Young children are unlikely to recognise senior politicians. When young children are living in institutionalised “care” and suffering traumatic physical, sexual and emotional abuse they are likely to have only a very fuzzy recollection of places to which they were taken or the identities of people who were hurting them there. Thirty years on recall will be even more difficult. On top of which, people who have suffered institutionalised abuse are likely to be emotionally shaky and easily influenced.
Those are my words but I believe them to be a very fair summary of the argument which last night’s Panorama on the “VIP Paedophile Ring” was attempting to make. It was very bad journalism, with little cogent argument, merely an attempt to build up a picture that those alleging abuse are flakes. One example was the treatment of retired social worker Chris Fay who is evidently elderly and struggling in a number of ways. The camera showed his tawdry flat and furnishings and zoomed in to a tight close up shot of an apparently filthy container in which tea-bags were stored. It was a classic propaganda technique to undermine the image of a man and what he was going to say. Just an old duffer who can’t even clean his flat.
The programme built up to a climax of bad journalism with an interview of a very obviously damaged abuse victim, his voice replaced by an actor. The victim was pushed by very leading questions to say that he may have been led falsely to identify Leon Brittan. The fact the victim had apparently correctly described the birthmarks on Brittan’s face, which had led to the production of the photo he identified, was skated over. What the journalist did certainly prove is that a vulnerable victim can be led to say anything: the victim was doing it before our eyes, pushed by the BBC. But the police are expert in questioning so as not to lead, and were not pushing an agenda.
Panorama however was pushing a very obvious agenda indeed.
What was most notable was what was missing from the programme. Not all victims are such poor witnesses. There are also some other very compelling witnesses – policemen who were told to drop investigations because of VIP involvement. Panorama did not interview any of those. Nor did they interview Tom Watson, despite continually referring to his “political interference” which they implied was the only cause of the accusations. There was also a peculiar absence of Greville Janner from the story.
Nothing can excuse this amazingly biased programme. But the BBC do have a point. Those accused of sexual abuse are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and those making the accusations should not be exempt from scrutiny of the credibility of their allegations.
Except that the BBC adopts the precisely opposite principle in the case of Julian Assange. The BBC believes it would be absolutely wrong, disrespectful of the “victims” and potentially prejudicial to a trial for there to be any questioning or scrutiny of the allegations against Assange. They take an absolutely opposite view of how to treat Assange and how to treat establishment VIPs.
Indeed, the BBC has decided that, given the accusations against Assange are so risible, it would be wrong for any detail at all of the accusations to be given out. Therefore the BBC has never reported the fact that the allegation they describe as “rape” is that, during the act of consensual sex, Assange allegedly tore a condom with his fingers whilst wearing it (of which I doubt the physical possibility). The second sexual molestation accusation is that again consensual sex took place, but after they fell asleep in each others arms, Assange awoke and initiated a repeat of the sex act without requesting permission again.
Despite the fact that Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen have given press conferences in Sweden promoting their allegations, the BBC has made no attempt to interview them. The BBC has not reported that, the day after the condom splitting “rape”, Anna Ardin hosted a crayfish party for Assange and tweeted her friends from it that she was with the coolest man in the world. The BBC has not reported that Anna Ardin had invited Assange to share her flat and her bed. The BBC has not reported that Anna Ardin produced a torn condom to police but police found it had no trace of Assange’s DNA – a physical impossibility if he used it. The BBC has not reported that Anna Ardin and Sofia Wilen only made accusations after the two of them got together and cooked up the story. The BBC has not reported that Stockholm’s chief prosecutor dismissed it as no case to answer, and that Ardin then took it, as Swedish law allows, to another prosecutor, Marianne Ny who has a campaigning feminist agenda.
The BBC has not reported any of that because it would be quite wrong to doubt the word of victims of sexual abuse. It would be wrong to put them under pressure, or look sceptically at the evidence for their stories, both direct and circumstantial. It would be quite wrong to prejudice possible legal proceedings.
