The media is full of over-complicated theories as to who might have leaked Kim Darroch’s diplomatic telegrams giving his candid view on the Trump administration. I should start by explaining the FCO telegram system. The communications are nowadays effectively encrypted emails, though still known as “telegrams”: to the Americans “cables”. They are widely distributed. These Darroch telegrams would be addressed formally to the Foreign Secretary but have hundreds of other recipients, in the FCO, No.10, Cabinet Office, MOD, DFID, other government departments, MI6, GCHQ, and in scores of other British Embassies abroad. The field of suspects is therefore immense.
It is very important to note that this is an old fashioned kind of leak which was given to the mainstream media without the documents being published online. It is therefore pretty useless in terms of public information. We haven’t seen the documents, we only know as much as Isabel Oakeshott and the Daily Mail chose to tell us. It is not possible to envision any more untrustworthy or agenda driven filter than that. We can therefore be certain this was not a wikileaks style disclosure in the interests of freedom of information about public servants and their doings, but the agenda was much more specific.
Darroch’s scathing assessment of Trump is no way out of line with the mainstream media narrative and it is interesting – but exactly what I would expect of him – that Darroch shares the neo-con assumption that Trump’s failure to start a war with Iran over the drone take-down was a weird aberration. The leaks neither tell us anything startling nor obviously benefit any political faction in the UK. So what was the motive?
I believe the most probable answer is much simpler than anything you will find in the vast amount of media guff printed on the subject these last two days by people with no knowledge.
Kim Darroch is a rude and aggressive person, who is not pleasant at all to his subordinates. He rose to prominence within the FCO under New Labour at a time when right wing, pro-Israel foreign policy views and support for the Iraq War were important assets to career progress, as was the adoption of a strange “laddish” culture led from No. 10 by Alastair Campbell, involving swearing, football shirts and pretending to be working class (Darroch was privately educated). Macho management was suddenly the thing.
At a time when news management was the be all and end all for the Blair administration, Darroch was in charge of the FCO’s Media Department. I remember being astonished when, down the telephone, he called me “fucking stupid” for disagreeing with him on some minor policy matter. I had simply never come across that kind of aggression in the FCO before. People who worked directly for him had to put up with this kind of thing all the time.
Most senior ambassadors used to have interests like Chinese literature and Shostakovitch. Darroch’s are squash and sailing. He is a bull of a man. In my view, the most likely source of the leaks is a former subordinate taking revenge for years of bullying, or a present one trying to get rid of an unpleasant boss.
Much of the anxiety over this ambassador undoubtedly comes because Brexiters think a new UK-US trade deal is our salvation as we leave the EU.
However, as members of the EU, average tariffs are already very low (under 3%) I honestly think Brexiters aren’t aware of this. The idea lowering them further with a new UK-US trade deal is going to result in a huge boost in trade or replace UK- EU trade (which many times larger) seems like total delusion. And at what price? Certainly granting access to the US healthcare industry and permitting GMOs would be seen as too high a price by most UK voters for the minimal gains slightly lower tariffs could bring. The real costs and problems in trading with the US tend to relate shipping and issues of distance /proximity. Plus individual States apply their own taxes.
Suppose we could slash the 20% VAT, rate as Gove talked about doing, but that’s a domestic decision and it generates lots of revenue for the exchequer (the third-largest source of government revenue). Income tax – the only tax the Tories ever seem to talk about – generates only around 24% of total tax take.
Rather a farewell gift from Toxic Theresa to the anti-Trump forces in the U.S.? And a tad of support to ”moderate” mr Hunt as well?
In an American context a very small dose of poison, however, and as such perhaps beneficial to the Trump camp instead.
(O how TM & co must have been scared to death by the ”pro-Russian” WH during the recent years).
The Simplest Explanation – “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”
According to The Times yesterday he was brought up on a council estate in Abingdon. Though he got a a scholarship to a private school.
As for who is the leaker. This is the reason certain information was with held from Johnson when he was ForSec. He can’t be trusted.
He was departing year end though so hastening it was a poor risk vs reward ratio?
Being one of the few news outlets I trust, many thanks for the character insight.
