Nick Clegg dit vrai

Le Daily Mail s'étrangle de rage. La tête de file du parti libéral-démocrate vient de révéler une des caractéristiques les plus frappantes de la vie britannique depuis soixante ans : le croyance qu'ils ont ont gagné la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L'article de Tim Shipman témoigne bien de cet état d'esprit.

Pourtant, c'est bien Nick Clegg qui a raison.

Voici quelques titres de l'historien Correlli Barnett que nos lecteurs se doivent de lire :

Correlli-Barnett, un historien que les francophones se doivent de lire pour mieux comprendre l'Angleterre.

Collapse of British Power
Correlli Barnett
Methuen, 672 p., ISBN-10: 0413275809.

et aussi :

The Audit of War

The Lost Victory:
British Dreams, British Realities, 1945-1950


The Pride and the Fall: The Dream and Illusion of Britain As a Great Nation



Nick Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain as he claims 'our delusions of grandeur' at winning war are more a cross to bear than German guilt

Attack on national pride: Nick Clegg, seen in Cornwall yesterday, said 'we need to be put back in our place'. Nick Clegg has claimed that the British people have ‘a more insidious cross to bear’ than Germany over the Second World War.

In an astonishing attack on our national pride, the Liberal Democrat leader said we suffered from ‘delusions of grandeur’ and a ‘misplaced sense of superiority’ over having defeated the horrors of Nazism.
He said we found it hard to accept that Germany had become a ‘vastly more prosperous nation’ and that ‘we need to be put back in our place’.
His views, outlined in a newspaper article when he was a member of the European Parliament, cast grave doubts over his judgment of international affairs ahead of the second leaders’ debate this evening, when the topic will be foreign policy.
The jibes threatened to undermine the surge which has taken Mr Clegg from also-ran to serious player in the opinion polls. They were laid bare as:
Details emerged of a secret Liberal Democrat plan to make their MPs maximise their expenses;
Tory Ken Clarke warned that a hung Parliament would cause economic mayhem that could force IMF intervention;
The polls began to turn against the Lib Dems;
Labour Cabinet ministers plotted to oust Gordon Brown, who hinted ‘I’ll go’ if voters turn against him.
The passionately pro-Europe Mr Clegg revealed his views in an article for the Guardian newspaper in 2002.

‘Watching Germany rise from its knees after the war and become a vastly more prosperous nation has not been easy on the febrile British psyche,’ Mr Clegg wrote, before attacking Britain’s approach to the war.

‘All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still.

‘A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.’


Tory MP Nicholas Soames, grandson of wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, said: ‘These views will disgust people the length and breadth of the country. They show that Nick Clegg is unfit to lead his party, let alone the country. ‘They are an insult to the memory of Britain’s war dead and to a time when the British public all pulled together for the common good.

'They prove that Mr Clegg shares the European view of Britain rather than the British view.’

Pointing out his position: Mr Clegg talks to voters on BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat
He mocked claims last weekend that Mr Clegg is now as popular with the public as Churchill as ‘laughable’. Mr Clegg, who has a Spanish wife, a Dutch mother and a Russian grandparent, began his career as a Brussels bureaucrat and moved to Westminster after a spell as a Euro MP.
Ironically, his mother was interned by the Japanese during the war.

His outburst was not an isolated incident. In another article from June 2003, Mr Clegg continued to denounce ‘Britain’s culture of superiority’.

Making clear his love affair with all things European, he condemned the British ‘belief in our innate difference from our mainland continental cousins’.

He went on: ‘No other culture in Europe is quite so enamoured by such a false notion of difference.

'We Brits concoct a historically illiterate notion that we are divorced from outside influences. Maybe it was loss of empire, the choppy waters of the Channel, or the last war.’

Les mensonges du Daily Mail

Brit'Mag, un magazine que les Français peuvent lire aussi !

Les Anglais, comme toute grande nation, sont très fiers de l’histoire et, dans les temps difficiles, ils aiment s’y raccrocher. La presse populaire illustre bien cette tendance en accordant dans ses colonnes beaucoup d’importance aux grandes heures du pays, avec un plaisir tout particulier quand il s’agit de villipender les Allemands ou ridiculiser les Français, ces Cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Très récemment, le magazine Brit'Mag, très lu par les Anglais qui vivent en France, a publié un article sur les ravages de la presse populaire anglaise quand il s'agit de traiter l'histoire. En voici une traduction rapide.

A

u mois de décembre dernier, j’ai été frappé une fois de plus par les articles que le Daily Mail, probablement un des quotidiens britanniques les plus francophobes. D’habitude, je suis frappé par leur insistance à rappeler le moindre événement lié à la Seconde Guerre mondiale, our finest Hour à tout propos.

Les journalistes britanniques réduisent l’histoire militaire de la France à Trafalgar, Waterloo et à la défaite de 1940, quand la France a été contrainte de demander l’armistice. C’est de bonne guerre de rappeler aux Français des moments de leur histoire qu’ils n’aiment guère. Ils pourraient tout autant rappeler la bataille de Blenheim ou le duc de Marlborough joua un grand rôle en 1704 dans une des plus grandes défaites françaises de l’histoire.

