Craig Murray's Blog, page 150

Charlie Kennedy

I have known Charlie since about 1979. He was, and always remained, a brilliant, witty and very gentle man. His weaknesses were of the gregarious kind, one of many things we had in common. We first met on the universities debating circuit and in student politics. He became President of Glasgow University Union and I of Dundee University Students Association. As we both ran as Liberal Democrats that was uncommon. By one of life’s quirks, a generation later he was Rector of Glasgow University and I was Rector of Dundee University. We both shared a horror of the marketization of universities and an urgent desire to return to the old Scottish tradition of democratic governance, and we worked together with other Rectors to institute regular Rectors’ meetings and try to make the office of Rector relevant.

Charlie had come under the most enormous pressure not to oppose the Iraq war. The entire force of the British establishment bore down on him, including from former party leaders and from Ming Campbell, though he denies it now. Charlie showed tremendous courage and spirit in resisting the pressures to which almost everybody in authority in the Westminster power structure caved in.

Charlie told me the story of how, as party leader, he was invited by Blair to Downing Street to be shown the original key evidence on Iraqi WMD. Charlie was really worried as he walked there, that there really would be compelling evidence as Blair said, and he would then be unable to maintain the party line against the war. When he saw the actual intelligence on which the dodgy dossier was based, he was astounded. It was incredibly weak and “totally unconvincing”. Blair was not present while Charlie saw the reports, but he saw him afterwards and told Blair he was quite astonished by the paucity of the evidence. Blair went white and looked really rattled, and resorted to a plea for patriotic solidarity. He then reminded Charlie he was not allowed to reveal what he had seen. Charlie felt bound by good faith – he had been shown the intelligence in confidence – not to publish this. Not I think his best moral judgement.

Charlie was very definitely not an enthusiastic supporter of the coalition and, though a federalist not a nationalist, generally kept his distance from the Better Together campaign. He seemed to me to have lost self-confidence through the exposure of his struggles with alcohol, and probably underrated his influence. Charlie was consistent in both his faults and his principles. As President of Glasgow University Union, he was inclined to hands off sybaritism; his expenses and use of taxis became an issue, and that epicurean streak never left him. In his presence I always felt an inferior talent, and those of us who knew him 35 years ago I think all expected him to rise even higher than he did. But he never had the sociopathic streak that makes a dominant political career, and he was at base a very decent and kind man. That is how I shall remember him.

Corruption Welcome in London

The FBI had somebody wearing a wire at the London Olympics to capture the FIFA corruption taking place in the margins. What were the British authorities doing? Nothing.

Britain prides itself as having in London the world’s leading financial centre. Substantial assets, both financial and real estate, from FIFA corruption are located in London. But Britain has taken over the crown from Switzerland as the major financial destination which will always protect ill-gotten wealth.

Alisher Usmanov played a major role as bagman for the corrupt Russian World Cup bid, particularly with delegates from FIFA’s Asian Confederation. His place as Britain’s third richest resident is very obviously based on extreme Russian corruption and he rose to power and wealth solely with the use of gangster muscle and contacts he gained and expanded while serving a prison sentence for blackmail. But he is a billionaire and beloved by the City of London so there is no danger of him ever being investigated in the UK.

That a key figure in FIFA corruption over Russia’s World Cup bid, is undisturbed in his large shareholding in Arsenal FC, says everything about the complicity of the British establishment.

Usmanov’s friend Gulnara Karimova is a startling example. She is now under formal investigation in Switzerland, France, Sweden and the Netherlands over the glaringly corrupt origins of her billions. Only a fake house arrest by her father has prevented her real arrest. Yet in the UK, where she has three homes including one in the No.1 Hyde Park criminals’ hangout, where she shops regularly and her son is at university, there is no move against her whatsoever.

I am delighted to see the moves against FIFA. But to me they illustrate very plainly what a corrupt stinking hole London has become.

Flunkies

They were too extravagant to be buttonholes. The SNP’s MPs wore elaborate corsages. The unextinguishable impression is that they were going the extra mile in dressing up as particularly obsequious flunkies chuffed to be appearing before Her Maj, herself bedecked with the Koh-i-Noor and other jewels gained by the rape of conquered peoples, and enrobed in the furs of butchered rare animals.

