Guido Fawked - “Pikey" Hypocrisy

Over the past few weeks, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have been on the case of anyone remotely connected to the Labour Party who they can accuse of hate speech. The Fawkes folks’ chosen criterion is the allegation of anti-Semitism, but this is not the only kind of hate speech for which they are prepared to go after Labour members, as MP Jack Dromey discovered recently.

Feared. But only by rickety furniture

Dromey, who is married to former deputy leader Harriet Harman, had been visiting a local Royal Mail sorting office, where he had a selfie taken with postie Gareth Martin, who had been nicknamed “Pike” or “Pikey” not as a term of abuse, but after the Private Pike character in the long-running BBC show Dad’s Army. After Dromey Tweeted out the photo, The Great Guido leapt into censorious action.

An unsavoury sleazebag airs his views

“Poor Jack Dromey is going to get an earful from his right on Mrs after a morning of banter with the lads down at Erdington Royal Mail Sorting Office” warned the post, going on to tell “Someone should tell poor Jack that since 2007, bizarrely, you can be prosecuted for racially aggravated harassment for using the word ‘pikey’. It has not been a good few weeks for Mr Harman”. It wasn’t a good week for the Fawkes rabble, either.

Sadly for Staines and Co., the message that “pikey” was a term of racially aggravated hate speech had not got through to, er, themselves, as can be seen from the Twitter excursions of Staines’ then tame gofer, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, was was all too fond of using it, and without the benefit of Dromey’s get-out clause.

So we can see - still live - the unambiguous “Some pikey stole my sunglasses. Apart from that a very civilised lunch. Name me one food place ending in ‘o’s' that isn't awesome”. Granted, this was some time ago, but after Cole had become established in the service of the Fawkes blog, there he was again: “So turns put my cyber stalker is a pikey. Who sits down for Sunday lunch before 2:30?” Most of the country, probably.

But then, Cole is an appalling snob, as well as suffering from a clear case of paranoia. And he was still dispensing his racially aggravated hate speech the following year, as he chided his boss with “So @GuidoFawkes arrives in the office blearing ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ from his mobile phone speakers like a pikey on a bus”. One wouldn’t use one of those bus contraptions, as one always takes a cab (as only commoners say “taxi”).

So what sanction did The Great Guido take against Master Cole for his unapologetic use of hate speech? Did he bawl him out openly? Did he warn him as to his future conduct? Did he even have a quiet word with him about it? You jest. He did nothing - except to continue to employ the flannelled fool for another two years!

Because, of course, it’s only racially aggravated hate speech when the rotten lefties do it. When Master Cole does it, it’s just bantz. Hypocrisy, much? Another fine mess, once again.