BBC Seeks To Exterminate Democracy
Our election website is quite a lot of fun.
The Election
Heading For The Polls
Almost there now. The Labour candidate has reportedly gone down with swine flu, and I do hope he gets better soon. I feel ten years younger than I did at the start of the campaign and have enjoyed it enormously.
Two nights ago the BBC Look East programme broadcast a live “Candidates debate” from which I was excluded, and which may have a major effect on the result. The four “Main parties” were included – NuLab, Con, LibDem and Green. The BBC is desperate to shoehorn an outraged public opinion back into support for political parties. They are certainly making it as difficult as possible for independents to campaign.
The BBC also lied to me in that they said that the debate would be between the “main four” parties, but there would be a short “package” on me and on the UKIP candidate, as the other two candidates the BBC was “taking seriously”. That turned out to be a straight lie – they ran a “Package” on the UKIP candidate but not on me. You will recall that Michael Crick from Newsnight said that I had to queue “behind UKIP and the BNP” to be interviewed. Well, I am still waiting.
We had the fun of invading the BBC’s offices and posing with a real dalek, which seemed a fit representative of the BBC’s attitude to democracy. The BBC got very cross.
I have a nasty feeling the turnout could be very low. To say that people are unenthused with politics would be an understatement. With the Conservatives alone having delivered over 20 different leaflets to each house, the public are starting to react against leafletters from any party. As this is our only way to reach people, that is difficult.
But the public meetings we have held have been lively debates with really nice and interesting people. The difficulty is in persuading people that it is worth trying to effect change. To turn electoral despair and disillusion into hope and action is the challenge. I don’t think we have cracked it this time. But it has been an uplifting experience to try.
The other real postive is the change in public mood on the Afghan War. The public on the doorstep appears to be resisting the politicians’ spin that we need to fight it better, and to understand it is a spiral of disaster.
Threatening The Powerful
About 20,000 of our 80,000 DVDs have now been delivered, with startling results. People have started phoning up for posters, and coming out of their homes to shake our hands as we go past.
I have knocked on hundreds of doors personally, possibly thousands, in the last three weeks. I can report that I have detected absolutely no public enthusiasm for the Conservative Party. The media’s presumption that this is a shoo-in for Chloe Smith seems based on nothing. In fact, many more people have told me that they are voting UKIP, than have said they are voting for any other party. The large majority say they will either not vote, or will vote for an independent.
The media’s determination to hype the Greens is even weirder. At its most frenetic, the Green campaign has been invisible verging on lacklustre. They seem to think it will help them to be shrilly rude about me, while Rupert their candidate wears ties and tries to look official.
The BBC is doing everything possible to constrainn debate, and in particular to give no time to arguments against banking bailouts or aganst the Afghan War, and to corral political opinion back into the safe custody of the major political parties. Even though our campaign is the only interesting thing in Norwich, and even the Sunday Express reports today that I am “Head and shoulders above” the other candidates in debate, the BBC is excluding me from their live televised “Candidates’ Hustings” on Monday at 22.15.
They are also excluding UKIP. While I disagree with them fundamentally, they also plainly have a right to be heard. The BBC is trying to define the field of politicial debate and choice.
Guidance from the Electoral Commission clearly states that, where there is a candidates’ hustings from which any candidate is excluded, the candidates who take part must divide the cost of the hustings between them and declare it against their election expenses limit.
A BBC broadcast candidates’ debate, where the candidates’ speak for election and answer questions to voters, plainly is not BBC news and editorial content, but a hustings. That hustings reaches the voters through a broadcast, and the cost of the event is both the cost of organisation and the cost of broadcast to the voters. So the entire cost of the BBC broadcast must be divided between the candidates and declared against their election limit.
I am sure the Tories and Lib Dems at least are already over their election limit (to be disguised by false accounting on the cost of centrally printed leaflets). Each has already delivered a dozen different leaflets per voter, several of them in fake newspaper or magazine format. If the BBC hustings cost is divided between those candidates invited to take part – Con, NuLab, Lib Dem and Grren – they wil be tipped well over the limit.
I regret having to take a legalistic approach, but the BBC’s determination to exclude me from the election has to be countered.
