I have managed to get hold of a copy, which you can see here, of my lengthy interview with Sky News about the Skripals yesterday, which Sky refused to put online because they allege I was boring. With the warning you might therefore be very bored, you may watch it if you wish.
Kay Burley then appeared to suggest in reply to persistent questioning from Teymoor Nabili that Sky News could not put the interview online as they did not record it and do not hold a copy, which is plainly untrue (and would be illegal under their broadcast license).
My perspective on the interview itself was that the interviewer became aggressive and sarcastic, increasingly shrill as the apparent effort to discredit me was not going well, and resorting eventually to asking about any old extraneous matter but the Skripals. I strongly suspect it was not me being boring, but the strange performance by Kay Burley, which motivated Sky to bury the interview.
But you must judge for yourself.
It is my policy when invited by journalists, to give considered and courteous answers to the particular questions which they ask. This is as opposed to what politicians do, which is to spout pre-prepared soundbites irrespective of what they are asked.
I appreciate that mine is a very old-fashioned approach, and may lead you to be frustrated about areas I did not cover. I also make no attempt to look slick or sound glib. I realise in this modern age that may not be good PR, but my belief remains that in the long term people will see me as a polite and thoughtful old gentleman, and feel less disposed to share the obvious contempt towards me of the media and politician classes.
To appreciate how despicable a sewer rat Kay Burley is;
Just watch her interview with CEO of Alton Towers, who accepting an invitation on to apologize to the victim and family who suffered horrific injuries on one of his roller coaster rides, she hounds the man relentlessly. No amount of sorry or explanation is good enough for her. Does it come across she is authentically concerned for the victim. Not a chance. Show business to her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kke3h2UeH3I
Then look up the pics of ‘Drunk Kay Burley’ being carried out the door of a pub to cheer yourself up. Hilarious.
Agree, what a horrible and unprofessional woman.
Just viewed it and was disgusted by her attitude and dogmatic approach, she clearly had an agenda stuck to it and refused to listen to what he said.
She is also someone that has never worked with any for of QHSE and has no u detstsnding how it functions.
One comment about Burley’s hostile tone: that’s partly how TV journalists and news anchors editorialise, i.e., with vocal intonation – so I believe that rudeness was quite deliberate. But it didn’t work because Craig was unflappable.
Kay Burley you belong with the BBC censorship group. You were also very rude in constantly interrupting your guest.
Kay Burley could learn a lot from you Craig!!
In the face of such obvious aggressive interviewing, I thought your response was measured and incitful. For them not to use it would suggest that you were much better at putting over your view than they would have liked. Well done and whilst the media continues to try to censor the facts I for one will be sharing this, in the hope that others do get the chance to view it. George Orwell had it spot on.
There are a few presenters I see on tv of whom I think “They must be someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend or they would never have got the job”
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La Burley in spades, ribbon or not.
Bravo, Mr Murray! J’ai beaucoup d’admiration pour vous et votre honnêteté. Merci.
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Ad hominem
“An attack upon an opponent in order to discredit their argument or opinion. Ad hominems are used by immature and/or unintelligent people because they are unable to counter their opponent using logic and intelligence”
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Nothing about human rights abuses in Gaza, then, John. Right now.
Kay show is a shameless bully, she becomes really defensive at the end and really stupid and crass in her comments here. This is one of the most balanced and interesting interviews I have seen on this subject. She insulted someone for not giving her the answer she wanted.
RT has just reported that José Bustani, the director-general of the OPCW from 1997 – 2002, and who was removed due to a campaign organised by John Bolton, was actually threatened by Bolton. Bustani says that when Bolton came to his office to tell him to resign and Bustani said no, Bolton said “we know where your kids are”. That is a mafia state. If Russia had acted like this we would have never head the last of it.
Yes Paul I saw that, apparently the US was livid when he tried to get Iraq to join the OPCW. You can’t really invade, sack, pillage and murder in a country claiming it’s using chemical weapons when it’s considering joining the OPCW.
Meanwhile Paul, the US was the only nation (security council) to block a formal UN inquiry in the recent murders of the Palestinians on the border protests.
As Ghana tells the US, they can’t open a military base in the country.
Yes Republicofscotland, and it’s obviously a pointer to what must be going on behind the scenes at the OPCW now. All I heard was that the UK was intensely lobbying the OPCW members – “lobbying” being a code word for strong arm tactics, I presume, (though we’re probably not quite the bully that the US is).
