Guido Fawked - Anti-Semitism Hypocrisy

Once again, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog are playing the “anti-Semitism” card against the Labour Party, and especially Bradford West MP Naz Shah, who has now been suspended from the party after it was discovered that she had made highly questionable comments on social media before becoming an MP. She has apologised, but now the Fawkes mob is in full cry.

The Fawkes rabble, at their 2014 pre-Christmas lunch, embrace Simon Carr (in jacket and tie). Staines and Master Cole later decamped to the IoD, from where they were ejected for drunkenness.

And I have to tell The Great Guido that he is the last one to get all righteous about anti-Semitism, or the suggestion that anyone caught indulging in anti_semitic rhetoric should be immediately sacked. This is because the Fawkes blog has seen its fair share of anti-Semitic tropes recently. While we’re at it, the Fawkes rabble should also desist from talking about Nazi sympathisers, because their boss … er, we’ll get to that one later.

The Fawkes team took on a sketch writer not so long ago, the first appointee being former Independent pundit Simon Carr. Carr had already distinguished himself by referring to Ed Miliband as “swarthy”, so Staines and his pals had no excuse for what followed. In July 2014 - the post is still live at the Fawkes blog - in a post titled “The Best Reshuffle In Modern Times” (so good that Cameron had demoted Michael “Oiky” Gove, to the horror of the Tory right) came an episode that could have come from Der Stürmer.

“Every week Cameron looks easier, calmer, more in control of his party, his policy and his election plan – and every week his opponent dances at the despatch box like a spastic marionette … Ed kept asking, his convulsive string master taking another swig of the meths”. Marionette. Puppet master. Deliberate use of anti-Semitic tropes.

So did Carr get the sack for that one? You jest. He was still in post the following January, when over the smear line he went once more. In a post imaginatively called “Another Strategic Failure For The Brainiac Leading Labour”, readers were told “Miliband is no Messiah. Pious, yes. Other-worldly, yes. Crucifixion-material, yes”. Talk of a “Messiah”. Someone who is “Other worldly”, who is “Crucifixion material”. More blatant use of anti-Semitic tropes. This item, too, is still live. So was Carr sacked for a second offence?

Was he heck. Moreover, given that the items are still there unamended, it has to be concluded that the Fawkes rabble are happy about their content. And it gets worse: after former Tory MP Aidan Burley decided not to contest his Cannock Chase constituency at the 2015 General Election, Staines went for a consolation drink with him.

Burley’s fall from grace was prompted by his willing appearance at a Nazi-themed stag party in the French ski resort of Val Thorens. The Fawkes rabble had no apparent problem with that, not that there was one rule for their pals and another for Labour supporters, you understand. But it does show the depth of hypocrisy among The Great Guido and his pals.

So anti-Semitism is bad when the Fawkes folks say so, but OK when it’s them. Likewise the odd bit of Nazi sympathy. What a shower. Another fine mess, once again.