Meantime, just as the momentum is really switching our way, we need both people here to help leaflet and canvass, and we need donations to cover the remaining materials and expenses of the campaign. Please, please come. or if you can’t please give something to help the work of those who are here.
The Fun of Electioneering
I just received a phone call from a very nice lady. concerned that the obstacles being placed in my way as a candidate may be getting me down. On the contrary, I haven’t had so much fun in ages.
We sit down to dinner about 10pm every evening after the day’s campaigning, usually about 16 of us, guitars come out, someone strikes up on the piano and we have enormous fun, except for my singing, for which the politest word is loud.
If we didn’t scare the political establishment, they would not react so fiercely to us. We get abuse from party hacks on the street, while the parties are tellingly polite to each other and connive to keep me out of broadcast events. Lots of flak now coming on the internet from Tories, Lib Dems (see the immensely dull Norfolk Blogger) and Greens, and lots of trolls on this website. I might start a flyposting storm to wind them up further.
A prize of twenty pounds is offered to anyone who spots Chloe Smith in public with less than six minders.
Reaction on the doorsteps can only be described as extremely warm – and we have witnessed many instances of outright hostility in public reaction to the political parties. So despite the efforts of overpaid BBC execs to bolster the political parties, something really interesting is happening with real people here in Norwich North. The challenge is to turn that in to action at the ballot box.
Get yourselves to Norwich now – you are missing a lot of fun!
Oh, The Shame, The Shame!! I think I’ll Have To Kill Myself
Preening Tory “Dorries” Dale has exposed me on his blog as a “Liar” because I said somethng had happened two days ago, when it happened three days ago.
I guess I’ll just have to give up blogging now…
He does rather fail though to address the point that “Norfolk through and through” Chloe Smith tried to become candidate for Ipswich before settling for Norwich.
The Tories “Norfolk throguh and through” candidate was born in Kent and works in London, even though she claims on her leaflets to live in Norwich. Hell of a commute. Indeed in a Daily Telegraph video interview she clearly states she visits Norwich at weekends. Who was the interviewer? Why, Iain Dale…
Taking The Offensive
The local BBC are broadcasting a live TV debate between the “Four Main Candidates” – none of whom has anything interesting to say – on 22 July at 22.15. I am excluded lest I say something voters might actually care about. Like the need to end the war in Afghanistan, where our troops are dying to protect a government of corrupt warlords and heroin dealers, in the interests of the right of US companies to build oil and gas pipelines over Afghanistan from Central Asia.
I have of course been Ambassador to neighbouring Uzbekistan and know what I am talking about. Much better to exclude me therefore.
With Michael Crick of Newsnight following Chloe Smith around Taverham and Drayton yesterday like an obedient if over-excited lapdog, the media are treating the by-election as the coronoation of the blessed Chloe. Time I think that some of the less convenient facts about her were exposed – like her attempt to be MP for Ipswich, which will be very unpopular here in Norwich. The media know about this, but are keeping it quiet not to upset their putative new masters.
So I had fun with this. Hope you do too.
http://www.putanhonestman.org/
Incidentally, yesterday Chloe was walking along the main road with five minders, while six minor lackeys including Iain Dale ran ahead from house to house rousing the inhabitants and asking them if they wanted to meet Chloe Smith. She went for at least half a mile and not one person took up the offer. The voters may be less inclined than the media to assume they have to vote for her.
Totalitarian Dictatorships Are Very Tidy
Totalitarian dictatorships are generally extremely tidy places. In Uzbekistan, even with major massacres, the streets are sluiced down within a few hours, bullet holes filled in, walls repainted, new flower beds instantly in bloom. There is never any litter, nothing out of place.
Democraries are by contrast messy. Members of the ultra-boring blogging tendency (Iain Dale, Norfolk Blogger) etc have been attacking my campaign for fly-posting. That conjures up unpleasant images of derelict buildings and bridges with scores of tatty mouldering posters pasted to them, for months.
We have been attaching posters, on hardboard, with cable ties, to lamp-posts and other street furniture in the constituency. We have been careful to avoid traffic lights and not to cause obstruction. We will remove all trace after the election. This is the common practice in elections over much of the UK.
