I gather the Scottish newspapers are going big on the story tomorrow. The Independence Live interview recording is available here and gives the opportunity for a much more reasoned and expansive view of developments.
[it has since been put up on Youtube and I have been able to embed here]
http://new.livestream.com/IndependenceLive/CraigMurray
But it is worth reiterating the point that I only went public on this issue after I was phoned at 8am Saturday morning by The Scotsman (or their sister paper Scotland on Sunday). The Scotsman had already been alerted to the story and been briefed in some detail from within the SNP, in a manner plainly hostile to me. Exactly the same had happened, with the same Scotsman journalist, when I first started to pursue my candidacy a few weeks ago. I therefore decided to get out what had happened from my perspective, using social media.
I had written on 26 December an email to the SNP suggesting we develop an agreed media line to get out the fact I had been rejected as a candidate in a way that did as little mutual harm as possible. I had contacted Derek Bateman with a view to breaking this through his programme. I never received a reply to that email to the SNP. Instead someone in the SNP briefed The Scotsman against me.
That the corporate media would use this episode to damage both me and the SNP was entirely predictable. But it was not me who called the media in, and it is not in my nature to kow-tow humbly when I am being attacked.
UPDATE
I am adding into the text a comment I made below in response to people who refuse to take on board simple facts which they do not like.
1) I did not talk to the Scotsman/Scotland on Sunday. They phoned me at 8am and they had already been briefed and recounted to me a great many facts down the phone that could only have come from within the SNP. They did not say “Oh, Hi Craig, any news?”.
2) I said nothing to the Scotsman other than to confirm it was true I had been refused at assessment, and that I was very disappointed. I said nothing else.
3) It was not the first time someone had briefed the Scotsman on this and they had contacted me. It happened a few weeks ago too. The motive was very plain – to get the Scotsman to print disobliging things about me being a vicious cybernat (which worked- eejits keep happily quoting the same out of context phrase the Scotsman used in these comment threads, and throughout the blogosphere).
Just became aware of this scenario and, as a former SNP Councillor who has also fallen foul of internal machinations, I wanted to make two observations.
First of all the SNP in the Airdie area (and as a result greater North Lanarkshire) under the influence of Alex Neil is a crude clone of Lanarkshire Labour. Alex Neil has intervened in SNP selection processes several times in the past and as a result features multiple members of Alex Neil’s election agent, Councillor Michael Coyle, are now SNP Councillors despite failing vetting on competency grounds.
I have no idea who the successful candidate is, but if they had any connections to Alex Neil or the Coyle family, then I’m afraid no other candidate had a chance of being selected.
Secondly, part of The Alex Neil dream team of Lanarkshire Labour wanabees is a certain former Councillor Richard Lyle, I say former as he is now an SNP List MSP. Prior to his elevation to Holyrood this man earned a living as a debt collector and money lender. He is also a rabid, and I mean “rabid” homophobe. My criticisms of his comments such as “gay men should be put against a wall and shot” led to him planting a story accusing me of homophobia in the Herald.
The SNP were fully aware that this had happened as they had been having discipline problems with Richard Lyle for years. Their solution to this problem was to promote, their words, Richard Lyle to Holyrood where they could keep an eye on him.
Who told me this? That would be Iain McCann the same party apparatchik who told Craig he would have group discipline issues.
Seems in the modern SNP wanting Gay Men shot is acceptable while objecting to the Bedroom tax isn’t?
Alan O’Brien
28 Dec, 2014 – 9:46 am
What an awful eyeful of gossipy prattle Alan.
“There is a renegade faction within the SNP, I don’t think they even hide themselves well,”
They coalesce around a certain Ms Sturgeon – welcome to West of Scotland politics Craig.
Craig, I think you should stand as a candidate in a Westmonster constituency where the SNP are basically nowhere. I would suggest Jim Murphy’s constituency of East Renfrewshire. Although basically rather right-wing and unionist (always elects bampots), there was a relatively good YES vote there. If the Tories put up a decent candidate, this might split the unionist vote. The SNP came fourth there in previous elections.
I think being rejected as an SNP candidate might then be a plus for you as a pro-Scottish ex-ambassador who fights for human rights and the prosecution of those who take us into an illegal and disastrous foreign war.