It would be quite wrong if the accusations are against Julian Assange. But it would be absolutely right if the accusations are against Westminster VIPs.
I do so much look forward to the Panorama on the Assange sexual abuse allegations. When do you think we will see it?
Obama appointed Mark Brzezinski as US Ambassador to Sweden in 2011.
He is the son of Zbigniew Brzezinski, currently warmongering against Russia on Syria.
Brzezinski Urges US to ‘Retaliate’ Against Russian Forces in Syria
http://antiwar.com/blog/2015/10/06/brzezinski-urges-us-to-retaliate-against-russian-forces-in-syria/
“Thats poppycock and you know it, Panorama has a history of inquiring into cases that are not resolved by the courts, such as the most fumbling bumbling latest edition, trying to make out that this is the best the BBC really can do in the VIP paedophile cases, an act worthy of Pontius Pilate.”
The Leon Brittan case is not sub judice, there are no ongoing proceedings. Julian Assange I expect will have an outstanding warrant for his arrest which limits severely what the BBC could broadcast about the case.
Obama appointed Mark Brzezinski as US Ambassador to Sweden in 2011.
I did not know that. In fairness, the fact the Dad is a grade A lunatic doesn’t, medically speaking, mean the son has the same condition. However, it’s quite likely that strings were pulled. As to Obama, he’s one odd dude. I dread to think what Biden has on him. Biden apparently is the 160 IQ quant genius of the operation; Obama, not so much. But who really knows, they are all actors really.
Ok, I appear to have made that bit up about Biden. Something I read ages ago, but it’s probably nonsense.
Fred; “I post logical factual arguments and the Craig Murray black shirts respond with personal attacks”
Tell me about it St. Fred !;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/labour-are-still-a-bunch-of-crooks/#comment-549690
BTW Craig, looks like Alexander Mercouris has noticed your comments about Russis’s economy;
http://russia-insider.com/en/syrian-campaign-nails-myths-about-russias-economy/ri10335?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Macky
I think that is the worst article anybody has ever linked to on this blog. Living standards in Moscow are at Western European levels? That really is taking the big lie to extraordinary lengths.
The average salary in Russia is 24,000 roubles. That is 250 pounds a month. That is the AVERAGE salary in the country
In the capital the average salary is 60,000 roubles. That’s 625 pounds a month. That’s the average salary in Moscow.
MAXIMUM unemployement benefit – and unemployment is officially 6.0% but really higher – is 110 pounds a month.
Your pathetic Russian propaganda is really getting very very boring.
Craig; “I think that is the worst article anybody has ever linked to on this blog.”
Really ? You obviously have not been paying too much attention.
Craig; “Living standards in Moscow are at Western European levels?”
Was that openly stated “subjective impression” the only thing you could pick-up on in the whole article ?
Craig; “That really is taking the big lie to extraordinary lengths.”
More than comparing the Crimean Referendum to the attack, occupation & destruction of Iraq ?!
Here’s a handy Site, where you can even compare countries against each other;
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/russian-federation/
It’s been three years of intense document shredding, smearing of witnesses and gratuitous use of the official secrets acts to protect UK VIP child rapists. It’s worth recalling that MI5 and MI6 (as well as the CIA and Mossad) are the most prolific groomers of child abusers into power so they can be blackmailed to act as instructed. Sir Maurice Oldfield and Sir Peter Hayman of MI5 and MI6 leadership both raped boys provided by the child care system, and the latter kept a detailed diary of his rape, torture and murder fantasies of infants if Panorama were sincere in learning the psychosexual characteristics of the most powerful in the land. Leon Brittan?
Regrettably the VIPaedo networks are just the tip of the iceberg as very few understand how the security services fund multi-gen RSA families and groups, in order to harvest victims for the dissociative effects that child abuse enables through multiple identity programming. As I explained to a survivor over the weekend. Some victims are double victims because they’re also security assets able to discredit any narrative that threatens the establishment. This happened with McAlpine and will happen again if any witness is too much of a threat.