Thanks for some clarifying words on the type of bully the HO and FCO prefer to employ these days. The only reason this was released now, imho, could be the seizing of the tanker and its crew which is now being questioned. This action was planned as the tanker sailed all around Africa, everyone knew it would be passing by Gibraltar unless it was sailing west to the America’s.
I think that this release could be a news catcher, a diversion from the pirate action of Gibraltar.
Iran said that it might want to seize a British tanker in return, and the ‘British Heritage’, under BP charter, was due to dock and load crude in Basrah, but since the Iranians threat to retaliate , cancelled the contract and sailed to shelter in the middle of the Persian Gulf, shelter indeed.
Somebody who might want to escalate this situation might want to prepare this tanker for a calamity, maybe exchange the crew for marines or soldiers/ prepare the empty ship for another missile/projectile of sorts to be fired at.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-08/bp-oil-tanker-shelters-in-persian-gulf-on-fear-of-iran-seizure
The last thing a Brexiting UK wants is aggro or worse, possible involvement in what would no doubt be an extremely unpopular war with Iran. Anti-Brexit protests put a near million on the street, how many protested the Iraq war? Do the elites want to see combination and have London streets packed with the angry masses? Doubt it.
Might not be a bad theory. Would explain why it was given to Oakshott to go public with if so. Distract from our own blatantly illegal behaviour and get in a few ‘unofficial’ shots at the Trump admin? A 2 for 1 deal! Someone in the British state has had to go out on a limb for the Americans, if that is why we’ve seized the tanker, anyway.
The first thing I noticed when I saw the story breaking on channel 4 news on Sunday was the lack of context around Darroch’s comments on Iran. Struck me as odd how we were left to figure out for ourselves whether Darroch was speaking positively or negatively when discussing Trump’s reluctance to attack Iran.
Juat a threat from Iran has stopped this shipment and no doubt sent insurance costs up. So the tanker siezure has bitten the UK in the bum.
Just more mindless assumptions that HMG can be trusted after the Russophobic Skripal hunt.
He likes squash and sailing?
The nerve..How low FCO has sunk nowadays. You must cry bitterly into your pillow over the injustice of it all, heathens now parading as diplomats..
he likes to treat his employees like crap, and lies like there’s no tomorrow to fit in with warmongers. that isn’t a diplomat, he’s wretchedly unqualified for the job.
A liar and a bully, with no culture. Sounds exactly like a US “diplomat” to me. Maybe he should defect?
I cant believe our government and the secret services didn’t know of and approve of Steele’s activities in discrediting Trump to help Clinton. Now that Russiagate has failed, Trump will be after the CIA and FBI guys who colluded with Clinton and later supported by Muller. This threatens the deep state and the warmongers control of any President. Trump is not happy with our role and our own deep state seems to me, to be doubling down on its interference. The Lolita Express blackmail scandal also threatens many powerful and the puppet masters behind that dark sick project. Barr cant be allowed to have a full investigation….Epstein might suddenly fall very ill. Our James Bond’s !! have always been obsessed with trying to steer the old colony and cant kick the habit. I fear this leak is again, another attempt to try and undermine Trump in favour of the Clintonites and war lobby.
If the reports are true that Darroch said Trump’s administration is inept I have to say Darroch may be unpleasant but he’s not wrong. I’d differ on the reasons for regarding it as inept but inept it certainly is. I’d say managing to start arguments with everybody, starting trade wars, immoral sanctions, warmongering, failing to build his wall, persecuting Assange and generally managing to make America even more unpopular than it already was is fairly strong evidence for my point of view.
Tangentially, I think the President of the USA has the absolute right to declare the guy persona non grata, which is what he’s at least personally done, if not officially as head of state. I’d like your opinion Craig!
Exactly. Surely the traditional response is to declare the relevant individual “persona non grata” and give him a set time to get out of the country. (And presumably not come back until he has mended his fences).
After all, the UK, the USA and many other nations expelled scores of Russian diplomats over the Skripal fantasy.
My father served as British/Scottish cultural attache in several countries, so I have some idea what I’m talking about. An ambassador’s role is to liaise with the government to which he is accredited, and that requires a delicate and courteous manner.
