Ten years ago Edward Snowden was helped to escape by Wikileaks and to publish his revelations by The Intercept, Guardian, New York Times and others.

In 2023 Jack Texeira is tracked down by UK secret service front Bellingcat in conjunction with the New York Times and in parallel with the Washington Post, not to help him escape or help him publish or tell people his motives, but to help the state arrest him.

Those outlets have accessed a cache of at least 300 additional secret documents in doing so – and have kept them secret, with the exception of a couple of snippets that forward the official state narrative.

That contrast with ten years ago tells a very real and glaring truth. The idea that the legacy media in any way serves the truth or the public interest is now completely buried. The legacy media serves the state, and the state serves the billionaires.

Wikileaks is now so hamstrung by attacks on its finances, personnel and logistics as to be almost inoperable. Propaganda outfit Bellingcat was conceived as a way to counter it, by producing material with the frisson of secret access but actually as an outlet for the security services. An astonishing amount of “liberal opinion” falls for it.

Similarly the Intercept, like the Guardian, was subject to an internal takeover that delivered it entirely into the hands of the neo-conservatives.

Neither the alleged journalists of New York Times, Washington Post, nor Bellingcat did the most basic things a real journalist would do.

They did not contact Texeira, speak to him, ask him to explain his motivation, and look through the other secret material to which he had access, to get Texeira’s view on its meaning and implications, and to publish what in it was in the public interest.

Instead they simply shopped him to the FBI and closed down the remaining documents.

I am not at all surprised by Bellingcat, which is plainly a spook organisation. I hope this enables more people to see through them. But the behaviour of the New York Times and Washington Post is truly shocking. They now see their mission as to serve the security state, not public knowledge.

In the ten years between Snowden and Texeira, the world has changed hugely for the worse. Not only has a huge amount of freedom disappeared, freedom’s former Guardians have been subverted. It has been ten years of disaster.

A cache of twitter images of some of the leaked documents is here. I am not aware of any broader cache – feel free to insert links to any in the comments.

The initial reaction to the leaked documents was to rubbish them with the memes routinely applied to all information embarrassing to the state nowadays – they were either “Russian hacks” or “faked or amended disinformation”.

These attacks were particularly important as the message that came over clearly from these Texeira leaks was precisely the same as that which came over from Daniel Ellsberg’s original Pentagon Papers leak 50 years ago – that the public is being lied to about how the war is going.

(It is worth reflecting that in today’s world the NYT and Washington Post would have condemned Ellsberg and emphasised those bits of the Pentagon Papers which reflect badly on the VietCong).

Ukraine was particularly concerned about US official figures showing Ukrainian casualties much higher, and Russian casualties much lower, than the Ukrainian official figures the US ostensibly endorsed.

I have to say I always find both Ukrainian and Russian casualty figures laughably false. The idea that either side is telling the truth appears to me one that no half-sensible person could entertain. I had presumed that was the general view.

Revelations about the fragility of Ukrainian air defences and supply lines similarly seemed to me a statement of the blindingly obvious.

It is also unhelpful for the US to have revealed that it is actively spying on President Zelensky, as well as allies like South Korea and Israel. But again, this is embarrassing in the sense it is embarrassing if somebody publishes pictures of you on the toilet; it is not that nobody thought you used the toilet.

There is not a diplomat alive who did not know the US does this stuff.

Eventually the media and security services, with Bellingcat in the vanguard, decided the best way forward was to admit the papers are genuine, but only tell us about very selected ones, and then with a positive spin.

So we have stories about how brilliant the US secret services are at penetrating Russian power structures and communications, and how the real danger from the leaks is revealing to the Russians the extent of American success.

That line has been splashed all over legacy and social media these last few days. As the public is being denied the original documents this conclusion is extrapolated from, it is difficult to assess. The journalists of course have not assessed it; they have just copied and pasted the line.

Other helpful snippets for the security services are published, such as an assessment that the UN Secretary General is pro-Russian, or standard stuff on North Korean nuclear ambitions. In the last week it is noticeable that, since original documents stopped surfacing into public view, nothing has been published that does not serve US propaganda narratives.

There remains the mystery that the sources of these documents seem particularly diverse – in particular some being apparently internal CIA – for an intelligence officer in the Air National Guard to access, but it is not impossible.

Jack Texeira is at the centre of this puzzle but remains the missing piece. We have heard nothing from him. A rather unconvincing interview with a suspiciously fluent, pixeled out acquaintance grassing him up to the Washington Post stated that he was a right wing patriot.

Texeira has been portrayed both as some kind of rampant Trump supporter incensed at the state, and as an inadequate jock revealing documents just to boast to fellow gaming nerds. We should remain suspicious of attempts to characterise him: I am acutely aware of media portrayals of Julian Assange which are entirely untrue.

It is a shame the Washington Post, New York Times, Guardian and Bellingcat each had no interest whatsoever in the journalistic pursuit of the truth behind this extraordinary episode. We live entirely in security states: there is no doubt about it.

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Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

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I was standing on the street in the rain, speaking to a few dozen people, without a sound system. Remarkably this is captured brilliantly just on an inexpensive phone camera, and my words have already reached several thousand.

Good people cannot just give up and do nothing. We have to continue to try to do what is right. I was touched to see again unacknowledged campaigners I have witnessed pounding the streets for Julian for over a decade. We will never give up the struggle to free him.

————————————————

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

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Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

I can’t recall such utter hopelessness in UK politics, with every political party in the grip of a self-serving cabal of the political class interested purely in personal interest.

The Labour Party is entirely taken over by the Wes Streeting tendency. Its method is to find the most right wing racist in Hartlepool who ever once voted Labour for reasons he is unsure of, and give him everything he wants that might lead him to vote Labour again.

Attack on liberal judges and left wing lawyers? Tick, Labour policy.
Hard Brexit? Tick, Labour policy.
Lock up disruptive climate protestors? Tick. Labour Policy
Kick out refugees quicker than the Tories? Tick, Labour policy.
End support for strikes? Tick, Labour policy.
More public spending cuts? Tick, Labour policy.
Massive defence spending and help bomb the Russians? Tick, Labour policy.

This is combined by throwing in some Labour policies to please the corporate paymasters that not even our right wing nutter in Hartlepool wants, such as massive privatisation of NHS services.

Those of us who are older and left wing will never forget the way that Margaret Thatcher destroyed the social democratic consensus in the UK and shattered British industry as a deliberate policy to that end. But I knew Margaret Thatcher a bit, and I can promise you she was nowhere near as right wing as Keir Starmer.

(Denis was. I once got gloriously drunk with Denis, and ended up hiding on the floor of the car that dropped him back off to a furious Margaret who was late for a State banquet. That is a tale for another day).

One of the very few things Boris Johnson said as PM which was both true and interesting was that Starmer was responsible, as Director of Public Prosecutions, for the decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

This was not merely true, it is impossible sensibly to deny. Yet the entire media and political class rallied round Starmer to attack Johnson when he said it. That was when I first realised Johnson would shortly be out and Starmer foist relentlessly upon us.

As for the Tory Party in power, I don’t know what to say. The United Kingdom has reverted to 18th Century levels of corruption – and of nobody being surprised or alarmed by corruption.

A global pandemic was unashamedly utilised as a means to make vast, corrupt profits for politicians and their friends. I am taking not of millions, nor of billions, but of tens of billions of pounds in excess profits, some of it for vastly over-priced equipment, some of it for indeterminate services, some of it for non-functioning equipment, and much of it that simply cannot be traced at all.

Yet nobody seems to care. The media scarcely mention it, opposition politicians are very strangely silent, the public seem mired in apathetic helplessness. The Good Law Project bang away wonderfully, but in the face of a police and judicial system that does not seem to care either. It is like punching a gigantic, lightly inflated bladder.

Other than looting the public purse, the Tory Party merely enacts a strange set of performative cruelties, where ministers of visibly low intelligence punch down on whichever group drifts into
their sights next, but continually on desperate and sodden refugees.

I used to be a Liberal and my political thought remains steeped in that tradition – Grimond, Beveridge, Keynes, Hobson, Mill, Hazlitt, to name but a few. I left the party when Clegg took over and swung it hard to the right, and I now see no reason whatsoever why anybody would vote for it. I see no evidence of thinking of any kind, let alone radical thinking, coming from the Liberal Democrats.

As you know, I have since 2015 been warning people that Sturgeon had no interest whatsoever in Independence and was turning the SNP purely into a personality cult and a careerist vehicle for the Scottish political class, while gaining popularity through the dead end of Clinton style identity politics.

OK, so I have been proven right. How does that help us? The SNP is so far in the grip of the careerists, albeit by foul means, it is in no sense a radical alternative nor a threat to the United Kingdom.

So where does hope lie? The Green Party in England, (as opposed to the Scottish Green Party which has broken off links with it and contains several of the most unpleasant people on the planet), seems to me to consist of decent and well-motivated people who I could vote for if I lived in England.

The same goes for Plaid Cymru in Wales. In Northern Ireland, while some of my friends say that Sinn Fein have become over-comfortable with the personal luxuries of limited power, I still think the weight of history and community engagement will keep them basically straight.

Il faut cultiver mon jardin and I shall put my back into supporting the Alba Party, but the challenge of breaking into the political system from scratch is a huge one.

But that is it. Of course there are good individual politicians in every political party – yes, including the Tories – but they are increasingly rare. UK politics are a bust. To find someone you can even consider voting for, you are looking for party mavericks, or at the minority nationalities and their representatives.

