Remainer rag Private Eye has clearly been reading Guido again, with their satirical take on Darren Grimes’ righteous crusade to fight the biased Electoral Commission. Guido thinks that Private Eye’s public schoolboys should try punching up at the cheating monied remainers rather than kicking down at the working class kid from County Durham.
You can donate to Darren’s crowdfunder here. Just £3,000 to go…
For the past couple of years Telegraph staff have kept track of the internal bloodletting and embarrassing insider secrets recounted in remarkable detail in Private Eye. Eagle-eyed reporters have noticed a pattern. While he has a reputation in the office for being an all-powerful control freak who always gets his way, in the Eye editor Chris Evans is almost always portrayed as an ignorant, innocent party who is far from the scene of the crime.
Take this well-informed Eye nugget about the Telegraph’s infamous election day email urging readers to vote Tory, for which the paper was fined £30,000. Even though Evans’ name was on the email, the Eye write-up generously portrays him as an innocent bystander “without a political thought in his head“, and instead names and shames two other Telegraph journalists, as well as Murdoch MacLennan and Aidan Barclay, as being responsible.
Then there was this curiously briefed story about the Telegraph’s positive coverage of UKIP. The Eye’s piece makes clear that talking up UKIP definitely isn’t Evans’ idea, in fact it is Evans who has been “keeping at bay” UKIP supporter and Telegraph owner Frederick Barclay. Evans is referred to as an “idiot“, but it’s Sir Frederick who is the true villain of the piece.
This Eye story, again very well-informed, derides the decision of Telegraph execs to cut back the Saturday paper. MacLennan and the Barclay brothers are named as the guilty parties, but who was it who bravely tried to fight back against the cull? Chris Evans, of course, alas his efforts were, according to the Eye’s top source, sadly “swept aside”.
What about this Eye hit piece on former Sunday Telegraph editor Ian MacGregor, who is dubbed a “laughing stock” whose job was really being done by – you guessed it – Chris Evans. MacGregor is portrayed as a shameless lackey of Aidan Barclay’s business interests. Who was the man standing up to him? Evans, once again.
Whoever the Eye’s mole is, it seems they are keen to make sure Evans escapes blame for calamitous decision making, as his rivals in Victoria are publicly machine gunned one by one…
Isabel Oakeshott clearly has strong views on the pious comb dodging editor of Private Eye, judging by this currently being emailed round Hat Trick Productions. Funniest thing out of their offices for a long time…
Lord Gnome is clearly a fan of this organ’s new feature, Speaker Watch. This week, Private Eye’s Gavel Basher takes a look at the recent bad behaviour of John Bercow, don’tchaluvim?, beginning with news of the failed attempt by Bercow, ain’tyasickofhim, to try to get his pal Julian Lewis the Defence Select Committee chair job. Shome mishtake, shurely, since this was something Guido reported two weeks ago (They’ve done this already, Ed).
The Eye go on, noting Bercow’s tactic of repeatedly calling Lewis to ask questions in the House to let him plug his credentials, despite his name not being on the order paper. Once again, Guido pointed this out two weeks ago (Get on with it, Ed):
Finally, the Eye brings you news of Bercow’s ill treatment of the recently departed Clerk of the House. News that appeared on Guido a month ago (You’re fired, Ed):
Get your latest Speaker news from Guido, or in Private Eye two weeks later…
Police are requesting “on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service” that magazine vendors refrain from selling today’s edition of Private Eye. This afternoon two plain clothes policemen asked this vendor working outside Farringdon Station to take down this week’s Eye. When the vendor, who does not wish to be named, asked them why, they said it was at the request of the CPS, specifically because of the cover featuring Rebekah Brooks. They showed identification. The vendor told the cops he would keep selling them unless they produced a court order. Chilling…
Down the road at the nearby Old Bailey potential jurors were asked if they were readers of Private Eye or Guido Fawkes during the selection process. If they answered affirmatively they were excused from jury service. Anyone else a little hacked off by all this?
UPDATE: Index on Censorship – the free speech campaign with offices near Farringdon Station – went to check for themselves:
The judge doesn’t find Private Eye amusing:
UPDATE: 17.24
Well done to Private Eye for reading a story in the unpopular parts of the blogosphere, not bothering to check it, running it and subsequently discovering it was a poorly researched, lazy hatchet job with no basis in reality.
So not only second hand news, but second hand news that was wrong.
