The Third Man 99


This is the link for the video recording of the Public Administration Committee meeting at which Paul Flynn MP was prevented from asking questions about the role of the third man, Matthew Gould, in the Fox-Werritty plot to promote a war with Iran.

The key action starts 1 hour and thirty minutes in (use the slider). The actions of long term paid zionist shill Robert Halfon – whose whole career has been bought and paid for by Werritty’s main sponsor Poju Zabludowicz – and the neo-con committee chairman, Bernard Jenkin, in suppressing free speech by an MP are despicable. Anyone who does not believe there is a fierce Tory cover-up of Gould’s role must watch this. Anyone who believes parliamentary democracy is still more than a sham should watch it too.

Which brings me to the extraordinary refusal of my freedom of information request for the Gould/Werritty correspondence. The refusal of my request came back in just one hour and fifteen minutes – about three weeks shorter than usual – and astonishingly at 11.31pm. The FCO refuses to meet its Freedom of Information Act obligation to provide the Gould/Werritty correspondence because it would be “too costly” to do so.

But did not Sir Gus O’Donnell just conduct a full and thorough investigation into the role of Adam Werritty in association with Liam Fox? And would not such a full and thorough investigation have gathered together all the relevant documentation, and particularly correspondence between Werritty and senior British diplomats?

There are two alternatives. Either the material is already collected, in which case there is no cost to collecting it, and the response to my Freedom of Information request is both illegal and a deliberate lie. Or the documentation was never collected and the Gus O’Donnell investigation was a complete sham.

Either is not good. Yet there is no other possible explanation.


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99 thoughts on “The Third Man

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  • Hugh Kerr

    keep digging Craig and Halfon was also bought by Ashcroft’s dodgy money over £100,000 poured into my old constituency and that of your old friend Bill Rammell perhaps Bill will assist you now he is free!

  • Dick the Prick

    I kinda thought that as it was quite late you accidently hit the senior officer on night duty, who after having had quite a nice dinner, just decided to tell you to fuck right off, which goes under the first alternative I guess.

  • Iain Orr

    Craig: For the FCO to say that your FOI request cannot be met because it would be too costly treats the FOI legislation with contemptible contempt.

    .
    I note from the Information Commissioner Office’s (ICO)website that before asking the ICO to intervenene you need first to have asked the FCO to review their refusal to provide the information on grounds of cost; and to provide the ICO with unedited copies of that request and the response, together with the original request and response.

    .
    I hope you will pursue this blatant abuse of the clause allowing an exception on grounds of costs. As you point out and can say to the FCO, the only costs are those of drafting and sending an email to Matthew Gould, asking for copies of his correspondance with Werrity while he has been a member of the Diplomatic Service; and of forwarding copies to you. It is more a matter for your subsequent complaint to the ICO that the FCO felt able to reply so quickly to your request at a time of day when it is implausible that officials (including the British Ambassador to Israel) would have been to hand to enable a rational calculation to be made of the cost of the supplying the information.

    .
    How the correspondance was conducted (if by paper or by email, on what letterheads and from what email addresses) would only be relevant if the refusal were based on the correspondance being private. But that is not the FCO’s position. In any case, as a lobbyist sometimes wishing to share with others evidence of his influence with HMG it is likely that Werrity will have addressed his letters/ emails to Matthew Gould in his official roles. I find it hard to see how the FCO can plausibly adduce as excessive the cost of searching its own filing systems in respect of a single FCO official and one other person with a distinctive surname.

    .

    As so often, it’s the subsequent cover-up that will expose the crookedness.

  • Mary

    The old lady directly behind O’Donnell (I refuse to call him GOD) is I think Lady Gillian Shephard, one time MP, Minister and Parliamentary President of Conservative Friends of Israel, one time board member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and now chair of the Association of Conservative Peers.
    .
    http://hyperfacts.com/4052757
    .
    Some years ago a group of us attempted to get the CPSL, under the chairmanship of Sir Christopher Kelly, a placeman and a white mark on a white wall, to close down the Friends of Israel lobby groups. We came up with a brick wall and it was ironic that some of the members of CSPL had associations with the lobby groups.
    .
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Shephard}

  • Andy

    The FCO refuses to meet its Freedom of Information Act obligation to provide the Gould/Werritty correspondence because it would be “too costly” to do so.
    .
    The damage to the government, that’s what ‘cost’ here means.

