I went to jail in order to expose the fact that Alex Salmond was being framed on false charges, orchestrated within the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s office and testified to by perjury committed by individuals very close to Sturgeon, who made fake claims of molestation. They were seen right through by a largely female jury. But the details of the defence case were reported by nobody but me, (I was jailed for it). The mainstream media, led by the BBC, conducted in unison a campaign to portray Salmond as guilty and the verdict as perverse, by presenting to the public only the prosecution case.
My reports of the actual evidence were removed from the internet by the courts.
Alex Salmond is a remarkable man. Since 1707 nobody has managed to bring Scotland closer to Independence than he. Those who tried to jail him live large on his political legacy, while cooperating with the British state to kill off the Independence movement.
Alex is now a much diminished figure. The effect of the current cultural climate is that any man accused of sexual offence, even if cleared by a jury, even if the accuser was as plainly lying as the truly evil Woman H, can never recover their reputation. There is, extraordinarily, a very serious strain of currently accepted dogma, that a woman must always be believed in such circumstances, whether she is lying or not. This is an abjuration of logic and return to medievalism.
A further strain of thought I have encountered is that nine separate accusers could not possibly have been lying. Well, it is certainly highly unlikely unless they were orchestrated and acting in concert. The evidence they were orchestrated and acting in concert is overwhelming. Much of it remains locked by the court, having been kept even from the rigged Holyrood parliamentary inquiry (and it was excluded from the Salmond trial itself by Lady Dorrian as “collateral”). I hope that my appeal to the European Court of Human Rights will cause this material finally to be produced – and enable me eventually to explain to you, in full, what actually happened in the Sturgeon conspiracy.
It will certainly be a huge relief to be able to fight the legal case away from this cesspool of corruption.
Well, Alex Salmond still battles away, now leading a fringe party. As it becomes obvious that the SNP has abandoned the Independence cause in favour of careerism (and frankly I am astonished by how many good people in the SNP are still in denial), in a year or two Alba may break through suddenly, in the way Sinn Fein took over from the Redmondites. I have joined Alba, though it is generally known I entirely disagree with its enthusiastic espousal of the anti-trans rights narrative. Please don’t discuss that issue in the comments – the entire internet is full of places you can do that.
Most of my readers are not in Scotland, a great many not in the UK. They are much puzzled as to why I went to jail over Alex Salmond. There are two points. The first is that I like to think I should have done the same for anybody who was being framed on false charges by the state, had the matter come to my attention. The second is that I have always admired Alex as the champion of the suppressed Scottish nation.
As I say, he is a much diminished figure at this moment, and here he is addressing the conference of his small party (though I believe the third in Scotland by membership) yesterday. Much of what he says is, by force of circumstance parochial, particularly in the first ten minutes. But I think there may be enough here to give some idea of why the state felt he has to be destroyed.
And why I felt obliged to try and stop them.
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Peter Wright published Spycatcher (1987) in Australia. Surely someone could publish an account of the Sturgeon conspiracy beyond the corrupt influence of the Scottish judiciary? In those pre-internet days, Spycatcher was smuggled into the country by tourists in their luggage. Nowadays some enterprising saul could import in bulk and sell through Gumtree or similar.
In this day and age, anyone could write this up and sell it as ebook or print and exclude it from sale on one of the Amazons many online sites, written by a pseudonym would mean this would be untraceable and could even be released for free so anyone could read it
I raised this very point nearly a month ago:
“Fred Dagg
March 4, 2022 at 11:33
Abstracting from the details of the case, the question that interests me is why, once it had become evident that high-level corruption was involved, you did not switch to publishing outside the jurisdiction of the Scottish/UK State. You would have been able to name names from Day 1 and avoid any cost (legal, financial, and potentially health) to yourself and financial to those who dug into their pockets to support the legal action. Maybe I’m missing something?”
and got the following answer:
“craig Post author
March 4, 2022 at 12:05
Yes – if you are resident in Scotland it makes no difference where you publish. In fact legally you are publishing in Scotland, plus publishing in the other jurisdiction.”
The Guardian moved to publishing under the protection of the US 1st Amendment (guardian.com) after the “hard drive episode” (while continuing to argue against free speech at every opportunity – what jolly good liberals!) and, as you mention, Peter Wright published in Australia quite openly. If CM has been advised that “…if you are resident in Scotland it makes no difference where you publish…”, I would be inclined to get a second opinion.
The law is perfectly plain Fred, there is no doubt about it at all. I should have to leave Scotland before publication, and not return. It is not in fact my wish to publish the names of all of the women involved anyway even if I could. That is not necessary and some of them were led or cajoled into this rather than being the masterminds behind it.
Fair enough and sorry to labour the point. It’s just a great pity that this avenue is not available to you.
When the time comes, you may find it difficult to find a printer/publisher in Ukistan.
I have a friend up in Fuyong who has a printing company. She has produced magazines for me, print runs 500, I give her a print-ready pdf. She can handle books too, I have self-published several, hardbacks and paperbacks, over the years. I’ll be happy to do any pre-preparation work, cover the print cost and the shipment to any location. Just give me the text when you are ready.
I suggest you start to (metaphorically) put pen to paper now in readiness.
A great many know the names of the AlphaBettys, and continue to share by word of mouth, hints and clues, people abroad are preparing to name the wicked perjurers in a info dump, people who have never lived in Scotland. I’m sure they will time this for maximum impact.
I look forward to the backlash that ensues
“some of them were led or cajoled into this rather than being the masterminds behind it”
That is just a refined version of ‘only obeying orders’. Let them clear their conscience by admitting publicly which letter they represent. If successful, their actions in this case would have seen Salmond sentenced to prison, possibly for the rest of his life. For your troubles you actually served time.
What are you seeking? a nomination for ‘Gentlemen Snowflake’ of the decade…_
Exactly. Imagine if he’d been found guilty of just one of those allegations, eg touching someone’s back in a restaurant while his wife was standing between them. And he’d gone to jail for that, the media simply revelling in headlines of “sexual assault, sex pest etc” rather than explaining what he’d actually been sentenced for. And imagine you were that woman who’d made the accusation which had him jailed. I fail to see how any half-decent person could live with themselves after that.
Craig didn’t want to reveal their identities and he didn’t.
Nor would I if I knew them.
It’s up to the authorities to right this wrong not Craig or any other individual.
The BBC’s blatant erasure of the Salmond verdict is all too typical of that organisation. For as long as I can remember it has done nothing but lie and suppress on most of the big issues. Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Tory austerity. Scottish ndependence referendum campaign. Destruction of Libya. The rebels in Syria. EU referendum Project Fear. Trump Russiagate. Labour antisemitism. Corbyn Kremlin stooge for revealing Tory NHS privatisation plan….. Unfortunately few people seem to notice let alone remember any of this and so remain fertile prey for successive BBC propaganda blitzes.
All through the Cameron government the BBC talked about NHS reforms, and savings, rather than cuts. It must have been a conscious decision, so it’s pretty evil.
Yes all sounded extremely positive. Forgot even to mention their coverage of Ukraine and those barely discernible differences to their coverage of Israel, Yemen, Iraq…
Read this report to understand some of the BBC corrupt practices:
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/26/the-bbcs-ukrainian-war-messager/
Thanks, yes world leaders in smooth deception.
Is there a date for the European hearing yet, or any idea of timescale? All of this so badly needs to come out.
A good summary of the iniquity of the Sturgeon administration, one which can be pieced together if you assiduously follow the case and the commentaries upon it. But of course invisible in the media at large.
Alex Salmond makes two very good points which should be heard across Scotland, were there not a media blackout on his political opinions, thanks to the manoeuvres of the despot in Bute House. These are:
It is quite startling to hear someone lay out the case plainly and clearly, because we never hear this kind of debate either in Holyrood or the press or TV. Everything is brushed under the carpet, no-one questions the autocratic, very well remunerated colonial administrators, so the status quo is preserved, never challenged, and those that do are confined to the outer darkness, or charged with specious ‘crimes’.
What a state they have brought us to. On any metric they would be thrown out, but not in the sham of democratic government in Scotland.
Although the tichy Rishi anecdote was my favourite bit.
Two things I’ve never seen from Wikileaks are 1: Leaks concerning UFOs and 2: Leaks concerning the SNP.
It appears to me that the entire SNP, not just those at the top, are quite content with the status quo. I don’t even view the SNP as a political party anymore, I simply see them as an administrative body, much the same as any city council across the UK.
I think you can add the BBC to that list.
Mist001.
Sturgeon is a member of the Trilateral Commission, you don’t join it, you are picked.
Whoa, is that true? Would make everything even clearer if it is.
Scroll down to first names beginning with N.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Trilateral_Commission
There she is alright. So the leaders of both main ‘opposition’ parties belong to a secretive global ruling class organisation devoted to reducing democracy and entrenching the power of elites. And the public is blissfully unaware of it. They have Britain sewn up as tight as a drum.
I am pretty sure Sturgeon is not a member of the Trilateral Commission. Starmer certainly is. This is the 2021 list.
I think the list you’ve viewed has her down as having attended a meeting, perhaps the 41st Trilateral commission Europe conference 2017. If you search on DuckDuckGo, not on Google, “nicola sturgeon trilateral commission” then the second listing is to a pdf in which she’s listed as attending this conference – if you follow the link it takes you to a blank or unavailable page. Ah, now, I’ve followed the link provided on the page you referenced, and it produces this web archive, confirming her attendance.
So was Epstein.
He’s good.
And he’s back.
😉
He is good, isn’t he. Talking about the issues and offering solutions. Treating his audience with that respect. Replacing “they stole our oil” with “they are stealing our electricity” is a genius move – so simple, and it cuts through everything. I like his emphasis on Town Hall meetings: if you want to make a movement you must engage with people, make the arguments. I live in London – the Labour party could be doing this, rather than trying to game the media.
Otherwise, he’s doing a Trump thing with his hair. It’s horrible: go bald or wear a wig and own up to it!
Yes, all that, Andrew.
And the fact that he is a positive, reinforcing member of a team. He named Kenny McAskill, John, Denise Findlay, and a few others… And he is looking forward to going round and supporting the ALBA 100+ candidates for local election positions. The collegiality is there. The work ethic is there too.
The day job is not being done well by the SNP. And the scandal of the mismanagement of our energy resources when the SNP promised an investment bank and a national power company. Both of those issues needed to be called out. It would have been nothing to insist partial shares with ScotGov Power Company for any new developments… And thereby all Scotland’s fuel poverty would have disappeared.
Keeping the message simple, and positive, and astute. Nothing like it in modern Scottish politics. A veritable Jock Stein of the Politics of playing the ball and not the man.
Very powerful piece Craig. Well spoken/written, especially the opening two paragraphs.
The very best of luck in Europe.
“The mainstream media, led by the BBC, conducted in unison a campaign to portray Salmond as guilty and the verdict as perverse, by presenting to the public only the prosecution case.”
Surprise, surprise, this is exactly how the Ukraine conflict is being reported in the BBC and other western mainstream media. Putin is portrayed as guilty and only the ‘plucky courageous Zedensky’ (sic) prosecution case is presented.
There is a pattern. Funny that.
How can I get one of the Alba booklets Alex was showing? I looked on the Alba website but did not see it.
The speech was very direct, no vague waffle.
