Monthly archives: February 2022


Ukraine: How Can the War End? 1323

I could not believe Putin really would invade Ukraine, because I could see no sensible outcome for him. I still cannot. Initiating a war on this scale has no legal justification, and no moral justification either. Russian troops are in areas which have no wish to be ruled by Russia.

Those of us who opposed the illegal invasion of Iraq must also oppose the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Whether the Ukrainian government is obnoxious or not is as irrelevant now, as the obnoxiousness of Saddam Hussein was irrelevant then. I am as fed up now with being asked if I support Ukrainian Nazis as I was then with being asked if I supported Saddam Hussein.

It is simply illegal to wage a war for regime change, without the endorsement of the UN security council.

I have great sympathy for Russian security concerns about encirclement by NATO and forward missile deployments. But seeking regime change by invasion in Ukraine could not possibly be the answer. I still have not the slightest idea what Putin seeks to achieve. It is simply impossible – and has been since the annexation of Crimea – that a democratic Ukraine is voluntarily going to elect a pro-Russian government. After this invasion, the only way a pro-Putin regime could be maintained in Ukraine would be by extreme authoritarianism, going well beyond the prevailing system in Russia itself.

Let me put it starkly. This can only finish with a government in Kiev which absolutely hates Putin as now do the Ukrainian people, or with Russia maintaining a puppet regime by extreme repression. There isn’t a way out with a peaceful, neutral Ukraine. Once you try to resolve matters by pure force, you lose that option. If I were Ukrainian, there is no way now I would be agreeing to the demilitarisation of my country.

As for denazification – which certainly is needed in Ukraine – Putin has given the “heroic anti-Russian nationalist” meme of the Ukrainian nazi groups a massive boost. While labelling the entire nation and government as Nazi is just wrong.

I did not think Putin would invade, for all those reasons. I did not even think he would acknowledge moving troops into the Donbass. I was unsure what to argue about that if he did. The Kosovo parallel with the newly acknowledged Donetsk and Lughansk republics is arguable. As a supporter of Scottish Independence, I am open to arguments from self-determination, and you can read Murder in Samarkand on the capriciousness of former internal Soviet borders. But this has gone far beyond that.

Yet we have seen nothing like the simply massive civilian casualties the West inflicted on Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan. Not anything like the same order of magnitude. In the town of Sirte, Libya alone NATO bombing killed 15,000 people. Casualty figures being given for the whole of the Ukraine so far are still in the hundreds, and thank God for that.

Sirte, Libya, after NATO bombing

Either Putin has not entirely willed the means, or his armed forces are resisting obeying his wishes. Russia has not unleashed anything like the kind of firepower that would need to be unleashed to subdue Ukraine. Western media has gone into full war porn mode, but the extent of real fighting is uncertain. There seems to be a great deal of shadow boxing.

I do not know the explanation for this. It seems very possible Putin has underestimated Ukrainian morale, and really believed Ukraine would crumble. In fact, Zelensky is playing a blinder in terms of maintaining morale, however staged his photo-ops. The more pressing question is whether Putin overestimated the willingness of his own military to kill Ukrainians, or whether Putin himself lacks the will. In Grozny, he was directly responsible for civilian casualties on a truly terrible scale, but is he like the West in putting much less value on Muslim lives?

Grozny Destroyed by Russia

To date, Kiev has faced nothing like what Sirte faced from NATO or Grozny faced from Russia – but not because Russia lacks the capacity to do it.

If Putin is himself ready for massive Ukrainian deaths, is his military pulling its punches? I am reminded of the War of Slovenian Independence, where the soldiers of the massively superior Yugoslav army just refused to kill Slovenes. In that case, many of the Yugoslav troops were initially told it was just a live fire exercise, which lends credibility to the idea the same is happening with Russian troops here.

Putin has not improved his negotiating position. My own friends and allies on the left are suggesting that the answer is for there to be a ceasefire and Western agreement to no further expansion of NATO, and a new arms control treaty governing missile deployments. That would certainly be ideal but it is not going to happen.

You have to understand the realpolitik of the Western elite. They will never damage their own interests. That is why the sanctions that would really hurt Putin, targeting companies like BP and Shell over their Russian interests or the real oligarchs like Usmanov, Deripaska and Abramovic, will never happen because they would damage the interests of the British elite. It is why the UK government fly Ukrainian flags but will not let Ukrainians come without visas. They don’t really care about the ordinary people at all.

The NATO leadership now see Putin in a position where he either has to back down and retreat, or inflict massive casualties on the Ukraine and get bogged down there for decades. If they wanted to save the Ukrainian people, this would indeed be the time for West to negotiate. But the lives of ordinary Ukrainians mean nothing to them.

