Guido Fawked - Peter Jukes Attack Unravels

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have inexplicably taken time out from their series of attempts to help the Tory Party in the run-up to May’s General Election to mount an attack on journalist and author Peter Jukes, over part of a judgment by the so-called Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). The Great Guido is cavilling over accuracy. That never ends well with him.

Fart in lift Inquiry experiences squeeze

“Press regulator IPSO has slammed claims made by Peter Jukes, Twitter’s self-appointed upholder of press accuracy, finding they breached Clause 1 of the Code of Practice: Accuracy” tell the Fawkes folks, going wrong at the outset. Jukes has not appointed himself to any role, and there was only one claim. I did say it wouldn’t end well.

And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, the Fawkes rabble were screaming blue murder when they thought IPSO might come after them following the Brooks Newmark sting enacted by their newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, blustering “If IPSO finds against the Daily Mirror it won’t prove it has teeth, it will prove as we told the Leveson Inquiry, that ‘media standards’ are really a form of censorship that will protect the powerful from having their wrongdoings uncovered”.

What was that about “Clause 1: Accuracy”, Fawkes folks? The Newmark sting was published in the Sunday Mirror. And two, as will now be apparent, The Great Guido has no room to call others over accuracy. Only the other day, the Fawkes blog’s attack on Andy Burnham said “back in 2008 when he was Health Secretary”. Burnham did not become Health Secretary until 2009. “Clause 1: Accuracy”, anyone?

And then we come to Dennis Rice, former investigations editor for the Mail On Sunday, who made that complaint to IPSO. Rice gave the Fawkes blog this quote: “This is a judgement which underlines the importance of journalists checking facts – even ones who are sponsored by Hacked Off”. If Rice is referring to a donation to Jukes’ crowdfunding for his book Beyond Contempt, that is in the past, and even if you accept it was “sponsorship”, which is questionable, it should be “were”, not “are”. “Clause 1: Accuracy”, Dennis?

Warning: these claims are not true. Even slightly

There’s more: one of Rice’s most notorious stories for the MoS concerned former UK ambassador to Belize John Yapp. This is mentioned at Journalisted. But you can’t read the story any more, as it was the subject of a libel action by Yapp which the MoS lost. Some background on Rice’s alleged modus operandi is at the Belize Forum (HERE).

And good of Rice and The Great Guido to tell the world what has been suspected for some time - that they are working together. Dennis Rice used to work at the Screws, y’know - just thought I’d mention that. But what remains unexplained is why these less than august individuals should take it upon themselves to protest rather too much. It’s almost as if someone is trying to warn someone off something.

If you shout loudly enough, people might stop and look at you. Another fine mess.