On 8 July 2018 a lady named Kirsty Eccles asked what, in its enormous ramifications, historians may one day see as the most important Freedom of Information request ever made. The rest of this post requires extremely close and careful reading, and some thought, for you to understand that claim.
Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,
1: Why did BBC Newsnight correspondent Mark Urban keep secret from the licence payers that he had been having meetings with Sergei Skripal only last summer.
2: When did the BBC know this?
3: Please provide me with copies of all correspondence between yourselves and Mark Urban on the subject of Sergei Skripal.
Yours faithfully,
Kirsty Eccles
The ramifications of this little request are enormous as they cut right to the heart of the ramping up of the new Cold War, of the BBC’s propaganda collusion with the security services to that end, and of the concoction of fraudulent evidence in the Steele “dirty dossier”. This also of course casts a strong light on more plausible motives for an attack on the Skripals.
Which is why the BBC point blank refused to answer Kirsty’s request, stating that it was subject to the Freedom of Information exemption for “Journalism”.
10th July 2018
Dear Ms Eccles
Freedom of Information request – RFI20181319
Thank you for your request to the BBC of 8th July 2018, seeking the following information under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000:
1: Why did BBC Newsnight correspondent Mark Urban keep secret from the licence payers that he
had been having meetings with Sergei Skripal only last summer.
2: When did the BBC know this?
3: Please provide me with copies of all correspondence between yourselves and Mark Urban on the
subject of Sergei Skripal.
The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of
‘journalism, art or literature.’ The BBC is therefore not obliged to provide this information to you. Part VI
of Schedule 1 to FOIA provides that information held by the BBC and the other public service broadcasters
is only covered by the Act if it is held for ‘purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”. The
BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or
information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities.
The BBC is of course being entirely tendentious here – “journalism” does not include the deliberate suppression of vital information from the public, particularly in order to facilitate the propagation of fake news on behalf of the security services. That black propaganda is precisely what the BBC is knowingly engaged in, and here trying hard to hide.
I have today attempted to contact Mark Urban at Newsnight by phone, with no success, and sent him this email:
Dear Mark,
As you may know, I am a journalist working in alternative media, a member of the NUJ, as well as a former British Ambassador. I am researching the Skripal case.
I wish to ask you the following 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?
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 hearing from you.
Craig Murray
I should very much welcome others also sending emails to Mark Urban to emphasise the public demand for an answer from the BBC to these vital questions. If you have time, write your own email, or if not copy and paste from mine.
To quote that great Scot John Paul Jones, “We have not yet begun to fight”.
Why do you think that pablo Miller works, or worked, for Orbis ? It is a claim repeated a lot, but I’ve found no evidence for it. The only printout of his LinkedIn profile I’ve seen doesn’t mention it. And to my knowledge he has never been listed by Orbis themselves as a consultant.
I’m starting to suspect this might be one of those assertions that everyone repeats as fact but which isn’t correct.
The reference to Orbis Intelligence was deleted from his Linkedin profile. I found contemperaneous postings from 2016/7 on the web citing his Linkedin profile as showing his consultancy with Orbis and linking to that Linkedin profile, but obviously that link no longer shows Orbis. I linked to this evidence in earlier posts on the Skripals.
Miller’s and Orbis’s determination to scrub the evidence of their relationship is itself revealing.
Linkedin isn’t really the go to place to find links to SIS lol. Because you couldn’t find links to SIS doesn’t discount X British diplomat with insider contacts assertions, there is a possibility Craig is misleading the twitter community, that’s for us to decide to give Craig a fair hearing.
What I find interesting is how many MPs MI6 & now BBC Journalist’s were in the The Royal Tank Regiment. CON MP Andrew Mitchell was in The Royal Tank Regiment a none commissioned officer so I believe based in Cyprus.
Conspiracy theorist’s may say The Regiment is a cover for SIS trainees. Can they be traced back to Oxford, Eaton, Cambridge ?
You might well have a point about the Royal Tank Regiment.
Look who else was in it (I’m not talking about Her Maj.):
[2008]
“PRESENTATION OF STANDARDS BY HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, COLONEL-IN-CHIEF, THE ROYAL TANK REGIMENT.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon leads the march past….”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rtrstandardsparade/2689499481
The Royal Tank Regiment used to be responsible for the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) force. In 2011 that force was downgraded to the CBRN wing (under the responsibility of the RAF) to save money.