If you know what you’re talking about you must also know that ambassadors, while expected to show courtesy towards their host country, are also entitled to display honesty when communicating with their own country! Such communications are classified, obviously, and were, in this case, deliberately leaked.
I’m pretty certain US ambassadors in various countries have sent home unfavourable reports/assessments in their time. It’s called doing the job.
From Craig’s article: “They are widely distributed. These Darroch telegrams would be addressed formally to the Foreign Secretary but have hundreds of other recipients”
IF Darroch did use such a telegram system for something so sensitive, he should be sacked.
I agree. We have no idea of the context in which the comments were made, especially when you think they were, seemingly, written comments. What was he responding to which gave him reason to be so undiplomatic and potentially (at the time of him writing) so controversial? Surely he wouldn’t have come out with such damning comments a propos of nothing. I could understand him voicing such opinions indiscreetly with his cronies informally at a cocktail party after a few drinks but how and why and to whom did he actually come to say what he did officially? As you say, whatever the circumstances – and let’s face it he didn’t say anything that most of us didn’t know or suspect anyway – you would have thought he might have been more circumspect than to comment officially as he did.
And as @Northern says above (9 July 16.27), a point which occurred to me likewise, it isn’t clear whether Darroch was actually endorsing the idea of a military attack on Iran in his criticism of Trump for seemingly changing his mind. Knowing the current UK Government’s warmongering stance on international affairs it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the UK saw it as a missed opportunity for the UK forces ‘to get stuck in’ and take attention away from the Brexit shambles, and Darroch was just reflecting this position via his frustrated criticism of Trump.
I’ve posted earlier, as has someone else, that other accounts given this week say the opposite. They say these particular communications would have been seen by very few people.
There is never a simple explanation with these kind of matters.
America is at war with itself,as it must be.
It’s her final war and it was always meant to be this way and it has to be.
But it’s more complicated than that still.
UK doesn’t know which America to have it’s Special Relationship with.
This is a problem.
“War with itself” is really an exaggeration, but of course, there are factions and distinctions that have importance to those involved. That said, where is a difficulty for the British? It is not like the latter are in a position of a maiden that may have but one official fiancee, or that they do not know how to fork their tongues.
“Most senior ambassadors used to have interests like Chinese literature and Shostakovitch. Darroch’s are squash and sailing”
Ouch!
If the information was leaked by someone that Kim Darroch bullied in the British foreign service, that doesn’t explain a) why the Daily Heil published it, or b) why the FCO confirmed it. Someone could simply have told the Heil “national security, old chap”. Shtomp. No f*cker at the Heil would dare try a “first amendment” lark with the DSMA. Not unless Tory politics is involved.
I won’t be surprised if a subordinate or former subordinate gets “suicided”, though, in order to keep an investigation from having to be seen to look in certain places.
Trump has called May “foolish”. Any western leader, or leader of any country, who suggests Kim Darroch is anything other than a piece of poo for being so rude about Lord High Emperor Trump may find himself or herself on the wrong end of a Trump tweet.
Here is a wonderful chance for the Kremlin:
1. Release cables about Trump written by other NATO countries’ diplomats (Germany, Turkey, France, Poland, etc. etc.).
2. Sit back and enjoy the deranged Trump’s tweets in response.
3) Watch NATO collapse.
The U.S.A. Deep State may be the conduit.
Trump fucked them over with his last minute visit to Kim in North Korea, they still want to make his seem feranged but at one removed, come in Mr. U.K. Ambassador
They might wish to off the nutcase if he screws up relations with any other
dependency“ally”. His personality seems to be a genuine obstacle.Much ado about nothing.
“Inept” is quite polite and decent, comparing to the incident when an US diplomat told another US diplomat “F*ck the EU”, and the other replied “exactly”. US diplomacy has explained it was a private conversation, if no interception – so would be no resentment.
Now it’s time for them to follow their own principle.
or, compare with the terminology, that caused a permanent knocking of dropping jaws in the populations of both countries. Since from Sunday night we are sitting here and waiting for war with Georgia.
