Gould-Werritty Plot Finally Mainstream 177

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The Independent on Sunday have bitten the bullet and openly questioned what Matthew Gould was doing in all those meetings with Adam Werritty, and why Gus O’Donnell lied about them.

They have an interesting new line from an FCO spokesman:

“The FCO has total confidence that Matthew Gould has acted appropriately at all times and at no stage was he acting independently, or out of line with government policy,” a spokesman said yesterday.

So “British Ambassador Matthew Gould declared his commitment to Israel and the principles of Zionism on Thursday” – Jerusalem Post 29 May 2011 is therefore a statement of official British government policy. Good to know.

We have not only at last made the mainstream media, we have made the mainstream counter-media:

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177 thoughts on “Gould-Werritty Plot Finally Mainstream”

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  • Komodo

    Friends of Israel fund – or part-fund with the Israeli government – dozens of freebies for MP’s annually. These involve going to Israel, shaking hands with a minister, visiting an arms firm and an electric bus factory, patting a tame Palestinian businessman/politician on the head, and staying well away from Gaza and most of the West Bank Judaea and Samaria. You will go bananas if you try to track these donations: they are all for “visits”.
    MP’s especially beloved of the Cause get donations made to their constituencies or as “donations” to their own name.

  • Mary

    I love the mix of serious and funny on your Twitter MickStep. Made me laugh. Hope you get on Pointless and win one of their giant prizes of £1,000 or £2,000!

  • John Goss

    Keep tweeting and twittering Michael Stephenson, whatever tweeting and twittering is. The world needs young spirited and intelligent people to continue challenging corruption. If you get no replies from your M.P. you can be pretty sure you’ve touched a nerve. Try tweeting the FCO for answers and you might find you’ve touched another nerve.

  • Alexander Mercouris

    Dear Craig,

    Your posts on the Werrity affair have been simply outstanding.

    As for the Independent article if I was in your position I would have bitter sweet feeling. On the one hand its publication is a good sign that this business is at last being taken seriously. On the other hand it is absolutely obvious to me and to anyone else who follows your blog that the article is heavily based on your work. At the same time there is no attribution to you either as the researcher or as the source

    The radical US internet magazine Counterpunch has also carried a lengthy report on the Gould Werrity Affair but in contrast to the Independent it has had the grace to make clear that its report is based on your work and if you turn to Counterpunch you will find yourself referred to in the article repeatedly.

    Still I suppose we must be grateful if only for small mercies and it is good that an article on the affair has at last got into the mainstream press. Having said this the Independent has always had something of the maverick about it. I will know that this story is being reported properly when it appears in the Guardian and the BBC.

  • stephen

    Per Private Eye

    “Murray, who lost his job as ambassador to Uzbekistan after complaining about torture, speculates on his website that the meetings involved talks about attacking Iran.”

    Well I think Craig goes rather futher than speculating doesn’t he?

    Now why is Private Eye not prepared to endorse Craig’s conclusion? Or mention his mole? Or accuse Gus O’Donnell of lying? Or why doesn’t the Independent repeat Craig’s story for that matter? Perhaps Craig should banish them all to the outer darkness (isn’t it a slightly arrogant view to assume that only light may be found on this blog?) for not swallowing his line? Perhaps in his clearer moments he might understand that these are the same reasons as to why his story was not picked up in the first place.

    Yes and since some of you are convinced I am a Zionist shill etc etc – I do have to admit that I have a Great Grand Aunt who married a Jew and converted to Judaism about 100 years ago – so keep taking the paranoia tablets.

  • Mary

    A creepy crawly piece written in 2007.
    .
    Mr (Bernard) Jenkin, who is also Chairman of the prestigious United and Cecil Club, was praised for the club’s fund raising efforts under his leadership. Needless to say, funds are vital for certain seats which are essential if the Torys (sic) are to return to power. Dr Ranger also praised Mrs Jenkin on the tireless work she does for the Party and for her support to her husband.
    .
    http://www.bacl.net/Default.aspx?sID=12&cID=27&ctID=33&lID=0

  • John Goss

    Hopefully tomorrow, now we all know about Stephen, the distracting comments will be removed when the mods are working at full capacity. It is getting late and we all deserve our weekends.

  • Michael Stephenson

    Well he seems to be a politician who is aligned to Israel anyway, given his visit to Israel, and funding from Israel.
    My questions would be damn near impossible for him to answer honestly which I insisted on receiving a clear honest yes or no answer.
    He had to find some kind of out to avoid answering it. And publishing his email and my comments on twitter was the best he could find.
    The best thing is there is that he is so obscure atm that no one has written anything about him online except me.
    So this blog and my tweets will likely end up being on the front page when people google his name.
    It’s no Rick Sanctorum, but hey’s its something.