This is from this interesting Morning Star piece of 16 March 2018:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tories-to-fork-out-%C2%A348m-for-new-defence-centre
Our Hamish is quoted, salivating at the thought of getting the old gang together again:
With regards to the alleged attempted murder of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4, he told the Telegraph: “All the more sobering, therefore, to see virtually all our remaining assets in chemical defence deployed on the streets of Salisbury today to deal with what is probably less than an egg cup full of nerve agent.
“After Salisbury, that capability must surely be rebuilt. Much more difficult, however, will be putting the genie of chemical and biological weapons back in its bottle.”
Well, @ Barden Gridge, 21.22, now you mention it, I know someone who was in the Royal Tank Regiment, a ‘tankie’ and he always referred himself and his colleagues as the ‘men in black’. Also told me how he worked with this guy….hmmm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Leakey
Look at the BBC’s ‘security’ correspondent, Frank Gardener. He held the rank of captain in the Regular Army Reserve when he was shot poking around the back streets of Riyadh in 2004.
I ran into the same when I requested documents and communications about the BBC’s Saving Syria’s Children (SSC): https://bbcpanoramasavingsyriaschildren.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/saving-syrias-children-tribunal-upholds-bbcs-rejection-of-foi-request/
During the hearing, the Tribunal blithely observed that if SSC were journalism, then the FOI exemption applies; if it were fake, as I contend, then it would fall under “art or literature”, and would therefore still apply.
Incidentally, yesterday was the 5th anniversary of the alleged incendiary attack featured in SSC: https://twitter.com/cerumol/status/1033620466949345280
Just emailed him same questions as you. Hope others do the same.
But we know there are 2 D-notices which I believer prevent all mention of links between I believer Skripal and Steele and Skripal and Miller.
You reported on it here: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/probable-western-responsibility-for-skripal-poisoning/
So I find it hard to blame the BBC on this.
I thought the Telegraph named them before the D-notice, but I guess this was edited backwards.
The “sourced” denial by the Guardian’s Luke Harding the next day though is confirmation IMO.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/07/poisoned-russian-spy-sergei-skripal-close-consultant-linked/
https://twitter.com/lukeharding1968/status/971721269208080384?lang=en
Most notices are 2D.
Your hyphen to the rescue here, so you got away with it, qv “Eats, shoots & leaves” [Lynne Truss, 2003]. “Two” would have been better, and easier on SwiftKey, than “2” all the same. Even better still: “two DSMA-notices”.
However, as a general rule, blogs of this kind are p’raps not be the best place to discuss D-, DA-, or DSMA- notices.
Hard to imagine much joy will be forthcoming for Mr Murray in his pursuit of information from Mr Urban in any dimensionality, but glad to see he’s back “on home ground” rather than pontificating about untaxed avgas, for example.
Good luck with getting any sense out of Mark Urban. Have you seen his Wikipedia page? Embedded reporter in War in Bosnia, Middle East Peace (War) Process, War in Kosovo, War in Afghanistan, War in Iraq. He has even written a book about the “black ops” counter-terrorism efforts in Iraq, among others, which suggests he thinks the war in Iraq was a good thing. And he won a Peace through Media award. As I say, good luck with any emails to him.
Jane you seem a noisy sort in the best possible way. You maybe interested to delve into Public Schools, The Royal Tank Regiment, MPs SIS, & British Journalists connections. A few times I’ve gone on Wikipedia for more background info on someone it struck me how many MPs were in the Royal tank Regiment, & were nominated to none commission officer part time soldiering based in Cyprus usually 2yrs then off to the City or into politics.
Like Ruth Davidson, Tory leader in Scotland, wasn’t she a tank commander?
Aye, she’s another one that won’t answer questions.
Presumably an intelligence asset.
“This also of course casts a strong light on more plausible motives for an attack on the Skripals.”
A good case may be made for the Skripals having simply been at the wrong end of a narcotics transaction (see comments to topic, ‘The Silence of the Whores for more recent discussion). Mi5 could even have been looking on at the time, but lacking powers of arrest. That said a panicked government interpretation of what MIGHT have happened fits easily within the context of the Steele Dossier and events attaching thereto.
Steele admitted that the Dossier were unchecked allegations in this month’s libel trial in the US. He’s also involved with Bruce Ohr whose wife worked for fusion GPS.
The FBI was forced to declassify a heavily redacted file that proves that Steele was working for the FBI , up to February 2016.
The only reazon Urban had to interview Skripal in 2017 is the Trump Dossier , which gives us a clear indication that Skripal was one of the contributors to it .
With all the enquiries and libel trials going on at the moment regarding the Dossier , it’s very clear why it was important that Skripal would n never be available for Questionning . The UK would be quite damaged for their participation in a hoax Dossier in order to influence and change an election as well as continuing the Russiophobia Narrative that serves certain sectors interests .
