- The former wife of New Zealand financier Sir Frank Renouf
is in the firing line from British elite, who claim she should no longer
be a member of an exclusive London club because of her outspoken views.
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- Lady Michele Renouf, who was the late Sir Frank's third
wife, has been described as "unfit" to remain in the one of Britain's
most historic private clubs, the Reform Club, based in Pall Mall, The Independent
newspaper reported.
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- She had been outspoken in her anti-Semite views, was
known to associate with those who have a similar point of view, and was
this month seen attending an American conference of extreme right-wingers.
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- The Reform Club was established 160 years ago as a bastion
of liberal and progressive thought. Past members have included famous writers
Henry James, H G Wells, E M Forster and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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- Lady Renouf's decision to invite to the club David Irving,
the historian who was denounced by a High Court judge in 2000 as a racist,
an anti-Semite and a falsifier of history, had already outraged fellow
Reform members.
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- Lady Renouf, aged in her fifties, maintained that Irving
had a right to freedom of speech.
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- An article written about her by The Independent's Johann
Hari, recounted his meetings with Lady Renouf at the Irvine Marriott Hotel
in Orange County, California, where a conference of extreme right-wingers
took place.
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- "People act as though Judaism is just another religion
like Christianity or Islam. It's not. It's a creed of domination and racial
superiority," she told Hari.
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- She said she was "firm friends" with Irving
and had, for 2¸ months, attended every day of the court case where
the historian sued the American academic Deborah Lipstadt, after she denounced
him as a "Holocaust denier".
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- Irving lost the case and was landed with huge costs of
£2 million ($NZ5.69 million).
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- When Lady Renouf said goodbye to Hari in the hotel lobby
she told him: "It's so good to see that so many young people are getting
involved in our movement and seeing the truth about the Jews."
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- The Reform Club has a reputation for tolerance, but her
latest antics were seen as a step too far. Signatures were collected from
members for a requisition for expulsion.
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- Lady Renouf grew up in Australia as Michele Mainwaring
and she was crowned Miss Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1968.
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- She currently takes an interest in acting and studying
"the psychology of religion".
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- When she met Sir Frank, she told him she was "Countess
Griaznoff", the ex-wife of a Russian nobleman.
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- They married in 1991, when the financier was aged 72
and she was 44.
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- She stated on her marriage certificate that her father
was dead, but during their six-week honeymoon in Australia, Sir Frank learnt
that he did have a father-in-law, a New South Wales truck driver called
Arthur.
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- Lady Renouf and Sir Frank got divorced, but she kept
her title. She became a prominent figure on London's intellectual party
circuit.
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- The Reform Club's general committee meets to consider
her expulsion next month.
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