John Simkin

http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis226.html

It is true that the US is an important supporter of Mubarak and provides about $3 billion of aid a year. However, it was recently disclosed that the Egyptian economy has lost $3.5 billion in the last few weeks because tourists have fled the country. Can you imagine what that figure will be if an extremist muslim government takes control of Egypt?

Without You is a song written by two members of Badfinger, Pete Ham and Tom Evans. It includes the line, "can't live if living is without you." Pete Ham himself in the garage of his Surrey home on 24 April 1975. He was 27 years old. He left behind a pregnant girlfriend (his daughter was born one month after his death). His suicide note had the statement "I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better."

Tom Evans committed suicide on 19th November 1983. His body was found hanging in his back garden from a willow tree. Marianne Evans, his wife, was later quoted as saying "Tommy said 'I want to be where Pete is. It's a better place than down here'..."

You can find my tribute to Nat Lofthouse here:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/BOLTONlofthouse.htm

In his autobiography, Goals Galore (1954), Lofthouse explained the importance of school in his development as a footballer:

My early schooldays may seem unimportant to the reader, but to me they were the most formative of my life. I discovered it was impossible to learn all there was to know about football. Modesty, and the putting of team before self was always stressed. The old maxim that practice makes perfect was constantly hammered into us by a schoolmaster to whom I shall always be heavily in debt.

One of our biggest supporters was Mr. Bert Cole, a forty-year-old sportsman who got a great kick out of helping schoolboy footballers to make the grade. He told me he thought I might develop into a useful header of a football, and with the permission of my father-who by now was head horsekeeper for Bolton Corporation-he used to come to our house on a Sunday morning and encourage me to head a football correctly. More often than not I practised heading a ball against the wall of the stables which adjoined our house, and this form of practice was the basis of the heading technique I later developed with Bolton.

Progress in football is made slowly but surely, and when I did eventually secure my place in the Bolton Schools XI I knew I would be able to hold my own. Mr. Cole, my mentor, was equally thrilled by my honour and promised me a new bike if I scored a hat-trick in my debut, which, incidentally, was against Bury Town. I thought he might be pulling my leg but I was determined to succeed just the same.

Well, I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. We beat Bury 7-1. I scored all seven goals - a personal record. Afterwards, to my frenzied delight, Mr. Cole wheeled a handsome new bike round to my home. "I had a hunch you were going to score at least three goals," he told me, "so I took the precaution of having the bike ready."

Interesting article by Noam Chomsky, "It's not radical Islam that worries the US – it's independence". This view is supported by the news that the US is encouraging the Egyptian government to negotiate with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than any of the left-wing groups behind the demonstrations.

According to various reports VP Suleiman is negotiating with various opposition groups of which the Muslim Brotherhood is by far the largest. What evidence do you have that "the US is encouraging the Egyptian government to negotiate with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than any of the left-wing groups"? Or that left-wing groups are leading the demonstrations? They seem to be mainly organized by people with no political affiliations and I've seen no evidence the opposition's most prominent leaders former IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei and Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League are leftists.

The US secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has made it clear that she welcomes the meeting between Omar Suleiman and the Muslim Brotherhood. Suleiman has been nominated by President Hosni Mubarack as his Vice President during the crisis. Frank Wisner (the son of the founder of the CIA's Operation Mockingbird, much discussed on this forum), the US special envoy, has stated that Mubarack should stay in power through the "transition to democracy". They hope that Suleiman, the head of Egypt's Secret Police, and the man responsible for repressing opposition political forces, can do a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, who will probably get about 40% of the vote in a democratic election.

The left is very fragmented in Egypt and because it has been forced to work underground for so long, it is difficult to know its strength. Political groups include: Progressive National Unionist Party, Egyptian Arab Socialist Party, The Socialist Labour Party, Communist Party of Egypt, Young Egypt Party, Arab Democratic Nasserist Party or Nasserist Party, Ahrar Party, The Social Justice Party and the National Conciliation Party.

