Watching Guido trying to salvage a few meagre shreds of reputation as the blogosphere premier ‘Sleazefinder General’ is, I must admit, rather entertaining.

Do You Believe there is No Connection Between Cash and Honours?

Tony Blair created 292 peers. Millions were raised from the recipients of those honours…

Does anyone - or should I say anyone expressing an honest and unbiased opinion - really believe that a full audit of Tory Party finances and donations covering the Thatcher/Major government, which created 341 peers between them, would not show much the same kind of correlation?

And what about the £6 million in loans that the Tories paid off to ensure that the identities of their backers remained out of the public domain?

Ah, can you hear that folks? That’s the sound of silence…

Still, I guess all this does save Guido the time and trouble of trying to finish off writing ‘The Trial of  Lord Levy’ - unless Levy decides to sue him for libel and defamation, of course…

Anyone up for starting work on the Trial of Paul Staines Guido Fawkes?

Even more amusing, however, is the sight of the blogosphere’s premier Guido wannabe, Praguetory, appearing to admit to having withheld information from the Police in regards to criminal offences under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925:

it’s very hard to believe that the 6,300 documents prepared by the police over the course of about a year and passed to the CPS 3 (!) months ago were insufficient for a case to come to court. Not only is the evidence of wrongdoing clear, but I have been told by a number of sources close to specific lenders that they admit that they were trying to buy a lordship.

First things first - about this claim that ‘the evidence of wrongdoing is clear’, Praguetory…

Are you claiming to have seen the evidence submitted by the police to the CPS for consideration, or are you simply trying to pass off an extremely unqualified personal opinion as a matter of fact?

And in either case, in what sense do you consider yourself qualified to judge the strength of the evidence presented to the CPS by the Metropolitan Police. Are you a solicitor or barrister? Do you have a degree in law?

No of course you aren’t and you don’t, you’re just a loudmouth Tory blogger with a bloated sense of your own self-importance and a desperate craving for attention.

Moving on swiftly to Praguetory’s other claim…

I have been told by a number of sources close to specific lenders that they admit that they were trying to buy a lordship.

Well if that’s true, why have you not forwarded that information to the Metropolitan Police? Do you not realise that not only is the sale of honours a criminal offence under section 1 of the 1925 Act but also the solicitation of honours, which is covered by section 2…

(2) If any person gives, or agrees or proposes to give, or offers to any person any gift, money or valuable consideration as an inducement or reward for procuring or assisting or endeavouring to procure the grant of a dignity or title of honour to any person, or otherwise in connection with such a grant, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.

Notwithstanding your patently transparent political motives, Praguetory, if you are aware of any individuals who may have offered loans or donations to any political party in the hope of obtaining a peerage or other honour for themselves of for third party then you are surely under a moral and ethical obligation to disclose their identity and/or the identity of your claimed sources together with any other relevant information appertaining to these alleged ‘admissions’ to the Metropolitan Police for further investigation.

After all, the solicitation of honours carries the same penalty as their sale - up to two years imprisonment on indictment or three months on summary conviction - as specified by the third and final section of the Act:

(3) Any person guilty of a misdemeanour under this Act shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds, or to both such imprisonment and such fine, or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds, or to both such imprisonment and such fine, and where the person convicted (whether on indictment or summarily) received any such gift, money, or consideration as aforesaid which is capable of forfeiture, he shall in addition to any other punishment be liable to forfeit the same to His Majesty.

There is, of course, another possible (and many would argue likely) explanation for Praguetory’s remarks, which is simply that he’s bullshitting and that these ’sources close to specific lenders’ are no more than figments of his ego and his desperation to be seen as a big wheel in the discreditable, and increasingly discredited, histrionic wing of the Tory blogosphere.

(Despite surface appearances to the contrary, which stem primarily from the relentless media whoring and playing to the troll gallery of the likes of Guido and Iain Dale, there are actually some very good Tory bloggers out there, of whom I can happily recommend Mr Eugenides, Bel and Matt Wardman as being well worth a read if, like me, you prefer your political opponents to be honest, authentic and intelligent.)

Based on his comments, of which I’ve naturally taken a screenshot (see below) it seems to me that Praguetory has painted himself into a corner in which he has left himself only three options.

1) He can demonstrate the veracity of his claim to have been told by ’sources close to specific lenders’ of these alleged attempts to solicit honours in breach of section 2 of the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, by forwarding the information he purports to have to the Metropolitan Police, thereby initiating further inquiries.

2) He can publish the identities of the specific lenders named by his claimed sources, secure in the knowledge that his ’sword of truth’ will prevail when he gets whacked with the inevitable libel action that would result from such a course of action, or

3) He can respond to the above challenge with his usual mix of bullshit and bluster and then waffle on about the importance of protecting sources and put up whatever other excuses for inaction he can think of - thereby reinforcing the impression that many will already have of him, that of his being a congenital bullshitter who will say pretty much anything in his unbounded desperation to climb the slippery pole of the Tory blogosphere to the lip of the gutter currently occupied by Guido.

Or he could just libel Bob Piper again in the hope that that might deflect attention away from the embarrassment of his made a complete cunt of himself, yet again.