Ce qui frappe le plus à la lecture de la presse populaire britannique quand elle s’intéresse à l’histoire est son chauvinisme et son ignorance. Toujours prête à rappler aux français, ces ces Cheese-eating surrender monkeys que les Allemands les ont battus à plate couture en 1940, sans préciser à leurs lecteurs que les Français ont eu 100 000 tués en 45 jours (70000 pour les Anglais) et que, sans le canal de Manche, les allemands auraient défilé à Londres comme ils l’ont fait à Paris.

Au mois de décembre un article du Daily Mail consacré au RMS Lusitania illustre bien les défauts de ce journalisme bon marché dont sont si friands les Britanniques.

Au départ : une information intéressante. Des plongeurs envoyés par le millardaire Gregg Bemis explorer l’épave du Lusitania au large des côtes irlandaises ont rapporté avoir découvert des caisses de munitions et ont profité de l’opportunité pour tenter de réécrire une page de l’histoire.

Sans aucun esprit critique, ils reprennent les déclarations du milliardaire américain qui est convaincu que la présence des munitions à bord du paquebot prouve je ne sais quel complot anglais pour forcer l’Amérique à entrer en guerre. En voici quelques exemples :

Those four million rounds of .303s were not just some private hunter's stash.
Now that we've found it, the British can't deny any more that there
was ammunition on board. That raises the question of what else was
on board.

There were literally tons and tons of stuff stored in unrefrigerated
cargo holds that were dubiously marked cheese, butter and oysters.
'I've always felt there were some significant high explosives in the
holds - shells, powder, gun cotton - that were set off by the torpedo
and the inflow of water. That's what sank the ship.

L'histoire du Lusitania méritait mieux que le gribouillage du Daily Mail. Voici un court rappel des faits.

Lancés par la compagnie Cunard en 1906 pour concurrencer les nouveaux paquebots allemands en service sur l’Atlantique nord, le Lusitania et son jumeau le Mauretania ont bénéficié d’un financement avantageux du gouvernement britannique et de généreuses subventions annuelles. En échange, l’armateur s’engage en cas de conflit à mettre les deux navires à la disposition de la Royal Navy pour leur transformation en croiseurs auxiliaires.

Mis en service en septembre 1907, dès le mois suivant le Lusitania s’empare, à 25 nœuds de moyenne, du ruban bleu qu’il conservera deux ans avant de le céder au Mauretania. Après la déclaration de guerre, l’Amirauté renonce à mobiliser le Lusitania, trop grand et trop coûteux à entretenir. A pleine vitesse, ses chaudières consomment mille tonnes de charbon par jour !
En dépit des hostilités, le bâtiment poursuit ses traversées sous les couleurs de la Cunard alors que le Mauretania devient un transport de troupes. Toutefois, pour réduire les coûts, l’armateur désactive six chaudières et réduit la vitesse maximale à 21 nœuds.

En février 1915, quand l’Allemagne déclare les eaux britanniques zone de guerre, des citoyens américains d’origine germanique obtiennent de l’ambassade du Reich à Washington qu’elle publie des avis prévenant les Américains désireux de se rendre en Europe de ne pas emprunter de paquebots de puissances ennemies de l’Allemagne.

En dehors de quelques passagers qui changent d’avis et renoncent à partir, le Lusitania prend la mer le 1er mai 1915 comme prévu et la traversée de l’Atlantique se déroule sans incident.
En approchant de l’Irlande, le commandant Turner, le nouveau pacha (il remplace le célèbre William Turner qui, le mois précédent, a fait savoir à la Cunard qu’il ne voulait plus prendre la responsabilité de passagers en zone de guerre), reçoit des messages répétés de l’Amirauté le prévenant de la présence de sous-marins ennemis et l’enjoignant de s’éloigner des côtes et de naviguer à pleine vapeur. Le 7 mai, contrevenant aux instructions impératives de la Marine, le commandant se rapproche pourtant des côtes pour relever sa position et réduit sa vitesse pour entrer à Liverpool avec la marée. La conjonction de ces deux négligences va se révéler fatale.
Le même jour, alors que l’U-20 achève sa patrouille en mer d’Irlande et fait route vers sa base, la vigie aperçoit une fumée à l’horizon. Le commandant ordonne de plonger afin de se mettre en position de lancement. A 14 h 10 un torpille frappe le Lusitania à tribord, en arrière de la passerelle. La première explosion est suivie par une seconde qui précipite la fin du paquebot. Cette mystérieuse déflagration a suscité depuis lors une vaste littérature conspirationniste peu convaincante.

Pour des raisons mal éclaircies, l’eau envahit très rapidement les compartiments tribord et le Lusitania prend une gîte prononcée, interdisant la mise à l’eau de 42 des 48 chaloupes de sauvetage. Dix-huit minutes seulement après l’impact, le navire disparaît de la surface des flots à 8 milles au large du cap d’Old Head, près de Kinsale, entraînant dans les fonds 1 198 personnes dont 128 Américains.

