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).
Sorry to hear the news.
These words of Craig say it all for me:
“I was asked at assessment whether, as part of a Westminster deal with another party, I would agree to vote for the bedroom tax if instructed by the Party. I replied “No.” End of SNP political career. Problem is, I really believed we were building a different kind of politics in Scotland. I also knew that a simple lie would get me in, but I couldn’t bring myself to utter it.”
IMHO when people were being asked to vote for independence believing it would bring real political change they were as naive as those who voted for Obama for change….if independence should happen then ask yourself how it has happened – who has opened the doors and who is really running the show?
Jomry, who or what are the “people charged with vetting and assessing prospective candidates” Are they the ones in the velvet smoking jackets?
MBC.
The “Store Horse” would get elected in Falkirk if it stood as a New Labour Candidate.
@ Ishmael
“So you don’t join and work together to hash out a good policy for Scotland”
“A fellow simpleton” greetings from earth.
Fair well.
Does politics work best when the central office in a party has less control than the local branches? In Taiwan the KMT finally lost power when it became so centralised that local elites just set up local parties and got on with it.
Bad luck, Craig. But I think the job would have killed you if you’d taken it at all seriously. Your inability “to lie on behalf of your country” has come to your rescue.
Still can’t work out why anyone genuine from within the SNP would go to the Scotsman with this, knowing the contempt most have for that paper.
Never heard of sleepers?
I don’t imagine they’re too expensive. I’d be looking for someone who started his inconspicuous rise to moderate power within the party not too long after the first referendum.
Thanks Jompry, so what precisely is the nature and content of this duty and responsibility that lead them to disbar Craig Murray altogether?
Let’s look at it so we can understand the mind of the SNP. After all, they have taken the mantle for a rather serious prospect of an indie Scotland. Waffles are for breakfast, served with maple syrup, not for intellectual understanding and assimilation. Intelligence is yet another level and thing, beyond even simple intellect.
yes, I’m a chancer, for anybody who wants to truly advance Independence, But it takes quiet a few to Tango and if you have the likes of a Unionist Scotsman being licked by the SNP’s selection panel, for better coverage and peace in May, when you see Alex doing the Fandango with Labour at Westminster then you question all this |Independence lark.
I question that the SNP is actually pursuing Independence, not just due to this episode but by the fact that they did not manage, during their year long campaign, to persuade more than one paltry newspaper to support the Yes campaign. Amateurs? or weren’t they really trying at all? did they really make all the required moves, or were they hedging their bets?
This action has shown how insecure and chummy the SNP is with Labour, I expect them to make arrangements with Labour regards to the forthcoming elections.
I urge all genuine Independence/Yes seekers to select their own Independent candidates locally and forget about their SNP/Labour membership, support a genuine local Independent candidate or seek one you like!
Anything connected with nationalism will end in tears. Ask Saddam the Ba’athist/resurrecter of Arab nationalism. If my pride and honour depends on my nationality, that’s a huge snub to my neighbours. Extremism and Revenge for extremism is the obvious consequence. Divide and rule.
Westminster gives Scotland a referendum knowing full well that political minds will sell the people and their principles for the lost cause of nationalism. Craig must know this, so he was gambling on the SNP being what it says on the tin label, an organisation for local, not-nationalist, political independence from Westminster.
A bedroom tax question is obviously about coalition. The answer to the question should have been, as Iain Orr points out, that ” the Bedroom Tax question is as false a dilemma” because no campaign for an independent Scotland would ever enter a coalition with the Westminster Tories. E v e r, Amen.
Nor is this decision to refuse Craig’s candicacy anything to do with the eyeful of guano from local village inbreds who are nothing to do with the movement to break free from Westminster.
Mark Golding:” What an awful eyeful of gossipy prattle Alan “. Totally true, but still irrelevant to this decision.
Locals do not decide candidates, great big fish in great big head offices do.
Dear Tony M
I am afraid that, having just joined the SNP, I am not up to speed with its internal workings. However, as far as I am aware, local constituencies put forward candidates. ALL candidates are then subjected to an extensive assessment procedure ( I think it lasts for 5 hours, according to Craig Murray.)
I believe that the assessment is carried out by party officials. Craig mentions Iain McCann as one of the officials involved. His title is “Corporate Governance and Compliance Manager” .I do not know who else is involved in the team – nor whether they wear velvet smoking jackets. Neither do I know who gives them their precise remit or sets of criteria on which judgements should be made.
I’m afraid that’s all I know. That’s the system at present. Whether the new membership wishes to bring pressure to change things in the future remains to be seen
I do agree with you that much greater transparency would be of benefit to all.
