I owe an apology to all those who are kind enough to subscribe to my blog. I was determined that I would not let my impending trial affect my output, but have been unable to see that through. It is partly because preparation does take up much more time than I had imagined. But it is mostly because I find it hard to put my mind to anything else and really concentrate.
I do not want to give you the impression that I am very worried, or depressed. I am rather angry; a deep, seething anger that keeps breaking into my thoughts. I am rather worried about this. I can with fairness claim to have devoted much of my life to fighting against injustice. I was prepared to sacrifice an extremely prestigious and lucrative career to take a stand against UK complicity in torture, driven largely by empathy for the victims. I have assisted with numerous individual human rights cases and particularly asylum claims, including representing people, without fee, before immigration courts. But I am nonetheless alarmed by how much more viscerally angry I am when the injustice is against myself than when it is against another. I am aware that is very unattractive. This fury at being personally mistreated is disproportionate and quite wrong, and ought not to stop me working. I feel guilty about it.
Among the results is a very annoying writers’ block. I have been intending this last five days to write an article on Barack Obama’s failure while President to tackle institutional racism and societal inequalities in the USA, and relate that to the remarkable fact he paid much less attention to aid to Africa than George W Bush. I enjoy writing most when I am running counter to the prevailing narrative and pointing to inconvenient fact. But the lines of logic refuse to flow, the fascinating asides do not pop up, and then I remember something else I must tell my lawyers.
Please do not worry. I am not sad, and my anger does not manifest itself by being horrible to others; on the contrary, for once I seem to be particularly considerate to my family and appreciative of how fortunate I am. The purpose of this post is to apologise to you, and thank you for your patience. It is not a signal of giving up – I do not intend to wait until after the trial before getting back to normal. Please bear with me.
We’re all missing you but we know you’ll be back soon when you’ll be free of this burden. I’ve every confidence in you that the truth will come out in your favour. Take care and best of luck.
Hi Craig.
Impressed with the line up of people in your corner.
You are a shining light.
I find being angry helps me focus.
Their hate us your weapon.
Keep on keeping on.
There is more to do.
A wee guy like myself is without power yet joined with others we are a force.
Change comes from within, I hope we can break this corruption
This stink, this rottenness within our legal , police and parliament.
I am not happy with the national in their lack of journalism.
Ok they printed your letter and the list of people in the letters page.
It should be on the front page.
They can print Engerlish news in their pages daily yet this
Is more important to a democracy.
Stay strong we are all out there rooting for you.
Regards
Always so scrupulously honest. Please don’t be so excoriatingly self-critical. You are exceptional in your approach to justice and truth. Focus on your case and feel the trust and support of your readers.
Good luck and warm wishes.
Thanks for the update, Craig, see you on the other side.
Dear Craig, you don’t need to apologise to anyone. If, out of a sense of duty to your readers, you feel you have let us down then may I, as one of your readers, say that your work here talking to power with truth and honesty and integrity shows clearly that you have not let us down. You have lifted us up. I would never have know the dirty story behind Alex Salmond’s persecution, if it hadn’t been for you, nor the terrible injustice meted out to Julian Assange nor indeed to yourself. Thank you for all you do to shine a light on the shadows. The truth will out. Best wishes for your upcoming trial.
Perfectly understandable. Concentrate on the matter at hand. We will still be here ?
Craig,
Don’t ever forget that you are not alone in this, I and my wife check your blog every morning and find your writing and topics very very interesting.
It’s hard at the moment in so many ways, corona virus aside it is difficult to keep going and sometimes we think “are we the only ones” ? But what you show us is that we are definitely not on our own ! The sheeple will continue to go through life quite happy as long as I’m a celebrity get me out of here and X factor are on the telly and they have someone to blame for all their ills like immigrants and benefit claimants.
We both have signed the open letter and I have applied and been accepted to witness your trial, I’m just waiting for the details of how to access it on the day. I hope to watch much of it and we will be cheering you and your team on all the way.
Now for the soppy bit !! Craig you are an inspiration to so many people and loved by us all so don’t forget that and keep going, keep fighting and stay safe my friend.
Mr Murray , as a subscriber, I am more than happy for you to be concentrating on yourself at this time . Good to know you are human , you are amazing insightful and unfailingly polite.
Please , focus that anger and deal as best you can with the awful situation you have been put in.
We can wait .
