Guido Fawked - Blair Blowback Baloney

Once again, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have been living up to Peter Jukes’ recent characterisation - “looking like a disownable branch of Conservative HQ” - as they spin the appearance of Tone this morning as A Vary Bad Thing Indeed, pretending that adding Blair to Mil The Younger’s campaign is already causing Labour supporters to desert the party.

Fart in lift Inquiry straining under pressure

But, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with this idea - it was bollocks. Under the suitably sarcastic headline “Labour Supporters Welcome Blair’s Return”, a post written by newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, readers are told that “Labour supporters past and present are welcoming back their longest serving PM in suitable fashion”. Five selected Tweets are then presented.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the exercise falls at the first hurdle, as the Tweet from Andrew Butterworth (@butterwaa) has since been deleted. He has since Tweeted “Did a jokey Labour and Blair tweet.. ended up Rt'd and Fav by a load of UKIP knobs...  *Deletes Tweets  *Tries to scrub shame off in shower”. Butterworth is clearly not a supporter of any party. Or, it seems, of the Fawkes folks.

Never mind, perhaps the next Tweet will be a real Labour supporter. Christian Betts is that man, and he is obviously apolitical. There is no suggestion of any current or past Labour allegiance in his Twitter bio, or on his website, but we do find out that he is self-employed and works from home. So that’s none out of two.

Third time lucky, perchance? Miranda Smith does style herself a socialist. But that does not make her a Labour supporter. Moreover, she has Tweeted “so, I guess I'm voting either greens or mebyon kernow. westminster have again proved they have nothing to offer the rest of us”. As she has stressed “Westminster have again proved they have nothing to offer”, that means she not only isn’t a Labour supporter, but wasn’t.

How about the Tweeter who goes by the name of Kelsey (@kelsey_feed)? After all, he has passed adverse comment on Blair and Miliband. But, once again, there is no sign in either Twitter bio or Tweets that he is, or was, a Labour supporter. At least the Tweet quoted in the Fawkes blog is still there.

The fifth Tweeter quoted doesn’t do Wickham’s spin any favours either: from the Avatar on Yvonne Ridley’s feed, it should be blindingly obvious that she is not a Labour supporter. Indeed, today she has announced “Sick of the dirty tricks from Westminster parties, false promises & Bitter Together campaign against Scotland I've now joined @theSNP”. And again, there is no sign of past Labour support.

All of which means that Wickham is full value for his “Billy Liar” epithet, and the Fawkes blog once again lives up to its 4% positive trust rating. “Disownable branch of Conservative HQ”, indeed. Another fine mess, once again.