Jared O’Mara PMQs Own Goal

And so, as the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog continued to show the world that their attack on Sheffield Hallam’s Labour MP Jared O’Mara was not a passing fad, but something they had spent months on, trawling every publication, social media account and message board frequented by him, came the golden opportunity for their favoured party to make capital from the affair.

Behold the enforcer of high principles

Sadly, this part of the Fawkes massive’s campaign was destined to turn out not necessarily to their advantage, as their lack of contacts anywhere near the top of the Labour Party, combined with the accident-prone nature of Theresa May, conspired to turn their prize firework into a damp squib, despite more revelations this morning.

After posting two more items during the morning about O’Mara, and taunting Labour for not acting, The Great Guido then had to move quickly as it was revealed that the party had in fact suspended him. The process may well have been under way yesterday, but no-one at Labour HQ talks to Staines and his dirt-digging schoolboys nowadays.

Undeterred by this, or that their witness Sophie Evans was turning out to be significantly less reliable than they had led the rest of the media to believe, the Fawkes rabble waited for Brave Treeza to put the knife into Jezza at PMQs. Sadly, the session was once again overshadowed by the PM’s shakiness under fire, and not many noticed her swipe at Labour and O’Mara, as they were still digesting another defeat over Universal Credit.

Still, off they went, telling readers “May On Jared: MPs Must Show Woman Respect”, and going on to tell “Theresa May responds to the Jared O’Mara scandal: ‘All of us in the House should have due care and attention to the way in which we refer to other people and should show women in public life the respect they deserve’”. There was even room for a final snark at Jezza: “Remarkable it took Labour so long to deal with him”.

Ah, the shonky moral high ground of The Great Guido: look who is behind Theresa May in that image - Scottish secretary David Mundell. The same David Mundell who knows all about “showing women in public life the respect they deserve”, because he was caught on camera last April audibly calling Yvette Cooper a “bitch”. The video, with Ms Cooper’s demolition of Theresa May, and his contribution amplified, proves He Done It.

That’s on top of the Fawkes rabble’s lamentable record, featuring as it does all those instances of calling women “Totty” and the all too regular “Totty Watch” - plus Staines’ creepy obsession with Diane Abbott. It’s on top of the homophobic smears of William ‘Ague and Chris Bryant. It’s on top of the premeditated entrapment of Tory MP Brooks Newmark following a Fawkes fishing expedition by teaboy Alex Wickham.

The Great Guido got precisely zip from Theresa May’s lame snark during PMQs - except that, with Mundell still in place on the Government front bench, observers will have been reminded that for the Fawkes rabble, and their chosen party, respect for women is a concept so flexible they have taken it beyond the limits of elasticity.

All that effort and back to Square One. Another fine mess, once again.