The BBC refuses to answer my Skripal questions to Mark Urban on the grounds they have no legal obligation, instead giving a “statement”. That correspondence follows below. But I want you first to imagine a World in which the BBC and Mark Urban were honest and independent, and imagine these were the answers to my questions:
1) When the Skripals were first poisoned, it was the largest news story in the entire World and you were uniquely positioned having held several meetings with Sergei Skripal the previous year. Yet faced with what should have been a massive career break, you withheld that unique information on a major story from the public for four months. Why?
My interviews with Sergei Skripal were on a strictly off the record basis and I felt honour bound not to mention them until I could obtain his permission.
2) You were an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment together with Skripal’s MI6 handler, Pablo Miller, who also lived in Salisbury. Have you maintained friendship with Miller over the years and how often do you communicate?
I had not heard from Pablo Miller for decades, since I left the army.
3) When you met Skripal in Salisbury, was Miller present all or part of the time, or did you meet Miller separately?
I did not meet Miller.
4) Was the BBC aware of your meetings with Miller and/or Skripal at the time?
Yes, with Skripal.
5) When, four months later, you told the world about your meetings with Skripal after the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you said you had met him to research a book. Yet the only forthcoming book by you advertised is on the Skripal attack. What was the subject of your discussions with Skripal?
A book on Russian intelligence.
6) Pablo Miller worked for Orbis Intelligence. Do you know if Miller contributed to the Christopher Steele dossier on Trump/Russia?
I don’t know.
7) Did you discuss the Trump dossier with Skripal and/or Miller?
No.
8) Do you know whether Skripal contributed to the Trump dossier?
No.
9) In your Newsnight piece following the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you stated that security service sources had told you that Yulia Skripal’s telephone may have been bugged. Since January 2017, how many security service briefings or discussions have you had on any of the matter above.
That was my only contact with the intelligence services on this matter.
Does anybody imagine that, if those were indeed the answers, Mark Urban and the BBC would not freely give those answers, and show up their accusers as “conspiracy theorists” with no foundation?
If those were the answers, they would be shouting them from the rooftops.
And indeed the BBC statement, while refusing to answer the questions directly, does give responses to questions 1, 4 and 5 which are along the lines of this outcome were they behaving honestly, though their phrasing does not carry conviction, especially on 1.
The questions the BBC has refused to address at all are all those related to Pablo Miller, UK intelligence services and the Steele Orbis dossier on Trump/Russia. That is an extremely telling omission. Their attempt to issue a statement rather than address the questions individually, is a deliberate ruse to disguise that.
On a balance of probabilities measure, I am willing to take the BBC’s refusal to answer these very specific questions as strong evidence that the Skripal case is indeed about Miller, Steele, Orbis and the Trump/Russia dossier. Furthermore the BBC knows that and is deliberately concealing the truth, and instead broadcasting evidence free nonsense about Russian agents, knowing that to be untrue. If that were not the case, it would take the BBC quite literally two minutes to give the answers above. There would be no downside for the BBC in giving those answers; indeed they would be vindicated to a sceptical public.
I asked you to imagine those answers were true. In asking us to imagine a better world, John Lennon told us “its easy if you try”. Sadly I find it is not easy. It is not easy to imagine a world in which Mark Urban is not a morally repugnant lying shill for the security services, that takes a very great deal of effort.
Here is the BBC statement and ensuing correspondence:
From: Matthew Hunter
Sent: 29 August 2018 09:42
To: ‘is’
Subject: BBC NewsnightDear Mr Murray,
Matt Hunter in the BBC News Press Team.
I understand you contacted Mark Urban on Monday with regards to meetings he had with Sergei Skripal. Some of the information you’ve requested we are not obliged to share as it is held for purposes of journalism, but I can provide you with a more general response regarding Mark’s meetings with Mr Skripal.
Mark Urban met with Sergei Skripal on a number of occasions last Summer in Salisbury and last spoke to him on the phone in August, 7 months before the poisoning. Mr Skripal agreed to speak to Mark to assist with his research for his latest book on post-Cold War espionage, it was not discussed with Mr Skripal whether the information would be used for the BBC ahead of the book being published. The relevant information gained from these interviews informed Newsnight’s coverage during the early days after the poisoning. Mr Urban reported his meetings with Mr Skripal on BBC Newsnight once the details of the book were made public in keeping with the understood terms of the interview. Mark Urban’s line managers were aware last year that he was working on a book and more specifically from 5th March this year that this work had included interviews with Mr Skripal.