Even if the white rose really were a symbol of Scotland – and a single allusion by Macdiarmid does not make it so – I would not want it used to make us look like the class creeps on a Royal visit. Much has been made of the battle for Dennis Skinner’s seat. But at least that awkward old man has repeatedly had the guts to make plain he does not approve of all the ludicrous flummery of faded but still vicious power – still vicious as the snooper’s charter and attacks on coastal Libya will shortly make clear. The SNP looked like a very determined set of entries for the toady of the year competition.

We should leave this loyalist monarchical crap to the unionists. An independent Scotland should not be a place where you dress like a florist’s advert before some fur-draped billionaire pensioner.

My Friend Alistair Carmichael

It is no secret that Alistair Carmichael is a friend of mine. Not least because he told parliament so in 2005:

“The Government’s signals to the Uzbek regime have not always been helpful. I am thinking especially of their treatment of my old friend, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who has done us all a great service in graphically highlighting the appalling human rights record of the Uzbekistan Government.”

Alistair was one of very few MPs who raised the dreadful human rights abuses in Uzbekistan even before I got there. He has a genuine interest in human rights worldwide, and had a much better motivation in going into politics than the large majority of politicians. He was never anything like a diehard unionist in personal conviction. I felt quite proud for him when he was asked during the campaign what would his role be in negotiating for the UK the conditions of separation after a Yes vote. He replied that he was Scottish, and he would be on the Scottish, not the UK side.

I have never chosen my friends by my politics, and I am not one of those people who is only happy in the company of those who agree with me. I am happiest with a few drinks and a good argument in intellectually challenging company. I also do know that all human beings are flawed, and I don’t expect perfection. So I have no intention of ending friendship with Alistair.

All of which makes it hard, but I have to say that I really do think he needs to resign as an MP, and to do so immediately.

It was not just a mistake to leak that memo, it was wrong. It was even more wrong because he himself believed it was written in error and did not give Nicola Sturgeon’s true opinion. But in an election in which the Scottish Lib Dems faced wipeout, he saw the advantage of playing this trick. That was wrong on many levels. I would add that I feel very confident that Alistair would never have done it without consulting Clegg first. Clegg should resign too. And instead of the usual Cabinet Office stitch-up, there needs to be a real inquiry into the whole history and production of that extraordinary minute, and whether Alistair was set up to do it. The Scottish Government needs to be an equal partner in constituting that inquiry.

Alistair has no alternative but to resign because he then repeatedly lied about what he had done. It is much better that he goes now with a full and frank apology to everyone, especially his constituents. When you have blatantly and repeatedly lied about something, you cannot expect people to give you their trust again. That it even seems a possibility is an example of the erosion of ethical standards, of which Tony Blair is of course the greatest example as liar, mass murderer and multi-millionaire.

But we should not lose sight of the real lesson. The corrupt and rotten structures of the UK state are so insidious that they can take a fundamentally decent man like Alistair and lead him to behave so badly. There is something within the rotting organisms of UK institutions in their decline from Imperial power and dependence on corrupt banking and corporate systems, that infects almost all who enter them. While I worked for the FCO I saw really nice colleagues, decent men and women I worked with, go along with organising what they knew to be illegal war in Iraq, and with facilitating the torture and extraordinary rendition programmes. Because that was what paid their mortgage, looked after their children, and above all gave them social status as high British diplomats.

Westminster gives untramelled executive power to a party with just 23% of the support of the registered electorate. The majority of parliamentarians are unelected Lords a great many of whom are themselves mired in corruption – and some much worse. The organs of state power are used to facilitate the flow of money from the poor to the very wealthy, which is the actual cause of the deficit in public finances. The rewards of being on the inside are sweet; those outside are measurably dispossessed of wealth, and measurably alienated in politics. The media is controlled by this corporate state.

Alistair Carmichael’s story is not the story of a bad man. It is the story of what happens to a good man who buys in to UK power structures. The real lesson of the sad story of this period in Alistair’s life is that the UK is evil, corrupt and corrupting, and that the UK state needs swiftly to be broken up.

Born Kneeling

What comes out to me from the “Black Spider letter” correspondence of Prince Charles published today is how utterly obsequious Tony Blair and New Labour ministers were to him. No sign whatsoever of radicalism from the former “People’s Party” as they fell over to ingratiate themselves with the heir to the throne. I rather enjoyed Charles quite sharp tone to Blair.