Kindest regards
Independence is about a nation and its people being freed from colonial oppression. Scotland seems little different. Native peoples are generally aware from early on that colonial courts/police are the main tool used to oppress them. The courts are one of the few places where the lowest native gets to see and listen to the different language and culture of the secretive, unaccountable, privileged, colonialist establishment elite. The Scots-speaking working classes, just like the black communities in Minneapolis or Jo’Burg, have known this oppression for a long time, and still know it. Why do we think that it is mostly working class Scots speakers who seek national independence? Most of the natives can’t afford a lawyer, so at least Craig has an advantage there. According to Fanon, it may take the intellectual and bourgeois nationalist classes a bit longer to figure out or find themselves subjected to the same colonial oppression. That this is happening now suggests we may be rapidly heading towards the end-game, in which Independence is first and foremost about the removal of colonial oppression.
Stay angry, Craig. It is a very necessary valve in the pressure cooker of boiling injustice. We are with you all the way. You don’t need to cater to any more than we would wish to contribute to that pressure. We do and will bear with you.
Dear Mr Murray.
Thank you for keeping us all informed. I have only once commented over the 9 years I have followed your blog.
I hope and pray that you will remain strong and focused and in good health.
We need you Mr Murray, you are such an impotant voice for so many of us who have been duped by the media and governments.
Please be aware we are with you especially at this time and will support you in what ever way we can.
God bless you and all who are advising you, that JUSTICE will be complete.
Of interest to readers on here.
Q4 to Starmer from Matt Kennard of the Grayzone.
4. What role did you play in the CPS’s irregular handing of the Julian Assange case?
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/05/five-questions-for-new-labour-leader-sir-keir-starmer-about-his-uk-and-us-national-security-establishment-links/
Also of possible interest to long term readers.. Usmanov’s ‘yacht’ has arrived in Southampton.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8392669/Worlds-biggest-super-yacht-worth-515-million-arrives-UK-week-long-voyage-Barcelona.html
It’s not much, but after years of reading I recently reassigned my former Labour Party membership dues to support this blog. Take as long as you need Craig, my support isn’t going anywhere.
I am thinking of resigning from the Labour Party too. I am just not sure. Is it worth sticking with the party and trying to change it from within…..or is it better to ditch it, and use the money for something else such as supporting Craig? How did you decide?
Your sentiments show that, like the rest of us, you are human. It is absolutely normal and understandable that your train of thoughts does not flow as freely as it normally would. The anger about the frivolity of the trial, the added pressure and workload preparing for the case – the utter waste of your valuable time! No need to apologise. Keep doing the good work.
No need for apologies, just stay strong and know that we are with you. Looking forward to your article on Barack Obama when you have the time and energy.
The Winter issue of Lobster Magazine is launched. In, The view from the bridge, Robin Ramsay asks; “Is the Scottish state really stupid enough to make a martyr of Murray? Apparently so.”
Link:
The view from the bridge (PDF) by Robin Ramsay
South of the border (PDF) by Nick Must
How our politicians helped to kill UK manufacturing (PDF) by Robin Ramsay
Book Reviews – The State of Secrecy: Spies and the Media in Britain, by Richard Norton-Taylor (PDF) reviewed by Scott Anthony
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/issue80.php
The quote about Craig is here.
‘There’s something about David
So there was David Aaronovitch, in his role as Conspiracy Theorist Hunter, in The Times on 28 May sneering at Craig Murray for speculating that Dominic Cummings’ story about his drive to Barnard Castle might be the cover for something else. Striking – if not surprising – that Aaronovitch didn’t write about the preceding item on Murray’s blog, about his prosecution by the Scottish legal system for his reporting on the Salmond case. Is the Scottish state really stupid enough to make a martyr of Murray? Apparently so.’
Aaronovitch has never got over Craig outing him as the creator of 5 star reviews of his own book on the Amazon website.
“Aaronovitch has never got over Craig outing him as the creator of 5 star reviews of his own book on the Amazon website.”
Why? No-one else would give him five? ;O) ;O) ;O)
There is no ‘Scottish state’ until Scotland is independent. The ‘Crown’ (COPFS/Police) is the legal embodiment of the British state in Scotland. Wings established that Holyrood Ministers have no powers over ‘Crown’ activities, they merely rubber stamp budgets.
No argument from me. One of the few missteps Alex Salmond made was to rename the jumped up regional Cooncil at Holyrood a “Parliament”.
Indeed, it has led to delusions of grandeur in certain quarters
The Scottish State in this instance refers to the Scottish legal establishment in conjunction with Police Scotland and the Scottish parliament. Which is not unreasonable.
It would seem reasonable, assuming there existed a ‘Scottish State’, however that is not the case. The ‘Scottish legal establishment’ (i.e. Crown) is therefore part of the British State, as is ‘devolved’ Holyrood and the so-called ‘Scottish Government’, formerly known as the ‘Scottish Executive’, the latter staffed by Whitehall’s finest.
