When I stood against Jack Straw in 2005, I wanted to confront him with open debate about my eye witness to torture and extraordinary rendition, after he lied to parliament continually and repeatedly about it. I was however, despite being a candidate, not allowed to participate in any of the candidate’s debates, including that broadcast by BBC Radio 4, and the debate hosted by the joint churches in Blackburn cathedral.
I went to see the Dean of the Cathedral about my exclusion. He said something quite extraordinary – “Look, Craig, you are leaving after the election. We have to live in this town.” He was scared of retribution. That sounds wildly improbable, but it was supported by much other experience. I agreed to short term lets of two shops for my campaign headquarters (there is no shortage of shops to let in Blackburn). Both cancelled when they discovered I wished to campaign against Jack Straw – one specifically told me that they would like to help, but feared trouble from the council. When I eventually succeeded, the landlords made the point that they lived and had their businesses outside Blackburn and this was their only asset there, so they couldn’t come to much harm.
Under electoral law a candidate is entitled to the use of schools and community centres free of charge for electoral meetings, but despite dozens of efforts I was never once allowed this. It is a serious and specific electoral offence for a candidate to provide free food and drink at public meetings – “treating” – but the Straw campaign did this on a very large scale, and both the police and returning officer took no action when I complained with sworn affidavits of evidence from eye-witnesses. Postal ballot fraud was extraordinarily blatant, with the same authorities determinedly looking the other way. I could not even get them to look at why thirteen postal ballots were cast from one single unoccupied flat.
The point of which is – I know how Cyril Smith did it. It was a different category of crime he was committing, but I have seen how in these Lancashire towns like Blackburn and Rochdale the authorities collude together so comfortably to cover up the crimes of the local big man, be it Cyril Smith or Jack Straw. It may seem quite incredible that everybody knew in Rochdale and nothing was done, but having tried to challenge Straw in Blackburn, I know precisely how it worked. The entire political culture of industrial Lancashire is deeply rotten, and ought to be a source of deep shame.
Cyril Smith was merely a symptom, not the cause.
Craig, Are you as concerned about the potential for abuse at the Scottish referendum? Should we fear the security services involvement in electoral fraud?
Clegg was very good at hauling David Ward and Jenny Tonge over the coals for speaking out about Israel, but the LD record is poor in neglecting to deal with the likes of Rennard, Huhne, Laws and Smith, way back in Steel’s time, for their crimes and misdemeanours, alleged in Rennard’s case.
Also remember Smith was a Labourite from 1952-1966. Wilson was in power 1964-70.
Well done Simon Danczuk and the social worker for speaking out, although it’s years too late for the children that were abused.
For reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Rennard,_Baron_Rennard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Huhne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Laws
Craig
“The entire political culture of industrial Lancashire is deeply rotten, and ought to be a source of deep shame.”
_______________
Interesting. Not trying to make a party political point, but I wonder if you’d comment on the thought that this sort of hanky-panky (1)is specially prevalent in Midlands and Northern towns run, in general, by Labour councils, (2) is of long standing in those towns, and (3) might be facilitated to some extent by the heavy presence of electorates coming from countries with rather different political traditions (cf the “treats” you mention)?
The Dean is still there. Doesn’t seem to have made it to Bishop yet.
http://www.blackburncathedral.com/levels.asp?level_id=244
There is a Victorian hymn called ‘Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus’. Not sung in Blackburn Cathedral apparently.
Charlie
The huge weakness in the British electoral system is having the local authority appoint the Returning officer – usually the chief exec of the local authority – rather than it being an independent electoral commission appointment. These chief execs are generally party men. I certainly wouldn’t trust to their honesty an inch in the Labour council areas. For example, in Stirling do you trust the people who overlay Armed Forces Day on the Bannockburn commemoration to organise the counting of the votes? I don’t.
It would be technically pretty hard to organize widespread fraud without the connivance of returning officers. But there is a weakness there. It is going to be hard for the security services to be organized in fraud without it being leaked, I would think. There is a lot of sympathy for Scottish independence in all kinds of quarters.
“It was a different category of crime”
It is easy to understand the muscling out of a political opponent, an outsider, a troublemaker. Some crimes ignored are beyond my simple understanding.
I have, several times in my life, known perfectly nice people to not notice evident child abuse. Our ability to turn a blind eye is deeply shocking.
Unfortunately your incredible suggestion rings true.
