MI5 Archives - Evidence Not Fear

Published 13 Oct 2009

History remembers Benito Mussolini as a founder member of the original Axis of Evil, the Italian dictator who ruled his country with fear and forged a disastrous alliance with Nazi Germany. But a previously unknown area of Il Duce’s CV has come to light: his brief career as a British agent.

Archived documents have revealed that Mussolini got his start in politics in 1917 with the help of a £100 weekly wage from MI5.

For the British intelligence agency, it must have seemed like a good investment. Mussolini, then a 34-year-old journalist, was not just willing to ensure Italy continued to fight alongside the allies in the first world war by publishing propaganda in his paper. He was also willing to send in the boys to “persuade” peace protesters to stay at home.

Mussolini’s payments were authorised by Sir Samuel Hoare, an MP and MI5’s man in Rome, who ran a staff of 100 British intelligence officers in Italy at the time.

http://archive.today/2021.04.22-155855/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/13/benito-mussolini-recruited-mi5-italy

Have we all gone mad, and become so afraid of the virus that we’ve lost the ability to read, to think and to question? You could argue that the fear of Covid-19 has become so all-consuming that it has become even more of a killer than the virus itself.

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The national debt: Our overall figure of more than £2 trillion is the biggest ever recorded, and will take at least two generations to pay off. Redundancy looms for millions.
Of the 52,514 virus deaths registered by the Office for National Statistics, 89 per cent have been over-65s.
More than 22,000 over-85s have died, as well as some 17,000 aged between 75 and 84.
Only 314 people under the age of 40 have died of the disease since March.
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New report estimates that there will be a total of 74,000 deaths over the next five years due to the long-term financial and health impact of the pandemic.
Oncologists warn of an extra 30,000 deaths from cancers currently going undiagnosed.
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There were 2,000 extra deaths from strokes and heart attacks this summer.