[Back in 1991, Glenda Jackson was considering standing there, but in the end did not, not sure what the initial attraction of Eastwood was for her]
DinnyDarkness wrote:
“Isn’t being a whistleblower similar to infidelity? If you do it once you’re liable to repeat it.
Perhaps that is what the SNP are scared of.”
Isn’t this what Habbabkuk wrote on 9 November on the “The Way Forward” thread?
To wit :
“It may be that finding a constituency to adopt him as its SNP candidate would be easier than the prior, obligatory hurdle of getting onto the SNP’s list of approved candidates.
Why?
Because while there are some on here who see the SNP as a ground-breakingly different – and more elevated – party in its morality and ethics, there are others who are convinced that the SNP consists of politicians, that all politicians are the same (=bad) and that the SNP is no different morally and ethically than any other political party.
I happen to hold the second of these two views. If that second view is correct, is it entirely certain that SNP “Central Office” will wish to run the risk of taking on board a potential MSP whose conscience might just, one day, lead him to turn against the party/party policy in the same way as he turned against his former employer, the FCO?
Of course one could argue that SNP “Central Office” might think that a candidate with Craig’s views on several aspects of UK foreign policy might play well with the Scottish electorate, but against that must be set the risk that it will think “once a “traitor”, always a “traitor”….”.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As so often, Habbabkuk was ahead of the game. It is good to see others catching up.
Craig, like all of your friends here i sympathize with your disappointment and sense of unfair treatment. clearly it will take time to get over that reaction and achieve an as-objective-as-possible assessment of what has happened, what it says about the current state of SNP group-think, and how it impacts on your choice of further trajectory.
from your personal point of view i think @Villager’s comment is very apt, and i second it:
As for your career, you are too creative to be hobnobbing with these jackasses. Life will reveal its hand as you stay true to yourself.
in Act V of Hamlet our mythical bard wrote something that may help you to balance your emotional reaction – it seems particularly appropriate in that it is your outspokenness which has been used against you:
And praised be rashness: let us know
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do pall, and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will—
we cannot second-guess destiny. the political system in Britain is beyond any simple “fix” – though many attempts will be made. some of the work necessary to replace the anachronistic heath-robinson contraption called Westminster must undoubtedly take place within the established structures of power, corrupt and ineffective as they are, but the more interesting and challenging tasks can only be undertaken outside that cosy conspiracy. the major need at present is a great deal of thinking and discussion about how a new paradigm can be brought into being. your blog is already an important contribution to this project, a project still in the early stages.
i wish you and all the regular contributors here the best for 2015. the coming hustings in May will not be setting my pulse racing, though you might like to pen some shrewd words on how you see the likely post-election scenarios.
the bedroom-tax question, to me, indicated that insiders see Cameron continuing as PM, but with nothing like a working Tory majority of seats – any negotiations (a time when the SNP might particularly hope to exert an influence) would be hampered for a group which could not guarantee a whipped vote, sordid as that constraint may be.
since i have been quoting lines of poetry, i’ll conclude with e.e.cumming’s great line:
only the game fish swims upstream
Thanks for your input Mark, which bit of my “gossipy prattle” do you disagree with? I assume you are familiar with the internal political workings of the SNP in that area then?
Firstly, I think that Craig is an invaluable asset to the independence movement, his knowledge of the way the establishment works and his willingness to speak out is priceless.
Secondly, the Westminster Establishment and media will jump on any crack in the wall of SNP unity and discipline and seek to widen it. The party can’t afford to offer them any opportunities.
Craig, by his own admission, is not the sort of individual who is willing to toe the party line. It’s hardly surprising that they preferred not to allow him to go forward as a candidate. Having said that, if there was an attempt to brief against him, then that is out of order and should be dealt with by the party internally.
Mark,
Unusually you are wrong on this one. Alan has identified precisely where the Scotsman was being briefed from, and presumably not from coincidence but from some knowledge of what has been going on.
One can imagine the very first question of the first interview given by Craig as an SNP candidate:
“Mr Murray, you described 55% of Scots as either evil, or quite extraordinarily thick. Do you stand by that statement?”