Maybe you should write a book about this sort of thing? Perhaps an allegory that could cover both like Animal Farm 2 or something?
“The entire political culture of industrial Lancashire is deeply rotten, and ought to be a source of deep shame.”
I think that remark could apply to the whole UK Establishment:
http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/judge-jury-executioner
http://www.ukcolumn.org/article/racist-thames-valley-police-and-oxford-safeguarding-board-protect-paedophiles
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/long-awaited-jillings-report-details-extensive-4881290
Inquiry Into Cyril Smith Sex Abuse ‘Cover-Up’
Police say they have identified new victims and as many as 11 new suspects in the Sir Cyril Smith child sex abuse investigation.
http://news.sky.com/story/1250683/inquiry-into-cyril-smith-sex-abuse-cover-up
Just had a post taken down, complaining about Britain doing USA bidding even in The Guardian.
Wonder if this shows the level of corruption by its intelligence services in its governance.
You link back to an earlier post in which you also link back, to this:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/06/jack_straw_shou_1.html
Error 404. Page not found. Do we engage paranoia, or is there an innocent explanation?
I have the strong impression, from casual acquaintances and hearsay, that Rochdale was and may still be something of a sink of iniquity on the child abuse front, and that Smith was part of an ongoing culture. And, yes, a symptom.
That said, during the 60’s at any rate, were paedophile teachers in boarding establishments a great rarity? Certainly my own alma mater had one, and his interests were generally regarded as nasty, frightening and something you just had to deal with yourself. As I remember, complaining about him would have come under the same general category as sneaking, and no-one ever did.
Trowbridge
It shows that, if I had wanted to start a thread where nutters could post that the South Korean government had sunk the ferry with the schoolchildren, I would have started such a thread.
Hope you reminded that Dean of the Old Testament prophets. That really is shameful. When even the Church is not willing to give a voice to dissent well its time to be a dissenter. Maybe Clegg has a point on disestablishment.
Thanks for showing that you are part of the problem, Craig, since you took down my post – only to then volunteer a part of what I claimed – while admitting that you want no discussion of what caused the tragedy.
And I never even implied that the South Korean government sank the ferry, only that its President covered up the apparent American sabotage.
And guess what, the NSA has called again, first thing on Monday morning, to get me yet again to reply to a request to call a debt collector at a toll-free number to apparently entrap me in some data-mining operation.
I have no loans outstanding, though, so, of course, I did not fall for this latest entreaty.
These are the nutters who are ruining the world.
‘Blackburn Masonic Hall has been the home of Blackburn Masonic Club for over 85 years. It is a private members club for the Freemasons of Blackburn and the surrounding areas.’
http://www.blackburnmasonichall.com/
Membership?
Trowbridge
I am happy to leave that up as evidence that you are nuts.
Still, it has been nice to see that at least one passenger, Philip Wood, survived the cataclysmic effects of the Acme Super Wizzo Handheld Laser ™ on Flight MH370, and landed, presumably by teleportation*, and with an Ipad up his arse, on Diego Garcia.
* Or maybe with the help of the Rothschilds. They can do anything.
Don’t know why you are now contradicting yourself by saying that you are happy to leave up whatever evidence I post when you have started the rumpus by deleting what I first did, but still prefer working with leakers like Snowden and Gareth Williams than the nutters in charge.
Blackburn, Rochdale, Liverpool, Hull, Sheffield, most of Devon and Cornwall, and the list can go on and on.
Jack Straw is a gangster and he even talks like one.
When he won against your electoral challenge, Craig, he didn’t say that Labour was the most popular party in the area. Oh no. What he snarled was that this shows that Labour is the strongest force in this town.
A revealing choice of words, I thought.
Straw is heavily involved in organised crime. He spoke like a thug too when he was Minister of Justice.
His network could easily give the Barbara Mills/David Mills/Tessa Jowell nexus a run for its money. His wife used to run the office which was responsible for the most senior appointments in the civil service.
There’s a lot of drug abuse in those northern ex-industrial English towns. Ditto other ‘ex’ places including in the south, such as Margate.
Heroin. Ecstasy. Local council? Backhanders from nightclubs? Never! 🙂
Jack Straw does loads of advertising locally for Marks and Spencer – including letting them advertise in his propaganda photos. He has been doing so for nearly 20 years.
When he talks about the location in Blackburn where he does his soapbox bit, he always mentions the company name. I wasn’t surprised that he is making an effort to create a ‘Speaker’s Corner’ on that very same pitch outside the Marks and Spencer store in Blackburn.
