Guido Fawked - Thornberry Hypocrisy

High principles can be the most flexible of concepts for the political tribalist, and after England’s women footballers returned from their World Cup campaign - ending in a best-ever third place finish, a rather better result than their male counterparts are managing these days - came a prize example. Whoever was in charge of the FA’s @England Twitter feed was having an off day. A very off day.

Fart in lift Inquiry tries to clear the air

“Our #Lionesses go back to being mothers, partners and daughters today, but they have taken on another title - heroes” it proclaimed, well, briefly, as someone realised this was not the most sensible of lines to take and the Tweet was deleted. It was not deleted hastily enough for the FA, and there was much subsequent ridicule. But somewhere out there on the right, the seed of foot-in-mouth hypocrisy had been sown.

The star of this spin-off was Alex Wickham, newly anointed teaboy to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, who for some reason was not his normal vapid and repellant self, but unusually conciliatory, because, well, the row was all down to Political Correctness: “Imagine needing to look so right-on that you try to get some 20 year old who was trying to be nice fired for a badly worded tweet” he mused.

Padraig Reidy wondered what he was on about: “Um, who is this 20 year old?” It wasn’t a 20 year old, of course - Wickham was, as so often, making it up: “the England twitter thing” he confirmed. Reidy remained unconvinced: “I don't think this is ‘blame the intern’ territory. It was the opening line of the piece, which had the content editor's byline”.

Wickham, though, was insistent: “but they weren't trying to be horrible. On the contrary. Unfortunately worded yes but surely their intent is more important”. He’d know all about “trying to be horrible”, of course, and Matt Redmore was soon on the scene to remind him of one occasion when he had been at his most creative, the Emily Thornberry “White Van Man” photo from the Rochester and Strood by-election.

Wickham had an answer for this troublesome intervention: “she was a shadcab minister! And she really wasn't trying to be nice”. Whether or not she was a member of the shadow cabinet, the Fawkes teaboy does not have the faintest idea what she was trying to be. All she did was to Tweet a photo: the Fawkes rabble did the rest, reinterpreting it in a way which enabled the vindictive Staines to settle a score from when she was a neighbour.

What this shows is that a careless or poorly thought-out Tweet is, for the Fawkes folks, ripe for creative retelling if it is from a political opponent or other target, but “only a bit of bantz” if it’s something to do with football, and especially if it’s more of that right-on political correctness that all those Clever People Who Talk Loudly In Restaurants hate so much. It’s the rabid right’s double standards thrown into the starkest of focus.

The Fawkes blog is a truly flexible concept: its authors may dispense with honesty, consistency, and even reality - as long as they demonise their targets. Another fine mess.