Disruption in Gloucester Cathedral

Claim: Obama described as “the Anti-Christ’s John the Baptist” by speaker in cathedral

This is Gloucestershire reports:

A Curate claims he was bundled into the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral and arrested after protesting against a controversial speaker.

Reverend Keith Hebden walked to the front of the nave to try to interrupt Messianic Jewish preacher David Silver.

But he claims he was escorted out into the cloisters by five members of the congregation – leaving him with bruising on his left arm.

…Mr Silver’s visit attracted controversy after Nailsworth mayor Norman Kay asked the Dean of Gloucester, the Very Reverend Nick Bury, to call off the talk because he feared it could inflame cultural and religious relations in the county.

The talk went ahead after the Dean asked the [Gloucestershire] Prayer Walkers for assurances that Mr Silver would not say anything inflammatory.

Hebden maintains he was asking a question.

Details about the event are scarce, although here it is billed as:

David Silver Gloucester Cathedral Event – “THE ONE NEW MAN” explained – “CLASH OF THE KINGDOMS” 14th Sept 2009… in association with “The Gloucester – Prayer Walkers UK”…

That detail was posted by a certain “Ozz”, who is the only person I could find who is one of these “Prayer Walkers”. On another page, he shows an interest in conspiracy theories, commending Texe Marrs*  and the late Barry Smith, plus a site which “covers the UFO cover-up in greater detail”.

Silver was orginally from New Zealand, and is now based in Haifa, where he runs “Out of Zion” ministries. His theology is as one would expect: the work of Yeshua (Jesus) was about God “grafting” together Jews and believing non-Jews, and believers should adopt Jewish religious practices, such as the celebration of Jewish festivals. Very soon, there will be a “rapture”, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict should be seen in spritual warfare terms; as he explains in his book A Slow Train Coming:

The truth of the matter is that Satan wants Jerusalem and specifically the Temple Mount, because he knows that is the only place Yeshua can return to.

This is apocalyptic Christian Zionism, although he prefers not to use the term to describe himself.

Hebden alleges that Silver wants Palestinians expelled from areas under Israeli control; Silver, however, denies this.

In the comments section under the This is Glocestershire article, various people give their perspectives on what happened. According to one witness (“Mary”):

I was present at part of the midday forum which hosted Mr Silver’s two-fold event. In my view the concerns about Mr Silver’s views were probably justified.

Mr Silver offered to answer questions on matters “spiritual, political and military.” When one of the forum audience/guests asked for Mr Silver’s views on President Obama’s policy and initial measures in the politics of Israel, Mr Silver replied – and I quote –

“Everything that Hitler did, he is doing.” Mr Silver opined that even if Obama is not actually the anti-Christ, he is the “John the Baptist” for the anti-Christ.

Other political comment was that both Blair and Thatcher bear “the mark of the Beast.” When a member of the Forum made a sweeping condemnation of past leaders of our nation, Mr Silver smiled and said “We all agree, don’t we?” to a general murmur of assent, though at least three participants responded “No.”

From the outset of his session Mr Silver made no distinction between the biblical “Israel” (which is a very complex theological entity) and the modern state which bears the self-chosen name of Israel. These are two distinct and different entities; to conflate them invalidates the propositions of those who see them as but one reality.

I went to the Forum prepared to listen to a point of view. I had expected Mr Silver to give an outline of his beliefs and thought before inviting questions. Unfortunately, from the beginning he chose to invite questions from an audience that was in no way representative of the clergy and religious leaders of the county. I was present for 75 minutes of the scheduled 2 hours and in that time Mr Silver reeled off a number of text references that he felt supported (proved?) his stance. But his explication could not be described as an example of Christian faith, hope or charity.

The cathedral was a surprising venue for such ¿ministry¿ and the group clearly felt that securing such a prestigious venue (“our getting into the Cathedral”) was a pre-eminent sign of God’s favour, a preliminary to Dramatic consequences. In view of the reported refusal to allow the expression of a question which they deemed unacceptable, regrettably they betray both the Jewish and the Christian legitimate viewpoints.