So rather than find Putin a ladder to climb down, they will strike heroic poses, wave Ukrainian flags and send more weapons. I fear Putin will go for the mass deaths scenario. Macho is his entire brand, and his speech last Sunday was worryingly fundamentalist. I do wonder if he is losing the room at home – he spoke of the end of the Soviet Union as a calamity, but Russians under forty cannot even remember the Soviet Union at all. Nobody under 50 can remember it in any kind of functioning order.

One final thought for now. I applaud those brave people in Russia who have demonstrated for peace. Almost 2,000 have been arrested. But remember this – under the Tory government’s new policing bill, taking part in a demonstration in England and Wales not approved in advance by the police could bring up to ten years in prison. Just one example of the rife hypocrisy submerging us all at present.

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Your Man With the Petition: My Appeal Against Imprisonment for Journalism, 23 February 167

UPDATE The Cabinet Minister who the judges met, delaying the start of my appeal, may have been Dominic Raab, Lord Chancellor and Justice Minister of England and Wales. Raab was in Edinburgh that day discussing with the Scottish Government the Tory plans to ditch the European Convention on Human Rights. What Lord Justice General Carloway said was that the hearing was delayed because the Scottish Government had called to set up an unscheduled meeting with a cabinet minister. We had all presumed he meant a member of the Scottish cabinet; perhaps not.

Secondly, my former QC John Scott has been in touch to say that he had no doubt that my sworn affidavits were accepted as evidence in the case, and that was the outcome of his discussions on the matter with the Crown. As I said below, I had found the Crown’s assertion to the contrary baffling.

Both these points highlight the extraordinary fact that there is no official recording or transcript of the court proceeding and the public were excluded. Our offer to have a transcript taken and produced at our own expense (as is done by the Assange legal team at his hearings) was also refused.

I should stress that this is not unusual; we were told it is the rule that there are no recordings or transcripts of such proceedings in Scotland. So what happened is whatever the judges say happened, and there is nothing that can be produced to prove otherwise. The more I go down the dark hole of Scotland’s legal system, the more it stinks.

26 February 07.13 END OF UPDATE

Today I was the “petitioner” as my appeal was heard in Court No. 1 of the Court of Session by the nobile officium. This sounds like something from Harry Potter, perhaps an annex of the Ministry of Magic, but is actually the Scottish legal system’s appeal court of last resort.

Here I sat very much as a last resort, getting through the last required hurdle before I can appeal to some judges at Strasbourg with no part in the Scottish Establishment.

Five judges presided, headed by Lord Carloway, the bulldog-jowled Lord Justice General. To his left sat the tall figure of the kindly looking and bespectacled Lord Woolman, and further left Lord Matthews, who looked so strikingly like an old drinking friend of mine from Dundee, that I kept being disconcerted it wasn’t him. To Lord Carloway’s immediate right was Lady Paton, a bright-looking lady, who had an air of intense concentration and took copious notes. On the far right, the bench was completed by Lord Pentland, very engaged, constantly leaning forward, moustache bristling, as though itching to do all the talking himself. Which from time to time happened.

All wore Gilbert and Sullivan costumes and long wigs that looked frightfully uncomfortable. I felt for them.

Proceedings started one hour late. Lord Carloway opened by apologising to the court. The case had been delayed, Lord Carloway stated, because the bench had received unexpected intimation from the Scottish Government that a cabinet minister was coming to see them on an important matter. They had therefore had to delay and meet the minister before starting the hearing.

That is what Lord Carloway said. I faithfully report it. He did not say the cabinet minister’s visit had any connection to my case. He did not say it had no connection to my case. It might have been about judicial appointments, refurbishing courts or covid restrictions, for all I know. Urgent enough to cause an unscheduled cabinet minister to dash, and justify a delay to the hearing.

Roddy Dunlop QC, Dean of Faculty (which is a big deal among Scottish lawyers, head of the profession) then arose to present my case. Dunlop has a delivery of relentless logic, driven home by piercing blue eyes, but disconcertingly has a haircut which must entail going into the barber and saying “Cliff Richard circa 1963, please”. Dunlop’s horsehair wig has to perch behind the quiff.

Dunlop had been planning to speak for two hours, but interruptions from the bench were in the event so constant that he spoke for well over three. I published the written submission he had put in, and do urge you to read it – it is more entertaining than you might imagine. I shall not repeat here points he made from the written argument, except where necessary to explain a judicial intervention.

