Andrew Lownie's case
Andrew Lownie's case
This case is raising funds for its stretch target. Your pledge will be collected within the next 24-48 hours (and it only takes two minutes to pledge!)
Latest: July 25, 2022
Parliamentary interest
The Mountbatten diaries scandal and the subsequent judgement failing to award me my costs has continued to excite media interest in this country and abroad with articles in
The Pakistan magazine…
Read moreI have been fighting for 4 years to secure access to the diaries and correspondence of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, from 1918-1979. It is too late for my own book, but I am carrying on the fight so the diaries and correspondence, bought with public money, are available for everyone.
It will take £100,000 to fund the case to a final hearing, of which I am fund raising for half. Lord Mountbatten (“Dickie”) was the uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, confidante of Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor), the last Viceroy of India (overseeing independence and partition of India and Pakistan), First Sea Lord (at the time of the Suez crisis) and Chief of Defence Staff. Edwina, Lady Mountbatten was a wealthy socialite, who became a tireless relief worker, and had a close relationship with the Indian leader Nehru.
Together, their writings can be expected to shed light on many of the most important episodes of 20th-century history, including on the Royal Family and the independence of India, Pakistan (and Bangladesh). It is estimated the diaries could be a more important historical source than the Chips Channon Diaries.
Using almost £4.5 million of public money, Southampton University purchased the entire Broadlands archive (including the Mountbattens’ diaries and letters) from a Mountbatten family trust The purchase was enabled with the help of grants, including almost £2 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and £100,000 from Hampshire County Council, and partly through the Acceptance in Lieu tax scheme with the approval of HMRC.
Arts Council England says the Acceptance in Lieu scheme allows important historic archives to be given “to the nation” as a way of settling tax bills, and that “material accepted under the scheme is allocated to public museums, archives or libraries by the appropriate minister and is available for all.”
In its applications for funding the purchase, the University stated that the entire Mountbatten archive would be accessible by the public at Southampton but it is not. I made a request for the diaries and correspondence under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in May 2017. The University refused to release them, citing a Cabinet Office’s power of veto under a Ministerial Direction, and after futile internal reviews I complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), in August 2018. In December 2019, the ICO ordered the University to release all the diaries and letters.
This decision was significantly delayed because the University failed to respond to the ICO’s investigation for over a year. Indeed, it only did so after the ICO was forced to take what it described as the “unprecedented” step of bringing contempt of court proceedings in the High Court to compel the University to respond . The ICO branded the University’s delay as “completely unacceptable” and in court filings complained about its “persistent, wholescale and unexplained failure to comply with the information notice … or otherwise to assist the Commissioner with her reasonable enquiries. In effect, the [University] continues to flout its statutory duty under the Freedom of Information Act 2000”.
The University appealed to the First Tier Tribunal, with the support of the Cabinet Office. Together they have an army of lawyers, including two QCs. After much pressure the University said that the diaries to 1934 would be released in early April 2021. They were not.
Over four years I have done my best on my own working with expert lawyers in the field but I now need help to fight the case to a conclusion – the full Tribunal hearing has been repeatedly adjourned at the request of the University and Cabinet Office, and is now due to take place on 15-19 November 2021. The University and Cabinet Office keep changing their case, and I will now need to file statements to overcome numerous further FOIA exemptions from disclosure being cited by the University and Cabinet Office, prepare final legal arguments, and fund my advocate for a 5-day hearing.
There are important issues at stake in this David versus Goliath case.
The historical importance of the archive itself, not least relating to Indian Independence and how far the Mountbattens were impartial.
Questions of academic freedom and whether the state can censor private diaries and letters.
Specifically:
(i) What is the genesis of the Ministerial Direction which “closed” the diaries and letters shrouded in secrecy? Despite after four years of probing, neither the Cabinet Office nor the University has disclosed even the name of the person who signed it;
(ii) Why are Government and University spending large sums of money (with two QCs) on a legal case to prevent access to private diaries and letters bought with public monies and where the fundraising emphasised that the archive would open to all?
· Any reference to ‘I’ in respect of work undertaken on this campaign to date may refer to my personal capacity or my capacity as Director and part-owner of The Andrew Lownie Literary Agency Ltd.
Be a promoter
Your share on Facebook could raise £26 for the case
I'll share on Facebook
Andrew Lownie
July 25, 2022
Parliamentary interest
The Mountbatten diaries scandal and the subsequent judgement failing to award me my costs has continued to excite media interest in this country and abroad with articles in
The Pakistan magazine Dawn
https://www.dawn.com/news/1701101/censoring-history
Declassified
https://declassifieduk.org/indias-last-viceroy-and-the-450000-battle-to-read-his-diaries/
The Parliamentary House Magazine
Questions have been asked of the Cabinet Office and Southampton of the cost of their litigation - estimated to be several million pounds of taxpayers' money - and whether they will be reimbursing my costs , given that 99% of the disputed material, which a 2018 review had shown to be innocuous, had been released by the hearing.
