Peter Oborne managed to get me on a BBC Radio 4 programme he was guest hosting, Week in Westminster, and presumably due to his involvement I was, for the first time in three years, not cancelled at the last moment. You can listen here by clicking on the first “listen now” button. I am on briefly after about 9 minutes, but it is all worth hearing.
I have repeatedly recommended Oborne’s books The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class, both essential reading.
Incidentally my single sentence reference to Mossad was edited out, but I think my meaning remains clear.
I read his book on your recommendation. I hope he will be honest
enough to repeat the task for his favoured party.
Incidentally my single sentence reference to Mossad was edited out, but I think my meaning remains clear.
.
Was it the only sentence edited out or did you speak for quite a bit longer than the 9 minutes?
Yesterday on TV, Oborne was pooh poohing the Mirror story on Letwin’s junking of documents. Said he could nothing wrong in his actions.
….Said he could see nothing wrong in his actions.
On letwin, I can see something wrong but frankly not much.
“Incidentally my single sentence reference to Mossad was edited out, but I think my meaning remains clear.”
.
The word is…Censorship.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/12/adam-werritty-liam-fox-iranian?newsfeed=true
Aha. I get it now.
Blimey! What next? Perhaps a column in the Torygraph explaining to all the right-wing loons there that, no, Fox is not a serious loss to the country. Unless, of course, that country is Israel.
There appears to be no reporting in Hebrew online media about the connection between pro-Israel lobbying and the Fox resignation.
I checked in with some avid news-hounds inside Israel, and they didn’t know about it at all.
Interesting, how underplayed that is, there.
Peter Oborne is an intelligent man, with an interest in integrity.
I don’t understand the fuss. Eighty percent of British MP’s are members of Con/Lib/Lab Friends of Israel. So if Fox was directing donations by rich Israelis to a charity set up to maintain the lifestyle of his close friend, what’s to get excited about?
*
When treason doth go mainstream, none dare call it treason — for fear of self-incrimination, obviously. Thus, sadly, Fox is in no danger of being impeached and sent to the tower for beheading — or is it hanging, since he’s only a commoner?
*
As it is, without fear of commensurate penalty (Fox could be back in the cabinet within six months) why would any up and coming politician hesitate to sell their allegiance to a foreign country?
Craig, thanks. I enjoyed your contribution and agreed with virtually everything you said except for the aspersions you cast on ministers’ special advisers (or ‘spads’). In my experience there’s a useful and constructive role for a spad if he or she succeeds in winning the confidence of both his minister and the department’s officials. When I was head of a busy FCO department a good many years ago, I found the then Foreign Secretary’s spad invaluable as a source of discreet advice on the minister’s thinking, as a sounding-board for possible new initiatives before formally launching them, and as a source of advance warning if he was unhappy with the way things were going. It seems to me that some spads have a less useful role now that so many of them are young and inexperienced, in some cases fresh out of university or from a couple of years working in the relevant party’s head office. Unsurprisingly, I agree generally with the post on this at http://bit.ly/o9QXHU, which is worth reading (including, of course, my own comment appended to it!).
Well spoken Craid, Dena point is worth folowing up here. Why does’nt the Netanyahu Government want this story out in Israel?
Have you received an answer from mathey Gould yet Craig?
DLJ wrote: “Peter Oborne is an intelligent man […]”
Here is an example of his debating skills:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNq9MOc5CBY
http://consortiumnews.com/2011/10/13/petraeuss-cia-fuels-iran-murder-plot/
It maybe isn’t playing in Israel for the same reason that their corrupt politicians rarely make it to the headlines here. It just isn’t a big enough deal. However, I think if Ha’aretz were pointed gently in the right direction, they would run with it. Israeli press freedom isn’t bad at all. Tell them: Zabludowicz…he’s close enough to Bibi to matter.
Anyone had a look at Fox’s loyal defender Chris Grayling yet, btw?
This one kicked off in April,
.
http://labourlist.org/minister-faces-calls-for-sleaze-probe-over-donation
.
and it looks as if Grayling’s cosy relationship with Ingeus has not been affected by any scrutiny:
.
http://www.ingeus.co.uk/pages/latest_news/0/latest.html.
.
Now there’s a man who would benefit from a few months on the dole.
Yes, I thought that interview was actually quite good. After all, the EU is in massive denial about the Euro and its shortcomings. Osborne is right. It is good thing that the UK did not join, and Greece would not be suffering in quite the same way now if it had not been granted such easy credit for years and years. The Germans and French should have known that the Greek state basically does not collect tax, and yet now, in a transfer or risk from the top to the bottom, it is having to hand over billions to French and German bankers. Oborne may have been too blunt in that interview but, like it or not, the Tory right was right about the EURO.
“Werritty operation was linked to, and perhaps controlled by, Mossad”
Does this indicate that Werritty was spy or he was ordered by soemone in the UK?
DLJ wrote: “Yes, I thought that interview [on Newsnight featuring Peter Oborne] was actually quite good.”
You are joking, right? Oborne called the chap on the satellite link an “idiot” three times. Reminded me of the personal abuse Farrage (another Eurosceptic boor) heaped upon van Rompuy.
Komodo. Chloe Smith, who won the Norwich North by-election where Craig was a candidate, worked for Deloittes who gave Grayling assistance in his office to the value of £27,000 in kind and who in partnership with Ingeus who have been given seven DWP Work Programme contracts according to the LabourList link you gave.