The political parties, who don’t want people to be reminded of a wide range of democratic choice, are pretending to be outraged. The council have been going around scrupulously removing my posters. Interestingly, they have not been removing the numerous other posters on street furniture in Norwich, including scores for something called a “Bang Fest”. I don’t know what that is, but it sounds fun.
There are occasions where my poster and another poster are on the same lamp-post. They have only removed mine. The peculiar explanation they give is that mine are the only ones they have received complaints about.
Anyway, much better to keep the lamp-posts free from temporary posters, than have an outbreak of political expression outwith the political parties. Where might that end?
Ministry of Justice Blocks My Electoral Address: BBC Changes The Rules: UCU Bars Me From Candidates’ Debate
STOP PRESS
With grateful thanks to famous human rights lawyers Birnberg Peirce, (who advised I had a complete legal right) the Royal Mail have now at the last possible second relented and accepted that I can send out a DVD as an Electoral Communication. So we are going full blast to get it out!!
This has so far been a rollocking campaign of small victories, all achieved because of the friends I have made in my civil rights work over the years. I am both buoyed and humbled.
Every candidate in a parliamentary election has the right to have one “election communication” delivered free of charge by the Post Office.
These are normally rather dull leaflets, so I decided to put my election address on a DVD. It’s rather picturesque and entitled “A Norfolk Journey”. 80,000 copies are being made.
The Post Office is so far refusing to deliver it. The “election communication” must meet the Post Office’s “Reasonable Terms And Conditions” for such communications. These are published. The main ones are that it:
Must weigh less than 60gm – mine is less than 40gm
Must be less than 5mm thick – mine is 2mm thick
Must meet length and width criteria – mine is well inside
Must be securely folded or in a sealed envelope – mine is the latter
Must marked “electoral communication” amd carry printed and published info – mine does
Must be sorted by postcode and address – mine is.
Extraordinarily, the Post Office must also vet the content for libel, incitement to violence or incitement to racial hatred. That is a strange bit of censorship – they don’t check the content of normal mail theydeliver – but my DVD passes that test too.
There is nothing in the criteria at all that says the communication must be in the 14th century medium of printed ink on paper. The regulations are silent on the medium of communication. If you took a DVD in an envelope to any Post Office, you would have no difficulty posting it as a letter.
Yet the Post Office refuses to give permission for the delivery, apparently on the grounds that nobody has ever sent a DVD before as their election communication. They have not actually refused, but have delayed beyond the stage where it is logistically possible to get it out.
They are acting, they say, on legal advice from the Ministry of Justice – prop. Jack Straw! The man who brought you the dodgy dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.
At the moment, it looks like the voters of Norwich North will be denied my electoral address before they vote – unless we can get a real flood of volunteers in to deliver them ourselves.
Even more sleazy is the BBC’s response to the many complaints about their decision to exclude me from all election coverage. They have started to send out standard replies saying:
one of the key factors they look for is “evidence of past and/or current electoral support” in that electoral area.
Note the BBC’s own quotation marks within that quote. They have tacked on “In that area” to their formal criterion.
When the BBC banned me from all coverage at the last General Election when I stood in Blackburn against Jack Straw, who is blocking my electoral address now, the BBC explained it was because I had no “evidence of past and/or current electoral support”.
I gained 5% in that election – which is a lot better than the 3% the Greens got in the same election in Norwich North. That 5% may have been modest, but it does meet the BBC’s criterion. So the BBC have now moved the goalposts to exclude me, by adding a brand new stipulation “in that area” to their criterion, so the electoral support in Blackburn does not count – despite the fact I might reasonably expect to do a lot better in my own county.
Finally, despite numerous representations from within their own union, the Universities and Colleges Union have still banned me from this evenings candidates’ education debate, despite the fact that I am the Rector of a Univeristy and a great deal more interesting on the subject than the rest of the candidates put together.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/06/the_value_of_ed.html
URGENT HELP NEEDED
The reaction we are getting on the streets of Norwich North is tremendous, When we talk to people they are sick of corrupt politicians, sick of vast sums of their money being handed to banks, sick of war and the deaths of young men.
There is a real chance in Norwich North to land a real blow on the dinosaur political parties that are so comfortable in exercising ever increasing power over us. If we can win in Norwich North, it will give momentum to the cause of independent people in parliament and could build momentum towards challenging the big party dominance at the coming general election.
