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).
David, let’s accept what you say. Now please define precisely what is this “too much on you”. And why do you feel that if you have “got it”, that others can’t, shouldn’t or wouldn’t?
Finally, now that you feel you have got it and figured it all out, what is your response as a human being?
Enoxious, would you kindly go and impregnate some other blog with your pathetic scribbles. Sicko.
Stand as an independent.
Mr Murray
As a No support I am nonetheless sorry to see the way your party has treated you. You’re clearly passionate about the principles that the SNP was set up to foster.
Try not to be too down over this – it is the party’s loss. It is far from the end of your political career! Find an avenue to continue your mission and take comfort in the visably substantial support you have on this matter.
I might not personally believe in your objectives but I know you have the right to pursue them and you should go for it however you can.
Best of luck
David.
Alan O’Brien is correct above re the SNP as it was just the same here in Renfrewshire only with corruption being involved and covered up. Put the following comment on the Scotsman site Craig in case it gets taken down:
Welcome to the SNP Craig. You see you can get to be a candidate in that party if you rip off banks for £hundreds of thousands, Renfrewshire Council, St Mirren FC etc etc etc just ask George Adam MSP – You can get to be a candidate by driving for years without a driving licence and claiming expenses for doing so and fiddling the housing queue to get a council house so that you can buy that one plus your mother in laws and mothers council houses all whilst fiddling the tax-payers by claiming you are separated from your husband and all while owing £thousands to Renfrewshire Council who helped cover all of this up just ask Councillor Lorraine Cameron and you can get to be an MSP by covering both of these up whilst fiddling your own expenses and committing perjury into the bargain just ask Derek MacKay MSP.
“By the way Craig the SNP will discipline you for calling these people scum for what they are up to and throw you out of the party like they did with me but they will do nothing but cover up for these type of people – just another corrupt CONTROLLED political party and it is only mugs who think that Scotland is going to be independent as a REGION in the United States of Europe with this mob as that is what their job is to steer Scotland there.”
You should ask the SNP and McCann especially how these people manage to pass vetting – this is going to come back and haunt them bigstyle soon. You should ask them how Alex Salmond manages to pass vetting when he was involved like most of them in this massive fraud against the people of Scotland as exposed here:
http://paisleyexpressions.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/is-snp-being-blackmailed-or-are-they.html
Now that is the reason Salmond stepped down as leader the first time because this was going to be exposed – and it was to the police and Crown Office who did nothing because as they said “there was a lack of evidence” even though they were given the evidence. So any of you who think that the SNP are not an establishment/Satanic Paedophile Masonic controlled political party then you are living in laa laa land. The only place that teh SNP is going to take Scotland is into the United Sates of Europe exactly as they were doing in the recent referendum as a REGION of the EU superstate.
Update: I’m utterly clueless about handling the press, and I’m completely useless about party politics, so why did the SNP snub me and give me influenza? I really, really want to be Scottish.
A very interesting interview. If you stay in the SNP, I hope you will succeed in democratising it. If not, perhaps you should found your own party that would channel better the aspirations you felt people having during the referendum campaign. But IMHO that would mean a long-haul commitment, much more so than in East Anglia. As you are a historian, examining the history of the rise to power of the Labour Party and SNP would, I imagine, show you how to proceed. Good luck.
David Stewart: I totally agree. It’s their loss, not mine. So I’m moving back to England. Scotland isn’t ready for my talent. They will call me when they need me. I have some Scottish blood and a brave heart.
Hey Habbabkuk thank you. And all good wishes to you and others for 2015.
David Holden, were you thinking of Sicko’s like Enoxious when you were wondering why some people would never get it?
Och, aye. It’s easy frae youse tae tell me tae stand as an independent when I’m still getting tae gripes wid yer feckin language.
Daen’t ferget I only arrived here last week wid mae feckin carpet bag!
I already stood as an independent candidate, youse stupid eejits, and nae voter voted frae me bar a few hundred.
Is that any clearer? Did you not realise that I, the important, former ambassador, know exactly how to stand independently and lose? I’ll do it again and again, as long as other people’s work funds me.
Robber Crawford, what’s all this with yer newspaper talk and yer thickness?
No-one buys newspapers. What are they any more? Are they thicker on Sundays?
Who knows?
Normal people read their news online. Normal people vote Liberal. Normal people become ambassador to Uzbekistan. Normal people buy a house in Scotland then get fucked by the SNP.
Oh, hang about, maybe I’m not normal.
David Murray: It’s not actually my party. I’m a LibDem. I joined the SNP yesterday to further my career.
Craig, didn’t we tell ye before, ye wee laddie, that we’d had enough of your nonsense?
Now stop pretending to be a Scot, and go home to your wife, if you know where she is while you’re out a-whorin’
Did someone remove the no assholes sign from the door of this blog.