Are they even trying any more?
An interesting snippet from the Press Gazette interview with Richard Ingrams, who reflects on Private Eye:
Ingrams, who is 75, ended his official involvement with Private Eye at the beginning of 2012 when he gave up as chairman, though he points out that this was always an “honorary” title after he stood down as editor in 1986. Although Ingrams appointed Hislop to replace him, he also suggests that perhaps it is time for his successor to start thinking about stepping down – “I’m a great believer in resigning”.
Guido is hearing more and more moaning about l’enfant terrible turned BBC six figure game keeper. A subject he shall return to…
Private Eye is out of date again. The week after Guido suggested Eric Joyce’s latest brush with the law was a good excuse to scrap the Commons booze subsidy, today Private Eye follows suit:
“The fisticuffs that followed outside Westminster’s own subsidised Sports and Social boozer involving Eric Joyce MP (again), might have been avoided had the participants all been paying full whack for their grog”.
Guido welcomes Lord Gnome on board his five year campaign…
Here are some of the other posts on the issue Guido has put out over the years:
When Guido opened this week’s issue of Private Eye it took until the first article in the first column on the first page for him to find news totally out of date and already covered to death elsewhere. Their story that the judge who ruled in Samsung’s favour against Apple in a dispute last year is, naturally, off to work for Samsung, would have been a great exclusive had it not been reported on tech blog BGR a week ago, and the entire national press the next day.
Move over to the very next column and we have “news” of Peter Rippon’s new job, seen on Guido and everywhere else two weeks ago. Go home Gnome.
It’s that time again. After Guido’s number-crunching two weeks ago, this week round Private Eye has finally decided against devoting any more column inches to this blog. There is, however, no let up in out of date news on offer in the latest offering from Lord Gnome’s organ.
This week’s Eye tells the tale of an amusing begging email sent by Paddy Ashdown to both friend and foe, asking for cash to help in the Eastleigh by-election fight. Wind back a week to the 12th, the day the email was sent, and you could have seen it in full on Guido and elsewhere. Not to mention the speedy reply from an unlikely recipient.
It’s yesterday’s news…
While Guido would like to thank Private Eye for their kind words about his new column in the Sun, he couldn’t help noticing the remarkable similarity between their excellent story about PriceWaterhouseCooper and the very same story that ran, just two months ago, on this blog.
Are the two connected?
We should be told…
Lord Gnome’s perennially outdated organ was two weeks past its sell by date last time Guido checked, now they are two months behind the times. Today’s issue reports on the hypocrisy of Ed Balls and Chuka Umunna taking on staffers from PricewaterhouseCooper. Back in December Guido first exclusively revealed the very same fact that PwC analysts were working for Balls and also in Chuka’s offices. Two months behind, to the day.
You’re either in front of Guido, or you’re Private Eye…
Shome mishtake, shurely? Over the last few weeks Guido has become increasingly irritated by Private Eye’s shameless pilfering of stories that had previously appeared on this blog. Every two weeks Guido picks up his copy of the Eye, every two weeks we see more and more of our stories recycled on their pages. So, from now on Guido will be taking out his red pen and revealing just how far behind the news Lord Gnome’s rag is. A two-week news-cycle just doesn’t cut it in the age of news streams.
Last Friday’s Eye, issue 1332, ran an interesting story about a member of the Guardian’s staff being gagged for anonymously posting comments about Alan Rusbridger. Four days earlier Guido had exclusively run the same comment in full. And what of that little nugget about new Trinity Mirror boss Simon Fox being the former chief executive of doomed HMV? MediaGuido and the Sun’s business editor were all over it ten days before…
Even more outrageous was the Eye’s claim to have “revealed” the news that Evgeny Lebedev had bought iPads for the entire Standard staff but nothing for those at the Indy. It was reported on MediaGuido in mid-December, and they even used our “downstairs” line. Meanwhile Alan Rusbridger forgetting he is editor-in-chief of both the Guardian and the Observer was reported by Guido eleven days before it appeared in the Eye.
They were once the cutting edge of political gossip, nowadays their news is two weeks past their sell-by date…
Private Eye Guido Fawkes
Sir, I wonder if any of your readers have noticed the striking resemblance between this week’s front cover and our own site four day ago. Could they by any chance be related?
On UKIP manifesto launch day, their new leader announces their slogan:
“we’re sending the message we’re still here“