Yet it is only a few years since Jeremy Corbyn was promising real change on one hand, while on the other Scotland looked able imminently to regain national freedom. From there to hopelessness is quite a giddying plunge.

I urge you to believe that the current, dreadful state of affairs is not permanent. The draining of hope from the sham democracy in which we live does not mean permanent stasis. The exploitation economy and the massive growing wealth gap are not a sustainable dynamic.

Change will come. It will not come through the exhausted charade of the Westminster political system. I do not believe the dystopian nightmare of permanent corporate control which we face, will be able to set its concrete over us before people notice and resist.

I do however now believe things will get worse before they get better. Considerably worse.

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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

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Russia should release Evan Gershkovich; if as part of a prisoner swap it should be speedily concluded.

Gershkovich was arrested in Ekaterinburg while investigating the Wagner Group. Ekaterinburg is one of Russia’s grimmest, most mafia dominated and least open cities, which I have myself visited specifically to investigate the murders of local Russian journalists.

That was dangerous enough without the complications of a war and the fact Gershkovich was planning to visit the location of a nearby tank factory (it is unclear whether he got to carry out this plan).

I am not in the least surprised he was arrested, but I would have hoped he would simply be deported, or have his visa cancelled like Luke Harding. A journalist from a country openly supplying the enemy in an active war could hardly complain if deported. It is part of the game.

Let us not forget that Russia is still allowing western journalists to operate inside Russia, while most countries in the West, including the UK, have closed down all Russian media outlets and canceled the visas of their journalists.

But to charge Gershkovich with espionage for – from what we know so far – simply doing his job, is a major escalation.

I am going to assume Gershkovich was not actually working for the CIA or Ukrainian intelligence. No evidence has so far been produced of this and, so far, I have not seen Russia allege it. If alleged, it would change the game in some respects, but I for now assume that is not in play and Gershkovich was merely functioning as a journalist.

The Biden Administration’s problem is that it is in no position to object. Julian Assange is being charged with espionage solely for journalism: there is no allegation he was working for a foreign power.

If Assange committed espionage against the USA by publishing national security secrets of the United States, how exactly is Gershkovich not committing espionage against Russia by seeking to publish what it deems its national security secrets?

The answer is of course, that neither committed espionage. They are just doing journalism. But it is an answer the Biden administration cannot give whilst pursuing the prosecution of Assange.

I say this with no pleasure and I am as concerned for Gershkovich’s well-being as I am for Assange’s well-being.

But we warned again and again that the prosecution of Assange made life more dangerous for journalists operating in difficult conditions worldwide. We were ignored.

There is, in one sense, more justification for the prosecution of Gershkovich than for that of Assange. At least Gershkovich was actually in Russia when arrested. Assange is an Australian citizen whose activities were conducted entirely outside the USA, and is being extradited on an extraordinary USA claim of universal jurisdiction.

There are voices within the Biden Administration, and within the USA’s major media corporations, who have been pointing out the dangerous precedent that the Assange case creates. Hopefully those voices will be strengthened by the Gershkovich case.

But Gershkovich should be released. Just a young journalist doing his job.

————————————————

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

I have waited for anger to subside before writing about Humza Yousaf as First Minister. The obvious unfairness of the election created a lot of anger.

The SNP party machine did everything to get Humza elected, with the now huge payroll vote swinging into action from the start with coordinated endorsements and messages. Central party staff, the SNP’s Westminster spin doctor and even Sturgeon’s “fixer” Liz Lloyd were seconded to the Humza campaign.

The hundreds of paid staff of MPs and MSPs campaigned relentlessly for Humza, self-describing as “activists”. The numerous SNP HQ troll accounts swung into action.

Banners and campaign materials identical to those produced by Party HQ were instantly available to Humza, almost before the other candidates knew there was a leadership contest. Party hustings were packed with Humza supporters before the rest of the party knew there were hustings, with online tickets almost instantly “sold out”, but the same claque faces appearing at multiple hustings, to the extent that Kate Forbes and Ash Regan actually called it out.

The mainstream media swung into unanimous and ferocious attack on Kate Forbes instantly the election was called, attempting a knockout blow based on her religious beliefs.

Party HQ lied to the media and the world repeatedly about membership numbers, hiding the depth of Sturgeon’s failure, to the obvious benefit of the “continuity candidate”.

Entirely false claims were made by the same HQ about the role of voting platform provider MiVoice’s  – who just provide the software; they do not audit the list of voters or logins SNP HQ gave them. There is no audit or check.

Ultimately only 51,000 out of 72,000 supposed party members bothered to vote in an election effectively for First Minister of Scotland. That is 10% less than the member turnout in the Truss/Sunak Tory leadership election. The Tories have a large portion of membership which is purely social in rural England.

After all this bias, for Humza to get less than 50% on first preferences, and then get over the line by just 52% to 48%, was really quite remarkable. It speaks to the massive amount of dissatisfaction among ordinary party members.

It says everything about the mentality of Sturgeon and Murrell that GCHQ were brought in to ensure the cyber-security of the voting. Willie MacRae, my old friend Gordon Wilson and all the others who built the SNP will be birling in their graves.

In fact, if you excluded the votes of those who make a living from the SNP – elected representatives, their staff, HQ staff and the massive and too infrequently discussed tail of those in third sector organisations funded by Scottish Govt grants – I have no doubt Humza would have lost on the votes of those who support the party without reward and at their own cost.

Which is an interesting thought.

Those are reasons to feel angry about the mechanics, the process of election. There was also reason to be angry about the substance. From the start, the election was, as befits Sturgeon’s SNP, much more about identity politics than about Independence.

The use of culture wars to define “progressive” politics – rather than economic debate about reducing the massive wealth gap in society – was systematic and deliberate. It made listening to the debates frustrating and unrewarding. The mainstream media was delighted to play along with this narrative.

Now the strange thing about all this is, that had he not cast himself as Sturgeon’s “continuity candidate”, I would have been supportive of Humza Yousaf.

Yousaf’s instincts are more left wing than Sturgeon’s. Unlike the Clinton-mimicking Sturgeon, Humza is not a natural neoliberal, and when he muses about wealth taxes or genuine land reform I believe that is the real Yousaf coming out.

Humza also has a good, solid record of solidarity and activism with Palestine – something the SNP moved away from, and which is anathema to Sturgeon’s young praetorian guard. Unlike Sturgeon, Humza is not a natural NATO hawk nor supporter of United States’ neo-Imperialism.

Humza unequivocally declared himself a republican and in favour of a non-monarchical Independent Scotland, again marking out a far more radical approach than Sturgeon.

It is of course obvious but still worth saying that it genuinely is delightful that Scots would select a Scots Muslim of Pakistani heritage as leader. That says something very good about our society. The horrible Islamophobia this has attracted – almost entirely from unionists – has been very unpleasant to observe on social media.

In a career as a diplomat, you get access to senior politicians and observe governance at close quarters, all round the world.

One conclusion this has led me to, is that puppet successors very rarely work out as planned by whoever is holding the strings. Once they have gained enough control of the levers of power, the supposed puppets quickly find the advice of their predecessor onerous, and the interests of their predecessor less than compelling.

There are exceptions – Medvedev never made any real effort to pull clear of Putin, though Putin had guarded against that by calling himself Prime Minister and not actually letting go of the levers.

But that Humza, the self-declared continuity candidate, will simply be a cypher for the Murrells seems to be not certain, even though he plainly felt appearing to accept that role was the way to get elected. He was right – just.

It is however certainly true that his Cabinet is very heavy with those close to Sturgeon, who will keep her informed on every move. In particular Shona Robison, extremely powerful as both Humza’s Deputy and Finance Minister, is inseparable from Sturgeon, as is Shirley Anne Somerville, Minister for Social Justice.

We often talk loosely of ministers not being talented or bright. Humza, in reality, is both talented and bright; his failing has always been fecklessness and epicureanism.

But in the case of both Robison and Somerville, it genuinely is impossible to make a case for either of them being talented, or to put it bluntly, intelligent enough for the positions they occupy.

Their elevation depended entirely on their loyalty to Sturgeon and their belief in the kind of identity politics agenda that ignores the economic structures that suppress the poor, but focuses on opportunities for members of specified disadvantaged groups to thrive within the existing system.

In practice these opportunities often benefit only some of the already wealthier people in society.

Put another way, neither the persistent gender pay gap, especially in low paid work, nor the increasing number of children in child poverty in Scotland, has in any improved whilst having, as deliberate positive discrimination, more female ministers.

The lives of the female ministers have however improved immeasurably.

Humza has removed or excluded from his cabinet Kate Forbes, Ivan McKee and Michelle Thomson, any of whom would have easily been the most talented in it.

I have seen it very little commented upon – perhaps because it is simply taken as read – but the fundamental criterion, indeed the only criterion, for inclusion as a minister by Humza appears to be enthusiastic support for Gender Recognition Reform in its pure and ideological form.

That compelled purity includes the rejection of the elementary common sense of excluding convicted sexual offenders (a tiny percentage of trans people) from self-ID, which political bullheadedness politically holed the entire project and unleashed a horrible and entirely avoidable wave of hatred against trans people.

Humza is essentially squandering his political capital like a lottery winner, doubling down on precisely the Sturgeon behaviours that caused at least 53,000 members to leave the party – and counting.

In 2022 on average the SNP lost 80 members per day. In 2023 up until the point true membership figures were released three weeks ago, it was losing on average 120 members per day.

It is probably fair to measure the number of active party members who are concerned primarily with culture wars, as being those who voted for Humza and refused to give a second preference to either Forbes or Regan. That number is 9,763 people.