May we know what question Rev Hebden was going to ask? Thank you

Another (“Christine”), however, tells us that:

I was at this event and only afew feet from Hedben as he disrupted the gathering. One of the leaders of the event spoke kindly to him and put an arm around him and was asking him to kindly stop what he was doing. So he was dealt with very respectfully, however, when he refused to move, finally afew other men stepped in to help and when he refused to move they had to escort him to the back. The conference was called ‘THE CLASH OF KINGDOMS’ and we certainly saw a manifestation of that before our eyes as the Light invaded the darkness and the Prince of Peace clashed with anger which rose up in this gentleman. I pray he cries out for Gods mercy which is available for him. God loves Hedben and longs for the deception he is under to be lifted off him. Lets not judge him but pray that he allows God to set him free.

“Ian M” concurs:

Rev Hebden interrupted the gathering by leaving his seat and speaking from the central aisle at the front of the cathedral. He was completely out of order to do so as he was not part of the programme and questions or comments from the congregation had not been invited. He was asked to stop, and was only ejected when he continued to speak.

Hebden and Silver have also both left comments; Hebden was apparently going to raise the Muhammad Nayif incident. Hebden has a blog here; he holds anarchist political views.

(Hat tip: Seismic Shock)

****

*Somewhat unfortunately, Marrs’ website currently heads up with “Rothschild’s Choice: Barack Obama and the Hidden Cabal Behind the Plot to Murder America”.

Together at Last: William Tyndale and Chuck Norris

In the 1960s, a somewhat prudish man named Ken Taylor worked on a paraphrase of St. Paul’s letters while commuting to work at the Moody Press in Chicago. The result was a volume called Living Letters, later expanded into the Living Bible. But who should publish it? Taylor’s autobiography, My Life: A Guided Tour has some background (pp. 228-229):

I stood there in the presence of God with this first copy of Living Letters and prayed again the prayer I had prayed on the Mount of Olives, that God would use the little book mightily for His glory…I had always been fascinated by the story of the sixteenth-century Englishman William Tyndale…I too had a dream of giving to America a Bible that was easy to understand. William Tyndale was my hero. So Living Letters was published under the name of Tyndale House Publishers.

And now:

Tyndale House Publishers announced today that it will release The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book: 101 of Chuck’s Favorite Facts and Stories, written by Chuck Norris with Todd DuBord, in November.

DuBord is apparently the official chaplain to “Chuck Norris Enterprises”, and he runs a website called “National Treasures” which aims to correct what he sees as secular revisionism of American history; he has

…personally led correction crusades to restore major religious revisions at historic sites like the Jamestown Settlement (first English colony in America) and the Washington Monument.

Norris is big fan of the Bible, and in 2005 he lent his suppport for a crank Bible syllabus produced by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS) – see here for further details.

Funnily enough, there is actually a physical resemblance:

William Tyndale and Chuck Norris

(Hat tips: Jim West and Biblical Paths)

English Defence League Gets Medieval

UPDATE: I’ve been told Paul Ray and Chris Renton have not in fact made up. There is apparently some kind of schism, which led to Ray’s “English Defence League St George Division.

I really don’t understand why people think the English Defence League (EDL) are up for a fight. A new video by Paul Ray (apparently having healed his rift with Chris Renton) advertises a protest for Manchester; here’s a screenshot:

EDL Crusaders

Also, Ray’s blog has a poem, “written from a Templar heart 2009”, but for some reason backdated on his blog to 2000. Brace yourself:

The crusaders were once strong,now all but gone
…But im still here sword out of sheath

…I seek to destroy,those who destroyed first
As i pledged my evil curse

…Upon your sons vengeance will be done

They say violence aint the way
But its the way that I pray

…My thirst [f]or blood grows stronger
The pain cant take no longer
For foreign blood I hunger

…Islamification of this nation
Is evil,must repent

…Taste the blood,its on the chase

The reference to “Islamification” would appear to exclude the possibility that this is some kind of poetic interpretation of a Muslim extremist’s mind.

The curious thing, though, is that Ray himself never seems to show up at these “anti-extremist” protests.

Question Time

UPDATE: Wightman still denies being the author of the questions; see new blog entry here.

Yesterday, Dominic Wightman left a comment about the bizarre list of questions which Tim Ireland was sent at the weekend, and which I suggested made Wightman look foolish for sending them. Wightman has responded on that point (and on various others):

Rabid interview questions. Certainly not written by me or sent by me and you know it. Low trick on Ireland’s part.