I posted it in the forum
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/new-applicant-for-novichok/
Tatyana, thanks for posting the link and translation of those insults. No doubt you saw that Putin dealt with this yesterday in a very impressive manner. Educating us about the dubious background to Georgia’s claims over Ossetia and Abkhazia.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/60962
Yes, I saw an interview on Al Jazeera with one pundit saying they reckoned the field of suspects was large but they thought it was someone vying for his job.
I had a thought that the source (from the newspaper’s point of view) may be considered SO impeccable that they were willing to take the story at face value with a few lines quoted. I know that there ARE certain memos I have seen where I could quote them word for word (they were so explosive) and I was never at any time at any where NEAR the level of mixing with people of that grade. A quote from a memo two years since also covers the leaker well as by now absolutely everyone has read it. So unless it was printed from their personal printer I reckon they’re in the clear.
This whole incident will now be used by Trump to aggressively set out his stall on how he will deal with any future trade negotiations after Brexit. For the first, and probably last, time I agree with Jeremy Hunt’s stance on this. He has stated, after Trump’s latest Twitter outburst, that he (Trump) is being ‘disrespectful to the UK’ and that he will keep Darroch in post should he become PM. Hunt WON’T become PM but perhaps this publicity will force Boris to say the same, rather than kowtow to Trump as he almost inevitably will. If Trump is able to dictate who the UK’s Ambassador is then he ‘wins’ on a psychological level before negotiations have even begun.
And…a small point which has REALLY gotten under my skin today. This story has run on EVERY channel on EVERY single news programme and I think only ONCE has anyone managed to pronounce his name properly. Darroch is NOT an uncommon name. It’s not a foreign name in a foreign language that anyone should be unaccustomed to. It follows the ‘ch’ convention of other words common in Scotland and known to EVERYONE in the UK. So why is it SO hard for people outside Scotland (apart from the Irish obviously) to say Darroch? It’s not that they don’t know how it should be pronounced, they do. Every time I hear it mispronounced I actually feel offended. It can only be a deliberate kind of laziness as I know for a fact that the BBC, for example, has a department which researches various words and names and provides presenters with the correct way to pronounce them. The little things ARE important. How ridiculous, and frankly offensive, would non Scottish viewers stand for ‘Smith’ being pronounced ‘Smyte’ over and over. They wouldn’t believe anyone could be stupid enough to do that other than deliberately, and they’d be right.
“I had a thought that the source (from the newspaper’s point of view) may be considered SO impeccable that they were willing to take the story at face value with a few lines quoted.”
The Daily Heil would say screw the Official Secrets Act simply because its source was impeccable? The editor would soon land in prison with that attitude. Or he wouldn’t have got the job in the first place.
But this is not just the work of a disgruntled actual or former subordinate, although one or more of those may be involved.
You might not get a reply, but it might be worth e-mailing the address given below.
The fabled BBC Pronunciation Unit seems to be very shy of outsiders:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/production/articles/production-resources#pronunciation-unit
“Pronunciation unit
The BBC Pronunciation unit is staffed by professional linguists who research and provide advice about pronunciations in any language. This advice is free of charge and is available exclusively to BBC staff, programme makers and independent production companies producing content for the BBC.
Pronunciation advice can be given over the phone and via email. When contacting the unit, programme makers are asked to provide programme details, context and to specify their deadline. Scripts should be sent with the required pronunciations clearly marked.
In exceptional circumstances (eg if child actors are involved) the unit may be able to supply spoken pronunciations as digital sound files.
Written pronunciations can be provided in either of two in-house respelling systems:
BBC Modified Spelling (for BBC-internal use, requires a special BBC font)
BBC Text Spelling (plain text, no special font required)
Telephone: 020 361 44700 (for the exclusive use of BBC staff, programme makers and independent production companies producing BBC content)
Email: [email protected]
Please note: if you have a comment or complaint about a BBC programme please visit the dedicated BBC Complaints website. “
Years ago, when I was young and naive, I repeatedly submitted complaints and queries to the BBC. After filling in the compulsory 12-page form (which has no progress bar so you never know if there are three or 59 pages left to complete) you are invited to give your personal details, and then you wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.
After a few weeks you may get either a short acknowledgement or a boilerplate reply, generally summarising the policy to which you were objecting. And as they do not have the courtesy to include a copy of your complaint, you have usually quite forgotten that ever submitted it.