BUT – while the ground is fertile, we have to sow the seed. We have an extremely energetic campaign, and those voters we reach are very sympathetic. But still, less than half of the people when asked know that I am standing. The media are wilfully ignoring us.
THERE ARE JUST TWO WEEKS TO GO
We have some major campaign surprises up our sleeve which can break through to public awareness and win this, including a first in British electoral history. But we desperately need manpower to do it.
So far 37 volunteers have delivered leaflets for us. That is wonderful, but not nearly enough. There are 79,000 voters in over 30,000 households, and we need to leaflet each one twice more in two weeks, and to speak to people.
I am urging you to get yourself here and help. If you can just come for one afternoon, and deliver a few hundred leaflets, that is already a huge assistance. If you can persuade others to come, that is wonderful. Best of all is if you can come and stay a few days – we have room, but it would help if you can bring bedding. Please come, and please urge anybody you can to come.
We gave to show that an independent can stand against the system without simply being knocked down by the sheer organisational muscle of the big parties.
So please, please come and help me now.
CRAIG MURRAY
PUT AN HONEST MAN INTO PARLIAMENT
Craig Murray Banned From Candidates’ Education Debate
It has realy started in earnest now. Before the election was called, we had booked halls for the meeting schedule which you have seen. One of these was Hellesdon High School this Friday, 10 July.
The school has now phoned to say the Governors have decided not to permit my meeting -despite Nick Clegg having already held a by-election meeting there.
This is not just unfair, it is illegal. The Electoral Commissions rules state:
6.1 Once an election is called, candidates are legally entitled to use publicly funded schools and other public meeting rooms for election meetings free of .charge…..
It is happening again exactly as it did in Blackburn, where I was never permitted my entitlement to public rooms. Exactly as in Blackburn, I have followed Electoral Commission guidance and complained to the Returning Officer, who has done nothing. Returning Officers, as with Colin Bland here, are usually the chief executive of the local authority, and as such are normally party loyalists of the governing party. In our current state of politics, I don’t trust them at all.
STOP PRESS
In fact the Returning Officer Colin Bland has now told the school they are not legally entitled to bar candidates, and the school have apologised for not being aware of the legal position. So we are back on. A small but pleasant victory.
It is also worth adding that, while maintaining my distrust of returning officers, particularly chief executives of Labour councils in Labour rotten boroughs, here Colin Bland appears to be doing the right thing so far.
I am also being excluded from candidates’ hustings. The first is a debate on the future of education. I am far more qualified on this than any other candidate. The debate is being organised by the Univerisities and Colleges Union (UCU). This time the excuse for banning me is that I did not score highly in a poll which was conducted before I was a candidate and in which my name was not mentioned!
Hi Craig,
Lisa tells me you are enquiring about our event this Thursday. I took the decision to invite only those candidates shown by our poll to have a chance of winning the seat.
It is nothing personal, or any reflection – either positive or negative – on your platform and I wish you all the best for your campaign.
Best
Matt
I have really had enough.
Matt,
That is not acceptable. Your poll was conducted before I declared my candidacy and as you know well, I was not included in your poll.
As you also know well, at every bookmakers I am currently on shorter odds than the Lib Dems, just behind the Greens and overhauling them in the odds day by day.
As you know, I am the Rector of the University of Dundee and I have a much higher profile on education issues than any of the other candidates in Norwich North. I am also an honorary fellow of the University of Lancaster.
I have played a leading role in anti-cuts campaigns in Scotland’s universities in close liaison with the UCU, and have defended UCU members in individual cases on University Court. For someone who has voluntarily given so much to UCU members, to be kicked in the teeth like this by the UCU over an education debate is completely outrageous.
I will take direct action to take my rightful place in your debate, and you will need to call the police physically to prevent me.
I think the UCU having one of their higher profile allies arrested should be a fascinating spectacle for all. It would be much better if you were prepared to speak to me. I am on 07979 691085.
Craig
They will also need to ask the police to act illegally in stopping me from speaking at Hellesdon High. I have taken enough of this.