These figures are actually important because they speak to the intolerance of opposition of the Humza camp. Almost 40% of Humza’s displayed their closed-mindedness by refusing to give any second preference, compared to just 16% of Kate Forbes’ voters.

Yet it is Kate Forbes’ supporters who are the ones being enthusiastically castigated everywhere as intolerant bigots, despite the fact the large majority of them not only gave their second preferences, they gave them to Humza.

Humza’s problem is not only that he has chosen his Cabinet from only his own supporters, and has thus ignored the views of over half the party members, whose first preference he was not. Humza has the much larger problem that in doing so, this only represents the 9,000 who voted for him and nobody else.

His Cabinet consists solely of those who wish entirely to limit the SNP to those who meet their measure of ideological purity – which for some inexplicable reason means commitment not to Scottish Independence, but to an absolute, unmoderated right for everybody to change their gender by declaration.

This is a serious break with the traditions of a party that was always the big tent for Independence supporters. Much more crucially, the election provided the opportunity for the SNP careerists who overwhelmingly backed Humza to come out as, de facto, devolutionists rather than Independence supporters.

There is a continuum from gradualist to devolutionist to unionist, and under Sturgeon the SNP had been sliding steadily down that scale. A long way down that scale.

This election gave the devolutionists license to “come out” and shed the pretence that they had any intention of doing anything about Independence in the next few electoral cycles. Independence became an “aspiration”, a “goal we should always keep before us”. While actually becoming Independent was decried a “process” discussion of which was pointless.

This derogatory relegation of becoming Independent to “process” was a rhetorical trick constantly practised by Humza himself. Yet again we are being told that we have to wait until support for Independence somehow, by magic, reaches a sustained level of 60% in opinion polls before we can even look at what that “process” is.

If that is now the stance of the SNP – and I am 90% sure it is – then I would take the view that it is incumbent upon real Independence supporters to oppose the SNP as a de facto unionist power structure.

That means Alba should stand against the SNP not just as a list party, but in First Past the Post elections too. Otherwise genuine Independence supporters could be left with nobody to vote
for.

But – and this is a small but, as my hope is limited – I note that Alex Salmond, who knows Humza very well, has not yet written him off.

Humza has already requested an S30 for a new Independence referendum from Rishi Sunak. He did so orally but I presume a letter is following. He received the expected dismissive answer.

As you know, I think it is wrong to ask permission from London at all for Scottish self-determination. Asking permission is an admission ab initio you don’t actually believe in the right of Scottish self-determination.

But did Humza make the request in the spirit of homage to Westminster, or is it a formality he had to get out of the way to comply with his purported commitment to Sturgeon’s footsteps? The question is, now London has said no, will he have a plan B for Independence?

If so he needs to produce it in the next few weeks, or face mass desertion by SNP voters.

I am one of life’s sunnier optimists. I note that Humza frequently mentioned Independence, unapologetically, at his first First Minister’s Questions in Holyrood: about as many times as Sturgeon had voluntarily brought up Independence in the past three years.

Humza needs to find his inner radical, and that inner radical needs to act decisively.

I don’t expect it. But I am not entirely devoid of hope.

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A brief question. For years this blog published very frequently short, snappy opinions, often only a few lines, on the issues of the day. More recently, probably in line with a trend in blogging, I have largely stopped that and this blog produces much more considered, longer form pieces.

I tend to confine short snappy thoughts to Twitter instead.

On the upside, the much shorter thoughts were not always produced with much quality of argument. On the downside, abandoning them (which just evolved, not by policy) has definitely damaged the existence of regular community in the comments section.

What do you think?

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————————————————

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

The Guardian, Washington Post and Der Spiegel have today published “bombshell” revelations about Russian cyber warfare based on leaked documents, but have produced only one single, rather innocuous leaked document between them (in the Washington Post), with zero links to any.

Where are these documents and what do they actually say? Der Spiegel tells us:

This is all chronicled in 1,000 secret documents that include 5,299 pages full of project plans, instructions and internal emails from Vulkan from the years 2016 to 2021. Despite being all in Russian and extremely technical in nature, they provide unique insight into the depths of Russian cyberwarfare plans.

OK. So where are they?

Ten different media houses have cooperated on the leaks, and the articles have been produced by large teams of journalists in each individual publication.

The Guardian article is by Luke Harding, Stilyana Simeonova, Manisha Ganguly and Dan Sabbagh. The Washington Post Article is by Craig Timberg, Ellen Nakashima, Hannes Munzinga and Hakan Tanriverdi. The Der Spiegel article is by 22 named journalists!

So that is 30 named journalists, with each publication deploying a large team to produce its own article.

And yet if you read through those three articles, you cannot help but note they are (ahem) remarkably similar.

From Der Spiegel:

“These documents suggest that Russia sees attacks on civilian critical infrastructure and social media manipulation as one-and-the-same mission, which is essentially an attack on the enemy’s will to fight,” says John Hultquist, a leading expert on Russian cyberwarfare and vice president of intelligence analysis at Mandiant, an IT security company.

From the Washington Post:

“These documents suggest that Russia sees attacks on civilian critical infrastructure and social media manipulation as one and the same mission, which is essentially an attack on the enemy’s will to fight,” said John Hultquist, the vice president for intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant

From the Guardian:

John Hultquist, the vice-president of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, which reviewed selections of the material at the request of the consortium, said: “These documents suggest that Russia sees attacks on civilian critical infrastructure and social media manipulation as one and the same mission, which is essentially an attack on the enemy’s will to fight.”

Note that it is not just the central Hultquist quote which is the same. In each case the teams of thirty journalists have very slightly altered a copy-and-pasted entire paragraph.

In fact the remarkable sameness of all three articles, with the same quotes and sources and same ideas, makes plain to anybody reading that all these articles are taken from a single source document. The question is who produced that central document? I assume it is one of the “five security services”, which all of the articles say were consulted.

Revealingly all three articles include the comprehensively debunked claim that Russia hacked the Clinton or DNC emails. They all include it despite the fact that none of the three articles makes the slightest attempt to connect this allegation to any of the leaked Vulkan documents, or to provide any evidence for it at all.

The casual reader is led to the conclusion that in some way the Vulkan leak proves the Clinton hack – despite the fact that no evidence is adduced and in fact, on close reading, none of the articles actually makes any claim that there is any reference at all to the Clinton hack in the Vulkan documents, or any other kind of evidence in them supporting the claim.

That all three teams of journalists independently decided to throw in a debunked claim, unrelated to any of the leaked material they are supposedly discussing, is not very probable. Again, they are plainly working from a central source that highlights the Clinton nonsense.

The Washington Post does actually deign to give us a facsimile of one page of one of the leaked emails, which does indeed appear to reference cyberwarfare capabilities to control or disable vital infrastructure.

But the problem is they are showing us page 4 of a document, devoid of context. Why no link to the whole document? We can see it is about research into these capabilities, but presumably the whole document might reveal something about the purpose of such research – for example, is it offensive or to develop defence against such attacks?

I am always suspicious of leaks where the actual documents are kept hidden, and we only know what we are told by – in this case – a propaganda operation which, even on the surface of it, involves western security services, US government funded “cyber security firms”, and Microsoft and Google.

When Wikileaks releases documents, they actually release the whole documents so that you can look at them and make up your own mind on what they really say or mean. Such as, for example, the Vault 7 release on CIA Hacking Tools.

My favourite Vault 7 revelation was that the CIA hackers leave behind fake “fingerprints”, including commands in Cyrillic script, to create a false trail that the Russians did it. Again you can see the actual documents on Wikileaks.

I have no reason to doubt that Russia employs techniques of cyber warfare. But I have absolutely no reason to believe that Russia does so any more than Western security services.

In fact there is some indication in this Vulkan information that Russian cyber warfare capability is less advanced than Western. With absolutely zero self-awareness of the implications of what they are saying, Luke Harding and his team at the Guardian tell us that:

One document shows engineers recommending Russia add to its own capabilities by using hacking tools stolen in 2016 from the US National Security Agency and posted online.

It is, of course, only bad when the Russians do it.

The fact there is virtually no cross-referencing to the Snowden or Vault 7 leaks in any of the publications, shows this up for the coordinated security service propaganda exercise that it is.

But there are numerous examples given of various hacks alleged to be committed by Russian security services, with no links whatsoever to any document in the Vulkan leaks, and in fact no evidence given of any kind, except for multiple references to allegations by US authorities.

The Washington Post article has the best claim to maintain some kind of reasonable journalistic standard. It includes these important phrases, admissions notably absent from the Guardian’s Luke Harding led piece:

These officials and experts could not find definitive evidence that the systems have been deployed by Russia or been used in specific cyberattacks

The documents do not, however, include verified target lists, malicious software code or evidence linking the projects to known cyberattacks.

Still, they offer insights into the aims of a Russian state that — like other major powers, including the United States — is eager to grow and systematize its ability to conduct cyberattacks with greater speed, scale and efficiency.

The last quote is of course the key point, and the Washington Post does deserve some kudos at least for acknowledging it, which is more than you can say for the Guardian or Der Spiegel. Even the Washington Post, having acknowledged the point, in no way allows it to affect the tone or tenor of its report.

But in truth there is no reason to doubt that the Russian state is developing cyberwarfare capabilities, and there is no reason to doubt that commercial companies including Vulkan are involved in some of the sub-contracted work.

But exactly the same thing is true of the United States, the United Kingdom, or any major Western nation. Tens of billions are being poured into cyberwarfare, and the resources deployed on it by NATO states vastly outnumber the resources available to Russia.