I gave up.
47 days ago, I complained to them about their failure to report on the leaked OPCW report on Douma.
42 days ago, I received the expected boilerplate reply, which failed to answer any of my three questions.
I followed up, the same day, with a more detailed set of questions, designed to put them on the spot a bit more.
26 days ago, I received an e-mail apologising for their failure to reply within their target figure of 20 days.
Yes, you’ve guessed it, I’m still waiting.
(I long, long ago stopped bothering to inform them of any of the multitude of relatively straightforward factual errors and technical problems on their abysmally designed website, but this is the first time I have attempted to complain about anything political. It seemed worth a shot.)
I have similar experiences. Stonewalling and standard replies that have no meaning is thier stock in trade.The whole process is a sham.
On the matter of BBC pronunciations you will recall the Khashoggi case and seeming confusion about whether the ‘gg’ was simply voiced as a ‘hard g’, or whether it was pronounced Khashog-gee. It seemed to be concluded that the latter was in keeping with the relevant language of origin. However, a close friend of his in the UK was interviewed on Radio 4 after his disappearance and he specifically said to the interviewer that he was becoming frustrated by the BBC’s usage of ‘Khashog-gee’ because Khashoggi himself actually pronounced the ‘gg’ simply as a ‘hard g’…and the friend implored the BBC to take note. At which the interviewer declared that the BBC’s [incorrect] pronunciation was the one they would continue to use because their researchers had established that it was ‘correct’. So if anyone is ever in doubt about how to pronounce their own name they should ask for the BBC’s advice!
Don’t waste your time. C(r)apita run BBC Complaints out of their shed in Darlington.
Indeed, but the e-mail address is not for the complaints department, but the Pronunciation Unit itself – and who knows, they might even know how to listen to English, as well as speak it! It’s not very likely that any good would come of it, I admit. The BBC is too well armoured, and their best employees are probably hobbled by bureaucracy.
“So why is it SO hard for people outside Scotland (apart from the Irish obviously) to say Darroch?”
I think it’s not so much that they find it hard as that they are unwilling to stoop to foreign pronunciation.
Watching Wimbledon (intermittently as more and more of it becomes quite unpleasant) I noticed that, after listening to the umpire pronouncing “Schwartzman” correctly (with the first “a” roughly as in English “dark”) for several hours, the English commentary crew (led by Sue Barker, who should know better) were still calling him “Schwortzman” (with the first a pronounced as in English “sort”).
The BBC has a pronunciation department, but – as Dorothy Parker put it when asked to say a sentence including the word “horticulture” – “you can lead a whore to culture but you can’t make her think”.
But Americans would probably pronounce it Schwortzman, as they seem to Americanise most German origin words eg their very own President Trump. However why the BBC would wish to follow suit is a mystery; possibly gearing up to become American owned…
Trump’s grandfather’s surname was “Trumpf”. (troompf). On moving to the USA, he did what many German immigrants did: he chose a pronunciation that wouldn’t alienate anglophones, and changed the spelling to match. Some americanized (and anglicised) german and jewish migrants have gone the whole hog, and literally translated their surname into english – e.g. “Battenburg” -> “Mountbatten”.
The Jeffrey Epstein case has become such a big scandal here in the U.S. that, if I am correct in my belief that Epstein’s criminal enterprise was a CIA operation and the public becomes aware of that fact, it could severely weajen U.S. intel agencies.
A new piece in the Daily Beast says that former prosecutor and current Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta says that he signed off on the cushy nonprosecution agreement for Epstein because a superior told him that Epstein belonged to intel and he should back off.
As a young NYU dropout without a degree or any teaching experience, Epstein was hired as a teacher by te exclusive Dalton School in New York. The school’s president at the time was Donald Barr, the father of current Attorney General William Barr snd a former officer of the CIA’s predecessor organization, the OSS. William Barr’s first job was with the CIA, where he worked several years. At Dakton, Epstein made contacts, and his career blossomed, as he moved on to Wall Street.
The source of his extraordinary wealth has never been explained.
And it is notorious how leniently the U.S criminal justice system deals with CIA assets.
Other organizations like MI6 and the Mossad may later have become involved, but this story begins with the CIA.