Listening to the interview; Craig you are certainly correct in saying that a party needs a few loose cannons. It does and either they get them because they only become loose after bedding in or its because they are selected locally, or the central office of the party decides to approve a few wild cards. I wonder at what level the decision was taken in your case, by who and who was whispering in who’s ear.
Craig I don’t post on your blogs, but I share them as widely as I can. The same goes for any vid I find you in. You ARE one of the heroes of the #IndyRef and you would make a fantastic representative for us.
I’ve watched the vid and one of your comments really struck home, as it is something I have also been saying and is the reason I have chosen not to join the SNP.
They are in danger of becoming the new “Labour” in that they may well begin to replicate Labours mistakes. The mistakes that look like they are going to cost Labour the majority of their Westminster seats, whilst the SNP reap the rewards.
With the surge in membership has also come the mantra of don’t criticise from the new converts, just support. That is exactly where Labour has got it so wrong in Scotland and the SNP may well replicate this if they are not careful.
Our “new” politics requires people who will ignore the whip and vote using their conscience. You would have been one of them. Once again the arguement that I could easily push aside when campaigning on the streets during the #IndyRef of that it’s all about the YeSNP looks more truthful with this decision by the heirarchy.
Firebrands and people of consciece are a requirement more than towing the party line.
The SNP may be the best vehicle for Westminster, but they need a solid challenge in Holyrood, just so they don’t become Labour and repeat their mistakes. You should consider the Greens or SSP, as I am sure both would allow you to stand in 2016.
This one’s of passing interest: McCann falling obligingly into an SoS sting:
http://ourscotland.myfreeforum.org/archive/want-to-lobby-the-first-minister-send-a-%C2%A310-000-cheque-to-t__o_t__t_4546.html
If you were corporate management bollox body for a party which had itself attacked Labour for cash-for-access, wouldn’t you consider the possibility of keeping your trap shut on the subject? I would.
Jomry, its called gathering intelligence from candidates so one has levers to move these individuals via whips. But you can call it selection procedure if you like.
Such process entices people to make up history and open themselves to arm twisting, it has nothing to do with the wish of the people, and even less with the announced openness to allow more outside candidates to sign up for the SNP now, does it?
Scotlands young voters deserve a new agenda and future, why should they be fobbed of with something that can only be classed as chancer’s for Independence, something that goes running to Labour offering up their naked underbelly? anything to get into Government.
I bet £10,- the SNP has a clear arrangement with Jim Murphy, not to tread on each others toes during the GE.
Once again, seek your own local candidates, do not let anyone divert the yes campaign from their Independence goal by going to bed with an unpopular Labour. Use your energy and strength for Independent candidates, party politics is dead, these are careerist power addicts and establishment mongers who like you to be bamboozled by their games.
As a little light relief – politics really can be funny.
Whatever people may think of David Irving, this is utterly hilarious (from 2’40” on he explains the bafflingly erratic behaviour of the Canadian government during WW2):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLHMtzmhf8o
A question I only heard answered honestly by one candidate for office (Tory, district council):
Q. Why do you want to be district councillor?
A. (takes reflective drag on ostentatious cigarette-holder*, exhales) Power.
*It was a long time ago.
as always some very good comments here, but now it’s getting a tad self-indulgent, a wee bit navel-gazing-like.
Time Gentlemen, Please!
the SNP, whether or not you believe it may be a useful means towards some vague, but desired, end, has shown itself to be a thoroughly revisionist outfit… oh! yes, but who are going to remove US-controlled nuclear submarines from Faslane? and draw Grendel’s teeth!!
you all show you have good minds. why not step out of the cage of dogma for a while, have a drink, and talk real possibilities? or is it really all about tuppence off a bag of chips, a kilt on the mantelpiece, and cocking a snook at the auld enemie doon tha road tae Landan? yer oon national anthem, 24 hour licence on Sauchiehall Street, nae strippaz Sundays?
in the wise words of an old, dead pal frae Hamilton, a wild bard:
i can see in the dark!
not thru the peepholes of the community clerk!
i can see in the dark
FFS let’s stand for truth!
@RoS you were not fair to Habba. let’s try keep disagreements to matters of substance?
Man!
Those busy bodies on the selection committees are the official rubber stamp or confront, depending on the candidate and the hierarchy’s instructions.
Reading the invective directed at Craig, is nothing new, this is part of the zersetzung designed to discourage any kind of deviation from the prescribed cookie cutter politico that constitutes the back bone of the current arrangements.
The readership of this blog evidently lacks the finesse and worst still the blog owner has not understood the implications of the closed shop that is in operation. They only way forward is either a Revolution that is not probable, or standing as an independent that is probable in Scotland, if the electorate are made aware of the simple fact that; SNP is yet another set up to shaft the poor for the benefit of the rich (bedroom tax, is obviously not for the owners, and the money people).