BBC Prioritises BNP
Totally out of touch with public mood, the BBC is prioritising political parties – any political party – over an independent candidate, even a serious one. The BBC’s Michael Crick has denied any bias by the BBC in refusing to cover me on Newsnight. In Today’s Independent on Sunday, Michael Crick states:
“Oh yes, that’s right, it’s all a big conspiracy, ordered by the BBC governors. Of course it’s not. It was an accident. We’re not obliged to report all the candidates. He’ll have to join the queue behind the BNP and UKIP candidates to be interviewed. It’s much ado about nothing.”
The BBC’s desperation to promote the BNP as ahead of me is scarey. Here are today’s odds from Ladbrokes.
Conservatives 1/9
Labour 6/1
Greens 16/1
Craig Murray 25/1
Ian Gibson 33/1
Liberal Democrats 33/1
UKIP 100/1
BNP 200/1
Bill Holden 200/1
Libertarian Party 500/1
Official Monster Raving Loony 1000/1
Can anybody see a genuine reason why I have to queue behind the BNP for an eventual interview, or why the Greens and Lib Dems have been heavily plugged by the BBC while I to date have not been reported at all?
Bloggers are excellent at free speech issues which affect the interent. But free speech should not be confined to the internet. I should be most grateful if other bloggers would take this up too.
——————————————————————————–
Calling Frazer
Frazer,
If you can see this in the Congo, can you urgently send me say five good pictures of the Tema project, inc one with me on, on with the Atholl name on and one of the finished turbines?
Thanks!!!
Norwich Public Meeting Schedule
Crooks Lies and Politicians
An Evening With Craig Murray.
Friday 3 July Norwich Puppet Theatre, Barrack St, 7.30pm.
Tuesday 7 July Norman Centre Mile Cross, 7.30pm.
Thursday 9 July, Norwich Playhouse, 7.30pm
Friday 10 July, Hellesdon High School, 7.00pm
Saturday 11 July, Taverham Village Hall, 7.30pm
Tuesday 21 July, Thorpe Frog Hall, 7.30pm
A Small Norwich Mystery
When MPs’ expenses were finally published officially, they were redacted to the point of meaninglessness. The Tories are now practising some very curious redaction with the cv of their candidate, Chloe Smith, who is bidding to become the youngest member of the current parliament.
Chloe’s official c.v. begins when she moved to secondary school in Swaffham. Most people’s cvs begin by stating where they were born. Chloe’s doesn’t. That is not very strange. But what is strange is that the Tory party are refusing to say where she was born when journalists have asked. I am told they have been getting quite tetchy about it, even with a sympathetic journalist who was writing a puff piece about the glamorous young candidate.
Now that is a mystery. I genuinely don’t give a hoot if Chloe was born in Basingstoke or Ulan Bataar, and I can’t imagine the electorate care either. (I had a friend at school who was born on an aeroplane en route to a holiday in Malta, which I thought was dead impressive). But why would the Conservative Party not want people to know? Plainly Chloe is English enough even for the nutters of the BNP.
I can’t think of any logical reason for the Tory reticence, except that Chloe’s latest leaflet quotes her as saying “As a Norfolk girl through and through, I’m determined to be the strong voice the whole area needs.” Perhaps if she were born outside the county, they are worried about diluting her local credentials. But if they hadn’t made a mystery of it, I don’t suppose anyone would have noticed. (I am not saying she was born outside Norfolk, incidentally. I really don’t have a clue. I am just puzzled why they won’t say).
Anyway, a free copy of The Catholic Orangemen to anyone who knows either where Chloe was born, or why on earth it’s a secret!
On Being Insignificant
After an eight hour delay, I have just been telephoned back by what sounded like the most junior member of the Newsnight team. He told me that in the “Editorial judgement” of the BBC, I was not a “Significant candidate”.
I will therefore not figure in BBC coverage other than the mandatory two second caption at the end. For Newsnight, Michael Crick will give the statutory mention this evening.
By denying me any media exposure the BBC are, of course, consciously attempting to make their prediction of our failure a self-fulfilling prophecy, and to silence one of the most known voices against the political establishment in the UK.
I do hope the people of Norwich North will prove the arrogant and super-rich executives of the BBC wrong.