Which puts in perspective this large exercise in anti-Russian propaganda. Here are some key facts about it for you:

Taking the Guardian, Washington Post and Der Spiegel articles together:

• Less than 2% of the articles consist of direct quotes from the alleged leaked documents
• Less than 10% of the articles consist of alleged description of the contents of the documents
• Over 15% of the articles consist of comment by western security services and cyber warfare industry
• Over 40% of the articles consist of descriptions of alleged Russian hacking activity, zero of which is referenced in the acutal Vulkan leaks

We get to see one page of an alleged 5,000 leaked, plus a couple of maps and graphics.

It took 30 MSM journalists to produce this gross propaganda. I could have done it alone for them in a night, working up three slightly different articles from what the security services have fed them, directly and indirectly.

I can see the attraction of being a “journalist” shill for power, it has been very easy money for the mucky thirty.

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I am completely at a loss as to why the UK should seek to join in with the US in considering China an enemy, and in looking to build up military forces in the Pacific to oppose China.

In what sense are Chinese interests opposed to British interests? I am not sure when I last bought something which wasn’t maufactured in China. To my astonishment that even applies to our second hand Volvo, and it also applies to this laptop.

I have stated this before but it is worth restating:

I cannot readily think of any example in history, of a state which achieved the level of economic dominance China has now achieved, that did not seek to use its economic muscle to finance military acquisition of territory to increase its economic resources.

In that respect China is vastly more pacific than the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain or any other formerly prominent power.

Ask yourself this simple question. How many overseas military bases does the USA have? And how many overseas military bases does China have?

Depending on what you count, the United States has between 750 and 1100 overseas military bases. China has between 6 and 9.

The last military aggression by China was its takeover of Tibet in 1951 and 1959. Since that date, we have seen the United States invade with massive destruction Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

The United States has also been involved in sponsoring numerous military coups, including military support to the overthrow of literally dozens of governments, many of them democratically elected. It has destroyed numerous countries by proxy, Libya being the most recent example.

China has simply no record, for over 60 years, of attacking and invading other countries.

The anti-Chinese military posture adopted by the leaders of US, UK and Australia as they pour astonishing amounts of public money into the corrupt military industrial complex to build pointless nuclear submarines, appears a deliberate attempt to create military tension with China.

Sunak recited the tired neoliberal roll call of enemies, condemning: “Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, China’s growing assertiveness, and destabilising behaviour of Iran and North Korea”.

What precisely are Iran and China doing, that makes them our enemy?

This article is not about Iran, but plainly western sanctions have held back the economic and societal development of that highly talented nation and have simply entrenched its theological regime.

Their purpose is not to improve Iran but to maintain a situation where Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran does not. If accompanied by an effort to disarm the rogue state of Israel, they might make more sense.

On China, in what does its “assertiveness” consist that makes it necessary to view it as a military enemy? China has constructed some military bases by artificially extending small islands. That is perfectly legal behaviour. The territory is Chinese.

As the United States has numerous bases in the region on other people’s territory, I truly struggle to see where the objection lies to Chinese bases on Chinese territory.

China has made claims which are controversial for maritime jurisdiction around these artificial islands – and I would argue wrong under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. But they are no more controversial than a great many other UNCLOS claims, for example the UK’s behaviour over Rockall.

China has made, for example, no attempt to militarily enforce a 200 mile exclusive economic zone arising from its artificial islands, whatever it has said. Its claim to a 12 mile territorial sea is I think valid.

Similarly, the United States has objected to pronouncements from China that appear contrary to UNCLOS on passage through straits, but again this is no different from a variety of such disputes worldwide. The United States and others have repeatedly asserted, and practised, their right of free passage, and met no military resistance from China.

So is that it? Is that what Chinese “aggression” amounts to, some UNCLOS disputes?

Aah, we are told, but what about Taiwan?

To which the only reply is, what about Taiwan? Taiwan is a part of China which separated off under the nationalist government after the Civil War. Taiwan does not claim not to be Chinese territory.

In fact – and this is far too little understood in the West because our media does not tell you – the government of Taiwan still claims to be the legitimate government of all of China.

The government of Taiwan supports reunification just as much as the government of China, the only difference being who would be in charge.

The dispute with Taiwan is therefore an unresolved Chinese civil war, not an independent state menaced by China. As a civil war the entire world away from us, it is very hard to understand why we have an interest in supporting one side rather than the other.

Peaceful resolution is of course preferable. But it is not our conflict.

There is no evidence whatsoever that China has any intention of invading anywhere else in the China Seas or the Pacific. Not Singapore, not Japan and least of all Australia. That is almost as fantastic as the ludicrous idea that the UK must be defended from Russian invasion.

If China wanted, it could simply buy 100% of every public listed company in Australia, without even noticing a dent in China’s dollar reserves.

Which of course brings us to the real dispute, which is economic and about soft power. China has massively increased its influence abroad, by trade, investment, loans and manufacture. China is now the dominant economic power, and it can only be a matter of time before the dollar ceases to be the world’s reserve currency.

China has chosen this method of economic expansion and prosperity over territorial acquisition or military control of resources.

That may be to do with Confucian versus Western thought. Or it may just be the government in Beijing is smarter than Western governments. But growing Chinese economic dominance does not appear to me a reversible process in the coming century.

To react to China’s growing economic power by increasing western military power is hopeless. It is harder to think of a more stupid example of lashing out in blind anger. It is a it like peeing on your carpet because the neighbours are too noisy.

Aah, but you ask. What about human rights? What about the Uighurs?

I have a large amount of sympathy. China was an Imperial power in the great age of formal imperialism, and the Uighurs were colonised by China. Unfortunately the Chinese have followed the West’s “War on Terror” playbook in exploiting Islamophobia to clamp down on Uighur culture and autonomy.

I very much hope that this reduces, and that freedom of speech improves in general across China.

But let nobody claim that human rights genuinely has any part to play in who the Western military industrial complex treats as an enemy and who it treats as an ally. I know it does not, because that is the precise issue on which I was sacked as an Ambassador.

The abominable suffering of the children of Yemen and Palestine also cries out against any pretence that Western policy, and above all choice of ally, is human rights based.

China is treated as an enemy because the United States has been forced to contemplate the mortality of its economic dominance.

China is treated as an enemy because that is a chance for the political and capitalist classes to make yet more super profits from the military industrial complex.

But China is not our enemy. Only atavism and xenophobia make it so.

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Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

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Do not despair. There may be politicians who have abandoned any genuine intent to gain Scottish Independence, but the path is still open. It is a question of nerve and will.

I think we should lift our eyes beyond the current SNP leadership contest – although I shall in future be commenting on its incredible revelations – and look at the much bigger picture. So here we are.

————————————————

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

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Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

A recurring row has broken out over the island of Rockall, an uninhabited rock in the Atlantic whose ownership is disputed between the UK and Ireland. The Scottish government, under whose jurisdiction Rockall falls, has banned Irish vessels which traditionally fish there from doing so.

This is an article in the Derry Journal today:

Donegal T.D. Pádraig Mac Lochlainn has claimed the Greencastle fishing fleet could be losing up to 30 per cent of its income due to the British blockade of its traditional Rockall fishing grounds.

He branded Britain’s refusal to allow Inishowen fishers access to the seas around the rock – a fertile ground for squid and fish species, particularly haddock, sole and monkfish – ‘absolute nonsense’.

Speaking in Dáil Éireann prior to the St. Patrick’s week recess, Deputy Mac Lochlainn said: “This is outrageous. There is no basis in international law for putting a nautical mile limit around an uninhabited rock. There is no basis for this under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“It is absolute nonsense. How on earth is the Government tolerating this? How is it not being taken to international arbitration? Why did the Government sign off on the Maritime Jurisdiction Act on access for the British Government to and control of the area at a time when it is negotiating to reinstate our traditional fishing grounds to our fishermen? Who on earth would tolerate that?

“We talk about Brexit and the attitude of the Tories. They have arbitrarily kicked Irish fishermen out of our traditional fishing grounds, with no international legal basis for doing so.”

Martin Heydon, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, replied: “As Taoiseach, the Minister [current Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs] Deputy [Micheál] Martin, last discussed the matter of Rockall with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, at the end of last year.

“It was agreed to prioritise this matter and continue to work together to seek to resolve the outstanding issues.

“As Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney met his Scottish counterpart, the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, Angus Robertson, to discuss the issue.

“They agreed to continue to prioritise this matter and work together to seek to resolve outstanding issues. Working together with the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are active discussions between the Irish and Scottish side exploring all options. Further discussions at political and official level are planned over the coming period.”

British claims to ownership of the uninhabited rock, which is located 430 kilometres from Bloody Foreland and 461.5 kilometres from Ardnamurchan, the nearest point on the Scottish mainland, have never been recognised.

Deputy Heydon explained that ‘Ireland has never made any claims to, nor has Ireland ever recognised UK sovereignty claims over, Rockall’ and that ‘accordingly, it has not recognised a 12 nautical mile territorial sea around it’.

However, under the terms of the Brexit Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between the EU and the UK, Donegal fishers have not been granted licences to fish within the 12 mile limit.

“Approximately 25 Irish vessels have fished in the waters around Rockall during the spring and summer months in recent years.

“Under the EU-UK TCA EU vessels must be licensed by the UK authorities. Since January 1, 2021 the licences issued by the UK to EU vessels, where granted, expressly preclude access to the 12 nautical mile zone around Rockall,” he said.

Britain’s claims are seemingly based on the fact the rock is located 301.3 kilometres west of the uninhabited island of Soay in the Outer Hebrides. It is 423 kilometres west of Tory.