He opened by saying that this was a unique case. We knew of no precedent in Scotland for a journalist ever having been jailed for contempt of court. He then went on to say nice things about me, detailing my diplomatic career and positions I had held of great responsibility. He said that I had become a whistleblower, revealing terrible abuses of torture and extraordinary rendition, and in that respect had given evidence in person before committees of the Westminster Parliament, European Parliament and Council of Europe.

The bench looked to me particularly unimpressed by this; I am not sure they like whistleblowers.

Roddy Dunlop went on to say that I was a journalist, who had published articles in many mainstream media newspapers, but whose output was mostly published on my blog. That did not however make me any less of a journalist. I was fulfilling the role of a “public watchdog” on matters of public interest, as defined in judgments by the European Court of Human Rights.

I had a genuine belief, which I still held, that Alex Salmond had been the subject of a plot to prosecute him on false charges, and I had an article 10 right under the European Convention on Human Rights to publish that, as a matter of the highest public interest. That had to be the starting point for considering this case.

Both Lord Carloway and Lord Pentland queried whether I could be considered a journalist. Dunlop said that the ECHR case he quoted specifically included bloggers as enjoying the same protection as “public watchdog”.

Dunlop then argued that the test of strict liability in the Contempt of Court Act applies exclusively to publication of information which could interfere with a trial; it specifically does not apply to breaching an order on identification, where on the contrary there has to be an element of wilful disobedience of the court. He cited the Act itself and several cases.

Lord Carloway interjected that the act of publication was itself a deliberate act. That was the intent. Dunlop replied that there was no dispute that the articles were deliberately published; but that was not the same as that they contained intent to identify.

Lord Carloway queried whether this could be true even when the articles were obviously identifying.

Dunlop said yes, intent was crucial. Otherwise, if for example a protected complainer stated that they had been assaulted in a taxi on a certain date, and subsequently someone posted the taxi receipt online as routine public accounting for expenses, that person would be liable for jigsaw identification despite having no intent.

Lord Matthews asked how the court could know if the receipt had been posted maliciously.

Dunlop then moved on to the second ground of appeal, that the court should not have disbelieved the evidence given in my affidavit without cross-examining me and giving me a chance to answer questions on which they had any doubt. He described this as necessary to a fair hearing and natural justice.

Dunlop referred to Lady Dorrian’s judgment, which stated that evidence in my affidavit cast doubt on my claim to have no intent to reveal names. Dunlop stated that was far from a finding beyond reasonable doubt that I had intent to reveal names. The judgement had therefore not found intent to the criminal standard required in law.

Lord Carloway said the Court had no evidence before it that my affidavit had ever been accepted by the court as evidence at all. There was no joint minute to that effect, and there should have been. Dunlop said that indeed it would have been better if there were a joint minute, but that could hardly be held to be the petitioner’s fault. Lord Carloway asserted twice more that there was nothing before him to indicate my affidavits formed evidence in the case, and Dunlop repeatedly asserted that plainly they were evidence. Not to cross-examine was the Crown’s choice.

Dunlop said I had given this evidence by affidavit, as was frequently the case nowadays. My senior counsel had then informed the court that I had nothing to add but was available to answer any questions from Crown or Court. Lord Carloway said that offering to answer questions was not the same as submitting to cross-examination. Dunlop said it was the same. Lord Carloway said no it was not; I had not entered the witness box. Dunlop said that there had been no witness box: it was one of the early virtual hearings, I was not in a courtroom, and that may be some of the cause of procedural confusion.

There was then a slight break while I confirmed to Dunlop that counsel had said I was present (virtually) to be questioned by Crown or Court, and both Prentice and Dorrian had stated they did not wish to ask questions. Dunlop confirmed with Crown senior counsel Alex Prentice QC that this was indeed what had happened.

Carloway then said that witnesses were often not cross-examined in civil cases; it did not mean their evidence was accepted. He added that evidence “may be so manifestly untrue as not to require cross-examination”.

I recall Lord Pentland as saying this, but my notes say Lord Carloway. Either way, I had the distinct impression they intended this to convey their opinion of my own affidavit as “manifestly untrue”, and viewed it as closing the question.

Dunlop seemed somewhat thrown by the relentless negativity from the bench and the suggestion that my affidavit was so manifestly untrue as not to require cross-examination. He concluded that it remained his submission that, where the defendant faced imprisonment, they had a right to have doubts put to them, for them to give an answer that may change the view of the court.

Lord Carloway replied that the Crown’s scepticism of the defendant’s affidavit had been fairly put in the Crown’s written submissions.

