Look at who's pointing, not at what they point to.
On the front page of the Observer is the follow up to Andrew Rawnsley's recent smear of Gordon Brown. Andrew Rawnsley, that classy, "heavyweight" journalist, the best that the Observer can offer apparently, revealed that Gordon Brown.....was - don't hold your breath - a bully. And now, in a politically illiterate article by Tony Thompson, the Observer plays at McCarthyite politics, and attempts to smear the left with an expose which reads like a story planted by the intelligence services.
The disgrace of a left-of-centre newspaper shamelessly trying to position itself to gain favours from the incoming "red" Tory majority government, is profound. They may use the lumpen Tony Thompson to attack the Left, but Andrew Rawnsley is their point man.
The Observer, while fighting for its life, is desperately trying to make new alliances within the establishment, and sending coded, (actually rather crass), signals to the Ashcrofts of this country - signals that they will play ball. Perhaps they will get more advertising out of it, perhaps more contacts among the lumberjacks, perhaps more invitations to dinner and lunch. They seem to want to be embedded.
We have read so many books and seen so many films on the way the intelligence agencies operate that we are all intelligence agency literate these days. They even advertise openly in the newspapers for their employees for Christ's sake. Why does the Observer think we won't all immediately spot it when they lend their front page to an agency for black ops manipulation. The story is a ghastly reminder of the "Militant" scaremongering of the 1980s.
But is it British intelligence that has laid this "hardcore leftist extremists in Britain" turd on the front page of the Observer, or is it the CIA and their brothers in arms? The CIA are the same people who manipulated the political situation in Italy in order to make sure that the Communists didn't participate in government in 1976. They've been working gung ho in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last decade. It could easily be the CIA.
Does Rushbridger and the board know? Does Rushbridger approve of letting the Guardian Group be manipulated in this way by the security services of another country - or perhaps of this country. Though I doubt it's MI5, because, I gather, they are too cool and intelligent for this sort of blatant propaganda.
This "officer" is talking about his deployment between 1993 and 1997, before the current Labour government was even elected. Ask yourself this question. Why has this come to light now 13 years after the event? Why has it come to light just before the general elections in Britain?
Moreover, there is no balance to this story. An anonymous officer comes forth and is reported verbatim by Tony Thompson. One of the give-aways that the whole story is tripe is that we hear references, specifically, to hardcore Trotskiest groups.
Labour to one side, since when has the left in Britain been monolithic? It was never monolithic. It was always splintered into a thousand factions. To talk about "the hardcore left" as Trotskyist is laughable. Is Galloway hardcore left? Is he a Trotskyist. Who is this hardcore left of 1993-7, of 13 years ago?
In the language of the reasonably well educated, everywhere else perhaps, except amongst the journalists and hacks of Britain, we know what semiology is. And when we read "hardcore left" then we know that the interesting thing here is not who the hardcore left actually are, but who defines them. That tells you much more about what's happening.
In this case "hardcore" left is defined by an undercover officer of her Majesty's government who may also be working for other people and this definition carries over, uncritically, into the language of the Observer journalist, Tony Thompson. Hardcore to an increasingly right wing paper like the Observer means someone who hasn't swallowed Fukuyama's line on "The End of History". Right wingers like Nick Cohen define what is Left in the shady corners of newspapers like the Observer, nowadays.
This once archetypal Blairite newspaper tracks further to the right and prostitutes itself in return for a little sweetness from the incoming establishment attacks the left on its front page. This article is linked directly to Andrew Rawnsley's attack on Gordon Brown and it's old news and it's vile.
I can just imagine the Observer editorial meeting. Such determination, such bravura, such a loss of composure - and such a loss of principles.
And then along comes the Observer's new "Review. I could have googled it. In fact the articles stack up like a series of blogs. "Was Shakespeare really Shakespeare?" The only thing missing was an article on crop circles.
Certainly, the Observer, in it's quest for survival, has lost its political compass, and perhaps also its marbles.
And the agent for this old news is Tony Thompson. Hmm. Who the hell is Tony Thompson and what connection does he have to the security services? Now that's the question we should be asking.
His picture is difficult to find on the web. His literary agent's website bigs him up like this:
"Tony Thompson is a journalist who has written about crime for Time Out, GQ, the Independent and the Guardian. He has spoken to current as well as ex-gang members: he has travelled extensively to track the routes of the gangs. He has bargained for guns in Woolwich, spent evenings at illegal Triad and Yardie gambling dens, and drunk with wanted contract killers. He lives in London."
Well, quite!
Phil Hall
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