Technically, I am afraid the Irish fishermen are wrong. As an uninhabited rock, Rockall cannot generate an exclusive economic zone of 200 miles for fisheries. But it can generate a 12 mile territorial sea, within which fisheries can be controlled by the sovereign state.

The point is that the sovereignty is disputed by the UK and Ireland. Who owns a barren piece of rock is not easy to establish, especially as the UK and Ireland were one state when sovereignty was first formally asserted.

In these circumstances, to ban Irish vessels from traditional grounds is peculiarly provocative by the Scottish government. It is very strange behaviour when they are supposed to be courting EU countries to support Scottish Independence.

I am told by a Scottish Government source it is driven by the Scottish Greens on conservation grounds, though the notion that banning strictly controlled fishing from one 24 mile diameter circle in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean makes any difference is frankly crazy.

I would hope that an Independent Scotland would abandon the UK’s obsession with collecting territories, and agree joint sovereignty with Ireland over Rockall. There is an important point here that is not generally understood.

Sovereignty over Rockall does not affect anything except the 12 miles territorial sea. It has no impact at all on the UK/Irish exclusive economic zone or continental shelf boundaries.

Rockall is not used at all as a base point or reference point in either of those boundaries. I know because I was part of the team that negotiated them, as Head of the Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The exclusion of Rockall was perfectly deliberate on both sides, because the need to agree the boundary, especially the continental shelf boundary for oil and gas, was urgent as otherwise exploration and development might be impeded. Importing a territorial dispute into the negotiations would have been unhelpful to all concerned.

So the Rockall dispute is an utterly pointless dispute, over national pride and a few haddock close to the rock. It saddens me to see the Scottish government acting as daftly jingoistic towards Dublin as their London counterparts.

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Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

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Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

Three climate activists in two separate trials have been sent to jail by Judge Silas Reid using the entirely arbitrary powers of Contempt of Court, because they insisted on telling the jury that their protests had been motivated by the climate crisis and fuel poverty.

Juries are an essential safeguard from injustice by the state.

That ordinary, randomly selected people decide on guilt or innocence has been fundamental to the criminal law in the United Kingdom for many centuries.

The simplistic maxim is that the judge determines the law while the jury determines the facts. However it is often more complex than that. There are several areas of law (the misuse of computers act is an example) where a public interest defence is permissible, and the jury may find themselves deliberating on whether a disclosure was in the public interest.

Perhaps the most famous example in my lifetime was the trial of Clive Ponting under the Official Secrets Act. Clive was a member of this blog community and a fairly regular commenter here.

Clive had been a very straight and professional middle ranking civil servant in the Ministry of Defence at the outbreak of the Falklands War. He blew the whistle on the truth of the sinking of the Argentine battleship, the General Belgrano.

For those who do not know, Argentina had occupied the Falkland Islands one month before the attack on the Belgrano. A British naval task force had set sail to retake the islands. Furious diplomatic efforts were underway to find a peaceful solution, led by the United States and by Chile.

When the British nuclear submarine Conqueror sunk the Belgrano, killing 323 people, it ended the prospects of a peaceful settlement to the conflict.

The resultant Falklands War catapulted Margaret Thatcher from extreme unpopularity to extreme popularity on a frenzy of jingoism. It thus enabled Thatcherism and the destruction of both heavy industry in the UK and of the principle of the mixed economy.

The Belgrano was sunk deliberately and completely unnecessarily in order to precipitate full on war, at a time when it posed no threat to British forces and was 250 miles south west of the Falklands and steaming away from them. While there was a zig zag pattern to Belgrano’s movement to try to evade detection, the pathway is undeniable. It is the bottom-most track on this map.

The scale of loss of life was such that the UK embarked on an entirely misleading campaign to talk up the threat posed by the Belgrano, and by referring to the zig zagging denied it was heading back to the mainland and away from the Falklands.

MOD internal communications were of course quite clear that the Belgrano was heading away when it was sunk, and these are what Clive Ponting leaked to Labour MP Tam Dalyell.
(Readers of this blog will see a particular irony as Clive became a staunch supporter of Scottish Independence while Tam was a stubborn opponent).

Clive never denied it was he who had leaked the documents. His defence, when tried at the Old Bailey, was that it was in the public interest to reveal the truth.

This defence was flatly rejected by the judge. He refused, in closed court without the jury, the defence barristers’ argument that it was for the jury to decide whether the leak was in the public interest.

In his instructions to the jury, the judge directly ordered them to convict, and specifically stated that the public interest could only be whatever the government of the day defined as the public interest.

Here is an account from one of Ponting’s legal team:

Ponting instructed my firm on the recommendation of Liberty (then still the National Council for Civil Liberties). Brian Raymond, our criminal law partner, conducted the case. Brian was a pioneer in media relations. He recognised the importance of frank contacts with serious and capable journalists. The public was told Ponting’s side of the story.

The public interest defence was clearly arguable. Mr Justice McCowan at the Old Bailey trial allowed defence evidence on governmental and constitutional practice from the former Home Secretary Merlyn Rees and the eminent Cambridge professor Henry Wade but in the jury’s absence he rejected the defence submission that whether or not Ponting had acted “in the interest of the state” was an issue of fact for the jury. Astonishingly, his ruling meant that what was in the interest of the state was whatever the government said it was.

After that, conviction and imprisonment seemed a foregone conclusion. Before we came to court next morning we had a farewell breakfast at the Savoy Hotel. Our client arrived with a small suitcase containing toothbrush, shaving kit and other items he would need as a guest of Her Majesty.

While the jury deliberated, we gloomily discussed our grounds of appeal and the prospects of winning in Strasbourg. Then came the verdict. When the foreman said “not guilty” there was a gasp of amazement followed by spontaneous applause. It was an incredible result because it meant the jury had flatly ignored the judge’s direction. Plainly they thought Ponting had done the right thing.

The judge was furious. He could not actually send the jurors to prison for disobeying his direct instruction to convict, but he banned them from future jury service – which they probably weren’t too sad about.

In 1989 the UK government amended the Official Secrets Act to make plain that there is no public interest defence permissible. Nevertheless I know for certain that in the cases of both Katherine Gun and myself, whistleblowers were not prosecuted for fear the jury would refuse to convict.

Arguably the acquittal of the removers of the Colston statue in Bristol were also acquitted by a jury returning what the Establishment call a “perverse verdict”. There have been a whole series of acquittals of activists carrying out actions against the Raytheon arms factory in Belfast.

The notion of people not being allowed to explain their actions to the jury has a distinctly draconian tinge. The judge can tell the jury to ignore the arguments, and the jury can decide whether or not to listen to the judge, but to not allow the accused to put their arguments at all?

It sounds pretty fascist to me.

I do not know whether Judge Reid’s vicious approach is personal or part of a state backlash to protest, particularly over climate change. Jonathon Schofield had asked the Ministry of Justice under a Freedom of Information request whether there has been an instruction to judges. His simple FOIA request has not been answered and is now past the deadline.

I have recently finished reading Irmtrud Wojak’s biography of Fritz Bauer, the concentration camp survivor who became the most important prosecutor of the Nazis in Germany, tracking down Eichmann and putting the Auschwitz management on trial.

Bauer was repeatedly frustrated by the German legal establishment of which he was a member, and what comes strongly out of the book is that the Nazis did not have to find their own lawyers and judges. Great chunks of the German legal establishment had simply adapted themselves to applying Nazi laws.

The same legal establishment continued seamlessly post-Nazi rule, pretending nothing much had happened. As Wojak writes:

However Bauer’s views did not catch on in West German rulings, which, while acknowledging them on an ethical level, denied them legal legitimacy and accepted them only under highly restricted conditions. In many cases, the relevant rulings even went so far as to accept the validity of the Nazis’ system of norms, down to the principle of the right to self-assertion of the state.

As the UK continues with the harsh slide towards authoritarianism, it doesn’t need new judges, however far it moves toward fascism. The current legal establishment will adapt themselves to the legal framework of whatever sort is ordained by the rulers.

Anybody expecting judges to defend liberties is likely to be sorely disappointed.

They will happily remove the ability of juries to defend liberty too.

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Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

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Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

Speaking to the No2Nato meeting on Saturday, I had the challenge of telling a packed and highly motivated audience some things that they very much instinctively disagreed with, from a very different viewpoint to much of what they had heard from some excellent speakers all day.

I had to follow a really effective rabble rousing performance from Chris Williamson which had raised the rafters.

On top of which, I was outlining facts and arguments which have had no discernible place in the public discourse on Ukraine on any “side” and were new to most people there.

I appealed at the start for the audience to listen with an open mind, and I think largely they did.

So here is me, with no notes and no visuals, just talking, giving people my own perspective.

————————————————
It is your kind subscriptions and donations which keep both my activism and this blog going. Hotel costs alone for this visit to London – in a very basic hotel near Kings Cross – were £150 a night and the total three day trip, which included meeting the Assange family, meeting lawyers and working on the McDonald emails, cost over £800 including travel. (But not including the Lagavulin).

I give this detail because I am often asked where the subscriptions go! Lawyers, mostly.

This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

It is over ten years since I allowed a guest post on this blog. This is because I never listen to anybody except myself. That way I avoid hearing anything disagreeable.

(Those last two sentences are a joke, deliberately in the style of Jane Austen. Of course it ruins the joke to explain it, but if I don’t, then twitter will be full of trials writing jibes about narcissism).

I have turned down hundreds of requests, but today I have decided to publish Stephen Norris, the Convener of his SNP branch, who has just had enough.

