This morning, lawyers are acting on my request to prepare a counsel’s opinion on the legality of publishing those of Stewart McDonald’s emails which are in the public interest to be revealed.
This may take a day or two.
Emails of dubious provenance are published all the time. Emails about Partygate brought down Boris Johnson. Nobody got imprisoned for the Paul Mason, Richard Dearlove or Integrity Initiative troves. Nobody argued the Guardian could not publish their (tendentious) selection from the Panama Papers. The law did not stop publication of the stolen UEA emails on climate change.
But this is Scotland, where a politician can phone the chief constable at 6pm and by 9pm they are in the home of a journalist on an intimidation mission.
(NB I have no complaint at all about the behaviour of the individual officers last Saturday, they were very friendly).
If you get burgled Police Scotland will be with you within 48 hours, if at all. But threaten exposure of the political establishment and senior plain clothes officers can be mobilised straight away.
Sturgeon’s repeated use of both police and prosecutors to pursue private vendettas cannot be safely ignored, so forgive me if I proceed soberly. Kindly be patient.
I was not involved in obtaining the emails and of course it follows I am not the only one with access to them. Others are safely outside the UK. So they may get published elsewhere.
I have set out the very restrained way I intended to judge which are in the public interest. If the Sturgeon goon squad succeeds in removing me from the process, that may well not be the win they think it is.
Finally, legality and morality are not the same. There is a great deal of outrage toward me from the do nothing wing of the SNP about “publishing private emails”.
Well, post Snowden nobody has an excuse for not understanding that the British security services look continually at the private emails of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, myself included.
Stewart McDonald is not only an MP, he is one of the biggest fanboys and cheerleaders for the British security services. I have never seen anything from him remotely critical on the security services’ mass surveillance.
Amazing how these establishment figures squeal when the boot is on the other foot and citizens push back a little.
Secondly, to anybody who has paid attention, it is simply extraordinary that an ardent British nationalist like Stewart McDonald is in the SNP at all, let alone in a senior position.
McDonald is an enthusiastic proponent of British neo-imperialist foreign policy and also of the Israeli Defence Force and the Zionist state.
McDonald, even after Independence, wants Scotland to keep hosting British nuclear weapons at Faslane and allow Scottish regiments in the British Armed Forces.
McDonald has always supported every blockage to Independence. He is currently proposing there should be no plebiscite election at all, and the Scottish Government should do nothing except continue to ask Westminster for permission to hold a referendum. That is the amendment McDonald is proposing to the SNP “special conference” on the way forward.
I am not sure that those who obtained the emails specifically targeted McDonald. I think it more probable McDonald self-selected as the only MP stupid enough to enter his email login details and password in reply to a phishing email.
But I am delighted it is him.
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Craig, honourable men, like yourself, pleases me, men of your ken, you, still exist!
One….. of the hundred required.
Everyone can see at a glance what Stewart Mcdonald is .. a hardcore British chauvinist mad for confrontation with Washington’s designated villains. I doubt those distraught at the publication of his emails are concerned it would destroy him or you. I suspect they are concerned for the entity who chose Mcdonald to be SNP foreign spokesman and whose foreign policy views hew so very closely to his. They fear a major British party falling back into the hands of a Salmond or Corbyn, someone who is not a reliable chickenhawk and up for the fights ahead. You may disagree and feel these types are as genuinely concerned for your freedom as they are for Julian Assange’s.
What happens if the legal advice is against publication?
Will Craig follow that advice, or will he publish and be damned?
I am not going to publish if the legal advice is that it is liable to lead to a jail sentence. I can’t put my young family through that again.
I am far from being the only person with access to the emails. But I should like to be involved in jounalism around them.
“But I should like to be involved in jounalism around them.”
This is the line that Craig keeps using that worries me the most.
The (not so) Good (un) Lady (like) Dorrian made it clear that she did not regard Craig as a journalist, and if she regarded Craig thus then it was so, no matter what it actually says in the law. There was no rationality or logic in her judgement, it was entirely arbitrary. This was not an exercise of law, it was an exercise of raw power, on behalf of … .
