A severely edited version of this letter was published in The Big Issue, April 24-30, 1995.
93c Venner Road, Sydenham, London SE26 5HU. 081 659 7713. April 10, 1995 Sir, Re your feature on Larry O'Hara in last week's issue, while it is heartening to see someone leaping to the defence of this latter day Don Quixote, this article contains a number of palpable errors. Although it is true that Mr O'Hara does accuse all and sundry of working for MI5 - including, I am informed, myself - it is not true that everybody is out to get him, only Searchlight. Mr O'Hara may well have been burgled three times in the past two years, but when I was burgled in January of last year I was informed that the police had dealt with over 200 burglaries in the area since Christmas, so he is hardly unique. I have three friends who have also been burgled recently, and as far as I know, none of them would be of any interest to MI5. Robin Ramsay, editor of the highly respected Lobster (the real Lobster as opposed to the pseudo-Lobster), is spot on with his analysis of O'Hara's latest effort: it is indeed highly specula- tive rubbish. The claim that Mr O'Hara is a target for the far right is simply not true, rather, the far right have been plugging his work heavily on account of his attacking Searchlight, but even here he is wrong. O'Hara's claim that Searchlight is some sort of front for MI5 is not borne out by the facts, indeed, what evidence there is suggests that these arch-liars and pseudo-anti-fascists have done their best to lead both MI5 and Special Branch up the garden path over the years. Since 1975 the magazine has exposed one long series of "Nazi conspiracies" after another, including a supposed plot to bomb the 1981 Notting Hill carnival, which the police totally ignored. In 1976 the magazine was branded scurri- lous and disreputable by a Stipendiary magistrate after it li- belled the British Nazi leader Colin Jordan, accusing him of being behind a series of arson attacks against London synagogues in the 1960s. Notwithstanding that, the magazine's controllers have claimed several times since then that the actual arsonists were a) brought to book by the Searchlight Organisation; and b) that a young Jewish student was killed in one of the attacks - a wicked lie and one which cynically exploits the suffering of Jewish people, whom this "anti-fascist" magazine claims to be defending. I can't say too much here because I am in litigation with the magazine's publisher, but what O'Hara does have to worry about is the very real possibility of his being the victim of a hammer attack by (hired) thugs. This appears to be an occupational hazard for anyone who is defamed by this magazine, as both myself and at least three other people can testify. Yours sincerely, A Baron
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