As usual, a compelling narrative, Craig. As I’ve said on here before, I disagree with a couple of things that you say. I have seen no compelling evidence of Sturgeon’s guilt wrt the conspiracy against Salmond. (The fact that there was a conspiracy against Alex Salmond has been proven in my mind).
I greatly respect you as a person and as a writer, but I refuse to accept the as evidence “I wish I could tell you everything I know”. I too hope that what you describe as compelling evidence does emerge out of your appeal to the European court. Once it does, I’ll be able to judge it. Until then, the jury is out for me .
If everything you say is true, then independence is dead – certainly in my lifetime. If there really IS a cabal at the head of the SNP, actively fighting against outright independence, then we are all screwed……because Alba is NOT – in its present make up of kooks and weirdos – going to produce an independent Scotland.
Last May, Alba claimed 6000 members. This week, in spite of some Alba enthusiasts calling it “the fastest growing political party in Europe”, Alex Salmond was able to claim only 6700 members, and intends putting forward only 100 candidates to fight the 1227 available seats at the upcoming local elections.
I sincerely hope that you are wrong about Sturgeon, Craig, because the ramifications of having to depend on Alba to get us independence mean that I will die as a UK citizen.
The evidence is in the identities of some of those protected by anonymity. Craig has not revealed that, but a little research and investigation will give you the clues, some of it in the national press, eg Garavelli. Those journalists revealed more than Craig but were mysteriously not prosecuted.
Garavelli still has the ear of the BBC, she is on the radio tomorrow, talking about her youth, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015bdj
All least I think that is what it is about.
I am glad to see Alex Salmond still in fine form, sad to say his program on RT has disappeared, I can only see the stuff at https://odysee.com/@RT:fd, I particularly miss Going Underground, Worlds Apart and Renegade Inc.
Re: ‘I have seen no compelling evidence of Sturgeon’s guilt…’
Our excellent host didn’t say that she was guilty in the post, just that the conspiracy was orchestrated within her office and that perjury was committed by individuals very close to her. Maybe I’m a fool, but I still think it’s possible that she wasn’t part of any conspiracy and genuinely believes what people are saying to her. That said, she does seem to have trouble remembering certain things.
Re: ‘If there really IS a cabal at the head of the SNP, actively fighting against outright independence, then we are all screwed…’
Support for Scottish independence was running at around 50%, and that was before the recent surge in oil prices and the pending cost of living crisis. If Brent crude trades at above $120 a barrel for several years – which could happen if Russian crude is largely taken out of the market because the Ruskies can’t replace critical spare parts – then there could be a real clamour for Indyref2.
“Ruskies can’t replace critical spare parts”
That would depend on where the spare parts are made.
If they can build rockets, they can make spare parts for anything. If the Russians stop exporting crude oil, it won’t be for lack of spare parts.
Thanks for your reply Johnny. The precision-engineered parts are mainly made in the US, Germany & Japan. Of course it’s probably possible that they could be made in China, but that would take time, skilled labour & lots of money. Maybe some could be smuggled out from the West, but it’s quite difficult to transport heavy engineering incognito, compared to, say, a couple of kilos of cocaine, like what ‘Boshirov & Petrov’ were probably up to.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. In the early 70’s, the US was sending men to the moon (and bringing them all back in one piece) and probes to the outer planets. At the same time, could it have extracted light tight oil in appreciable quantities from the Bakken shale? Nope. At present, by value, overall Russian manufacturing is 25 to 30 times than lower the US.
In the early 90’s, Russian oil production fell from around 12 million barrels a day to six million. They’ve since been able to get it up to around ten million using new technology from the West. At the moment, I believe the average cost of production of a barrel of Russian crude is $45, which must mean that most new wells require directional drilling, multiple fraccs etc. This takes a lot of expertise – i.e. what BP & Shell etc were doing there. The oil doesn’t just come gushing out like in Saudi.
Anyway, if I was a Russian official, at the moment, I’d probably be more worried about spare parts for combine harvesters – can’t imagine all Ruskie farmers use Rostselmash ones. Some of them might have to go back to using sickles.
I’m not sure they can build rockets. Apparently their largest tank manufacturer has shut down, due to lack of chips (modern tanks depend on lots of electronics). They’ve had 8 years to build up munitions stocks; now they’re dependent on those stocks.
Well spotted Jimmeh. According to the Ukrainian authorities (caveats apply of course), a Ruskie tractor factory has also had to stop production already due to a shortage of foreign-made parts.
“In the early 70’s, the US was sending men to the moon (and bringing them all back in one piece) and probes to the outer planets. At the same time, could it have extracted light tight oil in appreciable quantities from the Bakken shale? Nope. At present, by value, overall Russian manufacturing is 25 to 30 times than lower the US.”
The fact that the US couldn’t extract oil from shale in the 70’s was most likely because there was no need and the technology hadn’t been developed, not that they were incapable of doing it at the time. Extracting oil from shale is not exactly in the same league as building an atom bomb. There were no nuclear weapons before women got the vote. Do you think the two are somehow connected?
If you can make atom bombs you can make other precision-engineered parts, like what you need for your oil industry. Possibly not as cheaply at first, but that’s not the point in question. There’s an awful lot of stuff that we import in the UK that we could make here but don’t, because they can make it cheaper in China. The same goes for Russia. When the first round of sanctions was applied, Russia stopped importing food from the US and grew it themselves. They hadn’t been importing food because they couldn’t grow it.
“At the moment, I believe the average cost of production of a barrel of Russian crude is $45, which must mean that most new wells require directional drilling, multiple fraccs etc.”
Must, eh? It couldn’t possibly have another cause, like the winter temperatures, or the vast size of Russia?
Thanks again for your reply Bayard. You make a reasonable point about demand for oil from shale not being there until the 21st century, but consider this: North Korea can build atom bombs and (probably) intercontinental ballistic missiles to launch them, but it can’t develop its (non-shale) off-shore oil resources, even though, due to high oil prices and its ‘juche’ (self-reliance) political philosophy, it has every incentive to do so – as well as plenty of slave labour to help with things.
The current average cost of oil production in the fairly harsh environment of the North Sea is around $40 per barrel – less than in Russia. Seeing as labour costs in Western Europe must be at least four or five times those in Russia, as I said, there must be serious issues with their rocks, which need to be overcome in order to extract most Ruskie oil.
Apart from certain places in the Middle East, modern hydrocarbon extraction is a seriously complicated business. We might soon see whether or not Russia can do it by itself.
Craig, if I were Woman H I would sue you for libel !
On second thoughts ………….
“(and frankly I am astonished by how many good people in the SNP are still in denial)”
In denial or careerist as well, not one of the shower of chancers has come forward and let it out, what does that tell you, I know what it says to me.
I’m not seeing the Wee Alba Book anywhere…
It has just been launched so may not be widely available yet:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20022870.alex-salmond-launches-100-000-wee-alba-books-setting-case-scottish-independence/
Got it now:
http://www.albaparty.org/wee-alba-book
Thanks for that, just downloaded it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bilb_uplklU. The book is now available online.
There’s an enormous amount of unspoken, perhaps unprocessed pain residing inside Alex Salmond. He strikes me as the epitome of ‘greater heartbreak hath no man, than he betrayed by those he thought of as friends…’
He has all the campaigning knowledge in the world, that’s obvious. I can’t comment on whether his mastery of detail is equally comprehensive, that would take ‘reading his little Blue Book’.
Only he will know whether the fire still burns brightly enough inside to build a new movement from the ground up, staying true to its roots and able to filter out the undoubted infiltrators that will try and use the usual MI5/6 tricks on adversaries.
Dear, admirable, Craig Murray
That’s another great piece of writing, thank you.
But I am worried that the first words of this article: “I went to jail in order to expose the fact that…” could be used to suggest that you deliberately broke the Court’s rules to make a political point. I fear that might be used as a dangerous argument against you – the bastards never stop their attack.
As a reader of every word you have published about this, my clear perception is that you faithfully reported proceedings in the Court, carefully avoiding any possible risk of providing the last piece of Lady Dorrian’s subsequent, barmy, hypothetical jigsaw. You could not possibly have imagined that she would disregard the other thousands of pieces, in order to find your innocent references “a contempt”, worthy of jail time. So, I suggest a better, and safer, presentation of your first sentence might start: “I went to jail BECAUSE…”, and that would be easy to clarify now, before the bastards have a chance to weaponise it.
You are a Hero of the People, and I respect you enormously.
“…As it becomes obvious that the SNP has abandoned the Independence cause in favour of careerism (and frankly I am astonished by how many good people in the SNP are still in denial), …”
It is something that we’ve all had a great deal of practice at. SNP members still have a long way to go before they come close to the experience of those masses of workers who spent their lives believing that the Labour Party was on their side. Or the socialists who believed it to be a vehicle to a new, egalitarian society. Not to mention those naive enough to swallow Keir Starmer’s 10 pledges even when they knew who was funding him and that Mandelson was advising him.
Denying that we are being betrayed by amoral and greedy careerists, and sold out to the highest bidder by Fifth Columnists posing as patriots, is as British as snobbery and racism.
The SNP then, yet another example of Lenin’s dictum ‘the best way to manage the opposition is to run it youeself’.
«The SNP then, yet another example of Lenin’s dictum ‘the best way to manage the opposition is to run it youeself’.»
Of the three powers, to vote, count the votes, nominate candidates by far the most important is nominating the candidates.
The fondness of the corporate masters for “liberal representative democracy” is that they have long realized how cheap and easy is to reserve for themselves the power to nominate all candidates that matter. The populace can vote for any candidate they want as long as their master can nominate all the candidates they want. It’s not complicated.
> by far the most important is nominating the candidates.
This.
I am in favour of some kind of PR; but party-list PR is much more dangerous than FPTP, even if you consider the propensity of parties to parachute chosen candidates into FPTP constituencies. Party-list makes ALL candidates parachute candidates.
I suppose I favour multi-member consituencies. That would mean bigger parliaments (which I don’t want) or bigger constituencies.
MMP in NZ does work. The party list system is a “problem” only insofar as half the MPs are elected on party lists. The others are elected by constituency, but it’s true, even if defeated you can still end up in parliament through the list system. Still, as the vast majority of votes are cast for representatives of parties, the end result is totally reflective of the votes cast for those parties, and presumably their manifestos. However, it is much better than FPTP, which is basically seriously undemocratic. After all getting selected to a “safe” seat is basically the same as being on a party list. In the meantime our democracies have fractured into more competing parties, such as Greens, or Liberals etc. FPTP sort of works when there are only two parties – if you think it doesn’t matter that only a minority of “swing seats” will determine the election result (many people object to this) – but it is severely disadvantageous and distorting for any election with more than two parties. and that is I believe politically and morally unacceptable and is one of the major deficits of the Westminster system presently.
The devil’s plan is weak. Kaidashaytana dha’eefa.
In other words, the devil, viz psychopathic jealousy, can only hate, break things and destroy hope. Joe Biden said he looked to John Cain, who set up Islamic State, as a brother. Biden , by setting up Ukrainian Neo Nazism tried to destroy all hope for Russia, by demolishing their sacrifices in WW 2 against Nazism. Russia now has the universal respect of the entire world who are fed up with US behaviour.
Yet, in spite of the total wiping out of hope, Julian Assange marries in prison and has children.