I am fundamentally opposed to the existence of the monarchy. It will hopefully be replaced by a better system, but no human system is perfect. Given that we have a monarchy at present, you will perhaps be surprised to learn that I do not see anything wrong in Charles’ letters, which put forward views which are much what we would have expected him to hold. Of course there is interaction between the monarchy and government, and of course we should get rid of this hereditary element. But Charles’ lobbying is hugely less damaging and pernicious than the corporate lobbying I witnessed throughout my Whitehall career. At least Charles is not lobbying them for corporate advantage and giving large political donations at the same time.

While in my view he did nothing wrong in writing the letters, he and government are both very wrong in arguing they should be private. It is when it is secret that such attempts to wield influence between two branches of government – and monarchy is a branch of government – can be most simply perverted to ill ends. That such publication will not occur again because government has legislated to keep it secret, is an example of the privileged arrogance that prevents this from being a genuine democracy.

Altogether not that big a story and it gives Rusbridger and the Guardian the chance to pose as radical. I find the fact that what is published is so anodyne and unobjectionable rather suspicious – what has not been published? Rusbridger is of course the editor who complied enthusiastically with a GCHQ instruction to smash the Snowden hard drives. The existence of other copies does not justify this any more than it justifies book-burning.

By coincidence, a very worthwhile article by Michael Gillard that had been excised from the net has recently been republished, setting out how Rusbridger in 2002 conspired with Andy Hayman of the Met to bury an investigation into police corruption, including the burglary of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. By a further coincidence I was having a pint with Laurie Flynn in Sandy Bell’s four days ago.

Hayman went on to be the promoter of the stream of lies about the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes and the publicist of numerous fake terrorist plots, before having to resign in a scandal involving nubile police officers at public expense in tropical islands.

Rusbridger and his extraordinary wig go on and on as a pretend opposition outlet, their reputation much dented by recent hysterical unionist output which exceeds the Daily Express. But Rusbridger’s continued usefulness to the establishment is not in doubt. The pose of publishing the most harmless of Prince Charles’ letters does little to help a threadbare disguise.

Update: Striking Hypocrisy

A government elected to absolute power by 23% of those entitled to vote, legislates that just to go on strike will require the support of 40% of those entitled to vote.

Update

I find further explanation is necessary. The government proposal is that not only must a majority of those voting cast their ballot in favour of a strike (which is democracy), but in addition that the number voting for the strike must also amount to 40% of those who were eligible to vote. Yet we have no such provision in a general election, where not only did the government get only 37% of those who did vote, it received under a quarter of the votes of those who were eligible to vote. the government is asking for a high

The right to withdraw your labour is the difference between a free man and a slave. Anybody who believes that the British economy has a problem with too many workers’ rights is very far right indeed. The gap between rich and poor had expanded massively in both private and public sectors, as the gap between workers’ pay and bosses’ pay grows ever wider.

In fact the first focus of the Tory government is on removing rights that protect ordinary people from their betters, be they human rights or employment rights.

Vicious Tories

We do not have a parliamentary system which can hold a government with an absolute majority to account, even when that government only gained 37% of the vote. This is a salutary video for all of us, but particularly my fellow SNP members who think that being on House of Commons committees will make a big difference. Watch it from 16.32.30 where Paul Flynn starts to explore the links between Liam Fox, Adam Werritty and Matthew Gould. As he threatens to uncover hidden truths, he is shouted down by Tory MP Robert Halfon and forbidden from speaking by Tory committee chair Bernard Jenkin.

The Tories will be even worse in this parliament.

Halfon has today been promoted to Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and given a seat in the Cabinet. He is a really nasty piece of work whose political career has been sponsored and financed by a very sinister figure named Poju Zabludowicz, who works closely with Mossad. It is appalling that Zabludowicz should be able to place his puppet into the centre of government, and shows yet again that money can buy power at Westminster, every time.

It is amusing that Cameron has been forced to put David Mundell into the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Scotland. Also interesting that in the present state of opinion Cameron was not able to put in a colonial governor from the Lords or an English constituency. But whatever else may be said in Mundell’s favour, nobody has ever described him as highly intelligent, I suspect not even his mum. So it will be interesting to see how he manages his extraordinarily sensitive brief.