Mohamed ElBaradei appears to be the key figure and is so far refusing to negotiate with Suleiman. He is the main spokesman of the National Association for Change, a collection of left of centre political groups that are opposed to Mubarack. ElBaradei rightly argues that both Mubarack and Suleiman should leave power before the protests are brought to an end.

Have you read the book 'The Rasputin Files?' As I recall, it was written by an American and a Russian. The Russian claimed to have access to all the Cheka files related to Rasputin.

As I recall, (it has been years since I read it) the Prince and his buddies did kill the mad monk, but most of the drama described by Yusopov, like the poisoned cakes, didn't happen. The authors claim that Rasputin didn't eat sweets, so the poison just sat on the plate.

Yusopov apparently supported himself for the rest of his life by telling his "How I killed Rasputin" stories again and again.

I have now read Richard Cullen's Rasputin: The role of Britain's Secret Service in his Torture and Murder (2010). He is a former British police detective who has been given access to Russian files on the case, including statements made to the police in the original investigation and the original autopsy report and photographs. Cullen was also given the official report of the investigation carried out by the Russian government in 1993.

First let me summarize what we know from the original eyewitness accounts and relevant documents produced at the time.

On 21st November 1916, Vladimir Purishkevich, the leader of the monarchists in the Duma, wrote to Prince Yusupov: "I'm terribly busy working on a plan to eliminate Rasputin. That is simply essential now, since otherwise everything will be finished... You too must take part in it. Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov knows all about it and is helping. It will take place in the middle of December, when Dmitri comes back... Not a word to anyone about what I've written." Yusupov replied: "Many thanks for your mad letter. I could not understand half of it, but I can see that you are preparing for some wild action.... My chief objection is that you have decided upon everything without consulting me... I can see by your letter that you are wildly enthusiastic, and ready to climb up walls... Don't you dare do anything without me, or I shall not come at all!"

Eventually, Yusupov, Vladimir Purishkevich, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov, Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert and Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, an officer in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, developed a conspiracy to kill Grigory Rasputin. Yusupov later admitted in Lost Splendor (1953) that on 29th December, 1916, Rasputin was invited to his home: "The bell rang, announcing the arrival of Dmitrii Pavlovich Romanov and my other friends. I showed them into the dining room and they stood for a little while, silently examining the spot where Rasputin was to meet his end. I took from the ebony cabinet a box containing the poison and laid it on the table. Dr Lazovert put on rubber gloves and ground the cyanide of potassium crystals to powder. Then, lifting the top of each cake, he sprinkled the inside with a dose of poison, which, according to him, was sufficient to kill several men instantly. There was an impressive silence. We all followed the doctor's movements with emotion. There remained the glasses into which cyanide was to be poured. It was decided to do this at the last moment so that the poison should not evaporate and lose its potency. We had to give the impression of having just finished supper for I had warned Rasputin that when we had guests we took our meals in the basement and that I sometimes stayed there alone to read or work while my friends went upstairs to smoke in my study."

Vladimir Purishkevich supported this story in his book, The Murder of Rusputin (1918): "We sat down at the round tea table and Yusupov invited us to drink a glass of tea and to try the cakes before they had been doctored. The quarter of an hour which we spent at the table seemed like an eternity to me.... Once we finished our tea, we tried to give the table the appearance of having been suddenly left by a large group frightened by the arrival of an unexpected guest. We poured a little tea into each of the cups, left bits of cake and pirozhki on the plates, and scattered some crumbs among several of the crumpled table napkins.... Once we had given the table the necessary appearance, we got to work on the two plates of petits fours. Yusupov gave Dr Lazovert several pieces of the potassium cyanide and he put on the gloves which Yusupov had procured and began to grate poison into a plate with a knife. Then picking out all the cakes with pink cream (there were only two varieties, pink and chocolate), he lifted off the top halves and put a good quantity of poison in each one, and then replaced the tops to make them look right. When the pink cakes were ready, we placed them on the plates with the brown chocolate ones. Then, we cut up two of the pink ones and, making them look as if they had been bitten into, we put these on different plates around the table."