In spite of being fitted up on non-existent sex charges, Alex Salmond is free and starting his political career afresh with Alba.
These are epic struggles and Homeric battles in the face of evil. I have two thoughts , one secular and one religious, both saying the same things in different ways. Firstly to pay tribute to human courage, to fight against the politics of domination and power, with hope and love and logic to build counter- political narratives .
Secondly to say that in both the Gospel and the Qur’an it is mentioned that ‘ the slave is not greater than the master’. In other words prophets are deliberately accompanied by human devils , like every body else, who work against them to try to frustrate them. This is intentional and the devils that are sent to annoy great men and women are worse than normal.
The purpose of this is to show us how with patience, truth friendship and courage, evil is defeated. If there was no epic , Satanic adversary, we could just say that that was easy for them , because the prophets were protected from hardships.
Without the evil of this generation of US tyrants, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, we have no heroes, no Alex Salmonds, no Craig’s, no Lavrovs, no. Vladimir Putins.. The outcome is certain. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. The resilience of Alex Salmond’s cause against British colonialism can only be clearly seen in the context of extreme corruption in Scottish Unionist politics.
Biden’s inches of NATO territory reminded me of what the joiner said to his apprentice who didn’t measure something properly. Only an inch short? You ask my wife if it matters only an inch too short.
How could the tyrant of the entire world lose any inches of his territory? Talk about throwing the toys out of the pram! What is the mentality of Nicola Sturgeon , that she can only succeed if Alex Salmond is completely destroyed. Infantile, or what ??
I’m not going to comment on your religious beliefs. They are yours to play with, but realise that I give them no credence at all.
Your opinions on the imperialism of the USA are pretty much mine as well, but your opinion “Russia now has the universal respect of the entire world, who are fed up with US behaviour”. I have no idea how many people of the world are “fed up with US behaviour” (I know I am), but I’m pretty sure that not everyone agrees with you that Russia has gained respect by invading another country.
I’m not going to be dogmatic, but I’m pretty sure that neither Craig nor Alex Salmond would appreciate being lumped in with Lavrov and Putin as objects of admiration. Both might well recoil from the worst excesses of US imperialism, but equally, both have roundly condemned Putin, and (by extension) his mouthpiece Lavrov.
In addition, I have never heard Sturgeon expressing the view that she can only succeed if Alex Salmond is destroyed. That IS infantile, but it’s not Sturgeon whose imagination is infantile……
Alex Birnie
It may not be Sturgeon who decided to crush Salmond, I agree. But my imagination is incapable of suspending disbelief in the principle of leaders taking a tiny bit of responsibility for what happens on their watch. Maybe a little Blairite non-apology saying that what happened to her predecessor was wrong but she wishes him all the best. Or a Trumpian one, saying that bad things were done on all sides. Or even a brassy statement that she disagrees with Salmond’s vision of Scottish Independence.
No comment is both passive aggression, and continuing to disagree with the verdict in Salmond’s trial. I don’t quite see how refusing to accept the decision of a court is compatible with being the head of a government. That politics of ‘I hear what you say but I’m noo coming out’ is really not my problem. If the good people of Scotland admire this behaviour in their politicians, who am I to disagree?
Please enjoy watching the Oscar performance of a colonial stooge, while it lasts.
Giyane, I’m not going to get into an argument about Sturgeon’s guilt or otherwise of complicity in the conspiracy which led to Alex Salmond’s prosecution, because I don’t have the evidence that Craig says he has, and it would be pointless, because we have such differing opinions. I just made the narrow point that Sturgeon has never said that her success is dependent on Alex Salmond being “completely destroyed”, and your imagining that she feels that way is just that…..imagination.
You also, did not comment on my disapproval of you lumping Craig and Alex in with Lavrov and Putin. To compare Craig Murray’s and Alex Salmond’s altruism with those brutal thugs is just childish….
Your statement that Russia has now the universal respect of the world, sorry, that’s not acceptable really. It may be your opinion, but I have no respect at all for Putin or his Russia. I hope that Craig and others make it clear that’s your opinion only. One can be tainted by opinions expressed by others in one’s blog: it’s a common way to attack opinions that you don’t wish to discuss by attacking the more extreme supporters. Nor do I respect “our side” whose interference in Ukraine, its exceptionalism and aggressive behaviour toward Russia for so many years has been a huge part of this tragic war. Fisk wrote once “war is the total failure of the human spirit”. We have all failed. We, our side, and that includes Ukraine, provoked Russia and failed to prevent this war and Russia has cruelly conducted it. A plague on both their houses. In the face of converging economic, political and environmental crises, humanity decides to fight for …..what? A neutral Ukraine, a recognition of a de facto Russian Crimea and autonomy for Donbas, all rational and welcome outcomes. We are absurd creatures and don’t deserve that planet that sustains us.
Craig – I (for one) have no idea why you continue to live in Scotland. I believe you would be very welcome just about anywhere else on the planet. Of course, you don’t seem to be welcome in the UK and probably not in the USA, but everywhere else would welcome you – and you wouldn’t have to worry about getting banged up for stating the truth.
How about Ireland? Poland?
I have been following your coverage of the Alex Salmond business with close attention, I have everything you wrote saved to my hard disc – and because of the corruption you exposed, I really have no intentions of ever returning to the UK.
“Excluded from the Salmond trial itself” link is broken.
Best wishes.
—
[ Mod: It links to one of the articles that was removed to comply with the court order – which kind of underlines the point CM was making about the evidence being suppressed by the judge. ]
I have searched this site and failed to find the page with the title keywords that the link implies. However, I remember it, and it exists in at least one internet archive, so I expect it is one of the pages that the court ordered Craig to take down.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/03/jaccuse-2/
This is an eye-opening overview, with some links redacted, maybe the one you’re looking for.
I’d wish there would be one politician as competent and open in his analysis down here in Norfolk/England, were we face the most low key local election ever.
Thanks for the prospect of change that is going to come to Scotland, whatever shape it will take.
I quite like Rab’s idea of a well timed release of those who perjured themselves; it can’t come fast or hard enough to create momentum for permanent change.
Salmond’s excellent speech made it clear that the SNP is de facto selling Scotlands assets, windpower, and further fossil fuel extractions, that they don’t want people being connected directly to the continent or further better export opportunities with modern ferries, as they should.
Good luck and success, Alba.
“I quite like Rab’s idea of a well timed release of those who perjured themselves; “
In my memory only one of the alphabet women perjured themselves. The rest told the truth but what they had to say didn’t strike the jury as being a criminal matter. Correct me if I’m wrong.
The truth about the case for the defense (e.g. evidence of orchestration of witnesses) ought to come out and justice prevail. So good luck with the ECHR appeal for that at least.
It’s a remarkable feat: the Scottish Courts have made me sympathetic to a daft old leftie (our host) and a tartan fascist – or is AS a tartan fascist? Sturgeon is: is Salmond?
When WWIII finally kicks off (absit omen) I believe it will put the question of Scottish independence into clearer perspective.
Your assertions about “overwhelming” evidence (in this case regarding the “orchestrated” accusers “acting in concert”) no longer convince me in the way they did in the past. Or at least not until you actually supply the supporting detail. That’s because I’ve been “burned” repeatedly by such confident assertions you’ve previously made, which turned out false (and which I’d relayed to others in confidence, based on trusting you). At least you later admitted you’d got it wrong on those occasions. But it’s happened too often.
There’s also the rather unpleasant “bad faith” element that’s crept into your work. Your nasty hit piece on Carole Cadwalladr from earlier in the year is one such example – full of disingenuous and petty remarks, inaccuracies of fact, misleading framing and sweeping assertions based on little but your obvious hatred for Cadwalladr (based largely on her political stances).
Integrity Initiative?
Are you saying the “orchestrated” accusers were Integrity Iniatiative? Or are you implying that I might be involved? Say precisely what you mean and support it with evidence rather than vague assertion and suggestion.
Carole.
Uh-huh. Of course. Deep State. Conspiracies all the way down.
Tom, did you say so on the Cadwalladr thread. She is the woman for all causes and as well connected as you seem to be.
My last post to you was the last as I do not want to give you more rope to spam a good thread.
“I’ve been “burned” repeatedly by .. assertions you’ve .. made, which turned out false .. There’s also ..Your nasty hit piece on Carole Cadwalladr ..”
I am shocked, shocked, to learn that Craig is not infallible, and even capable of unpleasantness on occasion. 🙂
Seriously, Craig may be exceptionally bright (which I don’t doubt), but that’s not the same as being infallible, nor immune from normal human frailty.
I know what you mean, and credit to Craig for admitting when he gets it wrong. But it’s a real flaw in his approach that he often asserts something *authoritatively*, without evidence, and it turns out completely false. If it’s an opinion or a hunch, fine – express it as such, not as some special knowledge you’re privy to.
And yes, I can understand Craig getting pissed off – he’s attacked enough. But, seriously, his Cadwalladr piece is appallingly inept, and it’s very revealing the sources he limits himself to. He may be knowledgable on many topics, but that clearly isn’t one of them – it’s just embarrassing.
Tom Warwick
Cadwalladr has written that Russia has already deployed chemical weapons – in Salisbury, like a good Guardian rent a gob. Maybe she is part of the security services like BloJo.
Jhelensky has closed the Russian humanitarian corridors from Mariopol so that Azov Nazis can continue to use civilians as human shields. Maybe he trained with Islamic State.
The lowest common denominator is US Democrat Party Russophobia. Yawn. Everything Biden- Johnson touch, turns to tripe.
Russophobia might be the “lowest common denominator”, but that works both ways. It includes those who reduce all criticisms of Russian-state related activity to “Russophobia” or “Russiagate”. Many here, including Craig, seem just a little too reliant on the kind of reductive narratives pumped out by propagandists like Aaron Mate. To repeat: the reductivism works both ways.
Let’s see some evidence that Aaron Maté is a propagandist.
Some challenge. Pick anything from his Grayzone, Substack, Twitter, etc.
All of Maté’s output conforms to the same reductic propagandistic narrative. Whether on Syria, “Russiagate” or Ukraine, it precisely mirrors Russian state-media messaging/framing.
His latest Substack piece is a typical example. 100% predictable propagandistic narrative reduction, totally in line with RT et al: Biden said Putin cannot remain in power (post brutal invasion), ergo it was all about regime change in Russia from the start. It’s so dumb. Not that it isn’t a *possibility* – it just doesn’t *necessarily* follow. That’s why it’s reductive to assert it as fact. And when you do that all the time in the same direction (as Maté does), it’s propaganda. It’s just the other side of the coin from the equally dumb “everything evil is Russian” US neocon propaganda line. And you’re its audience.
Tom Warwick you walk like a duck and quack like a duck. Saddamn said he did not possess wmd’s at the time of the invasion. Hans Blix said he was unable to find any, using the supposedly infallible intel Curveball provided, using your logic, this means Hans Blix was a propagandist for Saddam.
Pretzelattack: What part of my logic leads to your idiotic conclusion? No part of it.
Leave me out of your pretzel-like contortions & dubious strawmen. Thanks.
I see a lot of shouting from Tom Warwick and zero facts. How difficult would it have been to link to this Substack article that was instanced? He does not provide even that.