Having read the comments and the piece, I personally have garnered the first and finally a probable and convincing explanation to the Skripals and Novichok incidents.
Thank you especially ISA .
It’s perfectly obvious to those who are not dependant on MSM for there thought processes that the military wings of western governments and there use by governments are totally out of control, and their services are not used for the common mans safety, but the business interests of the few.
Kafka accusations and court cases. Orwellian media manufactured news and Huxleys fears for humanity coming closer .
Its highly likely that President Trump will release the whole story in early October in order to negate any chances the Democrats have of stabilising their position in the Mid Terms ?
If as seems to be the case, the security mob, and SIS, followed the line that Clinton was bound to win in 2016, and it was best to be on the right side of her, then one must have some doubts regarding the quality of analysts employed by the FO these days ?
Should it turn out that the UK was complicit in trying to discredit ‘The Donald’, then it will be a case of, as the cousins say, payback being a bitch. Potentially yet more woes for a limping government, so expect Corbyn’s ‘Anti Semitism’ to be even more firmly pushed, whilst ignoring the fable of the boy calling wolf.
John Paul Jones being a reference to the American Revolution. Glad you’re catching on, Craig! Mifsud is Mi6. “The Great Game”.
Revealed: Russia’s middle-man who introduced Trump campaign official to ‘Putin’s niece’ and offered dirt on Hillary is London-based European Union expert who trains diplomats
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5033411/Russia-s-man-connected-Trump-aide-Putin-s-niece.html
Donald Trump Jr. explains his infamous initial response to possibly getting dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russians
https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-jr-explains-love-it-response-to-russia-hillary-clinton-dirt-2018-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T
And Bill Clinton getting paid loads of money to meet with groups of Russian Businessmen when Hillary was Sec of State? Thats ok was it ?
Clinton was supposedly a CIA informant whilst at Oxford and had senatorial help to get a Rhodes Scholarship
The Clintons are a CIA Mafia family. Hillary helped cover up the CIA role in the JFK assassination, most specifically the arrest of George Herbert Walker Bush in Dallas. The CIA loves to recruit sociopaths, and lined her up as Bill’s “Beard”. She is a lesbian, and Chelsea is the spitting image of her real father. Huma Abedin is her lover. The Rhodes Scholarship is part of the Anglo-American [/Zionist = Kabbalah] control system setup by Cecil Rhodes’ Business Round Table for the City of London Bankers. Bill is a bastard child of the Rockefeller family. They also control the CIA, British Intelligence, and the Mossad. Who blew up those buildings in NYC on 9/11. For the City of London.
Hillary was the City’s candidiate of choice. What you’re looking at is an ongoing coup d’etat against the democratically elected President of the USA. Involving British Intelligence. The Skirpals have been caught up in this, but it’s also part of their beloved “Great Game” against Russia. All leaders who work for the best interests of their country are to be crushed. Like JFK. Like Charles de Gaulle. “PERMINDEX”.
Stunning Letter To US Federal Judge Preparing To Sentence George Papadopolous Exposes Massive Scandal
http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index2634.htm
You thought I was attacking Trump? When you’re lost in the false Left-Right paradigm, it’s no wonder you’re so confused. The [Kabbalah] Bankers basically control both sides. For example, British agent, Tony Blair, worked for Peter Mandelson, who works for the Rothschilds. Thatcher worked for them too. The “Fifth Man”. And Churchill. And the Clintons. And the Bushes. And Obama…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzOr6rwWhms
@Permindex
Thank you for your link to the Mail article. It states that Mifsud worked in Malta:
“Mifsud, a ‘diplomacy’ expert who specializes in energy policy issues, worked for the Malta minis-try of foreign affairs and the education ministry in the 1990s.”
It reminded me of reading that Sergei Skripal used to work in Malta when he was in the GRU. Looking the article up again, it says that he was there in the early 1990s. However, the same article states that he was not ‘turned’ until he was in his next posting in Madrid, which he took up in 1994:
“In the early 90’s, he received what was then dreamed of by every intelligence officer – a post in the GRU’s residency in Malta. A tiny country, lost in the azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea, and its capital, Valletta, seemed after the perestroika Moscow a real earthly paradise. But for GRU officers, Malta was primarily one of the centers of espionage. Local counterintelligence, about which no one had heard anything, was not “underfoot” by the numerous foreign residents and their agents, who therefore did their unsafe business secretly.”
(google translate)
https://life.ru/t/%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5/1095659/iad_dlia_shpiona_kto_i_zachiem_otravil_eks-razviedchika_sierghieia_skripalia
Wow! If this blows up, what unbelievable ramifications Internationally, would this have on the English state propaganda broadcasting station and the English state.
