MEDIA STUDIES
There is a Republican cell at the Guardian. And no threats from its editor will stop me saying so
STEPHEN GLOVER
In a recent interview in the London Evening Standard, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, said he found the govern- ment's desire to repress dissent 'repulsive'. Few would disagree with that. But unfortu- nately Mr Rusbridger's championing of debate and free speech does not extend to the affairs of his own newspaper. In this respect he looks rather worse than the Downing Street heavies whom he berates.
Three weeks ago I wrote an article alleg- ing that there was an Irish Republican cell in the Guardian. This was a serious charge, and it was to be expected that Mr Rusbridger would attempt to answer it. However, he did not seek to do so by writing a letter to this magazine, as he was urged to. Instead he wrote an eight-page missive to its editor, Boris Johnson, which he asked that I should not see, demanding an apology. When this was declined Mr Rusbridger said he would write a letter for publication if at the end of it Mr Johnson indicated his agreement with its contents. After being told this was not on, Mr Rusbridger ran a leader in the Guardian making all sorts of wild and libellous claims about Mr Johnson and myself .
Mr Johnson sent a letter to the Guardian which Mr Rusbridger, defying every con- vention in the book, refused to publish on the grounds that it would give wider circu- lation to my opinions. His gossip columnist, Matthew Norman, then wrote two items, seemingly unconnected with my article, intended to damage me. You may wonder what sort of creature this Norman is that he should offer his clanking wit to fight his edi- tor's fights. But the important point is that Mr Rusbridger would not engage in open debate. His approach was to creep up and administer a sharp jab between the ribs.
If Mr Rusbridger will not fight his own corner openly I must do it for him. His let- ter to Mr Johnson was personal, but the apology he wanted was not, and I will try to summarise it. Readers may recall that my original column was partly about Ronan Bennett, an energetic Republican propa- gandist whose partner is Georgina Henry, deputy editor of the Guardian. Mr Rus- bridger was upset by my suggestion that RTE, the Irish television channel, had with- drawn support for Mr Bennett's pro-IRA film about the Easter Uprising currently being filmed in Ireland. Almost half the apology he demanded concerned this point. Mr Rusbridger is strictly correct: RTE has not pulled out, but the truth is possibly more illuminating. Senior executives at RTE did initially turn down the film; later, money was put in, but changes in Mr Ben- nett's script were asked for.
Why Mr Rusbridger should be so worked up by a supposed slur against Mr Bennett, who is not on the Guardian's payroll, though a contributor over the years, is a bit mystify- ing. More easily explicable is his defence of his deputy, Georgina Henry. I said that she has written leaders on Northern Ireland. Mr Rusbridger denies this, and I am happy to take his word. But why should he be so exer- cised by an apparently minor point? Is it because she is a Republican sympathiser and Mr Rusbridger does not want her associated in the public mind even with the Guardian's often pro-Sinn Fein leaders? As deputy edi- tor her views must always carry weight, and she edits the paper in Mr Rusbridger's absence for six weeks of the year. It scarcely matters that her fingers never make contact with the keyboard.
We could go on. I gather that my esteemed colleague Roy Greenslade (a rather junior member of the Guardian's Republican cell) has never fished with Pat Doherty, vice-president of Sinn Fein and for many years a member of the IRA army council, for the simple reason that he does not fish. On the other hand, it has not been denied that Mr Greenslade recently tele- phoned Roger Alton, editor of the Observer, the Guardian's sister paper, on Mr Doherty's behalf to say that Mr Doher- ty's remarks about the IRA never disarm- ing had been misconstrued.
Let me state my case again, which I believe is undented. I will even elaborate a little. Georgina Henry is a very important member of the Guardian. Her partner is an unflagging IRA apologist; it is interesting that he served a period in prison for the murder of an RUC policeman, a conviction later overturned by the Court of Appeal. In 1987 Mr Bennett was barred from the House of Commons because of his alleged Republican connections. He has contribut- ed articles to the Guardian or Observer over the years, and only in one case I know of was his background mentioned. It is not sexist to suppose he may exert an influence on Ms Henry. (If she were a man, and Ben- nett a woman, I would make the same sug- gestion.) In fact his influence stretches fur- ther. Last year Mr Bennett introduced Mr Rusbridger to his old acquaintance Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein. The two men got on well. The Guardian's growing pro-Sinn Fein leanings may date from this time. Who can gainsay Mr Bennett's influ- ence within the paper?
There are countless examples of the Guardian's indulgence of Sinn Fein. One concerns Mr Rusbridger and Jonathan Freedland, who writes many of the paper's leaders on Northern Ireland. On 5 February 1999 the two of them published an interview with Martin McGuinness. It was a period of gruesome punishment beatings. Nine days earlier a Guardian journalist called Derek Brown had written about these beatings in Unequivocal terms. 'Mealy-mouthed apolo- gists for the warlords, like Sinn Fein's Mar- tin McGuinness, prate about their lack of trust in the police and the courts... McGuinness knows a thing or two about street justice. In the early 1970s, when he commanded the Provisional IRA in Derry, teenage girls who talked to British soldiers were tied to street lamps and publicly tarred and feathered.' I quote this to reiterate the point I made in my previous piece, which is that most Guardian reporters are not pro- Sinn Fein/IRA. It is the editorials that often are, though by no means always, and some columns. Rusbridger's and Freedland's interview with the ex-IRA thug McGuinness was conducted in the tones that Pravda once reserved for senior members of the Polit- buro. McGuinness was put under no pres- sure concerning punishment beatings. An accompanying leader gushed with sympathy for Sinn Fein: 'To ask these men to decom- mission is to ask them to accept defeat — to lie down in the road and be trampled on.'
Why we believe precisely what we do is one of life's mysteries. I cannot be sure why, more than any other mainstream newspaper in these islands, the Guardian should sympa- thise with Sinn Fein/IRA. There is Ronan Bennett and there is Georgina Henry, and there are smaller fry like Roy Greenslade. There is Mr Freedland. And there is Alan Rusbridger, rather more active in these counsels than I had imagined. How these individuals exactly interact I cannot say. All am certain of is the result. This is what the Guardian stands for. Some will mind, others will not care. But no amount of dark threats of retribution delivered against me, no wild accusations of `McCarthyism', will deter me from speaking out.
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