This exercise put Craig in jail.
If they want to put Craig in jail again he cannot rely on the letter of the law. Not in Scotland anyways, and increasingly not in the UK. Ask Graham Phillips, not to mention Julian.
Be careful Craig, be very careful.
There is a possible answer to that. New media should have its own body and its own complaints procedure – and lobby to get it accepted for press cards. Then no comparison to “IPSO” would be valid or tenable.
“There is a possible answer to that”
What we see here, and in numerous other instances, is colonial oppression; tinkering within what is still a colonial society will not alter matters. The only treatment for the colonial condition is independence and liberation of an oppressed people and culture. As Albert Memmi put it: “The liquidation of colonization is nothing but a prelude to complete liberation, to self-recovery.”
Good grief.
Meanwhile in the real world …
“in the real world”
Fanon termed colonial society a “Manichaeism world”.
You’re very polite Alf, and put some of us to shame 🙂
Doesn’t Jonathon Cook represent the kind of journalistic values that you also adhere to? Might he be an avenue for publication and someone you could collaborate with? Doesn’t he operate in Jerusalem?
Nazareth, dgp – like Jesus Christ did in his youth. (Same initials as well.)
Well ,LaaG- there’s a messianic connection not to be missed.’Jonathon of Nazareth’ I knew he was in Israel but his blog says he has now returned to UK. I have always found the sensitivity attached to the existence of Israel quite curious and interesting. I remember reading years ago that Balfour of the “Balfour declaration” was a religious man and had been at least partly motivated by the idea that his actions in establishing a jewish homeland were in keeping with Biblical prophesy.. No doubt he believed he was guided by the hand of God This predated the holocaust but there was a great number of jewish refugees due to the persecution/pogroms occurring in Eastern Europe and Russia.
I don’t know how true this is but as an aside, the Balfour estate was near Markinch in Fife(now base of operations for Jenny Gilruth ,Scottish transport minister.
The last remnant of the Balfour family still associated with the estate was an elderly lady (this was in the sixties) who had gathered a large clowder and lived in a cottage on the estate. She lived alone and was not scrupulous with her trash so she had taken to just chucking the cat food wrappers/tins into a spare room. The lady died and her remains were eventually found by a hapless telephone engineer who was investigating a fault at the house.
Back to the Middle east. I have a broad sketchy idea of how we have arrived at the current situation . OK yes it probably has something to do with Oil, but I don’t really understand the extreme sensitivity that surrounds the state of Israel, its covert significance as a nuclear power and the indifference of the ‘west’ to the egregious abuse of agreements regarding the Palestinians and the brazen theft of land, and the blindness to extreme violence that is visited upon the Palestinians and the tacit approval by our two main UK parties.
Corbyn’s expressions of support for Palestinian people provoked a huge fabricated hysterical smear campaign throughout the media and the Blairite labour faction absurdly alleging deep rooted anti-semitism.
Somewhere into this complex picture our wee SNP defence spokesman fits in. My impression (at a distance) is that he is a self-important non-entity held in contempt by those around him but, by hanging out with the big boys in WM he has managed to get in on the fringes of power, acquired some idea of the general disposition of influence and become a low level gossip peddler or minor conduit for the less picky elements of the journalistic and political trades. I may be wrong and he is a potent mover and shaker but his emails may yet be revelatory about the prospects of political development in Scotland and the roles of some of the upper levels of the SNP. He may be a pawn but sometimes the movements of pawns are significant.
An article about this informed by the contents of the emails may well be interesting.
Thanks for your reply, dgp, and for the update about JC. He should probably change the location in his Twitter bio, which reads ‘Bristol/Nazareth’, to just Bristol – assuming that’s where he’s now based.
I tend to the view that Balfour was largely just going along with British government aims concerned with cementing its control over that part of the world when he wrote the Balfour Declaration, rather than trying to accelerate the Second Coming. I doubt whether anyone who can come up with his famous “Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all” line can be said to be religious in any traditional sense of the word. Hope none of his relative’s cats starved to death.
