As mission statements are all the rage currently and today is the twentieth anniversary of this institution’s founding, we thought co-conspirators might be interested in the email that accompanied our launch:

Press Release : Guy Fawkes’ Political Blog launched for Political Conference Season

For Immediate Release

My Fellow Pyrotechnicians,

I have long been haunting parliament, skulking around in the shadows and the cellars, ignored and unheard. But revenge will be mine now I have a ‘blog to spread what I overhear.

As the only man to ever enter parliament with honest intentions, be assured I seek the truth. But given the bastards had me hung drawn and quartered I don’t intend to show them much mercy in return. So I beseech the people of Westminster to send me scandalous gossip, and if its probably true, I will probably publish it.

To make it easy for sources and encourage leaks they can contact Guy Fawkes anonymously by e-mail, voice-mail or facsimile or post comments via the website…

Note to editors: Remember, Remember the www.5thNovember.blogspot.com is aimed at wonks, political junkies, scurrilous gossip mongers and politicians. It plans to be fully advertiser funded by year end. Editorially more interested in politicians penchants than their policies, it comes in a light-weight bite-sized hit and run format. It has contempt for spinners and politicians believing that Guy Fawkes was the best man ever in parliament.

Aiming to break-even and be fully advertiser funded by Bonfire Night, it is published by UGO LLC.

Yours in Gunpowder,

Guido Fawkes

How do co-conspirators think we have done mission-wise twenty years later? As it turned out it took a little longer to achieve break-even. As Mrs Fawkes never tires of reminding Guido…

Guido’s founder and editor Paul Staines appeared on GB News this morning to explain the reasoning behind the twelfth annual  #PositiveXDay.

Maybe, just for one day, we can all try;

• to have a conversation, not a shouting match, with someone with whom you don’t agree. Caps lock off.
• post about somebody on the other side of a big debate – whose views and perspective you have learnt something from, because of how they engage.
• Share a positive experience of using X – how people rallied around to support you personally, or how it helped you spread the word about something that really mattered.
• Or just join in the discussion and show your support with the #PositiveXDay hashtag.

Make an effort to reach out to those with which you usually have violently opposing views. Or simply share your support by clicking this link #PositiveXDay

This week Baroness Stowell, who chairs the Communications and Digital Committee, told the Lords that

“SLAPPs* are illegitimate and aggressive lawfare, used by all kinds of the rich and powerful to silence politicians, journalists and public bodies. They are an abuse of our legal system, and they are a threat to press freedom.”

Stowell reminded them that just before the Dissolution for the general election, they were very close to outlawing SLAPPs in their entirety, through the then Government supporting a Labour MP’s Private Member’s Bill. The legislation had bipartisan support from Labour and the Tories.

She asked the Justice Minister Lord Ponsonby

“Would the Minister ensure that his Government supported another Private Member’s Bill, if another MP was to bring forward a revised version that incorporated all the amendments and agreements reached with the previous Government before the general election? If not, could he commit to the Government bringing forward their own legislation in this first Session of Parliament to outlaw SLAPPs comprehensively?”

He assured her that “the Government are taking the matter very seriously and are establishing working parties, working at pace to try to address this issue.” As well they might given one of their own number is on the receiving end of just such aggressive lawfare, being used by a rich and powerful oligiarch to silence politicians and journalists.

Lord Bailey, Richard Tice MP and Guido’s editor, Paul Staines, are fighting Dale Vince’s lawfare in his attempt to silence us for criticising his equating of Hamas with freedom fighters. He’s already intimidated three MPs who commented on his characterisation of Hamas into withdrawing their words. All of them felt it was fair comment and only backed down under financial duress. Shaun Bailey can’t afford to fight an expensive SLAPP defamation case, yet feels he has to stand his ground no matter the consequences and sleepless nights. For mega-rich Dale Vince it is in his own words, “a bit of fun” suing us. 

Anti-SLAPP** legislation isn’t just about stopping foreign oligarchs from abusing the legal system, it is about stopping homegrown oligarchs avoiding scrutiny too. Free speech underpins democracy, it is crucial that rich, political donors with connections to those in power are not able via the courts to intimidate critics into silence.

*Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation

**Dale’s lawyers have written to claim that Guido even opining that Dale’s action is a SLAPP is in itself defamatory. Paradoxically if they really did sue for claiming his action was a SLAPP it would arguably prove beyond doubt that it was indeed a SLAPP.