Yusupov added: "It was agreed that when I went to fetch Rasputin, Dmitrii, Purishkevich and Sukhotin would go upstairs and play the gramophone, choosing lively tunes. I wanted to keep Rasputin in a good humour and remove any distrust that might be lurking in his mind." Stanislaus de Lazovert now went to fetch Rasputin in the car. "At midnight the associates of the Prince concealed themselves while I entered the car and drove to the home of the monk. He admitted me in person. Rasputin was in a gay mood. We drove rapidly to the home of the Prince and descended to the library, lighted only by a blazing log in the huge chimney-place. A small table was spread with cakes and rare wines - three kinds of the wine were poisoned and so were the cakes. The monk threw himself into a chair, his humour expanding with the warmth of the room. He told of his successes, his plots, of the imminent success of the German arms and that the Kaiser would soon be seen in Petrograd. At a proper moment he was offered the wine and the cakes. He drank the wine and devoured the cakes. Hours slipped by, but there was no sign that the poison had taken effect. The monk was even merrier than before. We were seized with an insane dread that this man was inviolable, that he was superhuman, that he couldn't be killed. It was a frightful sensation. He glared at us with his black, black eyes as though he read our minds and would fool us."

Vladimir Purishkevich later recalled that Yusupov joined them upstairs and exclaimed: "It is impossible. Just imagine, he drank two glasses filled with poison, ate several pink cakes and, as you can see, nothing has happened, absolutely nothing, and that was at least fifteen minutes ago! I cannot think what we can do... He is now sitting gloomily on the divan and the only effect that I can see of the poison is that he is constantly belching and that he dribbles a bit. Gentlemen, what do you advise that I do?" Eventually it was decided that Yusupov should go down and shoot Rasputin.

According to Yusupov's account: "Rasputin stood before me motionless, his head bent and his eyes on the crucifix. I slowly raised the crucifix. I slowly raised the revolver. Where should I aim, at the temple or at the heart? A shudder swept over me; my arm grew rigid, I aimed at his heart and pulled the trigger. Rasputin gave a wild scream and crumpled up on the bearskin. For a moment I was appalled to discover how easy it was to kill a man. A flick of a finger and what had been a living, breathing man only a second before, now lay on the floor like a broken doll."

Stanislaus de Lazovert agrees with this account except that he was uncertain who fired the shot: "With a frightful scream Rasputin whirled and fell, face down, on the floor. The others came bounding over to him and stood over his prostrate, writhing body. We left the room to let him die alone, and to plan for his removal and obliteration. Suddenly we heard a strange and unearthly sound behind the huge door that led into the library. The door was slowly pushed open, and there was Rasputin on his hands and knees, the bloody froth gushing from his mouth, his terrible eyes bulging from their sockets. With an amazing strength he sprang toward the door that led into the gardens, wrenched it open and passed out." Lazovert added that it was Vladimir Purishkevich who fired the next shot: "As he seemed to be disappearing in the darkness, Purishkevich, who had been standing by, reached over and picked up an American-made automatic revolver and fired two shots swiftly into his retreating figure. We heard him fall with a groan, and later when we approached the body he was very still and cold and - dead."

Yusupov later recalled: "On hearing the shot my friends rushed in. Rasputin lay on his back. His features twitched in nervous spasms; his hands were clenched, his eyes closed. A bloodstain was spreading on his silk blouse. A few minutes later all movement ceased. We bent over his body to examine it. The doctor declared that the bullet had struck him in the region of the heart. There was no possibility of doubt: Rasputin was dead. We turned off the light and went up to my room, after locking the basement door."

The Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov drove the men to Varshavsky Rail Terminal where they burned Rasputin's clothes. "It was very late and the grand duke evidently feared that great speed would attract the suspicion of the police." They also collected weights and chains and returned to Yuspov's home. At 4.50 a.m. Dimitri drove the men and Rasputin's body to Petrovskii Bridge. that crossed towards Krestovsky Island. According to Vladimir Purishkevich: "We dragged Rasputin's corpse into the grand duke's car." Purishkevich claimed he drove very slowly: "It was very late and the grand duke evidently feared that great speed would attract the suspicion of the police." Stanislaus de Lazovert takes up the story when they arrived at Petrovskii: "We bundled him up in a sheet and carried him to the river's edge. Ice had formed, but we broke it and threw him in. The next day search was made for Rasputin, but no trace was found."

