 | |
Type of site | Blog |
|---|---|
| Editors | Paul Staines |
| URL | www |
| Launched | 2004 |
| Current status | Active |
Guido Fawkes is a right-wing political website published by British-Irish political blogger Paul Staines. [1] [2] [3]
| | |
Type of site | Blog |
|---|---|
| Editors | Paul Staines |
| URL | www |
| Launched | 2004 |
| Current status | Active |
Guido Fawkes is a right-wing political website published by British-Irish political blogger Paul Staines. [1] [2] [3]
In September 2004, Staines began writing an anonymous blog about British politics under the name of Guido Fawkes, an alternative name of Guy Fawkes, one of the group that plotted to blow up the Palace of Westminster in 1605. [4] In February 2005, The Guardian reported that the Fawkes blog shared a fax number with Staines. [5] Although he subsequently refused to confirm the links, further media coverage continued to name Staines as Fawkes until the airing of a BBC Radio 4 documentary [6] about him on 10 February 2007, which gave a detailed history and background, and prompted his blog post "So Much for Anonymity". [7]
In 2005, Guido was voted the best in the Political Commentary category of The Backbencher Political Weblog Awards, run by The Guardian . It was not a survey of Guardian readers explicitly, but instead an internet poll linked to the Guido Fawkes website. [8] In May 2006, Staines (as Guido Fawkes) co-authored a book with Iain Dale, which was critical of the Labour Party's practices since taking office in 1997. [9]
In April 2006, Staines was one of numerous bloggers subject to an injunction [10] from News International for publishing a picture of the undercover journalist Mazher Mahmood. Staines agreed to publish [11] the photo if 10 other bloggers would do so. [12] The picture remained on Guido, and, following legal action from George Galloway, was subsequently released into the public domain.[ citation needed ]
Guido reported the allegation that Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was having an extramarital affair with an MP. It also named the woman in question, saying that such rumours had long been shared among Westminster journalists, but that the blog was being less hypocritical and breaking the clique by refusing to cover up such stories. [13] The coverage of the Prescott affair drew considerable extra traffic to Staines's blog. [14]
He was named at number 36 in the "Top 50 newsmakers of 2006" in The Independent , [15] for his blog, and his role in the Prescott scandal in particular. In 2011 GQ ranked him, alongside co-author Harry Cole, jointly at number 28 in the magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential Men in Britain. [16]
Staines encourages readers to forward political documents and information, which he publishes on his blog. One such leak was a strategy document for the Peter Hain for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party campaign. This leak caused embarrassment to Hain's campaign [17] as it included information on MPs who had not gone public with their support, as well as others who were supposed to be independent.
"Tottywatch" [18] is an irregular feature that comprises pictures of attendees at political events. Although the pictures are of both men and women, the majority are of attractive young women. Staines' wife is referred to as Mrs Fawkes and his daughters as Miss Fawkes and Ms Fawkes. On Monday mornings, the blog features a Monday Morning Point of View cartoon by "Rich&Mark", cartoonist Rich Johnston, archived at the RichAndMark website. [19]
In 2012, RTÉ Radio 1 broadcast a documentary about Staines, Our Man in Westminster, as part of its Documentary on One series. [20]
Vote Leave employee Tom Harwood was hired as a Guido reporter in July 2018; [21] he left in 2021 to join GB News. [22]
Staines has said that Steve Bannon, a former senior adviser [23] to Donald Trump and head of Breitbart News, once tried to buy Guido. [24] "That fell through over price," Staines told Press Gazette . "I never could work out whether we were talking dollars or sterling". [25]
In November 2024, after celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Guido Fawkes, Staines announced he would be standing down as editor, with Ross Kempsall being confirmed as taking over the role. [26]
Staines has made a number of posts on his blog relating to the Smith Institute, a charitable think tank set up in memory of former Labour leader John Smith, which he alleged to have engaged in party political activities (forbidden under charity law) and to have close links to Gordon Brown. These complaints led on 1 February 2007 to a formal investigation by the Charity Commission. [27] The Commission threatened him with contempt of court proceedings if he did not release any documents, obtained from whistleblowers, relating to political activities by the Smith Institute. [28] Staines stated on his blog that he intends to protect his anonymous sources, [29]
Staines has been credited with being the first blogger whose activities led to the resignation of a serving British minister; Peter Hain from the offices of Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Wales in January 2008. [30] [31] [32]
Over the weekend of 11–12 April 2009, Staines exposed in his blog that a series of e-mails had been prepared by Damian McBride, a political adviser working at 10 Downing Street, smearing a number of Conservative MPs which had been sent to Derek Draper for consideration for publication on the Red Rag blogsite. [33] This led to the resignation of McBride and expressions of regret to the MPs concerned from the prime minister, Gordon Brown. [34] Staines provided copies of these emails to the News of the World and The Sunday Times and states that, contrary to the comments of his detractors, he did not receive any payments for this. [35]