QED
Please don’t try to pretend that you were turned down because of this principled stand against the bedroom tax. They were looking for any way to catch you out because you are seen as a massive liability. It would be better that you accepted their decision and moved on rather than trying to drag everyone down with you. As has been said you have many talents but I’m afraid being a team player isn’t one of them. And you simply won’t get anywhere in politics with your uncompromising stances (“It is racist to be worried about immigration”). I’m exactly the same as you in this regard – perhaps because I was born on the same day if you believe that sort of thing – and I wouldn’t last five minutes in a political party. You need to recognise that your talents lie elsewhere. Your enemies have too much on you for you to succeed in this game.
Hello Habbabkuk, good to see you around.
Thanks for re-posting your comment of 9 November. It is what I was alluding to in my comment at 01h25 above. Once again proving that your contributions here undoubtedly make this blog more robust. It strikes me as odd that no others come forward to pointedly acknowledge you as being right when you have amply proved that you are. But, I shan’t be wasting my time in analysing that.
Wish you a sunny Sunday!
@Mark
“What an awful eyeful of gossipy prattle Alan.”
I’m an Airdie & Shotts member and I can assure you that Alan’s post contains not one syllable of exaggeration. Craig’s rejection had nothing to do with his ability or otherwise to support party discipline, and everything to do with smoothing the path for Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh in Falkirk and Neil Grey in Airdrie. A high name-recognition candidate would have made election of these party appointees very difficult – who has ever heard of Neil Grey? In retrospect, I’m afraid Craig’s exclusion was inevitable.
We have learned from this, and it’s not over.
For what it’s worth my “analysis”/instincts says you are a threat to the time serving leadership.
You are high profile and charismatic and would be a locus to those disaffected by the hierarchy.
Clearly the leadership are behind this but refuse to deal with you directly – plausible deniability by letting the “loyal” minions do their dirty work.
Are you really sure you want to be formally associated with this organisation?
You must decide if you are willing/able to go it alone as an independent, certainly in the short term, and perhaps joining/forming an alternative independence party/coalition in the longer term.
I note in the Scotsman article it says “An SNP spokeswoman said Murray’s application to stand as a candidate was an internal party matter, as she reiterated the party’s opposition to the Bedroom Tax.”
When you confirmed to the Scotsman that you had not been selected, you should have left it at that.
Then the Scotsman could only have reported that you weren’t selected or had to have implicated their source to go into more detail and attack the SNP in the way they wanted.
So although they may have been briefed, you have still been played.
I’m not trying to attack you, although I know it sounds like I am.
I am just trying to point out that to these people it’s all a game and you have fallen into the trap of playing their game by their rules.
I would urge you to stand as an independent.
Anon:
“Please don’t try to pretend that you were turned down because of this principled stand against the bedroom tax. They were looking for any way to catch you out because you are seen as a massive liability. It would be better that you accepted their decision and moved on rather than trying to drag everyone down with you. As has been said you have many talents but I’m afraid being a team player isn’t one of them. And you simply won’t get anywhere in politics with your uncompromising stances (“It is racist to be worried about immigration”). ”
————
Not your best comment Anon, filled with cliches and, in the end ( “Your enemies have too much on you for you to succeed in this game.”), utter bullshit.
What makes you think that Craig would’ve been unable to lead and represent his constituency through communicating his rationale for his principled stands? What you say is also an insult to the intelligence of people at large and his potential constituents in particular. You are very protective of The Establishment, aren’t you?
A sad day, Craig. You could have wiped the floor with any of them in debate. We need a system where constituencies propose and approve their own candidates, and end the imposition of SPADs etc
Go it alone Tai Pan…If you need me just call !
Craig,
It’s quite possible, even likely, that some of the comments on this thread are from journalists trying to broaden the story. Some others will be from your political enemies trying to push you further out on a limb.
@Villager, that seems a little hard on “Anon”?
by “too much on you” i understood just that Craig has made his thoughts eminently clear. todays’ “politicians” (specifically in the so-called ‘advanced western democracies’) are actors who speak the lines given to them, just as newsreaders literally read from a (hidden from viewers) autocue.
the joke of Obama says it all. never have i seen so obvious a puppet. the fact that this is all accepted without question is one of the many reasons why the MSM is mainly mindrot and distraction. these charades can serve no positive purpose in human history. it is this degraded orthodoxy cobbled together from lies, platitudes and half-truths, which is an insult to human intelligence
Craig, I am very sorry for what has happened to you. I have followed your blog for about a year and your career for rather longer.
