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The Webs They Weave

The activities of eight people led to The Guardian's 'cash for questions' article -
- four of whom have a shared interest in the British and US intelligence services
(page one of four)

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Section Three Index:
The Guardian's liars and their lies

Dale Campbell-Savours MP (now Lord Campbell-Savours)

A former backbench Labour MP and a regular member of the Members' Interests Committee - the parliamentary watchdog on MPs' probity.  He abused his position on the committee routinely in collusion with The Guardian's Left-wing journalists.  Like his fellow Committee member, Labour MP Bob Cryer, throughout his time as an MP he was a vociferous opponent of professional parliamentary lobbyists and a manic pursuer of Conservative MPs accused of failing to register outside interests.
    Since the early 1980s Campbell-Savours has been a confidant of several hard-Left journalists for whom he tabled parliamentary questions regularly to acquire information on intelligence matters.  In particular he collaborates routinely with Guardian-linked political journalists whose articles, books, TV documentaries or other activities demonstrate a collective keen interest in the workings of the British and American security services.  They include Guardian/Granada TV journalists David Leigh, Mark Hollingsworth; and Andrew Roth, with all of whom he conspired to promote The Guardian's 'cash for questions' campaign and subsequent cover-up.

Former Labour MP (now Lord) Dale Campbell-Savours

Dale Campbell-Savours.  He had a key role in The Guardian's conspiracy to pervert the parliamentary inquiry into its 'cash for questions' allegations. He routinely colludes with journalists, including a former Soviet spy, who specialise in denigrating the British and US intelligence agencies.  He also sat on Parliament's Security & Intelligence Committee with access to the most sensitive classified information

Typical of the parliamentary questions that Campbell-Savours tabled for these journalists during the 1980s include scores of questions about Polaris & Trident missile systems; the Zircon spy satellite; and the Skynet 4B & 4C military satellites (including questions about their orbit position and purpose). 
    At all times Campbell-Savours submersed his most sensitive inquiries within a sea of other questions calling for named journalists who had written about security issues -- including his collaborator and close friend David Leigh -- to be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act.  Through such crude camouflage Campbell-Savours escaped detection by maintaining the illusion that his motivation for asking sensitive intelligence questions was borne out of a genuine concern for national security.
    As mentioned, Campbell-Savours is also a confidant of Guardian political journalist Andrew Roth, who, most interestingly, has since been unmasked as the former US naval intelligence officer Lieutenant Andrew Roth, who escaped America after WWII after being caught by the FBI passing top-secret documents to a Soviet agent named Philip Jaffe.  Even more interestingly, during the late 1990s Campbell-Savours sat on Parliament's Security & Intelligence Committee, which its Conservative chairman Tom King MP described as having "access to the top secret workings of the Intelligence and Security Agencies".  During the three years up to June 2001 that he sat in this most sensitive of posts Campbell-Savours had access to classified documents and toured many top secret establishments, including the British General Communications Headquarters eavesdropping complex based at Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (GCHQ); and the top secret US "Echelon" communications surveillance centre at RAF Menwith Hill, Yorkshire.
    Campbell-Savours, Leigh, Hollingsworth, and Roth all had leading roles in The Guardian's 'cash for questions' campaign and in the paper's subsequent conspiracy to pervert Sir Gordon Downey's parliamentary inquiry (see the document in Section Two entitled "The brainwashing of a democratic state"). 

