Lord Haw - Haw remembered as UK Gubment seeks to twist the law for popular support
Harriet Harm , Fleshy Gordon and the rest who are hounding Sir Fred and his magic pension pot by the uncertain majesty of the law remind us how Governments never hesitate to twist the law to stoke public sentiment.
Wiliam Joyce "Lord Haw Haw" was tried for treason at the end of the war and hanged. Despite the fact that he was born in America, whose parents had become US citizens. He had also become a German citizen when he made his vile broadcasts from Germany and so could not possibly be tried for treason. (Although a new Actof Treason 1945 was brought in a rush, to allow only one judge to sit to put things all square)
The quite reasonable arguments of his publicly provided solicitor and QC based on the above were brushed aside and the jury and the public were happy to see him hung.
The Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross,(who went on to star in more dodgy legal business at Nuremberg and hangings) convinced the jury, that Joyce's possession of a British passport, obtained fraudulently my lying about his nationality to obtain it, entitled him (until it expired) to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to the King at the time he commenced working for the Germans.
When Joyce appealed to the House of Lords they refused his appeal and even dissenting Lord Porter said it was matter of fact (for the jury to determine) whether this technicality afforded him protection from the court not the highest court in the land.
As Joyce had been an MI5 spy in Germany (he had been sent there in the 30's by the curious "M" or Maxwell Knight a proto - fascist and friend of Oswald Mosley who was head of section B5(b) responsible for infiltrating agents and based in Dolphin Square ). Documents released in 2001 show clearly this was something they wished to conceal they freed his wife - who had been as active as he was - to the Belgians and had indeed previously connived at letting her"escape".
In another contemporary slant Mosley defected from the Conservatives to the Labour Party in protest at the widespread and well known habit of torturing Sinn Fein prisoners by the "Gentle Black & Tans".
Judging by much public comment there are many RBS shareholders who would happily see poor old Fred tortured - or even like Joyce , well hung.
On the day when world markets slumped to record levels it does relieve Washington bound Fleshy Gordon of the worries of saving the world yet again.
5 comments:
"Knives out for Labour's 'golden couple' Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey"
"They jointly took out a £40,000 mortgage extension on their London house to fund her £100,000 campaign for the deputy leadership earlier this year."
"However, they failed to declare it to the Electoral Commission"...
http://tinyurl.com/3fezxa
This is a good one...
http://tinyurl.com/at26vk
Our favourite is J Dromey - somebody managed to slip £ 5 Mn into the till of the Labour Party right under his nose - proceeds of Lord Levy selling off crowns for cash.
Trust in politics indeed.
Mrs Joyce did in fact return to England and died in poverty in Soho a wretched alcoholic.
Lord Haw-Haw did not become a German national until 1940. Thus, his early broadcasts, starting in September 1939, were made when he was still a British passport- holder.
Secondly, although there is evidence that he provided information to Maxwell Knight, of MI5, before the war there is no proof that he went to Germany as an MI5 agent. Maxwell Knight almost certainly hoped that he could use Joyce as an agent in Germany but there is no evidence that Joyce, who was passionately pro-German, agreed to this.
It is likely that Margaret Joyce, his wife, was not prosecuted after the war not because Joyce had been a British agent in Germany but because he had cooperated with Knight before the war. It seems likely that Margaret was freed on condition that her husband would keep his mouth shut about his earlier association with Knight. In fact, Joyce never said a word at his trial or elsewhere about his MI5 links, thereby keeping his part of the bargain and, perhaps, sealing his fate.
March 2 2009
"RBS awards chairman £1.5m in share options"...
http://tinyurl.com/ajuk3g
The FTSE 100 index went below 3,600 today, for the first time since March 2003 (illegal invasion of Iraq).
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