Searchlight Critical Bibliography
1988

 


Social Representation, Objectification and Anchoring: a Rhetorical Analysis, by Michael Billig, published in Social Behaviour, Volume 3, Number 1, pages 1-16, (March 1988).

[SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR: An International Journal of Applied Social Psychology, published by John Wiley of Chichester. At this time, Billig sat on the editorial board.]


SEARCHLIES, from a column, TROUBLESHOOTING SPECIAL REPORT, published in Vanguard, September 1988, issue 22, pages 10-11.

More about Gable’s connections with pervert Harry Bidney.


Festivals of the oppressed, by David Edgar, published in Race & Class, Volume XXIX, Number 4, Spring 1988, pages 61-76.


The British New Right’s “Enemy Within”: ‘The Antiracists’, by Gill Seidel, published in Discourse and Discrimination, Edited by Geneva Smitherman-Donaldson and Teun A. van Dijk, published by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, (1988). 269 pages. Index.

Seidel’s contribution, Chapter 5, is pages 131-43. This woman is clearly off her trolley, at least as far as racism is concerned. This is an incredibly vituperative essay directed at the Salisbury Review and the academics around it.


The notion of ‘prejudice’: Some rhetorical and ideological aspects, by Michael Billig, published in TEXT: an interdisciplinary journal for the study of discourse, special issue “discourse, racism and ideology”, published by Mouton De Gruyter, Berlin, New York, Amsterdam, Volume 8-1/2, (1988), pages 91-110.

As might be expected from a poseur like Billig, this dissertation is a load of vacuous twaddle.

Page 109 lists another Billig effort, We condemn Apartheid, BUT...A discursive analysis of the European Parliament debate on sanctions, published in Sociological Review, (July 1986).

I found a quarterly journal called Sociological Review, but could find no July 1986 issue.


Verbal strategies of the collaborators: A discursive analysis of the July 1986 European Parliamentary debate on South African sanctions, by Gill Seidel, published in TEXT: an interdisciplinary journal for the study of discourse, special issue “discourse, racism and ideology”, published by Mouton De Gruyter, Berlin, New York, Amsterdam, Volume 8-1/2, (1988), pages 111-27.


Common-places of the British Royal Family: A rhetorical analysis of plain and argumentative sense, by Michael Billig, published in TEXT: an interdisciplinary journal for the study of discourse, published by Mouton De Gruyter, Berlin, New York, Volume 8-3, (1988), pages 191-217.


THE OTHER FACE OF TERROR: Inside Europe’s Neo-Nazi Network, by Ray Hill with Andrew Bell, published by Grafton Books, London, (1988). 315 pages Index. Illustrated.

One for the fiction shelves, an error-prone, lie-ridden book. See also the film of the same name, critiques by Larry O’Hara, and, most of all, Liars Ought To Have Good Memories... by Yours Truly, which deconstructs Hill’s fairy story in minute detail. Having said that, the reader is invited to study the scans linked below.

This is a scan from the Preface of Hill’s book, page 8: every word is true, he says. Now check out the scans below and decide how much credence you can give this claim.

On page 28, Hill relates how he entered the far right; in 1968 he attended a meeting of the Anti-Immigration Society in Leicester, which held its first public meeting on May 8. This claim is substantiated by contemporaneous press reports. But by the end of the book he forgets himself, and claims on page 265 to have known personally the fanatically anti-Jewish wife of Colin Jordan from her days in the National Socialist Movement.

By 1968, the National Socialist Movement no longer existed; following her role in the 1960s synagogue arsons, Mrs Jordan fled to her native France, where she was gaoled. She was released in February 1967, and later returned to Britain where she was arrested on August 7, charged, remanded in custody, and gaoled on January 17, 1968 for eighteen months. So, clearly, Hill did not know her at all, and had obviously never even met her!

Fraudulent what, Ray? On page 32 of his lie-ridden “autobiography”, Hill refers to a book written by the British Nazi leader Colin Jordan called Fraudulent Conspiracy, which he says was what lured him into the nether reaches of far right politics, and on the following page he says this book blamed the financial system and Britain’s problems on “the Jews”. Jordan’s book is actually called Fraudulent Conversion, and is subtitled The Myth Of Moscow’s Change Of Heart, and, as it implies, does not concern itself with Jewish influence in Britain (real or imagined) but in the then Soviet Union.

Page 39: Hill’s account of his assault on a café owner (who just happened to be Jewish, of course). Ten years later, when he stood trial for this unprovoked attack after jumping bail in South Africa, the Jewish Chronicle described it in somewhat different terms. Which account do you believe?

Click here for scans and critique from pages 58-9.

On page 60, Hill says that in South Africa “a couple of Jewish chaps” were “extremely kind” to his family. Read: they gave me money. But what did you do for them, Ray?

This is what Hill really thinks of blacks: sub-humans.

On page 211 Hill gives an account of an alleged attack on innocent people by “Nazis” in Paris, who supposedly beat them up because they appeared to be Jewish. The reader is invited to compare this account with the version published by the uncritical News Of The World in March 1984, which differs significantly. My colleague Mark Taha and I investigated this alleged incident, and as far as we were able to ascertain, it never happened, and again, the reader is referred to Liars Ought To Have Good Memories for a full, and irrefutable deconstruction.

This shockingly candid admission (from page 261) shows Hill attempting to incite a “Fascist” to commit or at least to consider committing an act of mass murder like the Bologna Station bombing of August 2, 1980, which resulted in 85 deaths.