Dunlop then moved on to the third ground of appeal, that the court had adopted too narrow a test in finding that identification had taken place to a section of the general public, such as work colleagues, whereas the correct test in the Act was to the general public, the public at large.

Lord Carloway said that it was obvious that the complainants were all close to the former First Minister; therefore very little extra information could identify them and great care should be taken. What if, for example, the parliamentary committee had been able to identify them? Would that in Dunlop’s opinion be a sufficient test?

Dunlop replied it would not. The parliamentary committee were not the general public, and had a great deal of other information available. Dunlop stated that my difficulty had lain in explaining what had actually happened in the Salmond trial, and what Salmond’s defence was, while still protecting the identities, as I had explained in my affidavits.

Carloway replied that the mainstream media appeared to have no difficulty in covering the trial without publishing identifying information. Dunlop said that he would question that. The mainstream media published similar information to the petitioner. Dani Garavelli in particular had published a great deal of identifying information. Yet none of these were prosecuted.

Dunlop had said the unsayable. The judges had all displayed simultaneous physical reactions to this, which in the nearly empty courtroom was particularly noticeable.

Lord Carloway said that Dunlop had said this case was unique. That was because the mainstream media knew how to avoid committing contempt. That is why there were no instances of the mainstream media being prosecuted for jigsaw identification. Lord Pentland reiterated that the reason no mainstream media were prosecuted was because they understood the law.

And at this point we broke for lunch.

After lunch, we reverted to the question of whether I ought to have been cross-examined before being disbelieved, on which Dunlop had found another precedent, which plainly said so, during the lunch break. Lord Pentland stated that it was common practice for a witness not to be cross-examined and then for their account to be dismissed as incredible. Lord Carloway said that it was frequently the case in criminal cases that complainers were not cross-examined by the defence on the grounds their evidence had no weight.

We then went back to the question of what was the proper test for identification. Lord Woolman observed it was “a tricky one”. He asked Dunlop what then the proper test should be? This struck me as the first open question asked of Dunlop, not phrased in terms of overt hostility.

Dunlop replied that the proper test should be whether, in combination with material that was already fully in the public domain, somebody had wilfully published the last piece of the jigsaw in order to enable identification.

Dunlop went on to give two examples. In the first, he stated that in their open and public opinion on whether my petition to the nobile officium was eligible, the court had stated that I published that a complainer had been nominated to a named parliamentary constituency. This was inaccurate. Had I published that, and had the complainer in fact been nominated, we accepted it would indeed have run a grave risk of identification to the general public. What I had in fact published was that she had been – unsuccessfully – seeking nomination. That fact was not available to the general public and only known to a small number of people within her own party.

I cannot explain the second example Roddy gave without repeating information Lady Dorrian found to be identifying. It was of a similar nature in relating to information only a very small number of people would know and which the public could not find. Lord Woolman asked how this was squared with google. Dunlop replied that information of the class he was describing was not available to a google search. Dorrian was therefore in error in finding it to be identifying.

Dunlop then moved on to his fourth ground, that of the article 10 right to freedom of speech. Dunlop said that this case represented the biggest single interference with freedom of speech in the modern history of Scotland. There was simply no precedent for jailing a journalist like this. Somebody with no criminal record and a history of public service, fulfilling a public watchdog role, had been jailed for eight months. Despite having a heart condition and a weeks old baby.

Lord Pentland intervened to say that this could be because there was no precedent for the committing of such a large contempt. It was also in the unique context of the Salmond case, in which there was unprecedented public interest and therefore unprecedented need to protect the complainers. That would explain the unique consequences.

Dunlop said that to jail a journalist must be necessary in law and consistent with democracy. The law must also be foreseeable. It was impossible for a journalist to know what pieces of the jigsaw might be known to a small group of people, and therefore to know if he was providing the last piece. Lord Pentland replied that was why extreme care must be taken. Dunlop said the care could become so extreme as to have a chilling effect which made any effective reporting of sexual assault cases impossible.

Dunlop then moved on to his fifth ground of appeal, that many of the identifications found by Lady Dorrian had never been alleged by the Crown or mentioned in proceedings; so the defence had no chance to rebut them. This was heard in comparative silence.

The Crown then opened, and Alex Prentice QC, a dry and inoffensive man, spoke very briefly. He said that the Crown had already set out its position in its written submissions (I am told I am not allowed to publish these). The Crown had alleged intent against me and the court had plainly found intent, so the question of strict liability did not in fact arise.