  • oddie

    26 Nov: Mondoweiss: NBC and the Israel lobby
    Yesterday I did a shocked post about the fact that Ed Rendell, the telegenic former governor of Pennsylvania, a favorite of Chris Matthews and MSNBC, did a fundraiser for the Israeli army in Philadelphia, at which he said it was the obligation of American Jews to support Israel thru thick and thin. Help!
    Well, my wife and I have a houseguest from Philly for Thanksgiving, and he shocked me a little bit more by telling me about David Cohen.
    Cohen is Rendell’s longtime political guru, his David Axelrod. Cohen is executive vice president of Comcast, the company that bought NBC and MSNBC in 2009
    Not surprisingly, David Cohen is close to Barack Obama. A few months ago, he raised $1.2 million for Obama in a heartbeat, at his Philadelphia home…ETC
    http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/nbc-and-the-israel-lobby.html

  • Jon

    Stephen, good question why P/E aren’t a touch more sure of themselves. That said, the print version may contain more (it often does, mainly as their website is a highly cut-down version of what they print). So I will find out tomorrow!
    .
    Still, I am not sure why you are so cynical about Craig’s/our cynicism – I was sure you’d said on another thread that you felt that GOD et al still have questions to answer. I’d be surprised too if you didn’t feel the speedy reply from the FCO and the brush-off to Paul Flynn didn’t at least suggest a cover-up. One doesn’t have to be a regular conspiracy theorist to understand that sometimes conspiracies do occur – it would be naive to believe otherwise.

  • Raquel Scotch

    Michael Stephenson
    .
    I’ve always understood that the recipient of a letter is entitled to publish it. I can see that may raise questions with private correspondence, but a letter from your MP, surely you’re entitled to publish that. Otherwise he could just tell you to feck orf.
    .
    To answer your question, no, he’s not entitled to refuse to answer you. He’s using it as an excuse. If he doesn’t like the fact that anything he tells you might end up in the public domain, then he should take that into account when writing the letter.

  • Michael Stephenson

    @Raquel Scotch, Yeah I agree, I mean nothing to him other than I am a random member of the public and his constituent.
    The only personal information about me he can glean is by a google search, which he clearly did as he found my twitter. (which is annoying as he has no twitter account himself)
    Our correspondence is in no way personal. The affair in question doesn’t even involve him.
    What I was looking for is an official statement, using him as my only conduit.
    It was in no way a personal correspondence and in no way should be protected as such.

  • Michael Stephenson

    Perhaps Craig could give me advice on whether I can make a complaint with the party about this?

  • glenn

    Hello Stephen: Reading from my print version, Private Eye goes on to say the following immediately after the sentence you quoted: “Given Gould’s experience in British embassies in Tehran and Washington, Werrity’s interest in Iran and his Atlantic Bridge charity linking US neo-cons and UK Conservatives, Murray might be right.”
    .
    Perhaps you didn’t have the opportunity read those lines, because it does suggest PE is endorsing the ‘speculation’ rather than simply repeating it.
    .
    I share your disappointment that the Independent isn’t following CM’s story more closely – but give it time, eh? Nothing was being said about it at all for long enough.
    .
    Just as a side-note, you seem pretty exercised over this non-issue that you’d rather us not take seriously, it being all stuff and nonsense an’ all. But consider that CM has been leading the entire field all along with this building scandal – has he been shown wrong about anything yet? A cabinet minister has fallen, and serious questions are unanswered. Why are you trying to wave it away?

  • Michael Stephenson

    I’d like to point out I also questioned him in other emails about his personal opinions on attacking Iran. Which I did not and will not publish

  • Maidhc Ó Cathail

    It’s interesting that the Third Man and the man who appointed him to be Britain’s first Jewish ambassador to Israel share a somewhat similar background. In a profile of Matthew Gould entitled “New envoy’s a passionate horse-loving Zionist,” the Jewish Telegraph quotes the ambassador:

    “My dad’s parents came from Poland in the 1910s and 1920s and met in Birmingham. My grandfather actually took part in the Battle of Cable Street in east London, something I am really proud of. The family’s original name was Goldkorn, but my dad, Sid, changed it when he went to read maths at university.”

    In a Mail Online article from August 4, 2007 entitled “Putin aide: ‘Miliband’s hatred for Russia runs in family’” we learn

    “The [Russian] newspaper said that in the Twenties the Foreign Secretary’s grandfather, Samuel, then Shimon, Miliband, a native of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, had fought under the command of Trotsky ‘eliminating’ white Russians opposed to Communism.”

    Is it possible that Shimon Miliband and Matthew Gould’s grandfather knew each other from radical Jewish circles in early 20th century Poland? More importantly, what influence might their common ideological heritage have played in David Miliband’s decision to send Gould as Britain’s supposed “Man in Tel Aviv.”

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Jives, you are not paranoid.
    .

    If ‘Mrs Murray’ (or whoever) calls again – and this applies to everyone – perhaps suggest that you might be interested in contributing to her ‘survey’ but only after you have more information about her (as you are “very aware of security matters these days”). Politely request her precise job title, her employer, who her employer is working for, the name of her manager and her exact location – Dept, Company, Address, Telephone number, etc. Look it up on Googlemaps, then ask her about the streets adjacent to where she works. Ask her how the weather is in… Then ask to speak to her manager. Ask how precisely s/he got your number. Remain polite, but firm and minimalist, throughout.
    .
    If it’s a criminal scam to get ID info. about you, she will flap very quickly and end the call. You may find her ‘manager’ is herself putting on a funny voice. On no account give any info. about yourself.

