Dear Co-conspirators,
On Wednesday night co-conspirators, friends, politicians and the best of the Westminster media pack gathered in Pall Mall for Guido’s twentieth anniversary dinner celebration.
As you would expect from a Guido party the booze flowed freely – for once however I was stone cold sober because I was going to deliver a speech (see below) which I did not want to stumble over. After six general elections, three referendums, eight Prime Ministers and having now even seen off my fourth Spectator editor, I am finally logging off the blog. If a week is a long time in politics, 20 years is an eternity.
Counting my mis-spent youth in student politics, apart from a foray in the City, politics has been my life for four decades. It remains to be seen how easy it will be to detox after being at the centre of things in SW1 for so long. This exit has been planned for some time and I am happy to say that unlike the original Guido Fawkes, I got to choose the time and manner of my ending. I leave the Guido Fawkes Organisation in the good hands of Ross Kempsell, one of the smartest operators in the game and a former Guido reporter from way back in 2017. The team is strong with now seasoned news editor Max Young and Eleanor Wheatley as our senior reporter. There is as ever another who shall remain nameless for now – because we always like to have someone who can do undercover work at Guido. My greatest pride and joy over the years has been to see young people who cut their teeth in the Guido newsroom go on to have even more success in the media. It gives me a sense of avuncular pride to see them all prosper. The time is right for me to stand down not least because as I have got older the newest intake of MPs has got younger and the SpAds even younger still, drinking in Westminster bars with them has become tougher and the recovery time much longer.
On a personal level twenty years of 24/7 focus on SW1 politics has been all consuming. There are hundreds of books that have gone unread because I have been too busy scrolling through tweets – an addiction I plan to beat.
Dear readers I want to thank you co-conspirators for everything, the tips, the fun, the exchanges, no doubt you’ll make your views known, as ever, in the comments. You made Guido Fawkes, I can not thank you all enough.
Thanks to GB News here are all the speeches from the night. First up was Harry Cole, the first ever employee of the Guido Fawkes Organisation and now the political editor of The Sun:
Next was my friend and former blogging rival James Cleverly:
Thanks to a few hours of coaching from the legendary speech crafter Peter Botting I think my speech went well:
My successor Ross Kempsell said some nice things:
You are in the good hands of Publisher Ross Kempsell…
Paul Staines
Boris was in attendance at Guido’s 20th anniversary bash on Wednesday night. GB News‘ Adam Cherry (and Guido alumnus) caught up with him to ask if he still thought Guido was the “dung beneath the rosebush of politics“. See for yourselves..
Boris Johnson’s memoir Unleashed is flying off the shelves. Figures show it sold a whopping 67,000 copies in its first three weeks on sale. More than David Cameron’s memoir sold (63,513) in an entire year…
Guido’s done a breakdown of former Prime Ministers’ memoirs released after 2017. And the number of copies sold in their first week on the shelves:
- Boris Johnson’s Unleashed sold 42,528 copies.
- David Cameron’s For the Record sold 20,792 copies.
- Gordon Brown’s My Life, Our Times sold 3,309 copies.
- Liz Truss’s Ten Years to Save the West sold only 2,228 copies.
Meanwhile, Theresa May’s publishers didn’t even bother to advertise how many copies had been sold for her memoir “Abuse of Power”. Must have been grim numbers. Readers are judging the book by what’s beneath the cover…
Boris met up with Argentine President and libertarian hero Javier Milei last night. Quite the way to keep up the book tour…
Great conversation with @JMilei in Buenos Aires. Truly uplifting to hear his defence of freedom, capitalism, open markets and democracy worldwide. pic.twitter.com/xwTmcsVjwo
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) October 15, 2024
Milei is locked in a battle with Congress and the unions to unleash the Argentine economy. Lots to chat about…
UPDATE: MercoPress writes up the visit:
“During Monday’s encounter, Johnson gave Milei a copy of his latest book, in which he confesses to having evaluated ‘a water raid’ in the Netherlands to steal doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccines. Johnson’s book went on sale in Great Britain last Thursday and will be available in the rest of the world in the coming weeks.
After a meeting lasting more than an hour, Johnson appeared on the Casa Rosada balcony to greet bypassers.
During their encounter, Milei recalled his teenage years’ band in which he sang cover versions of Rolling Stones songs, impersonating Jagger both in voice and dancing. At the same time, the Malvinas issue was never addressed, according to Casa Rosada sources.”
Boris Johnson says Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Trump were president…
“I happen to believe that when Donald Trump says that had he been President, there would have been no Russian invasion of Ukraine. My view is that is a credible assertion.”
Matt Chorley’s aggressive interview with Boris yesterday on 5 Live has raised a few eyebrows. The BBC’s newest hire (and its snippiest critic) got into a tired shouting match with Boris yesterday about whether the former PM is a “liar.” Chorley wouldn’t let Boris answer his own snarky questions…
Chorley admitted in a newsletter sent out later that viewers were not happy with his interview style:
“The reaction to the interview was divided almost equally – I was too shouty, he was too shouty, I wouldn’t let him speak, he wouldn’t answer the questions. But as always, everyone has a view.”
When an interviewer says the reaction to their interview was equally mixed – that means it was terrible. To top it off Chorley spent the rest of the day retweeting the odd random punter who said he did well. Is the BBC regretting its latest hire yet?
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