Lord Pentland came in to help Prentice by suggesting a precedent case to him, not in the bundle of authorities, which indiicated intent was not required. Pentland asked if that case might be useful to support his assertion that there was no need to prove intent. Prentice agreed, and said “we” had been discussing that very case over lunch. It was not plain to me who “we” were.

On the question of my not having been cross examined, Prentice stated that he had personally held a number of meetings with my then QC, John Scott, to discuss evidence. These meetings were covered by confidentiality, but the crown had “certain concerns” about my giving evidence. It had therefore been agreed between the counsel that my affidavits would be entered, and I would not be cross-examined: but this did not mean that my evidence was accepted.

I was much startled to hear that.

Prentice stated that on what was the correct test for identification, the Crown had alleged that I had embarked on a publication of a course of articles designed, when taken together, to reveal identities to the general public. This was accepted by the court and no question therefore arose. Furthermore the Crown had alleged that, taken together, all of the complainers were identified by all of the articles combined. It was therefore not necessary for the Crown to have cited each individual example of identification.

Lord Pentland said that contempt of court was a summary procedure anyway so there was no need to consider these questions.

Theoretically what happened next was that Dunlop had a chance to rebut. However he was so interrupted and overwhelmed by the bench, that my notes at this point seem to consist almost entirely of what the judges said.

Lord Pentland said that Dunlop had claimed it was unique for a journalist to be jailed, but the circumstances of the Salmond case are unique, and it was essential that the identities of complainers in sexual assault cases be protected, for fear of deterring other victims from coming forward.

Dunlop said we had always accepted that, and the Salmond case was also of unique public interest.

Lord Pentland said that we were looking at a course of conduct by a person who Dunlop had stated was a highly educated man who had held responsible positions. But these were aggravating factors not mitigating factors. He said that the need to protect identities had been stressed to the public and reiterated “Mr Murray’s previous positions of responsibility are an aggravating factor in his conduct”.

Dunlop cited an ECHR ruling which stated that journalists should not be imprisoned, except in extreme circumstances such as hate speech or incitement to violence. In this case, the appropriate punishment would have been a fine.

Lord Pentland said that this case was analogous to hate speech and incitement to violence; and my sustained campaign to reveal the identities of these women could indeed have incited violence or social media hate against them. Dunlop said no such thing had happened and there was certainly no such intent.

Lord Matthews said that the protection quoted in the ECHR case extended to investigative journalism and this was not investigative journalism. It said this applied to press offences, but was this a press offence? Was I a journalist?

Lord Woolman asked whether, if I could be called a journalist, did that mean just anybody could be a journalist who published on social media?

Dunlop replied, anybody who was fulfilling the role of a public watchdog, according to the European Court of Human Rights. Lord Pentland said that particular judgement appeared to refer to NGO’s rather than individuals. Dunlop said it specifically included bloggers. Pentland said he thought it mainly meant NGO’s but they would look at it.

Lord Carloway said that it was not plain this was a press offence. In mainstream media cases, the contempt was always acknowledged and an apology proffered. However in this case, a key factor in the sentence had been my “total and utter lack of remorse”, which continued.

Dunlop said it was my position that I had not intended to identify anybody. Lord Pentland said that it was common practice for sentences to be increased for lack of remorse from those who insisted on protesting their innocence after conviction.

Dunlop said my position was that I never intended to identify anybody; I had attempted to protect identities and I believed I had succeeded in that. Nobody had in fact been identified. But I would indeed be very remorseful if identification had occurred. Carloway asked, in a tone of incredulity, if we were saying that nobody had been identified as a result of my articles. Roddy Dunlop said that was indeed what we were saying. There had never been any credible evidence that identification had occurred. Carloway said he would find that most unlikely.

And that was it.

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That is my best shot at a fair description of today in court, leaving out anything said that could identify a witness in the Salmond case. It is of course my perception, and a distillation of a full day, and in the circumstances I can hardly be unbiased. It is not my fault the court excluded the public from attending and so limited your access to other perceptions.

We will get a written judgement in probably around a couple of months. Of course judges can be testing an argument or playing Devil’s advocate. But my honest perception was of real hostility from the court. I think you will find the above is a fair guide to what the judgement will say. My perception is that judges’ hearts were worn on sleeves today.

The attempt to claim that my affidavits have never been accepted as evidence in the case is chilling.

My affidavits, of course, state the grounds of my belief that not only was there a plot against Alex Salmond, but that the politically corrupt Scottish prosecutorial system was a part of the plot. They list the documents I had seen, in the possession of the Crown and which the court refused to disclose, that led me to understand the plot. They name Salmond’s accusers and explain their roles (which part I have never published), and outline the roles of Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick. The links to Nicola Sturgeon are outlined.