Le président Wilson réagit vigoureusement à la nouvelle de la mort de ses compatriotes sans pour autant engager son pays dans une confrontation autre que diplomatique avec l’Allemagne. Mais après ce torpillage, l’opinion publique américaine commence résolument à pencher du côté des pays de l’Entente. Ce mouvement est encouragé par une presse majoritairement acquise aux intérêts financiers, massivement engagés aux côtés du Royaume-Uni et de la France. Autre victime collatérale du torpillage, le secrétaire d’État William Jennings Bryan démissionne le 9 juin 1915 car il désapprouve l’évolution belliciste du président.

Les Allemands étaient-ils en droit de couler ce navire ?

L’armateur a embarqué en toute légalité une cargaison de 1 500 t, en majorité à finalité militaire (dont des feuilles et du fil de cuivre ainsi qu’un chargement de cartouches de fusil et d’obus à balles), qui est détaillée sur le manifeste déposé auprès des autorités américains et publié intégralement par la presse dès le lendemain du torpillage. En revanche, on ne trouve nulle trace d’explosifs dans la cargaison. Des auteurs avancent pourtant l’hypothèse de la présence de 600 t de pyroxyline (coton-poudre) qui auraient été inscrites dans le manifeste au titre de « fourrures » ou de « fromage » pour expliquer la seconde explosion ayant secoué le navire. Mais non seulement les soutes d’un paquebot ne sont pas adaptées pour contenir de type de marchandises mais l’exploration visuelle de l’épave par des plongeurs n’a pas permis de déceler de traces de cette explosion.

Selon le droit international en vigueur à l’époque, le fait de transporter des munitions ne modifie en rien le statut de navire marchand du Lusitania. Le commandant du sous-marin ennemi est tenu de donner l’opportunité à l’équipage et aux passagers d’évacuer le navire avant de le couler.

En revanche, aux yeux de la réglementation britannique en vigueur en 1915, les marchandises embarquées à bord du Lusitania rentrent dans la catégorie de la « contrebande de guerre » et font du navire un forceur de blocus contre lequel une action militaire sans avertissement est licite.

En outre, les Allemands ont connaissance des ordres de l’Amirauté britannique enjoignant les cargos à résister et à éperonner le sous-marin qui, respectant le droit international, ferait surface auprès du cargo pour vérifier sa nationalité et le couler le cas échéant, après avoir donné le temps à l’équipage et aux passagers d’évacuer.

Pour les Allemands, le paquebot non seulement se trouve dans une zone de guerre où tout navire ennemi peut être attaqué, mais les nouvelles règles anglaises dispensent désormais les sous-marins de tout avertissement préalable.

Les Anglais ont-ils délibérément mis en danger le Lusitania ?

Certains auteurs ont accusé le premier lord de l’Amirauté Winston Churchill d’avoir guidé délibérément le navire vers des sous-marins allemands en embuscade au large de l’Irlande, parfaitement identifiés et repérés par le service d’écoutes britannique. Le but de la manœuvre étant de provoquer la mort de citoyens américains et de conduire les Etats-Unis à déclarer la guerre à l’Allemagne. Rien ne vient appuyer cette théorie fumeuse fabriquée en manipulant les faits ou en inventant des témoignages. Bien au contraire, la lecture de la correspondance diplomatique britannique révèle qu’au printemps 1915 les Anglais souhaitent le maintien de la neutralité américaine.

Une espionne de la « paix »

Le compagnon de route des communistes Cynthia Roberts photographiée en 1979 quand elle espérait décrocher un siège de député aux Communes sous les couleurs travaillistes.

Cynthia Roberts, espionne communistes en retraite,
photographiée à Prague la semaine dernière.

Le quotidien Daily Mail a sorti ce matin un nouveau scandale de l'espionnage communiste au Royaume-Uni durant la Guerre froide.

D'après des documents extraits des archives de sécurité tchèques, Cynthia Roberts, sous le nom de code de «Marteau», a rédigé des rapports sur d'importantes figures du conservatisme britannique et animé un mouvement pacifiste aux ordres de Moscou.

Labour was rocked by a Cold War spy scandal last night over allegations that a Party activist linked to two members of Tony Blair's Cabinet spied for the Czech Government when the country was controlled by the Soviet Union.
Left-wing activist Cynthia Roberts, who stood as a Labour Parliamentary candidate, worked for the Communists under the codename Agent Hammer, according to documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
The files, held by the Czech security service, state that she wrote secret dossiers for the communist regime on Tory politicians including Margaret Thatcher and ex-Cabinet Minister David Mellor after moving to Prague in 1985. She also gave the Czechs details of a British arms factory.

Mrs Roberts moved to the Czech capital from London, where she used a House of Commons office to run the controversial Labour Action for Peace (LAP) group, which opposed nuclear weapons, and had links to Soviet Moscow.
Labour MPs involved in the group, which still exists today, included two politicians who went on to serve in Mr Blair's Cabinet, Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and Transport Minister Gavin Strang.