“presume, (though we’re probably not quite the bully that the US is).”
True, but we’ll go along with what the US tells us to go along with.
“True, but we’ll go along with what the US tells us to go along with.”
Ah, the special relationship.
Read these two stories about Bolton and weep:
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8577.htm
I have not read any of your books Craig but you are obviously a successful author, in which case, I suspect you express yourself better via the written, than the spoken word. In this interview, you were not slick but simply expressed your thoughts in a slightly hesitant manner, just like any of us lesser mortals would in the circumstances. She was a little aggressive and spoke over you when you were trying to specify that you were not an organic chemist. I think the interviewitself was a little boring ( though what YOU were trying to say, despite interruptions, was of interest!) 🙂 but that was because she kept asking inappropriate questions and obviously took it personally that you had commented on Cuts in the interview with the Porton Down chief.
I have worried from the start that even if Russia was responsible, this should have been proved by a measured production of evidence. It is worrying that the foreign office are now denying that Boris asserted, in his usual mumbling way, that the Head of Porton Down had confirmed the Russian origin of the Novochek(?)
I learned long ago, never agree to pre-recorded interviews.
Speaking of strange editing….
Has anyone else noticed the ‘on demand’ version of Have I got News for You includes several attacks on Corbyn and Jewdas that were cut out of the main Friday edition on BBC1?
I’m sure the Beeb will claim it was a time constraint but the on line version is clearly far more anti-Corbyn and weirdly antisemitic.
Not only does it include an attack on the notion of a left wing Jewish group but also attacks Jewish people for having the wrong opinions on Israel.
Clearly the deliberate jokes made by Paxman and Hislop about the BBC hating Corbyn didn’t really work in the context of the whole show so they had to cut some of them out.
Wait for the extended version on Monday.
Craig,
I do wish you had somehow managed to include the point that you have a professor of organic chemistry stating on the record that these chemicals could be made by many laboratories, including his.
I think this is vital, because the difficulty in making nerve agents is to survive the process! If the nerve agent is of binary type, it only becomes really dangerous when the two components are combined, prior to use.
I’d also feel happier with the forensic information if Porton Down were subject to some sort of quality check. They should be able to process 50 samples, one of which came from the crime scene, and be able to pick out just that sample as being contaminated with novichock, with no false positives. Evidence that their detection technique is reliable need not expose any state secrets, I would have thought.
The problem is that regardless of testing technique, there comes a point when there is insufficient material for the technique to work. Typically, you end up with a spectrometer graph in which the incriminating peaks are barely distinguishable from the background noise level. It would be interesting to such a graph and compare it with a similar graph taken from an uncontaminated sample!
Gruesome interview! Having watched it, I’m now firmly of the opinion Sky ditched it due to the cringeworthy amateurish and lightweight interviewer. She was a total embarrassment, with her ditzy, flippant, inept and frankly aggressive questions and responses. I don’t know how you remained calm, Craig.
Why do these arrogant interviewers feel that they have to be rude and aggressive to the the people they are interviewing. I can understand them trying to call Politicians out on lies but inviting people on for their opinion then Trying to tie them in knots is just downright annoying. It says more about the interviewer than the interviewees. She was not very good was she? I guess that’s why they did not show it rather than that you were boring. You just answered her boring questions in a clear way which she did not like. Well done x
It’s a typical journalistic (and lawyer’s) dishonest ploy to ask interviewees questions to which they already know the answer, because they can wield their power of information to determine the outcome of the line of questioning. The subtext is that by appearing to wrong foot one on this (technical) matter it sows doubt about the interviewee’s expertise on the substantive matters. However here the interviewer rather let the cat out of the bag in rebutting the idea that the original interview was cut and spliced and having to admit that it was just heavily edited instead with much intervening material excluded, which rather validates the original suspicions about the whole interview.
On another issue I am upset about the Skripal pets who were it would seem just left to die by the police to starve to death..Not only would this seem to be gross negligence on their part and a possible breach of animal welfare legislation but it cannot inspire confidence in their competence if they ignored obvious sources of evidence – though it does not appear that the animals died because of being contaminated. No wonder that Russians are making hay out of it! .