It is therefore unsurprising that the Crown had “serious concerns” about my evidence and did not want to cross-examine me in public and give me the chance to justify it.

It is more surprising that there is now an effort to claim my affidavits do not form part of the case at all. Carloway stoutly maintained they were not evidence. When we go to the European Court of Human Rights, those affidavits will be seen by judges who are not a part of the Scottish establishment. But if the affidavits were never evidence in the case, then they cannot be presented at Strasbourg.

How the judges can maintain my affidavits, given under oath, were not evidence I do not know, especially as they are repeatedly referred to in Lady Dorrian’s judgement. How could the court judge evidence which did not exist? I have never had any expectations from this court, but this is a key point I shall be looking for in this judgement.

I am afraid that I am going to have to renew my appeal for funds to help with the legal costs. Fighting these kinds of actions is simply crippling. Your dedication to freedom and support have so far saved me from personal bankruptcy, but we now need to raise a further £80,000 immediately – of which we readers have very kindly donated over half since I made the renewed appeal two days ago.




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Our Argument in Court Today: Full Text of Our Submission

My appeal against imprisonment for contempt of court is to be held in Edinburgh High Court at 10.30am today. The gallery will be closed and the public excluded. Here however is the full text of the written arguments we have submitted as the basis for today’s hearing.

I promise you that they are less dull than that sounds. It is to me astonishing that these arguments have to be made. It is also significant that the appeal hearing is expected to take a full day, whereas my original trial was rushed through in under an hour. How and why it was rushed through becomes obvious if you read the arguments below.

Here is the full text of the submission for my appeal, lodged with the court:

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICIARY, EDINBURGH
UNTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD JUSTICE GENERAL, THE LORD
JUSTICE CLERK, AND LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF JUSTICIARY
HCA/2021/000014/XM
WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS
IN RESPECT OF THE
PETITION TO THE NOBILE OFFICIUM
BY
CRAIG MURRAY
PETITIONER

INTRODUCTION

1. The petitioner invites the court:
(i) To find and declare that the decision of the High Court of Justiciary of
25 March 2021 to find the petitioner in contempt of court was wrong,
unjust and contrary to law; and
(ii) To find and declare that the sentence of eight months’ imprisonment
imposed on 11 May 2021 was, in all circumstances, excessive and
contrary to law.

2. These submissions will firstly address the five grounds on which the petitioner
appeals against the finding of contempt. They will then consider the two
grounds on which the petitioner appeals against sentence.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

3. The facts are set out in §4-12 of the petition and the petitioner does not seek to
rehearse them again in these submissions. The focus of this petition is: (i) the
court’s decision on 25 March 2021 to find the petitioner in contempt of court;
and (ii) its decision 11 May 2021 to impose a sentence of eight months’
imprisonment.

4. The court’s decision of 25 March 2021 was limited in its findings of contempt,
as compared to the terms of the petition which was presented by the Crown. In
particular:
a. The court did not find that the petitioner had breached the order made
in terms of s. 4 (2) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 on 23 March 2020
(§28-31 of the court’s Opinion); and
b. The court did not find that the petitioner had breached ss. 1 and 2 of the
Contempt of Court Act 1981 (§32-42 of the court’s Opinion).

5. Accordingly, the court’s finding was limited to a finding that certain articles
published by the petitioner amounted to a contempt of court, in that they
breached the terms of the order made in terms of s. 11 of the Contempt of Court
Act 1981 on 10 March 2020. That order was in the following terms:
“The court, on the motion of the advocate depute, there being no objection, made
an order at common law and in terms of Section 11 of the Contempt of Court
Act 1981, preventing the publication of the names and identity and any
information likely to disclose the identity of the complainers in the case of HMA
v Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond.”

6. The court found that articles published on the following dates breached the
terms of the s. 11 order: (i) 18 January 2020, (ii) 11 March 2020, (iii) 18 March
2020, (iv) 19 March 2020 and (v) 3 April 2020. It accepted that other articles
referred to in the Crown’s petition did not breach the order. In doing so, the
court applied the following test (set out at §59 of its Opinion):
“whether the material is such that, judged objectively, it was likely to lead to
identification of the individuals concerned as complainers in the case.”