The SNP Inner Circle’s desire to fix the election for Humza could hardly be more obvious. Murrell and Sturgeon remain in place to oversee the process – and are carefully diverting attention to the counting process rather than the issuing and verification of login IDs.

Almost half of the campaigning days available are to be taken up by a series of 8 regional hustings meetings. The SNP machine (ie the Murrells) have decreed – against the will of two of the three candidates – that these will be closed meetings and neither reported nor streamed.

All are fully booked with no tickets available, and the party machine that booked them tipped off their own people to grab the seats. The candidates will only be able to speak to 3,500 members in total through these hustings, out of a membership claimed to be over 100,000.

It is deliberately designed to tie the candidates up and minimise their exposure. Of course, as a new mother, it is particularly constraining for Kate Forbes.

Now Stephen Norris has captured regional list MSP Emma Harper breaking party rules by emailing the South of Scotland membership on the SNP email system, urging them to vote for Humza Yousaf.

This plainly contravenes the election rules, but is on a par with Humza appearing everywhere with placards etc using fonts, styles and materials exactly as used by party HQ, and almost certainly produced by them.

Before I finally hand you over to Stephen Norris, I might further explain that ultra-Sturgeon loyalist Emma Harper MSP was jemmied into her seat by a fake process designed to exclude the Independence stalwart Joan McAlpine MSP – a talented and independent figure detested by Sturgeon.

McAlpine was removed by a rule change adopted by the Sturgeon controlled SNP national executive, which rules that regional lists must be topped by disabled candidates. Members voted for candidates in the normal way and the boosting was done AFTER the vote, with the disabled promoted to the top.

The extremely talented McAlpine was therefore forced out of parliament by the ultra loyalist nonentity Emma Harper, on the sole grounds that Harper has diabetes. It is worth noting that in other regions, candidates with less than 5% of the members’ vote were promoted to the top of the list, above individual candidates with ten times as many votes, and are now MSPs.

So now you know how Harper got to her position, I give you Stephen Norris:

“Election Cheating

I write this with a heavy heart and after much soul searching.
But events over the last few days have left me with no other choice.
I trust that those who read this understand I do so out of loyalty to my party, to Scotland, and the wider independence movement.

THE SCOTTISH National Party will stage the first of eight hustings on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. Arguably, with Alex Salmond gone and Nicola Sturgeon going, it will be the most important leadership election in its history.

Sadly, and to the shame of those involved, the process of choosing our new leader and Scotland’s First Minister has been compromised before it starts. The act has been perpetrated in the most sleekit, arrogant and undemocratic manner imaginable. And I use that word “undemocratic” deliberately.

Once upon a time, the party to which I have devoted 41 years of my life, campaigned for, argued for, stood for and believed in, prided itself on a democratic power derived from its diverse and multi-talented membership. A power feared and respected by our unionist opponents and one which led our movement to the brink of victory.

Be in no doubt, that victory – the vital independence of our country and the restoration of its social and economic fortunes – remains within our grasp. The grassroots Yes movement still survives and thrives and – despite a succession of surrenders and false promises – a platform of around 50 per cent support for independence remains as our start point.

But the independence our country so desperately needs will not be achieved with Humza Yousaf and his backers at the helm of the SNP.

On Friday, February 24, 2023, two hours and 26 minutes before nominations for the leadership contest closed at noon, I received an email. It was from Emma Harper, the sole list MSP for the region, and time-stamped 9.34am. On investigation I discovered the same email had been sent to SNP members across the South of Scotland, whose numbers run into thousands, at exactly the same time.

Members in the three southernmost constituencies, Galloway and West Dumfries, Dumfriesshire and Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, received this email. Ms Harper holds the SNP brief for these seats because these are the only ones where there is no constituency SNP MSP.

I have learned that she spoke to Mr Yousaf about his campaign and strategy for the south the day before she sent the blanket email – a fact of which I have written proof. It transpires that Ms Harper, with the consent of party HQ, has been granted access to the South Scotland membership database, ostensibly to broadcast her work as an MSP. The email was not issued via Ms Harper’s personal account but from “Scottish National Party” with the delivery email of [email protected].

It states:
___________________________________________________________________________

Dear Members,

As we draw closer to the end of the nomination process in the contest for leadership of our party and for Scotland’s next First Minister, I wanted to take the opportunity to write to you all with my decision to back Humza Yousaf for these top jobs.

As I am sure we all agree, Nicola Sturgeon has served Scotland and the SNP with absolute distinction. As the first female First Minister, she has also been the longest serving incumbent in the role. Both of these are stunning achievements in themselves. Nicola Sturgeon’s legacy in Government is one which has improved the lives of tens of thousands of families the length and breadth of Scotland and is one which has brought us ever closer to our nations independence.

Being First Minister is the top job in our country. It requires experience and dedication – a First Minister is never off duty. In my opinion, and after consideration, I believe Humza Yousaf to be the best person for this role. Humza has had many of the toughest jobs in government over the last 10 years – Transport Minister, Justice Secretary and Health Secretary in the midst of a global pandemic. He has also openly reaffirmed his commitment to our nations independence, to progressive politics and to equality for all, all of which I view to be crucial in Scotland’s journey to become a fairer, progressive and more equal country.

One of Humza’s many strengths is reaching out to bring people together and that is exactly what we need right now. However, as you will be well aware, my priority – as it always has been and as it will continue to be — is on representing the views of people in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. To this end, I will be making the case to Humza to prioritise the needs of our region if he is successful in becoming the leader of our party and First Minister. Issues like addressing derelict buildings, improving our transport infrastructure, addressing rural healthcare needs and unlocking the potential of the region – to name just some.

I will, of course, keep members updated on the actions I take to ensure our area is represented and listened to. As always, members can contact me at any time, should you be looking for any advice or support.

And a wee final reminder – please ensure you log onto MYSNP to nominate your candidate and to vote for who you think is the best option for party leader and First Minister.

Yours for South Scotland,
Emma Harper MSP

___________________________________________________________________________

The last paragraph, by any interpretation, attempts to add a veneer of impartiality to everything above – which is nothing more than blatant electioneering on behalf of Humza.

No other candidate or campaign team leader was offered a similar facility to make their pitch to the South Scotland membership, in the same way Emma Harper did for Humza Yousaf. I do not – and for many reasons could not – support Humza, so I phoned round my Kirkcudbright and District Branch executive to see if they had received a similar email. They all had – at 9.34am.

I then contacted members in the two seats east of Galloway and West Dumfries – Dumfriesshire, and Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, with the same question. They too had been issued the same email by Ms Harper, via Scottish National Party and [email protected], with precisely the same time stamp – 9.34am. I have these emails in my possession – written proof that they were sent on behalf of Humza Yousaf across all three constituencies. Suffice it to say my friends in Dumfriesshire and the Borders are equally incensed at this sleekit attempt to manipulate the vote and sidestep our party’s strict electoral rules.

The Kirkcudbright branch secretary then told me something else. A second email had gone out later that day, February 24, this time to “All Conveners, Secretaries, Organisers, Membership Secretaries, Women’s Officers, Political Education Officers Councillors, MPs and MSPs.”

I am convener of Kirkcudbright and District Branch SNP. It is dated February 24 with a time stamp of 19.10, headed Scottish National Party and sent via [email protected]. It was sent out after nominations had closed at noon that day, and nine hours after Ms Harper’s first email.

It states:

Dear colleague,
With the candidates now confirmed for the Leadership Contest, I wanted to remind all members who have emailing rights on my.snp.org about their responsibilities during the period of the contest.
We encourage branches and elected members to make sure that members are aware of the contest, and engage with it, either through attendance at in-person or online hustings. It’s an important period, and it’s important that members have buy-in to the process, since for many it will be the first time that they’ve voted for a party leader.
The dedicated page for the contest on the member portal will stay up to date with information throughout the period of the contest.
I would like to draw your attention to the section on organisational neutrality. It’s important that, in sending emails to members, that personal thoughts on who to back are not conveyed to others. Who an individual member chooses to vote for will be up to them. This also applies to branch/organisational social media accounts. The views of the individual(s) with login details for a social media account do not determine views of the branch/organisation. So no mention of support for a particular candidate should be shared on those accounts. And under no circumstances should any membership data be given to a candidate or candidates.

Please also note that under Rule 4.2 any party organisation organising an event with any candidate during the election period must issue an invitation to all candidates.
The relevant part of the rules (which can be found here) are:
9. Organisational Neutrality
9.1     All hustings must be conducted in a manner which gives no advantage to any of the candidates seeking selection.
9.2     No resources of the Party, including membership data, may be used by, or made available to, any candidate seeking election.
9.3         No Party meeting may take a vote preferring any candidate in the election.
9.4         No member may use a Party email facility to seek to influence the votes of members in the election.
9.5         Headquarters staff must not act, or be asked to act, in a way which would call into question their impartiality.
9.6         Parliamentarians and councillors must ensure that neither they nor their staff use parliamentary or council resources for campaigning.
If you have any questions, please email me at [email protected]

Lorna Finn
National Secretary
_________________________________________________________________________

Of particular relevance are points 9.2, 9.4 and 9.5.

Point 9.2 clearly states that “No resources of the Party, including membership data, may be used by, or made available to, any candidate seeking election”. Ms Harper is Humza’s lead campaign organiser in the south. She deliberately, on his behalf, lobbied thousands of members across the south seeking their support for him, to the total exclusion of the other candidates.