Scots have somehow managed to shake off the blinkers and can discern the woods from the trees. Craig only stands a chance as an independent, he is not the sort to kowtow to the little Hitlers sitting in the selections committees.
Read the invectives directed at Craig and see the pusillanimous tossers running this country for real.
It is the same kind of threats over and again, the morons have not a single original thought hence the same standard response come what may.
Funny as fuck really I have been threatened by the same tossers over and gain and have been subject to being savaged by these dead sheep. (ROFL it is so funny to see the same techniques, these cretins have no other tricks in their bag).
Well said, Fedup except for a couple of points:
1. The pusillanimous tossers are NOT the ones running this country for real – they are the ones holding their strings.
2. Minor point – you’ve insulted Hitler.
😉
I stand corrected, and give way to honourable Scouse Billy. Very true, your contention are valid.
Furthermore Hitler would be certainly pretty miffed to be in he same company of the apparatchiks sitting on the selections committee, although as a right winger he deserves it, but nonetheless you have a valid point.
Thanks mate, and I must take this opportunity thank Mary too for her kind comments in other threads..
Off topic, but disturbing. I have got a report that the Air Asia passenger plane (Air Asia Flight QZ8501 A320) that has gone missing is not Indonesian as was implied but another Malaysian flight. That’s three this year. Two in the vicinity of US military base at Diego Garcia, rented to the Yanks by the UK, and the other shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Miffed? At least turning in his (Patagonian) grave 😉
You’re very welcome anyway, cheers.
You’re right, John.
“AirAsia Berhad (MYX: 5099) is a Malaysian low-cost airline headquartered near Kuala Lumpur,”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirAsia
I can understand the frustration here, and any personal hostility during the process is terrible, but after reading the previous post, the main reason seems obvious.
Craig’s candidate statement reads:
“I will vote with the SNP group, but my voice within the party will be against any coalition agreement with Labour or Tories.”
The bedroom tax question seems designed to test candidates as to whether they would ultimately vote with the SNP group or not.. and accept party strategy despite personal reservations.
For the general election campaign, the SNP NEED traditional Labour votes – people who would still rather see a Labour than Tory UK government.
Any hint that SNP MP’s would vote against a formal/informal Labour coalition (with concessions), and possibly let the Tories back in could be disastrous.
The party simply needs a way to neutralize the usual Labour trump card at general elections:
It’s a hard one, because there is obviously a lot of support within the SNP for Craig, and his blog was a big asset to the YES campaign. But at the same time, many people, and probably Craig himself realise he is outspoken and can be divisive.
It would be the same with Stuart Campbell from Wings – A huge asset to the cause of independence, but I think he knows he would be very unlikely to get selected as a candidate if he joined the SNP, simply because the media and spin doctors would have a field game, however ‘unfair’ that might be.
Just think how depressed and (flu-ridden) Mrs Murray is. I’m sure she only agreed to move to Scotland on the understanding that, once CM was carried in triumph to Westminster, they could move to London.
Otherwise, why not stand for Holyrood ?
Why Don’t You Want To SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
just look at what these eejits in power..they are trying to do to us.
Have We No Defence??
Sure We Can’t alone turn the World Back to Sanity..and we really stand no chance whatsoever..unless We Arrest Our Own War Criminals
All countries all over the world have their own war criminals…that is up to them..you arrest them and prosecute them under your own laws..the laws that you and your parents and gradparents etc developed..so that you could largely live your lives naturally in hard work..and love and peace…
Who are These EVIL People infiltrating us with all their money and complete lack of social skills…
We in England just look at the americans…and laugh.
Well he ain’t from England..He Comes From Scotland..
But Us English and Us Scots are Going To Do Our Best To Prosecute Our Own War Criminal
ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR..
i am going to have you..for what you and your police did to My 15 Year Old Daughter..just walking home from our local park to collect Their DNA????
All My Daughter’s Friends Ran Away..she was doing nothing wrong..and didn’t run .
She Just Looked The Policeman in The Eye
He Threw Her To The Ground..Cuffed Her From Behind..and threw her into the Back of Tony Blair’s Meat Wagon..and said..
Got another one here Guv
And even he looked at him.
Sorry..just doing me job??
You know..
Collecting Teenagers off the Streets at 9:30pm,
You stupid person – the teenagers don’t go to bed till after it goes dark..
sorry guv..i was just trying to do my best..
and this psycho is almost certainly still on the streets…in a police uniform..(with his dogs sniffing my balls) .
Just Wait Mate..If You Meet My Daughter Again..sure She Remembers You..She Really Does Not Like You and neither do I.