Page 270: “Boom”, says Hill, advocating violence, terror and mass murder yet again. This was not a joke, nor the actions of a mole, but those of an agent provocateur.


THE OTHER FACE OF SEARCHLIGHT, a review of The Other Face of Terror, published in National Front News, page 4, issue 108, undated but certainly 1988.

Reprinted from the anarchist newspaper, Black Flag, No 181, 25/4/88.


Rhetorical and Historical Aspects of Attitudes: the case of the British Monarchy, by Michael Billig, published in PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY, 1988, VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1, pages 83-103.


Divided we kill, by Glyn Ford, published in New Statesman & Society, February 19, 1988, pages 32-3.

But did they? Uncritical review of Hill’s lie-ridden book. “...Hill proved most helpful to Searchlight as an agent provocateur.” A candid admission.


Where The Hardline Is Right, by David Edgar, published in Marxism Today, February 1988, pages 30-1.


Rhetoric of the Conspiracy Theory: Arguments in National Front Propaganda, by Michael Billig, pages 23-34, Patterns of Prejudice, Summer 1988, Volume 22, Number 2.


A Conspiracy of Hatemongers: Front Fight Back!, published in National Front News, issue 117, page 1, undated, c1988.

An article on Jewish-born Hitler fan Andrew Benjamin. Apparently it’s another example of Nazi-Zionist collaboration.


Confessions of a nazi mole, a review of The Other Face of Terror by “Playwright David Edgar” published in Searchlight, February 1988, issue 152, pages 10-1.

Totally uncritical of course. Page 11, “...Hill’s book contains its fair share of humour...” too true, but not in the sense that this shabbez goy means. A sickening article.


War cries on London’s streets, by Roger Sabin, published in the HIGHLIGHTS column in the Illustrated London News, March 1988, page 20.

Searchlight gets a mention in connection with the persecution of old men claimed to be “war criminals”.


SEARCHLIGHT ADOPTS McCARTHYISM, unsigned article published in Black Flag, March 21, 1988, issue No 188, page 9. (Based on photocopy).

Anyone who is au fait with the unjaundiced facts about the much maligned U.S. Senator will realise just how great an insult this is.


County man cleared of indecency, published in the Lincolnshire Echo, Saturday, March 26, 1988, page 5.

Refers to a court case involving Ray Hill – who is not named. (See also WELL, IF IT ISN’T...!:, Spearhead, July 1988, and Liars Ought To Have Good Memories, pages 78-80).


FOCUS ON THE MERCHANTS OF HATE: Plot to bomb the Notting Hill Carnival, by John Symes, published in the London freesheet Nine to Five, March 28, 1988, pages 34-5.

Uncritical article/review of Hill’s fictitious account of life in the “Nazi underground”. “...they have rejected the ballot box.” This rubbish could have been written by Gable himself. Perhaps it was?


NEO-NAZIS IN THE STANDS, by Glyn Ford MEP Greater Manchester East, published in Fire FIGHTER the journal of the Fire Brigades’ Union, May 1988, Volume 16, No 5., pages 16-7.

“Now, the evidence that has been systematically gathered by researchers like Searchlight magazine has been confirmed from another source...” calls for the banning of the sale of fascist literature and emblems at football grounds. Only at football grounds? Threatens another Heysel.


THE NATURE OF THE RIGHT: A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF ORDER PATTERNS, Edited by Gill Seidel, published by John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, (June 1988). 185 pages. No index.

At the time, Seidel was Lecturer in French and discourse analysis in the University of Bradford. This book is a collection of essays.

Seidel contributed ‘Nation’ and ‘family’ in the British media reporting of the ‘Falklands conflict’, with Renate Günther, pages 115-27.

[BBIP, 1992 – published simultaneously in hardback and paperback; paperback not seen by compiler].


WELL, IF IT ISN’T...!: An old acquaintance turns up again in Lincolnshire, published in Spearhead, July 1988, issue 223, pages 14 & 20.

Unsigned article, probably written by Tyndall. Interesting report of a court case in which Hill attempted to smear a Jewish businessman as a child molester. Although the man in question, a Mr George Lewis, was a convicted sex offender, the jury acquitted him rather than convict him on the word of Ray Hill. Doubtless justice was done. [See also Liars Ought To Have Good Memories, pages 78-80].


The inside story, by Paul Holborow, published in Socialist Worker, August 27, 1988, page 11.

A review of The Other Face Of Terror. One has the impression that the comrades weren’t particularly impressed with this book. There is no mention here of the mythical Notting Hill bomb plot.


Ideological Dilemmas: A Social Psychology of Everyday Thinking, (various contributors including Michael Billig), published by Sage Publications, London, (September 1988).

[BBIP, 1990]


A very special relationship, by Gill Seidel, published in NEW STATESMAN SOCIETY, (sic), October 7, 1988, pages 21-2.

Seidel had apparently spent some time in Uganda. Nice work if you can get it. This is a report she published about AIDS in Africa on her return.


On The Race Track, by David Edgar, published in Marxism Today, November 1988, pages 28-9, 31 & 33.

An article on race.


EDGAR – LEFT ALONE, by Mark Lawson, published in the Independent Magazine, November 26, 1988, pages 46-8.


Inside The Front.

This was advertised in issue 161, (November 1988) of Searchlight, (page 5). It was said to be due for publication the following January. Presumably this was the same publication as From Ballots To Bombs: The Inside Story of the National Front’s Political Soldiers


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