I don’t link directly to material I regard as time-wasting bullshit. If anyone wants to confirm what I wrote about it, it’s easy enough to find based on the detail I supplied.
Shouting & zero facts? I think I’ve provided more facts than you have. Feel free to attempt to refute anything I’ve written.
Oh – in other words, Tom Warwick has precisely no evidence to offer in order to back up his vacuous and insulting assertion.
Please, don’t be a baby. I provided evidence – see above, under your request. You haven’t been able (or willing) to refute anything I’ve written, or to even argue a single point.
You could always provide an example of Aaron Maté’s writing that *isn’t* propagandistic?
Same with the supposed inaccuracies of fact about Carole. Nothing specified. Just more impotent howling at the moon.
Jay: Craig wrote (in his Jan 2022 hit piece on Cadwalladr): “There was in fact no connection between Vote Leave or UKIP and the Brexit campaign and Cambridge Analytica.”
That’s false. See, for example, this 2019 Commons Select Committee document:
https://old.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/brittany-kaiser-additional-papers-published/
Specific enough? As for evidence that Aaron Maté is a propagandist, how much more specific can I get than referencing a specific claim in his latest Substack blog piece?
I note that, like “Leftworks”, you’re unable (or unwilling) to attempt to refute what I’ve written or argue any point.
Craig was 100% correct. As I’m certain you know there was an Information Commissioner Office report, late the following year, after a 2-year investigation, that dismissed all Carole’s claims. She was exposed as a fraud and subsequently as a security state plant. If you were genuinely a zealot for integrity Carole Cadwalladr is the last person you would still be hitching your wagon to.
Wow, that’s not only false but dishonest. Your wording is chillingly close to how the far-right UK press (who hate Cadwalladr as much as you apparently do) misleadingly framed those preliminary findings in their rush to smear Cadwalladr. Btw, I seem to recall Craig admitting on Twitter that he didn’t get that 100% right – that he’d missed documentation that showed the link he denied. I guess he’s more honest than you are.
Btw, “Jay”, since you amplify the baseless, reputation-damaging smears about Cadwalladr being a “security state plant”. what exactly is *your* evidence for that? (Not Craig’s – I know what he presented and it adds up to incredibly little when you follow the strands of his few sources. Cadwalladr’s sole “link” to Integrity Initiative is actually laughable, as is the significance made of the “contractor to the security services” source among the 180,000 data sources that were submitted by Cadwalladr. There’s zero connection indicated between II and the latter, except in Craig’s poetic imagination).
So what exactly are *your* specifics, “Jay”, for these deeply unpleasant reputation-damaging charges which appear totally baseless (outside of conspiracy theorists’ fevered minds), and which seem to have more to do with your political grudges against Cadwalladr.
Link to the source material, quote the words that Aaron Maté writes that you regard as propagandistic, and explain why. You are the one making the assertion. It is your business to back up what you say, Shouting childish insults is not a substitute for argument.
Leftworks: Try reading the piece by Maté that I clearly referenced. How do you cope when you read actual books that don’t have hyperlinks, just old-fashioned references?
Then try re-reading my original reply to you, which precisely described the claim made by Maté and my argument that it’s propagandistic and typical of his propagandistic output. If this seems too taxing for you, let me quote directly from the Maté piece:
“No amount of spin can obscure the obvious: Just like when he blurted out the truth that the US and its allies supported an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria, Biden has laid bare the United States government’s longstanding regime change aims in Russia, with Ukraine used as the tip of the spear.”
There are at least two propagandistic elements here. Firstly, the one I described in my earlier reply to you. The only evidential support Maté provides for his claim that “Biden has laid bare the United States government’s longstanding regime change aims in Russia” is the very brief line from Biden’s recent (post brutal invasion) speech – that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”. Indeed, that line from that speech is the trigger for Maté’s piece (along with many similarly framed recent Russian state media pieces) – as the piece’s title & timing makes clear. But that brief line from Biden’s speech does NOT necessarily imply what Maté asserts that it does. It’s a propagandistic technique of using an element that can *possibly* support a certain narrative, without necessarily or even most likely supporting it, and then writing in such a way as if the causal connection between the element and the narrative is beyond doubt. Or as I put it more concisely in my earlier reply to you, when you do this regularly in a certain direction, it’s propaganda.
Another propagandistic element of Maté’s quote, above, is the part about how Biden “blurted out the truth that the US and its allies supported an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria”. It’s false. If you check his linked source (a video of Biden embedded in a tweet), you find that Biden says something fundamentally different – he complains that it’s a “big problem” that US allies (not the US itself) are funding terrorists in Syria. So Maté’s claim here is simply false. But it’s also propagandistic in the sense that he conflates “the US side” (in his linked tweet, referring to the US’s allies) with the US (itself) “and” its allies. In fact, Biden’s “biggest problem” and “largest problem”, in his own words, is with what US allies are doing here (this is clear from the video – does Maté think his readers are stupid?).
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. That’s just one short paragraph at the start of Maté’s latest post.
Incidentally, I don’t regard the term propagandistic as necessarily insulting or bad. We all tend to propagandise when we frame arguments to best present a particular “side”. It’s only a problem with people who claim some kind of “journalistic” impartiality. When your framing and selection of talking points regularly and precisely mirrors state propagandistic media (whether Russian or “Western”), maybe you should give up the “journalist” title and just openly call yourself a propagandist or polemicist.
After she realises the sanctions are going to backfire on us, and precipitate the end of the dollar .
“It includes those who reduce all criticisms of Russian-state related activity to “Russophobia” or “Russiagate”. “
Well, so what if it does? The fact that there are lunatics on the fringe doesn’t invalidate the main idea. When it was pointed out to Paddy Ashdown that he now numbered skinheads amongst his supporters, he replied that beliefs are not resposnible for those that that believe in them. Russiaphobia has a long and well-attested history, dating back to the Crimean War and probably before that, even.
It’s not about “lunatics on the fringe”. We’re talking about mainstream polarisation of dumbness. Russophobia and its flipside (dogmatic anti-US-state Russo-apologia) – both equally dumb. People are used to seeing only one “mainstream” narrative (the “MSM”). But that changed with social media. The flipside reduction is just as “mainstream” in terms of sheer numbers, hence Trump (albeit with help from Fox News – bizarrely Putin’s biggest fans, until recently at least).
Your argument seems to rest on the case that if it’s said by Fox News, or Russia Today or anyone you consider part of the pathologically Russophobic or dogmatic anti-US-state Russo-apologetic dumbness, it must be lies, whatever it is, which is manifestly a false position. What if such a source stated that the sun would rise the following day?
When you discount the extremists, what you are left with is more likely to be the truth, even if is a less extreme version of the same thing.
Fox News & RT cover a wide range. Of course their output isn’t all lies.
On certain political topics, they deliver a propagandistic message consistently. Always in the same direction. (As do some more “liberal” outlets).
If you’re a putative “independent journalist” who prolifically posts opinions that mirror both the framing and the specific talking points of, say, RT – not just just or twice, but basically always – then I think the word “propagandist” seems accurate. That doesn’t mean everything they write is wrong or a lie. It means it all serves a propagandistic purpose in a certain direction. Which might just be the other side of the coin of, say, US neocon propagandistic reductive bullshit. It’s still the other side of binary reductive bullshit – ie don’t confuse it with impartial “truth”. That’s all I’m saying.
That’s all just detail. It doesn’t justify your attempt to discount the Russophobic nature of the Western MSM by saying that some Russophobia is simply the label that some propagandists attach to all news that is uncomplimentary of Russia and, by implication, including Craig in that latter group. Craig has never claimed he is infallible and the fact that some of his statements have turned out to be untrue doesn’t necessarily render the entirety of his output untrue or even untrustworthy, beyond a certain measure of scepticism that everyone should have for everything. If anyone claims that they are infallible, they are lying, so if you need your sources to be always right, you either have to be prepared to stretch your credulity a very long way or to have no sources. Even the Pope has given up claiming infallibility.
That’s emphatically NOT what I wrote.
I didn’t “discount” western media Russophobia. I said it’s mainstream & dumb, but that one of its most vocal counternarratives is just as dumb and reductive. Obviously there are commentators who warn of the very real dangers of Russophobia, without that commentary being a component of compulsive anti-western Russo-apologia. How can you identify them? They tend to call out imperialist aggression regardless of perpetrator. They don’t compulsively reduce everything to either “western” or “Russian” instigation. That makes them journalists rather than propagandists.
Regarding Craig’s previous mistakes – I made it extremely clear in my comment that my problem wasn’t with the mistakes per se, but with the *way* Craig made those mistaken claims in the first place – not as tentative opinions subject to review/update, but as stated certainties based on some authoritative source (or whatever) that he was privy to. There’s a big f*cking difference.
“There’s a big f*cking difference.”
But not so big a difference that my points don’t apply. Being tentative about your assertions is just hedging your bets. No-one sensible is more likely to believe you just because you say “This is so”, rather than “I think this is so”. All the latter means is there is less scope for later jeering if you have been proved in error. If you are wrong, you are wrong, however tentative you advanced your theories and putative facts. I don’t see what your problem is. Surely you did not say “This is so” based on Craig saying “This is so”, as you would have been committing exactly the same fault for which you pull up Craig. I can’t see why Craig shouldn’t pontificate if he wants to. I’m certainly not going to take his words as Gospel, no matter how definitively he states them.
Wow. Well, that’s certainly a viewpoint.
Tom Warwick
Criticism of the Russian state
The only criticism the West has of Russia is that they insist that the rules of international law are adhered to, agreements kept, and no further use of proxies to break international law under cover.
In real life, the victims of cheating will fight back.
But the West is still living in some 18th century satirical novel by Tobias Smollett where the hero never quite understands what is happening to him, like Swift’s hero in Gullivers Travels.
This finger in mouth feigned innocence is irritating to say the least, but intolerable to those who have to defend their interests against proxy terrorists.
The US has got away with pretending to be a teenager, wrecking the Indigenous peoples and then wrecking everything else, for far too long. Teenager US moaning about ‘old world dad’ setting old fashioned principles to block its freedom is pathetic.
I’m reminded of Meat Loaf ‘so I smashed my guitar into pieces… and I said to dad you may know a lot of things about life , but you sure don’t know anything about music.’
Biden would rather destroy world peace than be brought to heel by Russia. And for you to talk about criticising Russia is like a teenager refusing to grow up. All Putin has asked for is for America to behave like an adult. But the MxxxxxFxxxxxxs won’t do it.
Actually that was Jim Steinman, who said to his father, “Goddammit Daddy! You know I love you, but you’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about rock and roll!”
You’re absolutely right to be critical & sceptical of everything the US state apparatus says and does.
But your view of Russia reads like it’s from a Russian state-approved book of fairy-tales. “All Putin has asked for is for America to behave like an adult”, etc.
That’s the problem. Perhaps you think your criticism of US government somehow *requires* having a rose-tinted view of US’s official enemy (which also happens to be a brutal rightwing authoritarian state)? Some kind of weird EITHER/OR logic thing?
Anyway, here’s how Noam Chomsky sees it (as someone not limited by such binary logic):
“[T]he Russian invasion of Ukraine is a major war crime, ranking alongside the U.S. invasion of Iraq […] It always makes sense to seek explanations, but there is no justification, no extenuation.”
