Showing posts with label MI5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MI5. Show all posts
September 27, 2011
September 22, 2011
July 31, 2009
The strange world of Lee John Barnes
This article was submitted by one of our readers, Wes. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.
Those of us who fancy a laugh in the anti-fascist movement tend to look no further than the blog of Mr Barnes, who holds a first degree in law. Here is a guy who likes to blog about conspiracy theories, some bizarre belief in a Norse God, and of course his beloved nationalist cause (he seems to have fallen out with the BNP recently – he has had his BNP email addy removed).
For some time the stuff he posts kept me amused at just how batty the guy actually was. His “logic” was so hard to follow at times it really did make you wonder if it came from a sane person or not. Recently after reading several posts I decided to check on the facts he presented. Around the time of the BNP website problems, which the party and others put down to some pinko-leftie denial of service attack Barnes blogged that he had:
A short time later Barnes alleged on his blog:
So again this set my non LLB refined miss-speaking alarms off. So I first contacted Getty who confirmed that the photo was taken in London at a demo in early 2009. So I phoned the Met, who couldn’t answer the question there and then, but pointed me in the direction of the inquiry form and suggested I try that. So I did, after a while I received a request for more information from the Head of the Mets Mounted Division. After supplying the information requested the Chief Inspector replied that:
So to be fair I gave Barnes the chance to reply, I asked him where he got the info from, I had several posts in threads comments section asking him to reply – but he never did – I wonder why?
Now I have only checked on two subjects from the Barnes blog to date – but both of them have proved to be false – is he just miss-speaking, to borrow Hilary Clinton's excuse or is a symptom of something more? For that I will leave you to decide.
Those of us who fancy a laugh in the anti-fascist movement tend to look no further than the blog of Mr Barnes, who holds a first degree in law. Here is a guy who likes to blog about conspiracy theories, some bizarre belief in a Norse God, and of course his beloved nationalist cause (he seems to have fallen out with the BNP recently – he has had his BNP email addy removed).For some time the stuff he posts kept me amused at just how batty the guy actually was. His “logic” was so hard to follow at times it really did make you wonder if it came from a sane person or not. Recently after reading several posts I decided to check on the facts he presented. Around the time of the BNP website problems, which the party and others put down to some pinko-leftie denial of service attack Barnes blogged that he had:
“On sunday morning I contacted the Counter-Terrorism Unit, Scotland Yard and MI5 to inform them that one of the largest DOS attacks in British electronic warfare history was underway against the BNP”.So I first emailed all concerned and waited and waited. I got replies from both stating that they couldn’t answer if that was true due to freedom of information rules. Mmmm, he wasn’t getting away that easily – so I decided to phone the press offices of those organisations. CTU wouldn’t entertain giving me any kind of answer, but I got interesting replies from both M15 and the Met/Scotland Yard (I treated Scotland Yard and the CTU separately phoning both switchboards in turn). The replies were as expected until a very nice lady in the Met mentioned that she couldn’t answer my questions unless I was phoning to support an earlier report. So I decided to do just that, support Mr Barnes concern about the BNP website being down, so she checked the computer – guess what? – computer said no – there had been no contact recorded on the subject. She assured me that it would appear on the system, and in her words “even the nuttier stuff is logged”. So armed with the new method I tried Scotland Yard who repeated the process – but this time the guy some information, “oh wait he said these are complaints 'about' the BNP, not by them”. He confirmed there were no reports, as did M15, but they took a while and asked me so many questions I think they may have started a file on me now.
A short time later Barnes alleged on his blog:
“Image - members of the same coalition as the UAF demonstrating for free speech and exercising their right of protest in order to kill a police horse and murder a policeman”.With the following photo
So again this set my non LLB refined miss-speaking alarms off. So I first contacted Getty who confirmed that the photo was taken in London at a demo in early 2009. So I phoned the Met, who couldn’t answer the question there and then, but pointed me in the direction of the inquiry form and suggested I try that. So I did, after a while I received a request for more information from the Head of the Mets Mounted Division. After supplying the information requested the Chief Inspector replied that:“As the Head of the Metropolitan Police Mounted Branch I can confirm the following:The Chief Inspector used the term leaflet because the screen shot I had sent did appear to be a leaflet in hindsight – I have also supplied him with the URL since for his info – at his request.