Campbell-Savours' collaboration with David Leigh had its genesis during the first weeks of 1984, over an Observer story written by Leigh insinuating that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had broken ministerial guidelines to favour the interests of her son, Mark.  Though the Speaker of the Commons issued an early statement clearing the Prime Minister of any impropriety, Campbell-Savours' and Leigh's orchestration of the so-called "Cementation affair" resulted in a brouhaha that dogged the Thatcher administration until mid-April.
    Their penchant for conspiracy deepened with a brilliant manipulation of the Members' Interests Committee in 1989, in collusion with Mark Hollingsworth and Granada TV's Charles Tremayne, which succeeded in destroying a libel action brought by Conservative MP John Browne over a defamatory article written by Hollingsworth & Leigh published during the 1987 general election (see profile of Hollingsworth for more). 
    Campbell-Savours' most cynical activity, however, was taken at the behest of Guardian editor Peter Preston in cahoots with Leigh between March 1989 and July 1991.  Together they hatched an audacious scheme to compel the Observer's owners, Lonrho, to sell the paper over the head of Lonrho's chief executive Tiny Rowland - whereupon Preston, who for years had tried to persuade Rowland to sell the paper, would snap it up as the Guardian's Sunday broadsheet.  However, though Rowland shrugged off Campbell-Savours' parliamentary attacks casting him as a proprietor who 'dictated' stories to his staff, Campbell-Savours and Leigh also smeared the Observer's journalists as 'Rowland's lapdogs' to ensure that the charge would stick.  As a result many Observer staff had their reputations ruined, including editor Donald Trelford; political editor Adam Raphael; City editor Melvyn Marckus, and financial journalists Lorana Sullivan & Michael Gillard.
    Following the General Election of 2001, after nearly two decades of undetected subversive activities conducted in cahoots with David Leigh, Peter Preston, Hollingsworth, Roth and others, Dale Campbell-Savours moved to the House of Lords with his Guardian-created reputation, as "an assiduous MP", intact. 
    [To download the documents chronicling The Guardian's campaign to smear Tiny Rowland and the Observer's editor and journalists see Section Eight]

Adam Raphael

Former Guardian journalist during the 1970s; and the Political Editor of the Sunday newspaper The Observer during the 1980s when the paper was owned by Lonrho plc, headed by controversial chief executive Tiny Rowland.
    In 1984 and again in 1989 The Observer published leading articles by Raphael implying that lobbyist Ian Greer paid MPs to table parliamentary questions at £200 a time.  These began the rumours about Ian Greer which eventually led to The Guardian's invented 'cash for questions' article of 20 October 1994 accusing Greer of having paid Conservative MPs Tim Smith and Neil Hamilton to table questions at £2,000 a time.  But despite the fact that it was his own articles that had started the suspicions about Ian Greer in the first place, Raphael had no direct role in The Guardian's story nor any part in its subsequent cover-up.

Former Observer political editor Adam Raphael

Adam Raphael

Though Raphael worked alongside David Leigh at The Observer, he was not part of Leigh's inner circle made up by Campbell-Savours, Hollingsworth, and Roth.  To the contrary, in March 1989 The Observer carried an article by Raphael alleging that BAe Tornado aircraft were being sold to Jordan at inflated prices to facilitate bribes to middlemen.  As part of a covert campaign by The Guardian to denigrate Lonrho's ownership of The Observer Leigh complained to the paper's independent directors that the story was false, citing an interest held by Lonrho in BAe's rival, Dassault, to allege that Raphael had written it at Lonrho's behest.  Working in league Campbell-Savours tabled several parliamentary motions decrying the article.  When his complaint was dismissed Leigh resigned 'in protest', which The Guardian then reported disingenuously - thus creating the impression that the story was indeed a Lonrho 'plant' - and smearing Raphael accordingly [see Section Eight].

Bob Cryer (1934-1994)

A backbench Labour MP, and a regular Member of the Members' Interests Committee.  Like his fellow Committee member Dale-Campbell-Savours MP, since the 1970s up to his tragic death Bob Cryer was a vociferous opponent of professional parliamentary lobbyists (of all political hues) and an ardent campaigner against MPs (of all parties) having outside interests.
    During a Commons debate on professional parliamentary lobbyists on 28 June 1993, Bob Cryer berated Conservative lobbyist Ian Greer for failing to disclose the names of two MPs to whom he had given commission payments for introducing clients.  It was this, Cryer's outburst, which prompted The Guardian's editor, Peter Preston, to instigate an investigation into Greer in early July 1993 to try and find out who the MPs were, which started off the whole 'cash for questions' fiasco (see "The brainwashing of a democratic state" in Section Two).
    Bob Cryer died in a car accident on 12 April 1994, eight months before The Guardian published its invented article accusing Greer of bribing MPs.

The late Labour MP Bob Cryer

Bob Cryer

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