Macky
International organisations have to keep their members happy. The OECD can’t produce papers saying Russia is shit. So you get statistics like “net-adjusted disposable income” which is la-la land bollocks. It is again the argument you can live on cheap cabbage. Let’s think about actual real money.
Do you have anything to say, on any subject, which is not Russian propaganda?
more abuse of/about abuse, allegedly http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11916405/Ex-bishop-Peter-Ball-sexual-abuse-sentence.html
(Our bonny Prince C gets rather a lot of a mention in the article which of course does go on to say that it was nothing to do with him, honest)
BTW Russia is *excellent* value for a ski holiday with the OPEC depressed ruble, but I for one will not be going, last pair of langlauf skis that I bought were actually Ukrainian and very good value
Craig; “Do you have anything to say, on any subject, which is not Russian propaganda?”
You really don’t pay close attention to your own blog, because as per track record, I really do mostly seem to be invisible to you;
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/the-great-wealth-transfer-to-the-london-elite/#comment-547429
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/breaking-the-depleted-uranium-ceiling/comment-page-1/#comment-547162
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/when-the-politics-has-to-stop/comment-page-1/#comment-547534
Etc, etc of no replies received comments.
Australian 60 Minutes, which is mostly shit, occasionally good, had a decent piece on UK VIP paedophile rings. I believe you can watch it online.
Ah, good old Gavin Esler, Unionist BBC mouthpiece who does whatever he’s told to.
Mary,
Interesting picture. L to R: Carl Bildt, Aurora Brzezinksi, father Mark (US Ambassador to Sweden), Brzezinksi Snr. Family friends, it seems.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_z3Wj_WYAIoxAb.jpg
Aurora’s mother and Mark’s wife, Natalie, works for The Local, Sweden’s English language daily. Which explains The Local’s antipathy towards Assange and why the news about him from within Sweden always emerges into the English-speaking media as biased misreporting.
http://www.thelocal.se/20140602/i-thought-sweden-was-paradise-for-mothers
Charles Frith
“Regrettably the VIPaedo networks are just the tip of the iceberg as very few understand how the security services fund multi-gen RSA families and groups, in order to harvest victims for the dissociative effects that child abuse enables through multiple identity programming”
At this point the whole subject of paedos crosses over with the subject of rendition and torture. As humans we find it hard to access the aroused sexual mind at the same time as the normal rational mind. We are programmed to perpetuate the species in spite of logical reasons not to. We are also entitled to consider adults and the state as our protectors, not as our persecutors .
Power + sex is a toxic cocktail, which Craig waives away as being just a normal part of life in the case of Lord Sewel. Hanging people upside down and electrocuting their private parts is in some way another part of the same wire-crossing procedure.
People who have cocaine sex romps with prostitutes are in my mind part of the same category as those who torture or rape defenceless prisoners. This is what Craig doesn’t understand about Assange. He’s a very mind-controlled person. I think after the heat of the moment some of that weirdness affected his sexual partner. Why is the man resuming sex without the politeness of normal human interaction like whould you like a cup of tea my dear?
Not to say that the US wouldn’t try and extradite him, just that craig is never going to succeed in persuading 95% of people that Assange was cool. he’s not cool at all. He’s weird.
Craig I don’t wish to rain on your parade, but……
What about fungibility of oil, gold, titanium, copper, …….?
Russia does have huge resources, which she can access to. However as you are aware, the banksters and their regimen of keeping the suppliers and providers impoverished has been at the roots of the current economics for sometime.
=================
Also on the subject of leon brittan and Julian Assange, obviously if Julian had been wearing a French maid outfit and sitting naked with a naked young boy on his lap. Assange would not have been accused of all manner of misconduct. He would have been a good lad and kept his mouth shut and his tadger busy like the rest of them. It’s no brainer!