This is remarkable. Tim’s issue with Wightman is that Wightman put on-line a hoax interview and pretended to us that someone else had done it. He has admitted to that, although not the reason why, which was obviously because he wished to manipute Tim and me into attacking that other person in our blogs. Why would Tim undermine his case by adding a bogus document of his own? On the other hand, Wightman has shown that he tends to over-reach and has an inflated belief in his ability to avoid detection.

The questions anticipate Wightman’s attack piece in some very obvious ways. Sure, Wightman had told us he planned to write something, and we could imagine some of the topics that he would probably raise: Tim’s disputes with Iain Dale and Paul Staines, the Usmanov affair and Craig Murray, the supposed link to Islamic extremists. But other points of comparison come astonishingly close, even if – to anticipate the only possible line of defence – other private emails from Wightman or public statements might have hinted at further lines of attack and preferred turns of phrase.

Here are the most obvious parallels; questions in red, extracts from attack piece in green:

After a life of failure you have realised that even in the Blogosphere you are a failure…Why did you attend Paul Staines drink driving hearing in May 2008? Do you not think that this makes you look like a stalker and a sad, embittered loser who enjoys any negatives affecting your more successful competitors?

…Ireland is said to hate Paul Staines to such a degree that in May last year, when Staines attended court on a drink-driving charge, Tim Ireland was in the public gallery to watch…It is difficult to follow the thread of what he’s trying to say compared to his blogging superiors…Staines’ and Dale’s user figures (their blogs are ranked #2 and #1 respectively in the UK on politics) are way out in front of Ireland’s (ranked #24 by the ranking system most favourable to him)… While Ireland’s competitors have been busy typing away, he has rapidly been losing visitors. Why?

Would you plead guilty for manslaughter if you pushed one of your victims to suicide?

Pushing blog victims often into a suicidal state is nothing to be proud of and something the Internet could really do without

Is not your success in overcoming the addiction to alcohol a success you should celebrate publicly and share with others who might be going through the same kind of addictions?

In 2003 I went out with a well-known alcoholic for some time and she will be happy to tell anyone, including Ireland, how I attended the AA classes with her and did my utmost to help her and those friends of hers who were alcoholic along.

What is your opinion on people who plant spybots on other people’s computers?…Have you ever blagged or sock-puppeted?

Ireland has a particular declared hatred of sock-puppeting… but has been known to blag and abuse comment areas on other bloggers’ blogs using “supporters” (who are often using fake IDs) as a standard procedure in his attempt, thus far in vain, to dominate the British blogosphere…He should…stop the faking of emails, stop the smears, stop the spybots and the key-loggers.

Would you agree that behind every bully is a coward?

…behind every bully is one of the biggest cowards you will ever face.

You are linked by association with the violent anti fascist groups who have been fighting the EDL on the streets of England. Do you condone violence?

Some of the people Ireland is in contact with link straight through to the violent anti-fascist crowd. I’m not suggesting for one minute that Ireland is guilty of violence by association…

Would you agree that the far left in England is allied with the Islamist extreme in what is called the Black Red Alliance and that in some ways you are the personification of this?

I was learning a lot about the far left and finding that the Black Red alliance…

What is your retort to the accusation that “you can dish it but you can’t take it”?

How could someone be so thin-skinned and yet dish out so much bile

You live in a Tory heartland. Apart from once in the last 50 years your area has returned a Conservative politician as its member of parliament. Since you attack Tory MPs on an almost permanent basis, how does it make you feel, as it were, living amongst the enemy?

Every time he steps out of his road and into the streets of fat Tory Surrey…he comes face to face with people just like me wherever he looks…In the next village Branson was born, Thatcher spent her Christmases in his village. Everywhere he looks there are living, breathing examples of Tory-years success…

In the choir photo in Westminster you look overweight.

[Choir photo re-published by Wightman]

Your self-given nickname is manic. You also post notices about yourself being a twisted genius? How apt to you feel these labels are? What evidence is there that you are a genius? (sorry, I’ve not been able to find any).

Ireland posts self-congratulatory pieces about himself around the web describing himself as a ‘twisted genius’ – ‘twisted’ yes, but I’ve met genii and, though he can be quite creative, I assure you he’s hardly closing in on Rolf Harris and is multiple leagues behind Da Vinci.

