A-Infos (en) Britain, Anarchist journal Class Warr #95 - Page 4

Nonsense ---- in the New Statesman Few Class War readers will see the New 
Statesman on a regular basis ­ think a weekly magazine for Polly Toynbee, New 
Labour councillors and left wing social workers, and you are half way there.
Its political editor, Martin Bright, is best known for regurgitating the 
Metropolitan Police fantasy that May Day demonstrators in 2001 planned to turn 
up on Oxford Street armed with Samurai swords to confront the cops. On 7 August 
the New Statesman ran a lengthy piece by Stephen Armstrong entitled "The New 
Spies" looking at the rise of the private security industry in Britain. In it 
Armstrong alleged that Class War was run by the security services in the 1990s.

Although the New Statesman was happy
to print Armstrong's attack, they ignored cor-
respondence from us on this matter, something
which tells us a lot about them as a publication.
We reprint below the response from a member of
London Class War that they declined to publish:
As a member of Class War since 1992, I was
staggered to read a line in Stephen Armstrong's
article (the New Statesman 7 August 2008) on
"The New Spies". Your reporter writes:
"Like the state security services, which ended up
running Class War in the 1990s after a hugely
successful penetration......"Can you back that
claim up with facts, or is any old rubbish accept-
able when it comes to Anarchist organisations?
We do hope you have not been taken in by 9/11
`truth' activists (and ex-MI5 officers) Annie Ma-
chon and David Shayler, who have both come
out with conflicting claims about attempted
state inflitration of Class War in the early 1990s.
Shayler withdrew his (contradictory) claims
about Class War at a public debate with Notes
 From the Borderland magazine at Conway
Hall in 200. He now makes a living claim-
ing to be the Messiah. As for his former part-
ner Annie Machon (freely quoted in your piece)
the New Statesman should treat with caution
a woman who has pushed red baiting pieces
about Tony Benn, Jack Jones and the KGB in
the Mail on Sunday, and who has worked along-
side some extremely dubious characters in the
nuttier fringes of the 9/11 `truth' movement.
As a revolutionary organisation, Class War is
bound to be targeted - on occasion - by the police
and security services. Such is life - especially in
a society with seemingly never ending funds
for public order policing and the secret state.
That situation will not be improved as long as we
have `experts' with the limited or biased knowl-
edge of Stephen Armstrong, Annie Machon and
David Shayler. It will certainly continue until we
have the sort of radical change this society needs.

------------------------------------

TIPPING THE SCALES

Lardy Lothian and Borders cops have been
banned from patrolling in cars because they tip
the cars over the legal weight! In some cases,
there's only enough spare capacity for one pas-
senger, leading to the ludicrous situation that
they have to call for back-up (and extra pies) if
they stop two suspects! As one cop said, `it's a bit
rich for us to be pulling people over for overload-
ing their cars when our own vehicles might be
illegal'. Sadly it's unlikely to stop them, though.

---------------------------------------

BNP PIGS

Oh dear, oh dear! Seems some little piggy has
got himself into a spot of bother. Policeman
Stuart Janaway has just lost his job for wear-
ing a BNP badge to a football match against
Hungary at Old Trafford in 2006. The Chief
Constables Order 2004 states that officers are
banned from being members of the BNP, Com-
bat 18 or the National Front. Although Stuart
had nothing to say for himself, BNP spokes-
man, Simon Darby called said: "We think what
police officers do in their own time is up to them.
We trust them to be able to do their job when
they're working and operate in a fair and impar-
tial way. This is pernicious Stalinism. It really
is bringing it home to people that we live in a
Soviet-style regime. What would happen if they
were wearing a Labour Party or Liberal Demo-
crat badge at a football match? It's appalling."
Would your regime be any better Mr Darby?
Stuart! Take your little badge
and fuck off!

BENT COPPERS
Gravesend custody seargeant Zak Owen was
jailed for seven years in March for misconduct
in a public office, possessing a gun, false im-
prisonment, fraud and theft. Not content with
copying prisoners' credit card details and us-
ing them to buy things on the internet, he also
advertised a car then threatened three men
who turned up to buy it with his CS spray and
stole £4,790 from one of them, Owen being on
duty and in uniform at the time! Even in the an-
nals of bent coppers, this is certainly a belter!
It seems that Owen's a bit of a gambler, but so
crap at picking the ponies that he fell deeply
into debt, leading to his descent into crime.
Stephen John Price, 43, a constable with Nor-
folk Constabulary, was convicted of fraud in
August. He made a false insurance claim over
photographic gear worth more than £2,100.
Sentenced to 180 hours of community ser-
vice and with £1,000 costs to pay, Price was
warned he might lose his job and pension!
His partner, Berit Hedegaard, also emplyed
by Norfolk police, was also convicted for the
same offence and given 200 hours com-
munity service. At the time of writing, Price
remains suspended, but must be expect-
ing the sack as he's moved to Lancashire.

------------------------------------------

Former chief superintendent Alec Alexander
was sent down for 10 years in August follow-
ing a conviction for raping his daughter. He was
also convicted of two counts of indecent as-
sault on her and one charge of taking an inde-
cent picture of her. The attacks occurred over
many years while he was a senior cop. On top
of this, he was found to have more than 65,000
child porn pictures on his computer. We hope
his time in prison is nasty, brutal and short.
On 7 October Thames Valley cop DC David
Muddiman was handed a 12 month suspended
sentence, 200 hours of community service and
told to pay costs of £625 following his conviction
for possessing a knife whilst off duty. It seems
the 44 year-old produced the blade in an argu-
ment with a group of youths on New Year's Day.
Information recently released shows that Welsh
cops have been committing a wide range crimes
over the past three years. Two Dyfed-Powys
cops were investigated for possessing child
porn. Others have been questioned about sexu-
al assault, threats to kill, and forgery. Apparently
seven out of ten cops nicked were convicted.
South Wales Police arrested 22 of their number,
on charges as diverse as possession of Class A
drugs, stealing from their own force, intimidat-
ing witnesses, arson and threatening behaviour.
Officers from North Wales Police received a
range of convictions, from corruption and `get-
ting out of hand while they were meant to be
on duty', whatever that means, to common
assault and a number of driving offences.
Suspiciously, Gwent Police haven't managed to
convict a single member of their force over the
past three years.Could this be because they're
up to something?
PC Andy Graham's pounding the beat no more
following a conviction for assault. While on pa-
trol in Wembley Graham and a colleague found
Mahdi Jamal passed out on a bench. When they
woke him, he responded as you'd expect: swear-
ing at them and telling them to leave. Graham
then led Jamal into a park and, witnessed by a
sergeant, tripped Jamal and kicked him several
times, later claiming that it was self-defence.
Fortunately that old chestnut didn't work and
latest reports suggest Graham's going down.

TOP TOFF, HEAD'S OFF..
Millionaire business man Gerald Mellion,
54 has come up with a very strange way of
getting revenge on his estranged younger
wife after their marriage collapsed. Jeal-
ous Gerald tied one end of a rope around
his neck and the other end around a tree
he then climbed into his £90,000 open top
Aston Martin DB7 and sped into a busy
road as other drivers looked on in horror.
The police found his headless corpse in
the driver's seat and his head on the back
seat! We at Class War HQ are encourag-
ing other top business men to follow suit
and are literally laughing our heads off!
_________________________________________
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