— Chomsky on Russia’s war on Ukraine
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
glenn_nl
Thanks
Tom Warwick
It’s certainly not binary of mentoring say that international law is not implemented equally by a Washington controlled UN.
I don’t care what the law says about the Russian invasion of Ukraine , the US at the very least wants to prevent China and Russia the New Silk Road crossing the continent. The US will never allow any other country to achieve any success.
So for me that’s two major crimes, one , stitching up the law and making it bent , and two , using proxy Islamic and neo-Nazi terrorists to circumvent international law.
There is no equivalence between the US and Russia, because the criminality of the US is psychopathic and psychopaths need to be restrained by force. I’m not saying they are as bad as each other, I’m saying that the US is psychotic, they are unable to recognise their own warped view of the world.
I totally disagree with both Chomsky and Counterpunch for believing in US controlled UN law. I believe that Russia is absolutely right to suppress both Islamist terror and Nazi terror. WTF does the West think it’s doing supporting these criminal organisations? Jesus pbuh wept!
“Cadwalladr has written that Russia has already deployed chemical weapons”.
Good for Ms C! Russian villains like Putin and his henchmen should be exposed for all their murderous uses of poison, whether their victims be Skripal, Litvinenko, Navalny or (most recently) Abramovich. And not just the present generation.
Which is why Putin must not prevail in Ukraine. He should fail and then be retired – one way or the other. The sooner PutIN is PutOUT the better off the whole world will be. And if the Western powers can’t put men into Ukraine, let them give the Ukrainians the tools to repel the invaders. Including the MiGs in Poland.
BTW here’s a joke updated from the Soviet era. A foreigner meets a Muscovite friend.
“How are things in this part of the world?”
“Wonderful.”
“Don’t you follow the news?”
“Yes, on RT. How else could I know that?”
Слава Україні!
M.J.
All unhappy families are unhappy in their own individual way. The EU family has suddenly realised they are totally enslaved to USUK. While previously they had perceived themselves as an independent cultural identity.
The news of the genocide of Europe by USUK is more significant than the news of genocide of Russians in Ukraine. Israel is with Russia, against USUK proxy Nazism.
Not always a good idea to rub Israel up the wrong way. Just another catastrophic mistake by Integrity initiative.etc. . World opinion , including Israel , favours Russia against USUK Nazism..
Biden’s in the bad box, tasting the medicine he has been giving others for the last 40 years. .
Johnson is finished. As always, Revenge is best taken cold..
“Russian villains like Putin and his henchmen should be exposed for all their murderous uses of poison, whether their victims be Skripal, Litvinenko, Navalny or (most recently) Abramovich.”
You seem easily suckered by propaganda. But even the Usanians don’t believe the latest tall tale. It’s just more Bellingcat disinformation after all.
“Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian peace negotiators were reportedly victims of poisoning – but US casts doubt….. a US official said on Monday that the “intelligence highly suggests” the cause was environmental, “not poisoning.”
https://news.sky.com/story/roman-abramovich-and-ukrainian-peace-negotiators-were-reportedly-victims-of-poisoning-but-us-casts-doubt-12576989
> It’s just more Bellingcat disinformation after all.
The way I read it, this latest “poisoning” incident was sourced by MSM to Bellingcat and Washpo, who cited US intelligence sources. Now the US is repudiating the claims. So now the story depends entirely on Bellingcat, a witness with a record of heavy bias.
There’s no chance the MSM will back down on the story; so it stands as a clear signpost to MSM mendacity.
“…Good for Ms C! Russian villains like Putin and his henchmen should be exposed for all their murderous uses of poison, whether their victims be Skripal, Litvinenko, Navalny or (most recently) Abramovich. And not just the present generation…”
You have not a shred of evidence that poison was used in any of these cases. And even less that VV Putin was involved in them. But this does not prevent you from arrogating to yourself, and your masters in Washington, the power to choose the officers of the Russian Federation.
And then you invite us, in order to support Nazi militias in the Ukraine, responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in an eight year campaign to eradicate Russian speakers from their ancient homeland, to dance another step towards a nuclear war.
And then a joke: namely the extravagant claim that Russia’s media is less open and its journalists less independent than, those, like the Integrity Initiative’s Cadwallader, whose lies and falsifications are notorious.
Compared with the scandalous propagandising of the capitalist media in the UK and North America RT is an island of honesty.
The joy of being mentally deficient is that you’re not even aware of it. This blog acts as a helpful social service for the poor afflicted by providing a safe space for their rantings, and it gives the rest of us a good laugh.
Muscovite meets a Western friend.
“How are things in this part of the world?”
“Wonderful.”
“Don’t you follow the news?”
“Yes, on YouTube. How else could I know that?”
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/28/chris-hedges-on-being-disappeared/
SB, damn, pipped by you!
MJ, the Skripal saga has so many logic holes in it that the only credible explanation for it was that it was entirely conducted by our own secret services as an exercise in Russophobia, probably as an extension to the military exercises that were contemporaneous with it and wasn’t it a success! You could see, as the exercise proceeded, how the official narrative became more and more unlikely and yet the British public lapped it up. “The BBC wouldn’t lie to us, its the BBC for God’s sake.” At the end of the exercise, the authorities had a pretty good idea of the credulity of the British public, with the bonus of having established the idea in their minds that the evil Russians were prepared to use chemical warfare on British soil. Win-win!
Here’s a joke updated from the Soviet era. A foreigner meets a Muscovite friend.
“How are things in your part of the world?”
“Dreadful.”
“Don’t you follow the news?”
“Yes, on the BBC. How else could I know that?”
There are at least two good reasons for holding Putin’s agents responsible for poisoning the Skripals. First, they have poisoned many others, and it is a favourite KGB modus operandi. Secondly, Putin’s is a dictatorship that attacks democracies, and murdering people is what such evil regimes do.
But on the subject of the accuracy and truthfulness of Western media compared with RT: Western media operate in free countries, which the foolish people preferring to believe the media of dictatorships should be grateful for, instead of biting the hand that feeds them with fact-checked knowledge and truth!
Those are not good reasons. Quite apart from the fact that neither of the Scripals was murdered, going by your logic Russia should be held responsible for every murder everywhere in the world.
Yes, of course, a free press operating in a free country will be more truthful than a controlled press opering in a dictatorship, unfortunately,the UK is not an example of the first and the RF isn’t an example of the second and your saying so doesn’t make them so.
There are at least ten good reasons (pace Jason Donovan & co) for believing that ‘Boshirov & Petrov’ didn’t poison the Skripals (and inadvertently the late Dawn Sturgess, Charlie Rowley & former DS Nick Bailey). Our excellent host has outlined them in detail here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/04/pure-ten-points-i-just-cant-believe-about-the-official-skripal-narrative/
As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I think it’s more than possible that they went to Salisbury for a (set-up) cocaine deal, since at the time prices would have been sky-high in Moscow – due to the Ruskies seriously clamping down on direct shipments from South America to St Petersburg & Ust Luga in 2016, and Russian mephedrone production being in its infancy – and they could have probably bypassed Moscow airport customs using their GRU passports.
That said, I do think that Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium by Andrei Lugovoi and the FSB, likely for revealing to the wider world that the 1999 apartment bombings were a false flag carried out by the FSB and used as a pretext for the Second Chechen War. Alexei Navalny’s underpants? Not sure about those.
I think it helps Craig Murray’s reputation not at all to go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theory in regard to the Skripal poisoning. One is entitled to raise one’s doubts, that’s fine, but to allow these doubts to define or confine one’s thinking about the matter, when no-one, and certainly Craig, has all the facts, is a serious mistake, and allows Craig’s critics, and he has many, to dismiss his other more important and better judged opinions. The claim about the conspiracy in regard to Alex Salmond seems not in the same category because both Alex and Craig tell us they have information, which they are not allowed to reveal because of legal strictures, that will confirm this assertion. I trust then that this information will ultimately see the light of day, and allow us to judge the matter. Conspiracies and their close relatives, coverups, do occur, and we have had a lot of serious conspiracies in recent years, they are actually very common – Assange, Snowden, Biolabs in Ukraine, de Menezes, the Hillsborough Stadium disaster, even No 10 parties.
Just for the record:
A few minutes ago I clicked on my bookmark for this site, and received a message from Cloudflare that this site was down.
Shortly after, I clicked again, and the site was back up.
I’m guessing someone doesn’t like your latest post, Craig.
And a big thank-you to the technical team who keep this site up and running.
Feel free to off topic me.
I’m just wondering about the position of nuclear weapon control in Scotland once it becomes independent. I think CM wrote something about it a long while ago. But this comment by Geroman made me think of it:
“ Wrong – Ukraine could not “give up their nukes” because they did not own them in the first place – nukes are under DIRECT command of Moscow – then and now.
That “Ukraine gave up their Nukes” is a myth – created in the West.
Russia was forced to remove them by USA.”
https://twitter.com/GeromanAT/status/1508522737257664512?
How does that relate to the nukes based in Scotland after Independence? They have always been in control of someone else ? Certainly not Nicola’s currently?
Scotland should have a clear opinion.
I also picked up Gorgeous George’s latest transformation from pussy cat to tiger, censored breaking broadcast today. He is gunning for the the Biden crime family and warning of the greatest danger since the 60’s.
George Galloway (@georgegalloway) Tweeted: MoatsTV: The President’s brain is missing Watch the full @moatsTV show at
https://t.co/gDDaR9Lq3B | @GeorgeGalloway
https://t.co/247fB0GHUR
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1508195432941379593
I fear we are at the cusp.
It is time for not only Salmond but all who value a multipolar world as the only way forward for life on Earth to act. The polar temperature spikes are worrying as much as the pathetic dying empires demented Caesars and their drongo praetorians attempts at sending yanks into Ukraine or seriously considering missiling Putin and his cabinet in Russia itself!
At least nazis are losing.
Hope to see you all in the morning.
The fact, also, is that the Nukes in Scotland are under the control of the USA from the control software to the launch vehicles. The UK only manufactures and constructs the warhead – but they cannot be delivered without USA explicit permission, politically and technically.
Another reason why the establishment blocks Scottish independence – Scotland is the UKs Crimea and the evil USA will do what it can to protect it’s nuclear sub base.
Don’t forget Scotland has been or still is home to all sorts of nukes, not just the ICBM’s on the boats at Faslane. RAF Machrihanish used to be home to a US Navy nuclear weapons store operated by the US Navy SEALs Naval Special Warfare Group 2. The weapons in question were allegedly nuclear depth charges. After the closure of RAF Machrihanish you can bet the ‘store’ was moved to somewhere else in Scotland, probably Leuchars Station (formerly RAF Leuchars).
“That “Ukraine gave up their Nukes” is a myth – created in the West.
Russia was forced to remove them by USA.”
More likely, surely, that the Russians simply took them with them when they left. They didn’t want to leave them to end up in the hands of some tinpot dictator.
When the Soviet Union broke up, Russia took on all the Sovereign debt itself, leaving countries like Ukraine debt-free.
They were hardly likely to do that AND let them keep all the nukes.
That was probably part of the deal struck: we get all the nukes, you get your share of the debt wiped clean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine Includes discussion on the Budapest memorandum. Note that this article also contains these snippets of info, not relayed at all in the Western media.