Other prominent Labour MPs linked to LAP include Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner and Jeremy Corbyn.
The disclosures are a reminder of how close some elements of the Labour Party were to the Soviet Union before the fall of communism 20 years ago.
Russia's KGB and its allies in other Eastern bloc nations such as Czechoslovakia targeted Labour politicians and other Establishment figures known to have Left-wing sympathies in an attempt to unearth information that could be used against the West.
The Cold War led to a series of major spy scandals in Britain, most famously the spy ring of Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby.
Astonishingly, Mrs Roberts's activities, including her move to Prague, appear to have escaped the attentions of British security services.
As honorary secretary of LAP, much of Mrs Roberts' work was conducted from the Commons office of Scottish Labour MP Willie McKelvey, who is thought to have provided her with a Parliamentary pass.
In 1983, when Mrs Thatcher had enraged the Russians by allowing the US to base nuclear missiles in Britain, Mrs Roberts accompanied Mr Cook and Mr Strang on a five-day trip to Moscow.
The files held by the Czech secret service state her role was 'to contribute towards the downfall of capitalism'. They say she boasted of working for the East Germans and was sent on 'missions' by her Czech handlers.
In one report, Mrs Thatcher was referred to by the codename ‘Sako’, which means ‘jacket’ in Czech.
Roberts' file on David Mellor, written in 1988 when he was a Foreign Office Minister, said she did not know if Mr Mellor 'has any weakness for women.'
Asked yesterday if she considered herself a traitor, Roberts, who still lives in Prague, said: 'I have nothing to say. I was not a spy.'

L'agent Marteau, un espion bien particulier

With her headscarf tied tightly against the November chill, she looks like any other pensioner going about her daily business in Prague. But this 72-year-old, who once worked in the heart of Westminster alongside such leading Labour Party figures as Robin Cook, is at the centre of extraordinary claims that she spied for Eastern Bloc regimes under the codename Agent Hammer.

L'espionne communiste à la retraite Cynthia Roberts
sort de son HLM déposer ses ordures.

According to documents held by the Czech security service, Cynthia Roberts, who stood as a Labour candidate in the 1979 General Election, provided intelligence dossiers on Margaret Thatcher and David Mellor after she, her husband and two teenage children moved from London to Prague in 1985.
Despite being highly unusual, the family’s relocation to the Czech capital appears not to have attracted the attention of the British security services.
In the five years before she emigrated, Roberts was honorary secretary of Labour Action for Peace (LAP), which was then a highly influential anti-nuclear group. Much of her work was carried out from the House of Commons office of Labour MP William McKelvey, who represented Kilmarnock from 1979 until 1997.
The Left-wing pressure group was founded in 1940 and is still active today, describing itself as ‘an organisation of Labour Party members and supporters working for peace, socialism and disarmament, and seeking to make these issues the forefront of Labour Party policy’.
During its heyday in the early Eighties, LAP staged a series of high-profile meetings at party conferences and inside the House of Commons.
Among the prominent Labour figures who were active within the group were Cook, who served as Foreign Secretary during Tony Blair’s administration, and Gavin Strang, who was Transport Minister from 1997 to 1998.
According to a newsletter published by the LAP, Roberts accompanied Cook and Strang on a five-day trip to Moscow in December 1983.
Other leading Labour figures associated with the LAP during Roberts’ tenure include Tony Benn, who wrote an article about Nato for the group in 1985, and former executive committee member Dennis Skinner.
The claims that Roberts worked as a spy will further fuel concerns that leading Labour politicians were sympathetic to communist regimes during the Cold War.
The documents held by the Czech security service Statni Tajna Bezpecnost (STB) and seen by this newspaper reveal that Roberts apparently boasted of working for the East Germans while based at Westminster, and later was sent on ‘missions’ by her Czech handlers.
About 100 pages of the files still exist, although references within them suggest that a further 600 pages are missing – almost certainly destroyed as communist bosses attempted to cover up details of their activities when the country was swept by democratic change.
But the pages that remain paint a damning picture of her role, which, in the words of her STB handlers, was ‘to contribute towards the downfall of capitalism’.
They consist of two reports written in English, apparently by Roberts, and a series of handwritten accounts in Czech prepared by security chiefs detailing their meetings with her and the tasks they set her. The surviving files detail a total of 19 meetings between Roberts and her STB contacts.
Last week, The Mail on Sunday tracked down Roberts to a communist-era block of flats on the outskirts of Prague. The name plate on her letterbox in the entrance hall reads ‘Robertsovi’ and bears the message ‘Please do not post advertising fliers in this mailbox’.

Le communisme ne paye pas. Le clapier à lapins où vit l'espionne. A ces conditions, il vaut mieux travailler pour la CIA.

Mrs Roberts carried out the rubbish from her fourth-floor apartment in the drab prefabricated block, which overlooks the rest of the huge graffiti-scrawled estate on one side and a busy ring road on the other.
Asked why she had spied for the STB against Britain and whether she regarded herself as a traitor, she said: ‘I do not want to talk to you. I do not talk to the Press.’
She refused to discuss whether she had worked for the Soviet intelligence services either in Britain or after she moved to Prague.
When told we had a copy of her file, which stated that she was an STB agent, she said: ‘I have nothing to say. I was not a spy.’
Asked whether she should be prosecuted for her treachery, she said: ‘I have no quarrel with Britain. I am sorry but I am not going to talk to you.’
According to STB files, the Roberts family arrived in Prague on October 19, 1985. Mrs Roberts was accompanied by her photographer husband Denis, daughter Mary, then 19, and 15-year-old Christopher.
Their departure from Britain was mentioned in the 1985 LAP annual report, which says: ‘Cynthia Roberts, who has been honorary secretary of LAP for five years, went with her husband to live in Czechoslovakia.’
She was given a job as an editor with the state-run news agency on a monthly salary of 5,000 Czech koruny (about ?150 at today’s exchange rates) – at least double the average wage. But the files make clear that her main role was to work for the STB.
Initially given the codename ‘Kilburn’, Roberts appears to have so impressed her handlers in the first few months after arriving in Prague that her status was upgraded to ‘agent’ and she was given her new codename, Hammer.