Rasputin's body was found on 19th December by a river policeman who was walking on the ice. He noticed a fur coat trapped beneath, approximately 65 metres from the bridge. The ice was cut open and Rasputin's frozen body discovered. The post mortem was held the following day. Major-General Popel carried out the investigation of the murder. By this time Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert and Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin had fled from the city. He did interview Yusupov, Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov and Vladimir Purishkevich, but he decided not to charge them with murder.

I will review the evidence that contradicts the statements made by Felix Yusupov, Vladimir Purishkevich and Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert. The other two men involved, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov and Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin did not make any public statements on the case.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSyusupov.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpurishkevich.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSpavlovich.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSsukhotinM.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlazovert.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSrasputin.htm

Interesting article by Noam Chomsky, "It's not radical Islam that worries the US – it's independence". This view is supported by the news that the US is encouraging the Egyptian government to negotiate with the Muslim Brotherhood rather than any of the left-wing groups behind the demonstrations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/04/radical-islam-united-states-independence?INTCMP=SRCH

'The Arab world is on fire," al-Jazeera reported last week, while throughout the region, western allies "are quickly losing their influence". The shock wave was set in motion by the dramatic uprising in Tunisia that drove out a western-backed dictator, with reverberations especially in Egypt, where demonstrators overwhelmed a dictator's brutal police.

Observers compared it to the toppling of Russian domains in 1989, but there are important differences. Crucially, no Mikhail Gorbachev exists among the great powers that support the Arab dictators. Rather, Washington and its allies keep to the well-established principle that democracy is acceptable only insofar as it conforms to strategic and economic objectives: fine in enemy territory (up to a point), but not in our backyard, please, unless properly tamed.

One 1989 comparison has some validity: Romania, where Washington maintained its support for Nicolae Ceausescu, the most vicious of the east European dictators, until the allegiance became untenable. Then Washington hailed his overthrow while the past was erased. That is a standard pattern: Ferdinand Marcos, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Chun Doo-hwan, Suharto and many other useful gangsters. It may be under way in the case of Hosni Mubarak, along with routine efforts to try to ensure a successor regime will not veer far from the approved path. The current hope appears to be Mubarak loyalist General Omar Suleiman, just named Egypt's vice-president. Suleiman, the longtime head of the intelligence services, is despised by the rebelling public almost as much as the dictator himself.

A common refrain among pundits is that fear of radical Islam requires (reluctant) opposition to democracy on pragmatic grounds. While not without some merit, the formulation is misleading. The general threat has always been independence. The US and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.

A familiar example is Saudi Arabia, the ideological centre of radical Islam (and of Islamic terror). Another in a long list is Zia ul-Haq, the most brutal of Pakistan's dictators and President Reagan's favorite, who carried out a programme of radical Islamisation (with Saudi funding).

"The traditional argument put forward in and out of the Arab world is that there is nothing wrong, everything is under control," says Marwan Muasher, a former Jordanian official and now director of Middle East research for the Carnegie Endowment. "With this line of thinking, entrenched forces argue that opponents and outsiders calling for reform are exaggerating the conditions on the ground."

Therefore the public can be dismissed. The doctrine traces far back and generalises worldwide, to US home territory as well. In the event of unrest, tactical shifts may be necessary, but always with an eye to reasserting control.

The vibrant democracy movement in Tunisia was directed against "a police state, with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems", ruled by a dictator whose family was hated for their venality. So said US ambassador Robert Godec in a July 2009 cable released by WikiLeaks.

Therefore to some observers the WikiLeaks "documents should create a comforting feeling among the American public that officials aren't asleep at the switch" – indeed, that the cables are so supportive of US policies that it is almost as if Obama is leaking them himself (or so Jacob Heilbrunn writes in The National Interest.)

