He Took Kremlin Money Too

It seems that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have been suffering from selective memory loss of late: as Staines and his acolytes have taken more than a little pleasure in observing accusations that the Kremlin has been giving financial assistance to UKIP, there has been not even a mention of the inconvenient fact that The Great Guido has also benefited from Russian generosity.

Yesterday, in a post titled “Clinton Aide Claims Kremlin Funding UKIP”, the Fawkes folks told “Team Clinton have continued their attacks on the Breitbart-UKIP nexus, with a top Hillary adviser boldly claiming: ‘the Russians are openly funding UKIP’”, going on to claim “There has long been lurid speculation of clandestine financial links between the Kremlin and anti-establishment parties in Europe” and concluding “Of course, there is as yet no actual evidence to support any of the claims”.

And today came “Farage: I’ve Never Taken A Penny From Putin”, which does not rule out that the pennies, or whatever other kind of currency unit might have been used, could have come from someone other than Vladimir Vladimirovich. The post then goes on to take a Breitbart “interview” as reliable, and suggests readers of the Fawkes blog should instead “look over there” at those who may or may not fund the Clinton Foundation.

The Great Guido observes in conclusion “Bit rich of Saudi-funded Hillary, a ‘family friend’ of Egyptian tyrant Hosni Mubarak, to accuse anyone else of having cosy relationships with foreign despots”, forgetting that his own relationship with, er, foreign despots is well known, well enough for Zelo Street to have picked up on it back in July 2012 - more than four years ago. Once again, Staines was making similar accusations against others.

Back then, it was Labour MP Chris Bryant who was the subject of a routine smear: as he had a column in the Independent, run by Evgeny Lebedev (who is a British citizen), the Fawkes blog talked of “Moscow Gold”, and a “Billionaire’s Bung”. But there was a problem with this line of attack: published alongside the post was an advert for none other than the Embassy of, er, Russia. The Fawkes blog was bang to rights.

The Fawkes rabble had smeared Chris Bryant on a nod-and-wink - where the Indy got its funding could not be proved one way or the other - while being very clearly paid by the Kremlin themselves. It then got worse: the Zelo Street story was picked up in the next issue of Private Eye magazine, which described Staines as a “salad-dodging blogger” and “portly pundit”, rather than a lumbering fat lush.

Staines’ then tame gofer, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole (aged 17 3/4), tried to pass off the Eye appearance by chuntering that “it was all in the Standard a while back”, because it cannot be stressed enough that The Great Guido does not, repeat does not, repeat DOES NOT look in on Zelo Street. That’s why Staines and Cole have never issued legal threats against this blog, only to see them suitably rebuffed.

Still, good to see the Fawkes rabble still majoring in hypocrisy. Another fine mess.