The sinister truth (if you think about it) is that the cats did not starve.
Believe that the brilliant Jonathan Cook is based back in the UK now.
“But I should like to be involved in jounalism around them.”
WAIT till someone else publishes them, THEN you can commentate to your heart’s content. Though also check that out with your solicitors.
Send them to Wikileaks and let them publish the lot.
Can you reveal how many other parties have access?
I noticed the Grayzone UK’s Kit Klarenberg @KitKlarenberg has been retweeting your tweets on this story. The Grayzone (US spelling of Gray with an ‘a’) previously published the Paul Mason and Dearlove stuff. So they seem a likely candidate.
Afaik, Kit Klarenberg is based in Serbia(?). So if these emails appear on their site first, no doubt the “it’s the Russians!” crowd will be out in force. I don’t see how this story aids Russia though? Both anti-independence and pro-independence people have claimed Russia is both ‘for’ and ‘against’ them at various times, often contradicting themselves. And if nothing makes sense, they just say, ah well, they just want to create division.
It could be that he was phished by the Russians, it’s not impossible, unless Craig knows different?
If so, while not condoning such meddling, it’s worth remembering the US meddles all the time in European countries’ politics, often directly. If such Russian or Chinese meddling resulted in a cynical population demanding democratic reform and greater transparency, are we supposed to be angry by that? It’d be terrible if they undermined the shadowy elites, who are frustrating Scottish independence and UK democratic reform, wouldn’t it.
Remember when Trump said this about Hillary’s emails : “Russia, if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” as the ancient proverb goes. Though Trump was labelled treasonous, after saying it lol.
I don’t know how I’d feel about hacking that revealed wrongdoing and internal subversion of democracy by our own, it’s a difficult question, isn’t it.
If for instance, hacking by some other state revealed widespread vote rigging (postal votes are very vulnerable), or war crimes, by our leaders, should we be angry or thankful?
The head of the UK Army claims Russia are trying to sow division. But divisions have long existed, and anyone who has been arguing for things like proportional representation for Westminster and an elected second Chamber (me, since the 1990s), or Scottish independence, could be accused of sowing division, i.e. opposing the status quo. This is why it’s such a bad idea to get the army policing online debate and dissent. Because they operate on an assumption we’ve reached a state of democratic-constitutional perfection, and therefore anyone arguing against the status quo, must somehow be some sort of subversive.
Goose
If you’re a democracy then you’re thankful, because you see the leak in your governance.
If you’re a totalitarian state, then you’re angry, for obvious reasons.
Tatyana
That’s just it though, we don’t find out.
Britain is the most secretive country in Europe. Look at the risks Craig had to take to get his story out and the price he paid. He’s been shunned by the UK establishment – for revealing torture. MPs were completely in the dark when Snowden revealed what he did about the ridiculous overreach and scale of misanthropic surveillance practices. Yet MPs voted to authorise most of it. And then voted to reauthorise it again, with additional scope and new powers.
Many have almost given up hope of seeing political change in the UK because there are too many bad actors using the power of the State to shield themselves, and lock down the status quo. I know it might seem weird from a Russian or Chinese perspective, because we do at least have the pretense of free elections and can change govt, but that’s all it is: make-believe, a charade, a sham. While we are losing our freedoms and sleepwalking into an authoritarian nightmare.
Here’s a radical idea..
As we’ve seen with the recent Seymour Hersh Nordstream article & discussion, how in the US, executive Presidential powers, developed under Reagan and GW Bush & Cheney, allegedly allowed the CIA, to get around democratic oversight Notifications for covert operations. Probably not the first time either. Maybe the whole balloon nonsense is because officials are nervous about that discussion and what would emerge if law makers investigated previous administrations?
There’s a good case to be made that the heads of all Intel agencies should be elected positions. To better represent the societies they serve. Do we want those with psychopathic traits running the likes of the CIA, FBI; MI6, MI5, NSA, GCHQ? When instead, we could elect qualified people to those roles, people committed to demystifying, and declassifying as much as possible; people with empathy. Those who actually value human rights and are committed to defending the civil liberties of citizens?