Today I posted the following in the Herald comments:
QUOTE
These are good points.
I also have my doubts as to whether Craig Murray would ever have fitted in well into a party as notoriously disciplined as the SNP. He is a whistle blower. That takes courage and principle. Of course you have to judge what the whistle-blowing was about, but in Murray’s case it was about condoning torture and Jack Straw’s lies to Parliament on the subject: most all will agree he did the right thing at great personal cost.
The problem is that all institutions, whether the FCO or the SNP, fear whistleblowers as uncontrollable. I can understand that when you running a team effort, but if, as Alasdair says and Craig Murray’s blog confirms, CM tried to minimize the damage of rejection but the gaff was blown out by internal SNP politicking, hey that’s bad. No other way to say it.
I’ve always considered the SNP as a means to an end. I support them because in this UK system numbers at WM finally do count and we need the SNP machine to get to independence. Then, we can rethink our parties. It’s true there are some clear & not too pleasant doctrinaire autocratic tendencies in the SNP. Lesley Riddoch agrees with me so I am not alone in saying so! I am just sorry Craig Murray got caught up in the cogs of the machine because he is a good man, with integrity, expertise and especially heart. He deserves better.
UNQUOTE
@Iain Hill
“We need a system where constituencies propose and approve their own candidates, and end the imposition of SPADs etc”
Yes. The vetting process might once have been useful in the party’s early days to prevent the appearance of embarrassing candidates but it has clearly been corrupted into a system for the protection and progression of a new rising political class.
Villager
Good to see you back again. All the best for the New Year!
Craig.
What is the worst newspaper one can buy?
Take a minute to think about it.
The worst newspaper one can buy is, a Sunday newspaper, why, because it has all day to get at you.
Have you never noticed how thick it is compared to the rest of the week?
Imagine the “Briton of the Year” Nigel Farage eh! What they will do to get the chattering classes chattering.
Well done for that early post Mary. I don’t buy a newspaper anymore or listen to the BBC, it is all bad news and it messes with my thought processes. I feel better for it!
Craig, I have always been an advocate of the “surgical strike vote”, to show the politicians that we the public hold the “veto” over them. However, the general public don’t seem to realise the massive power they have if they would only act as one, and take out say the leader of a party or all leaders of all parties.
Who do you fancy taking out at the G.E.? What about Jim Murphy?
I’m quite an important person with high level contacts in the British establishment. I buggered that up slightly after a dalliance with a call girl. Until very recently I was a supporter of the Liberals. When I realised that they were doomed, I decided that my best career chances lay with the SNP. So I joined the SNP and became a Scot, just a few minutes ago. I even bought a house in Scotland, just a few minutes ago too.
Can you imagine my disgust, shock and – well, yes, grief, which brought on an attack of influenza – when I was rejected as a candidate for parliament by the very people I sold my English house to be with? How can they be so arrogant?
Now I realise that they were just a gang of schemers and plotters all along, just like the Liberals. I’m going to expose them in the press for the way they treated me, mark my words!
Cough, splutter – I feel a cold coming on. No, make that flu!
Frazer; Go it alone Tai Pan.
Careful, there is two meanings to Tai Pan.
PS, as a reminder to my critics: I have never lived off bankers’ money. For 90% of my life I have lived off the taxes of working people. That’s why I support them so strongly.
Jim Murphy – a really normal guy in many ways- is vile because he wants people to be able to enjoy themselves as they have done for donkeys’ years. We can’t allow this vile popularism. We need a Liberal attitude to him (ie, ban him). As Dave said, this is a country of tolerance, so we won’t permit anyone to argue about that!
I stand corrected and will sit down.
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made”
Immanuel Kant—
Those political enemies pushing Craig farther out on a limb means the tree needs pruning and they bloody well know it.l
My supporters give me great strength. My detractors are paid lickspittles of the Daily Mail, or Secret Service types, out to undo me. I know, though, that you, my people, would have voted me in as the new Scottish President, if only I’d got past that first hurdle.
God (who doesn’t exist) bless y’all. Cough, splutter.