Guido Fawkes - end of an era

Ten years ago, when the Guido Fawkes website celebrated its tenth anniversary, the prime minister David Cameron sent a video message apologising for his absence.

Half the cabinet was said to have attended, not to mention the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Boris was present again last night when the website marked its 20th anniversary with another champagne reception, followed by dinner, at the same venue, the Institute of Directors in London’s Pall Mall.

As I’ve noted before, I’m not a huge fan of parties, but last night I knew or recognised far more guests than usual, so I rather enjoyed myself.

I won’t name them, but in addition to Boris there was another former prime minister, three recent candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and the leader of an upstart political party that currently has five MPs.

Several other guests I’ve known for years, even decades. There was one however I hadn’t seen since I edited a Private Eye style student magazine. That was 40 years ago when he was a member of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS), an organisation perceived (by some) to be so right wing it was closed down by the Tory party in 1986!

He and his wife, a former MP, were on the same table as me. They still have a property in her former constituency and it’s in a tiny picturesque village I know quite well because it’s only two miles from where my parents lived for 40 years. Small world.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Boris wasn’t one of the speakers last night. Instead, they included Guido alumni Harry Cole, now political editor of The Sun, and recent Tory leadership hopeful James Cleverley.

The big news - reported earlier in the day by the Press Gazette - was the announcement that Guido Fawkes’ publisher Paul Staines, who founded the website in 2004, is handing the baton to Ross Kempsell, a former Guido journalist who was given a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.

Enjoyable as it was, the evening did therefore feel like the end of an era.

I can however report that the website is in safe hands because, in addition to Ross Kempsell, the current news editor just happens to be the son of an old friend of mine - the same person who in 1978 launched the Aberdeen student newspaper I subsequently relaunched nationally in 1983.

Funnily enough, that was driven by gossip and tittle-tattle too. Fancy that!