Rupert Allason

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Nigel West
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Rupert Allason
Member of Parliament
for Torbay
In office
11 June 1987 – 1 May 1997
Preceded byFrederic Bennett
Succeeded byAdrian Sanders
Personal details
Born
Rupert William Simon Allason

(1951-11-08) 8 November 1951 (age 72)
London, England, U.K.
Political partyConservative
EducationDownside School
OccupationAuthor and MP

Rupert William Simon Allason (born 8 November 1951) is a British former Conservative Party politician and author. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997. He writes books and articles on the subject of espionage under the pen name Nigel West.

Background

Born in

Roman Catholics,[citation needed] the faith of their Irish mother, Nuala (who acted under the names Nuala McElveen and Nuala Barrie), daughter of John A. McArevey, of Foxrock, Dublin.[1] The boys attended Downside School. Their father, James Allason, was also a Conservative Party MP, descended from the architect Thomas Allason.[1]

Political career

Allason contested Kettering in 1979 and Battersea in 1983 before being elected as Conservative MP for Torbay in 1987.

He was opposed to integration with the

party whip withdrawn for a year.[2]

He left parliament after the landslide 1997 general election in which he lost his seat to Liberal Democrat Adrian Sanders.[3] His margin of defeat was just twelve votes, one of the narrowest election margins since 1945. It was reported that Allason had failed to tip a pub waitress a week before polling day, and that as a consequence, fourteen waiters who were going to vote for him switched to the Liberal Democrats.[4]

In 2000, Allason was reported to have considered joining the UK Independence Party (UKIP).[5] Author Jon Ronson, in the first chapter of his book Them: Adventures with Extremists, briefly analysed Allason's career and character, with particular emphasis on his 1997 electoral loss.

Literary career

As an author, Allason has concentrated on security and intelligence issues. He was voted 'The Experts' Expert' by a panel of other spy writers in The Observer in November 1989. In 1984 The Sunday Times commented: "His information is so precise that many people believe he is the unofficial historian of the secret services. West's sources are undoubtedly excellent. His books are peppered with deliberate clues to potential front-page stories."

Allason has been a frequent speaker at intelligence seminars and has lectured at both the

Soviet spy Aldrich Ames. He continues to lecture to members of the intelligence community at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Washington, D.C.

His special contribution to the study of modern historical espionage has been in tracking down former agents and persuading them to tell their stories. He traced the wartime double agent GARBO, who was reported to have died in Africa in 1949. However, Allason found him in Venezuela, and they collaborated on the book Operation Garbo, published in 1985.

He was also the first person to identify and interview the mistress of

Admiral Canaris, the German intelligence chief who headed the Abwehr, and he was responsible for the exposure of Leo Long and Edward Scott as Soviet spies.[citation needed
]

His titles include The Crown Jewels, based on files made available to him by the

atomic bomb
.

In 2005 he edited The Guy Liddell Diaries, a daily journal of the wartime work of

Comintern
's secret wireless traffic, MASK: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the first of a series of counter-intelligence textbooks, The Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence, The Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence and The Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counter-Intelligence.

In his 2018 book, Cold War Spymaster: A Legacy of Guy Liddell, Deputy Director of MI5, the author did not suggest that Liddell had passed secrets to the Soviets, as had been claimed by some other authors, including John Costello in his Mask of Treachery. In fact, Allason under the 'West' pseudonym stated that Liddell "was betrayed by Burgess, Blunt and Philby", according to a 2019 summary of the book.[6]

Legal actions

Allason has been involved in a number of legal cases, in each of which he represented himself without lawyers. While in the House of Commons, he campaigned against the use of public-interest immunity certificates, and exposed the arms-dealing activities of the publisher and thief Robert Maxwell. He was sued for libel by Maxwell but won the case, winning record damages for a litigant in person by counterclaim.[citation needed]

In 1996 Allason sued Alastair Campbell for malicious falsehood with regard to an article printed in the Daily Mirror in November 1992. The case was heard by Mr Justice Drake, without a jury. The judge ruled that Allason had failed to demonstrate that the Daily Mirror article, although inaccurate, had caused him any financial loss.[7][8] In a retrial in 1998, he was awarded £1,050 in damages and 75% of his legal costs.[8]

In 1998, Allason lost a libel action – his 18th – against the authors and publishers of the Have I Got News for You 1997 diary for referring to him as "a conniving little shit".[9]

In 2001, Allason sued Random House, the publishers of The Enigma Spy, the autobiography of the former Soviet agent John Cairncross. Allason claimed he had ghostwritten The Enigma Spy in return for the copyright and 50 per cent of the proceeds. However, Allason lost the case and was ordered to pay costs of around £200,000. The trial judge, Mr Justice Laddie, described him as "one of the most dishonest witnesses I have ever seen".[10]

Honours and awards

Allason is the recipient of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO)'s Lifetime Literature Achievement Award, and in 2011 he was elected to the Honorary Board of that association. He is the European Editor of the World Intelligence Review, published in Washington, D.C.[11]

Personal life

In 1979 Allason married Nikki van Moppes. They divorced in 1996. The couple have two children.[12][13] In 2012, he married violinist Nicola Loud.[14][15]

Publications

References

  1. ^ a b Burke's Landed Gentry, eighteenth edition, vol. I, ed. Peter Townend, 1965, Burke's Peerage Ltd, p. 9
  2. ^ "Rupert Allason: No stranger to the courtroom". BBC News. 17 October 2001. Retrieved 20 August 2006. As John Major's prime ministership lurched from crisis to crisis, every MP's vote counting as the tiny Conservative parliamentary majority dwindled away after 1992, Mr Allason rebelled over Maastricht and then became the only Tory to refuse to back his government in a no confidence motion.
  3. ^ "General election results in Torbay, 1997 and 2001". Political Science Resources. Richard Kimber. Retrieved 11 October 2007.
  4. ^ "A guide to life in a marginal constituency". BBC News. 9 January 2015. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  5. ^ "Tory Euro-sceptic considers defection". BBC News. 9 January 2000. Retrieved 11 October 2007.
  6. ^ "Behind a bittersweet industry". Coldspur. 31 March 2019. Retrieved 31 December 2020.
  7. ^ "Campbell denies control freak claim". BBC News. 23 July 1998. Retrieved 11 October 2007.
  8. ^ a b "Rupert Allason wins case against Alastair Campbell, PM's aide". BBC News. 30 July 1998. Retrieved 11 October 2007.
  9. ^ "Ex-Tory MP loses libel action". BBC News. 21 January 1998. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  10. ^ "Rupert Allason: A reputation in tatters". The Independent. 20 October 2001.
  11. ^ "Contact Us". World Intelligence Review. Archived from the original on 20 January 2007. Retrieved 11 October 2007.
  12. ^ "Rebel without a case "profoundly dishonest"". The Independent. [dead link]
  13. ^ "Ex-Tory MP loses libel action". BBC News. 21 January 1998. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  14. ^ Walker, Tim (26 July 2012). "Spy author Rupert Allason seduces Loud musician". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 November 2016.
  15. ^ Oliver, Aidan (6 October 2012). "Tweet". Twitter. Retrieved 18 April 2022.

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Torbay
1987–1997 		Succeeded by
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