I hope these details help clarify the situation.
Please note that all future journalistic enquiries should be made through the BBC Press Office ([email protected]).
Thank you for your enquiry.
Best wishes
MattMatt Hunter – Publicist
BBC News & Current Affairs
——–
From: craig murray [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 29 August 2018 14:23
To: Matthew Hunter; Mark Urban
Subject: RE: BBC NewsnightDear Mr Hunter,
Thank you for your email. This is an important matter, which interests a great many people, as I am sure you are aware, and which has caused some damage to the reputation of the BBC.
You state that ” Some of the information you’ve requested we are not obliged to share as it is held for purposes of journalism”. My questions were not couched as an FOI request so that is a redundant provision, even if your broad interpretation of the FOIA were correct, which I dispute.
Your email then proceeds on the basis that you should not reveal anything unless you are legally obliged to do so. That seems a very strange stance for a public broadcast body to take. Whether or not you are legally obliged to do so, can I ask you to give the answer to these questions to Mr Urban, or in each case an explanation for why you refuse to give an answer voluntarily, even if legally unobliged.
What is at stake here is the BBC’s reputation for open and honest reporting, and this particular case has done a great deal to increase public distrust in the BBC. All of these are fair and relevant questions which have simple answers. Kindly address them individually.
My questions to Mark Urban:
1. When the Skripals were first poisoned, it was the largest news story in the entire World and you were uniquely positioned having held several meetings with Sergei Skripal the previous year. Yet faced with what should have been a massive career break, you withheld that unique information on a major story from the public for four months. Why?
2. You were an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment together with Skripal’s MI6 handler, Pablo Miller, who also lived in Salisbury. Have you maintained friendship with Miller over the years and how often do you communicate?
3. When you met Skripal in Salisbury, was Miller present all or part of the time, or did you meet Miller separately?
4. Was the BBC aware of your meetings with Miller and/or Skripal at the time?
5. When, four months later, you told the world about your meetings with Skripal after the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you said you had met him to research a book. Yet the only forthcoming book by you advertised is on the Skripal attack. What was the subject of your discussions with Skripal?
6. Pablo Miller worked for Orbis Intelligence. Do you know if Miller contributed to the Christopher Steele dossier on Trump/Russia?
7. Did you discuss the Trump dossier with Skripal and/or Miller?
8. Do you know whether Skripal contributed to the Trump dossier?
9. In your Newsnight piece following the Rowley/Sturgess incident, you stated that security service sources had told you that Yulia Skripal’s telephone may have been bugged. Since January 2017, how many security service briefings or discussions have you had on any of the matter above.I look forward to your response,
Craig Murray
———-
From: Matthew Hunter
Sent: 29 August 2018 15:09
To: ‘craig murray’
Subject: RE: BBC NewsnightI’m afraid we have no further comment beyond the statement provided earlier.
Many thanks,
Matt
———–
From: craig murray
Sent: 29 August 2018 18:22
To: Matthew Hunter
Subject: RE: BBC NewsnightOh, so it was a “statement” rather than a reply to my questions.
May I ask you who drafted the statement, who approved it, and who was consulted on it? The statement, incidentally, does not constitute journalism, so you do have a legal obligation to answer those questions.
Craig
————————————————————
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Meanwhile the press are thoroughly digging through Jeremy Corbyn’s past hoping to dig up anything they can use against him.
“Jeremy Corbyn once made the vile claim that Israel’s Prime Minister and other leading politicians competed to see “who can kill the most” people in Palestine.”
The Labour leader said the country’s leaders were in a “macabre dance” to see “who can be the nastiest”, and “who can be the most vile” in Gaza at an event in 2009.”
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7142171/jeremy-corbyn-israel-politicians-kill-palestinians/
The press, now with the taste of blood in their mouths are also saying a second Labour MP, Mike Gapes, may quit over anti-Semitism.
If that’s the best the Sun can come up with then it’s pretty thin gruel. The more neocon dross that leaves voluntarily the better in my view. Saves having to deselect them.
That’s the point MJ, it won’t stop, they see Corbyn as a threat. The media will be used to beat Corbyn down and throw innuendos and smears until he’s replaced as Labour leader.
It a concerted attack from the media his detractors, opponents and anyone how has been in Corbyn’s vicinity who can be remotely linked to anything seen as distasteful is fair game in their eyes.
