Isn’t Finished Yet

Even as the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog celebrated the apparent ending of IPSO interest in the Brooks Newmark sting undertaken by their newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, the decision had been taken by retired judge Alan Moses, who heads the new press regulator, which would prove the celebration premature.

Fart in lift inquiry suffers a blowout

Yes, soon after Wickham told “Pleased IPSO complaint over Sunday Mirror Brooks Newmark story has been dropped”, and his colleague, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, opined “It would appear IPSO has passed its first big test”, it became clear that IPSO had dropped nothing, and nor had any test been even attempted, let alone passed. Alan Moses had decided to proceed alone.

Wrong

Also wrong

All that sniping at the Guardian’s Jane Martinson by the Fawkes folks was shown to have been totally ineffective as readers were told “Watchdog to pursue inquiry into sex sting against MP Brooks Newmark ... Investigation of the Sunday Mirror will be the first time Ipso has continued action in the absence of a complainant”. The decision of Tory MP Mark Pritchard had not ended the matter.

IPSO advised “Ipso is considering whether this case raises broader questions which demand further investigation from the regulator”. The Guardian noted that “None of the other MPs understood to have been contacted in the sting have commented on the case. Ipso may still decide there is no case to answer once it has gathered further information, but the spokesman suggested it was likely to continue doing so for some weeks”. Wickham isn’t in the clear yet.

What might the new press regulator want to consider as part of that investigation? The full set of messages exchanged between Newmark and fictional Tory PR woman “Sophie Wittams” will be a must. Extracts carefully selected for the benefit of the Fawkes rabble will not suffice.

THIS IS STILL LIVE ON THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE

And there is one other area Alan Moses may wish to examine: the inability of the Fawkes folks to be open and honest about their behaviour. One example will suffice: the assertion that they did not publish any of the photos of “Sophie”, which were in any case culled from the Web and used without informing the women concerned, let alone asking for their permission.

As this blog showed, they lied about this, and then edited a post on the Fawkes blog in order to cover their tracks. But whoever did the deleting managed to miss the posting of that same photo to their Facebook page – where it is still posted, and therefore still available to view (HERE). The screenshot was taken yesterday.

The Great Guido and his pals are too inept even to cover their tracks properly. Yes, they’re even useless at lying. Another fine mess, once again.