On April 15, 2021, Andriy Yaroslavovych Melnyk, Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, told Deutschlandfunk radio that if Ukraine was not allowed to become a NATO member, his country might have to reconsider its status as a non-nuclear weapon state to guarantee its defense.[25][26]
In February 2022 (in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine), Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky renewed such sentiments, suggesting that Ukraine would potentially view the Budapest Memorandum as invalid should its security guarantees not be met.[27]
So Ukraine not only was blackmailing NATO in 2021, but also blackmailing Russia with the nuclear weapon threat just prior to the invasion. This was and is incredibly provocative, and shows how misguided the Ukrainian leadership has been in asserting its sovereignty without concern as to how it might affect others, especially Russia. In this matter, the US and NATO have been dangerously complicit, as this war proves. Ukraine, has in part, been the author of its own misfortune.
“A further strain of thought I have encountered is that nine separate accusers could not possibly have been lying.”
Conspiracies of perjury are standard operating procedures in legal systems overseen by corrupt governments such as those of the UK and the USA. A even uglier case is the conspiracy of soldiers and FBI personnel that got Aafia Siddiqui banged up for 87 years for attempting to shoot Americans in the police station in Ghazni Afghanistan.. So many people giving the same evidence couldn’t possibly be lying. The only possible defense was to disclose evidence that the USA had motives to lie to persecute Siddiqui but the judge refused to allow the fact that she had been imprisoned for 5 years in the Bagram prison as it was irrelevant.
The fact is that the US had treated Siddiqui so badly that it could not allow her to tell her story. Locking her up for 87 years was an alternative to the original design was to have the Afghan police shoot her as a terrorist suicide bomber but the Ghazni police did not do their part.
The following COUNTERPUNCH article is a good summary.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/04/the-hostage-taking-at-beth-israel-synagogue-what-you-werent-told/
Carlyle Moulton
There are 100s of examples of conspiracies of perjury. The one that affects me most directly being the conspiracy to cover up the Grenfell Fire, which was caused by a lost Neutral causing massive overvoltage. The entire construction industry has conspired to conceal the link between outsourcing maintenance to private companies and extreme danger to the public.
Napit, of which I am a member, is still denying the link.
Novichok bollocks being swallowed by the EU and Labour was another example of conspiracy to perjury. AS and CM have been victims of institutional conspiracy to perjury in the Scottish devolved Government.
The whole edifice of lies would crumble into dust if it had to face the reality of their own hypocrisy, greed and incompetence.
Is the primary cover-up of the Grenfell tragedy not that to conceal the culpability of the Tory Kensington & Chelsea Borough Council and their utter neglect of their responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of their less well-off communities?
Peter
No, the primary cover up is that before Tory dogma privatised parts of its property portfolio in order to save money the building was maintained by long-term staff who knew the buildings. After privatisation insufficient time was allocated to inspect and test the electrical installations.
The culpability lies with Cameron’s Tory dogma, at government level, and not implemented by Mr Prescott 2 jags working for Gordon Brown, his predecessor.
As you know, this country uses whitewash to cover the backs of its leaders. Privatisation was not just a cost-cutting measure, it was also an anti-union political measure. In this country electrical safety is still controlled by the union, supervising safety standards. The unions now have to yield to political power. Electrical Tests that I have to do, are not done by big contractors, on grounds of cost.
You have a few gits from Eton who know absolutely nothing about anything, imposing cost-cutting ideologies in areas about which rhey are completely ignorant. Why service planes? Why not make your Porton Downs lie about Russia?
So the real culpability lies with an administration that cuts real knowledge, and uses the reputation of professional institutions to publish lies.
Totally irresponsible, criminal behaviour.
The US covered up the meltdown of Fukushima Nuclear Plant, and all the toxicity and cancers it caused. Why? Because they want to increase the use of nuclear power, closer to communities.
This is again, totally irresponsible criminal behaviour. You cannot imho blame the councils and engineers for the utter stupidity of politicians playing havoc with the levers of power.
“A further strain of thought I have encountered is that nine separate accusers could not possibly have been lying.”
Extrapolating the argument: “350 MPs could not possibly have been lying …”
Or put another way: “10 Million Flies cannot possibly be wrong, eat sh!t”
Craig wrote:
– “But I think there may be enough here to give some idea of why the state felt he has to be destroyed.”
Indeed. Salmond said that the resources rightly belong to the people, not the corporations.
So given that the state attempted to destroy Salmond, who or what must the state be controlled by?
Citizens’ Assemblies NOW!
Clark
The state is money supply which attracts all those moths that earn money by their mouths, rather than their usefulness to society. At the top are yes men and women who serve the ideology of a richer country, in our case America. All the way down to the bottom where there are yes men and women serving wishes of the tier above them.
Thatcher hated the concept of Society, which has its own values and integrity and is therefore un-corruptible by the lure of privelege and money. Capitalism gives you nothing, darkness, so that you are drawn to the snare of the light, where you fizzle and die, morally speaking.
I am astonished to find that in all levels of society, there are people whose only principles and values are to serve the principles and values of those who reward them. That is , in effect, self-imposed Feudalism, self-imposed servitude, while others , who have the skills to be free remain intellectually free, because their earnings are not dependent on their compliance to others.
So many unemployed people are paid for spying on and inventing crap about their neighbours. So many professional.people are like dung flies hopping from.one intellectual cowpat to another, looking for new opportunities to serve authority, find mates and breed more dung flies.
Amidst the current climate of robbery through soaring energy bills, the clear points which Alex Salmond makes about Scotland’s renewable energy output and future potential should be enough to bring about a resounding victory for his party.. But of course it won’t given the way that the masses are locked into the manipulative media game…
Although he is absolutely correct, the media uses Salmond as an excuse for a blackout on the party.
In my opinion, he should become chief executive, and a younger party leader elected, one with no baggage, who could attack the inept, arrogant SNP with gusto while setting out the ambition to free Scotland and make it prosper. The Scottish political scene badly news some new blood which can galvanise and inspire people. As it is, we have had the same old faces for a decade and more, with a terrible stasis and inertia, a dull, uninspired status quo which Sturgeon typically exploits for all her worth in order to appear as the only candidate, an autocrat and ruthless hustler. Like Boris, a chancer of the first degree, with little scruples about staying in power. It isn’t Alex’s fault, but all politicians have a shelf life, and the calumny he has suffered has damaged him in the eyes of the electorate, and given the media an excuse to ignore Alba, goaded by the tireless smearing of Sturgeon and her little gang of sycophants.
“Although he is absolutely correct, the media uses Salmond as an excuse for a blackout on the party.”
The media does not need an excuse for a blackout since who is going to report on the blackout? As long as the policies remain the same so will the blackout. To get into the media they need to send young people on one of these neo-liberal training courses so that suitable candidates can be chosen for career promotion. Then they will be centrist.
Whatever you say (facepalm)
Go tell Zelensky about the ‘climate of robbery’. He is ‘telling the EU to go Green to spite Moscow’.
What is astonishing is that the EU would listen to someone who miraculously acquires a $1bn fortune in three years as a public official.
The man is a mobster and anyone with a brain knows it.
The EU must decide between Ukraine and bankruptcy or cutting ties to the USA and Ukraine and retaining solvency.
It’s that stark.
“The EU must decide between Ukraine and bankruptcy or cutting ties to the USA and Ukraine and retaining solvency.”
Unfortunately the EU officials who will decide are probably cut from the same cloth as Zelensky.
No EU official (or USA or UK) is going to be affected financially or politically by one iota for the decisions they make that impact the rest of us.
The stupid, spineless and corrupt are protected by absolutely no repercussions or consequences for their actions.
Unless someone should unexpectedly put them under arrest and take them away for trial.
Dimitry Medvedev made a stunning statement on Telegram regarding a shift to ‘regional currencies’. Maybe the West has been had? Perhaps Ukraine isn’t about territory at all? Could the slow Russian incursion be about pushing the West into ill-thought-out sanctions that will ultimately destroy the reserve currencies – we’ll see.
Medvedev…we don’t need your handbags
From the Telegram channel of Dmitry Medvedev:
“What else is there? Yes, of course, the departure of luxury segment sellers from our country. What to do now without the opportunity to buy bags and fur coats for several million rubles? This is an irreparable loss.
The world is waking up, and confidence in reserve currencies is fading like morning mist. Abandoning the dollar and the euro as the world’s main reserves does not look like such a fantastic prospect. What kind of reserves are these if the obligations on them are frozen and actually defaulted by the will of insane politicians who are ready to bring their taxpayers’ money to the altar of an unknown victory in the war “to the last Ukrainian”? Who needs them in this case? They do not even want to take them as payment for contracts for fuel supplies. The era of regional currencies is coming.
No matter how much anyone would like, they will have to negotiate a new financial world order. And then the decisive word will be for those countries that have a strong and advanced economy, healthy public finances, and a reliable monetary system. And by no means for those who endlessly increase their public debt, issuing into circulation new and new pieces of paper, not backed by national wealth, fictitious obligations for which the decrepit authorities can refuse to pay at any moment.”
Ah, the hideous truth is gradually seeping into Western consciousness. Slowly at first… quicker, probably, as people feel the cold and fight for what food they can find.
Mainstream websites put his net worth at $1.5 million. I seriously doubt that in the history of mankind any person has managed through corruption to squirrel away $1.5 billion in 3 years at an average rate of $500 million a year. I think we all would have heard about such grand larceny before now rather than having such a dubious factoid surfacing during a war with Muscovy.
Why the 3 year term? Kelensky has been working with Kolomoisky for some time now. The Presidency is just his latest service.
As to this:
” seriously doubt that in the history of mankind any person has managed through corruption to squirrel away $1.5 billion in 3 years at an average rate of $500 million a year. “
Such fortunes accumulated rapidly by individuals – many ex KGB or CPSU bureaucrats – working with western banks and hedge funds were almost routine in the 1990s. It is a longing to return to that scale of larceny that is behind the anti Putin hysteria, he has trimmed the kleptocrats’ sails, begun to claw back the ill-gotten gains that they laundered in London and New York and earned the ‘title’ of mad man honestly.
Jane, you write about Alex Salmond’s enthusiasm for “Scotland’s renewable energy output and future potential”.
But the laws of physics and thermodynamics means its impossible to build wind mills or hydro dams (or solar panels etc.) using the electricity they generate from low energy density solar energy flows. Indeed process heat from fossil fuels to mine and refine metals, cement, fertilizers and heavy transport is impossible using electricity no matter how its generated.
No fossils = no renewables. Period.
Reality is that humans face MASSIVE de-growth, no matter how much we may want to replace fossil fuels, their high energy density is 100 times greater than e.g. lithium batteries, which are already close to theoretical max limit. Fossil fuels supply 85% of global energy; Hydro c7%; wind c2.5%; solar c1.4%; nuclear 4.3%, and traditional biomass c0.5% i.e. wood, grass & dung burnt by 1 billion of the poorest people on Earth to cook and keep warm.
Hence why ALL wars globally in the last 30+ years or so are ONLY about access to fossil energy resources.