Cynthia Roberts se fait désormais appeler Robertsovi. Sur sa boîte aux lettres elle précise qu'elle refuse la publicité. Le paradis ex-rouge contaminé par le capitalisme.

A file entry dated April 2, 1986, says Roberts was to be ‘used on the problems of British intelligence services’.
It says she would also be used to ‘gain information on the internal politics of Great Britain [and answer] questions of the peace movement in capitalist countries and in Britain specifically’.
The entry goes on: ‘KILBURN can be evaluated as a person valuable for operational use from the side of intelligence work. To gain her co-operation we can use her satisfaction with her stay in Czechoslovakia ... and her good relations with the whole communist ideology. [Roberts] will continue to be used for British problems.’
One of her first jobs was to complete a report and character assessment on Margaret Thatcher who, the file reveals, had been given the codename ‘Sako’ – which means ‘jacket’ in Czech – by the STB.
This document is missing from the file, but it appears that Roberts completed the report.
A file dated April 15, 1987, returns to the subject of her work on Prime Minister Thatcher. ‘Top Secret.
16.15 KILBURN contacted in Slezka Street, Prague, and taken in a 'company' car to another location, a private flat, named as 'Balt'.
'We then talked to Kilburn about the state of her work on Sako [Thatcher], and she said that she had already finished the report and only had to type it up and make some corrections.
'We told KILBURN we greatly valued her help and said we would like to continue our co-operation and expand it. KILBURN was visibly delighted with our valuing her work.
'We told her we were interested in raising our co-operation to a higher level and that we would ask her for information and character analysis of people she knew from her previous political activities in Great Britain.’
The file adds: ‘We said that we had to have guarantees that she would remain silent on these matters and on our meetings. KILBURN said these issues were clear.’

Cynthia Roberts photographiée avec son époux Denis. Ce cliché a été publié dans le livre qu'ils ont consacré au pacifisme : How To Secure Peace In Europe, publié en 1985, en pleine crise des euro-missiles.

The document adds: ‘At the end after we explained our reasons [for protecting her identity] she chose the codename HAMMER.’
At the meeting, Roberts was told she would meet her handlers at least once a month. She was given a number to contact in case of ‘urgency’ and the password to be used: ‘I have many regards from Vaclav for you.’
She was also asked to produce a detailed report on the then head of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Meg Beresford.
The STB officer reports that Roberts ‘willingly agreed to co-operate’ and also agreed to ‘recruit help’ – suggesting she actively tried to persuade others to spy for the Soviet Bloc.
But it is Roberts’ typewritten report on Beresford that gives the only clue to her activities in the UK while working at the House of Commons.
In the undated document, Roberts says she suspects that Beresford is a CIA plant and claims Beresford is involved in ‘subversion’ in East Germany, encouraging groups of dissidents to set up ties with churches in the country.
She suggests Beresford also attempted to organise women’s rights groups and was preparing them for mass protests, including calling on soldiers to become conscientious objectors.
The papers add: ‘The most interesting feature of all was that after I reported these facts to the [East German] embassy in London, some time later I was told by the diplomat with whom I used to work that the information had been extremely useful and was found to be accurate.’
This reference is the only indication that she may have been engaged in espionage before she moved to the Eastern Bloc. It suggests that she had regular contacts with an East German diplomat and raises questions about whether she was spying for the feared Stasi. Papers written in Czech by an STB agent and dated October 16, 1986, a year after she moved to Prague, suggest that she had passed on information from her father, a former prison officer, about an unnamed military installation in the West Country.
It states: ‘Meeting took place in a public place ... The source gave information relating to a newly built military arms factory in South-West England near Taunton.’

Les preuves de la trahison. Les archives de la STB, les services ssecrets tchèques, contiennent des rapports rédigés par Cynthia Roberts sur David Mellor, à l'époque ministre des Affaires étrangères britannique.

