That’s my description of Guido Fawkes. He’s always been a useful idiot for the hard right of the conservative party, and that hasn’t changed now he’s gained an element of notoriety. Now it appears he’s started augmenting his reputation by becoming rather fond of the threatening legal letter, tool of blowhards, petty tyrants and ego-maniacs through the decades. Who expected anything more?
February 5, 2008...10:44 am
A sewer, not a muckraker.
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7 Comments
February 5, 2008 at 11:43 am
Don’t you mean a sue-er.
February 5, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Nah, because you don’t actually sue, just issue threatening letters to put the frighteners on.
February 5, 2008 at 1:50 pm
a useful idiot for the hard right of the conservative party,
I think you proabably mean a useful idiot to be used against the far right of the Party? Are you aware of the provenance of this phrase ….?
February 5, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Oh, I absolutely know where it’s (alleged) to have come from- it’s why it’s such an good description of Guido.
Y’see, Poor old Guido actually believes all the stuff he publishes when he’s in a philosophical mood. He realy is an anarcho-capitalist libertarian who believes in the minimal state. he also see’s himself as a populist and a pragmatist though- one whose role it is to use the tactics of the muckraker, the whistleblower and the camapigner against privelege to bring down the, as he sees it, whole corrupt process of politics.
Of course, what the poor chap doesn’t see is that he’s just being used by the same old people who used him before- the old right of the Tory party who don’t give a toss about his personal freedom agenda, but are all for the low taxes, the destruction of the left and the ending of the welfare state.
Of course Guido’s been here before- in his Unita phase, in his David hart days and in his freedom to party persona. This is why I think a lot of my friends on the left think that he can’t be so stupid to fall for this again, so must know that he’s a tool – but I think the combination of attention-seeking, egotism and idealism is absolutely the right cocktail for someone to be a useful idiot again and again and again.
February 5, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Oooo get her ….I think I probably am one of these evil manipulative Conservatives of whom you speak. Behold the puppeteer!
What you are describing is fascist rather than a Conservative but there are many contradictions in Conservatism which is more an attempt to fit the society to the man , himself often contradictory , than the leftish children of the book. I have enjoyed tweaking Devil`s Kitchen’s tail on the implications of his Libertariansim in the past , comparing him to Chomsky , that sort of thing but I am probably a dupe of the crypto paternalist oligarchial elite eeerm…brother hopi.. Your vigilance has been a service to the people.
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February 5, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Thanks for your support, Hopi.
February 8, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I saw ole Guido on Newsnight recently. Inarticulate, flustering and pitiful…TLI