Guido Fawked - Wootton v Rayner

It is not only the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker who harbour a creepy obsession with Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner, as has been demonstrated in no style at all by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog recently. What has also been demonstrated is The Great Guido’s stinking hypocrisy when events go against them.

Behold The Great Guido's new hero

The alleged “journalists” chez Fawkes have yet to post another attack on Ms Rayner today: this may not be unconnected to one plank of their defence being kicked away yesterday by an outbreak of reality. The subject on which the attacks have been made is an unsubstantiated claim that Ms Rayner somehow avoided paying tax on the sale of a former council house.

Rather than investigate the claim thoroughly, there has been a succession of highly charged headlines implying guilt on Ms Rayner’s part, from “Tories Reckon Rayner Dodged Tax”, and “Angela Rayner’s Dodgy Council House Dealings Explained”, via the not at all subtle “'F***ing Liar Angela Rayner'”, the quote marks doing some seriously heavy lifting, to the equally charged “Lying Angela Rayner Can’t Hide From Media Forever”.

As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. But then, yesterday, came an item from the Manchester Evening News, headlined “Labour MP Angela Rayner cleared after police investigation … A complaint was made to GMP about the Ashton-under-Lyne MP” and telling that “Angela Rayner has been cleared by police following a complaint by another Greater Manchester MP”.

Do go on. “Labour's deputy leader and Ashton-under-Lyne MP has denied claims of wrongdoing relating to where she was registered as living after her marriage in 2010. Conservatives have also accused Ms Rayner of hypocrisy after it was revealed last month that she sold her ex-council house in Stockport at a profit of £48,500”. Labour MPs not allowed to do that, then?

The Tories should have stopped and thought at the news that “According to the Mail on Sunday”. But “Bury North MP James Daly asked GMP to look into whether Ms Rayner gave the correct information in official documents and to investigate whether she broke electoral rules”. Police say NFA.

Evening all

At which point, Fawkes watchers may have experienced a measure of Déjà Vu. Like the headline “Metropolitan Police Investigation of Dan Wootton Finds No Evidence, Met Decides No Further Action”, going on to tell “In the summer of last year a number of lurid allegations were made by Byline Times about Dan Wootton … Wootton has lawyered up against Byline News”.

Is it News or Times, Fawkes folks? Sloppy sub-journalism. Must do better. But there was more: “Dan Wootton’s lawyers have sent a letter to Byline Times, its editor Peter Jukes, and the journalists Dan Evans and Tom Latchem, informing them that Dan will be going after them for a ruinously large sum in damages and costs”. And quoting ZXC v Bloomberg.

This, of course, is a studied response and nothing to do with Wootton having instructed Griffin Law, the domain of Staines’ pal Donal Blaney, he of Young Britons’ Foundation fame. The Great Guido also claims “Byline Times maliciously chose to name Dan for political reasons” and talks of an “attempt to destroy Dan’s reputation”. However, one item is missing.

And that is the minor point that Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) has decided to dispense permanently with the deeply unpleasant Wootton’s services (so have the Mail titles), but neither has been in receipt of any communication telling them that poor Desperate Dan has been subject to an attempt to destroy The Great Man’s reputation.

Yet, as I type, there has been no word from the Fawkes rabble telling that Ms Rayner has also been told by the cops that there will be No Further Action. But it is highly likely that there will be more bad faith attacks on the Labour deputy leader, whether from Staines and his assembled creeps, or the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, or both.

Once, the Fawkes blog was really independent. No longer. Staines always wanted to be part of the establishment club. What an unprincipled crawler.

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