The files say the information came from her father, who told Roberts he had ‘noticed the new building and the sign "MoD Property" ... He found out from his Labour MP that the MoD bought the land for a plant to manufacture components for warheads and navigation equipment’.
The files claim that Roberts was then used to target various Western officials to try to obtain useful information from them or to identify ways they might be recruited by the KGB.
Among those she targeted were a senior Nato official she met at a Czech trade fair, a businessman from a computer firm based in Windsor and a female British diplomat from the Prague embassy.
Roberts was also used to help build up a picture of British politicians who were visiting the former Czechoslovakia. A file note dated May 19, 1988, says: ‘The source was asked to report on David Mellor, a Minister of State in the Foreign Ministry in relation to his expected visit to Czechoslovakia.’
Roberts' report is written in English. Neighbours in the cramped block close to Prague’s ring-road claim that she and her husband Denis, now 85, have struggled to master the language since their arrival.
Their son Christopher, 38, is said to have returned to Britain, while their daughter Mary, who studied to be a doctor after their move to Prague, is believed to have died last year.
The Mellor report says: ‘He will try, without mentioning a word, to find out any possible way he can of damaging our political and business interests in the Middle East, particularly with Libya and Syria...
‘Dangers also apply to our relationship with Ethiopia. Within two weeks of being first elected to Westminster in 1979, MELLOR was out in Iran advising the Shah how to deal with insurgency both in terms of strategy and weapons.
'Within the last two years he has “given” the Colombian government six British helicopters to deal with their drug problem. He worked extensively with the CIA and the FBI on this issue, among who he has many contacts, as he undoubtedly would have also among the British Special Services.’
The document goes on to describe Mellor as a ‘highly sophisticated cunning politician’ and a ‘slick operator – a smooth-tongued oily character, who is undoubtedly sustained by his image of himself and his own inflated sense of self-importance. His danger is that he is cunning and calculating.
‘He probably drinks brandy at the end of dinner – most Tory MPs do, it’s considered the “done thing” at Westminster. Many a slip of the tongue has been made after several brandies.’
Mellor was later forced to resign from the Government after his high-profile affair with Antonia de Sancha was revealed in 1992. In her report, written four years earlier, Roberts wrote that she was not aware ‘whether he has any weakness for women or not’.
She added: ‘The only place Mellor will speak the truth is when he is in the “safe” room of the British Embassy. The rest of the time ... he will be speaking to an audience [the bugs]
‘I would regard this man, without any hesitation whatsoever, as a most deadly enemy of the Czechoslovak people and their Government.’
Last night David Mellor said he remembered his trip to Czechoslovakia very well as it had hinged on him being allowed to meet the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel, who later became the Czech president.
Of the report on him, he said:

‘I think it shows up the futility of the whole old Eastern European system and the pointless intelligence gathering they engaged in.
‘But the far more important question is how this woman was able to mix with senior figures in the Labour Party, to secure a House of Commons pass and to come close to becoming an MP when she was within an ace of defecting to the Eastern Bloc. It says an awful lot about the Labour Party.’

Gavin Strang said:

‘I remember Cynthia because she was around for a few years at that time with Labour Action for Peace. The one thing I remember is that she struck me as ultra-sympathetic towards the Soviet Union – excessively so at that time.
‘Obviously at that time there was concern about the build-up of medium and short-range nuclear weapons by both the US and Russia. But her excessive sympathy for the Soviet Union was very noticeable and certainly something I remember.
‘But her behaviour was not something I was worried about enough to report or make anyone aware of. Everybody is entitled to their own views and opinions.’

Tony Benn, who is listed as a member of the LAP in the group’s annual report for 1985-1986, said:

‘I do not recall meeting Cynthia Roberts and there is no reference to her in my diary, which I have checked. I became chairman of Labour Action for Peace in the Nineties.’

Dennis Skinner, who is named in LAP documents of the same year as a member of the LAP’s executive committee, said:

‘Don’t know the woman, never heard of her, don’t know what you’re on about. You’d best try Tony Benn.’

Current LAP president Jeremy Corbyn MP said: ‘I don’t know Cynthia Roberts at all. Of course I’m surprised. I didn’t know her and this was long before I was involved in the organisation. I’m not going to be able to comment on people like Cynthia Roberts. The issue of the Cold War is one that has long passed.’
A spokesman for the Czech Embassy in London said: ‘We are not aware of the details of this particular case. The Czech Embassy is not in a position to comment.’
A Czech government source added: ‘This sort of espionage relates to the previous communist regime. It is a thing of the past and not something our country would engage in now.’

L'invasion oubliée

Guillaume d'Orange se prépare à envahir l'Angleterre.

Les Anglais n'aiment pas qu'on leur rappelle leurs défaites. Ils concèdent tout juste l'invasion de Guillaume le conquérant mais ils s'empressent d'ajouter qu'il n'y en a pas eu d'autres.

Erreur.

Grave erreur.

L'historien britannique Lisa jardine vient de publier Going Dutch qui rappelle à ses compatriotes qu'il n'est de meilleur moyen de cacher une invasion réussie que de l'exposer en pleine vue en l'appelant d'un autre nom.



Going Dutch

Lisa Jardine

HarperPress, £25

C'est à l'honneur de Tony Rennell du Daily Mail que d'avoir publié une excellente recension de cet ouvrage.

The 1688 invasion of Britain that's been erased from history
The fleet lay stretched out across the English Channel, mainsails billowing under an easterly wind, 20 ships in line abreast and 25 deep, filling the water between Dover and Calais.
Crowds gathered on the white cliffs of the English coast to watch.

But they were not cheering with pride and pleasure - because the display of naval power and military might they were witnessing was not theirs.

This armada was not an English one. It was from Holland and it was about to invade these shores.

Tides of change: William of Orange launched a colossal armada to seize the throne from Catholic King James II

The year was 1688, a crucial one in our island history. The new king, James II, crowned jut three years earlier, was Roman Catholic, putting him at odds with the predominant Protestant faith of his subjects. And dangerously so.

Just a generation or two earlier, another king of England, Charles I, had fallen out with his people, and the result had been Civil War, ending with the monarch's head being chopped off.

