Paul Staines

Paul Staines (born 11 February 1967) is a right-wing political blogger under the name Guido Fawkes. His blog was described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of Britain's leading political blogsites" in 2007. Since 2013 the Sun on Sunday newspaper has published a weekly Guido Fawkes column. He was born in England but has since become an Irish citizen.

Staines acquired an interest in politics as a libertarian in the 1980s and did public relations for acid house parties in the early 1990s. He then spent several years in finance, first as a broker then as a trader. In 2001 he sued his fund's financial backer in a commercial dispute. Consequently Staines declared himself bankrupt in October 2003 after two years of litigation, and legal costs on both sides running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In September 2004, Staines began the "Guido Fawkes Blog of plots, rumours and conspiracy". The name is an alternative of Guy Fawkes, and continues that symbolism with the masthead slogan "tittle tattle, gossip and rumours about Westminster's Mother of Parliaments. Written from the perspective of the only man to enter parliament with honest intentions. The intention being to blow it up with gunpowder..."