Late last night with the Banks v Cadwalladr hearing scheduled for 10:30 this morning, Carole Cadwalladr finally admitted what we all knew, there was no evidence to back up her claims that the Russians financed the Brexit campaign or that Arron Banks was involved in shady deals with the Russians. Why she left it to the eve of the hearing to admit it was all bollocks defies belief, cynics might note she still has two crowdfunders running. One to fund this hopeless case and another to fund her “investigative journalism” – which produced the Russia nonsense.

Cadwalladr now has to pay £62,000 of costs on account this morning as a down payment, expect that figure to go higher. Cadwalladr has avoided the humiliation of appearing in court this morning by submitting in writing an amended defence which

“… removes the Truth Defence and the Limitation Defence”

Which is legalese for “it was all complete cock ‘n bull”. 

She has not stopped milking the crowdfunding mugs yet, Carole has learnt there are plenty of gullible idiots who still want to believe her fairy tales. She intends to continue battling Banks by trying to mitigate her costs with the argument that, despite there being no truth  to the allegations, she has being making around the world to much acclaim, they were made in the public interest. So she will run up her crowdfunded legal bill to argue that her disinformation was in the public interest. Guido admires the novelty of that argument.

Cadwalladr has tried to portray this legal case as some kind of freedom of the press battle, it wasn’t. She has for years made unchallenged allegations, which were motivated out of political malice. Finally she has had to admit they were untrue. A lucrative, prize winning, journalistic hoax…