‘She is a management consultant for Deloitte, noting that she considers it important for MPs to have “experience of the real world”. Smith, who was born in Ashford and moved to Norfolk aged three, is on secondment to the Conservatives’ implementation unit, drawing up plans on how the party would govern once in power.
.
She got into politics when she left school by working for Gillian Shephard, the then MP for South West Norfolk, whom she describes as “a real mentor”. After studying at York University, where she got a first in English literature, she also worked for the East Anglian MP Bernard Jenkin and is now registered as an assistant to James Clappison, a shadow work and pensions minister.’
.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/24/chloe-smith-youngest-mp-norwich-north
Note to whom she was a Parliamentary assistant. Shadow DWP Minister James Clappison! Well placed to promote Deloittes?? Wonder who ran the Conservatives Implementation Unit when they were in opposition and to whom she was seconded.
.
Gillian Shephard, for whom Smith also worked, was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life that I wrote about earlier. I said we discovered that several members of the Committee were members of the Friends of Israel lobby groups. At the time we were in contact with the Chairman and when she was a member of the Committee, she was a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel lobby group.
Mary, thanks. Knew some of that but I’d missed the Shepherd connection. Which I must revisit, as I remember Gillian as being of some interest around 10 years ago.
I have written to an MP not 100 miles from Chloe as follows:
Dear Mr. (redacted)
In view of recent events casting some doubt on the independence of ministers’ judgement from foreign political or commercial influences, I would be very interested to know who precisely funds Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel, and to what extent.
Any help you can give me will be much appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
(redacted)
Maybe I will get an answer? If not there are plenty more MP’s. “We” could cover them all…
http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2011/10/foreign-riot-police-now-operating-in-greece/
“An Observer investigation reveals that many of those who sat on the Anglo-American charity’s board and its executive council, or were employed on its staff, were lobbyists or lawyers with connections to the defence industry and energy interests. Others included powerful businessmen with defence investments and representatives of the gambling industry.
.
“Fox’s organisation, which was wound up last year following a critical Charity Commission report into its activities, formed a partnership with an organisation called the American Legislative Exchange Council. The powerful lobbying organisation, which receives funding from pharmaceutical, weapons and oil interests among others, is heavily funded by the Koch Charitable Foundation whose founder, Charles G Koch, is one of the most generous donors to the Tea Party movement in the US. In recent years, the Tea Party has become a potent populist force in American politics, associated with controversial stances on global warming.
.
“Via a series of foundations, Koch and his brother, David, have also given millions of dollars to global warming sceptics, according to Greenpeace.”
.
Full article here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/15/liam-fox-resignation-exposes-tories
Breaking News BBC website
.
October 2011 Last updated at 23:03
Fox resigns: Met asked to investigate Werritty on fraud
John Mann is also considering asking the Electoral Commission to investigate Mr Fox
.
The Metropolitan Police has been asked to investigate Adam Werrity, the close friend of former defence secretary Liam Fox, for possible fraud.
.
Labour MP John Mann has asked the police to probe allegations Mr Werritty used business cards falsely claiming he was an adviser to Mr Fox.
.
At the same time a firm he set up was receiving money from several wealthy supporters, it has been reported.
.
Mr Fox resigned after pressure over his working relationship with Mr Werrity.
.
Mr Mann said he was also considering asking the Electoral Commission – which regulates political parties and their funding – to consider whether Mr Fox should face criminal proceedings over a failure to declare political donations.
.
The latest comes after venture capitalist Jon Moulton on Friday said Mr Fox approached him after the election seeking funds for a company set up by Mr Werritty.
.
The Times newspaper reported that Mr Werritty set up the firm, Pargav, as a not-for-profit company to fund his trips abroad.
.
Mr Moulton said he was told Pargav was involved in “security policy analysis and research”.
.
According to the Daily Mail, Mr Moulton bought a defence company eight months before giving money to Pargav.
/…
Well done Craig. You make life interesting for us all.
Cameron’s campaign donors (cont)
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/32321/peerage-new-israel-fund-board-member
Simon Wolfson’s idea it was to build a new railway through the Cotswolds.
I should perhaps point out that the New Israel Fubd is fiercely criticised by Israeli hardliners, as it supports NGO’s prepared to stand for a secular Israel as a single state, with full equality of its citizens.
Clearly there is a battle for our allegiance going on here.
Listened to the radio snippet. Craig Murray did get a generally fair hearing, shame about the censorship of the Mossad bit. And I’m glad to see someone touching on the Sri-Lanka aspect; the MSM silence on the treatment\slaughter of the Tamils was always very strange indeed. The Tamil Tigers were just ‘disappeared’ in a way you wouldn’t think possible in todays media saturated world. I’m not sure if this is the word, but it was an uncanny silence, a deeply unsettling silence.
There really does seem to be a dubious shadow Government where business, securitat, and unelected officialeze all intermingle happily; ever so often we have an election, and the names change, but the dance goes on. This will be called a crazed conspiracy, but it’s is merely a sensible deduction from known and reported facts at hand. Troubling.
I am pretty sure that treason is no longer a crime in UK.think they removed it from books so that they could enact the lisbon treaty and other treaties which sold out the UK to the fascist European Union. I am also sure that the UK is no longer a sovereign nation.
When you first went to meet your contact – no phones – somebody commented “James Bond”. Perhaps now, with a bit of luck, it will be the “Ambassador who came in from the Cold”.