Guido Fawked - Jukes Riposte Farce

Declining standards of spoken and written English are becoming more and more apparent. Sadly, one does not have to look far to see this, and today has brought a particularly ripe example from the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who were recently called out for their pro-Tory line by Peter Jukes. In attempting to rebut his byline.com piece, someone has opened mouth and inserted boot.

Fart in lift Inquiry suffers non-information dump

So let us start at the very beginning, as it’s a very good place to start. And the Fawkes crowd go wrong before the end of the first sentence: “There are a number of factual inaccuracies in your byline.com article about our organ ‘Guido Fawkes’ written by Mr Peter Jukes, dated 16 April, 2015”. You’re short of a comma, chumps - otherwise you’re saying “our organ ‘Guido Fawkes’ written by Mr Peter Jukes”. And, as the man said, there’s more.

“Just last week our criticism of the Prime Minister appeared on The Week Tonight With John Oliver. Where Mr Jukes could have watched it in Los Angeles”. It’s called “Last Week Tonight”, clowns. And the correct second sentence should have read something like “Which [not “Where”] Mr Jukes could have watched in Los Angeles”. Try again.

“Mr Jukes claims ‘the only story the Fawkes blog has broken rather than rushed to publication or stolen from somewhere else, was entrapping a Tory MP, Brooks Newmark, in a sexting scandal.’ This is simply untrue”. Fine - then give just one example (none is given). And no complaint is made about “stolen from elsewhere”, which is interesting.

“‘Staines hosted a champagne dinner in Westminster, attended by various Tory luminaries, including Michael Gove’. Mr Gove did not attend. There is zero proof presented for this assertion”. Gove appeared in a pre-recorded video message, so it’s an easy enough mistake to make. And Jukes’ statement included the name “Boris Johnson”, which the reply has snipped, thus spraying any credit up the nearest wall. Must try harder.

This one you’ll love: “Regarding our Westminster Bureau Chief Mr Harry Cole, ‘Last time I saw him in Westminster, early evening, his jogging gear. Still disarmingly charming, he looked like a hopeful young Conservative candidate.’ Presumably this is based on his ethnicity and gender?” Ooh look everyone, the Fawkes rabble is trying to call racist on someone else, er, on the basis of their own assumption. So the answer to the follow-up, 
“Is this kind of stereotyping really acceptable in this day and age?”, is no it isn’t, and it’s you idiots doing the stereotyping. Oh, and “Westminster Bureau Chief”? F*** off.

“‘Staines also attended a fundraising dinner for the Tory party earlier this year, during which he apparently bid for a shopping trip with the home secretary Theresa May.’ Mr Staines was a guest, he did not pay for a ticket [nobody said he did], his bid was £666. It was a joke bid”. So Jukes’ assertion was correct. Next.

“Mr Jukes claims that our organ is ‘increasingly shrill’ with ‘desperate attempts to destroy the Labour party election campaign’. This has of course in fact been our consistent editorial stance from the outset since 2004”. So Jukes’ assertion is correct, and “from the outset since 2004” is bad English. And now for the pièce de résistance.

“Mr Jukes claims that our organ is ‘a disownable branch of the Conservative Party HQ.’ If Mr Jukes had spoken to us - he has not - he would have been told that contrary to his assertion the Conservative Party press office has at times during this election cycle refused to speak us”. Missing “to” between “speak” and “us”, and, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, Master Cole has plenty of pals within the Tory Party who he can talk to about going on within Conservative HQ, and two, HIS GIRLFRIEND WORKS THERE. Christ on a bike, this is lame.

Here you are, Fawkes folks, your literary arse on a plate. You can wipe up the mess yourselves. Another fine mess, once again.