Honest Intentions?

For many reasons the President of the European Council, Mr Van Rompuy, is worth mocking not least due to his lack of democratic mandate, which has led to this slightly amusing twitter exchange following Van Rompuy's original tweet.

But if one is to mock him it's probably best to have a fair idea of his official position within the EU. It would demonstrate an understanding of our supreme government if nothing else which is surely 'bread and butter' territory for supposedly "one of Britain's leading political blogsites".

Yet blogger Guido Fawkes – as screen printed above (I generally don’t link to him for reasons outlined here) - describes him as “the EU President”. It seems Fawkes can't even be bothered to make a simple Google search. A pernickety point perhaps but an essential element to fighting an enemy is know what you're up against. As the "Art of War" notes:

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.

If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.

If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

And it is not for the first time that Fawkes has been less than forthcoming about the EU. He began a referendum campaign to try to re-introduce capital punishment, whilst not acknowledging the fact that to reintroduce hanging would be in breach of our EU membership, even though it was pointed out to him at the time.

These details become important when we consider that Fawkes is taken seriously by the legacy media, such as the Spectator, the Guardian and the Telegraph. Should we have an 'in or out' referendum on EU membership, Fawkes' opinion will be sought even though he clearly demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge about the subject. A true member of the Westminster Village indeed.

As Richard North notes we are dealing with children. Although the crucial difference is that children often blurt out brutal honesty in all innocence - sometimes loudly- much to their parents' embarrassment.

Fawkes describes his blog as "written from the perspective of the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions". That maybe true of the original Guido Fawkes but his 21st century namesake is as dishonest as they come.