Literary agent, Author of Master of Lies, the untold story of Anthony Blunt’s treachery and the shadow he casts
London
Joined February 2012
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If you are terrified by AI and wondering what we can do about it, you should read my latest substack (and column for Writing Magazine). The answer is surprisingly simple. We just need to act, together, in unison and we can win.
Interesting concept, a used book. Obviously certain books are used, for instruction or for reading with one hand... but in the general sense can a book be used? Certainly most of the books in the picture have not been.
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Revolutionary ideologies of whatever stripe are evil because they demand the destruction of the old order and in so doing provide untold opportunities for sociopathic monsters from Robespierre to Stalin to Mao and of course Hitler
Blaming communist theory for appalling totalaterian regimes is like blaming Jesus for the Spanish inquisition.
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Says a person who doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'read' or the word 'discussion'
this is the funniest thing, if you actually read books you quickly realize the AIs of today are better discussion partners about classics than any human can possibly be. they have READ EVERYTHING. they put Harold Bloom to shame. all i have to say is that harvard freshman brains are scrambled so badly that they think Sparknotes-style is the only way of engaging with LLMs. yes llm lets you cheat if you want to and not read things, but they also offer people who like reading a depth of engagement about text that is 10x any collection of students/professors no matter how well read and intelligent. they can simulate the richest intellectual environments you can experience
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Fascinating story about Xi purging his top generals. Something both Hitler and Stalin did in the late 1930s. In both of those cases it was a direct precursor to war.
thetimes.com/world/asia/arti…
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OK, quiz for anyone appalled by the way Trump has been compromised by Russian Intelligence. Who was the first serving American President to be an unconscious asset of Russian intelligence? And why were the consequences of that that much, much worse.
1/ Last month I told a room of Baltic intelligence officers and diplomats that Donald Trump is an asset of Russian intelligence. Not one of them blinked. "Of course," they said. Ho hum. But in America, saying it out loud is still taboo. Why? 🧵
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Samuel Hoare, 'slippery Sam', the new British ambassador headed straight to Madrid after Dunkirk and started handing out bribes like confetti. Worked a treat...
Not familiar with the history here but I'd like to know more about the Spanish position in the Second World War. My sense is that Franco was not really anti-Nazi so much as he was an arch-pragmatist - leaning Axis when he thought they'd win, & tapping out when it was clear they'd lose.
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Which is why those who want to abolish this terrible law which polices thought and politicises the police should organise a campaign of mass reporting of everything and anything which it covers. Flood the system, within days the police will beg the Home Office to abolish it
Keep in mind that one can cause "harassment, alarm, or distress" in England and Wales by uttering a true statement of fact to someone who doesn't want to hear it, or by offering an honestly-held opinion or belief, spoken or written, which also offends.
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Umm that would be because we bankrupted ourselves fighting hitler when no one else was and then our buddies in FDRs administration 'helped' us by crippling us with debt while hosing our enemies with cash. We've been in denial about it ever since. That, I admit, hasn't helped
Crazy how the British had Agincourt, Shakespeare, Wateroo, Trafalgar, Milton, Tolkien, and the largest empire in history and just decided to burn it all down for literally no reason.
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Come and hear me talk at Southwold Literary Festival about my book on Anthony Blunt, the original establishment infiltrator whose crimes are still being covered up. suffolkcommunitylibraries.co…
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In 1945 Philby advised a ‘friend’ not to go into politics but become a civil servant as they had all the power. The British state has had nearly a century of being picked apart by an intelligentsia contemptuous of the wishes of the people they are supposed to serve
This is the scandal that just keeps giving. It has emerged that national security adviser Jonathan Powell, who sits at the centre of Britain’s most sensitive intelligence and diplomatic secrets, and who happens to be married to a Gaza fanatic who has defended Hamas, was not vetted by security before he was handed the job.
The source is Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff, in evidence to Parliament about Peter Mandelson that came to light this week. “We made a political appointment for National Security Adviser, in Jonathan Powell,” he remarked, offhand. “As far as I remember, we appointed him and then we began the DV.”
DV stands for developed vetting, the highest routine level of security clearance. Any clearance Powell held from his days as Tony Blair’s chief of staff would have lapsed long ago; the rules require a review after seven years, and he left Downing Street in 2007. In other words, the government put a man in charge of national security first and determined that he wasn’t a security risk afterwards, just as it did with Peter Mandelson (and look how that turned out).