“The source of his extraordinary wealth has never been explained”.
A full explanation could get complicated and possibly rather dangerous.
The short version is, “He’s one of us”.
I do find the relative media silence around this and the other sex trafficking case that concluded recently to be rather revealing. It’s obviously tempting to dismiss the more absurd aspects of it as alt-right conspiracies but there does seem to be an interesting core to this story that someone’s keen to avoid talking about. Both stories can be easily linked to the Clinton’s and the Democratic Party establishment seemingly, but the only coverage I’ve seen in actual media sites has been keen to emphasise that Trump was once vaguely involved with Epstein’s son in some fashion and makes zero mention of all the photos of Epstein relaxing with Bill and Barrack. Given that such a story is easily as lurid and interesting as the 3 years of Russian collusion we’ve been subjected to, one can only speculate why this has been given such a wide berth by most of the media…
Being fond of conspiracies, I followed the original Epstein story with some interest. It had lots of juicy details. Ghislaine Maxwell ,( daughter of Robert) was his procuress and Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and celebrity lawyer Alan Derschowitz were all snarred in his net.
In was very surprised when Acosta sneaked through an absurdly lenient plea bargain.I did not realise this was done without informing his accusers, which made it illegal or that it only applied in Florida and not New York.
One thing which may yet catch out those caught up in the accusations, and insisting on their innocence, the use of Epstein’s private plane to fly people out to his private island. Or maybe it was private planes. All flights have to file passenger manifests. Thus may yet reveal passengers with surprising memory lapses.
Yeah this whole new dimension which has been unfolding over the last few days caught me by surprise, I too thought Acosta’s plea bargain was the story buried. The link Clark provided below sets out an overview of the situation that I hadn’t quite understood before also as I’d only seen it mentioned on detail lite Alt-right social media sites prior to this, which down play Epstein’s seemingly many connections to Trump. My takeaway from it all is that Epstein’s accusers appear credible and a whole host of figures from both the left and right sides of the spectrum are hoping this will all quietly go away. Nothing a world war wouldn’t solve, mind…
Apologies if it’s been mentioned, but the next question after ‘why,’ is always ‘why now’, after these sort of shenanigans.
I’d like to think it was to embarrass the odious Dr Fox, done by europhiles to sour the Mad Hat(t)ers get together.
The leaks about Trump that we need are more likely here:
https://twitter.com/soychicka/status/1067873908521648128
Scan of relevant document:
https://twitter.com/i/moments/1026279910434734080
Seth Abramson is a professor of law:
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1147873176141074441
A summary of the entire case by Attorney Andrew Kreig and journalist Wayne Madsen (though Wayne Madsen’s credibility is sometimes questioned):
https://www.justice-integrity.org/1445-welcome-to-waterbury-the-city-that-holds-secrets-that-could-bring-down-trump
The connection with Epstein is potentially very explosive as he is known to have been a close friend and according to some quote Trump said”they share similar tastes in beautiful women, some of whom are on the younger side”.
Thanks for the link Clark, informative.
“It appears to be a hyper-partisan hit job arranged high up in the Westminster apparat, designed to discredit an individual, Kim Darroch, deemed ideologically unsound.”
Rafael Behr’s take on this in the guardian.
No doubt Sir Alan Duncan will find the person responsible.
If Trump had read this before tweeting he could have nuanced his online dissing and complained that the Ambassador doesn’t know his Shostakovitch from his Bela Bartok, nor his Po Chu-i from his Wei Yang-Wu. That would have seen many a raised eyebrow and sharp intakes of breath. Trump is supposed to be a wildcard player, but he is becoming rather too predictable for a drawn out poker game.
BTW Craig are you saying that in the recent past ambassadors tended to prefer Russian and Chinese arts rather than say the talents of the French and Japanese?
People with ‘interests like ‘Chinese literature and Shostakovitch’ would never lie or bully – indeed, mentioning them in the same sentence as someone who participates in ‘squash and sailing’ is a crime against humanity.
