Daily archives: November 12, 2009

Quilliam Foundation Lie and Cheat

 in Life by | View Comments

Yesterday afternoon I received an unusual phone call. A man telephoned me and said that he had been following my blog for some time and was most impressed by it, and would like to know how to make a donation. I replied truly that I was extremely grateful, but the website really was just me, and therefore I did not request donations, unless for some specific expense like an election campaign.

You may be surprised to hear that people do not generally phone me up out of the blue and offer cash, so I was a bit suspicious. I did go on and suggest that if he wanted to be helpful he could buy my books, but he lost interest in the conversation very quickly in a manner that just seemed wrong compared to his initial eagerness.

So when I got a letter today from lawyers threatening libel action, I wondered if this was an attempt to get financial information on what funds they might target. So today I phoned him back. He gave his name as Ed, so I asked directly if he was Ed Husain or Ed Jagger of the Quilliam Foundation. At first he replied “I am not Ed Husain”. I had to ask again before he admitted he was indeed Ed Jagger of the Quilliam Foundation.

I put it to him that he had lied when he phoned and said he wanted to make a donation. He said that he just wanted to establish my contact details for the lawyer. I said that if he had asked me openly and honestly, I would have told him. He concluded by saying that any further communication should be through our lawyers (which will be tricky as I can’t afford one: Unlike Jagger I am not funded by taxpayers’ money.)

I don’t suppose there is any law against Mr Jagger telephoning and lying to me about wishing to make a donation. Indeed I would write it off as a harmless ruse, and amusing he had been caught. But for an organisation funded by the taxpayer to telephone someone and lie to them is quite a different thing.

Should anyone wish to make that point to Mr Jagger, the number from which he telephoned me was 07780 685592.

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All Blogger Alert: Quilliam Foundation Lawyers Threaten Libel Action Against This Blog

 in UK Policy by | View Comments

The Quilliam Foundation, which receives very large amounts of public money, has decided that a good use for some of its funds is to take libel action against me. The lawyer’s letter from Clarke Willmott insists that I pay damages to the directors personally, rather than to the Foundation. Interesting.

Download file

Anyway, the lawyer says that the Quilliam Foundation has indeed filed accounts. I shall reply asking the lawyer for a copy of said accounts. Interestingly the lawyer claims that a Mr Ed Jagger had contacted me to say thiswas untrue. In fact, to my knowledge I have never had any contact with Ed Jagger.

If I (and the Company House website) am wrong in saying that Quilliam had not filed accounts, of course I apologise without any need for a lawyer. However it makes very little difference to my view on Quiliiam. To save Clarke Willmott a search, here is part of an earlier article I wrote about them and their attack on a fellow blogger:

My own view is that those who have adopted religous fanaticism – for whatever religion – display an absence of good judgement.

Ed Husain is by his own account a former religous extremist. He is one of the leaders among those who realised that, having tried to make a mark in the world through religious fanaticism, they can make more money and career progress by turning traitor on their former beliefs and colleagues, and jumping on the anti-Islamist gravy train.

Both the original fanaticism and the high profile and lucrative betrayal are evidence of a sociopathic character.

Husain is now a wealthy man. The government set him up in the Quilliam foundation and has thrown more than £1 million of taxpayers’ money at it. He is in great and lucrative demand on the mainstream media.

The Quilliam Foundation is the branch of New Labour tasked with securing the Muslim vote and reducing British Muslim dissatisfaction with New Labour over the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. If they wanted to do that whith New Labour money, that would be their own business. But I object fundamentally to their doing it with my and your money.

The party political nature of the Quilliam Foundation is shown in their astonishing and completely unbalanced attack on Osama Saeed, a prominent SNP candidate and a friend of mine. They try to portray him as an Islamic extremist.

If Osama is an Islamic extremist, then I am a Blairite

.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/new_labour_corr.html

I might add that, for an organisation set up ostensibly to advocate Western values, they have a very shaky grip on free speech. Apparently they have Michael Gove, Douglas Murray and other Tory pro Iraq and Afghanistan war neo-cons onboard as well as New Labour.

My post about the accounts is here.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/public_money_go.html

I will amend it when I get back to London to reflect their claim that they have in fact filed accounts. I can’t do that here as to add to an old entry triggers a site rebuild which is not practical on my very slow African internet connection.

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The Wall Did Not Fall For Everyone

 in Uzbekistan by | View Comments

I have been watching the various celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall from the unusual vantage point of Accra. I have no mixed feelings over the fall of Soviet communist control over Europe. I don’t think Reagan’s use of the phrase “Evil empire” was wrong. The Americans have of course embarked on a new enthusiasm for their own evil empire since.

The euphoria of the spread of freedom seemwd to usher in an era of hope when I was 30. I still recall the images of the people on top of the Berlin wall, of Mandela’s walk from jail, and of the puzzled look on the face of Ceaucescu as he realised the crowd was booing him. It was a time to lift the heart.

But having worked in Poland’s transition from Communism in the mid 1990’s, I also know that much of Eastern Europe “lost” a generation of then middle aged workers who could not adjust from the communist system, and there was terrible economic hardship alongside the yuppie glitz. Life expectancy plummeted. It is not for nothing that Walesa and Gorbachev, who were the star guests in Berlin now, plunged to depths of political unpopularity in their own countries that make Gordon Brown seem adored.

But my main thought is that people must realise that the wall did not come down for everybody. Uzbekistan is still a totalitarian state and still does indeed lock its people in. Uzbeks still need an exit visa to leave – and only three weeks ago I was contacted over the most recent case of an Uzbek resident in the UK, who had been arrested travelling in Russia and deported back to Tashkent because they had no valid Uzbek exit visa.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and even the Ukraine have all with increasing frequency been deporting Uzbeks – who were legally in those countries – back to Tashkent, very often because their Uzbek exit visas expired, or because they were political dissidents wanted by the Uzbek authorities.

The original evil empire is not quite dead yet. The wall did not fall for everybody.

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Anti war soldier arrested by the MOD

 in Afghanistan by | View Comments

A protest has been called outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall on Thursday 12 November at 5pm in reaction to the decision to arrest and charge Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, a serving soldier who had the courage to stand up for what many in the army believe; that this is a futile and un-winnable war.

More…

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