Would the country be split in half again after only 40 years of peace? Would this dispute also have to be settled by war? And would James - Charles I's younger son - also have to be lopped off at the neck to save the nation?

The conventional answer to these questions is that the British cleverly saved themselves from a second disaster with a non-violent solution to the problem.

In what became known as the Glorious Revolution, James fled the country rather than fight as his father had done and, William of Orange, the elected ruler of the Dutch Republic and Protestant to his core, was invited to take over the throne.

But a new book by Professor Lisa Jardine, one of our most eminent academics, turns this picture of cosy regime change, handed down to us for the past 300-plus years, on its head.

For the truth is that this transition of power was not a matter of choice.

A warring William was coming, whether he was welcome or not - as that battle fleet massing out in the Channel showed all too clearly.

The Dutch leader had put to sea with 53 warships bristling with 1,700 cannon, a massive amount of firepower.

Behind came hundreds of transport ships carrying an army of 20,000 men, plus horses (7,000 of those), arms and equipment.

Ten fireships loaded with combustible materials were ready to be set ablaze and steered into the ranks of English ships if they dared oppose him.

This was a task force with only one intention - to conquer. No wonder the crowds on the English clifftops were silent.

They were watching the first invasion of this island since 1066.

And - though our history has rarely presented it as such - it was a successful invasion.

The Protestant King William of Orange triumphed over the Catholic forces of King James II on July 12, 1690

William of Orange did what, over the centuries, the Spanish with their armada, Napoleon and Hitler would all, in their time, attempt and fail to achieve - the conquest of Britain.

From early in 1688, he was secretly recruiting battle-hardened soldiers from Protestant armies across Europe and arranging gifts and loans from sympathetic bankers to pay for them.

His cause was two-fold. The first was political - his concern that James II's beliefs were about to bring a switch in Britain's foreign policy.

The French under the Sun King, Louis XIV, were troublesome enough already, but an alliance between potentially Catholic Britain and Catholic France meant William faced a threat from across the Channel, too.

Desperate to stave off the French, he planned his pre- emptive strike to make sure England stayed on side.

His second cause was entirely selfserving. Denied the dignity of being monarch in his republican homeland, his desire was to be king of England. He believed too that, with his connections, it should be his by right.

The English crown was a family affair for him. His wife, Mary, was James II's eldest daughter and, in the absence of sons, heir to the throne.

His marriage alone took William within a heartbeat of the English crown.

But he also had the royal blood of England and Scotland running richly in his own veins.

His mother was James's older sister, the king therefore his uncle and his own wife his cousin.

Given that he was also shrewd, wise and war-like, he could be forgiven for thinking that he was born to be king.

If the chance hadn't come, he would have taken it any way. But events in London gave him the excuse to act. And one event in particular - the birth of a baby boy.

The British tolerated their ageing king's unpopular religious preference in the belief that it would die with him.

On his death, they supposed, the crown would go to Princess Mary, Protestant daughter of his first marriage.

His second marriage - to the Catholic Maria of Modena - had in 15 years produced nothing but miscarriages, still births and deaths in infancy.

But on June 10, 1688, a healthy boy was born, and named James Francis Edward Stuart.

The pregnancy had been a matter of scandal, suspicion and downright disbelief from the time it was announced, not least because it was six years since her last one.

The size of "the Queen's belly" - or, rather, lack of it - was openly discussed and ridiculed.

Princess Anne (the king's other daughter from his first marriage, who was later to become queen) wrote to her sister, Princess Mary, saying that she thought their step-mother had on "a false belly".

The birth, rather than silence the gossiping, only served to intensify it. Palace intrigue, played out in public, reached fever pitch.

James, determined to legitimise the Catholic heir he had always wanted, brought forward 42 witnesses to testify to the Privy Council that the new-born boy was his bona fide son.

But the common assumption was that a live baby had been smuggled into the birthing bed in a warming pan and presented as the Queen's own.

Princess Anne was certain there had been foul play. With her suspicions, she had intended to be a "vigilant observer" of the birth, but had been away from London when the Queen apparently went into labour.

Had the birth been contrived to take place in her absence? To her sister she wrote of her "concern and vexation, for I shall never now be satisfied whether the child be true or false."

But by now, truth or falsity no longer mattered to the outcome. In The Hague, his capital, William of Orange saw that his chance of naturally succeeding to the English throne alongside his wife had been snatched away.

It was time for Plan B.

As the autumn of 1688 turned to winter, he activated his "Grand Design" to invade England. The forces which would carry it out began to muster on land and sea.

His vast invasion fleet set sail on November 1, out into the North Sea and then westwards into the Channel, its progress marked by threatening salutes of cannon fire.

Up on deck, regiments of soldiers stood in full formation, and trumpets and drums played martial music for hours on end in a highly effective display of "shock and awe".

The English ambassador in The Hague, who had picked up not a hint of the preparations, could scarcely believe the news he was now given that the Dutch intention was "an absolute conquest" of England.

The fleet made landfall at Torbay in Devon and troops began disembarking on November 5.

Since William was a master of the dark arts of spin and propaganda, the date was no accident.

It was Bonfire Night for the English, the anniversary of a Protestant triumph over Catholics, the conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

There was no army or militia to offer any resistance, just a few quizzical West Countrymen and women.

