Guido Fawked - Pizza Hut Giveaway

It has been stressed many times on this blog that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, far from being the independent free spirits that they would have us believe, are in reality in hock to the press establishment, having gone from mocking the so-called “Dead Tree Press” to being their poodle - fetching and carrying for them, particularly that part of the press run by the Murdoch mafiosi.

And today has brought, effectively, another admission that The Great Guido shills for the Murdoch press, as a result of another successful campaign to remind those advertisers and retailers who advertise in papers like the Sun that this paper is one that promotes hate speech, and has done against a number of groups over the years. It used to be all those who were not white, as well as the Irish, but now the usual target is Scary Muslims (tm).

Last Saturday, Pizza Hut Delivery was Tweeting “Want to collect a free #Pizza? Grab a copy of tomorrow's @TheSun to find out how”. Free pizza with the Sun on Sunday! But then came the complaints, and less than five hours later came the apology. “We apologise for any offence caused as a result of this partnership. The aim of this offer was simply to give our customers the chance to enjoy a free pizza to share with their family and friends”.

Now, the Murdoch goons have not as yet directly commented on this act of regret, but we know exactly what they think, as the Fawkes blog has gone postal on the affair. Under the screaming headline “Spineless Pizza Hut Cave To Press-Hating Twitter Trolls”, it looks awfully like Rebekah and Tone have dictated the text.

“Dough! Pizza Hut clearly didn’t learn from Paperchase’s humiliating cowardice in the face of a few lefty Twitter trolls - the fast food chain has apologised for offering Sun readers a free pizza over the weekend. This is the height of spinelessness. Pizza Hut’s food has been enjoyed by millions of newspaper readers down the years yet they have capitulated to just a few hundred press freedom-hating Twitter moaners” rants the post.

This is total crap. As Stop Funding Hate has pointed out, “Stop Funding Hate recognises that everyone will make their own choices about where they do and don’t shop … So we respect whatever choices Stop Funding Hate supporters make, and will try to give a voice to as wide a range of people as possible. But we are not ourselves campaigning for a boycott of any advertiser. Our role is to provide information, so that customers can make their own decisions”. That, though, was not allowed to enter chez Fawkes.

So there was more in the same vein: “Pusillanimous PR departments need to grow a backbone and ask themselves if it’s really worth ditching promotions used by millions of people just to stop their social media intern getting a few angry tweets from mental keyboard cranks. Virtue signalling right-on execs at Pizza Hut and Paperchase think they’re on the right side of this new advertising culture war because they’re obsessing with Twitter. Their real-life customers are the ones who are losing out”.

Anyone spot the difference between that and the style in which Sun editorials are written? No, me neither. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which”.

So sad to be a mere stooge of the Press Establishment. Another fine mess.