David Irving is a historian in the loosest sense of the word. What he in fact is is a Holocaust denier who claims that the entire history of the Holocaust was exagerated by lying Jews. He claims not to deny that the Holocaust actually occured, but denied the numbers involved and the use of systematic extermination. Whilst Irving has a right to hold whatever point of view he sees fit, he made the mistake of launching a libel appeal against Deborah Lipstadt, who questioned his claim to be a historian and branded him a 'Hitler partisan' in her book 'Denying the Holocaust'.

Irving lost his libel action, and Mr Justice Gray, the presiding judge, denounced him as anti-semitic, and a racist. Irving says that Lipstadt's book has incited hatred against him, and destroyed his livelihood by losing him his reputation as a historian. Funny that.

Irving now has a £2m legal bill, which he is expected to pay before launching an appeal, and is now embarking on a fund-raising roadshow, addressing right-wing Americans to raise money, though the likelihood of a win in an appeal is thought to be very low.

Irving once said:

"I don't see any reason to be tasteful about Auschwitz. It's baloney, it's a legend. Once we admit the fact that it was a brutal slave labour camp and large numbers of people did die, as large numbers of innocent people died elsewhere in the war, why believe the rest of the baloney?"

And also:

"Oh, you think that's tasteless, how about this? There are so many Auschwitz survivors going around, in fact the number increases as the years go past, which is biologically very odd to say the least. Because I'm going to form an Association of Auschwitz survivors, survivors of the Holocaust and other liars, or the ASSHOLS."

Perhaps, however, he is right; www.davidirving.com outlines his views which, frankly, speak for themselves.