Similarly, point 9.4 states that “no member may use a party email facility to seek to influence the votes of members in the election”. Ms Harper, acting on Mr Yousaf’s behalf, did precisely that in direct contravention of the party’s constitution and rules regarding ‘Organisational Neutrality’.

Point 9.5 also has relevance: “Headquarters staff must not act, or be asked to act, in a way which would call into question their impartiality.” Plainly, headquarters staff granted Ms Harper access to the entire South of Scotland membership database. It is inconceivable that Ms Harper’s actions were unknown to HQ – and, suffice it to say, key personnel therein. In short, they too stand accused of acting outwith the party’s constitution and rules.

There is much more I could say but at this moment in time I will refrain from doing so.

But I want to place on record one thing.  This is my party, the party I love. Unlike many, I have never left, and I will not do so.

I leave it up to others to decide who is bringing our great party into disrepute – I, or all those at whose door I lay the blame for this shameful cheating and trashing of Scottish National Party internal democracy.

In conclusion, Scotland’s cause means more to me than words can express. I have six grandchildren all of whom, for the present at least, thankfully remain within Caledonia’s shores. I want only that they should have the best possible future as citizens of an independent Scotland, of Europe and the world.

And it is for them that I fight for independence – more, much more, than for myself.

Such a happy and necessary event can only happen if the SNP returns to form at the head of the entire YES movement. Our party will never be able to win independence without that great civic force for good, of creativity, hope and imagination.

The onus is on us to lead by example, whereby our internal party democracy acts as a template for our country’s future democracy and constitution, one founded on the pillars of justice, truth, openness and equality of opportunity for all.

In conjunction with that it goes without saying that corruption, nepotism and gerrymandering of opinion have no place in our party, and never should have.

We cannot, must not, emulate the unionist parties in going down the anti-democratic path.  We are better than that.

As an ordinary SNP member and branch convenor, I therefore call on Humza Yousaf, as a matter of honour and integrity, to immediately resile himself from the leadership contest and withdraw his candidature, for the reasons I have outlined above.

Caledonianly yours,

Steve Norris
Convener
Kirkcudbright and District SNP ”

————————————————

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

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Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
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In their urgency to foist Sturgeon’s nominated devolutionist successor on Scotland, the media are going all out against Kate Forbes for saying she could never vote for gay marriage. But they have not noted that Humza Yousaf also did not vote for gay marriage, he absented himself.

It is absolutely plain that he did this on a totally false pretext. He claims he had an urgent meeting with the Pakistani Consul General to discuss the case of a man on death row in Pakistan for blasphemy.

How can anybody argue with such a crucial mercy dash?

Except that the appointment was arranged, deliberately to coincide with the gay marriage vote, almost three weeks in advance. The chap could have been executed in the intervening period, if that was genuinely the concern.

The evidence that it was a deliberate ruse is cast iron solid.

The Equal Marriage vote took place on 4 February 2014. On 14 January 2014, three weeks in advance, the Minister for Parliamentary Business had entered it into Humza Yousaf’s ministerial diary (as all other ministers).

Just two days later, on 16 January 2014, Humza arranged his “urgent” meeting with the Pakistani Consul General for 19 days later, to miss the gay marriage vote.

This could not be an accident. The conflict would instantly have been highlighted in the ministerial diary – that is what they are for.

At 19 days’ notice it plainly was not an urgent dash to save somebody’s life. The awful cynicism of using such an excuse and sheltering behind the suffering is breathtaking.

Everybody at the time knew that Humza had deliberately dodged the vote, after criticism from the Muslim community in Glasgow (on which he depended electorally) for supporting the earlier stage of the Bill.

That is why this parliamentary question was asked, establishing beyond doubt these inconvenient facts.

All the Scottish media at the time knew that Humza had dodged the vote. Now he is the anointed one, they have conveniently forgotten it.

I might add something from my perspective as a former senior diplomat. The Pakistani Consulate in Glasgow deals with assisting the interests of Pakistani nationals in Scotland, and with visas. You might as well discuss a death row case with a Pakistani train driver as the Pakistani consul.

Consuls are low status diplomats. The Pakistani Consul General’s diary would not need 19 days’ notice to see the Scottish Justice Minister: he would be delighted to get the meeting.

Here is a photo from the Facebook page of the mighty Pakistani Consul General in Glasgow this month, showcasing his important meeting with… a Scot who shoots goats.

The notion that a meeting with the Pakistani Consul General needed 19 days’ notice and could only be scheduled to coincide with the gay marriage vote – is such obvious nonsense it insults our intelligence and damages the moral stature of all those who parrot the lie.

Humza bottled the gay marriage vote and came up with a really unpleasant ruse to justify it, profiting from the suffering of someone on death row.

For him then to attack Kate Forbes for her views on gay marriage – which are at least honest – is sickening.

I fully support equal marriage and I was very saddened at the time to have a slightly bitter disagreement with my old friend and mentor, Gordon Wilson, over it.  Scotland has a legacy of social conservatism. Moving on from that is painful for some people.

I support Ash Regan. A breath of fresh air.  Left wing economics and urgent on Independence.

————————————————

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
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BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB

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Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a

Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.

Donald John Morrison was the last man to speak to Willie McRae, unless his murderer talked. He invited me warmly into his neat Benbecula home, where I was visiting with my friend, his cousin Donnie.

Donald took my coat from me and hung it neatly in a cupboard. He then sat us in the front room, while he went to make us tea. On the wood and glass coffee table was a copy of Gareth Wardell’s Essays, thumbed and marked.

Donald John returned with the tea and two slices of pizza, warm and crisp, with sweet fresh cherry tomatoes on top, their skins split from the oven.

Donald John’s movements were fluid. He is remarkably spritely for a man in his late seventies, his back only slightly bowed, his eyes clear behind his spectacles, his hands deft and assured.

There is a calm island lisp to his voice, but he speaks compellingly, assuredly, with the policeman’s eye for relevance and detail. He was a central Glasgow beat policeman for decades, in times when Glasgow was a tough and dangerous city – and when there were beat policemen.

He comes across as more than friendly, positively kindly. But then at key points in his narrative, his eyes suddenly flash and you see the inner steel that he needed in the Glasgow polis.

It happens when he is angry, and there are parts of this story that make him angry indeed.

He knew Willie McRae professionally quite well, in the way that a policeman knows a lawyer. They would meet in court, and sometimes he would need to serve papers on McRae’s office on Bath Street.

Everybody knew the office, it was on the first floor, the biggest law practice in the city, its door protected by a steel shutter on a roller.

In early 1985 he saw Willie McRae more often than usual, because he had to attend on four separate occasions to burglaries of the law office. On every occasion cabinets had been forced and papers had been taken, but no money.

On the same floor of the Bath Street building was an office belonging to a Director of Celtic. That too was burgled, and when he attended that one, the Director told him he believed the break-in was looking for papers belonging to Willie McRae.

Then one day in March 1985, his sergeant came out to the beat and told Donald John and his partner that, whatever occurred, they were to stay away from the McRae offices that evening because a Special Branch and MI5 operation was in process.

That night Donald John was pulling a “doubler” – a twelve hour shift. He found that McRae had been taken into custody and a police cell, for Driving Under the Influence (which to be fair could have been done to Willie McRae almost any day of the week).

Donald John had seen this before.  In those days, the personal effects of a prisoner in the police cells were put into a large brown envelope and sealed. Special Branch would take away the envelope from the custody sergeant, open it, remove the prisoner’s house keys, and before the custody court the next morning at 9.30am they would return them and reseal.

It appears that evening the plan did not work, as Willie McRae did not have the roller shutter keys on him – they were in fact kept by the cleaner who came in and opened up at 7.30am every morning.

Donald John grinned that he could have told Special Branch that, if they had asked him.

Then on 7 April Donald John was walking his beat, when he spotted two men keeping surveillance on Agnews store. He immediately tagged them as policemen.

One, a tall thin man of around forty years with prematurely white hair, was pacing up and down outside the barbershop, as though waiting for someone. The second, a shorter and stouter man with curly black hair, was pretending to look into a plate glass shop window. Occasionally they would glance to check on each other.

Donald John was walking towards Agnews store, somewhat on guard, when Willie McRae emerged from the store and walked towards him. In each hand McRae held a bottle of Islay Mist whisky.

Donald joked that he would have to breathylise him. Willie replied that in a few hours he would be enjoying the whisky by a warm fire in Kintail.

They walked together to McRae’s car. Willie put one bottle on the roof while he opened the door, and Donald John caught it for him as it started to roll from the roof.

Willie placed both bottles on the front seat next to a bulging briefcase. Donald moved them onto the floor of the car, suggesting they would be safer as they could fall off the seat.

Willie looked at Donald John and patted the bulging briefcase, which had papers sticking out.

“I have got them this time, Donald”, he said. Then he repeated: “I have got them this time”.

They were probably the last words Willie McRae spoke.

As McRae closed the car door, Donald John Morrison looked up and saw one of the police surveillance team signal to the other with outturned hands, as though to indicate he had no idea what was happening, why a uniformed policeman was speaking to McRae.

I interrupted Donald John (the only time I needed to in the whole discourse) to ask him how McRae had seemed. He said he was neatly dressed and shaven, in a check shirt with a tie and a tweed jacket. He seemed on good form, “in fine fettle”. He had a sparkle in his eye and seemed to be relishing the idea of that drink by the fire in Kintail.

Donald John said apparently there had been a blaze at McRae’s home earlier that day but he gave no indication of it. There was absolutely nothing in his demeanour to indicate he was troubled: quite the opposite.

When he heard of the alleged suicide, Donald John was astonished and did not believe it. He had spoken to Roddy Mackay of Agnew’s Store, who had sold Willie the whisky, and he had also found McRae just as cheerful.