William came ashore in pomp under a banner proclaiming "For liberty and the Protestant religion" and made his progress through the countryside to cries of "God bless you", according to his chroniclers.

An old woman offered him a glass of mead. One of his entourage was struck by how all the women smoked pipes of tobacco, "without shame, even the very young, 13-and 14-year-olds".

Two hundred miles away, London was a city of rumours and unrest. It took three days for the news to arrive from Torbay, with the number of ships inflated to 700 and unconvincing excuses being offered for why the Navy had made no attempt to stop them.

The diarist John Evelyn noted his fear that this was "the beginning of sorrow, unless God in His mercy prevent it by some happy reconciliation of all dissensions among us".

Parliament and the court were in a permanent state of panic, made worse by William's painfully slow march from the West Country and the absence of real information.

It was the weather, the rain turning the roads to mud, rather than any active resistance that slowed him down.

Supporters did not flock to join him as he had been promised. But there was no opposition either.

Faced with their first invasion for six centuries (and, as it turned out, their last), the British people were hedging their bets.

Amid this deafening silence from his subjects, the King was powerless. He was suffering from severe nose bleeds, but crucially it was support that was flowing away.

Royal officials stayed at home rather than turn up for their duties. His administration crumbled. He sent his Queen and his baby son away to France.

But he stayed until, on December 17, he was told that an advance party of the elite Dutch Blue Guards had taken up positions in St James's Park.

In the dead of the night they escorted the king out of his own capital to confinement in Rochester Castle in Kent.

The next day, William of Orange, dressed all in white, made his formal, entry into London, welcomed by crowds at last showing enthusiasm.

"You come to redeeme our religion, laws, liberties and lives," they were reported as proclaiming. But the conqueror had taken no chances.

The Coldstream Guards, the Life Guards and all other English regiments had been ordered out of the city, and reluctantly they went.

The streets along which he passed in triumph were lined with Dutch soldiers.

King James avoided the fate of his father, Charles I, of being put on trial and humiliated.

A week later, his Dutch jailers looked the other way and friends smuggled him to France, were he lived in resentful exile for the rest of his life.

His place on the throne was taken by his daughter, Princess Mary, and her husband, William, in a joint monarchy.

London remained under military occupation for a further 15 months, and the presence of large numbers of heavily armed foreign troops on the streets caused some disquiet among the populace.

What was "this poore nation reduc'd to", the diarist John Evelyn asked in anguish.

But though he and others wrung their hands, they did not reach for their arms.

There was no wish to fight. The scars of the Civil War were too recent to risk another.

Rather than resist, the British people swallowed their pride and settled for a peaceful regime change.

They quickly came to accept and even love it, swayed by William's spin doctors, whose pamphlets smoothed over the constitutional wrinkles of what had in effect been a coup d'etat and converted a military conquest into the "Glorious Revolution" in defence of ancient freedoms.

It was the "spun" version of events that prevailed. A silence descended over the Dutch occupation of London, and pretty soon after, in the words of historian Jonathan Israel, "the whole business came to seem so improbable that by common consent, scholarly and popular, it was simply erased from the record".

This acquiescence to a foreignborn prince seizing the throne, was helped, Professor Jardine argues, because Britain and Holland had for many years shared a common cultural heritage.

In arts and architecture, science and technology, the two countries had become close, their bond sealed by their shared Protestant faith.

Hence, the invasion of one by the other did not seem so radical and dangerous. It was not as if the dreaded French or Spanish had taken over.

In the aftermath of the Dutch conquest, that cross-fertilisation increased but as very much a one-way traffic.

Dutch talent flowed into England, its effects still to be seen in painting, buildings and in the formal gardens that were a speciality of the Netherlands.

The incomers also brought banking methods that transformed London as a commercial centre.

The result was that Britain boomed, becoming a rich and powerful nation after 1688, while the Netherlands remained a European backwater.

It caused resentment in Holland that, in Jardine's words, their glory had been "plundered" by the British.

And, indeed, the enduring Dutch influence on the culture of this country has been remarkable.

Sadly it is not the whole story. Not all of the habits that the Dutch brought to Britain were beneficial. Their national drink, gin, very quickly outstripped beer.

Within half a century, half of the 15,000 watering holes in Georgian London were dens dispensing cheap and lethally strong "mother's ruin". The social consequences were catastrophic.

It is a curious footnote in the Dutch conquest of Britain 320 years ago - an invasion that, according to our history, never really happened - that one of its unintended imports was the curse of binge-drinking.

Perpète à 13 ans ?

Ivre, Jamie Smith s'est acharné sur Stephen Croft avant de le jeter inconscient dans les flammes.

Un des mes correspondants me signale le cas d'un jeune Anglais qui vient d'être enfermé pour un temps indéfini. Agé de seulement 13 ans, il a tué dans des conditions particulièrement atroces un homme de 34 ans.

C'est le quotidien populaire Daily Mail qui a dévoilé cette affaire.

Le cas de ce pré-adolescent devrait attirer l'attention sur la faillite du traitement social des enfants délinquants selon les normes actuelles.

The Independent a publié un numéro spécial sur la délinquance des jeunes.