Superb!
??
There is no English state. This is the United Kingdom.
Somebody ought to tell the English that. They mostly think there is an English state, which coincidently “owns” Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Privy Council is English
Email sent; note that the BBC do not have a direct complaints email address and [email protected] bounces straight back.
We surely need to probe further into e.g. Dr Stephen Green at Salisbury Hospital, who you may recall wrote a letter to the Times – is he still engaged in his previous capacity, was his statement factually correct, is the hospital able to reconcile his letter with their subsequent statements in respect of the Skripals and DS Bailey?
Being a consultant, he was a Mr. His name is Stephen Davies, not Stephen Green.
Actually it is surgeons, not consultants, who are called Mr. Physicians are called Dr at all levels, surgeons are called Mr, Miss, Ms or Mrs as desired at all levels.
thanks for the correction Cube & Rhys
Surely you don’t call non-surgeon medics “Dr”? Hardly any of them have doctorates. The only reason they get away with it is that “Dr” isn’t a protected term.
C(r)apita run BBC Complaints out of Darlington. Don’t waste your time.
It appears that The Times letter was in error.
http://www.theblogmire.com/the-salisbury-poisonings-clearing-up-a-mess-left-by-the-times/
Possibly it should have read:
“Sir, Further to your report (“Poison Exposure Leaves Almost 40 Needing Treatment”, Mar 14), may I clarify that no (other) patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning.
Or you could argue that it was correct and he has backtracked. I will take Dr. Stephen Davies word for it and assume The Times messed up their editing.
The blog post reads: ‘I have now managed to get in touch with Dr. Davies, and he has very helpfully given me clarification. He has told me that The Times edited his letter, and that this produced a misleading message. Furthermore, he confirmed to me that the three patients mentioned in his letter “were poisoned with a nerve agent, confirmed by blood tests and symptoms.”’
Dr Davies original letter was dated 16th March. ‘I have now managed to get in touch with Dr Davies’ reported 19th July.
Are we really expected to believe that the Times is so space conscious as to edit out a single word (‘other’)?
We don’t know what The Times edited out, the letter may have been much larger. As I do not work at Salisbury hospital and Dr Davies was asked to clarify, which he did. I will assume what he last said was correct, which may be incorrect. 🙂
Hi Ophelia.
Rob Slane over at theblogmire.com wrote that he spoke with Dr Davies a couple of weeks ago. The doctor revealed that his letter to The Times had been so heavily edited (as is their wont) it had lost almost all meaning, but did mention that his points had been included more accurately in an article in another section of the same edition.
Interesting indeed !
Congratulations on getting this information out, but the linkages do seem likely to have the potential to upset some in the shadows ?
The fact that Urban was an officer in the RTR is quite surprising, somehow he does not seem the type ? 🙂
Dear Mark,
It saddened me to read Mr Murry’s questions. They raise legitimate issues regarding the relationship of the BBC and the security services.
My confidence in the BBC as public service broadcaster and trustworthy source of news further erroded. The Iraq war has undermined the trust of many in politicians, the Milly Dowler case one of a plethera of press abuse instances tha has contributed to journalists in this country being trusted less than anywhere in Europe and ranked below estate-agents for honesty.
Do you as a ‘journalist’ have no qualms of conscience that you are contributing to the downward spiral of trust in British institutions?
Trust has to be earned, it doesn’t come with the job.
My personal descent into scepticism as far as British Institution is concerned what’s when the Former Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning observed that the release of the Birmingham 6 on appeal undermined faith in the judicial system.
Barrie, it’s hard to come to terms with this but the British establishment are, in simple terms, criminals. Once you understand and accept this glaringly obvious reality and shake off the programming they have indoctrinated you with for your whole life, it’s much more simple to assess what is going. They’re criminals. That’s it. They get away with it because they control all of the important institutions, including the BBC and all mainstream media, the legal system, the military, the education system…..everything. It’s all about them. They’re not going to prosecute themselves……ever. The press is there to further their agenda and ensure they maintain power and control of the public’s views by brainwashing everyone with lies, fear, misinformation, diversion, scandals, celebrity BS, sport, sex………anything but the truth about their, pure, undeniable criminality
You can complain directly to the BBC about this – I have just done so. The BBC’s online complaints facility is at:
https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/?lang=en&reset=&uid=986445239
Uh, you *cannot* ‘complain directly to the BBC’: they have long since outsourced the complaints service to Capita plc. Anything you send in via that link goes directly to Darlington, and is either filtered out as trivial, vexatious or repetitive (yes, they’ll know if you’re a ‘regular’…), or reaches the BBC as merely part of a numerical tally for the category in which it is placed. Chances of anything reaching the BBC hierarchy as an actual, meaningful *text*: probably less than *0.1%*…
I hope it is clear to people that, whether we’re talking FOI or complaints, our publicly funded national broadcaster is now *hermetically sealed*: nothing goes in; nothing gets out; and no-one admits to anything. The BBC can bat away just about everything except the will of *Downing St* — which controls the money tap and directly appoints the biggest bigwigs…
here’s an example:
“Thanks for contacting us regarding the BBC News website article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43121547.
