Fawkes Teaboy In Draughty Glasshouse

As anger mounts at the shameless lockdown-busting antics of chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings, with an increasing number of right-leaning pundits passing severely adverse comment on him, so those prepared to expend their credibility to make the supreme pointless gesture and defend him have come forward.

What time is it Eccles?

And making that pointless gesture this morning has been one Thomas Hedley Fairfax Harwood, replacement teaboy to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, who has once again been allowed in front of the cameras, this time on ITV breakfast offering Good Morning Britain. He was his usual smearing and dishonest self.

King's Cross station, London. Where might one travel from here?

Sonia Sodha, one of those encountering him, was unimpressed. Quoting his denunciation of Neil Ferguson for breaking lockdown, she observed “This is Tom Harwood, who’s been on the airwaves this morning saying everyone calling for Cummings’s resignation is politically motivated (on [Good Morning Britain] he called me a Labour activist, which I was not given the opportunity to correct)”. The Guardian’s John Crace had more.

“He spends his life saying things that aren't correct. It's literally his job”. Indeed. James Foster was less subtle in his assessment: “He’s an attention-seeking sycophant on the wrong side of history”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here.

One, Harwood is standing in a draughty glasshouse with his campaign to denounce those of opposing view as party activists: not only is he a former Tory candidate (he sadly came a distant sixth in a council election not so long ago), but he works for the Fawkes blog, which Peter Oborne memorably characterised as “The provisional wing of CCHQ”.

And Two, Harwood is in a yet more draughty glasshouse when it comes to passing judgment on lockdown-busting, because it appears that he has been doing it himself.

One exchange on April 13 places him very firmly in London: he Tweeted “Making a list of my local restaurants etc to head to and support as soon as the lockdown is over”, and less than ten minutes later Christian Calgie, another of the Fawkes gofers, responded “There are a lot of venues for eating out in Vauxhall, I hear”. More precisely, south London.

This morning, one Tweeter confirmed that: “The only competent thing i’ve seen Tom Harwood ever do is run towards Vauxhall bus garage. And even that was a bit flimsy”. And then came an intervention from Paul Fleming. “The same Tom Harwood who was in Vauxhall early April but now seems to be in Cambridge”. Oh, hello!

And indeed, yesterday Teaboy Tom was live from … well, Cambridge. And Benjamin Butterworth noticed. “I'm puzzled. You were just on BBC News defending Dominic Cummings' travelling across the country from a home in Cambridge, but were tweeting about spending lockdown in Vauxhall, London? Have you been moving between homes?”

James Armstrong saw it too: “Tom Harwood, with a solitary Union flag hanging in the background, is rolled out on the BBC to defend Dom Cummings”. That appears to be bang to rights lockdown busting. Being wheeled out to defend bang to rights lockdown busting.

Defending shamelessness by being, er, shameless. Another fine mess, once again.

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