  • Komodo

    Michael Stephenson (and others it may concern):
    You will get nothing out of an MP, generally speaking, if:
    .

    (1)He is not your own constituency MP ( he may respond if he is Minister For Something and the enquiry is about Something)
    (2) Your enquiry is long, rambling, and largely irrelevant to the single clear question to which you want the answer
    (3) Your enquiry is not courteous. You expect that from him: he expects it from you.
    (4) Your enquiry is handwritten in green ink, with illustrations.
    .
    Guidelines here:
    http://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Letter_writing

  • John Goss

    I am still waiting for a reply from my M.P. Steve McCabe about why we have a US information gathering base at Menwith Hill without having had parliamentary sanctioning of its existence. On 21 November at Harrogate magistrates court Lindis Percy, who probably won’t mind me saying is no longer a young woman, appeared before a case management hearing for “obstructing” 3 police officers outside the base in the execution of their duties. The judge at the hearing Judge Goodwin viewed CCTV footage which the defence was not allowed to see because the prosecution said it would not help their case. However, she, the judge, disagreed. You can read about it here.

    http://www.facebook.com/groups/121142151239668/302147933139088/

    What bothers me is why we are supporting a country (the US) which takes us into more than one illegal war on false information gathered by a base that has no legitimate right to existence – and why our police are protecting this illegal monstrosity to the detriment of a decent-minded middle-aged woman who is simply pointing this out.

  • Mary

    This is the very telling conclusion of the Philip Weiss article that Oddie put up above.
    .
    ‘Call me cynical, but this proves the old adage, Freedom of the press belongs to he who owns one. And it explains why Chris Matthews keeps his mouth shut on Israel/Palestine. Matthews is from Philadelphia. His brother lives in Chestnut Hill, not far from Brian Roberts and David Cohen. And Chris Matthews is a shrewdy, as my grandmother used to say.
    .
    Walter Russell Mead silenced Glenn Loury at bloggingheads the other day by saying it’s anti-semitic to speak about the Jewish presence in the media, and the Jewish presence in the Israel lobby. I would counter that while these issues are uncomfortable, responsible intellectuals simply cannot avoid them if they want to make sense of our society and our foreign policy. Brian Roberts and David Cohen are two of the most powerful figures in our media, they are both Jewish, and one of them has inhaled the pro-Israel religion, as has his dear friend, Ed Rendell, who is on their network all the time. Imagine for one minute if Catholics played this role in a media organization, and it was by and large against abortion. Would liberals be afraid to talk about religious identity and ideology? Of course not.’
    .
    NBC AND THE ISRAEL LOBBY
    http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/nbc-and-the-israel-lobby.html
    .
    I thought the use of the word ‘inhaled’ was very apt.

  • craig Post author

    Komodo

    Thanks for that link to Paul Flynn’s blog. Can I encourage people to post him some messages of support for taking this on?

  • Mary

    From the same site, clearance of Bedouin and Palestinian homes. And a snippet that the old has been Barbra Streisand is doing a benefit for the IDF.
    .
    http://mondoweiss.net/2011/11/this-is-how-palestinians-spent-their-thanksgiving.html
    .
    Streisand to sing at Israeli soldier benefit in LA
    by Philip Weiss on November 27, 2011 29
    .
    Rare performance: Barbra Streisand will play a Dec. 8 LA gala for the Israel Defense Forces. Hosted by Jason Alexander, who is going to forge the two-state solution. Sponsored by Haim Saban. (Hebrew link) She’s a big Democrat, right? So’s Saban, more or less. No Christian Zionists in sight. Here’s Barbra talking about Bill Clinton’s dedication to human rights. And kids in Africa, and global climate change. Progressive except Palestine. This is what J Street is up against, inside the Jewish community. And what America is up against.
    .
    PS Saban is on Forbes’ Billionaires List and was supposed to be buying a stake in Al Jazeera. Never confirmed. He is an Egyptian born Jew.
    .
    Net Worth:$2.5 bil
    Fortune:self made
    Source:television
    Age:64
    Country Of Citizenship:United States
    Residence:Beverly Hills, California
    Industry:Media
    Education:High School, Diploma,
    Marital Status:married, 4 children
    .
    Cartoon Schlepper’s investments down an estimated 30% in past 12 months. Made first fortune with popular kids’ show Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Sold Fox Family Worldwide, joint venture with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Television, to Disney for $5.2 billion in 2001. Sold majority stake in German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 to KKR and Permira for $4 billion in 2007; then, with partners, bought A. Jerrold Perenchio’s Spanish-language media outfit, Univision, for $13.7 billion. Network settled long-running dispute with Televisa over program license agreements in January. Co-owns stake in Israeli telecom company Bezeq; increased stake with partners to 41% last September.

  • Komodo

    “Thanks for that link to Paul Flynn’s blog. Can I encourage people to post him some messages of support for taking this on?”
    .
    I have. And I second that. Brighten up his Monday!

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