But it’s feeble. Who gives a damn whether Corbyn said something robust about Israeli politicians ten years ago?
It’s an attempt to bolster the anti-Semitism card.
Why on earth would Jacob Rees-Mogg come to Scotland to give his lightweight opinion, on independence, immigration and Europe etc. He’s been ignored by the public, even more than Corbyn was.
No one give a jot what this man thinks, let alone adhere to his opinions. He’s an ignorant fool, whose lust for wealth and power, and empire is seen by most as the depth of the man. A typical Tory I’d imagine.
Such is the utter chaos created by the British government over the unmitigated disaster that is Brexit. That the PM Theresa May took a tongue lashing from the Kenyan president, as to why no British PM had visited the country for thirty years.
The rebuke was swallowed by May, to try and obtain a trade deal, indeed the Kenyan president got it spot on when he referred to the imbecile Boris Johnson as the bicycle guy.
Republicofscotland,
Why do you still want to be controlled by the CIA? Haven’t they done enough damage to the World already? Why do you not want to at least try and escape their control? Don’t you realise the evil they have done, and continue to do?
“The European Union always was a CIA project, as Brexiteers discover ”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/27/the-european-union-always-was-a-cia-project-as-brexiteers-discov/
Extract
“Brexiteers should have been prepared for the shattering intervention of the US. The European Union always was an American project.
It was Washington that drove European integration in the late 1940s, and funded it covertly under the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.
While irritated at times, the US has relied on the EU ever since as the anchor to American regional interests alongside NATO.
There has never been a divide-and-rule strategy.
The eurosceptic camp has been strangely blind to this, somehow supposing that powerful forces across the Atlantic are egging on British secession, and will hail them as liberators.
The anti-Brussels movement in France – and to a lesser extent in Italy and Germany, and among the Nordic Left – works from the opposite premise, that the EU is essentially an instrument of Anglo-Saxon power and ‘capitalisme sauvage’.
France’s Marine Le Pen is trenchantly anti-American. She rails against dollar supremacy. Her Front National relies on funding from Russian banks linked to Vladimir Putin.
Like it or not, this is at least is strategically coherent.
The Schuman Declaration that set the tone of Franco-German reconciliation – and would lead by stages to the European Community – was cooked up by the US Secretary of State Dean Acheson at a meeting in Foggy Bottom. “It all began in Washington,” said Robert Schuman’s chief of staff.
It was the Truman administration that browbeat the French to reach a modus vivendi with Germany in the early post-War years, even threatening to cut off US Marshall aid at a furious meeting with recalcitrant French leaders they resisted in September 1950. “
“Why do you still want to be controlled by the CIA? ”
Or Westminster, hmm a tough one Tony, however independence cuts Westminster right out of the equation for good.
As for the EU, well Scotland on indy would probably take a vote on rejoining, EFTA might be the outcome or not. I doubt the CIA controls the EU.
Tony_0pmoc
August 31, 2018 at 17:22
Yes you are correct Tony Allen Dulles fascist CIA spymaster kickstarted the EU project which was
funded by the Ford Foundation which had been supported by Hitler in the 1930`s
The EU is a dictatorship as shown by the following quotes.
“Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals we dare not present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and diguised”
(Valery Giscard D’Estang. on the Lisbon treaty)
“They must go on voting until they get it right.”
(Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission)
“The ‘no’ votes were a demand for more Europe, not less.”
(Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission)
“It is an illusion to think that [EU] states can hold on to their autonomy.”
(Hans Tietmeyer, head of the Bundesbank 1991)
“The European system of supranationality comes at the cost of democracy.”
(Lord Leach of Fairford)
“A European currency will lead to member nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policy as well as monetary affairs”.
(Hans Tietmeyer, head of the Bundesbank, 1991)
The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community: the decision is of an essentially political nature”.
(Felipe Gonzalez, a Spanish former PM, 1998)
“I think the eurozone has turned the corner”.
(Then French Economy Minister, Christine Lagarde, 29 January 2011)
She would say that being a convicted criminal and now head of the IMF.
But the BBC says that you can trust them! Here in the American branch of the Empire, I finally stopped supporting my local Public Radio station when they started running ads for the Department of Homeland Security.
Peter VE,
Apart from The Old Grey Whistle Test, and Planet Earth, The BBC reached its peak in the early 1950’s. Even then there was a lot of brainwashing going on, though I rather liked it. My initial exposure to the BBC was Listen With Mother, on The Radio, as we could not afford a TV. Watch with Mother came a little later. This is from about 1953.