I understand you believe the article’s comments on the White Helmets is misleading.
While we are aware of claims against the group, which we have previously explored, but when reporting on complex situations there can be a lot of confusion with conflicting information and opinions, but we are always scrupulous in making sure our coverage is accurate and impartial.
In fast moving situations we may refer to “unconfirmed reports”, but we will not present information as fact unless it is verified. We use a variety of sources in our reporting, from our own correspondents on the ground to newswires and user-generated material sent directly to the BBC including photos and eyewitness accounts which are checked for accuracy and authenticity.
Please note that this article, however, is not specifically about the White Helmets/The Syria Civil Defence nor does the article make a comment on the International Civil Defence Organisation. It is focused on concerns about civilians killed in Eastern Ghouta strikes as an update to events concerning the Syrian conflict. It also isn’t representative of our entire coverage of the conflict as we can offer a wider range of information over a more reasonable period.
With regards to your concerns about not reporting on shells hitting and killing civilians in Damascus, we have covered this, such as:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-42788049
That said, we do value your feedback about this issue. All complaints are sent to senior management and news teams every morning and I included your points in this overnight report.
These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensures that your complaint has been seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future programmes.
Once again, thank you for contacting us.
Kind regards
Philip Young
BBC Complaints Team
Sounds familiar. It is written to a formula where the specifics are inserted into a background text. Complexity, fast moving, we covered the issue elsewhere, we were not talking about the WH etc…
I have had several similar answers.
Hi Mark,
I happen to know that your comments are inaccurate, almost in their entirety.
‘Uh, you *cannot* ‘complain directly to the BBC’’
This is not true.
The video here explains some of it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle-complaint/
But the complaint framework demonstrates the different levels within the BBC which complaints can progress through:
https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/assets/complaintsnew/resources/BBC_Complaints_Framework.pdf
Darlington is a mail office, correspondence by mail goes there and is scanned – that’s all. Nobody working there answers complaints.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘filtering’, but all complaints that request a response, receive one. As a publicly funded body, it’s obliged to. There are occasionally exceptions – there are a small number of people who have been expedited for misuse of the system as outlined in the above framework, or admin errors etc
Complaints are reported as a numerically tally if there are big volumes of complaints about the same issue, but like any organisation reporting feedback from its customers this is only a top line. Complaints are published daily and in the verbatim words of the complainant:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/bbc-complaints?utm_term=.msg2yD7gk#.jkXMp56lz
The BBC is subject to FOI, but that doesn’t mean that every subject is covered under the legislation, it’s not. But you are always free to appeal the decision to the Information Commissioner.
On your assertion about government controlling the money tap – In 2016, the licence fee was renewed for at least 11 years, and will increase in line with inflation until 2021-22:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36276570
A principle I always hold to – try not to express a strong opinion on something you’re not well informed about.
Kind regards,
In May 1968 in Paris it was a mistake to go to the Ministry of Justice rather than the television station.
British television is full of creeps, but the BBC comes close to taking the biscuit.
It’s not just the BBC, and the media has been lying to us about important matters since WW11.
Just look at all the trashing of likely conspiracy theories, llke by Mark Urban, regarding important confrontations and assassinations. I could write a book about what he has written previouslys.
Probably worth an appeal to the ICO to see if it *really is* journalism. If no stories were prepared, if it did not lead to a submission of an article, and notes merely gather dust, does it still apply? Is it still journalism? Does it qualify as art, if no-one sees it? There’s a problem of definition.
I’d like to see the response of the ICO.
Some background: the BBC got its fingers rapped quite a few times in FOI matters, but then a policy changed and since then the organisation has been sitting pretty, telling almost every FOI applicant that the information they want is “artistic” and therefore they can’t have it. Some official at the BBC even tried to argue with me about the right way to interpret my own FOI request! They have been given carte blanche to tell everyone to f*** off, and they enjoy it so much.
Unfortunately this type of story is no longer surprising regardilng the BBC.
