Paul Staines has got his hands on another internal campaign briefing – this time from the Hilary Benn campaign, and has gone off on one his usual half-witted Witch Hunts…

The author of this document is Blair McDougall, he is Ian McCartney’s Special Adviser (SpAds). Ian is Hilary Benn’s campaign manager and a minister at the FCO. SpAds are not allowed to campaign under the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers at the taxpayers expense for their masters in internal party matters. In fact they are supposed to take unpaid leave – see the recent example of Peter Hain’s ex-SpAd Phil Taylor.

Note the operative phrase here – not allowed to campaign… at the taxpayers expense.

Since Guido has started on his mission to catch SpAds cheating the taxpayer and breaking the ministerial code some have quite properly taken leave. Guido has just spoken with McDougall about the briefing. He didn’t claim, nor can he retrospectively pretend he was working on his own time. The document was prepared on his desk computer at the FCO, from his email address at the FCO, during office hours. Pressed by Guido that this was a breach of the Code he refused to answer, invited to deny that he had produced the document at the taxpayer’s expense, he declined to deny it.

In short, he appears to have told Staines to fuck off – hardly much of an admission of guilt, more the application of a little much needed common sense.

But there’s more – unlike Staines’ earlier acquisition from the Hain campaign, in which the PDF files’ document properties clearly identified the author of the document, this lastest file carries no such identifiers – the most it confirms is that the .pdf file was rendered from a copy of Open Office, yesterday afternoon, most likely by Staines himself.

For all that, Staines seems remarkably sure of himself in asserting that ‘The document was prepared on his desk computer at the FCO, from his email address at the FCO, during office hours.’

Presumably SpAds don’t take lunch breaks any more that they now appear to take phone calls for irritating right-wing gossip-mongers.

As Staines’ last bit of SpAd baiting made the dizzy media heights of the BBC’s Northern Ireland Political Editor’s blog and icWales before dying on its arse, then I think its safe to say that no one of consequence really gives a fuck about any of this anyway.

One starts to wonder here whether Paul is starting to fall prey to Pennis-effect – the higher you push your profile by media-whoring, the more your targets come to appreciate that the quickest way to fuck you over is simply to blank you completely and refusing to play ball.

Has Staines shot his bolt and peaked way to early – only time will tell, but after the slapping he took from Paxman and White on Newsnight, one has to wonder quite for how much longer his ‘Guido’ shtick will continue to have legs.