For references discussion & detailed explanations pleaser read this ‘Limits to Renewable Energy’ ‘Open Letter’ to the Green Party.
https://djprisss.github.io/Limits-to-Renewable-Energy/
Its such a shame that politicians and much of public discourse is so worryingly ignorant of physical limits to global energy supply. The oil / gas / coal age is once off inheritance that is past peak, the down slope ill be rapid, disorganised and very disruptive, especially for the global poorest.
https://radixuk.org/opinion/we-need-to-slow-down-the-process-of-de-growth-with-nuclear-energy/
Good point. There are two aspects to renewables that most people are kept blithely unaware, one is the point you make about renewables meaning a radical change in how much energy we consume and how we consume it and the other is storage, where it is blithely assumed that we can make enough storage capacity to supply the entire country with electricity for days when there is neither sun nor wind in the winter. The problem with renewable energy is that the shift towards it and away from fossil fuels is being led by people who see themselves as saving the world from disaster rather than by engineers taking practical measures towards ending a reliance on a finite resource.
Bayard,
“The problem with renewable energy is that the shift towards it and away from fossil fuels is being led by people who see themselves as saving the world from disaster rather than by engineers taking practical measures towards ending a reliance on a finite resource.”
Save words – profits over people?
Courtenay
“Save words – profits over people?”
Surprisingly, not in this case. Despite the fortunes being made by Big Green, the popular force behind it is more like a religion or a political movement and derives its strength from a genuine desire to spread the word, to help others and save the planet. Yes, of course there are the profiteers, but such people will always be attracted to any strong motivation.
The problem Natasha fails to mention is very basic: Planning laws and building rags are wholly inapprpriate when it comes to building houses that keep heat and generate electricity. Secondly, the massive deficit of insulation in all sorts of houses and consecutive Governments blindspots/allegiances to the fossil fuel industry, exacerbates the disruptive and chaotic slide from our fossil fuel addiction.
It’s self-centered political motivation that assures regulative limitations are deliberately ignored/put upon us.
To a point that they willfully ignore the need to declare a climate emergency to enable them to waste some more money on a link road through one of the most important chalk river valleys and 2 ancient maternity roosts for Barbastelle bats in Norfolk. Ain’t that right, Norfolk County Council?
Please do comment if you anywhere near this beautiful river valley most of Norwich get their drinking water from:
https://norfolk.citizenspace.com/consultation/local-transport-implementation-plan-4/?fbclid=IwAR3IFKqgcw3EDinZ0A1xKus94ZJSYkEs_COOX4H7wsg_WXw7n6KS0g9uFb4
The reason why houses leak heat is that they are too hot. Before the 60s, 55F (13.5C) was considered a reasonable internal temperature, 60F was warm. By the 80s, the design temperature had risen to 18C. Now it is 23C and 25C is considered warm and for what? We don’t feel any warmer, our bodies just adjust, just as they do when we go to a hotter or colder country.
What laws of thermodynamics might those be, Natasha? Alternatively, the laws of economics suggest that, over their lifetimes, wind turbines and solar panels generate far more energy than they need for their manufacture, otherwise they would be completely uneconomic. You can make hydrogen gas from water using electrolysis and then burn it to generate heat for industrial processes without producing any CO2. Each day, more than 10,000 times more energy arrives from the Sun than humans obtain from fossil fuels. Extensive solar arrays in hot deserts could easily solve the global energy/climate change crisis – as could nuclear fusion, if it can be developed.
I remember in about 1955, fusion was 50 years away. I think it still is. But nuclear fission still works.
Geothermal energy is now gaining much interest. An internet search produces 103 million results. There are untold amounts of renewable energy down there.
Solar and wind are just kiddie’s toys in comparison.
Thanks for your reply Wang Shui. I know that people have been saying that fusion power is only a few years away for decades now, but nevertheless breakthroughs are being made.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60312633
In my view, with the EU being chronically energy-poor, they should have made fusion their Manhattan Project 20 to 30 years ago, rather than treating it as a vaguely interesting science project like the Extremely Large Telescope. The main problem with fission is that it generates considerable amounts of highly radioactive waste.
The heat energy flow from the Earth’s mantle is around 30 terawatts, and it’s only concentrated in certain places like Iceland where it’s already being used intensively to make aluminium etc. By comparison, the energy arriving from the Sun is around 175,000 terawatts. Big difference.
Wang Shui warites: “Geothermal energy is now gaining much interest […] There are untold amounts of renewable energy down there.”
I wish it were so, but again thermodynamics helps us realise this yet more investor story time B.S.
1) the available heat energy is VERY LOW energy density;
2) from any particular site / drill hole degrades quickly over time;
3) the energy needed to build drill / mine is orders of magnitude more than the heat;
4) suitable sites are very rare.
5) you cannot drill too deep or the heat extraction machinery quickly malfunctions and / or melts.
This is very easy to find out, just a quick search (guided by ‘know your enemy’ philosophy) and Bang! Myth busted!
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+is+geothermal+energy+bad&t=ffsb&ia=web
Electrolysis needs a steady supply of electricity, not the random supply that renewables generate.
Renewables have a limited lifespan, approx 20 years, then they have to be totally replaced.
Batteries can only supply backups for around several hours.
Batteries have to be totally replaced every eight years, approx.
There is currently no recycling/waste strategy for renewables.
We and future generations will have to deal with this greenwashed mess.
“Electrolysis needs a steady supply of electricity, not the random supply that renewables generate.”
No it doesn’t. Electrolysis is not some complicated procedure, it is just two electrodes in slightly saline water. When there is electricity, hydrogen and oxygen are given off and stored, when there isn’t the process stops until there is power again.
Otherwise agreed.
Like everything green there are a lot of half truths and unanswered questions around hydrogen. A new electrolysis plant today delivers energy efficiency of around 80%. That is, the energy value of the hydrogen produced is about 80% of the electricity used to split the water molecule, which in itself pretty efficient. No one ever broaches the big problem with hydrogen as a fuel, compression. The compression of hydrogen is a very energy-intensive process which increases the overall cost. There is no cheap, easy or efficient way of getting hydrogen to 5000psi so that it can be stored and transported.
Our forebears in the first half of the 20th century had to deal with town gas, which was around 50% hydrogen with around 30% methane. I’d imagine we’ll be able to cope with pure hydrogen.
‘Our forebears in the first half of the 20th century had to deal with town gas’ …they never needed to compress it, that’s the big difference. The primary user of hydrogen would be transportation, to get enough hydrogen into a tank for use in a vehicle it has to be compressed to 5000psi, otherwise you would need a blimp attached to the roof which would create drag and negate any efficiency the hydrogen would bring.
Bayard.
Sorry, but it does, IFF you want to produce ‘green’ hydrogen in commercial quantities as part of a viable financial enterprise – as opposed to a school boy lab experiment. The problem is scalability and that needs a reliable 24/7/365 electric source.
Imagine the conversation in the board room if you were to say we cannot deliver Hydrogen today because the wind isn’t blowing or because its overcast.
Thanks for your reply Dan. I agree about the difficulties in pressurising hydrogen. However, in a feasible net-zero carbon economy, the primary uses of hydrogen would be for industrial processes and domestic heating, as it would just replace natural gas. Power for transportation would largely come from batteries, except for vehicles for which this was not practical (such as farming, forestry and military vehicles etc), which could run on biodiesel.
“Imagine the conversation in the board room if you were to say we cannot deliver Hydrogen today because the wind isn’t blowing or because its overcast.”
However, that is a boardroom conversation that every wind and solar electricity generating company is quite comfortable with having. If you are making something and storing it, why does it need to be produced continuously? That’s the whole point of storage, which is the whole point of electrolysis.
Lapsed Agnostic asks “What laws of thermodynamics might those be […]?” Did you read the links I gave in my comment above? This would answer your question.
They are same laws that tell us you have failed your physics and engineering class. Yes I am a (retired) design technology and physics (high school) teacher. One of the “laws of thermodynamics” is entropy which tells us that energy ALWAYS degrades from order to disorder e.g. a newly filled hot water bottle does not get warmer over time, it gets colder. Low energy density solar energy flows (wind & sunlight) are like an old hot water bottle gone cold. Such dilute flows need many orders of magnitude MORE energy to concentrate them so we can use their electrical outputs. This results in HUGE inefficiencies. That’s why solar and wind have only grown to 2% or 3% of global energy supply in the last few decades, and will not grow much more ever.
Lapsed Agnostic appeals to the (so called) “laws of economics” BUT they are sub-set of the “laws of thermodynamics” not the other way round. This means that if someone doesn’t know what “laws of thermodynamics” are then they’re opinions, about the engineering and materials science needed to build solar energy flow concentration machines, are axiomatically disqualified.
The “laws of economics” REQUIRE limited real world inputs. Money or political policy cannot magic scarce minerals into existence on a finite planet. For example, copper concentrations in best grade ore (S. America) has fallen from c 2% a hundred years ago to c0.2% = TEN times more energy inputs for a unit of industrial grade metal. Plus new mines take decades to set up.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/leading-scientists-set-out-resource-challenge-of-meeting-net-zer.html
Same for all the other metals needed to build solar and wind turbines. Plus such input metals are not recyclable, since the energy inputs needed to recover them are orders of magnitude more than from mines. Money or political will power (excuse the pun) cannot magic such resources into existence. Such ‘infinite externalities’ are such a deep flaw it renders mainstream economics useless.
Lapsed Agnostic correctly observes that “You can make hydrogen gas from water using electrolysis […]’ But hydrogen production, storage and transport is HUGELY inefficient, it leaks easily and is very explosive. Plus, its cheaper to get (blue) hydrogen from natural gas. Plus hydrogen fuel cells need platinum which like all industrial metals are running out on our finite planet.
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-hydrogen-hoax-confessions-of-former.html
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/metals-needed-for-carbon-neutrality-in-short-supply/
Plus EXTRACTIVISM = destruction of global south by open cast mining for metals and building sand (which is also running out) to make thermodynamically incompetent solar energy flow harvesting machines.
https://www.waronwant.org/resources/a-material-transition
https://columbanjpe.org/article/what-extractivism
https://www.dw.com/en/not-enough-sand-for-construction-industry-despite-abundance/a-49342942
So called “renewables” are in fact fossil fuel sinks.
Thanks very much for your extensive reply Natasha. I may not be a physics teacher, but I do have a degree in physics from a Russell Group university (as well as a PhD in chemistry). I can just about remember the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which doesn’t mean renewables can’t be effective in producing electrical energy. Solar panels and wind turbines are not extracting heat energy from a closed system. They are being powered (directly and indirectly respectively) by a gigantic nuclear fusion reactor in a nearby star.
The main reason that wind and solar power only account a small percentage of global energy production is because in the past they have been much more expensive ways of producing electricity than fossil fuels. However, due to economies of scale and the increasing cost of fossil fuels – as well as climate laws in Western countries – that is changing.
Regarding decreasing copper ore grades: In 19th century Nevada, prospectors sometimes came across rocks in the desert that were heavy and sparkling in the sun because they contained more than 100 parts per million of gold (plus lots of other valuable metals), and usually marked a good location to establish a gold mine. These days, rocks like that are hardly ever found; however, Nevada is producing more gold than ever – often from rocks containing less than one part per million of gold – using advanced techniques. This is because there’s a demand for it, even though, rather than solving the climate crisis, all a lot of it ever does is sit in underground bank vaults.
Solgold’s Alpala prospect in Ecuador has extensive copper grades of 0.75% (plus 0.5 ppm of gold) and it has plenty of similar prospects. It’s a Tier 1 prospect, but I doubt it’s anything dramatically out of the ordinary.