I’m very relieved to read your response Craig.
Kind of OT, and kind of not OT, Whatever you might think of the BBC, some / much / all (delete according to opinion) of the world marches to Totalitarianism.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23319909.bbc-offices-india-raided-tax-authorities/
Craig Murray flees home amid police probe… Scottish Express
The disciples of Sturgeon’s Church of Wokology tracked Murray down to an abandoned Highland croft, where a tense standoff ensued. Murray, holed up inside, armed with nothing but his laptop, threatened to dump the email cache in raw, unredacted form if the gathered disciples tried to storm the building.
Beginning to wonder if it is all a decoy operation. Maybe it is a bit of fun to put the wind up the SNP-get them chasing him/shadow and hey presto-up they pop somewhere else entirely.
There is also the bonus that the police may blunder or even better some SNP grandee is provoked into some ludicrous action or comment.
This is the opening part of a story submission that I’m working on. FYI. Looking to replace Luke Harding at the guardian.
I’m trying to work in a Russia angle too. That stuff apparently plays well with the current editor-in-chief and those she answers to. On which: anyone know if any wealthy Russians own, or have in recent years owed, rundown Highland estates? Could someone ask Carole Cadwalladr? In fact, any Scottish Highland link to Russia or Russians will suffice. Doesn’t matter if it’s a really tenuous connection that wouldn’t hold up to even the most preliminary sniff test. I’ll find a way to weave it in, linking Murray to Russia in the readers’ mind is all that matters here! My bad? Huh, Harding’s Russiagate ‘collusion’ and Assange stories were basically fiction and they’re still on the website to giggle at.
—
Joking aside. Some in our press really are ridiculous, aren’t they.
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/19961869.russian-oligarchs-property-scotland/
yes I do have a Russian connection -someone who was part of the student resistance and misbehaving alternatives types -part of the arty/dissident/movement at University of Leningrad where the person was involved in putting on ‘illegal’ punk style pop concerts in disused property. The KGB often raided the concerts and rounded up some of the students and they were taken off for interrogation. Sometimes an American agent was caught up in this and detained( the Russian students were threatened with being removed from their courses. This was at the tail end of the USSR era during Glasnost and Putin was a KGB officer charged with monitoring the dissident arty and jewish groups at the uni.The US had consul employees who were interacting with these groups and assisting jewish students to leave the country to go to Israel or even the US. The story/account I have is of a young American consul employee being held and the students defying the police and refusing to leave without him, and eventually getting him released.
dgp
Pete Wishart already seems mighty angry with Craig, Alex Salmond and Alba. Though who’d want to be a friend of Wishart?
Wishart was a big ally of Alex Salmond, tweeting : “Unparalleled, without peer, a giant, a mentor, a legend..” Crying “No, no, no!” when Salmond resigned. https://twitter.com/CaledoniaLad/status/1623339602621739008
Wonder what he’ll say about Sturgeon when she goes? Politics is such a den of vipers, isn’t it.
That piece on the guardian was my attempt at satire btw.
Crap, admittedly, but there you go. 🙂
It’s probably not that far off what’s happening in some of these news rooms. They just make stuff up, while slating all alt media as disinfo.
Goose. Isn’t Alba, well a touch racist? Perhaps it should be called Terra Nigra. Google translate will help you with the latin. 🙂
Mr. Unger, if you were an American, I would be advising you never to stay in a hotel, especially don’t be caught in a hotel room alone, to take no trips in private planes, and maybe even avoid driving alone. Then there is the infamous “fast acting cancer” which, by pure unfortunate coincidence, took out the Chicago politician who thought she had the right as an American citizen to challenge Rahm Emanual for the Chicago mayorship. Plese do take all reasonable precautions for your own and your family’s health and safety.
Apparently Nicola Sturgeon is resigning today according to LBC…
I’m sure that it’s just a coincidence
but then I’m a coincidence theorist
Are the emails linked with this outstanding News..?
