Tom Bower's "Betrayal" Book discussion thread

[BasiliskStare]

My copy of Tom Bower's new book "Betrayal" has transported itself on to my Kindle . Just started it.
A thread for those reading for discussion if anyone is interested.
All opinions welcome , but no spitting , no fighting 😂

Their infantile clap back calling him “deranged “ and “fixated “ seems to have done the trick for fans!

Is this the book when he says M made them leave. I'm a Republican so dont follow the RF but I remember H being interviewed when he was in the army stating he wanted to leave the Uk

He said that? I think Bower is a bit odd bit I trusted him to do sources carefully. If he's stooped to using trolls, he loses credibility

Hang on, where did he do that? On his Substack, or somewhere else?

Yes and the hosts kept challenging him about it and he had no decent answer.

Why pay to read a book when you can go read what the trolls write for free on the Internet.

💯

Why would anyone waste a single penny on something written by this awful man. He is right challenged on his nonsense here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/DWaUEsUBFlo?si=iqV7LDehy1ykWEtz

Has anyone actually read it?

Can’t choose - help! Colour for an Everhot stove- marine blue dusky blue or goose grey
Sofa pomegranate red chairs airforce blue
next to pomegranate red sofa and light oak sideboard
have seen them today and thought the dusky would go but it seemed a little too palid against cushions I took from furniture
too late to get a marine and grey sample before price rise
it will be where the lamp table and dog bed are..

I've just finished the book. Here are my thoughts off the top of my head.

Anyone expecting salacious new details - don't bother. He thanks his lawyer in his acknowledgements so I assume he can stand by anything he says.

I reckon anyone who read the US and UK press & follows H's court cases and followed the African Parks / Sentebale things would know pretty much most of this ( or indeed reading well informed and thoughtful threads on MN 😂) .

So to some extent my initial response is this book is quite anodyne. He says Revenge was well received so I can see why he wrote another - he's earning a living. He isn't a fan of H&M but he does also point out where the RF didn't respond well.

The Kindle book ends at 64%. The rest is acknowledgements and footnotes . A lot of the footnotes seem to me to be previously published material. He does say he spoke to people who would be prepared to speak off the record - so there are some footnotes referring to a "Private Interview".

There are some interesting bits - eg he went to the Invictus games in Canada and the level of paying audience turning up in person interest seemed to shockingly low. & he observed when H&M turned up some ( eg Nigeria vs US basketball ) venues were packed with people so the camera shots looked like it was full. Now that's to believe him or not , but he was there.

I think reading this book ( which is not very long ) just gives an sense of how quickly H&M went from brave new shiny couple escaping and old fashioned institution & garnering $100m + for contracts , to gradually being dropped because they just didn't have the talent to back up anything other than their initial RF stories. He thinks M got this earlier than H but again she hasn't proven herself to be great at broadcasting , writing , producing etc. Her main focus seems to be on keeping themselves front and centre. H comes across as something of a lost , angry soul.

So - this is my first take - I might have another browse , because I read quite quickly so I may very well have missed stuff which others will notice.

One thing though , which made me laugh , was when HLMTQ was told H&M probably weren't coming back from Canada , she said "Well , we knew that - they've taken the dogs" 😂 🐾

Yes just posted first thoughts - sorry was still typing when you posted 😊

🤣🤣🤣 , I’m expecting reviews from people who haven’t read it and who overwhelmingly exaggerate what he says! ( as usual)

I can promise I've read it - given I had a bad cold today , whether my comments are any more incisive than from those who haven't I leave others to decide. 😂

Inter Alia - I noticed this - Jeff Golblum on tour - tickets in Australia cheaper than Meghan's talk in. I know which one I'd rather go to . www.ticketmaster.co.uk/jeff-goldblum-tickets/artist/5276587

I’m part way through.

An example of where he’s referred to internet trolls:

He alleges that when Archie was born, Harry & Meghan lied about the date and were secretive about other things, which led to internet conspiracy theories that they’d used a surrogate. Bower doesn’t comment on this except to use the expression “conspiracy theories”. He does comment later about Meghan mentioning Lilibet but not Archie in some context (can’t remember what) so I don’t know if he’s hinting or that’s just random.