Etc. Readers can judge for themselves – here and here.

Dominic Wightman: The Story of an Encounter

Just as the Donal MacIntyre programme on Glen Jenvey concluded, the following Twitter message was posted:

Cheerleadered

The link (not included here) leads to a remarkable document in which “Olivia James”, supposedly “the pen name of a Caracas-based lawyer”, records a lengthy interview with Dominic Wightman – also known as Dominic Whiteman – in which Wightman explains his recent dealings both with Tim Ireland and myself. The interview contains a lot of incidental detail which allows me to vouch that it really is by Wightman. By way of introduction, it should be recalled that Wightman and Glen Jenvey both appeared on Newsnight in the autumn of 2006 to discuss Islamic extremism as part of the anti-extremist “VIGIL Network”. The nature of VIGIL seemed somewhat opaque, so I did a couple of blog entries about it. It had a website for a while, but the organisation is now defunct. Instead, Wightman now has a website called the Westminster Journal, which has not been updated for a while. Wightman appears again more recently in the Spinwatch article on amateur terror-trackers, although he has assured me that he intends to sue them or have them shut down.

Tim Ireland and I met Wightman in a pub in February, a few weeks after Tim uncovered Glen Jenvey’s bogus postings to a Muslim forum. He explained to us that Jenvey had been passing dubious material to Patrick Mercer (then Shadow Minister for Homeland Security) via a university lecturer whose brother was on Mercer’s electoral executive committee. He also told us that this lecturer had created a fake email as evidence that Whiteman had once suggested creating a false rumour that Muslim extremists intended to use old women as suicide bombers. I admit I was somewhat disarmed – he was personable, expressed moderate conservative views, and since Jenvey had proven to be a fabulator it seemed unlikely that someone who wanted to expose his activities would also be dishonest. I did, though, think it odd that he did not wish to sue anyone over the “granny bomber” story, and I recalled his rather unsatisfactory reaction in 2007 to the first critical scrutiny into VIGIL. It also occured to me that, by giving us information, it would mean that we would be less likely to write anything negative about him, but that seemed a worthwhile and fair trade-off.

Soon after our meeting, he wrote an email explaining that he intended to become bankrupt in the autumn in order to be able to publish material without fear of being sued, on (a) (the now late) Sheik Khalid Bin Mahfouz; (b) a company allegedly involved in terrorism and drug dealing; and (c) extremism in Muslim faith schools, using material which Civitas had been too fearful to include in its own report. Further:

I am making a series of short films with the guy behind Undercover Mosque. In these clips, to be distributed online, I am going to urge all UK bloggers, activists, etc etc to publish all the crap against the above 3 targets repeatedly (not on their own blogs unless they want to be attacked to the point of bankruptcy like I will be) so that the world knows the truth about their misdeeds, whatever our shitty legal system says. I will attack Eady. I will attack the various acts which have distorted the balance of power in the libel courts etc etc I will attack Carter Ruck partner by partner. I will also attack certain members of the freedom campaigns who are using them for their own ends…The plan is well-supported. I have built an interesting team around me. Across the political spectrum / journalistic spectrum….. from the Telegraph to Searchlight, the Guardian to FOX. Two barristers and even one judge! I have no fear of creating a lot of enemies…

We exchanged congenial emails over the summer, but his attitude changed recently following two events: first, there was the Spinwatch article, which revealed that Wightman had in fact gone bankrupt for more mundane reasons, and which gave the lecturer’s side of the “granny bomber” story; and, second, there was the discovery that Wightman had placed on-line a bogus document in an attempt to manipulate the things Tim and I wrote about –  Tim will has more to say about that himself. Meanwhile, no shocking new exposé of faith schools has appeared, nor anything about Saudi billionaires or a drug-dealing company, let alone a big free speech campaign; instead, the only new research I have seen has been a document he recently put on-line about an extremist forum called “Islambase”, which he has trawled to shockingly reveal that some known extremists have some unpleasant views, and that some other unimportant people do too.

Parallel to this, I have received continuing strange and annoying messages from a supposed group of pseudonymous young women called “the Cheerleaders”, or the “Hur al-Ayn”, who seem somewhat unreal but who I am assured are actual persons by a popular musician who goes by various names, including “Charlie Cock” and “Ludas Matyi” – I blogged this here. It has become clear recently that Wightman has been working closely with these characters or person; and it now appears that – extraordinarily for a man who wishes to be taken seriously – Wightman has decided to announce his article on Tim through the Twitter feed of someone who, as can be seen above, just yesterday sent Tim a message of a personally harrassing nature.

