Re: [A-List] UK Labour Party: Propaganda Matrix article

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

According to Mike James:

The rumours and allegations concerning Lord Robertson's ties to Hamilton,
and the possibility that the American intelligence services may be
blackmailing Tony Blair into continued support for a U.S. invasion of
Iraq, have been given fire by internet investigator and intelligence expert
Michael Keaney:

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Aside from making no claims to intelligence expertise, I have not in any way
touched the story concerning the Dunblane massacre, as a quick trawl through
the archives would confirm. Therefore it is not accurate to say that I have
"given fire" to specifically those rumours and allegations. In fact the
connection between the two stories was one I had not made, and one that I
would be extremely sceptical of. That does not mean that there does not
exist some kind of organised effort to smear Robertson, whose tenure at NATO
has hardly been successful and who has managed to ruffle the feathers of
those at the Pentagon he thought he was obediently serving. The blackmail
possibility I have raised, specifically in connection with the Sunday Herald
article of 19 January. But the more that "emerges" on this subject leaves an
even stronger bad taste, and serious analysts would be better basing their
analyses on more solid ground than unattributable sources cited in newspaper
reports.

Meanwhile:

"I have come to the considered conclusion," says a correspondent of
Keaney, William Palfreman, "that the events surrounding the Dunblane
massacre, and
the subsequent submissions to the Cullen enquiry that have been put under to
100 years of secrecy, far out weigh in political significance issues such as
our opposition to the EU [and] what it entails. ...

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Firstly, I have no idea who "William Palfreman" is, or that we were
corresponding. Secondly, based on what he is quoted as saying above, I would
be highly unlikely to have anything to do with him. Aside from stating the
obvious -- that his and others' opposition to the EU is outweighed in terms
of its significance by something else (most everything else, probably) --
the fact that this position is regarded as a defining feature of his
politics means that already I am convinced I share little, if anything, in
common with him. In fact, as a quick trawl of the internet reveals,
Palfreman is involved with organised euroscepticism, having participated in
rabid anti-EU online discussion for some years and being involved in an
outfit called Youth for a Free Europe, whose homepage can be found at

http://www.free-europe.org.uk/

While attracting some unreconstructed national Keynesians within the Labour
Party and elsewhere on the left, the most enthusiastic participants are the
usual punk Thatcherite suspects.

This sort of sensationalist and inaccurate reportage does not help us to
understand better what is going on. It is better understood as the
manifestation of a right wing political tendency that will stop at nothing
to unseat Blair the europhile "socialist" and to replace him with some
unreconstructed empire loyalist relic. It is easily manipulated by
intelligence officers planting stories in the media (including internet
discussion forums hosted by newspapers) calculated to excite such
sensationalism. US libertarians who swallow this stuff beware.

Michael Keaney