I have personally spent £350,000 with a further £60,000 raised by Crowdjustice but I still owe my lawyers £50,000 - money I don't have. Without my legal battle this important collection of over 30,000 pages, bought with public funds a decade ago to be open to the public, would still be illegally closed.
Any help towards paying my legal costs would be appreciated. My book is long published and the diaries are of no use to me but the collection is important to scholars and there are important issues at stake not just for historians but all of us about transparency, truth, trust, government censorship, academic freedom and access to archives.
Andrew Lownie
July 2, 2022
Media picks up story
The scandal of the Mountbatten diaries has been picked up by the media with stories appearing in the Telegraph and Times and articles expected in Declassified and the Parliamentary House Magazine next week.
Links can be found here
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/06/30/trying-make-mountbatten-diaries-public-cost-inheritance-says/
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mountbatten-biographer-pleads-for-archive-release-928tq86s0
This was the result of this press release which I drafted:
The diaries and letters were amongst papers which the University of Southampton bought, with public monies, for the nation in 2011 from the Mountbatten family for £2.8 million (including £1.6 million of tax waived by HMRC under the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme) but which an archivist at Southampton then closed, arguing they contained sensitive royal material.
Dr Andrew Lownie, a Cambridge-educated historian, challenged the closure, and was supported by the Information Commissioner, who in December 2019 ordered Southampton to make the material publicly available. The University appealed the Decision Notice and the hearing was held in November 2021.
Before the hearing took place, Southampton digitalised the collection and quietly put it up on their website – 99 per cent of the material and over 30,000 pages. The material that they had kept closed for a decade and fought so hard to prevent being made publicly available proved to be entirely innocuous.
What remained under dispute were about a hundred redactions – some only a word or paragraph – and it was these Freedom of Information exemptions which formed the basis of the November hearing and on which there has just been judgement.
Many redactions were ordered to be lifted but a few remained, such as names of members of the Royal Household, even though many names are already in the public domain or appear on other pages of the diaries or letters unredacted.
The tribunal ruled, on the grounds of National Security, that a mention in Lord Mountbatten’s 1943 diary of an intelligence organisation under Captain G.A. Garnon-Williams should be redacted even though his P Division has been written about extensively and there are numerous references to him and his organisation in the database of the Mountbatten papers.
A reference to the Pakistan leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in Edwina’s private diary was redacted on the grounds that it would be prejudicial to relations with Pakistan, even though there is plenty of evidence already in the public domain, from books about Edwina or by family members drawing on their access to the diaries, that she had a low opinion of Jinnah .
Even though the release of the material came too late for Lownie’s The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves, which came out in 2019 and was a top-ten Sunday Times bestseller, he continued with his campaign. He is hoping to raise the £50,000 he owes Bates Wells through a Crowdjustice page.
Lownie has said
Millions of pounds of public monies were spent purchasing the total Broadlands Archive,even though we don’t know exactly what was apportioned to the diaries and letters, to make this important collection available to the public. Now well over £1 million has been spent suppressing them.
For me the campaign has also come at a heavy cost. No private individual should be financially ruined seeking access to material which was purchased with taxpayers’ money on the basis that it would be open to the public but that is the position I now find myself in.
I hope, however, that as a result of my efforts an important historical source has been made available and a stand has been made for academic freedom, access to archives, the need for trust and transparency in public institutions and against the abuse of power.
The fight now needs to continue for the remaining innocent redactions to be lifted from these private diaries and letters, which were freely sold by the Mountbatten family, and for the Nehru-Edwina correspondence, again bought with public funds to be available publicly, to be released.
Southampton raised public funds to secure that correspondence and since 2016 have been able to exercise their option over it for a token £100. The question one has to ask is why have they not done so?
For more details e mail andrew@andrewlownie.co.uk or ring 0207 222 7574
But only £355 has been raised on the page this week. I'm very grateful for all contributions but I have an outstanding bill of £50,000 and, having spent £350,000 of my own money to ensure the release of this important collection for the nation, I am cleaned out. Any suggestions of possible donors or people who might publicize this scandal much appreciated.
Andrew Lownie
Andrew Lownie
June 26, 2022
Over 30,000 pages of Mountbatten material released
|
Andrew Lownie
Jan. 9, 2022
Recent publicity
Private Eye have run their fourth story on the Mountbatten scandal this week and a copy of the article can be seen on my Facebook and Twitter pages.
Last week I also gave an interview about the censorship of our history by the Government which can be viewed here- https://youtu.be/cJ5uD9UhP8E
Tonight I'll be appearing on the George Galloway show and that too can be seen on my social media accounts.