The “interview” is a grandiose attack on Tim which must have taken some time to write; I have a bit part:

Richard Bartholomew was less involved – more focused on spin-off stories – and by no means exhibited any signs of being at all comfortable sitting anywhere near far left extremism or Islamist extremists… Though in the presence of Ireland, Bartholomew came across merely as Ireland’s cohort, I soon saw that he had a left-wing agenda of his own: his twin pleasures were guilt by association and playing off anyone – either plain nutty or right of centre – against themselves. Bartholomew was a stirrer but a quiet, affable fellow, I found…

I’m not sure how a person can be played off against themself, but there you are. And it’s remarkable to be called a “stirrer” by someone whose behaviour has been as strange and shabby as his.

This is a man who claims to be a serious figure in freelance anti-terrorist consulting. In fact, though, he is a man who promises to produce significant research and campaigning in the public interest, but instead (a) trawls a known Islamist website to come up with a few English-language scraps of stuff that’s obvious and (b) produces a lengthy and blustering attack on a blogger who dealt with him throughout with courtesy and with integrity. A man who forwarded private correspondance (nothing too significant, but it’s still annoying) to a hostile person or persons who use weird aliases and whose friends send out threatening messages. A man who just a few days ago sent Tim a list of bizarre and aggressive questions under a pseudonym. A man who, at a time when it became clear that Jenvey was unstable and vulnerable, tried to get us to write more things about him by putting on-line a bogus document (he may be the author, although he maintains he “was offered” it from persons he refuses to divulge). A man who won’t sue the person he claims made up the “granny bomber” story. A man who, by the way, has also declined to deny [UPDATE: finally he has, in the comments] that he created a blog under the name “James Osposol” in order to fire some silly insults in my direction, despite my straightforward question about it.

Dominic Whiteman

UPDATE 1: Wightman has been in contact to (a) clarify that  he is not in Venezuela, as I had originally inferred from his article and (b)  insist that that he has no connection to the “Cheerleaders”.

UPDATE 2: Wightman has now posted his attack onto his Westminster Journal website. He has also removed the name of an elderly Tory grandee who was previously listed as the Journal’s “life patron”. Incidentally, while Wightman is the Journal’s “editor and co-founder”, there is also a ”current affairs editor”: Adrian Morgan, who featured in the story I blogged here

UPDATE 3: Tim’s article has now been posted here. Extract:

On May 19, Dominic Wightman emailed me with a claim that he had chanced upon a document hosted at scribd.com that purported to be a genuine interview with Glen Jenvey, conducted and published by Jeremy Reynalds. He even asked me if I had written it, before listing a series of likely suspects (culminating, inevitably, with [Michael] Starkey).

Reynalds immediately denied any involvement, but even after it was clearly established as a fake, this ‘interview’ presented me and/or up to half a dozen people with a potential problem that could not be addressed with simple exposure…I was as determined then as I am today to keep the full contents of that document out of the public domain, because even though the document contains very little in the way of truth, it still had and has the potential to cause great damage or embarrasment to a long list of people (including the man we can now safely describe as his primary target; Michael Starkey).

…at every stage since ‘finding’ the document, Dominic Wightman was in regular contact with me, well aware of the anxiety I was feeling, and well aware of his contribution to it (though he still quite inexplicably claims to have been oblivious to being the primary cause of it, while simultaneously having no regrets because he could not have planned it better).

And yet he said and did nothing to alleviate that anxiety… and continued to say and do nothing until the information I provided led police right to his door.

He then insisted that we meet immediately (not likely), then tried to deny and minimise what he had done to varying degrees, then tried to convince me that I was guilty of the same or worse, and then tried to smear me again, this time in such a way that might make people think I was deserving of such treatment.

I’m not. No-one is.

If I thought otherwise, then I would have ‘outed’ the forged interview and brought it into the public domain (as he no doubt expected me to) long before I established the source of the piece and their likely agenda.