His success in the McBride affair has occasioned serious criticism from him of the UK lobby correspondent system, which he believes has succumbed to the ethos of political spin. [36]
In late November 2011 Staines posted on his Guido Fawkes blog the Leveson Inquiry pre-submission of journalist and former Labour Party press secretary Alastair Campbell. All pre-submissions are given under strict and full confidentiality, and all core participants – including victims, the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service – are also signatories. Staines stated that he had obtained the submission legally. Lord Justice Leveson immediately called him to the inquiry to make a statement under cross-examination. [37]
Staines gave written evidence denying any fault or breach of the Inquiry Act. At the start of his oral evidence to the Inquiry, Campbell admitted sending his evidence to "two or three journalists" and some friends. The order for Staines to appear was dropped.[ citation needed ]
In late December 2011 Staines was invited to give further evidence. [38]
 | This article's "criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's neutrality .(July 2021) |
Staines has been criticised for his approach to blogging. He often criticises the mainstream media, stating that they are too close to the political establishment and that they also keep internal secrets about political scandals from the public. When allegations about John Prescott's private life appeared, Staines wrote that "You can tell it is a big story because Nick Robinson is ignoring it". Robinson responded via his own blog, [39] accusing Staines of having a political agenda to damage the government. These criticisms were echoed by Peter Wilby, in the New Statesman , who suggested that Staines's claims to have made the news on Prescott were unfounded, as the story had previously been covered in The Times , and that Staines' contribution to the debate was persistent implications of scandal without supporting evidence. [40]
Colin Brown, in response to criticisms from Staines that the media are too cosy with politicians, said: "We would love to go into print with things that we hear and believe to be true, but cannot prove, but the libel laws are such that we cannot put things into newspapers that he [Guido Fawkes] seems to think that he can get away with on the internet. They don't seem to run by the same rules". [13] Staines responded by stating that he is more vulnerable to libel suits than the print media are; as an individual, he does not have a large company backing him, although he says the fact that his blog is published through a Nevis-registered firm offers some protection, [41] as plaintiffs are required to deposit US$25,000 in court before commencing any action in Nevis. [42] [43] The site is hosted in the United States to take advantage of First Amendment protections, and the editor Paul Staines is resident in Ireland. [44]
The same firm is majority shareholder in MessageSpace, a blog advertising network that sells advertising space on many British political blogs, including PoliticalBetting.com, Iain Dale, ConservativeHome and Labourhome. [45] [46]
Staines was criticised by Iain Dale and Michael White in September 2010 for publishing rumours about William Hague, alleging that he shared a hotel room with his newly appointed special advisor. Hague confirmed he had shared a hotel room, but denied any "improper relationship". [47] [48] Later in February 2012, at the Leveson Inquiry, Staines said he had been paid £20,000 by the News of the World for a picture of Hague's special adviser, Christopher Myers, in a gay bar. The picture was not published by the News of the World. [49]
In 2014, at Guido's tenth anniversary party, London Mayor Boris Johnson said that the site "has long been the dung on the rosebush of politics". [1]
The Guardian 's Anne Perkins has called Guido "a cross between a comic and a propaganda machine". [1]
A number of journalists began their career on the blog, including:
A blog is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. In the 2000s, blogs were often the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Hossein Derakhshan, also known as Hoder, is an Iranian-Canadian blogger, journalist, and researcher who was imprisoned in Tehran from November 2008 to November 2014. He is credited with starting the blogging revolution in Iran and is called the father of Persian blogging by many journalists. He also helped to promote podcasting in Iran. Derakhshan was arrested on November 1, 2008 and sentenced to 19½ years in prison on September 28, 2010. His sentence was reduced to 17 years in October 2013. He was pardoned by Iran's supreme leader and on November 19, 2014, was released from Evin prison.
Following a crackdown on Iranian media beginning in 2000, many Iranians turned to weblogging to provide and find political news. The first Persian language blog is thought to have been created by Hossein Derakhshan,, in 2001. Derakhshan also provided readers with a simple instruction manual in Persian on how to start a blog. In 2004, a census of blogs around the world by the NITLE found 64,000 Persian language blogs. In that year the Islamic government also began to arrest and charge bloggers as political dissidents and by 2005 dozens of bloggers had been arrested.