"America should give Assange a medal," says a headline in the Financial Times, where Gideon Rachman writes: "America's foreign policy comes across as principled, intelligent and pragmatic … the public position taken by the US on any given issue is usually the private position as well."

In this view, WikiLeaks undermines "conspiracy theorists" who question the noble motives Washington proclaims.

Godec's cable supports these judgments – at least if we look no further. If we do,, as foreign policy analyst Stephen Zunes reports in Foreign Policy in Focus, we find that, with Godec's information in hand, Washington provided $12m in military aid to Tunisia. As it happens, Tunisia was one of only five foreign beneficiaries: Israel (routinely); the two Middle East dictatorships Egypt and Jordan; and Colombia, which has long had the worst human-rights record and the most US military aid in the hemisphere.

Heilbrunn's exhibit A is Arab support for US policies targeting Iran, revealed by leaked cables. Rachman too seizes on this example, as did the media generally, hailing these encouraging revelations. The reactions illustrate how profound is the contempt for democracy in the educated culture.

Unmentioned is what the population thinks – easily discovered. According to polls released by the Brookings Institution in August, some Arabs agree with Washington and western commentators that Iran is a threat: 10%. In contrast, they regard the US and Israel as the major threats (77%; 88%).

Arab opinion is so hostile to Washington's policies that a majority (57%) think regional security would be enhanced if Iran had nuclear weapons. Still, "there is nothing wrong, everything is under control" (as Muasher describes the prevailing fantasy). The dictators support us. Their subjects can be ignored – unless they break their chains, and then policy must be adjusted.

Other leaks also appear to lend support to the enthusiastic judgments about Washington's nobility. In July 2009, Hugo Llorens, U.S. ambassador to Honduras, informed Washington of an embassy investigation of "legal and constitutional issues surrounding the 28 June forced removal of President Manuel 'Mel' Zelaya."

The embassy concluded that "there is no doubt that the military, supreme court and national congress conspired on 28 June in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the executive branch". Very admirable, except that President Obama proceeded to break with almost all of Latin America and Europe by supporting the coup regime and dismissing subsequent atrocities.

Perhaps the most remarkable WikiLeaks revelations have to do with Pakistan, reviewed by foreign policy analyst Fred Branfman in Truthdig.

The cables reveal that the US embassy is well aware that Washington's war in Afghanistan and Pakistan not only intensifies rampant anti-Americanism but also "risks destabilising the Pakistani state" and even raises a threat of the ultimate nightmare: that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of Islamic terrorists.

Again, the revelations "should create a comforting feeling … that officials are not asleep at the switch" (Heilbrunn's words) – while Washington marches stalwartly toward disaster.

Frank Wisner killed himself with one of his son's shotguns on 29th October, 1965.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwisner.htm

Was this connected to the JFK assassination. Interestingly, he died the same way as his co-founder of Operation Mockingbird, Phil Graham, the man who was put pressure on JFK to put Lyndon Johnson on the ticket in 1960.

Mark de Valk is the new editor of the Dealey Plaza UK Echo. He has asked me to post this on the Forum:

"A reminder to please get in touch with me if you would like to have an article published in our next edition of the Echo or beyond. I would also like to extend our reach for materials to researchers aross the pond (and around the world), so if you have any ideas for individuals to contribute please drop me a line or forward them this message."

If you are interested I will put you in touch with Mark.

Just posted on the BBC Website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12368029

MPs have been briefed on the legality of phone hacking as they conduct an inquiry into claims that the practice has been widespread among journalists.

The Home Affairs Select Committee has published written evidence it received...

The former editor of News of the World, Andy Coulson, quit his job as the prime minister's director of communications last month, blaming the phone-hacking scandal at the paper for making it hard to focus on his government role.

Ex-News of the World staff say hacking was rife when Mr Coulson was editor, but he has repeatedly denied that he was aware of the practice.

Freelance journalist Paul McMullan said he worked at News of the World for 18 months. In his submission, published on the Home Affairs Select Committee website, he wrote: "For what it is worth Andy Coulson knew a lot of people did it at The Sun on his "Bizarre" column and after that at NOTW. As he sat a few feet from me in the newsroom he probably heard me doing it, laughing about it etc and told others to do it."