I can confirm this version of events; I have an email in which Wightman urges us to believe that the lecturer Michael Starkey is the author. But he knew that this was untrue, the document looks like his handiwork (the interview format was to avoid the problem of Jenvey’s distinctive dyslexic writing), and he refuses to provide any other source. The document was in all likelihood fabricated by him, and he placed it on-line in the hope that untrue informtion about other people would be disseminated.  For a researcher, that is the ultimate kiss of death, and if I were the head of one of the research organisations he has apparently worked for, I would be very alarmed.

One way that Wightman has sought to justify his behaviour is by going on about a “Black Red Alliance”, suggesting that his deception was valid as he was somehow uncovering links between the far left and Islamic extremists. What this amounts to is a supposed revelation that Tim and I have been in contact with the moderator of Ummah.com in order to get the IP addresses of certain messages that may have come from Jenvey (on Ummah and other sites) at earlier dates. But that wasn’t a secret; I directly referred to receiving such information here. Asking for information in the general public interest hardly amounts to any kind of “alliance”; indeed, the only real alliance that was made during this affair was between me, Tim, and Dominic, and came about because Dominic led us to believe that he wanted the truth to be known. Alas, it turns out that he was the one who had “a different agenda”, and he is now the one trying to make a “left-right” issue part of the story.

UPDATE 4: Adrian Morgan has given me permission to publish the following message:

Yesterday you placed an “update” to an article, in which you mention that I was listed as “Current Affairs Editor” of Westminster Journal. I had done nothing in that capacity since August 2008.

You will find now that my name has been removed from the “about” page.

I had nothing to do with the Tim Ireland article/attack, which I repudiate unreservedly. I do not know Tim Ireland and I have no cause to feel animosity towards him.  In future I  will not be asssociated with Westminster Journal while it is used as a vehicle for character attack and bile.

I suspect the main reaction to Wightman’s article among those who research Islamic extremism will be uneasy bafflement: why so much energy expended on Tim Ireland? Why the need to go over Tim’s disputes with Paul Staines and Iain Dale? Why the need to go into personal details, and to feign distaste over a crude (but funny) bit of satire about David Cameron? Why the silly boasting about having supposedly “brought down” Tim? Why the weird device of having the article presented as if by a pseudonymous Venezuelan lawyer? What does any of this have to do with the purpose of the Westminster Journal? Why did he publish it to a blog first? Why did he send Tim a weird list of 40 questions under a pseudonym the day before? Are these not the acts of man trying to dredge up everything he can in a desperate attempt to divert attention from a very simple but devestating truth: that he tried to have bogus information placed in the public domain in order to settle a score, and thus has shown that as an investigator he cannot be trusted?

Glen Jenvey on BBC Radio 5 Live

Following Jenvey’s confession last month, BBC Radio 5 Live’s Donal MacIntyre programme has interviewed Glen Jenvey about how he hoaxed the Sun in January into publishing a bogus story about a Muslim plot to attack British Jews. Jenvey also offers his apologies: Tom Mangold thinks he is “sad rather than bad”, having had a “ghastly” childhood and enjoying media attention. There’s also a wider general discussion with Nigel West and with Tom Miller of Spinwatch about the phenomenon of intelligence fantasists in general, and why the media and politicans like Patrick Mercer are so quick to fall for them.

Jenvey’s antics came to light because of Tim Ireland’s investigations at Bloggerheads. Bloggerheads does get a brief credit, but unfortunately there is nothing about how Tim uncovered the truth or about the campaign of abuse and harrassment he suffered in the months that followed. However, Jenvey has told me in an email that he wants people to know that he is also sorry for that.

Mangold’s report comes in the wake of an article published at Spinwatch about Jenvey and some of his associates. I’ve blogged on Jenvey numerous times, the first being in 2006 when he appeared on Newsnight as part of a story that relied on a group called the VIGIL Network.

By the way, the rest of the programme is also worth listening to. There’s a story about a remarkable woman who spends her time looking on social networking sites for evidence of thugs boasting about how they’ve got away with illegal acts; she carries on with her efforts despite facing threats and efforts to shut her down.  As she rightly says, the threats mean that they are afraid of her, rather than that she should be afraid of them. Indeed.

The programme should be online to listen to soon here.