Iain Dale is a British broadcaster, author, political commentator, and a former publisher and book retailer. He has been a blogger since 2002. He was the publisher of the Total Politics magazine between 2008 and 2012, and the managing director of Biteback Publishing until May 2018. Since September 2010, he has hosted a regular discussion show on the radio station LBC. He was named Radio Presenter of the Year at the Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards in 2013 and 2016. On 28 May 2024, he announced that he was quitting his LBC roles to run as an MP in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, only to abandon his campaign three days later. He returned to his usual LBC slot on 3 June.
Paul De Laire Staines is a British-Irish right-wing political blogger who publishes the Guido Fawkes website, which was described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of Britain's leading political blogsites" in 2007. The Sun on Sunday newspaper published a weekly Guido Fawkes column from 2013 to 2016. Born and raised in England, Staines holds British and Irish citizenship.
Adam Matthew J. Tinworth is a journalist and writer who co-authored two major role-playing games, Demon: The Fallen and Werewolf: The Forsaken from White Wolf Publishing. He was also an extensive contributor to Hunter: The Reckoning, a game line that was subsequently ported to video games.
Edward Glyn Davies is a former Welsh Conservative politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Montgomeryshire from 2010 to 2019. Davies previously served as a Member of the Welsh Assembly (AM) for the Mid and West Wales region from 1999 to 2007.
While the term "blog" was not coined until the late 1990s, the history of blogging starts with several digital precursors to it. Before "blogging" became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, such as WebEx, created running conversations with "threads". Threads are topical connections between messages on a metaphorical "corkboard". Some have likened blogging to the Mass-Observation project of the mid-20th century.
Damian McBride is a British political advisor. He is a former Whitehall civil servant and special adviser to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. McBride began his civil service career at HM Customs and Excise. He worked with Customs and Excise and later became Head of Communications at the UK Treasury, before becoming a special adviser. In 2024 he was appointed a special adviser to Yvette Cooper, Home Secretary in the Labour government of Keir Starmer.
LabourList is a British news website supportive of, but independent of, the Labour Party, launched in 2009. Describing itself as Labour's "biggest independent grassroots e-network", the site's content includes news, commentary, interviews, campaign information, analysis and opinion from various contributors and sources across the Labour and trade union movement. It is funded by trade unions, adverts, and individual donors. LabourList started as a weblog with reader comments, but in February 2019 the ability for readers to write comments was removed.
Richard Horton is a retired Police Sergeant with Lancashire Constabulary, and former blogger who lives in Lancashire. He is the author of the Orwell Prize-winning anonymous blog NightJack which commented on his work as a police officer during his time as a Detective Constable.
The Red Rag blogsite was at the centre of a UK political scandal that became known as Smeargate. The scandal broke on 11 April 2009 when it was reported that Gordon Brown's special adviser, Damian McBride, had sent a series of emails to New Labour political blogger Derek Draper discussing plans to set up the blog which would be used to post false rumours about the private lives of senior members of the Conservative Party and their spouses. The website was never launched according to The Register. The emails from January 2009, which had been sent from the Downing Street Press Office, were initially leaked to blogger Paul Staines.
Andrew William Montford is a British writer and editor who is the owner of the Bishop Hill blog. He is the author of The Hockey Stick Illusion (2010).
For the American architect, see David Osler (architect).
David Allen Green is an English lawyer and writer. He is the former legal correspondent for the New Statesman; writes about law and policy for the Financial Times; and has previously blogged using the pseudonym Jack of Kent.
Left Foot Forward (LFF) is a left-wing political news and comment site in the UK, established in 2009. Its creator, Will Straw, the son of Alice Perkins and Jack Straw, edited the newspaper until December 2010.
Political Scrapbook was a left wing political blog. The site was described as "influential" by The Independent and was viewed, along with outlets such as Left Foot Forward, as part of a cohort of British left-wing blogs which attracted significant interest from the media. The site was likened to Paul Staines' anti-establishment Guido Fawkes blog, although Staines stated "It's hard to create a leftwing version of me because of political correctness." In 2011 the site was ranked by Wikio as the 7th most influential political blog in the UK and was voted as Total Politics' 2nd best left-wing blog in 2011.
Operation Motorman was a 2003 investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office into allegations of offences under the Data Protection Act by the British press.
An anonymous blog is a blog without any acknowledged author or contributor. Anonymous bloggers may achieve anonymity through the simple use of a pseudonym, or through more sophisticated techniques such as layered encryption routing, manipulation of post dates, or posting only from publicly accessible computers. Motivations for posting anonymously include a desire for privacy or fear of retribution by an employer, a government, or another group.
Harry Cole is a British journalist who has been the political editor of The Sun since 2020, having previously been the deputy political editor of The Mail On Sunday. He studied Anthropology and Economic History at the University of Edinburgh.
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