It seems to me that you would prefer Omar Suleiman over the Nobel prize guy, as it would make clear the intelligence agencies were still in control.

No, I am a strong believer in democracy. I want what the majority of Egyptians want.

Gordon Brown, like Tony Blair, has been keen to build a speech-making career. For example, he is paid £71,544 for two weeks work making the odd speech at New York University. He also got paid £62,181 for four hours work in Lagos, Nigeria. However, he is finding it difficult to compete with Tony Blair, who is the world's highest-paid public speaker. For example, he received £400,000 for two 30-minute lectures in the Philippines.

It has gradually emerged why the police decided not to bring charges against other journalists working for the News of the World. In the originally investigation in 2005 the police discovered that Vodafone, Orange and O2 had evidence that over 100 customers had their phones hacked by the News of the World. This evidence would have resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of several journalists. Instead, the police decided not to prosecute and encouraged the phone companies to destroy the evidence. They have now agreed to reopen the case but are unlikely to get convictions because the evidence has now been destroyed.

Currently the US government is paying President Mubarak $3bn a year to maintain his pro-Israel policy. It is also the US government that is pushing hard for Omar Suleiman to replaced Mubarak as president. Suleiman, the head of Egyptian Intelligence, oversaw the CIA's rendition and torture program in Egypt; and publicly champions the crushing of its largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, by force.

In is unfortunately true that the US and UK governments have long regarded democratisation of the Arab world as a threat to their control of the region and its resources. Only last week Tony Blair defended Mubarak's dictatorship as "immensely courageous and a force for good". He might be responsible for the imprisonment and torturing of tens of thousands of political prisoners, but Blair rates him highly because he has kept Egypt at peace with Israel.

It seems certain that if Egypt goes, others will follow. That is what happened in Eastern Europe in 1989. It is very difficult to know what kind of government will follow President Hosni Mubarak. One thing that is almost certain is that they will be more hostile to Israel and people living in that country must be feeling very worried.

On the other side of the coin, it appears that the demonstrators are not being led by hard line islamic fundamentalists, but young students and others interested in provoking a democratic system and an open economy that allows everyone to increase their standard of living. If that is the case, then Israel is not the enemy, but the dictators and their cronies who have soaked up most of the economies of those countries. It is the dictators of those countries who are shaking in their sandals.

BK

Some of the demonstrators have been calling Mubarak a Zionist. His peace agreement with Israel has been very unpopular with Egypt and was further evidence that he was under the control of the United States.

That being said, tourism is such an important industry in Egypt that a move towards Islamic Fundamentalism would be an economic disaster.

Has anyone read the book Ghost, by Robert Harris, or the film, The Ghost Writer (directed by Roman Polanski) based on the novel. The book and the film are both worth searching out. Harris was once a close friend of Tony Blair. However, he became disillusioned with his period in power.

When Blair resigned as prime minister in 2007, Harris immediately began work on the book. The book and film begins with the death of Mike McAra, a writer who has been ghosting the autobiography of a recently unseated British prime minister named Adam Lang, a thinly-disguised version of Blair. His wife (Cherie Blair) is depicted as a sinister manipulator of her husband.

The new ghost-writer (Ewan McGregor in the film), begins to investigate the death of McAra. He eventually finds out that McAra has been killed because he has discovered Lang's secret. This is the same secret that I have mentioned on this thread before. That Tony Blair joined the Labour Party as an agent of MI5. It is also claimed that his wife was recruited by the CIA while at university.

It seems certain that if Egypt goes, others will follow. That is what happened in Eastern Europe in 1989. It is very difficult to know what kind of government will follow President Hosni Mubarak. One thing that is almost certain is that they will be more hostile to Israel and people living in that country must be feeling very worried.