Jenvey Obsession

Glen Jenvey

sun-sugar-jenvey

Tim Ireland Gets 38 Questions from Mystery Interviewer

Tim Ireland has received a lengthy list of question from a demanding mystery interviewer named “Dick Walker”. They include the following:

33.What would you say to the accusation that Richard Bartholomew is your (quote) stooge?

It’s bad enough being called a stooge, but is it worse for me that someone else faces “the accusation” of having me as their stooge?

Funnily enough, some time ago I received a comment to my blog from someone using the name “Richard Walker”, in response to I posting I had made about a supposed anti-terrorist research group called the “VIGIL Network”; one of the questions Tim received describes him as the “personification” of  “the far left in England…allied with the Islamist extreme”.

Richard Walker rebuked me thus:

It seems strange that you – clearly a man of intelligence – would use the Internet to guess at what these groups represent.

Actually, I’ve been very surprised of late at the unworthy and disreputable antics any number of “men of intelligence” get up to.

The name is perhaps an allusion to the “Richard L. Walker Institute of International Studies” in the USA.

More Dinner Fallout

Good grief  – this is getting out of hand. During the week I wrote a couple of blog posts (here and here) about Robert Spencer’s recent trip to the UK; certain details were then used by Charles Johnson to goad him, leading to a new spat between the two enemies.

My posts have also now generated a dispute in the UK; Harry’s Place reports:

A couple of days ago, Sunny [Hundal] wrote a piece on Pickled Politics which in turn repeated a story on Barth’s Notes relating to a rather farcical dinner at which Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, somebody from a group called the Christian Action Network, and Douglas Murray attended. The CAN bloke invited somebody from the football-hooliganish “English Defence League”, whereupon Douglas Murray quite rightly left the meeting.

 When I looked again yesterday, the piece had changed…It transpires that Sunny received some sort of legal threat from Douglas Murray.

It seems that Murray is of the opinion that Sunny’s version incorrectly suggested that Murray had not left the meeting, although Sunny denies this was his intent.

However, the Harry’s Place article in turn has angered Robert Spencer, who has left comment demanding to know:

…So why does Harry’s Place say that Murray alone left without meeting the EDL, while Bartholomew correctly notes that I did not meet with them either?

Are you even interested in telling the truth, or just interesting in perpetuating a smear?

David T responds:

I’m interested in talking about the wrongness of using libel threats against bloggers. I don’t really mind who meets with who, and the purpose of the article wasn’t to comment on whether or not you had met with the EDL.

I am very happy to accept that you didn’t meet with the EDL – however, the subject of this post is not whether you met with them, but whether Douglas Murray did, as I believe Sunny originally reported.

In other words: this is not all about you – it isn’t even about Sunny or Douglas. It is about the propriety of threatening legal threats against bloggers. As the recipient of lawyers letters from Hamas members and racists, I feel pretty strongly about this.

However, I don’t get off lightly from Spencer, either: he refers to “Bartholomew, who is playing a rather determined guilt-by-association game in association with libel master Charles Johnson”, and complains that

I am fighting for my reputation against the libels of Johnson and Bartholomew, and I know to what use your half-truth will be put.

This is rich coming from a creature like Spencer. It is also bizarre; Spencer concedes that I had the “honesty” to note he didn’t meet the EDL – so presumably he’s upset that I noted that he did “hang out” with CAN in London , and perhaps also because, as an aside, I made fun of his endorsement of a book which claims the Bible predicts the rise of a Muslim anti-Christ. I noted CAN’s extreme homophobia, but I never suggested Spencer shares such views and I was more than happy to note his explanation that

As for the CAN, I am working with them because of their excellent work on the documentary Homegrown Jihad. I do not feel myself bound to endorse every one of their other positions, or consider that I have done so, by working with them.

People can make their own judgements about that.

And as for Johnson – I never thought I’d see the day I’d be accused of doing something “in association” with him. We’ve never communicated, and I doubt very much we’d get along very well if we did.

UPDATE: But it’s not all rancour; an alluring email has arrived from “Wanita”:

Hello My Dear, My name is wanita i saw your profile here (www.pickledpolitics.com) today and became intrested in you,i will also like to know you more,and i want you to send a mail to my email address so i can give you my picture for you to know whom l am. i believe we can move from here.I am waiting for your mail to my email address above.miss wanita(Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life) Please reply me , i will like to be your friend i know you will alos like to become my friend have a nice day and god bless you

Bishop Michael Reid “Quizzed on Suspicion of Rape” by Police

The Evening Standard reports:

A former cleric dubbed the “Bonking Bishop of Brentwood” has been quizzed by detectives on suspicion of rape.