Labour equally had no choice but Ian Murray – which means as a shadow cabinet member he will have to stop pretending he is opposed to Trident. As anti-Trident rhetoric was the thing that saved Murray (plus disgraceful media attacks on his SNP opponent), by forcing him to become pro-Trident Scottish Labour will make a strong bid to have no MPs at all.

Edinburgh

Who would live anywhere else? Nadira took this literally a five minute walk from our flat.

Labour Urgently Needs Gallery Vernissages

State propaganda and corporate media are wasting no time in promoting their candidate for leader of the pretend opposition: Chuka Umunna. He ticks absolutely all the right boxes. Private school educated, grandson of a High Court judge (which did not hold back his career to become a multi-millionaire lawyer) and entirely London based. Umunna has only ever moved out of the M25 on an aeroplane.

And connoisseur of gallery vernissages.

Umunna – Born Sneering

What is more he really is very right wing. His admiration for Michael Heseltine, which drew attention during this election, dates back years. He openly declares his heroes are Heseltine, Mandelson and Blair. Blair reciprocates by making known Umunna is his preferred successor. Blair has been doing this for years too.

Small wonder that the London “elite” promoting Umunna has slipped into overdrive quicker than Jeremy Clarkson. He has a long piece in the Guardian today, and was given a major guest slot on the Andrew Marr show to promote his leadership bid. His message in the Guardian is “We need an approach in which no one is too rich or too poor to be part of our party”. Which is an interesting example of the rhetorical device of false equivalence, as rich people are not excluded from Westminster politics, they monopolise it. As Umunna is himself stinking rich, he somehow evaded this exclusion. He argues that “we allowed the impression to arise that we were not on the side of those who are doing well.”

Nobody could accuse Umunna of creating that impression. Umunna is so much on the side of those who are doing well, that he joined a special social network for them called A Small World, an invitation-only club for millionaires that studiously excludes the working classes. This website offers

“Access more than 100 events around the world each month: intimate cocktails, gallery vernissages, gourmet suppers, and extraordinary weekends.”

As well as upgrades, for example from an executive suite at the Las Vegas Mandarin to the Presidential suite. Though I am sure Chuka is more into the gallery vernissages. Well, Chuka Umunna posted on A Small World to ask his fellow millionaires what venues he could go to in London which did not let in any “trash”. Just in case anyone had not understood him, he specified that what he wanted was a “trash-free weekend”.

A spokeswoman for Umunna stated that this was a joke.

I don’t know what replies he got. Evidently nobody told him to avoid parliament because of the paedophiles. Maybe they said he should stick to those gallery vernissages. Not many trash there.

Anyway, it is obvious to all our betters in the metropolitan elite that Chukka is the man for the job, so who am I to argue? I don’t even know what a gallery vernissage is. And doubtless he will rescue the party fortunes in Scotland, where core voters who deserted Labour in the schemes of Scottish cities undoubtedly feel that gallery vernissages hold the key to a brighter future.

Illegitimate Government: News Blackout on London Protest

The almost total blackout on broadcast media of the police attack on the popular protest by thousands outside Downing Street – with 30 injured and 17 arrests – is in stark contrast to the wall to wall coverage of the staged fake “riot” in Glasgow in which 6 people were slightly rude to Jim Murphy with no arrests and no injuries.

Thanks to the UK’s appalling electoral system, we now have a seriously right wing government with absolute power from an absolute parliamentary majority, but which 63% of voters voted against, and which was supported by only 23% of those eligible to vote. Many of the 38% who did not vote at all, were not apathetic but actively disgusted by a corrupt political system which offers little meaningful choice in most of the UK.

Legitimacy is a different question to legality. The government is undoubtedly legal under the current rotten system, but its legitimacy is a different question entirely. Legitimacy lies on the popular consent of the governed. With an extreme government supported by only 23% of the population, actively planning to inflict actual harm on many more than 23% of the population, there are legitimate philosophical questions to be asked about the right of the government to rule. With so many, particularly but not exclusively young people, now reading sources like this one and not being enthralled by the mainstream media, today’s protest is but a start.