These have been a fraught few days in the office for Rupert Murdoch, who visited the London branch of his media empire last week. His television company, Sky, was humiliated by the sexist goonishness of Andy Gray and Richard Keys, the presenters of its Premiership football, its biggest generator of cash. Mr Gray was sacked on Tuesday and Mr Keys followed voluntarily on Wednesday after their off-air derogatory remarks about a female match official were leaked – although it was evidence of sexual harassment in the Sky office that emerged subsequently which prompted Mr Gray's dismissal.

It has been claimed that one of the reasons that Andy Gray was sacked by Murdoch was that he was taking legal action against the News of the World because his phone was hacked.

Sterling Seagrove will be appearing on Black Op Radio on Thursday 3 February.

Can I ask you if you had a career in intelligence? You are in education now but were you ever an employee of any intelligence agency? How do you do your research?

I have never been a member of any intelligence agency. I am a historian who is interested in the Secret State. My research is primarily about the role of intelligence agencies in political life in the UK. My material often comes from whistle-blowers. For example, that is how I know that Tony Blair originally joined the Labour Party and CND as a MI5 spy.

Did left-wing forces gain revenge on those behind the Roger Casement conspiracy and the killing of Victor Grayson?

In 1921 a Secret Service Committee of senior officials was instructed to make recommendations "for reducing expenditure and avoiding over-lapping". In its report published in July, Basil Thomson's Directorate of Intelligence, was criticized for overspending, duplicating the work of other agencies and producing misleading reports. Sir William Horwood, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, joined in the attack and sent David Lloyd George a memorandum denouncing "the independence of the Special Branch" under Thomson as a "standing menace to the good discipline of the force" and that the Directorate of Intelligence was both wasteful and inefficient. As a result of these complaints Thomson was asked to resign.

Thomson's great friend, William Reginald Hall, took up his case in the House of Commons. On 3rd November 1921, Hall declared: "There is no man who has been a better friend of England than Sir Basil Thomson". He went on to argue that his downfall was due not merely to his "open enemies", the Bolsheviks, the Russians, the extremists" but to a secret plot that involved the Labour Party.

There was worse to follow for Basil Thomson. In December 1925, Thomson and a young woman named Thelma de Lava, were arrested in Hyde Park and charged with committing an act in violation of public decency. Thomson pleaded not guilty and said he was carrying out investigations for an article on prostitution. He was found guilty and fined £5. Christopher Andrew, the author of The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (2009) has argued: "Thomson's supporters hinted darkly that he had been framed either by his enemies in the Met or by subversives."

Sidney Reilly, one of those who was said to have forged the Casement diaries, also had an unpleasant end. The Bolshevik government decided to trick Reilly into going back to the Soviet Union. As the author of Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (1985) has pointed out: "Since 1922 the GPU had been plotting the downfall of both Reilly and Savinkov by operating a bogus anti-Bolshevik Front, the Monarchist Union of Central Russia (MUCR), better known as the Trust, designed to ensnare the remaining plotters against Bolshevik rule."

Ernest Boyce, the MI6 station chief in Helsinki, wrote to Reilly asking him to meet the leaders of Monarchist Union of Central Russia in Moscow. In March 1925, Reilly replied: "Much as I am concerned about my own personal affairs which, as you know, are in a hellish state. I am, at any moment, if I see the right people and prospects of real action, prepared to chuck everything else and devote myself entirely to the Syndicate's interests. I was fifty-one yesterday and I want to do something worthwhile, while I can."

After a number of delays caused mainly by Reilly's debt-ridden business dealings, he met Ernest Boyce in Paris before crossing the Finnish border on 25th September 1925. At a house outside Moscow two days later he had a meeting with the leaders of MUCR, where he was arrested by the secret police. Reilly was told he would be executed because of his attempts to overthrow the Bolshevik government in 1918. According to the Soviet account of his interrogation, on 13th October 1925, Reilly wrote to Felix Dzerzhinsky, head of Cheka, saying he was ready to cooperate and give full information on the British and American Intelligence Services. Sidney Reilly's appeal failed and he was executed on 5th November 1925.