None of the kids had done anything wrong..and when I got her out of jail at 3:00am..after I had signed everything put in front of me…
My 15 Year Old Daughter Flew into My Arms,,with total love for me..but another look in her face..it was not directed at me..That Look Was Directed at a Police Girl who had Terrorised Her in a Police Cell
She Demanded The Truth
My Girl Wouldn’t Tell Her
She Would Not Tell Her her Real Name..she had done nothing wrong
So I phoned up the police station at about 11:30pm
Can I have my Daughter Back Please???
We have no one of that name sir..##
Look I know you have arrested her..all her Friends Witnessed it..
Can I have my Daughter Back Now Please???
Got her back at 3:00am
She was incredibly angry but completely sober.
sure she might have had a bit of cider and maybe a bit of a smoke 6 hours earlier..why did you do that to my daughter??
She’s Fast, Slim and Very Pretty (she didn’t inherit my Muscular Disease..I knew she wouldn’t cos My Older Brother’s Wife was a Geneticist -its myatonia congenita -if you are that interested)
Maybe She Just Inherited My Balls
Well Done Girl – My Daughter
For Not Running Away – and Standing Up and Facing Them..alone..when all your friends ran away.
Andy a Musician..we first saw him play live in our local pub,,when he was 12 years old…
Your Daughter..Andy Said To Me when He was 15
Seriously..Your Daughter is Not Shy
Her Older Brother Confirms The Facts
They went to the same schools, He is always going to look after his sister..long after Mum and Dad are Dead.
It’s Life and Family..its just how we are….
You Want Law Degrees and Criminology???
We are Coming For You,,You CNUT
ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR
you shiited across the face of humanity
Tony
It just won’t do.
If the media would try and have a field day because of a genuine left wing candidate then all the more reason to challenge it. It’s like there is this perception you can challenge the status quo without challenging the status quo, and when issues present themselves back off and not create a fuss.
It’s just totally wrong headed. Cow down to these people and we can see what we are getting. It shows incredible weakness. Why? The media are full of it, most people know it, and the greater truth of matters is being exposed sooner and sooner.
The establishment has sod all creditability, Scotland almost just got independence though a great movement, and people want to sit down and get comfortable? This attitude may well break many gains that have been made.
And a loose cannon? Just because someone says something unscripted, that they actually individually think. Well let’s head for the bunkers. Clearly that’s a dangerous thing.
America really does better in this regard, standing up for their dissidents. And as with fox, the loose cannons are really the nutters in our right wing media and politics. Perish the thought people point that out, or how nobody in that sphere seems to care how loose they get (with real cannons) let alone the demonisation of our own people.
John Goss, Scouse Billy,
AirAsia Group is a Malaysian based airline company listed on the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange. The affiliate airlines of the same name operate in Thailand, Indonesia, the Phillipines and India. The missing flight QZ8501 belongs to Indonesia AirAsia which is technically an Indonesian airline. ie. Not Malaysian. The precise relationship between these airlines is not known to me but I can say that being a regular user of their flights it is not apparent to the customer that they are in fact separate entities except to say that the aircraft used by Indonesia AirAsia are often the older version of the A320 and look at alittle shabbier than he all new A320’s on Malaysian AirAsia. As far as I’m aware the AirAsia Group of airlines have had no accidents prior to this.
RepublicOfWildImaginings
““Re “traitor” : I was pointing out that that is how Craig might be seen by others – firstly, by the FCO, now by the SNP. You know perfectly well that I wasn’t expressing a personal view.”
———————–
Habb
Yes well its not the first time you’ve “pointed it out” one could begin to think you’re taking great schadenfreude over the matter.
It certainly looks that way.”
_________________
It only looks that way to you, dear boy.
Not Schadenfreude – but certainly a certain sense of pleasure in the followng sense : when Craig announced on this blog that he intended to become an SNP parliamentary candidate, this was greeted by orgasmic cries of delight by the usual unthinking acolytes; I believe I was the only person to suggest that Craig’s intentions might not be realised and to offer an explanation for why that might be so.
More generally, a certain sense of pleasure that Habbabkuk – that evil, stupid “troll” who is only on here to “disrupt and divert” and who never posts a serious thought – managed to get it right when all those very clever regular commenters who are here to “discuss” and “evaluate” and to “inform” managed to get it completely wrong.
In fact, I’m enjoying rubbing your noses in it – pity Craig’s rejection had to serve as the example.
Mr Goss informs us:
“Off topic, but disturbing. I have got a report that the Air Asia passenger plane (Air Asia Flight QZ8501 A320) that has gone missing is not Indonesian as was implied but another Malaysian flight.” Etc, etc
__________________
I was about to ask “how come no one has yet posted a conspiracy theory to account for the disappearance of the Indonesia Airways airliner?” when I read the above from Mr Goss.
I see that Mr Goss has managed to find the explanation – it wasn’t an Indonesain plane at all but another Malayan one!
Mr Goss is really sick and needs urgent medical attention.