I see Tom Watson is playing the ‘useful idiot’ by asking whether the National Crime Agency is investigating Russian interference in the EU referendum.
Any impartial observer, watching the dirty tricks being played on the EU by our ‘friends’ in the USA, would conclude that it is their intention to destroy the Union as a rival awkward power block.
When the State Department was engineering regime change in Ukraine, the EU registered their disquiet over the likely effects, eliciting the response “Fuck the EU” from Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.
Considering the destabilising effects on the EU of the Syrian and other conflicts close to the EU, it is not the Russians who are pouring petrol on the fires, but our ‘friends’ across the pond.
Hopefully the next ‘false flag’ in Syria being forecasted by the Russian military won’t happen, but if it does the BBC won’t be reporting any of the forecasts unless they spin them to paint the retaliation as a moral necessity.
Ah, Victoria Nuland. If US interests want to turn up the pressure on the EU, they might do a spectacular or two in Sweden in the next week or so. Sweden Democrats in the government at the moment looks unlikely; biggest party, less so.
Sent letter. Copied to my MP and Labour’s leader office. Listed your Kirsty Eccles and your questions and added following:
–oOo–
There is huge issue of public interest in answering these questions, not least because there are major doubts about what really happened and who was responsible, but also because the UK (along with the US and France) seem to be edging towards a major confrontation with Russia, and your role as an objective journalism in all this appears hopelessly compromised.
It looks very much that your career as a journalist has been enabled and facilitated by the security services, and that you are not really an objective journalist but rather that you are working for the interests of the security services.
It looks like you are part of a plot to bring about a major confrontation between the west and Russia.
Also, it does not escape my notice that your contacts with the security services and Pablo Miller allow you to verify that the Skripal’s are alive and to continue to monitor that they are well. I wonder if you have done that? If so, when? And, if not, why not?
I would urge you and the BBC to provide the information requested as soon as possible for the good of BBC’s credibility and your own.
Strange how two people viewing what passes for the same evidence can arrive at diametrically opposed opinions, you see Craig as being part of a plot to bring about a major confrontation between the west and Russia, I see him trying to prevent such an event.
That was ADHD’s letter to Mark Urban it craig hence the _oOo_
i read the post as referring to urban.
Sorry if it was confusing. It is very much about Mark Urban. I just wanted to show the text I added to the Kirsty & Craig’s points which I had repeated in my email to Mark Urban.
I rushed the post so I could have been clearer. However, I am absolutely certain it is clear in my email to Mark Urban. If not, the worst that could happen is that Craig might get a CBE!
Something wasn’t right from day 1 of the Skripal fantasy.
Nothing adds up, it must be one of the most incompetent false flag episode concocted by any government agency.
One thing I am sure of though, with so many incompetent actions and explanations, the truth will out.
I cannot share your hopes.
As long as the ‘false flag’ is believed by the Daily Mail reader on the Clapham omnibus, and politicians can therefore rely on their votes, its purpose has been served.
Th biggest false flag of the past 100 years happened on 11th September 2001, and that has been hugely successful for those who arranged it and those who wrote the PNAC letter to Clinton. Probably the same people.
I seem to remember that the online comments to Daily Mail Skripal articles were notable for their cynical disbelief in the various Skripal narratives. It was remarked on here that, if Daily Mail readers weren’t swallowing it, (and they were not) then the official account(s) were not working.
We shouldn’t stigmatise Daily Mail readers. There were only really 3 signifcant voices (that carried weight) speaking out about the Skirpal and/or againist premature retaliation over Douma and those were:
1. Craig Murray’s blog (there may be other blog’s/alternative news sources [just as good or even better] but these had no real impact in the overall scheme of things),
2. Peter Hitchins (a Daily Mail writer) partcularly via Twitter, and (most importantly)…
3. The overwhelming voices of scepticism that manifested in the Daily Mail Online comments (we are talking in terms of 1,000’s and 1,000’s of ‘likes’ rejecting the Government narrative and minuscule barely making it into the 100’s of likes [many times even failing to get over 100] for those supporting the Government story. And this was replicated in post after post, thread after thread.)
The Daily Mail readership was truly astonishing! I, for one, will never disrespect a Daily Mail reader ever again.
I would imagine that this was one of the reasons why Paul Dacre was required to resign as editor of the Daily Mail (i.e. he wouldn’t agree to hobble the Daily Mail Online readership comments).