The third man to be punished for their role in the Casement conspiracy was Arthur Maundy Gregory. By 1932 Gregory was deeply in debt to several people he had acquired money from people for honours that they had not received. Gregory now attempted to sell a knighthood to Lieutenant Commander Edward Billyard-Leake. He pretended he was interested and then reported the matter of Scotland Yard. Gregory was arrested on 4th February, 1933, and charged with corruption. He now turned it to his advantage as he was now able to blackmail famous people into paying him money in return for not naming them in court.

The leaders of the Conservative Party were especially worried about Gregory's testimony in court. The chairman of the party, John Colin Campbell Davidson, approached him, warned that he could not avoid conviction, but undertook that if he kept silent the authorities would be lenient. After a discreet trial he changed his plea to guilty on 21st February, 1933 and received the lightest possible sentence of two months and a fine of £50. According to Richard Davenport-Hines: "On his release from Wormwood Scrubs he was met at the prison gates by a friend of Davidson who took him to France, gave him a down payment, and promised him an annual pension of £2000."

Arthur Maundy Gregory was arrested by the German authorities after their invasion of France in 1940, Gregory was confined in Drancy Camp, where his health deteriorated without the whisky upon which he depended. He died of cardiac failure, aggravated by a swollen liver, on 28th September 1941, at Val de Grâce Hospital, Paris.

The point I am trying to make is that with the Zinoviev Letter, MI5 and MI6 were willing to open their files to “friendly” historians nearly 90 years after the event. At that rate the files about the JFK assassination will be released in around 2050. However, with the MI5/MI6 they were only willing to disclose they were involved in disinformation. They have been unwilling to admit to the murder the former MP, Victor Grayson, who was onto the story.

Why was Ian Edmondson not interviewed by the police during their investigation (his name appeared on documents recovered from the private detective hacking the phones on behalf of Murdoch)? The News of the World case reveals corruption at the very top of the Metropolitan Police. The man who oversaw the original investigation and carried out the phoney review of the case, was John Yates, assistant commissioner. He also was in charge of the bungled Tony Blair, cash-for-honours investigation.

This is the statement from Scotland Yard:

The Met has today received significant new information relating to allegations of phone hacking at the News of the World in 2005/06. As a result, the Met is launching a new investigation to consider this material.

This new information was provided as a result of a fresh News of the World investigation. It includes the recovery of emails of Ian Edmondson. This raises the question why these emails were not found during the first investigation by the newspaper. Why was Ian Edmondson not interviewed by the police during their investigation (his name appeared on documents recovered from the private detective hacking the phones on behalf of Murdoch)? This case reveals corruption at the very top of the Metropolitan Police. The man who oversaw the original investigation and carried out the phoney review of the case, was John Yates, assistant commissioner. He also was in charge of the bungled Tony Blair, cash-for-honours investigation.

Well... that's torn it !

Once again Grant failed to respond to the tactical changes made by the opposing manager. This has happened so many times this season, including the first leg against Birmingham. The first ten minutes of the second-half clearly showed he needed another body in midfield. He should never have started with Hines who has trouble holding the ball up and is very poor carrying out his defensive duties. I cannot understand why he played Hines instead of Sears. He gives good protection to his full-back and is good going forward. In my opinion, Hines was to blame for the first goal. He was standing close to Bowyer but completely failed to react to Upson's poor clearance. When Grant belatedly takes off Hines he replaces him with Dyer, who has the same deficiencies as Hines. It was no surprise that Dyer gave the ball away for the winning goal. He also missed our best chance in the second-half.

Maybe they will now sack Grant (I suspect they felt he had some magical powers in cup matches). Top managers will not of course accept the job as they will not be in a position to bring in their own players. However, it might be possible to recruit Chris Hughton. The only problem with that is Barry Silkman is not his agent.

Police have launched a fresh investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World after receiving "significant new information", Scotland Yard has said. This evidence concerns the emails of the former head of news at the newspaper, Ian Edmondson on Tuesday following an internal inquiry. The new inquiry will be moved from the Met Police's counter terrorism command to the specialist crime directorate. At the moment there is no news of an investigation into the relationship between the police and Rubert Murdoch.