“Bill and Ben The Flower Pot Men: Cabbages ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozp8uwUWtBY
Tony
DPR head killed by bomb blast. With Trump sidelined, the Empire are going for broke. All eyes were on Idlib so a sneak attack hit Russia’s soft belly. The neocon crazies are back for more. Will they ever stop?
If the BBC were honest….
Watch Newswatch and hear David Jordan respond to questions with a very straight face about the handling of the Cliff Richard court case. Deadpan. He is the Director of Editorial Standards and Policy for the BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bhrm7b/newswatch-31082018
31st August 2018
I think he must have had sight of the questions before the programme was made as he answers instantly. Deadpan.
Originally there was a embargo on any executive responding to questions about the case (cost to the licenece fee payers so far -£2m abd counting) but the BBC had changed its mind. How kind.
Another farce. A pretence.
He answers ‘Yes’ to the question ‘There are personal interests to declare’ on his Register of Interests but the form is blank apart from this – ‘s40’ under ‘Other’. What is that supposed to mean?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/managementstructure/biographies/jordan_david#heading-declaration-of-personal-interests
It is increasingly clear that the entire Skripal affair is a work of British/US intelligence – designed to frame the Russians and so further the neocon objectives.
interesting snippet on the Skripal affair and the buried
police cars, from The Guardian:. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/01/salisbury-novichok-emergency-vehicles-buried-landfill-site
MaryPaul, FFS, the entire story is total bollocks, and has been from Day One. I knew it was crap. There were too many photographers, and Hazmat suits there, from the moment it started, and the first day’s story, had already been pre-written. The Press, simply does not move that fast, particularly on a Sunday, when they are all p1ssed after their Sunday lunch. Does anyone think they are going to drive to Salisbury on a Sunday afternoon? i know what these people are like.
Tony
The BBC issue needs to be dealt with on a broader basis than individual requests on individual issues.
The BBC has made it clear that its goal is to provide as little information to the public as it conceivably can, and since there has never been a clear legal definition of what “holding information for journalistic purposes” actually means, it pretty much has carte blanche to refuse to release any information at all other than the most anodyne non-content related data. The BBC also has in effect unlimited resources to drag matters out on a case-by-case basis, until individual information-seekers simply give up in despair.
I have a plan to challenge this, and I hope that Craig and others will help me in due course.
For the time being I have submitted the following FOI request to the BBC:
I would like to make the following request under Freedom of Information:
1. How many Freedom of Information requests did the BBC receive in 2017?
2. In 2017, how many times did the BBC refuse to provide the information requested on the grounds that it was excluded from the Act because it was held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature’?
3. In 2017, how many times did the words “Part VI of Schedule 1 to FOIA” appear in the BBC’s answers to Freedom of Information requests?
4. How many Freedom of Information requests has the BBC received in 2018?
5. In 2018, how many times has the BBC refused to provide the information requested on the grounds that it was excluded from the Act because it was held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature’?
6. In 2018, how many times have the words “Part VI of Schedule 1 to FOIA” appeared in the BBC’s answers to Freedom of Information requests?
Nice one Dave, i am persuing similar line with Guardian. How very dare they barr comments without cause! Cancelled subscriptions and license fee poll tax are an effective retort. Fund the independent bloggers.
Here is a fun speech by the stellar Caitlin Johnstone to warm the cockles
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/check-out-my-presentation-how-to-win-a-grassroots-media-rebellion-at-the-ron-paul-institute-6ea5e7ea985d
The BBC wont reply to any old nutter asking them questions, why on earth would they?
BBC West Inside Out has feature on Salisbury 7.30 tonight. I’m guessing they didn’t interview Craig or the blogmire’s Rob.
Regarding Christopher Steele, an article in the Gateway Pundit (02/09) was the first time I had read that he and Bruce Ohr were attempting to collect information on Russian organised crime as well as dirt for the dossier:
“Between 2014 and 2016, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant. They signaled that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States or even explore other steps to address his legal prob-lems. In exchange, they were hoping for information on Russian organized crime and, later, on possible Russian aid to President Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to current and for-mer officials and associates of Mr. Deripaska…
…Two of the players in the effort were Bruce G. Ohr, the Justice Department official who has recently become a target of attacks by Mr. Trump, and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled a dossier of purported links between the Trump cam-paign and Russia.
