Stone and Clegg campaigning together outside Newcastle police station

An extraordinary attempt was made  just before Christmas to kill off a story of mine to spare the blushes of a rather hapless Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate  caught out for living a dual life in cyberspace.

Greg Stone is now toast and has had to stand down as Liberal Democrat candidate for Newcastle-upon Tyne East and Wallsend as a result but the shennaghins surrounding the attempt to make sure this did not get into print is worth recalling.

Guido Fawkes tried to come to the rescue of  Greg Stone aka Inamicus by using one of the oldest tricks of ye olde print media -a spoiler before the tale could be published by a rival.

 Taking advantage of the internet’s speed over print he published a  blog defending Stone for making  some pretty nasty and rude comments about female MPs-both Labour and Tory – by releasing details of the tale and saying that calling someone a ” sour faced bitch” was ” tame”. Accompanying the tale was a copy of document which stood up the allegations and had been sent to the Liberal Democrats following a request from Nick Clegg’s office. Can’t think how Guido got it.

Guido proceeded to spin the tale by blaming Stone’s opponent, incumbent Labour MP and chief whip, Nick Brown claiming it was part of a Labour smear campaign and that the MPs researchers had been touting it around left wing journos.

While some spoilers repel, others attract. The Guido spoiler enhanced the chances of the tale being published – not in the leftie press but in the Sunday Telegraph. So I thank him for increasing my income.

But there were some bizarre side effects. Guido himself claimed not to know the real identity of Inamicus  which was  rather disingenuous – given Greg Stone’s regular references to him on Twitter.

Nor do either them get the main point.  If Greg Stone wants to be an MP he should not use Guido Fawkes to make crude and lewd comments about his future colleagues under an assumed name. And none of this fits with Stone’s other claim to be Mr Transparancy on his official council website.  Stone continued his double standards afterwards- issuing an apology in the official print media while not hinting at any apology in the blogosphere.

Finally lets take this early morning exchange between Greg and Guido showing how close they are. Read it for yourself.

http://twitter.com/Greg4MP
@guidofawkes where’s my space agency hat tip?! 2:57 AM Dec 11th  
From Guido to Greg – 11 December 2009 3:34 AM
http://twitter.com/guidofawkes/status/6563965408
@greg4mp consider yourself hat-tipped. Thought you were an anonymous source… 3:34 AM