Behind the soft surface, Marks and Spencer are a company which packs a very nasty punch – and I don’t mean just against their suppliers in the notorious ‘St Michael system’. Have a look some time at their involvement
* in car parkss
* in local traders’ organisations
* in motorway service stations
* at airports
* at railway stations
I hope if there are any honest people in MI5 they will take a fucking good look at that company and its premises with a view to keeping tabs on the activities of sayanim. Never mind what your bosses tell you, boys and girls.
When Woolworth’s and MFI went bust, the PR guy who responded for Marks and Spencer used the same kind of language as Jack Straw (and, incidentally, Rahm ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ Emanuel). He said they welcomed upheaval, because in upheaval the strong get stronger.
Toodle pip!
The ‘St Michael system’ of exerting maximum pressure on suppliers existing under a different name since the name was dropped in 2000 of course.
Lest anyone not realise, my reference to honest people in MI5 was tongue in cheek. When she left the top job at MI5, Stella Rimington turned up as a non-executive director at … Marks and Spencer. Thanks Stella for all your help. Here’s a nice ‘job’.
Re Craig’s comment – “The entire political culture of industrial Lancashire is deeply rotten”. I think the problem is across the UK, and not confined to just one county. Indeed it seems to me that the problem is constitutional. The Westminster system of government was designed in a bygone age when government was small and very decentralised, and dosn’t function well in an era of highly centralised big government. Power elites have taken advantage of this lack of functionality to ride rough shod over the rule of law whenever they choose, and our security services are doing their best to morph into a secret police. Your experiences in Blackburn indicate to me that democracy and the law were just not functioniong properly. Honesty in politics is seen as a threat to the current system. And as for fair play from the cathederal and the BBC – well there was none of that.
What is so shocking about the Cyril Smith disclosures is not just that MI5 and Special Branch seem to have been involved in the cover up, but that the bar for “protecting” establishment criminals is set so low as to protect one of 600 backbench PM’s, who was never enen a junior minister. Indeed nothing is more reprehensible than abusing children in care.
The problem with this ‘who you know” system is not just that it is undemocratic, but that too often decisions are made for the wrong reason, and by the wrong people, so that they damage the people’s standard of living as well as their freedom. It is time that our pretend democracy became a real one and that the UK made an honest committment to rule of law even where the establishment are involved – this can only happen with constitutional change.
How do you look at the latest comments on those threads that run into thousands? I can’t see any way to do it?
Having campaigned for Craig in Blackburn in 2005 I can vouch for Craig’s account of local corruption. At the time I circulated the following note on some incidents during the campaign. “Fool” (at 1.25 pm) will not be surprised that when I followed this up with an email to the Dean of Blackburn Cathedral, there was no reply. Pace David Cameron, Britain is neither a Christian nor a democratic country, especially in its churches during elections. I also had to protest and walk out in protest during the last London Mayoral election when a “hustings” was held in St James’s Church, Piccadilly from which BNP, UKIP and Independent candidates were excluded. (I had a walk on anonymous part in Tanya Gold’s account of the incident
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/7807358/handshake-fatigue/
– she was not to know that my badges were RSPB lapel pins of endemic birds in the UK’s Overseas Territories)
Blackburn Cathedral and Returning Officer Disrespect Democracy
Blackburn 2 May 2005 from our Special Correspondent – The story waiting to be told in this part of the election battleground is how Jack Straw may well be sacked by the British Ambassador whom he shut up for telling the truth about the uses of torture that are connived at by the British Government.
Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan is standing as an Independent against the Foreign Secretary in a town which is riddled with local corruption of which its former MP, Barbara Castle would be ashamed. One Labour councillor was convicted of voting fraud. During this election, the bias displayed by the Blackburn and Darwen Council and by the constituency’s returning officer against Jack Straw’s most dangerous opponent would shock the people of Blackburn more if it was not so typical of what happens when a local council and constituency becomes the private fiefdom of the leaders of one party and their cronies.
Two incidents during this campaign show how traditional British fair play is becoming as rare as some footballers not diving. The first and worst is that the requirement under electoral law for the council to maintain a record of places where election candidates may hold public meetings has not been maintained and the council said that no place could be found on 1 May where Craig Murray could hold an election meeting. The reason given was that they could not, out of their whole workforce, supply a single person to open up the doors for a meeting. That did not, however, prevent the returning officer for the constituency from coming personally to ask that the Craig Murray campaign posters be taken down because they did not bear the words “produced and printed by”. What is more extraordinary is that the posters did carry the words (at the side, not on the bottom). There could hardly be a better example of physical and moral short-sightedness going hand in hand.