The leaflet '21st Century British Nationalism' dated 9th June 2009 shows a picture of a police officers and horses at a demonstration. In the picture it is Metropolitan Police officers and horses; the photograph was taken at a demonstration in London very early in 2009. The leaflet reports an officer and police horse were killed; neither horse or officer were killed. The report that both were fatally injured is completely inaccurate”.
So to be fair I gave Barnes the chance to reply, I asked him where he got the info from, I had several posts in threads comments section asking him to reply – but he never did – I wonder why?
Now I have only checked on two subjects from the Barnes blog to date – but both of them have proved to be false – is he just miss-speaking, to borrow Hilary Clinton's excuse or is a symptom of something more? For that I will leave you to decide.
Labels:
BNP,
Denial of Service,
DOS,
Getty Images,
Heanor West,
Lee Barnes,
MI5,
police horse,
Scotland Yard,
UAF
June 04, 2007
Letter reveals Wodehouse's pain at being branded a collaborator
The emergence of a previously unpublished letter has given a fresh insight into the pain that was felt by PG Wodehouse at his depiction as a wartime traitor.
The reputation of Wodehouse, the creator of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, was hugely tarnished by a series of ill-advised broadcasts from Nazi Germany following his capture during the Second World War. Amid the subsequent furore, the much-loved author was compared in Parliament to the notorious Nazi propagandist, William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw.
Following an investigation, Wodehouse was cleared of any wrongdoing but chose to live out the rest of his days in self-imposed exile in America.
The letter, written to his publisher, David Grimsdick in 1953, gives fascinating access to Wodehouse's thoughts on the affair as he battled to salvage his career in the post-war years. Clearly, the legacy of the broadcast continued to occupy his mind more than a decade later.
Abandoning his usual humorous style, the author lambasts the security services, branding his MI5 interrogator a "priceless ass".
With the occasional hand-written addition in the margin the text also responds to Grimsdick's idea that the scripts of the Berlin broadcasts be published in book form to help redeem his character. He writes: "I certainly agree that we ought to print the broadcasts exactly as they were spoken."
After war broke out in 1939, Wodehouse, who had no interest in world affairs, failed to realise the seriousness of the conflict and remained at his seaside home in France. As the Germans swept into northern town of Le Touquet, less than a year later, he was shipped off to a civilian internment camp in Upper Silesia, now in Poland.
At the time he quipped: "If this is Upper Silesia, one must wonder what Lower Silesia must be like?"
While at the camp, he entertained his fellow prisoners with witty dialogues. Then, after being moved to Berlin a few months short of his 60th birthday, he was asked by German agents to use those dialogues as a basis for the series of radio broadcasts. But wartime England was in no mood for light-hearted banter and the five shows led to accusations of Nazi collaboration.
The journalist William Connor, Cassandra on the Daily Mirror, was commissioned to denounce him both in print and a primetime radio address. Gauging the furious public reaction libraries began banning his work from their shelves and politicians were quick to denounce him. In the House of Commons, Quintin Hogg, who later became Lord Hailsham, demanded he should be punished as a traitor and shot. His most bitter detractor was A A Milne a former classmate and friend.
Milne's attacks on Wodehouse led the author to later comment: "Nobody could be more anxious than myself ... that Alan Alexander Milne should trip over a loose bootlace and break his bloody neck."
After the liberation of Paris, Wodehouse was interrogated by officers from MI5 who found no sign of treasonable conduct and cleared him of any wrongdoing. In a letter to the Home Secretary in September 1944, Wodehouse admitted he had been "criminally foolish" but said the broadcasts were "purely comic" and designed to show a group of captured Englishmen keeping up spirits. But he failed to shake off the stigma of traitor and he spent the rest of his life in Long Island, America.
The letter, whose sale price has been set at £1,600 by Nigel Williams Rare Books for this week's Antiquarian Book Fare at Olympia West London, had been held in a private collection in America.
It touchingly reveals a close friendship he formed with a fellow PoW named Herbert Haskins. He opens the letter with instructions to send a copy of each of his books to the man's address in Birmingham.
He comments: "He...was such a pal of mine in camp."
Robert McCrum, author of Wodehouse: A Life, hailed the letter as an important find: "First it shows his obsession with the issue of the broadcast and his time in the camp. Second, he refers to his MI5 interrogator as an ass, which is unusual because he normally never gives anything away and is usually diplomatic and insouciant. Third it's a letter without laughs and shows he's micro-managing the spin of his post-war life.
"Ten years on, he was still fighting a rearguard action against his detractors. I think he was really hurt by the row over the broadcasts, though of course being Wodehouse, the quintessential Englishman, he would never let on."
