Incidentally Guido bailed out of all his speculative positions in the early hours of Wednesday morning when it hit the wires that Warren Buffet was taking a $5 billion stake in Goldmans, given his reputation Guido felt Buffet might single-handedly turn market sentiment. That combined with the impossibility of predicting how and when the politicians would go made the markets too random for Guido. Baby Fawkes is unwell and between the 24/7 currency markets and her, the lack of sleep was too draining.
Hat-tip : LFAT
The look and feel is bang up to date with an Obamaesque “It’s time for change” slogan with a wall of Tory talking head videos. Under the hood is more regionalisation, uploading facilities for user generated content and single-issue campaigning. The blue blog is live and Dave is doing his chatty engagement thing…
The naming and shaming of parasitical journalists continues because Guido finds it cathartic. On Tuesday Guido ran a nice little story about Miliband’s SpAd sending a pleading text out to MPs.A text from Dan Norris, David Miliband’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, intended for sympathetic MPs, was intercepted, sadly, by the notorious blogger Guido Fawkes. “If you’re at conference pls make a point of speaking to lobby correspondents who are trying to distort party unity, to help them u’stand David’s speech was a unifying one which is why it went down so well in the hall. Thanks.” No advice on countering the supposed “Heseltine moment” gaffe.
A few miles from Wapping over on the Farringdon Road the same day the Guardian’s Hugh Muir had also lifted the same blog post for his lead story, no credit. Tut, tut. Muir is following no doubt in the tradition of Marina Hyde, who during the 2004 U.S. Presidential election took to lifting stories daily from Wonkette with no attribution. Easier than working ain’t it?
Sherwin let himself down badly yesterday (0/10, stay behind after deadline) by lifting Wednesday’s story about Cameron’s Carlton Political Dinner jokes without attribution this time, though he may have copied it from Paul Waugh who also ran the story under his byline in the Standard after it appeared here.
They may all say they got it from their own sources – they usually do. Funny how it is after Guido publishes and never contains more information than was given on the blog.
Look chaps, if you are going to lift, at least link. If you don’t want to admit to your editors that you are taking the money under false pretences for cutting ‘n pasting from blogs, rather than actually cultivating sources, send a case of Margaux. This blog is not a syndication service for lazy hacks.
