David Southwell

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David Southwell (b. 1971) lives near Southend on the English coast, and is the author of a number of best-selling books on conspiracy theories and organized crime. He has written scripts for Independent British comic books as well.

With more than a decade of experience as a journalist and editor in the newspaper industry, Southwell spent several years working as a spin doctor and political agitator for a business lobby group - the British Retail Consortium - before turning to full-time writing.

In his role at the BRC, he regularly clashed with the British government's media relations department, the British secret security services, and pressure groups. In this role, he has also been credited with often out-foxing Jo Moore and playing a large role in forcing Stephen Byers to scrap the Rip-Off Britain campaign.

In 2003, in a front page story in The Sunday Times Southwell, then a spokesman for the BRC, mentioned that MI5 was co-ordinating with the business community with regard to potential terrorism. Many in conspiracy research circles believed that this was confirmation that he was allied with Secret Intelligence Service agents and may have been publishing disinformation on behalf of the British security services in his conspiracy books. It later emerged in his own books that Southwell had worked with MI5 on anti-terrorism issues and with the UK Government's emergency planning Cabinet Committee COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A).

He has acknowledged a specialist knowledge and ongoing interest in the Angry Brigade and conspiracies surrounding the events that inspired VALIS.

In 2005 he was thanked as an inspiration by Gary Russell in his Doctor Who novel Spiral Scratch.

A regular broadcaster in the UK and North America on the subjects of conspiracies and counter-culture, he jokingly claims on the back of his books that if he 'dies a mysterious death it will be because he knows too much and has upset some very powerful people.'