22 Facts About Paul Staines

Paul De Laire Staines was born on 11 February 1967 and is a British-Irish right-wing political blogger who publishes the Guido Fawkes website, which was described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of Britain's leading political blogsites" in 2007.

Paul Staines acquired an interest in politics as a libertarian in the 1980s and did public relations for acid house parties in the early 1990s.

Paul Staines then spent several years in finance, first as a broker then as a trader.

Consequently, Paul 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, Paul Staines started publishing his political blog Guido Fawkes.

Paul De Laire Staines was born in Ealing, London, to Irish-born Mary and Indian-born Terril De Laire Staines.

Paul Staines' father was a Fabian who went to work for John Lewis because it was a cooperative; he is from Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh.

Paul Staines' mother is from a working-class background and grew up in Finglas, Dublin.

Paul Staines was a member of the Social Democratic Party, sitting on the national executive of its youth wing, and the Conservative Party.

Paul Staines lives in Ireland and was a member of the now defunct Irish political party, the Progressive Democrats.

Paul Staines is a libertarian who described in a 2000 publication, how he became a libertarian in 1980 after reading Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies.

Paul Staines joined the Young Conservatives whilst at Humberside College of Higher Education, "because they were the only people around who were anti-Socialist or at least anti-Soviet".

Paul Staines relates that at college he was a "right-wing pain in the butt who was more interested in student politics than essays", who went on "to work in the various right-wing pressure groups and think tanks that proliferated in the late eighties".

Paul Staines once said, "I never wore a 'Hang Mandela' badge, but I hung out with people who did".

Paul Staines was pictured at the 1987 Libertarian Alliance conference with a T-shirt supporting UNITA, produced by his Popular Propaganda enterprise, which produced posters and T-shirts.

Paul Staines worked as "foreign policy analyst" for the Committee for a Free Britain, a right-wing Conservative pressure group, alongside David Hart.

Paul Staines acted as editor of British Briefing, a long-standing publication by the group that was a "monthly intelligence analysis of the activities of the extreme left" that sought to "smear Labour MPs and left-leaning lawyers and writers".

Paul Staines was then the editor of a series of papers called the Human Rights Defenders Briefing Papers.

Paul Staines described his political journey in an interview in 2013, "I was "anarcho-capitalist, [then] libertarian, then pragmatic libertarian.

Paul Staines has four alcohol-related convictions In 2002, Paul Staines was banned from driving for 12 months for drink driving.

Paul Staines describes himself as an "adviser" to GGN and stated that the company is based in Saint Kitts and Nevis as a "litigation shield".

Paul Staines is married to Orla, a solicitor who works for an investment bank in the City of London.