Further interviews in Ireland will be appearing shortly.
This is all part of raising awareness of this abuse of state power and fundraising to cover defending the appeal by the Cabinet Office and Southampton University against the Information Commissioner's decision to make the papers available.
I have been forced to spend £250,000 of my own monies to make these papers - bought with public monies for all - available but I can no longer afford to fund the legal costs alone and need help.
All suggestions of possible donors welcome.
Andrew Lownie
Dec. 19, 2021
The fight continues
The saga of the suppressed Mountbatten diaries and letters continues to excite press interest around the world.
Last week I was interviewed by Isabel Oakeshott on GB News and published an article in the Express
https://twitter.com/MattNixson/status/1468894742587002880/photo/1
I was also interviewed for an Indian television station
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duGGhP5n-r4
The fight to open the important closed Nehru correspondence continues and any help with that campaign and paying existing legal costs would be appreciated. The letters will shed crucial new light on Indian and British history.
This fight is not just about making an archive bought with public monies open to all.
Many of our freedoms are currently being eroded. Let's make a stand in favour of academic freedom and against the abuse of power.
Closing down documents, which are meant to be open to all, is a the first step towards dictatorship.
Andrew Lownie
Dec. 4, 2021
£42,000 to raise by Christmas
The media worldwide continue to be interested in the issues raised by the Mountbatten diaries and letters. The fact that Southampton and the Cabinet Office first refused to release them and then did so selectively has only heightened that interest. Much has been achieved but there is still the battle to make the Nehru/Edwina correspondence available to all.
I have spent £250,000 of my own money , with no personal gain, to bring us to this point but have now run out of money and need to find £42,000 by Christmas to pay the legal bill. Any contributions that you or your contacts can make to the fighting fund would be appreciated. I cannot continue to shoulder the financial responsibility for this campaign alone.
This is a David v Goliath battle of one individual who has battled against the power of government to make an archive available to all and to prove to both government and an academic institution that public property should be open to the public, that academic research should not be suppressed in deference to the Royal Family and that our history should not be censored by faceless bureaucrats.
Here is the publicity:
https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/uk-news/954856/what-is-inside-buried-mountbatten-diaries
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/why-mountbatten-diaries-are-back-in-focus-341568
https://www.ibtimes.co.in/mountbattens-38-year-marriage-was-far-perfect-843022
https://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/World/20211122/3860158.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fl7UsCGBno
https://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/World/20211122/3860158.html
Do please give generously to this important cause.
Andrew Lownie
Andrew Lownie
Nov. 21, 2021
Worldwide interest
The issues raised by the Mountbatten diaries and letters continue to generate interest around the world. Here is just some of the publicity.
India
Spain
Italy
Hungary
France
Holland
Andrew Lownie
Nov. 20, 2021
Hearing concludes
The week's hearing ended yesterday and a decision is expected in the New Year. My campaign has led to almost all the diaries and letters being made available so, whatever the verdict, that is a victory already. However, it took parliamentary, media and legal pressure to do so and material only started being released six months ago.
This material should have been available ten years ago and I'm angry I wasn't able to use it for my biography. The good news is that the archive is now available to historians - which is why it was bought with public monies in the first place a decade ago.
The campaign has personally cost me £250,000 - all my earnings and savings - and a further £50,000 was crowdfunded in the summer. Because of some of the legal tactics that were deployed, I now have a further legal bill of £50,000 - money I need to raise in the next twelve days .
I am calling on those interested in historical scholarship and against censorship and abuse of state power once again to help me in this important case - I am told there has never before been a case of withholding access to archives in such circumstances - and spread the word.
The next target must be to secure the release of the historically important Edwina/Nehru correspondence, part of which was used by Janet Morgan in her life of Edwina. This was bought with public monies in 2011 and simply requires Southampton paying £100 for its release.
The press around the world continues to cover the story, an indication of the important issues at stake.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/what-is-inside-the-buried-mountbatten-diaries/ar-AAQU1Zc
Andrew Lownie
Nov. 19, 2021
Times editorial
A Times editorial today calls on the Mountbatten material to be released
The story has attracted great interest in India but also Australia
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16772799/lord-mountbatten-edwina-open-marriage-bisexual/
Still £45,000 to raise in next few weeks to cover fighting the appeal. Any suggestions of potential donors who believe in freedom of speech, academic independence of political control and not censoring our past welcome.