Dale Vince has briefed the Guardian that he is suing Guido’s editor for daring to publish the actual words he said in an interview with Times Radio’s Stig Abell.

Dale – who retains the services of former Boris spinner Lee Cain – also briefed the Guardian that he is going to block Guido from being read in Britain by getting a judge to order internet service providers to create Dale’s own personal firewall to censor Guido – in the same way the Chinese Communist Party operates a political firewall on the internet. Guido would in Dale’s fantasy become Samizdata, read in Starmer’s Britain only by tech savvy users or on the dark web.

Vince says he is going to have to do this because Guido has kept his servers (and the editor himself) offshore and ignored British court orders for twenty years. Guido could of course continue to do so…

For the first time in twenty years I am not going to avail of that safe haven protection. I will, along with Richard Tice and Shaun Bailey not be going down on bended knee to this thin-skinned, narcissistic bully. We have no intention of apologising for reporting and commenting on his disgraceful equivocation. We’re going to make a stand and defend free speech and our reporting of the actual words he said.

Dale Vince is also suing Reform’s Richard Tice MP and Lord Bailey for commenting on his claim regarding Hamas that “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist“. Likewise he threatened to sue (now former) Tory MPs Andrew Percy, Mark Jenkinson and Michael Fabricant. The Tory MPs reluctantly agreed a mutual statement on the advice of the Conservative Party’s lawyers rather than risk an expensive legal battle. None of them wanted to, all of them thought their comments were fair and told Guido that regrettably they had to withdraw them under financial duress. Not one of the MPs wanted to back down, they just did not want to risk a costly battle.

GB News made an apology for Shaun Bailey’s on air comments at the insistence of their legal insurers. Lord Bailey is however standing by the truth of his comments. He is a Christian and refuses to be bullied by Dale Vince’s lawyers into making a statement that he believes is untrue.

Dale is not suing any of the many other publications that reported his outrageous characterisation of Hamas as freedom fighters. The Labour Party donor is only threatening his perceived political opponents, using his vast wealth to bully them into not criticising him. This meets the legal definition of a SLAPP – a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A favourite tactic of publicity shy oligarchs who don’t like scrutiny.

Dale’s been claiming – so far unchallenged – that the clip was edited. It was not edited or manipulated or spliced in any way, it was one contiguous 16 second clip of the only really newsworthy and widely reported part of the Times Radio interview and the context is clear:

While we’re on the subject of extremist donors and returning their donations…https://t.co/rkaxVMJqZR pic.twitter.com/NxHEgrBKKz

— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) March 13, 2024

Dale has only just realised that unlike GB News’ insurers or the Tory MPs we are going to stand up to him. We’re not apologising and we’re not settling. We’re fighting to defend our reporting of the truth and his attempts to censor criticism.

Paul Staines

Last night Guido’s editor appeared on Newsnight to discuss our ongoing campaign to stop the civil service inviting sorcerers and obsessives to give lectures to staff during working hours. Up against the Times columnist Edward Lucas, who had yesterday morning complained about our influence in his column, referencing us no less than three times.  Our public service journalism getting credit for kicking the government into action… 

Newsnight’s Kirst Wark asked about the ramifications of expecting some basic due diligence by Whitehall mandarins:

“You’ve called these out, in a sense by calling attention to them, haven’t you ramped up the government’s antennae… to look for anything as some kind of problem?”

As Guido pointed out, over a matter of months, civil servants were being invited to lessons in crystal healing, Q&As with witches, and lectures from Green socialists. It was clearly egregious and worth reporting. Lucas suggested perhaps the social media accounts of those uninvited in the future could be of impersonators. This has never been the case for any of the subjects of Guido’s stories. If it was, we would have corrected our reporting.

The guidance was intended to clamp down on informal Civil Service Diversity Networks inviting cranks and extremists to lecture them in working hours at the taxpayers’ expense – when they could perhaps have been doing what they are paid to do. Despite the guidance blocking actual witches, it is not intended to be a witch hunt for experts who don’t take the government’s line on everything. 

Ultimately, there needs to be some common sense thinking when sending out these invitations. The last two years or so have shown that’s been sorely lacking… 

Guido’s editor, Paul Staines, was on GB News last night – speaking to Jacob Rees-Mogg about the generational injustice of The Guardian’s slavery profiteering. Is £1 million-a-year really enough?

See also: Campaign Victory: Guardian Editor Apologises for Founders’ Links to Slavery