THE PETITIONER’S ROLE AS A JOURNALIST
7. At the outset, is important to understand the role being exercised by the
petitioner. The petitioner is a journalist. He has published work in The Guardian,
The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and other outlets. He also
operates his own website, which hosts the majority of his most recent
publications. In that sense, he is not a journalist for the mainstream press but a
journalist in “new media”. He has authored a number of non-fiction books. His
journalistic work includes reporting on matters relating to Scottish and UK
politics, providing analysis which is informed by his former work as a
diplomat. He reports on matters which are undeniably in the public interest,
such as the trial of former First Minister Alex Salmond and the extradition
proceedings in relation to Julian Assange.

8. The petitioner made significant attempts to be accredited as a member of the
press for the purposes of reporting on the Salmond trial but was unable to gain
accreditation, for reasons that are unclear, notwithstanding his compliance
with various requests from the SCTS press office.

9. The contempt of court proceedings raised against the petitioner relate to a
number of articles which he published in relation to the prosecution of Alex
Salmond. The petitioner’s view was that Mr Salmond had been the subject of a
conspiracy which had colluded to see him prosecuted for charges he did not
commit. That was the petitioner’s genuinely held belief. Not only was it
genuinely held, but it was reasonably held; the petitioner having seen a number
of written communications which he concluded demonstrated the involvement
of various parties in such a conspiracy. Reference is made to §31-33 of the
petitioner’s affidavit of 26 January 2021. Of note, copies of those
communications are understood to be in the hands of the Crown and an
application for disclosure of those documents was made but refused by the
court on 19 January 2019. The petitioner has accordingly been denied the
possibility of vouching the reasonableness of his belief before the court.

10. Notwithstanding the petitioner’s credentials and the importance of his subject
matter, the court appears to have drawn a distinction between the petitioner
and those in the mainstream press. At §4 of its Statement of Reasons refusing
permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, the court said:
“The applicant describes himself as a “journalist in new media”. Whatever that
may involve, it is relevant to distinguish his position from that of the
mainstream press, which is regulated, and subject to codes of practice and ethics
in a way in which those writing as the applicant does are not. To the extent that
the submissions for the applicant make comparisons with other press contempts,
and the role of mainstream journalists, this is a factor which should be
recognised.”

11. Such a distinction cannot be justified. As a preliminary point, it is not an issue
which was put to the petitioner or on which any substantive submissions were
made. It was not a distinction drawn by the Crown. Had the court considered
it to be a material issue, the petitioner ought to have been afforded an
opportunity to lead evidence with regards to his journalistic credentials and
make submissions with regards to the alleged distinction.

12. More fundamentally, the distinction is wrong in principle. It is an outdated
one which fails to take account of the current media landscape. It is also entirely
inconsistent with the approach taken by the Strasbourg court in relation to the
protections afforded to journalists by Art. 10 ECHR. That assessment is a
functional one. It does not depend upon accreditation or registration with
specific media platforms. It is a protection to all those who exercise the function
of a “public watchdog”. That much is clear from the Strasbourg court’s decision
in Magywa Helsinki Bizottság v Hungary [GC], no. 18030/11, 8 November 2016, at
§168:
“Thus, the Court considers that an important consideration is whether the
person seeking access to the information in question does so with a view to
informing the public in the capacity of a public “watchdog”. This does not
mean, however, that a right of access to information ought to apply
exclusively to NGOs and the press. It reiterates that a high level of
protection also extends to academic researchers (see Başkaya and Okçuoğlu v.
Turkey [GC], nos. 23536/94 and 24408/94, §§ 61-67, ECHR 1999-IV; Kenedi,
cited above, § 42; and Gillberg, cited above, § 93) and authors of literature on
matters of public concern (see Chauvy and Others v. France, no. 64915/01, §
68, ECHR 2004-VI, and Lindon, Otchakovsky-Laurens and July v. France
[GC], nos. 21279/02 and 36448/02, § 48, ECHR 2007-IV). The Court would
also note that given the important role played by the Internet in enhancing the
public’s access to news and facilitating the dissemination of information (see
Delfi AS v. Estonia [GC], no. 64569/09, § 133, ECHR 2015), the function of
bloggers and popular users of the social media may be also assimilated
to that of “public watchdogs” in so far as the protection afforded by
Article 10 is concerned.”

13. It is respectfully submitted that the petitioner’s role and intentions are a key to
the context in which the present appeal must be considered. There is no
evidence that the petitioner sought deliberately to identify complainers for any
vindictive purpose. He was not publishing gossip. The complainers were not
the focus of his articles. The central purpose of his articles cannot fairly be
described as the identification of any complainers. The petitioner was
publishing information in relation to a genuinely held belief that there had been
very serious misconduct at high levels of public and political office. He sought
to use his platform to act as a public watchdog and report on those concerns.
The fact that his views do not accord with the analysis shared by much of the
mainstream press does not mean that he is not entitled to the full protection of
Art. 10 afforded to any other journalist. The petitioner does not challenge the
fact that the complainers’ Art. 8 rights warrant respect but to the extent that
there is any conflict between those rights and the petitioner’s Art. 10 rights, it
is important to bear in mind the purpose of the petitioner’s journalistic work.