Andrew Lownie
Nov. 18, 2021
Worldwide Media interest in Mountbatten case
The attempt by Southampton University and the Cabinet Office to censor the Mountbatten diaries and letters has been picked up by the media worldwide. Here is a selection of the coverage
Call to unveil private diaries of ‘bisexual’ Lord Mountbatten | * * * * * |
UK is paying $800,000 to hide Mountbatten diaries, but why? | * * * * * |
Allegations that Mountbatten influenced India-Pakistan boundary at Partition raised in London tribunal | * * * * * |
DNA Exclusive: Was there a secret pact between Jawaharlal Nehru and Mountbattens? Details here | * * * * * |
U.K. tribunal to decide on personal diaries of Mountbatten | * * * * * |
DNA Exclusive: Was there a secret pact between JL Nehru and Mountbattens? Details here | * * * * * |
Andrew Lownie
Nov. 16, 2021
Media reports the hearing
| ||
Andrew Lownie
Nov. 14, 2021
Hearing begins
After many delays the appeal against the ICO's decision ordering the release of the Mountbatten diaries and letters will begin today.
The Telegraph will be covering the week and their first article has appeared
I will be appearing on the Today programme.
Best wishes, Andrew Lownie
Andrew Lownie
Nov. 4, 2021
Most of the diaries and letters released
A media and parliamentary campaign over the last few months has led to Southampton quietly releasing most of the Mountbatten diaries and letters .
This included an Early Day Motion, organised by Julian Lewis MP, support from Chris Evans of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Archives and History (APPG) and a letter to Southampton University from the Royal Historical Society. Unfortunately the Government refused to meet and discuss the issues with any MPs.
The releases so far can be seen here
However the campaign continues with a five day hearing from 15th November. Southampton and the Cabinet Office continue to hold back material, citing FOIA exemptions, even though some of the material is already in the public domain.
I had hoped the £50,000 raised in the summer would cover costs to the end of the hearing but sadly that has not been the case and I am now having to raise another £50,000 and call on the generosity of others once again.
The Mountbatten collection is important historically but there are also important issues at state - not least abuse of state power and the censoring of our history - and I hope I can call on new support.
English PEN have been supportive and have publicised my efforts here
https://pentransmissions.com/2021/11/02/the-mountbatten-materials-censoring-an-archive/
The Archives and Records Association have taken an article for their magazine
https://issuu.com/archivesandrecordsassociation/docs/arc_mag_novdec_2021_final_mk2
The Standard Diary recently reported on the case
Further articles will be appearing over the next few weeks and I will keep you abreast of the situation.
With many thanks for all your support, Andrew Lownie
Andrew Lownie
June 6, 2021
Target achieved
The target £50,000 was reached last night after David Elstein, the former chairman of Open Democracy and Chief Executive of Channel 5, topped up the fund by £15,000. I'm extremely grateful to him and the almost 500 other donors for their generosity. It will now be possible to defend the appeal in November and I hope secure the release of the important Mountbatten diaries and letters for all scholars.
Andrew Lownie
May 23, 2021
A huge thank you to those who have contributed
With less than a week to go I still have £20,000 to raise to ensure the Mountbatten diaries and letters, bought with £4.5 million of public monies to be 'available to all', can be seen by all historians. This is an important archive and also involves crucial principles of censorship, Freedom of Information, abuse of power.
No university should be blocking public access to archive material of great historical significance which it purchased using public money and for which tax income was forfeited. No university should be censoring private diaries and letters, ostensibly on behalf of the Government, for which there is no legal justification, in what seems an unquestioning relationship between an academic institution and the State. No university should have run a fundraising campaign which misrepresented the extent of public access to the purchased material.
I have spent my life savings to ensure this material is released but I have nothing more to give. I am hoping others will step up to the plate and carry on what I started. I've been touched by the generous donations from people I don't even know but who believe this is a just cause.but disappointed that friends, many historians, have remained silent. If 100 people give £200 then the target will be reached. I have six days to raise it.
Here is some of the recent publicity:
Talk Radio today at 7.50 am-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZIL2aoLnVk
Daily Telegraph interview- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/05/18/costly-battle-unearth-lord-mountbattens-secret-diaries/
Westminster Confidential-https://davidhencke.com/2021/05/18/why-author-andrew-lownies-fight-to-stop-the-cabinet-office-keeping-secret-lord-mountbattens-diaries-must-be-supported/
Eastern Eye - https://www.easterneye.biz/battle-for-mountbatten-diaries/
Andrew Lownie
May 15, 2021
The story breaks in the media
The story of my campaign has now broken in the media with stories in the Guardian and the Mail
Further coverage is expected tomorrow and next week.
The other good news is that the diaries up to 1934 promised for release were suddenly made public on Thursday. They can be found at
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/archives/projects/projects.page
However, Southampton are still keeping back some promised pre-1934 files. Why?
I still have £47,000 to raise in two weeks if my legal challenge is to continue. These are important diaries which should be open to all. I have spent all I can to take this so far and would appreciate any donation, however small.
Best wishes, Andrew
Recent contributions