Talk:David Southwell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ]

In trying to verify claims in earlier versions of this bio page, i found that Southwell's alleged link to MI5, said to have been publishd in the Sunday Times, was misstated. The actual wording of the Times article (via google search on "David Southwell" + "MI5") is as follows:

David Southwell, a spokesman for the British Retail Consortium, said it was working closely with Special Branch and the intelligence services.

Note that accorind to this article, "it" -- the BRC -- and not "he" -- David Southwell -- is working with MI5.

Thus i have reworded the original claim -- making it clear that Southwell was merely quoted as a spoksperson for the BRC and that MI5 had contacted the BRC, not that David Southwell ws personally working with MI5 -- and i deleted the next sentence, which had read:

This seemed to confirm rumours in some conspiracy research circles that he was allied with Secret Intelligence Service agents and may have been publishing disinformation on behalf of the British security services in his conspiracy books.

No offense intended to anyone, but the facts were not verifiable as stated.

[edit] The Above...

... was written by tilde-forgetting Catherineyronwode 22:13, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, further research proves you wrong. If you read his book Secrets & Lies he states that he was working with MI5 and they asked him to not to reveal details of briefings he had had. It also reveals he was the BRC person working with Cobra, the UK Cabinet's emergency planning team. A recent entry in his blog mentions his work with MI5 in relation to a current UK terrorist trial. I’ve reworded it a bit, but it should be in as it does throw a light on his conspiracy books given that he has worked with the security services and may be less trustworthy for this.

Where is the evidence for his work on comic books? I have a copy of the privately published Voodoo London audiobook, but have not found any comic books published featuring material by Southwell?