This is more than a procedural lapse. It is a window into how this government works: a combination of cronyism and complacency which, step by step, has allowed ideological zealotry to seep into the heart of our foreign policy. And when you look at what the vetting officers would have found had they been allowed to do their job first, it becomes clear why this matters so much...
New post. Link in first reply
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I don’t do this often, but if you want to read about the fons et origo of this, the originalinfiltrator the read my book about Anthony Blunt, Master of Lies. He was the foundation stone of everything that was to come.
Devastating piece by @DouglasKMurray, taking note of how the morally corrupt ruling class of the UK has invited in the people who would eagerly destroy it, and punishes those who notice and complain. Read whole thing here: spectator.com/article/france…
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Piers Blofeld retweeted
Antonia Senior says hers is a 'radical new look'; she's used new files, for sure, but it's a question some of us raised many, many years ago and most recently by @robertverkaik1 & @pblofeld Cambridge historians have a certainty about themselves others must envy.
Perhaps more imortantly, Stalin deliberately sabotaged the Republican cause. He stole their gold and withheld help in order to purge his own side and persuade Hitler the west was weak and that history was on his side
When I was raised, I was told, as was every kid in America, that in the Spanish Civil War the Republicans were the good guys, and the Nationalists were practically Nazis.
I believed this up till about 2 decades ago when I actually started reading up on the Spanish Civil War as an event in and of itself instead of just as part of the "prelude" to WW2. My beliefs have modified.
Yes, clearly the Nationalists were guilty of terrible crimes, and I neither respect nor like the Caudillo. But the Republicans ... let's just say that if they'd won, their idiocies might have destroyed Spain as a viable state.
The cognitive disconnect between the establishment warning us to hold on tightly for fear of Russia and the fact they themselves have spent years demoralising and undermining the army is frankly terrifying.
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we are told to worry about Russian influence over Brexit, perhaps rightly. But actual Soviet practices at the BBC or the compromising of a national security adviser and we are not to worry. No malign influences at work there. The slide to war needs better narrative management.
This country acrually bans news outlets such as RT, because it considers them too "state-influenced".
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That is exactly 2 days after Soviet super spy, Richard Sorge had confirmed that Japan was not going to attack USSR in 1941, allowing Stalin to recall troops from the East to defend Moscow and affording him the luxury of some therapeutic purging. Always a monster, never insane
On October 16th, 1941, about 300 Soviet commanders, including several generals, were accused of being "military fascist plotters" and summarily executed by the communist regime for military defeats at the hands of Nazi Germany during the battle of Moscow.
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I’ve already posted about this, but it’s so important, it’s worth revisiting, especially asitturns out I was not alone: piersblofeld.substack.com/p/…
The CEO of the Society of Authors, Anna Ganley, has responded to criticism of its recently released Charter of Ethical AI Use in the Creative Industries. 👇 ebx.sh/G8VipQ
Piers Blofeld retweeted
The shed blood of those murdered cries out from the earth…
These photos can be repeated all over the former Soviet Union. I’m thinking especially of Bykivnia, Kurapaty, and Sandarmokh. But there were many, many more.
The regime today, led by a member of the organ responsible for these crimes against humanity, the OGPU/NKVD/KGB, wants these stories buried. It persecutes those who try to keep them publicised - even as they bathe themselves in the blood of hundreds of thousands in Ukraine today.
They can do that within Russia but they can’t abroad. We must tell these stories.
#neverforget
On October 15th, 1937, Anton Boron, a commander of the electromechanical section of the destroyer Stremitelny of the Soviet Navy, was arrested during the Great Purge. He was accused of "treason and anti-Soviet agitation" (which apparently means "being Polish) and executed by firing squad about five weeks later. pomortzeff.com/eng/levashovo
It seems we didn’t win the cold war - there’s just been a half time break. Remember ‘the American Century’? It lasted what, 17 yrs? The reason for that failure stretches back to the betrayals of WW2 and the false narratives and unlearned lessons of that both here and in the USA
🚨"MI5 is actually putting, and this is incredible, more resource into that work than it did in the Cold War."
Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society Emma Schubart breaks down what we learnt at the MI5 chief's annual speech.
@BenedictSpence | @ESchubart
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