This is really disappointing, but not surprising. We need people with your calibre at Westminster to stand up to New Labour, not to be in league with them. Have you considered standing for the Green Party instead?
Ishmael, apparently so :-0
God gave Enoxious a brain by mistake, an asshole is all he needed!
lol
It never ceases to amaze me the depths some people will go, seemingly defending the power of those who are most certainty guilty of things most people would not dream..
The mafia dressed in democracy.
@Villager the recent intruder is a dollop of street-filth rejected for one of the lucrative dream crab roles in the BBC’s Dr Who Xmas extravaganza. its hate-filled invective identifies it as belonging to the species cancer pagurus ziounionistus. most of these are run, at a safe distance, by a sinister group known to researchers as “the Odinburger Loyolas”, or “the Peculative Society”. if we are patient and captcha this specimen, Heston Blumenthal has been known to pay up to $100 a time for them (the foul odour is dissipated after being boiled for a few minutes in liquid nitrogen)
Nobody is that important, or should be that important.
We could perhaps torture lots of people and divine the ‘real’ truth. But these things are never ending.
I say let them stew in there own mess, for a while at least. But that’s me, and imo what’s important is to keep the movement engaged. It seems the SNP did not exactly fit with that anyway.
“Enoch Murray” posing as Craig Murray:
“I’m quite an important person with high level contacts in the British establishment….etc etc etc, snarl snark snark…. I even bought a house in Scotland, just a few minutes ago too.”
___________________
A most impressive pastiche of Craig’s recent biography. Not.
I think you’ll find that Craig’s renting, actually.
Chump!
Enoch Murray
“Oh, hang about, maybe I’m not normal.”
_______________
But what’s normal, Enoch?
Though you do sound a little strange. Too much brandy in your Xmas pud? 🙂
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NB to Mary – why have you not leapt to Craig’s defence?
Try reading this you pathetic creature. Keep up.
Disbarred.
Mary
27 Dec, 2014 – 2:04 pm
Very sorry to read this Craig but appreciate your openness.
It is the SNP’s loss. the Scottish people’s and democracy’s. We would have all benefitted from hearing your voice in what passes for our parliament. It needs a big shake up.
@ Robert…he knows what I mean…
A corollary from the Scotsman includes:
‘Again, this has not turned out to be the case – that is, until this weekend. Our news story today about the exclusion of former UK ambassador Craig Murray from the SNP’s list of approved candidates for next year’s general election is the first sign that there may be a mismatch between the new members’ insurgent instincts and the tight discipline the party has demanded – and received – in recent years as it moved from opposition to government.
It has to be said, however, that the accusations Murray makes this weekend – hinting darkly that the SNP’s new cadre of professional politicians are in danger of betraying the principles of the party – miss their target by a country mile. His comments suggest more of a fondness for a conspiracy theory than any rational analysis about the state of the SNP leadership. The more sensible conclusion is Murray has misunderstood the nature of the modern SNP – and the SNP has understood the nature of Craig Murray all too well.’
Nasty stuff. Kick a man when he’s down.
Leader: SNP supporters face a real test
http://www.scotsman.com/news/leader-snp-supporters-face-a-real-test-1-3645022
28 December 2014
00:08
@Enoch and Leon…The Trolls come out…Who are you anyway ? Perhaps you are working for the BBC ?
That the Scotsman ‘newspaper’ still going is what I find incredible. After the disgusting antics of this paper, that anyone from the SNP would have any dealings with them is the only aspect of this I find shocking. This could be the parting shot of this bankrupt rag.
Frazer.
So do I.
Craig
Like many others here, I am scunnered that what prevented you from being selected as an SNP candidate was not your inability to appeal to enough party members in a constituency but your being unable to survive what appears to be a pre-selection process captured by jobsworths.
Two points I have not seen made clearly enough by commentators here. First, the Bedroom Tax question is as false a dilemma as the ones trotted out to justify torture. It’s a silly as asking “Would you renounce your Christian beliefs if they were an obstacle to Scottish Independence?” The genuine dilemmas are ones like, “Would you, as a republican and opponent of NATO be willing as an SNP in a Scottish Parliament, to vote for a Constitution which had Queen Elizabeth as Head of State and accepted membership of NATO?”
Second, the media were bound to ask pointed questions about you, whether on your were on the candidates list or excluded from it. As the best review of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” put it: – “Men are from Earth, Women are from Earth: Deal with It!”
The best result would be a rethink by the SNP, but that’s unlikely. I quite like the idea of your standing as an Independent against Jim Murphy, but fear it could be a re-run of your brave campaign against Jack Straw. But Scottish politics are so volatile that you might just pull it off; and do the SNP a good turn by hobbling Labour’s campaign in Scotland.