This entry was posted on
Monday, April 20th, 2009 at
10:03 am and is filed
under The Political Weblog Movement.

YouTube – Paul Staines, smears and ‘smeargate’

Days after the 2006 podcast featured in this clip, it was revealed that the target of these smears had sex with men, and Paul Staines fronted up to the world (behind his mask, natch) and asked; “Did it hint enough?”

So on top of everything else, Paul Staines needs it explained to him that being homosexual/bisexual does not make you a paedophile.

(Paul also seems to think that having a dash of minority about you makes it impossible for you to be racist, but that’s for another time.)

The only thing that makes this smear from Paul Staines (and Alex Hilton) in any way rare is the fact that we have audio of it, because Paul Staines regularly publishes peristant smears on his website, and I’ve had to take action over these myself recently:

Stephen Tall – Paul Staines: not the Messiah, just a very naughty boy

Paul Staines is a libertarian who will happily peddle smears that undermine governments, any government and any political party. That’s his role, and one he is eminently comfortable fulfilling.

Paul Staines also has a vested interest in upping page views in order to boost his advertising revenue via the banner advertising network MessageSpace (in which he plays a murky but integral part), and he must know the value of the page loads generated by his policy of allowing people to smear just about anyone under comments on his website. Only a fool would fail to recognise the draw of a widely-read website that allows Westminster wannabes to share unsubstantiated rumours…. and/or how unsubstantiated rumours evolve into ‘open secrets’ via the simple process of repetition from multiple* sources.

(*Or single people pretending to be multiple sources, right Paul?)

Paul Linford – Smeargate was a car crash waiting to happen

Back in 2007, Guido spent months attempting to convince his blog’s many readers that Gordon Brown had been photographed on a rocking horse wearing a nappy, and to utilise the power of search engine optimisation and Google to spread this ridiculous tale across the entire internet. It even made it onto Wikipedia, and when I tried to remove it, some patsy came along and reverted my edit.

He also gave house-room to a sock puppet called “Stanislav” who suggested, in one particularly disgusting post, that the Prime Minister had been steadily driven mad by the strain of repressing his “homosexuality” over many years – part of a deadly serious attempt by the right to fix the idea of Gordon as a “weirdo” in the public’s mind.

None of this in any way excuses the suggestion that David Cameron is suffering from some embarrassing health complaint. But it does put it into perspective, and should serve as a corrective to those tempted to hail Guido as the new conscience of British public life.

Paul Staines’ repeated claim that he is not responsible for the content of comments because he doesn’t read them is eighteen flavours of flatulence, not least because he’s pretty damn quick to delete any comments that highlight less-than-flattering data about him and/or his close mates.

It’s also a bit of a fib, because he’s led the little ‘rocking horse’ game himself by commenting about it and
blogging about it. Under his main nickname and everything. This time.

Paul Staines (aka ‘Guido Fawkes’) is a hypocritical spin-doctoring smear merchant, an unapologetic drunkard, a danger to shipping… and our new sheriff.

After years of nicking stuff from Private Eye and then loftily sniffing that he does not even read that magazine, he’s now being heralded in some places as its replacement.

Of course, this absurd level of praise comes to us from the site of the same man who now touts Alex Hilton as the natural choice to fill the void left by the departure of Derek Draper, so there’s a very real possibility that some or all of what you’re reading could be influenced to some small degree by self-serving political/professional propaganda.

(Sorry to go off like a totally nutty conspiracy theorist and all that.)

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UPDATE – This is an unrelated item that belongs here anyway. More on Iain ‘half of the story‘ Dale later.