Nicola Sturgeon to resign as Scottish first minister..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64647907.amp
Please let this be because of what she knows is in McDonald’s emails.
i wonder if he was involved in the Alex Salmond prosecution? Or the Craig Murray prosecution, for that matter?
Sturgeon is to resign, hopefully she’ll take Murrell with her, though there’s no point in her going if she’s to be replaced with the like s of Robertson, Brown or Swinney, maybe she saw the writing on the wall with regards to the police investigation over the 600k, or maybe the e-mails to her from McDonald are very damaging, either way her tenure as FM was mostly a poor one.
It’s done!
Craig, you need to come clean. Is Sturgeon terrified of those emails?
Good for her, now who are the rats going to go after – each other?
“Good for her” ?
Good for the independence, now liberation movement, I would say.
Hopefully Sturgeon going will trigger a Scottish election which can be used as a de facto referendum.
Are Scottish elections democratic? No, didn’t think so, ergo not a plebiscite.
Well with the SNP being such a fair party, really up on their gender politics, I would not be surprised if their gender balance will shine bright and Scotland might have 10/15/20 men at the ready to further Westminsters agenda. take a pick on the numbers.
If these emails have got anything to do with her, the disappearance of Indy campaign funds, or her ambitions to land another cushy job with some mega charity in international capacity, then now would be a good time for somebody abroad to publish the most appropriate communications.
Mind not all of them, one would want to hold some back until the new candidates are pushing themselves forward.
Anticipation is good for the production of Adrenalin. Bring on a plebiscite election.
Ah the trail of following the Money always pays off with a kill.
I think this is how shem’ll scramble and cry at the big step down ..
‘I dunno nuffink about me hubby’s two hundred grand that he never told me and gave to my party that we both own and run for years – youse never take me alive grrr- I all woman , man, err I mean I’m IT, call me Herr Sir… I’m gonna show ya all, I’m gonna be nato gen sec and kill Putin and then meother coming for that pesky Craig and big leck and this time the sisters are gonna do it for hiselfs …’
More at the mid day news.
Has the Curse of Craig struck again?
Perhaps a realization that she has been too divisive?
Golden opportunity for all pro independence parties and supporters. Put Flynn in temporary charge of the SNP. Withdraw all SNP and Alba MPs from Westminster. Set up new pro independence party embracing all pro independence politicians and supporters.
seems logical but do you really think logic prevails in politics?
Why not play safe and just send the emails to Max Blumenthal and Kit Klarenberg? They will happily roast whoever has been puppeting this little war pig, whether it was the dearly departed or her own masters on the South Bank of the Thames.
Guardian, Times et al, already trying to define who the establishment approved ‘acceptable’ candidates are, for consideration.
Reading their ‘Scottish leadership runners and riders’ list, ‘none of the above'(Nota) seems applicable.
Someone not on their list, Joanna Cherry KC, among other points, tweeted this: “We must restore the SNP’s tradition of internal party democracy, open respectful debate….”
Good. Who has that radical plan to achieve independence?
Everything wrong with the guardian in one article : https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/keir-starmer-jeremy-corbyn-labour-election-antisemitism
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) at that time, was led by a big Conservative supporter and donor. If a similar arrangement now, risks corrupting the independence and impartiality of the BBC, why doesn’t the same logic apply to the EHRC?
Craig:
“a politician can phone the chief constable at 6pm and by 9pm they are in the home of a journalist”
This was on a Saturday?
Does this mean the Notice of access to emails was posted at 6pm Saturday?
&
Police were at the door before 9pm
This seems an improbably short responses time
The law did not stop publication of the stolen UEA emails on climate change.
=========
Why should it?
We should be informed so we can give informed explicit consent.
Or perhaps you don’t think the peasants should have that right?
When do you or others intend to publish those of Stewart McDonald’s emails which are in the public interest to be revealed?
February 13th – “This morning, lawyers are acting on my request to prepare a counsel’s opinion on the legality of publishing those of Stewart McDonald’s emails which are in the public interest to be revealed. This may take a day or two.”
Was that an Earth day of 24 Earth hours or based on the daily rotation of some far-distant planet whose days are more like Earth months?