I’m not sure what to say about it, really. I think it’s making me feel sad, remembering when the Queen was bereaved and then her final days, while all this shit was going down, and Charles arguing with Harry on the phone when his mum had just died.

I’m going to give up now and read some more tomorrow.

🤣🤣

The queen ( despite what people say now) was a war bride, she was made of stearner stuff than people nowadays, you don’t need to worry about her.

I remember that too, he said he didn’t like the UK very much,(amazing revelation from a senior British Royal)

She also said in their doc that he said he wouldn't have continued their relationship if she'd not been up for leaving so it was always his plan but he needed a wife first.

Reallly !!! I don’t remember that.

And here he is, Harry taking the government, from a country and people he roundly dislikes, to court for full time tax paid security, he really is a grifter. and one of them is a liar.

Back to the book, I haven’t read it, just read the excerpts in The Times, @BasiliskStare does he mention being accosted by the Sussex Squad at Invictus?

As I said I'm not really a follower but isn't the issue with security that he wants to bring in his own armed guards. They said no as can't bring arms into into Uk, so he said he would pay for Uk security and Uk said theyre not for hire or something

Ah, so he didn't say he used internet trolls for information. He discusses them in terms of them (internet trolls) being conspiracy theorists, and that H and M possibly gave them ammunition for their beliefs. That makes more sense than him using internet troll nonsense as information, considering he's a former lawyer.

Yet from his own mouth, his words admitting it.

And OP has now read the book snd says it has nothing new it in that you wouldn't of already known (presumably read for free). Have to hand it to him, making money by regurgitating the same information, nothing new has come from all his 'investigating' and resorting to using unverified sources like trolls...and we see why the media have clockbait articles, just an easy way to make money.

Thank you to those who are reading it.

I do follow his antics, and he has said he never believed quitting his role and moving abroad would mean losing the UK based Royal protection officers, he believed he was entitled to that. They were automatically assigned to him full time while he was in Canada on his 12 month sabbatical. I read 2 or 3 teams of 6 full time UK close protection officers on a two weeks rota, flying back and forth between the UK and Canada, huge overheads (overtime, accommodation, flights etc). All paid for by the taxpayers of the country he doesn’t like abd paid for by the hard earned cash of the citizens of a country he falsely claimed are racist.

When he quit the RF and quit the UK permanently he was advised he would lose the benefit of full time security which would be replaced by a bespoke arrangement where his security needs were assessed prior to each UK visit , requiring him to notify the home office in advance so they could activate the bespoke plan.

He has been in court since, because he doesn’t like the new arrangement, and lobbying the government to reinstate 24 hour UK security irrespective of where in the world he decides to live or travel to, usually for commercial purposes.

He didn’t offer to pay initially, only when it was leaked to the media that he was suing the government because he believed the bespoke arrangement wasn’t good enough, only then did he claim he had offered to pay, (that was proven in court to be a lie). He wants access to UK police intelligence along with 24 hour close protection.

He has his own personal armed security in the country he needs it most, his current country of residence, and in the UK if the police deem it necessary. Rhianna has just had her home in California shot at, he certainly needs to keep on his toes in his country of residence, don’t think he needs to worry about gun toting randoms on his visits to the UK. I don’t believe he even does worry about it, considering he was wandering around Fulham and knocking on random doors, bet he wouldn’t dream of doing that in California, !

Anyway, it seems his tax payer funded round the clock security is being reinstated, if the leaks coming from Harry are correct.

He didn’t offer to pay initially, only when it was leaked to the media that he was suing the government because he believed the bespoke arrangement wasn’t good enough, only then did he claim he had offered to pay, (that was proven in court to be a lie). He wants access to UK police intelligence along with 24 hour close protection.

I'd forgotten about this. He unsuccessfully sued ANL for libel. This is the article that the court found was accurately reporting Harry's lie.

https://archive.is/8bGYm