This is the fourth issue of Dr Larry O’Hara’s magazine. Dr O’Hara? Yes, Larry has got his PhD. He had been keeping this quiet but I noticed that in this issue of his magazine he is referred to as Dr. O’Hara. So many congratulations to Larry: doing a PhD part-time is not easy.
NTB, as the magazine calls itself, is improving. This issue is better than its predecessors because it is easier to read. In one of the pieces in this issue Larry wonders why so few of the left’s press have mentioned NTB. One reason is that some magazines have a policy of not referring to what they perceive as rivals, petty though this may seem. But in the case of NTB there is another reason: the impenetrability of much of the first three issues. In my case, sympathetic to NTB, I have said very little about it because much of what I had to say would have been critical.
With no. 4 two things have happened: there are more people writing for it and writing on a wider field than before, with pieces on Hess, Bettaney, and the WRP, for example; and O’Hara’s own writing seems to have become less convoluted wirh less guesswork to fill in the gaps in his knowledge. This is presumably because the centrepiece of this issue, 21 pages by O’Hara and David Pegg, on operations to discredit the anti-EU cause in this country by agents of the state, and infiltration of anti-EU organisations by far-right groups, is material about which O’Hara knows a great deal; and there is therefore less of the speculation to which O’Hara is inclined in other areas. These pages contain much new material and are being read and taken seriously by the anti-EU groups in this country.
For those who enjoy the conspiracy theorising about spookery for which Larry is also known, he has another go at journalists in this issue – with the usual disastrous results, in my view. Trying to intuit the motives and paymasters of contemporary journalists from the things they write is tricky. In one or two cases – e.g. the ‘diplomatic correspondents’ of the Telegraphs – it is reasonable to assume that there is a decent chance the material is coming from the Foreign Office or the psy-ops people at MI6. Beyond that little is certain. I do not see what is accomplished by suggesting, as he does here, that Martin Bright of The Observer might (or might not) be an agent of the state. Except to irritate Bright – and maybe send him looking for a libel lawyer – if he ever hears of it.
Notes from the Borderland, Issue 4
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