LOL, yes nothing adds up, they were grinding away at the bench in the park in gas suits and said that the highest concentration of the gas was at the Skripal’s front door… So imagine my surprise when i saw two uniformed cops guarding that same front door?!?!? Also the assertion by Porton Down that it was novichok was kinda laughable, novichok kills almost instantly. Of course nobody mentions the fact that Porton Down is THE chemical warfare lab of the UK, and made such nice things as a nerve gas called BZ, which does not kill in small doses, but rather gives halucinations and such… If you read the testimony of Julia Skripal she mentions halucinations… connect the dots?
I agree, it seems to be the most amateurish false flag ever attempted (which means we at least know who isn’t behind it). The narratives have been so convoluted and contradictory from the start. It’s as if someone incompetent has taken it on themselves to set up the false flag, and the media/government/MOD etc. are having to play catch up and shoe-horn the official narrative into stories which just don’t fit.
The fact that Mark Urban was in contact with Sergei Skripal well in advance of the incident implies that either something was already planned, or that whatever he was in contact with Skripal for was the motive. Perhaps there was a plan and it went wrong, something forced them to act too early, when they weren’t ready, or they employed the wrong people to carry it out (someone who wasn’t as competent as they appeared).
My personal opinion is that this has always been about Syria – trying to create a connection in the public’s minds between Syria, Russia and chemical weapons. The proximity of the Douma incident (predicted by many as soon as the Skripal story broke), the overall anti-Russia onslaught in the media and the US/UK intervention in Syria shortly afterwards on the basis that Syria (supported by Russia) had supposedly crossed that infamous ‘red line’ of using chemical weapons.
There is also undoubtedly a link with the Steele dosier too but I’m not sure what – perhaps this was an opportunistic case of (pardon the expression) killing two birds with one stone.
One piece of evidence that still troubles me in the red handbag. It appears in the original CCTV from 4th March of the couple who still look to me very like poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley (but that’s just my opinion). There’s also a red handbag clearly shown in Daily Mail photographs on the ground at the side of the bench. It was front page news in the Daily Mail at the time (when it was assumed to be Yulia’s) but very quickly forgotten, as were the couple in the CCTV – no follow up, no explanation as to who the couple were, whether or not it was the same bag etc. etc. For the amount of media time spent on the case, the number of unanswered questions is staggering.
Hi Craig,
— Do your legal advisors (or anyone else’s…) think that the BBC’s claimed exemption is vulnerable, challengeable? I mean the bit about “The information you have requested is excluded from the Act because it is held for the purposes of ‘journalism, art or literature.’”
It’s a stunt they pull *all the time*. They even pulled it on me when, for a music magazine article — get this! — I once asked how they’d calculated a self-vauntingly huge quantity of ‘new music and arts’ output that I simply couldn’t find in a mountain of old ‘Radio Times’. Very clearly, this exemption is being abused, employed as a blanket ‘fuck off!’ for anyone who has an inconvenient question — such as the guy who wanted to know which BBC news and current affairs programmes Enver Hodge’s daughter had been working on.
For the rest, I’d say that Mark Urban’s activities constitute, like those of Hodge’s daughter, a massive conflict of interest that has festered for far too long. BBC Urban is meant to be commenting fearlessly (*hohoho*!) upon the activities of a military/securicrat hierarchy — yet in order to have the access to people and sources necessary for him to be able to produce those books outside his BBC job, he needs to be on the chummiest possible terms with all sorts of people and institutions within that world. So far as I know, I am the only person who has ever tried to point this out. Am I mistaken?
Mark D.
Starting to make journalists the story is a fine tactic. For too long, their brazen hypocrisy demanded perfection from others whilst allowing almost anything hypocritical from journalists to go uncommented on.
Sports journalists need this, so do most of the ‘national’ (i.e. London-based and London-centric) opinion writers.
Getting through with evidence, questions to the dictators at the MSM seems impossible, not to mention politicians, who do not care if there is evidence , this seems to be the rationale Macron and other warcriminals judge the world by on Syria,
Macron: France Ready to Conduct New Strikes on Syria if Chemical Weapons Used
https://sptnkne.ws/jxnX
Dear mercenary Jihadist Saudi/NATO proxy army in Syria,
We in NATO are ready and waiting. Vive la révolution!
Yours eternally, Emmanuel.
Fillon should have been the President of France. He was smeared to take him out of the race. When Benoit surprise everyone by getting traction the Socialist Party (his own party!) stopped doing any real campaigning. All this to set up Macron for a head to head with Le Penn because any other candidate would have led to Macron losing.
But for the manipulation in favour of Macron, the final two for the French Presidency would have been Fillon and Benoit, and Fillon would have won.
