Posted before the BNP membership database was made available on Wikilieaks, an article on the Guardian’s website sparked ferocious speculation as to the identity of a “peer” registered as a member of the far-right party. If borne out this would have uncovered a BNP seat in the House of Lords and their first Westminster parliamentarian.
After digging by bloggers, it was discovered this morning that Lord Edwin Bramall had been confused somehow with an entry for a “Lord Brian Bramhall”. The former was the Chief of the Defence Staff during the Falklands War and the latter is an amateur genealogist from Staffordshire.
“Lord” Bramall is not the only BNP member with pretensions to nobility – a previous leak of the membership list included a “Lord” Adam Murray.
Although the true identity of the fake peer can be uncovered with a couple of Google searches, Guardian journalists may have been led astray by Lord Bramall’s supposed track record. In 2006 Bramall hit a fellow peer, Lord Janner, after making what witnesses describe as a series of anti-Israel comments during the Lebanan conflict. Although Janner is a senior member of Britain’s Jewish community, “there was no anti-Semitic remark but the comments by Bramall were anti-Israel. It took place in one of the rooms close to the Lords chamber and it got out of hand. It ended with Bramall hitting Janner”.
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I think it may be wrong to attribute this mistake to The Guardian. When Wikileaks trailed its latest leak of the BNP membership list on twitter yesterday, they claimed there was a Peer on it. It’s more likely their mistake and the Guardian doesn’t seem to have joined in the misidentification of Lord Bramall.
You’re right to say that they didn’t run Bramall’s name. But The Guardian’s Helen Pidd confirmed that they knew the name that appeared on the list and were waiting for a response. A couple of simple Google searches would have shown that it was someone else. It’s possible that Wikileaks simply gave them Edwin Bramhall’s name – rather than Brian Bramhall’s – but not sure how likely this is.
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New post –> Guardian confuse former Chief of Defence Staff with BNP amateur genealogist http://cli.gs/QVvVh