The systematic effort to win the cooperation of the oligarchs, which has not previously been revealed, does not appear to have scored any successes. And in Mr. Deripaska’s case, he told the American investigators that he disagreed with their theories about Russian or-ganized crime and Kremlin collusion in the campaign, a person familiar with the ex-changes said. The person added that Mr. Deripaska even notified the Kremlin about the American efforts to cultivate him.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/09/dojs-corrupt-bruce-ohr-and-fusions-christopher-steele-were-major-players-in-failed-efforts-to-get-russian-oligarch-to-implicate-trump/
Mr Hammond is keeping Carney on. He wants stability!
‘Bank boss Mark Carney took home £880,042 last year | This is Money
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/…/Bank-boss-Mark-Carney-took-home-880-042-year.html
6 Jul 2017 – The 52-year-old was paid a salary of £480000 and the rest included … Bank of England governor Mark Carney took home £880,042 last year.
Mr Hunt and co are taking FCO questions at the moment. Ch 232. Members of FoI groups leaping up when a question arises on the situation of the Palestinians. Nothing changes. Villiers. Dodds. Crabb and so on.
The UK is increasing funding to UNRWA, A drop in the ocean,
The OPCW has concluded that the novichok from the Amesbury poisoning is the same as that used on the Skripals. (I don’t know whether this means the same chemical formula or the same batch.) From Sky News today:
“The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement: “The toxic chemical compound displays the same toxic properties of a nerve agent.
“It is also the same toxic chemical that was found in the biomedical and environmental sam-ples relating to the poisoning of Mr Sergei Skripal, Ms Yulia Skripal, and Mr Nicholas Bai-ley on 4 March 2018 in Salisbury.”
British scientists had already come to the conclusion the chemical Ms Sturgess and Mr Row-ley came into contact with was novichok, but the announcement independently confirms their conclusions.
It will heap further pressure on Russia, which invented novichok and has been blamed by the UK for being behind the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury on 4 March this year.”
https://news.sky.com/story/amesbury-novichok-was-same-as-poisoned-skripals-opcw-11490442
The toxic chemical compound displays the same toxic properties of a nerve agent.
So presumably do many insecticides
http://www.healthline.com/health/organophosphate-poisoning#symptoms
What I didn’t twig when I read the Sky News account about the OPCW report on Amesbury poison yesterday, (until I read something in RT today), is that the OPCW report does not mention Novichok at all. From OPCW site:
“The toxic chemical compound displays the same toxic properties of a nerve agent. It is also the same toxic chemical that was found in the biomedical and environmental samples relating to the poisoning of Mr Sergei Skripal, Ms Yulia Skripal, and Mr Nicholas Bailey on 4 March 2018 in Salisbury.”
https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-issues-report-on-technical-assistance-requested-by-the-united-kingdom-regarding-toxic-chemical-incident-in-amesbury/
https://opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/S_series/2018/en/s-1671-2018_e_.pdf
“Due to the unknown storage conditions of the small bottle found in the house of Mr Rowley and the fact that the environmental samples analysed in relation to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Mr Nicholas Bailey were exposed to the environment and moisture, the impurity profiles of the samples available to the OPCW do not make it possible to draw conclusions as to whether the samples are from the same synthesis batch.”
How many Russian agents are in this pantomime? Didn’t we have ‘conclusive evidence’ from the government, that Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were poisoned with exactly the same novichok that was used on the Skripals…….ohh nooh they didn’t…_
5 September 2018: Russian intelligence officers carried out Novichok attack
There is sufficient evidence to charge two Russian nationals for the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury, Theresa May said in a Commons statement today. She added that the men, who travelled to the UK under the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, ‘are officers from the Russian military intelligence service’ and that theirs ‘was not a rogue operation’ but rather one that was ‘almost certainly’ approved ‘at a senior level of the Russia state’.
This BBC account is a longer account of the statement summarised above about who poisoned the Skripals and includes photos. It also says it was a Nina Ricci perfume which was used, and that traces of Novichok were found in the London hotel room of the men believed to be senior Russian agents, who carried out the attack.
This BBC account is a longer account of the statement summarised above about who poisoned the Skripals and includes photos. It also says it was a Nina Ricci perfume which was used, and that traces of Novichok were found in the London hotel room of the men believed to be senior Russian agents, who carried out the attack. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45421445
Isn’t it now plausible that whoever poisoned the Skripals was content merely to injure them, as a warning and display of power?