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David Southwell (born 1971) is a British writer, and the author of several books on conspiracy theories and organized crime.
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David Southwell (born 1971) is a British writer, and the author of several books on conspiracy theories and organized crime.
Prior to full-time writing, Southwell worked as a journalist and as Director of Communications for the British Retail Consortium (BRC).[ citation needed ] In his role at the BRC, he regularly clashed with the British government's media relations department and pressure groups, and played a part in forcing Stephen Byers to scrap the Rip-Off Britain campaign.[ citation needed ] In a front-page story in The Sunday Times in 2003, Southwell, then a spokesman for the BRC, mentioned that MI5 was coordinating with the business community with regard to potential terrorism. [1] Southwell later stated in his own books that he had liaised with MI5 on anti-terrorism issues and with the UK Government's emergency planning Cabinet Committee Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA).[ citation needed ]
He has acknowledged a specialist knowledge and ongoing interest in the Angry Brigade and conspiracies surrounding the events that inspired VALIS. [ citation needed ] In 2005 he was thanked as an inspiration by Gary Russell in his Doctor Who novel Spiral Scratch.
A regular broadcaster in the UK and North America on the subjects of conspiracies and counter-culture, he jokingly claims on the back of his books that if he "dies a mysterious death it will be because he knows too much and has upset some very powerful people".[ citation needed ]
Southwell lives on a narrowboat on Regent's Canal in London, and married for the second time in 2010. [2] He wears an eye-patch due to the loss of 80% of the sight in one eye. [3]
In early 2016 Southwell was a winning contestant on the BBC quiz Pointless .
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The Security Service, also known as MI5, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and Defence Intelligence (DI). MI5 is directed by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and the service is bound by the Security Service Act 1989. The service is directed to protect British parliamentary democracy and economic interests and to counter terrorism and espionage within the United Kingdom (UK).
Thriller is a genre of fiction with numerous, often overlapping, subgenres, including crime, horror, and detective fiction. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving their audiences heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. This genre is well suited to film and television.
David Anthony Yallop was a British author who wrote chiefly about unsolved crimes. In the 1970s, he contributed scripts for a number of BBC comedy shows, including Minder. In the same decade he also wrote 10 episodes for the ITV court drama, Crown Court.
Meibion Glyndŵr was a protest group linked to arson of English-owned holiday homes in Wales. They were formed in response to the housing crisis in Wales precipitated by large numbers of houses being bought by wealthy English people for use as holiday homes, pushing up house prices beyond the means of many locals. They were responsible for setting fire to English-owned propierties in Wales from 1979 to the mid-1990s, and only confirm an arrest.
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Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is a British investigative journalist, author and academic. He is editor of the crowdfunded investigative journalism platform INSURGE intelligence. He is a former environment blogger for The Guardian from March 2013 to July 2014. From 2014 to 2017, Ahmed was a weekly columnist for Middle East Eye, the London-based news portal founded by ex-Guardian writer David Hearst. He is 'System Shift' columnist at VICE covering issues around global systems crises and solutions. Ahmed is now Special Investigations Reporter at Byline Times.
"Londonistan" is a sobriquet referring to the British capital of London and the growing Muslim population of late-20th- and early-21st-century London.
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David Neiwert is an American freelance journalist and blogger. He received the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000 for a domestic terrorism series he produced for MSNBC.com. Neiwert has concentrated in part on extremism in the Northwest.
The Corley Conspiracy is an opera by Tim Benjamin to a libretto by Sean Starke, who also directed. The work premiered on 19 September 2007 in the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre in London; the orchestral parts were played by the ensemble Radius. The opera was commissioned by the London Design Festival 2007.
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Rangzieb Ahmed is a British citizen who was allegedly the highest ranking al-Qaeda operative in the United Kingdom (UK). Ahmed, who was a key link between British recruits and al-Qaeda leaders, was responsible for setting up a terrorist cell in Manchester and contacting one of the terrorists responsible for the failed London bombings of 21 July 2005.
Vatican conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories that concern the Pope or the Roman Catholic Church. A majority of the theories allege that the Church and its representatives are secretly controlling secular society with a satanic agenda for global domination.
Conspiracy Encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of Conspiracy Theories is a non-fiction reference book about conspiracy theories, with an introduction by editor Thom Burnett. It was published in 2005 by Chamberlain Bros., and in 2006 by Collins & Brown. Contributors to the work include Thom Burnett, Nigel Cawthorne, Richard Emerson, Mick Farren, Alex Games, John Gill, Sandy Gort, Rod Green, Emma Hooley, Esther Selsdon, and Kenn Thomas. The encyclopedia discusses 365 conspiracy theories, most of which are political.
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains several intelligence agencies that deal with secret intelligence. These agencies are responsible for collecting, analysing and exploiting foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, and performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the national security of the United Kingdom, military planning, public safety, and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI). The agencies are organised under three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.
Special Branch was a unit in the Metropolitan Police in London, formed as a counter-terrorism unit in 1883 and merged with another unit to form Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) in 2006. It maintained contact with the Security Service (MI5) and had responsibility for, among other things, personal protection of (non-royal) VIPs and performing the role of examining officer at designated ports and airports, as prescribed by the Terrorism Act 2000.