Wodehouse was made a Knight of the British Empire shortly before his death in 1975 at the age of 93. It is widely believed that the honour was not given earlier because of lingering resentment about the German broadcasts. In a BBC interview, he said that he had no ambitions left now that he had been knighted and there was a waxwork of him in Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.
Despite the furore he remained one of country's most popular and prolific authors producing more than 90 books, hundreds of short stories, plays and musicals.
Independent
The reputation of Wodehouse, the creator of Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, was hugely tarnished by a series of ill-advised broadcasts from Nazi Germany following his capture during the Second World War. Amid the subsequent furore, the much-loved author was compared in Parliament to the notorious Nazi propagandist, William Joyce, better known as Lord Haw-Haw.
Following an investigation, Wodehouse was cleared of any wrongdoing but chose to live out the rest of his days in self-imposed exile in America.
The letter, written to his publisher, David Grimsdick in 1953, gives fascinating access to Wodehouse's thoughts on the affair as he battled to salvage his career in the post-war years. Clearly, the legacy of the broadcast continued to occupy his mind more than a decade later.
Abandoning his usual humorous style, the author lambasts the security services, branding his MI5 interrogator a "priceless ass".
With the occasional hand-written addition in the margin the text also responds to Grimsdick's idea that the scripts of the Berlin broadcasts be published in book form to help redeem his character. He writes: "I certainly agree that we ought to print the broadcasts exactly as they were spoken."
After war broke out in 1939, Wodehouse, who had no interest in world affairs, failed to realise the seriousness of the conflict and remained at his seaside home in France. As the Germans swept into northern town of Le Touquet, less than a year later, he was shipped off to a civilian internment camp in Upper Silesia, now in Poland.
At the time he quipped: "If this is Upper Silesia, one must wonder what Lower Silesia must be like?"
While at the camp, he entertained his fellow prisoners with witty dialogues. Then, after being moved to Berlin a few months short of his 60th birthday, he was asked by German agents to use those dialogues as a basis for the series of radio broadcasts. But wartime England was in no mood for light-hearted banter and the five shows led to accusations of Nazi collaboration.
The journalist William Connor, Cassandra on the Daily Mirror, was commissioned to denounce him both in print and a primetime radio address. Gauging the furious public reaction libraries began banning his work from their shelves and politicians were quick to denounce him. In the House of Commons, Quintin Hogg, who later became Lord Hailsham, demanded he should be punished as a traitor and shot. His most bitter detractor was A A Milne a former classmate and friend.
Milne's attacks on Wodehouse led the author to later comment: "Nobody could be more anxious than myself ... that Alan Alexander Milne should trip over a loose bootlace and break his bloody neck."
After the liberation of Paris, Wodehouse was interrogated by officers from MI5 who found no sign of treasonable conduct and cleared him of any wrongdoing. In a letter to the Home Secretary in September 1944, Wodehouse admitted he had been "criminally foolish" but said the broadcasts were "purely comic" and designed to show a group of captured Englishmen keeping up spirits. But he failed to shake off the stigma of traitor and he spent the rest of his life in Long Island, America.
The letter, whose sale price has been set at £1,600 by Nigel Williams Rare Books for this week's Antiquarian Book Fare at Olympia West London, had been held in a private collection in America.
It touchingly reveals a close friendship he formed with a fellow PoW named Herbert Haskins. He opens the letter with instructions to send a copy of each of his books to the man's address in Birmingham.
He comments: "He...was such a pal of mine in camp."
Robert McCrum, author of Wodehouse: A Life, hailed the letter as an important find: "First it shows his obsession with the issue of the broadcast and his time in the camp. Second, he refers to his MI5 interrogator as an ass, which is unusual because he normally never gives anything away and is usually diplomatic and insouciant. Third it's a letter without laughs and shows he's micro-managing the spin of his post-war life.
"Ten years on, he was still fighting a rearguard action against his detractors. I think he was really hurt by the row over the broadcasts, though of course being Wodehouse, the quintessential Englishman, he would never let on."
Wodehouse was made a Knight of the British Empire shortly before his death in 1975 at the age of 93. It is widely believed that the honour was not given earlier because of lingering resentment about the German broadcasts. In a BBC interview, he said that he had no ambitions left now that he had been knighted and there was a waxwork of him in Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.
Despite the furore he remained one of country's most popular and prolific authors producing more than 90 books, hundreds of short stories, plays and musicals.
Independent
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