One has to wonder just how neutral the state broadcaster is, receiving huge amounts of revenue from licence fee holders should, hold them to accountability, alas the BBC, are having none of it.
The BBC are almost to a point, Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, they relentlessly push Westminster propaganda, not just in Britain but their World Service, which used to be respected, is now nothing more that, a souped up Pathe News broadcast.
Mr Assange and Mr Fay, aren’t likely to get a fair crack of the whip, from the BBC, both men’s predicaments are counter productive to the governments mantra, and therefore the BBC’s as well.
Mr Assange can’t win the games rigged, the minute he sets foot ouytside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, he’ll be arrested, eventually ending up in the USA, then possibly flown to some dungeon in North Africa or the Middle East, where no human rights exist. There he’ll be tortured at leisure.
Thanks for that Arbed. I somehow guessed that there might be something like that happening.
A lot of incestuous stuff on her Twitter. Crawling round POTUS and FLOTUS too.
https://twitter.com/NatalBrz
Natalia Brzezinski
Host of Stand Out, an @acast original podcast #standoutpodcast, Communications strategist, Blogger for The Huffington Post, Moderator. #womenintech
thelocal.se/blogs/stockhol…
A pic of her mother in law with Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod who helped to put POTUS in place. Sister in law Mika there too. There seem to be many Brzezinksis!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPt1Rv8WwAAom8_.jpg
Poor Julian.
One has to if not admire Putin’s latest strategy at least acknowledge it as a touche.
Putin has managed to put himself in a position similar to the Western allies, by publically appearing to bomb, Daesh or ISIS or ISL, whatever false acronym, they’ve been given of late, and by whom.
This astute tactical move by Putin, has allowed him to bomb opponents of Syrian president Assad, whilst Western allied forces are using the same technique to bomb pro-Assad fighters.
Putin s little ruse appears to be an effective one, the USA, are railing at Russia, and Ash Carter, US defence secretary isn’t quite sure how to handle Russia’s latest one upmanship over Syria.
Julian Assange: ‘Snowden, I and Kim Dotcom all assigned same prosecutor in Virginia’
RT – 2 hours ago
Julian Assange says US authorities have assigned the same prosecutor for him, Edward Snowden and Kim Dotcom in Virginia in an example of what he describes as “lawfare” – an attempt to universally apply American law in places where the military can’t reach.
https://www.rt.com/news/318000-assange-interview-snowden-dotcom/
Lawfare.
Lawfare is a recently coined word not yet appearing in the Oxford English Dictionary,[1] a portmanteau of the words law and warfare, said to describe a form of asymmetric warfare.[2] Lawfare is asserted by some to be the illegitimate use of domestic or international law with the intention of damaging an opponent, winning a public relations victory, financially crippling an opponent, or tying up the opponent’s time so that they cannot pursue other ventures such as running for public office,[1][2] similar to a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) lawsuit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawfare
The world is getting nastier by the day.
Off Topic, I do apologise but rather interesting.
Doctor’s Without Borders, has said that the bombing by the US and her allies of the hospital in Kunduz in Afghanisan, saw the largest loss of life from their organisation.
DWB, claim and I fully agree with them, that the bombing of the hospital was an attack on the Geneva Conventions itself. DWB have sent letters to 76 countries that have signed Article 90 of the additional protocol to the Geneva Convention.
Not surprisingly both Afghanistan and the USA, are not signatories.
I would imagine that the world of diplomacy is filled with all sorts of rumours about diplomats, some of them very solid, credible stories about child sexual abuse by diplomatic staff.
Craig, without necessarily providing any legally problematic details, did you hear of any rumours, especially credible accounts, of child sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the diplomatic ranks of the UK foreign office?
I vaguely recall one account of an Australian diplomat engaging in such conduct during his post in SE Asia. It’s a very powerful position to be in. A diplomat with immunity from prosecution stationed in a country where children can be found, abused and discarded like a candy wrapper.
