Charles Crawford’s continued efforts to get someone to pay attention to his dull blog continue to centre on me. He wishes to challenge me to a public debate on diplomacy and ethics. http://charlescrawford.biz/blog.php?single=940&articleid=940 If you search YouTube you can find some 40 videos of me speaking at various places. Not one of the videos of [...]

The CDC scandal is the worst of all the NuLab snouts in the trough scandals, because they are stealing from the poorest on Earth. They are diverting taxpayers’ money that was meant for poverty alleviation in the Third World, into the pockets of NuLab figures and the fattest of City fatcats. Like these. http://www.cdcgroup.com/the_board.asp I [...]

The Independent on Sunday has named me as one of its Top Ten Alternative National Treasures. There I am, after Charlotte Church, Vivienne Westwood and Jo Brand. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/rough-diamonds-ithe-iosi-selects-its-alternative-national-treasures-1678242.html I differ from the others in having no discernible talent, but also in not having appeared on broadcast media for two years now. I continue to receive [...]

Lord Jones of Cheltenham has sent me his telling of the story recounted in The Catholic Orangemen of Togo about our seeing off the security service raid on the independent radio station in Accra. It differs from mine in some details, the most important of which is that we were actually with Graham Elson on [...]

David Hare made an a thought provoking speech at the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression awards. Worth reading, and not just because I get a mention: But hypocrisy and double standards on the left now seem over-shadowed, dwarfed, obliterated by endemic, instituional hypocrisy on the right or, to put it another way, in government. [...]

It has been a hard but rewarding week for political bloggers here in the UK. I remember feeling much the same sense of relief when watching the Major government fall apart. The horrible Jonathan Aitken – who I liked marginally better as an aristocratic spiv than as a charismatic christian – was in a different [...]

Darling and Beckett’s expenses scams just add to the long sorry tale of New Labour sleaze. These people are moral and political pygmies. I try from day to day not to dwell upon the way they ended my career as Ambassador and subjected me to an onslaught of slur and smear in what one senior [...]

I have got my full fifth star back. This may mark me as a deeply sad person, but I feel just as happy as when the bell on the Christmas tree rang in Its A Wonderful Life to show that Clarence the angel had got his wings. Murder in Samarkand now averages five stars again [...]

I have been asked to provide more proof that the Sufi Muslim Council is funded by the Karimov government and the CIA. Well, to some extent you have to take my word that as British Ambassador in Uzbekistan I had my informers and sources. But let me give you some strong supporting evidence. The Head [...]

It is four years now since I was sacked as Ambassador for opposing MI6′s use of intelligence gained from torture and passed to MI6 by the CIA under the UK/US intelligence sharing agreement. http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/documents/Telegram.pdf Yet with incredible hypocrisy, four years after I exposed the whole evidence, David Miliband continues to trot out the barefaced lie [...]

I had a rather peculiar happy thought today, caused by a somewhat aggressive phone call I received yesterday. The happy thought is that, while I am generally regarded as a pleasant and amusing fellow, there are a small but definite number of people who absolutely detest me. How can that be a happy thought? Well, [...]

This German article about the Catholic Orangemen is interesting because it appears to focus on Rakesh Saxena, the financier of the blood diamond Sandline plot. Unfortunately I don’t understand German – can anyone enlighten me on why it takes that angle and what is the general focus of the site? http://oraclesyndicate.twoday.net/stories/5453373/

Self-Publishing is very hard work. I reflected on this as I packed and labelled eighty individually ordered copies yesterday, lugged them to Shepherds Bush Post Office (approx 50kg!) and stood in line for 55 minutes to reach the counter at what I contend is the worst managed post office branch in the world. Today I [...]

The printer can’t keep up with demand for the book at the moment, so apologies for delays which should only be a few more days. Those who have ordered on Amazon can ignore the messages inviting you to cancel – there are several hundred copies in my hall waiting for DHL to pick them up [...]

In September 2007 Schillings got my website closed down by my hosting company. They threatened them with legal action on behalf of convicted blackmailer and racketeer Alisher Usmanov, who is still attempting to complete his takeover of Arsenal FC. Then in 2008 Schillings succeeded in getting my book publication cancelled on behalf of notorious mercenary [...]

We have comprehensively blown wide apart the UK’s infamously repressive libel laws. Up until now, these have routinely been used not to prevent untruth, but to hide truth on behalf of the ultra-rich. In so doing they have spawned a whole universe of massively wealthy lawyers devoid of any moral values, dedicated only to the [...]

I think this is the first review of The Catholic Orangemen, from Ten Percent. If the reception is generally like this, I shall be pretty happy: I enjoyed it immensely, found myself at page 100 before I knew what hit me, a testament to fascinating subject matter and an easy friendly style. It’s fascinating to [...]

Lawyers Schillings, acting on behalf of mercenary commander Tim Spicer, persuaded my publisher to pull out of publishing my new book, The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflcits I Have Known. Tim Spicer has made millions from the war in Iraq, and the UK has become notorious for the ability of the rich to [...]

I have been obliged to self-publish my new book, The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known, because legal threats from mercenary commander Tim Spicer scared off my publisher: http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/Schillings.pdf I I have accordingly decided to make it available free online from 12 January as a PDF hosted on over a hundred [...]

As legal sharks Schillings caused my publisher to back down, causing me to have to self-publish The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known, we have needed to think imaginatively about promoting the book. One plan will involve promoting some individual short quotes. I have been through the book and extracted some [...]