Since Macron has come to power there has been an upsurge in French military activities (particularly, in North Africa). Macron has some delusions about Syria (used to part of the French mandate) and now he lining up for war with Russia. Jupiter? No, some grotesque with a Napoleon complex, perhaps? “L’habit ne fait pas le moine.”
Interesting to look at Mark Urban’s Twitter account and the comments on this topic:
https://twitter.com/markurban01/status/1014585628422557696?lang=en
@SA
Interesting to see that Mark Lee Urban and Pablo Miller were in the Royal Artillery together?
Mere coincidence of course – nothing to see here – move the sheeple along.
Also interestIng that he seems to be an admirer of John McCain.
Is it possible that there’s a link between Skripal’s, Miller, Steele, Trump dossier etc and the conflicting explainations of Sergie Krivovs death in New York on the day Trump was elected ?
I had not heard about Sergei Krivov, but a Mail article (March, 2017) came up on searching, which was not only about the conflicting explanations of his death, but that he was the seventh Russian official to have died mysteriously since November 2016. One of these unfortunate men was thought to have helped Steele with his dossier:
“A week later, Oleg Erovinkin, the former head of the KGB, was found dead in the back of his car, according to The Telegraph.
Erovinkin, who was an aide to former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, is suspected of helping former British spy Christopher Steele compile the now-infamous dossier that contained unconfirmed allegations against President Donald Trump.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4275666/Examiner-contradicts-NYPD-probe-dead-Russia-diplomat.html
E mail sent to Urban. Broadly based on your email with obvious changes.
Dear Mark
I have tried to make sense of the Skripals’ poisoning. I feel there is a lot of information we as the public are being denied and the UK government has attacked Russia on what appears to be flimsy evidence. You would appear to be in an ideal position to enlighten us so I look forward to reading your response to Craig.
Please copy me in.
Kind regards
Chris
We’ve become so accustomed to the chortling twits missing open goals on air and sinister press hacks bullying, patronising and lying to their readers on behalf of the Conservative Party and the Anglo-American security apparatus that I’d almost forgotten what incisive journalism looks like. Brilliant work, Craig.
Excellent, Craig, NO MORE RUNNING AWAY FROM PSEUDO JOURNALISM, ‘ durch diese hohle Gasse muss er kommen, es fuehrt kein anderer Weg nach Kuessnacht.
This should be a big share to all concerned, and to the end and beyond, were no newsbender has gone before.
we did this before, Im sure mumsnet is as good a place as Prof. N.Ahmed’s website. Please do share this worldwide it is clearly in the public interest, whatever these sloppy operators want us to believe.
Cant see that Mark Urban used public interest journalism by covering up facts connected to this unexplained incident, the alleged poisioning, and subsequent survival of the alleged victims known to a BBC presenter long before the incident.
Shall write to the placed person involved. And when is this.book of his being advertised by.him? Like on the.back of the next planned chemical attack involving western backed terror groups in Idlib.
and off course the bad actors from our fav. White Helmet re-enactment poodles.
Craig, you are of course right to be asking these questions, but I’m afraid I agree with the BBC’s response that the FOIA is exempted on the grounds cited. The FOIA is actually a very weak mechanism and if a public body wants to hide information, it can cite any number of spurious exemptions, easily tying up the request in appeals and tribunals for up to two years. She will then be faced with costly appeals in the courts.
Even if the cited exemption did not apply, I think the request is too loosely framed. Rest assured the BBC employs lawyers to respond to such requests. They need to be precise, lawyerly and limited in scope to even get passed the first hurdle. For example, the FOIA only applies to written information that is currently held, so part 1 would require new information to respond to a question. Furthermore, the BBC could say that because she has not confined part 3 of her request to a date range or specific individuals, they would have to search years of emails and letters amongst thousands of recipients and so the cost would be prohibitive.
She might be better off making a formal complaint. Again the response will be from a BBC lawyer, so she will have to be quite nimble to get anywhere. Indeed she may need to threaten judicial review proceedings if their response is obviously unfair.
On a positive note, sometimes the public body only wants to delay providing information to you by a few months by which time the information may be “cold”, or just to make it difficult enough so that you don’t ask again. So it is worth trying.
If Mark Urban’s meeting with Skripal snr were for a private project and not BBC business would he be required to tell them?
Was he interviewing Sergei for a book he was yet to write, about an incident that was yet to happen? If so that would make Mark Urban the mainstream medium.
Dear Craig and blog readers,
Please consider sending this information to Alex Jones (CC: Roger Stone) regardless of your personal opinion of the man, and suggest it is forwarded to those who can call upon Mark Urban to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some of them should be very interested in what Mark Urban knows about the dossier and Skripal.