Might even make a good topic for a book – ‘The Diplomat’.
There is a petition at change.org to bring prosecutions at the Hague for the ongoing war crime of the US and British bombing of Syria.
This bombing (and there have been thousands of raids by the US air force so far, and hundreds by the RAF) is not in self-defence, not requested by the Syrian government, and not authorised by a UN Security Council resolution. Therefore it is an unlawful use of military force against another state – a war crime.
You don’t have to support the nutcase ISIS headchoppers – or the actions of the Russian government – to accept that point.
So please sign the petition.
I should have added – you don’t have to be positive about Bashar al-Assad’s government either. The point is that it is unlawful for a UN member to use force against another state unless in self-defence or when authorised by a UN Security Council resolution.
Craig will be able to confirm that.
The point is whether the US and Britain should have to obey the law or not. If yoiu think they should, please sign the petition.
Macky at 2.29pm
Nobody tells me about those. MI6 tells me about your pro-Russian comments s I can reply to them 🙂
John Marshal, I would sign but because the US is not a signatory to the ICC, however many countries see the US as breaking international law, it would make no difference because Uncle Sam would just ignore any judgement. Perhaps the petition should just have targeted David Cameron.
How on earth can anyone take the BBC seriously after all the Savile horrors?
They are hardly objective enquirers.
They use ‘net-adjusted disposable income’ for all the member countries, not just Russia. They are comparable and do show Russian incomes to be lower than many other countries, they say in other words, more diplomatically, exactly what you say. I have no illusions that life in Russia for the majority is anything but pretty dire. Though their basic needs are met, is it any real disadvantage that they cannot surround themselves with useless gewgaws and gadgets, clutter their lives tasteless bling, for sure no-one ever died for lack of this year’s designer labelled sweatshop made tat. And as life is apparently so shit in Russia, do you support economic sanctions on the basis of unproven, now looking decidely shaky claims of Russian, or not even Russian, East Ukranian rebel involvement in in the destruction of Malaysian Airlnes flight MH-17? When it looks all the more likely than ever the shootdown was air-to-air and sanctioned by the Kiev Junta sanctioned or not by their US babysitters, was infact an attempted false flag event that notwithstanding its immediately unravelling has continued being mis-represented, to and beyond the point of absurdity. Though if sanctions alone on the back of it were the goal, sacrifice of the lives of those on board, might have been in, US terms well ‘worth it’. In probably all known previous cases of sanctions too, any hurt is felt by the general population and hardly if at all by the governing and oligarchic elites.
You seem still to be fighting your own personal deep-frozen Cold War, Craig, allied with the British establishment and the US neocons, looking for enemies and bogeymen in all the wrong places, when greater ones exist far closer to home. Yet was it not Russia that gave whistleblower Edward Snowden sanctuary? Who in aiding East Ukraine and Crimea upheld the principles of democracy in the face of a blatant and murderous fascist coup, complete with now US-signature death squads? Who are even now tackling very effectively the proxy armies of the west, so far given a free hand, a helping hand to destroy the people, infrastructure and cultural heritage of Syria.
You seem uncomfortable with the changes that have happenend in the world, prefer big opposing blocs with thundering demonising rhetoric and obscene spending on weaponry than multi-polar alternatives. That other baleful pet project of yours, the EU, is nothing more than a protective wall of barriers and protectionist policies to throttle trade, and encourage wasteful economic rivalry, centralise a great deal and dilute national power.
Absolutely baffled sometimes by your seeming arbitrariness, it seems at times without rhyme or reason, how you’re absolutely all over the place with some international issues and bang on with other, particularly domestic ones.
“There is a petition at change.org to bring prosecutions at the Hague for the ongoing war crime of the US and British bombing of Syria.”
One or two small problems here. First Britain hasn’t bombed Syria and second the ICC can’t just decide to prosecute as how many people sign a petition.