Craig is a hit in the Czech Republic
https://blisty.cz/art/90515-craig-murray-neuveritelne-nudne-interview-nedivejte-se-na-ne.html
Following the usual IP search/inforsniper/Talos reputation etc it seems that British List is a beacon of news shining n the Czech Republic, which tries to stimulate debate since the 1990s, with editor-in-chief Dr. Jan Čulík , Senior Lecturer in Slavonic Studies at the University of Glasgie.
skvělý člověk!
Not boring at all . You were clear and concise throughout.Well done and thank you .
It seems to me that you ducked one there, Craig. Sky and Kay Burley were out to get you and if you’d tripped up they would have used the video to attack your credibility. In which case, being told you’re uninteresting is a compliment.
Exactly right! The interviewer’s goal was to obtain at least a few seconds of footage that could be used to show up the interviewee as a buffoon or worse. Nothing personal; she’s only “doing her job”.
As it transpired, Ms Burley failed to get the grabs she was after. For her to describe the interview as “boring” is the best spin she can put on her own failure. No bonus for that performance, Lizzie! Time to change the subject. Sink the interview down Sky’s Memory Hole.. and on to her next assignment.
There’s rather a lot of these type of hostile interviews around at the moment, YT the one between Cathy Freeman of C4 & Jordan Peterson, again unresearched, shrill, antagonistic, rude Cathy Freeman against a clinical physiologist, who was polite and like Mr. Murray unflappable.
However, one point was not made, did any attack actually take place at all?
I am of the opinion that Peterson is a charlatan and a fraud but the way he was treated does highlight the contempt media professionals hold for anyone who’s views are outside the very narrow spectrum of corporate acceptability.
I am of the opinion that your opinion stinks. I have been following Peterson for a couple of years now – I don’t think I’ve come across a more sincere and honest person. Just Sayin.
1. He has invented his own his conspiracy theory called NeoMarxism . He tells his followers that they are the victims of a magical conspiracy while condeming women and non whites for revelling in victimhood.
2. He criticises writers and theorists such Deluze who it is clear he never read never mind understands.
3. He drones on about science and reason despite being a Christian, a Jungian and a devotee of Nietzsche. He talks about “data” despite have published almost nothing academically. He relies on the non scientific Five Personality Types for his analysis.
4. He is basically parroting basic self help concepts and dressing up Christianity in the clothes of “western tradition”. He spices it up with dog whistle racism and complete crackpot levels of sexism.
The entire point of Peterson’s schtick is to tell his people to pull their socks up and succeed within the dominant economic and poltical structures rather than to organise and collectivize to change those structures.
If Kay Burley is the guardian of the establishment then revolution must imminent!
I have been trying to post the government link to “Exercise Toxic Dagger” in the comment section of news articles on Yahoo UK. They are deleting every reference I make to the MoD chemical warfare exercise.
The government haven’t deleted the link to it yet, but the Daily Mail also shut down their comment section the other day after the PD CEO interview.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/exercise-toxic-dagger-the-sharp-end-of-chemical-warfare
Forces video link states at the end it was on Salisbury Plain.
http://videos.forces.tv/category/videos/latest
I just downloaded the web page and the clip. Always be downloading, friends.
all Kay Burley tried to do was belittle you.It was her questioning that made the interview boring.
A fine example of how to remain calm under increasingly hysterical questioning, from an interviewer who obviously has an agenda.
It is at times like this, that I wish Craig Murray was still a working diplomat, because Boris Johnson and Teresa May are sadly not up to the task, and are shaming the UK on the World stage.
One of the worst pieces of journalism I’ve seen for some time Craig, almost certainly why Sky didn’t broadcast it as they would have been so embarrased themselves. There again, perhaps they never had any intention of broadcasting it and it was just a rant piece for internal use only?? Well done for getting a copy though, as you make your points very well and it’s easy to ignore the interviewers questions as they got more irrational.
That was compelling, super cool and unflustered stuff, Craig, in spite of Sky’s best efforts to make you look otherwise. Terrific. Keep on keeping on.
Murray is fascinating because he is knowledgeable, credible and kind. That lady did an awful job.
Shades of the now infamous Kathy Newman interview with Jordan Peterson.These corrupt hacks struggle with highly intelligent and articulate people who have immovable integrity. Well done Craig.
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I found the edited interview of the Porton Down scientist. It was clearly edited to make it appear the doctor was continuing his answer.
https://youtu.be/twh0vRUF9zY