Popular politics blog Guido Fawkes claims to have initiated legal proceedings against anti-porn campaigner Claire Perry MP after conducting a readers’ poll to sway the decision.
The site published a two-sentence report on 23 July that the MP’s website had been hacked and was hosting pornographic pictures. The piece signed off with the line “At least her website will be blocked when the new rules come into effect…” in typical Guido humour.
The story prompted the Tory MP to take to Twitter to accuse Guido of sponsoring the hack.
That well known responsible campaigner @guidofawkes has been hosting a link that distributed porn via my website— Claire Perry (@claire4devizes) July 23, 2013
Apologies to anyone affected by the hacking of my website sponsored by @GuidoFawkes - proves so clearly what we are dealing with— Claire Perry (@claire4devizes) July 23, 2013
Talking to Sun on Sunday to make sure they know the views of their political columnist @GuidoFawkes re Internet porn— Claire Perry (@claire4devizes) July 23, 2013
Guido responded by launching a ‘consultation’ on the site after tweeting Perry: “Suggest you withdraw that defamatory claim immediately.”
A total of 2,782 people voted, with 2,404 (86.41 per cent) saying Guido should sue. Guido said: “Reluctantly, Guido has instructed m’learned friends who will be writing to her today…”