Londoner’s Diary
It was a speedrun cancellation. Within an hour of announcing the judging panel for their media freedom awards yesterday, Amnesty International had announced that one of the judges, Paul Staines, was dropped.
Staines, a veteran Westminster blogger, was removed by Amnesty after a series of strident tweets from his opponents. They drew attention to Staines past pillorying of politicians (he has said he “hates” politicians) and his support for the death penalty.
“In light of a number of concerning posts we have withdrawn the invitation to Paul Staines be a judge on our media awards. We will be reviewing our policies relating to the selecting of judges in the future,” said Amnesty International in a statement.
“Amnesty sides with prisoners of conscience: My conscience says that child-killing paedophiles deserve the death penalty. Choose your side,” Staines told The Londoner.
Staines, who started out working in finance and tech before transitioning to politics, is a fierce libertarian who ran raves in the 1990s. He is now domiciled in Ireland, which allows his blog to escape libel law in Britain. He has described English libel law as “ruinous” to journalism.
“Paul was our human shield,” a journalist who started out at the Guido Fawkes blog told us. He set up the Guido Fawkes blog in the early noughties because he thought British politics needed “more gossipy” content.
Originally he sold stories to the national newspapers, before realising that he could better influence the political conversation by posting his own original content. Now it is a must read across Westminster.
Staines maintains a retinue of eager young reporters who often go on to greater things. Guido alumni include Times columnist Juliet Samuel, The Sun’s political editor Harry Cole, GB News presenter Tom Harwood, Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham and Daily Express political correspondent Christian Calgie.
Three card trick
It’s that time of year again and politicians have been sending out their Christmas cards. The prime minister’s kind missive reached us safely but Sir Keir Starmer’s elves apologised for the no show at Evening Standard HQ, claiming they still have our old address on record (smart excuse).
Starmer went for glitter this year while Sunak left the design of his card to his daughter Krishna. Similarly Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf let the kids do the work, in his case the children of St Monica’s primary school in Glasgow. Our favourite political card remains Tony Blair’s 2014 effort, which seems to show him on the verge of triggering a pub brawl as wife Cherie holds him back.