  • Azra

    Craig, excellent work, but I am exceedingly worried about you.. please take good care. God bless.

  • Azra

    Tried to watch it, use the slider, but nothing! I wonder if they removed it..would not put it pass them..bastards

  • Mary

    Azra, It does work. Wait for it to load. The sound is not very loud.
    Why is there not a transcript available of committee proceedings and hearings?
    .
    My earlier comment, replying to a question as to who was sitting behind O’Donnell, did not go up as I did not use the right type of brackets on the second link. Here it is again:
    .
    The old lady directly behind O’Donnell (I refuse to call him GOD) is I think Lady Gillian Shephard, one time MP, Minister and Parliamentary President of Conservative Friends of Israel, one time board member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and now chair of the Association of Conservative Peers.
    .
    http://hyperfacts.com/4052757
    .
    Some years ago a group of us attempted to get the CSPL, under the chairmanship of Sir Christopher Kelly, a placeman and a white mark on a white wall, to close down the Friends of Israel lobby groups. We came up against a brick wall and it was ironic that some of the members of CSPL had associations with the lobby groups.
    .
    {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Shephard}

  • Michael Culver

    The usual obfuscation. Why suprised? The Bliar certainly works with Gould. Nothin in the Media AT ALL re: the Kuala Lumpur War Crime Tribunal guilty verdicts on Torturing Tony and Bomber Bush, Joseph Goebbels must be cackling in Hell.As for god,what a squalid reptile.Meanwhile everyone rachets up the pressure for war war war, well lets face it its the only industry the sick assassins have.The usual suspects will be rubbing their hands and getting their offshore accounts primed for another infusion of blood money.Heaven help the Iranians, one can only pray they get in a few very painful reprisals.

  • Azra

    Mary, thanks for the info, when did you last try it? I still have not managed to make it work, waited for 15 minutes for it to load, no luck!

  • John Goss

    Azra, I’m having problems too. It is requesting me to download something called Microsoft Silverlight. What the Hell is that?

  • John Goss

    Mark Golding, thanks. I found the problem. It was with Firefox settings. I could watch it using Explorer, but my understanding is Firefox is safer than Explorer. The interruptions from Halfon, and in particular Bernard Jenkin, were disgusting, especially as a chairman is supposed to be impartial.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq

    Responding to a question about the dinner from opposition MP Paul Flynn, O’Donnell said: “The important point here was that, when the Secretary of State [Fox] had that meeting, he had an official with him—namely, in this case, the ambassador [Gould]. That is very important, and I should stress that I would expect our ambassador in Israel to have contact with Mossad. That will be part of his job.”
    .
    One of the qualities of an ambassador in my book is a scrupulous regard for truth – ok, ok I add good looks and a good head for alcohol 🙂 – an ambassador does a course to get the knowledge, including how to protect oneself against foreign intelligence but why would our ambassador to Israel have contact with Mossad?
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    I can think of only one reason – bait and switch; to plot against a common enemy – Sure! but does that not involve telling lies? – Lies that might in fact cause great harm?
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    Some my call me naive but a good ambassador to me is of prudence, can-do, leadership, versatility in facing intractable problems and one hell bent on preventing people from being boiled to death!

  • Komodo

    I’m not sure Poju Zabludowicz can carry all the blame for Halfon, although he did contribute in 2006 at least. However, one donor whose name is familiar, from 2011, is Trevor Pears, who dropped £20,000 on David Cameron’s election campaign, and various lumps around £2000 on individual Conservative constituency parties, including Halfon’s, in 2005. For instance.
    .

    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-06/thuo-bpt061311.php

  • Komodo

    “Good nose Komodo – impressed! Eh? Why is Jenkin still able to chair pubic administration meetings?”
    Because he’s a prick?

    .
    (sorry)

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