Morrison gave a full statement to the investigation, including everything detailed here. He recommended they also take a statement from Roddy Mackay.

A former beat collague of Donald John Morrison had joined Special Branch. He subsequently told Donald John that the whole investigation into McRae’s death was a cover-up and a tissue of lies by the police.

Donald John also found that Roddy Mackay had never been interviewed.

Over a decade later, once the Freedom of Information Act had passed, Donald John FOIA requested a copy of the report into the death of Willie McRae.

Donald John Morrison was astonished to find that his entire statement had been falsified and replaced with a fake statement onto which his signature had been photocpied.

In his “official” statement in the report there was nothing about surveillance, nothing about MI5 or Special Branch, and nothing about the whisky or the briefcase.

The official version of the death of Willie McRae is that there was no whisky or briefcase in the car, and that he shot himself in the back of the head whilst driving along, the gun flying out of the car window.

That remains the official story to this day.

Donald John was absolutely furious about the forgery of his statement. As this was obviously a serious crime in itself, he went to the procurator fiscal in Elgin to try to get a prosecution commenced against the Special Branch officers involved.

Eventually he was told that the Crown Office had ruled a prosecution would not be “procedurally correct”.

Donald John Morrison believes that, from the death of Willie McRae on, he was a marked man in the police because of what he knew.

Despite an exemplary record he was never offered promotion, though he says he did not want it. He was involved on three occasions in tackling and physically subduing armed robbers, but got not so much as a commendation. Frequently arrests he made were attributed to others.

Morrison says that it was made absolutely plain to officers, by the senior command, that they were expected to join the Orange Lodge, which he did.  There were only five Catholic officers – who he named – in his division. The McRae affair also caused him problems in the Orange Lodge, but that is a story, he suggested, for another day.

Morrison is a compelling witness. His testimony is detailed and precise. He ventures nothing beyond what he himself saw and did. He had not a word to say on why McRae was killed, because he does not know.

But he does know there was a bulging briefcase that McRae patted when he said “I have got them this time”. He knows that there were two bottles of Islay Mist. He knows that these things officially “disappeared”. He knows his statement was forged, and that it was done by Special Branch. He knows McRae was under British state surveillance.

I know that I met an honest and brave man. As we left, he stood there, eyes twinkling, and insisted that next time we came to the island we were staying with him, “with your wife and bairns too”.

It was a pleasure to be hosted by the remarkable Donald John Morrison. Just an honest beat cop, standing up against the murderers of the British state.

————————————————

Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.

Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:

Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]

Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:

Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
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BIC NWBKGB2L
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I have obtained access to all of Stewart McDonald’s emails, after approaching a number of people to find out who might have them. This is something the entire Scottish mainstream media have failed to do.

I had no hand in obtaining the emails nor prior knowledge. I am grateful they have been so generously shared.

I want to reassure Mr McDonald that his hysterical ranting about being hacked by a state intelligence service, when he appears by his own account to have fallen for a phishing scam the average 12 year old would see through, is hilariously wide of the mark.

Who in 2023 enters their login details into a third party website because they receive an email asking them to?

I think Mr McDonald’s credentials as a defence expert and NATO warrior have perhaps taken a hit.

I also want to reassure Mr McDonald that a highly responsible journalistic process will now be undertaken. Nothing will be altered or falsified. Nothing purely personal or about his love life will appear.

In particular, anything related to his constituents will remain absolutely and properly confidential.

If Mr McDonald or the SNP wish to get in touch about other material in the emails which is particularly sensitive for reasons of which we may not be aware, that will be given every consideration.

What will be published is material in which there is a legitimate public interest, relating to interactions with NATO, the British military and MOD, the Integrity Initiative and journalists in that crooked network, parliamentary committees, intelligence agencies, foreign powers, UK government defence institutes and conservative think tanks.

There has been little online support for Mr McDonald – and what there has been is telling

There is much of interest in the cache, including emails direct to and from Nicola Sturgeon, showing the toxic relationships within the SNP group at Westminster, where McDonald regards himself as in a very small minority of Sturgeon loyalists.

It is my hope that all those emails which are in the public interest for the public to know, with redactions if responsibly required, will eventually be published as a cache, so you can make up your own mind about the material.

This is also going to be a very interesting test on journalistic freedom in Scotland and Sturgeon’s iron control over the police and prosecutorial services.

In this context, the fact that I had no connection to, nor prior knowledge of, the materials being obtained is the essential point. My own involvement is purely to have tracked down who had them and then been given access to them, as journalist and publisher.

Doubtless after the usual pressure from Murrell and Robertson, the Lord Advocate will have the Crown Office looking feverishly to find a crime in that before the end of the afternoon.

It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net.

Hersh tells the story of the US destruction of the Nordstream pipelines in forensic detail, giving dates, times, method and military units involved. He also outlines the importance of the Norwegian armed forces working alongside the US Navy in the operation.

One point Sy does not much stress, but it is worth saying more about, is that Norway and the USA are of course the two countries who have benefitted financially, to an enormous degree, from blowing up the pipeline.

Both not only have gained huge export surpluses from the jump in gas prices, but Norway has directly replaced Russian gas to the tune of some $40 billion per year. From 2023 the United States will appear in that list in second place behind Norway, following the opening in the last two months of two new Liquefied Natural Gas terminals in Germany, built to replace Russian gas with US and Qatari supplies.

So Russia lost out massively financially from the destruction of Nordstream and who benefited? The USA and Norway, the two countries who blew up the pipeline.

But of course, this war is nothing to do with money or hydrocarbons and is all about freedom and democracy…

To return to Hersh’s account, particularly interesting are the series of decisions taken to avoid classification of the operation in various ways which would require it to be reported to Congress. In terms of United States history, this ought to be a big deal.

For the Executive to commit what is an act of war without the approval of the Legislature is fundamentally unconstitutional. But that is one of those quaint remnants of democracy that the neo-liberal elite consensus can quietly sidestep nowadays.

Hersh sets out the well known background in compelling detail,  including the fact that, from Biden down, the Americans effectively announced what they were going to do, openly.

But what most worries me about the entire story is the unanimous complicity of the mainstream media in ignoring the completely obvious.

The media line, parroted here relentlessly by the BBC and corporate media, was  that the Russians had probably themselves blown up the pipeline on which they had expended such great resources and three decades of intense diplomatic activity, and which was to be the key to Russia’s single most valuable source of income for the next 40 years.

This was always quite literally incredible. You would have to be deranged to believe it.

It actually taught me not just that we truly are in the realm of totalitarianism and the Big Lie, but I learnt something very important about how the Big Lie works.

The secret is not that people genuinely believe an outrageous claim. The secret is that people do genuinely believe that they are in a battle of good against evil, and it is necessary to accept the narrative being promoted, in the interests of fighting evil.

Don’t question, just follow. If you do question, you are promoting evil.

I am sure that is how it works.

State and corporate stenographer journalists are actually intelligent individuals. If they thought about it, they would realise that the narrative that Russia blew up its own pipeline is obvious nonsense.

But they are convinced it is morally wrong to think about it.

Which is why none of them challenged the equally mad claims that Russia was repeatedly shelling its own forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, and indeed is why none of them challenged the utterly risible official version of the Skripal story.

I previously told the anecdote from when I worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and asked a good friend if he really believed the misinformatioin on Iraqi WMD with which he was involved.

He replied by referring to the video game Championship Manager (now renamed Football Manager), which we used to play together. He said when he was in the game, it was immersive, he was manager of Liverpool, and it fully absorbed him.

Similarly, when he walked through the FCO gates, the world of the intelligence reports was immersive and Iraq did have these WMDs inside that world. He worked in the “reality” of the FCO. Once he left in the evening, he lived in a different reality, the world of us in the pub.

I do know of one or two journalists bright enough to detach their professional output from what they really think, in a similar way. (I once had a conversation along these lines with Jeremy Bowen in Tashkent.)

Most however don’t think like this. They simply think that all right thinking people support the historic struggle against the evil Russians, so it must be right to read out the propaganda without thinking too much about it.

Those of us critical of the aggressive promotion of war in Europe, are not only barred from all mainstream media and confined to corners of the internet, and even then heavily suppressed on social media (which is why Sy Hersh’s article does not have the scores of millions of readers it merits).

We can’t even obtain freedom of assembly.

Two established left wing venues have cancelled the No 2 Nato meeting I am addressing in London on 25 February. Conway Hall’s reasons for cancellation included threats to funding and fears for the safety of staff.

We are now reduced to a guerrilla meeting, the Central London venue for which will not be announced until the evening before.

Is this really a democracy, where it is not possible for dissidents to hold a public meeting without secrecy, subterfuge and hiding from supporters of the state?

I do urge you to come along on the day, whatever your views on the subject, to support the right to freedom of speech.

I have a different view from perhaps all of the other speakers, on the legitimacy of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which I oppose.

But I also oppose NATO expansion which is an underlying cause of the war, and indeed oppose the existence of NATO itself.

NATO is a war machine which sucks resources from working people to benefit the military industrial complex, and unleashes devastating destruction on developing states which do not make their natural resources available to western billionaire elites.

It is also a fundamental node of the propaganda apparatus which manipulates and controls our society, particularly as counter narrative and dissident thought is now rigorously and systematically excluded.

There is no longer an Overton window of permitted debate. It has narrowed and should be renamed the Overton letterbox.

One of those small difficult ones right down at the bottom of the door.  With a very fierce spring, and snarling dogs guarding it.

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