Guido Fawked - Drug Hypocrisy

In their efforts to rubbish anyone whose take on the Tories’ bullying scandal is not in accordance with their own, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have managed to reveal their persistence, while letting slip an apparent descent into rank paranoia, coupled with rank hypocrisy that outdoes most of their previous efforts in this area. But their efforts have proved otherwise fruitless.

Feared and righteous with it. No, don't laugh

The Fawkes folks had clearly read a number of posts on Byline Media that provided fresh information about the bullying saga. Then, slowly but, er, slowly, the penny dropped that journalist and playwright Peter Jukes was an adviser to Byline (nothing gets past Staines, especially as he takes up so much room on the pavement). The articles were not to their liking. So a wave of abuse was directed at Jukes.

There had been one attempt by Staines and his pals to rebut a Jukes article on Byline, back in April, but this was so laughably deficient (see the Zelo Street fisk HERE) that they have wisely decided not to put their grammatical expertise, or the lack of it, on the line again. So abuse it is. That abuse suggests that Jukes is dependent on prescription drugs, and that he has not been taking them (you were expecting original and subtle?).

So the “Jukesy 10pm! Time for your medication” from March had changed little by Monday this week: “Morning Jukesy TIME FOR YOUR MEDS!” Yesterday, the level of Fawkes originality was as before, with “Morning Jukesy! It's time… “. But, as Zelo Street regulars will know, The Great Guido is the last one who should be getting righteous about drug use, and abuse, as Edwin Smith’s Esquire magazine portrait of the Fawkes rabble showed.

This is from the opening paragraph of the article: “On the desk there are three empty, supersized cans of Red Bull … painkillers … Behind me, there are boxes with wires spewing out of them, a video camera, ring binders piled on top of one another and two massive cartons of duty-free Marlboro Lights” [my emphasis].

Originality - they ain't got it

It gets worse: “When we arrive at the pub around the corner, the barmaid suggests [Staines’] usual tipple – a bottle of chablis”. A whole bottle of Chablis - at lunchtime. You want worse? Staines has four alcohol related convictions, including two for drinking and driving. His journeys into a state of alcoholic derangement are the stuff of legend.

And talking of drug abuse ...

Indeed, it was at this time last year that Zelo Street exclusively broke the news that Staines had been thrown out of the IoD for drunkenness. The post included photos showing that Staines was so Elephant’s Trunk And Mozart that he was having difficulty seeing straight. A video was added, showing him clearly unsteady on his feet - before being escorted out of the building. He has no room to snipe about drug use and misuse.

And he has no room to smear Peter Jukes, or anyone else, with tinfoil helmet photos. It is, after all, Staines and his pals who give the appearance of being scared shitless that someone might be clued up on the Tory bullying scandal - and that they not only don’t know where they’re getting their information, but also cannot do anything about it. That sounds awfully like paranoia - but I’d stop short of making “meds” jokes. Even for Staines.