Michael Reid, 66, set up the Peniel Church, but was forced out after his wife discovered he had been having an eight-year affair with a woman in the congregation.

…A spokesman for Essex Police said: “A 66-year-old man from Brentwood was arrested on 27 August on suspicion of historical rape. He has been bailed until November.”

I last blogged on Reid – the former head of the Christian Congress for Traditional Values – here. His ordination as a Bishop was through the International Communion of Charismatic Churches, headed by the late Bishop Earl Paulk of the Chapel Hill Harvester Church in Atlanta, although at some point after 1998 Reid withdrew from this grouping. He also has links with Richard Roberts, son of Oral Roberts.

michaelreidandfriends

Paulk died in March engulfed in sex scandals; according to CNN:

One allegation ended in a civil suit that was settled out of court in 2003. The accuser said Paulk molested her when she was a child.

A second woman claimed the bishop forced her into a 14-year affair.

…During a deposition in the case, the bishop said under oath the woman was the only one he slept with outside of marriage. But a court-ordered paternity test showed that he also fathered a child with his sister-in-law.

Roberts, meanwhile, has been embroiled in allegations of financial mismanagement (as Max Blumenthal puts it in a Nation article based on his new book, he “allegedly looted university coffers to pay for his daughter’s junkets to the Bahamas and bankroll his wife’s shopping sprees”).

Back in 2001, the Peniel Church was accused of engaging in an attempted take-over over a local Conservative Party branch; this led to Martin Bell standing unsuccessfully against the local MP, Eric Pickles.

(Note to commentators: please be sensible when leaving comments. A police investigation is a serious matter, and I will not allow any comments making assertions or speculations about it.)

The EDL Dines Alone

Douglas Murray: Left dinner as soon as he learned EDL had been invited; didn’t know who CAN were

I recently posted a couple of blog entries (here and here) about what happened when members of the English Defence League showed up at a restaurant in London where Robert Spencer was preparing to dine with some British conservative “anti-Jihadi” types, in particular Adrian Morgan and Douglas Murray. Spencer was in town with a couple of members of the Virginia-based Christian Action Network; the day before, CAN director Michael Mawyer had conducted an interview with three balaclava-wearing EDL leaders, and his associate Jason Campbell (with whom Spencer had taken “strolls into a few mosques”) decided to invite them along.

However, Spencer’s British contacts were not pleased to discover at the restaurant that they were about to share a table with the EDL, and, as Adrian Morgan delicately put it, “Tensions between some of the anti-jihadist factions who had all been kindly invited by Jason to a meal caused splitting of the groups and confusion”. Extrication was eased, though, because, according to Spencer, the restaurant management had asked the party to leave anyway just before the EDL showed up , on account of the subject matter of their conversation.

Spencer’s near-encounter with the EDL and his association with Mawyer have since become a source of goading from Charles Johnson; Spencer retorts that that Johnson is a “libelblogger”, and adds that

I did not go to England planning to meet with the EDL, I did not make such plans there, and I did not meet with them…I will not work with racists, fascists, neo-Nazis, etc. Those who are inclined to buy Johnson’s guilt-by-association smears are invited to prove that I actually believe the things he is trying to pin on me… 

And now, Douglas Murray’s Centre for Social Cohesion has sent me a message asking me to publicise the following:

CAN asked Douglas to do an interview with them – upon seeing the presence of the EDL at the CAN discussion he refused to deal with them and left the venue. He did however give an interview to CAN at another location on the water front. He didn’t actually know who the CAN were, and always says yes to interviews, hence his appearances on other dubious channels such as the Islam Channel.  

He also did have dinner only with Spencer in a personal capacity later that evening.

Morgan, meanwhile, explains that

I…did talk briefly with the EDL members, to try to find out what sort of people they were (rather than believing the hype put about on internet weblogs).

My conversation took place on a walkway beside one of the docks, with neither Robert Spencer nor Douglas Murray present.

…I do not collude with or condone the EDL’s tactics of physical confrontation. I see such tactics as damaging – violence begets violence and benefits no-one, no matter how personally frustrated these EDL members may feel.