If hydrogen leaks and is very explosive, it is not much different in that regard from natural gas which we usually seem to be able to handle. Blue hydrogen might be cheaper than green hydrogen, and coal-generated electricity might be cheaper than off-shore wind, but in Western countries coal-fired power stations are being phased out due to climate laws.
Even though it is being used in lots of green tech, platinum is now considerably cheaper than it was when I was buying it over a decade ago.
Thanks for your reply too Lapsed Agnostic. You write:
a) “Solar panels and wind turbines are not extracting heat energy from a closed system.” Correct, but irrelevant. Such solar energy flows are orders of magnitude TOO dilute to replace 100+ more dense fossil fuels.
b) “due to economies of scale…” but money transactions cannot force the laws of physics to behave differently.
c) “… and the increasing cost of fossil fuels …” But ALL solar energy flow capturing machines will always rely on fossils fuels to build, because energy density of batteries is c30-50 times less than diesel. So mining can’t happen without fossil fuels. And process heat for refining etc. isn’t possible with electricity.
d) “… – as well as climate laws in Western countries – that is changing.” Legal hand waving cannot force the laws of physics to behave differently.
e) “… platinum is now considerably cheaper …” mainstream neo-classical economic theory, £$ etc., and market transactions are at best a misleading guide to physical reality.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/06/will-platinum-doom-hydrogen-cars.aspx
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351712079_The_Mining_of_Minerals_and_the_Limits_to_Growth
I hope you’re beginning get the picture by now. I’m merely delivering a message by ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. Your home work is to please read these links and explore the other articles on these sites:-
https://tmurphy.physics.ucsd.edu/energy-text/energy-murphy.html
https://energyskeptic.com/2021/book-review-the-bottlenecks-of-the-21st-century/
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/the-end-of-growth-df4f19c28a1c
Let’s try and help Alex Salmond, his Alba Party and our host Craig Murray to better understand the impacts of physical reality on available energy policy space? I would also strongly urge everyone here to read all the other links I’ve given in previous comments in this thread too.
Thanks again for your reply Natasha. I will try to address each of your points:
a) It doesn’t matter that solar energy is diffuse; it is still able to replace most of the fossil fuel used in transportation, even in countries which are not particularly sunny by global standards.*
b) The laws of physics don’t need to change in order to produce the 18 terawatts of energy that humans currently use from renewable sources.
c) Metal-containing ores can be smelted using hydrogen generated by electrolysis. Where it’s impractical to run mining equipment on electricity, biodiesel, rather than fossil fuels, can be used.
d) See b).
e) Prices are the best measure of the differential between supply and demand. If prices are falling, it generally means either supply is increasing or demand is decreasing – or both.
Scotland boasts 25% of Europe’s potential off-shore wind power, 25% of its tidal power & 10% of its wave power, and so if it becomes independent, it is well positioned to become one of the first countries in Europe to achieve net zero carbon. I think Alex Salmond is right to highlight Scotland’s potential in this regard.
* Here is a worked example: In southern Britain, you can cover a south-facing roof in solar panels for around £10,000. These will produce around 15 gigajoules of electrical energy each year, which over their estimated working lifetime of 25 years or so means they will deliver roughly 380 gigajoules at a cost of £26 per gigajoule (£10,000 / 380). In the UK, a litre of petrol currently costs £1.50 and contains around 30 megajoules (0.03 gigajoules) of energy, so the cost is £50 per gigajoule (£1.50 / 0.03).
However, a typical petrol-fuelled internal combustion engine is only 20% efficient (i.e. only 20% is of the energy in the fuel turns into kinetic energy to make the wheels move; the rest is wasted as heat – an example of the second law of thermodynamics). This means that a litre of petrol can only produce 0.006 gigajoules of kinetic energy (20% of 0.03) at a current cost of £250 per gigajoule (£1.50 / 0.006). (Diesels are slightly more efficient).
In contrast, electric motors are over 80% efficient, which means that over their lifetime the solar panels can produce at least 300 gigajoules of kinetic energy (80% of 380) at a cost of roughly £33 per gigajoule (£10,000 / 300). So people in the south of the UK are faced with a question: do they want to run a petrol car at a cost of nearly *eight* times more than an electric one run off their solar panels (except in winter when there’s not much sun)? Of course the price of petrol could always fall (though it will probably rise in the short-to-medium term with what’s happening in Russia), but it won’t fall below 80 pence a litre because 58 pence a litre is fuel tax. Even if the government scrapped taxes on fuel, the current price would still be around 80 pence per litre (i.e. around four times more expensive than solar).
Lapsed Agnostic re: your reply (April 1, 2022 at 16:23) Thanks for engaging, but you don’t appear to have done the homework reading and learning I have offered here. Nor do you reference your anti-science claims. James Hansen, one of the originators of Anthropic CO2 emissions induced Global Warming science, has dubbed a believe in solar energy flow harvesting machine ‘investor story time’ propaganda as the equivalent of believing in the ‘tooth fairy’.
I hope we can make better progress persuading Alex Salmond and Alba Party that energy policy MUST be grounded in physical reality or they too will be consigned to the irrelevant dustbin of history.
First, electricity is ONLY c15% of global energy supply. And second, just because solar panel and wind turbine manufacture has grown at an exponential rate over the last 2 decades to now supply c1% and c2% respectively of global energy, ENTIRELY built with ONLY fossil fuels does not mean this can continue.
Why? Because the weight a full tank of diesel fuel in typical mining excavation vehicles is c5% of its total mass fully loaded with rocks. If these big vehicles were electric powered, then c80% of its maximum carrying mass would be the batteries. Which would need to be swapped out and charged up every few hours in off-grid remote locations. Its not clear why you simply repeat the same ‘investor story time’ propaganda, which abuses ‘scale errors’ like this to fool the gullible to fund build-out of yet more ‘renewable fuel electricity generating machines’.
https://energyskeptic.com/2016/when-trucks-stop-running-so-does-civilization/
Conclusion: This is just one example amongst many other scaling errors or ‘oversights’ made by solar energy flow harvesting machine ‘investor story time’ propaganda. Since the material input supply chain and manufacturing process of solar panels and wind turbines and all their necessary electric grid support infrastructure, is entirely and only fuelled by fossil fuels, it is IMPOSSIBLE to continue their build-out growth much beyond their current (pun intended) c1% and c2% respectively of global energy, because we are years past peak-oil and peak-gas and peak-coal, plus there are other more urgent economic and political demands on diminishing fossil fuels than thermodynamically incompetent solar energy-flow harvesting hardware.
https://www.sizes.com/numbers/surface_volume.htm
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1610381114
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-06-27/100-renewables-a-few-remarks-about-the-jacobsonclack-controversy/
Natasha
I will try to look at your links.
In the meantime, I have , as always , to disagree with your pessimism about our ability to survive on green energy.
The present Western economic system is built on total, excessive waste.
These are all caused by Tory , anti-geen economics. We need a very good liar in charge to convince us that by 2030 everything that moves heats or lights us is going to be green. What they mean is that the rich will be able to afford to move and keep warm. Everybody else will have to accept P & O terms of employment or starve, like the US.
The culture of force of US politics does not encourage innovation. What is needed but which is totally absent is intellectual honesty in decision making. Starting with a recognition that other races and peoples are entitled to their share of world resources, as exemplified by Tory and Labour support for Nazis and other brainwashed lunatics.
I fear the only solution in government minds to the scarcity of resources is war, as it always has been. Reality check : Ukraine
Thanks again for your reply Natasha. I did briefly peruse the links you posted, which seem to me to be largely written by neo-Malthusians – who’ve been wrong before and are highly likely to be wrong again.
I can assure you that it takes a lot less energy to make a solar panel than the amount of electrical energy that panel will generate over its lifetime, even in usually cloudy countries like Scotland. If it took more, the panels would be completely uneconomic to make (even if you had army of slave labour who only ate gruel and slept on the factory floor) – because hardly anyone would buy them, as they would likely cost more than the cost of the energy they produced over their lifetime. There’s no ‘investor story time’ about it.
In the future, rather than fossil fuels, they will likely be made using energy from burning hydrogen (or synfuel produced from hydrogen & CO2) generated from renewable electricity by the electrolysis of water.
As I stated above, mining equipment like massive dumper trucks could run off biodiesel made from oil-seed rape etc.- or possibly synfuel (see above).
It’s perfectly feasible for Scotland to be powered by renewables and for Scots to retain a similar standard of living. In 2019, Scottish renewables (mainly onshore wind) produced nearly as much electricity as it takes to power every home in Scotland:
https://blogs.gov.scot/scotlands-economy/2019/06/27/renewable-electricity-at-record-levels/
In addition, as I mentioned, Scotland has around 25% of the (largely untapped) offshore wind capacity of Europe – plus, believe it or not, plenty of solar capacity, except in late autumn and winter.
So if Scotland became independent, it could have its own grid, meaning that most of the yet-to-be-installed offshore wind capacity could be used to produce hydrogen, to replace the natural gas that Scots currently use for heating, and to provide energy storage for when there’s lulls in the wind, e.g. when an anticyclone parks itself above the country. Apart from in winter, cars could largely be run off electricity generated by solar panels on roofs, as I outlined in my previous comment.
Lapsed Agnostic, there aren’t really any “laws of economics”. Because economics isn’t a science. It is a mish-mash of observations, generalisations, isolated pockets of mathematics tenuously related to certain special aspects of reality. Mainly, since its inception 250 years ago or so, economics has been a type of propaganda patronised and cultivated by the rich and unscrupulous to “prove” that their activities are in the interests of everyone.
As for your specific point, that “…the laws of economics suggest that, over their lifetimes, wind turbines and solar panels generate far more energy than they need for their manufacture…”, it supports my statement above. Your assertion is true only if the vast government subsidies transferred from the pockets of taxpayers to those of the “green” energy suppliers are not challenged. Perhaps “the laws of economics” include the political manoeuvering, disinformation, and wholesale theft that alone make the “green” business profitable.
Reminds me of a statement allegedly made by an economics professor.
His students had just sat his exam, and approached him afterwards, noting their surprise that this exam was precisely the same as the one for the previous year.
“Yes,” the professor acknowledged, “But the answers have changed.”
Thanks for your reply Tom. Even if all subsidies for renewables are removed, which is increasingly becoming the case, I can assure you that, over an average working lifetime, a wind turbine or solar panel in a favourable location will generate far more energy than it took to make it.
In addition, from my observations over the years, I’d say that more professors of economics lean to the left than to the right.
“It’s such a shame that politicians and much of public discourse is so worryingly ignorant of physical limits to global energy supply”.
One sometimes feels that such ignorance is quite deliberate. It’s long been understood that acting a part is easier if you can “believe” yourself into the part – as in Stanislavski’s method. Politicians, businessmen, and confidence tricksters (if there is any difference between thse groups) very often manage to persuade themselves that they are telling the truth when in fact they are lying in their teeth. (Think Blair, for instance. Or Obama. Or thousands of others who have, probably, killed fewer people).
It must be far easier to rave about the wonders of green energy and sustainability if you honestly know absolutely nothing about the relevant maths, physics, and so on. And besides, the time thus saved can be put to better use plotting, intriguing, betraying, wheedling, and schmoozing.