Don’t talk rubbish, @Alf. Have you ever been to Scotland? The vast majority of state bureaucrats in Scotland, from senior figures in the executive right down to the c***s in local councils, are Scottish – and they are corrupt thieving lying sh*ts with it, and it wasn’t English people or the union that made them like that.
I’m not sure race, colour, creed, nationality, have much to do with it.
Surely the argument is that they’re Scottish people working to City of London interests rather than the national interest of Scotland.
Not an uncommon phenomenon, when you look round the world.
Of course, there’ll be those who argue that the national interest of Scotland lies in working to City of London interests.
Difficult to envisage SNP pols arguing that publicly, but all you really need to show is that their actions betray such a view.
No need to apologise to your subscribers, Craig. Everyone who reads yr blog is aware you are going thru an extraordinarily testing period. If you are concerned that you cannot update your blog as often you feel you should, I am sure some people will be happy to be referred to previous posts of yours on issues still ongoing or perhaps to links to recent interviews of yours on Youtube. Maybe even an update on your son’s music festival activities and how the COVID-19 lockdown is still affecting them.
No one can blame you for failing to have ‘professional detachment’ from an issue so pressing and so personal. The real risk of imprisonment and of reputational damage (the true aim I suspect) are difficult to lift one’s mind from. This would be bad enough but you are CLEARLY not guilty of ANY wrongdoing and the case has been brought for precisely the reasons of damaging your reputation and ‘shutting you up’ Those that make decisions on these matters would be far happier if no one reported the facts from Julian Assange’s kangaroo court appearances or the publicly available facts of the Salmond case.
They might slow you down, for a while, but they won’t stop you. Ultimately they lose and justice seems a little less further away than it was before…
“the case has been brought for precisely the reasons of damaging your reputation and ‘shutting you up’”
Aye, but all the evidence to date shows that the Craig has been much energized in adversity.
He’s beaten much bigger than the current Hollyrood crew.
And he’s massively better known today than he was then.
I feel a Streisand Effect coming on.
Craig,
I am aware that it is deeply ironical to say that I know exactly how you feel in your inability to feel others’ pain like your own. But we are united not only despite our inability but rather because of it. Be strong. We will stay alongside you come what may.
I think you are angry at the injustice in the way you’re being treated because you have such an ingrained belief in justice for all of society, and because you would never insult someone by treating them unjustly. You have been hugely insulted.
“This fury at being personally mistreated is disproportionate and quite wrong.” Don’t be daft: it may be disproportionate but it’s quite right.
Look at it the other way round – it’s going to give you a good chance to kick Them in the goolies.
Either that or they suffer own goolies….
Hi Craig. I’m not one for sending in comments etc,.. but just wanted to wish you well in the circumstances you presently find yourself.
Keep yer chin up and know that many people are supporting you in a variety of ways. All the best. Will. M.
We can only admire you.
You are a thoughtful man and a fine writer.
But the human condition is heavy with unfairness and hostilities.
No apology necessary!
I am with you, Craig. Best wishes for next week and I shall be watching and rooting for you.
You are doing this for all of us, Craig.
You are a beacon of integrity.
Craig, as far as i’m concerned, you’re entitled to feel anger in relation to your situation.. I’d be surprised if you weren’t.. Your boundaries are being transgressed and righteous anger is a valid response, and i trust that you’ll find the way to allow that anger to take you even deeper into your integrity and wisdom, so as to win your case against the establishment.
All of us on here, who genuinely value your investigative journalism are holding you in our strongest thoughts i’m sure.
No apology required, carry on your good work but keep us posted on your case please
Craig,
I watched them go after Salmond in shock.
I watched them go after Assange in shock.
And I am watching them go after you and these other Salmond supporters in shock.
But to be the object of this abuse in real time… I don’t think any of us can really appreciate how outrageous this must feel first hand.
Make no mistake they intend to totally screw you.
Scotland is not a legal banana republic…that is doing this a big favour, this is far more sinister than that.
Dont let them grind you down.
Craig,
I was born in Jamaica; schooled in the UK and attended university there where I got some practical experience in my chosen profession; returned to the Caribbean and here I am happily ever after.
Now, when you get to this:-
” Barack Obama’s failure while President to tackle institutional racism and societal inequalities in the USA, and relate that to the remarkable fact he paid much less attention to aid to Africa than George W Bush”
PLEASE – WRITE ON!
As so many others have written, there’s no need to apologise. You are being treated abominably. But just be assured that you have the support of many thousands of readers.