The second show of contempt for democracy came, however, from a far more surprising direction – Blackburn Cathedral. Yesterday an Election Hustings meeting was arranged to which only three of the seven candidates (Labour, Conservative and LibDem) were invited. The meeting was told that the local churches’ council had decided this because one party (unnamed but clearly the BNP) held policies which the churches considered socially divisive; and that they had taken legal advice which showed that it was within the law not to invite all participants to take part. None of the four parties that were not invited and who asked to take part in the hustings were invited. A supplementary explanation was that with each candidate being given 12 minutes to express their views, the meeting would have left no time for questions if there had been more participants. In fact, each of the three candidates was asked to set out their key policies in 5 minutes. Anyway, politicians are so adept at sound bites that one minute each would have been perfectly adequate with further time when answering questions. This correspondent asked the first question. Even accepting that legal advice, did the candidates think is was morally or politically acceptable for this meeting to exclude the other candidates. Pathetically, none of them was willing to answer the question asked: they all said that they were always willing to debate with opponents (a claim that should have led to at least one red nose growing three feet long). This correspondent then said that only those candidates unwilling to continue to take part in the meeting on this basis would deserve anyone’s vote. He demonstrated how to walk out of a meeting. None of them followed, showing no moral courage and considerable political ineptitude since any of the three candidates would have won credit and votes for doing so.
At the end of the meeting this correspondent expressed disgust at the behaviour of these three candidates, but reserved stronger criticism for the church leaders who had failed to follow Jesus’s advice to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar” [when he was asked if taxes should be paid to the Romans]. A senior prelate seemed genuinely puzzled and asked “How is that?” The reply was: “This election is Caesar’s business. The date of the general election was decided by Caesar Augustus Blair. The legislation concerning postal balloting was drafted by his government.” Great sorrow was expressed that this fine cathedral was being used in a profoundly undemocratic way: the churchmen who decided to engage with the fallen world of politics in this way were showing moral cowardice and were spiritually barren. None of them attempted to reply.
The electors of Blackburn are showing every sign of greater judgement and more moral courage than their local political and Christian leaders. Perhaps they will listen then.
Talking of polling stations, it seems that the staff are recruited from council offices. Given that councils are usually run by political groups is this wise?
I know of a case where a person selected for polling duty was approached by another member of staff who begged that he give him the slot, as his family needed the extra money for holidays.
The whole thing is open to abuse.
Postal voting was introduced so that people that work away from home could vote. I have a postal vote for this reason but quite often the voting papers do not arrive until a few days prior to the election when I have no chance of getting them sent to me, filled in and returned. What makes it worse is thinking of all these “ghost” voters in flats like Craig mentions above.
All I tried to do was connect data to NSA’s meta-data mining – what John Oliver did so cleverly while questioning former NSA Director General Keith Alexander on his show, Last Week tonight.
Guess Oliver is jet another nut.
A very interesting post Mr Murray.
“not allowed to participate in any of the candidate’s debates”
I think it would be better to put the apostrophe after the ‘s’ here (candidates’).
@Roderick – You are probably already aware of this, but just in case you aren’t: Cyril Smith was a crook who represented, among other interests, the killer asbestos company Turner and Newall. To see just how unrepentant this disgusting man was, click here for a video of him blaming the workers for dying of asbestos poisoning. After all, this vile creature said, nobody made the workers go anywhere near an asbestos factory, did they?
@Iain – A word to the wise: when writing a press release, get a juicy bit in the first sentence. Or if you can’t, don’t leave it later than the second. Journalists have very short attention spans.
And there’s no need to start with such almost content-free padding as “The story waiting to be told in this part of the election battleground is…” Cut to the chase.
Here’s the title I would have written, and probably then tinkered with:
“Returning Officer in Jack Straw’s Constituency Accused of ‘Outrageous and Criminal Bias’”
Take a look at Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals for further basics.
(I’m not meaning to be rude. I just haven’t got time today to amend the above for politeness. This is all meant as constructive criticism.)
Sorry for following up to my own comment, but one lesson that is utterly indispensable in that kind of propaganda conflict is this: PROVOKE A RESPONSE.