The Great Guido Lies For Banksy

Had one been a devotee of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog - well, someone has to be - one might have formed the impression that the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr was on a hiding to nothing by defending the defamation action brought against her by the deeply evasive and singularly repellent Arron Banks.

The self-styled “Bad boy of Brexit” (there are good ones?) had asserted that Ms Cadwalladr had defamed him in her recent TED talk. The Great Guido, tipped off on a regular basis by the Banks camp, joined in the misogyny as the defendant was sneeringly nicknamed “Carole Codswallop”. Readers were left in no doubt that she would lose, and be cleaned out as a result.

Banks threatened an action against her lawyers. This conflicted them out, but all that the Fawkes massive told readers was that she had “fallen out” with her legal team (that was LYING). What they did not tell was that, when Banks was called for a little light grilling in court, he came across as less than totally convincing. But the judgment could still have gone in his favour.

Except it didn’t: this morning, in one of those rare and joyful GOT THE BASTARD moments, Banks had his case dismissed. HE LOST. And so did all the so-called journalists who joined in with the sexist, misogynist, leering, hateful and totally unprincipled pile-on. But, for The Great Guido, that they had backed the wrong horse so loudly and publicly could not be admitted.

So what did the judgement tell us? As the Guardian has told, “Mrs Justice Steyn ruled the threshold for serious harm had only been met in the Ted Talk but that Cadwalladr initially had successfully established a public interest defence under section 4 of the Defamation Act”. Do go on.

“The defence fell away after the Electoral Commission found no evidence of law-breaking by Banks with respect to donations but by that time - 29 April 2020 - the court was not satisfied that the continuing publication of the TED Talk caused or was likely to cause serious harm to his reputation”.

That’s fairly straightforward. But not in Fawkes world, where, contrary to all those media outlets which have reported the fact of the matter - that Banks had his action dismissed and therefore lost - victory has to be pulled heroically from the jaws of defeat. And so it came to pass.

“Judge Rules Cadwalladr Claims Of Russian Backing For Banks Were Defamatory, Awards No Damages” asserts the headline, managing to miss that the whole point of the trial was that at least one meaning had to have been found to be defamatory at common law in a previous meanings hearing (Duh!). The top-like spinning continued (unconvincingly).

“Banks failed to prove that ‘the publication of the TED Talk from 29 April 2020 caused and/or is likely to cause serious harm to his reputation’”. Yes, so HE LOST. But never mind, Banksy has made sure the Fawkes rabble have got his excuse note, sorry, statement, which they have published in full (yawn).

Meanwhile, some observers have actually been reading those parts of the judgment which were less than favourable to Banks. Like Peter Jukes of Byline Media, who noted “Aspects of Banks’s evidence… came across as evasive and lacking in candour… his attempt to claim ‘Russian gold sector consolidation play’ 7-page presentation was prepared by Andrew Umbers, rather than…. provided to him by Siman Povarenkin, [was] not credible”.

That will not have helped The Great Man. And before all those jumping on the Fawkes spin’n’smear bandwagon get too carried away, Nick Davies, who broke the phone hacking scandal, reminded us what this is all about: “A UK libel case costs a fortune. This stops reporters exposing the rich - and gags ordinary victims of falsehood who can't afford to sue. Lousy news orgs complain about the first point but enjoy the second. Anyone who cares about truth-telling will complain about both”. Guess where The Great Guido stands.

And lastly, this outcome has shown one more divide: between the real champions of good journalism and freedom of speech (who have been in Ms Cadwalladr’s corner), and the unsavoury convocation of propagandists, client journalists, shit shovellers, smear merchants, bad faith actors and casual misogynists (who have followed the Fawkes line). The latter demonstrate once more the rot at the heart of our free and fearless press.

Can you hear me Paul Staines? Your boy took one hell of a beating.

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