Trump knows he will never be accepted by the so called elites in US or former colonial masters. Their combined repeated attempts to
control him and bring him down is the battle. The more they try the more they show themselves up. Bernie supporters were right to vote for him. Tulsi Gabbard interview on Tucker Carlson also reflects how both her and ‘right thinking’ Conservatives are fed up of where we are and where we’ve been led to by these murderous corrupt Neo Liberals.
Didm’t Hunt complain recently at a NATO meeting of increasing Russian cyber attacks,which are now considered the most likely source of Darroch’s memos, though they doubt that it is really so. We shall soon be surprised to learn that Assange was behind the hacking.
Great trailer for tomorrow’s panorama with those 3 labour peers resigning today.
Very well scripted chaps.
Yes, the script started nearly four years ago.
Just had that item on BBC radio 4’s The World Tonight and they got Margaret Hodge on to offer an independent balanced commentary.
Thank you Craig. Well explained and on the money I suspect. If he is a Blair / Campbell man, you need say more.
Craig Murray’s old mucker Jack Straw was on BBC radio 5 this morning backing Darroch, who apparently worked for Straw when Straw was foreign secetary. Straw (who was puffing a book on Iran) wasn’t worried about Trump, but was worried about John Bolton who he described as a warmonger. Surely not – surely no leading politician in a western govt. could possibly advocate going to war against a Middle East country because the country was oil rich!
The presenter, Emma Barnett, didn’t trouble Straw with his war criminal type activities, but she did hold on to him over a news bulletin break so that Straw could condemn Chris Williamson on antisemitism. Straw would kick Williamson out of the Labour party. I suspect the feeling is mutual. It was Straw who came up with the UN route to give cover for the UK to join the illegal war against Iraq. (etc. torture, rendition, Pinochet)
Must be so annoying and deeply frustrating to Labour party members that all these Blair supporters, hands covered in blood, are still so very influential in the party and given time to opine on radio, TV and in print. Charles Falconer talks about rooting out evil, in a piece for the guardian, how do they have the cheek?
Yes I’ve noticed that too….and Jack Straw is another one….
It still leaves disgraced former minister Liam Fox free to do deals with Bolton, Ivanka etc without any forceful FCO restraint, doesn’t it? The way he likes it. So, where’s Werrity got to?
The reality is too that no ordinary “leak” with such implications for British-American relations would be splashed across the Mail on Sunday without clearance at the highest – or nearly highest – level.
My guess would be the leak is an MI6 job to win brownie points with Trump’s opponents. After all, MI6 were supposedly involved in trying to stop Trump being elected in the first place, and have close contacts at the Mail on Sunday.
Also the rapid deployment of Farage, who is clearly some kind of puppet – unwitting or otherwise – of the American deep state, and the soft-soap interview by Justin Webb (former BBC Washington correspondent, just like Humphrys) suggest intelligence agency involvement on both sides of the Atlantic.
“Also the rapid deployment of Farage…”
Farage is a 21st Century Lord Haw Haw – complete with radio broadcasts.
We can only hope he has the same fate 😀
Nothing acid about that comment. 🙂
BBC Press Preview this evening and the host asks, in all seriousness, the following question to a reviewer “as a journalist are you more worried about the leak itself or the contents of the leak?”. Seems that the host thinks journalists are government spokespeople.
I’m afraid the MSM is now just the Daily Hit Piece. Where journalists, often women, just trot out a hit piece on the victim of the day. Darroch sounds like a braying jackass, but presumably didn’t leak this himself. So I have a modicum of sympathy for him. He would have expected private observations to remain private (well, apart from the NSA). Clearly he has a raging case of TDS, but that’s pretty standard these days, among our betters.
Mind, he doesn’t come across as a terribly good diplomat. This guy is hardly Metternich. Good time to get rid, I’d think.
The more I think about this, the more I believe that the leaked message was composed ”as a message to be leaked” (..so help me God, as Martin Luther used to say).
There is nothing new in it, nothing of substance that an ambassador would present to his superiors ( not even entertaining gossip of any kind..).
After all, the weaknesses of Trump and his government have been on display for years. To an extreme degree, one might say.
But the leaked formulations will be quoted by the Democrats during the next election campaign. It will be quoted durting a possible impeachment process. And in any case it does support the standard mainstream anti-Trump narrative. May may like it.