By-Election Latest
Conservatives 1/5
Labour 9/2
Greens 12/1
Craig Murray 25/1
Ian Gibson 33/1
Liberal Democrats 33/1
UKIP 100/1
BNP 200/1
Bill Holden 200/1
Libertarian Party 500/1
Official Monster Raving Loony 1000/1
(Ladbrokes)
From the doorstep experience, I think that is basically the right running order if the election were held today. Fortunately it isn’t, and we have three weeks of intense campaigning ahead of us. I start from lower “brand recognition” than the parties, but am already moving up in public awareness very fast and we have some big campaigning surprises up our sleeves.
Stop posting comments asking what you can do to help, and get yourselves to Norwich to pound the streets and deliver leaflets. There are a few other tasks as well, but 95% of the man-hours we need are foot-slogging. We can provide accommodation – helpful if you can bring sleeping bag or bedding. Whatever you can spare – hours, days or weeks – just get yourselves here.
Our first public meeting is 7pm this Friday at Norwich Puppet Theatre. Ironic venue as I am one of the only candidates who is not a party puppet. Tell anyone you know in Norwich!
Craig
Appalling BBC Bias
The reason the political parties retain their iron grip on power, even when exposed to all as corrupt self-seekers, is that they have the ability, brutally, to grind down all opposition. Trying to stand against it is soul-destroying. I got two hours sleep last night. The Tories are bringing in over a hundred full time workers to the constituency. So far I have eight local part time volunteers, and myself.
BBC Newsnight last night ran a profile of all the candidates – but excluded me. I am truly shocked about it. We have delivered twelve thousand leaflets so far, taken two full page adverts in the local press, and announced and advertised in the media a series of six public meetings for which the halls are booked. Yesterday we had sent a press release specifically to Newsnight. And Michael Crick, who did the Newsnight report, certainly knows I am standing:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight
So do the bookies, where I am ahead of the Lib Dems and the Greens in the odds – but still very worth a flutter.
Martin Bell has commented “It is very wrong that Craig Murray was not featured on Newsnight. He is a serious candidate, and serious independents must be given fair coverage by the media alongside the major political parties.”
I truly think that Newsnight’s behaviour is outrageous.
Corrigan Brothers Give Campaign Song
We now have an official campaign song, kindly donated by the Corrigan Borthers. Here is their press release:
Corrigan Brothers have today granted Independent candidate for Norwich exclusive rights to use their MP EXPENSES SONG in his campaign. Craig has agreed to perform the song with the Brothers. Lead singer Ger Corrigan said today, we had originally offered to help pay back the expenses of any MP who agreed to sing a duet of the song with us. We have however received no offers from expense shamed MPs! After reading last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph supplement “The Complete Expense Files” we wholly endorse Craig’s campaign and are delighted that our song will assist in his victory. The last song we did for a politician , Mr Barack Obama (There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’bama) helped greatly in his election and we hope to perform at Craig’s inauguration like we did at President Obama’s”. Go Craig!
And here is their great song:
Norwich North Campaign Begins
We are now getting established in Norwich North. Our first leaflet is being printed. meeting rooms have been booked, an office and accommodation have been rented. Priority today is to sort out the internet and other communications.
There is still no definite date set for the by-election yet. I have been trying to hire empty shops to use as campaign centres, but the Conservative Party has in some cases got there first and been hiring them for two months – so they obviously expect an early election. But ii is the government which calls the date in this case. I still think July 23rd is most likely – New Labour are going to lose and it would be best to get the bad news out of the way before the summer. But Brown’s instinct is generally to procrastinate.
By law a minimum of only seventeen days notice has to be given for a by-election, so it could be sprung upon us any moment.
There is a genuine disgust at the political parties among the electors of Norwich North. There seems to be a public understanding that the expenses scandal is only a symptom of a party political system that is not functioning and not helping people.
I think we have a genuine opportunity to give the political establishment a real shock here. But I very much need help. We already have plenty of tasks for volunteers to campaign, we can accommodate people and it’s time now to come to Norwich and launch a radical assault on our rotten political system!
If you can come and help, call me on 07979 691085
Normal Service Will resume….
Sorry, about this folks. I am still in Africa trying very hard to get some odds and ends tied up on the project here before I go. And at the same time – with help from some great volunteers – I am trying to get the logistics in place for Norwich North, and am also writing election literature. So apologies for lack of blogging at the minute. Hope to be back in the UK on Tuesday.