14. Having set out that context, these submissions now consider each of the
grounds of appeal.

APPEAL AGAINST FINDING

Ground 1: the court erred in applying a rule of strict liability

15. That the court applied a rule of strict liability with regards to contempt arising
from breach of the s. 11 order is clear from the terms of §59 of its Opinion:
“Amongst submissions made for the respondent was a submission that any
breach of the order was unintentional, and as a result he should not be found in
contempt. We reject the suggestion implicit in that submission that
intent to breach the order is a requisite of a finding of contempt for
having done so. The respondent’s intent in publishing is beside the point.
The question is whether the material is such that, judged objectively, it was
likely to lead to identification of the individuals concerned as complainers in the
case.”

16. In doing so, the court erred in law. Certain breaches of the Contempt of Court
Act 1981 are subject to the strict liability rule, as defined in s. 1 of the Act.
However, the Act provides a closed list of conditions which must be satisfied
in order for the strict liability rule to apply. Of relevance to the present
proceedings, s. 2 (2) provides:
(2) The strict liability rule applies only to a publication which creates a
substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be
seriously impeded or prejudiced.

17. The court did not consider that the articles which were found to breach the s.
11 order created a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings
would be seriously impeded or prejudiced. The court considered and rejected
the Crown’s submissions on this very issue from §32-42 of its Opinion.
Accordingly, the test in s. 2 (2) of the 1981 Act was not met; strict liability did
not attach to any publication.

18. There is no basis to import a test of strict liability into parts of the Act in which
no such test is imposed by the text. To do so offends against the intention of
Parliament; had it sought to apply a test of strict liability in relation to s. 11, it
would have done so. It also offends against the common law presumption of a
mental element in relation to statutory offences, recently reaffirmed in Pwr v
Director of Public Prosecutions [2022] UKSC 2. Given the penal consequences of
a breach of s. 11, the same presumption ought to apply as to those that create
criminal offences. The terms of s. 2 are clear: strict liability only attaches if the
conditions in s. 2 are met. The natural consequence of that language is that it
does not attach in any other situation. Of note, Gordon on Criminal Law Volume
2 (4th edn) (2017) does not refer to s. 11 in its discussion of the strict liability test
under the 1981 Act: §58.16-58.20. For all these reasons, the court erred in
applying a strict liability test, which is not justified by the terms of the statute.

19. In the absence of a strict liability test, this court must consider what the
appropriate mens rea is in order to justify a finding of contempt of court in
relation to breach of a s. 11 order. The mens rea is clearly understood in relation
to contempts arising from breach of interdict. The court ought to find beyond
reasonable doubt that the contemnor’s actions were in wilful disobedience of
the court order: McMillan v Carmichael 1994 SLT 510. A party may therefore be
in breach of the terms of a court order but nonetheless not in contempt of court:
Sapphire 16 S.A.R.L v Marks and Spencer plc [2021] CSOH 103. Breach of the order
is only the first of a two-stage test.

20. The same test ought to apply to alleged breaches of a s. 11 order. A s. 11 order
is, in effect, a statutory form of interdict. It is a court order which prevents a
party from doing something, in this case publishing certain information.
Breach of a s. 11 order is accordingly very closely analogous to a breach of a
common law interdict. The mens rea of wilful disobedience protects the same
interests as in breach of interdict proceedings: to preserve the dignity of the
court and to punish those who disrespect the court’s authority. Without wilful
disobedience, it is hard to see how disrespect has been shown to the court. The
approach set out above is all the more necessary in an era of online news and
social media, where the risk of inadvertently causing a jigsaw identification is
higher than in the past.

21. The court’s error in applying a test of strict liability is a material one in
circumstances such as these, where significant, unchallenged evidence was
placed before the court that the petitioner did not intend to breach the s. 11
order: on the contrary, he was striving not to do so.

Ground 2: the court erred in making findings contrary to the petitioner’s
affidavit when he had not been cross-examined

22. The petitioner’s position before the court was that he had never intended to
breach the terms of the s. 11 order and had, on the contrary, taken particular
care to avoid doing so. In support of this evidence, the petitioner produced two
affidavits. The petitioner’s stated intention is clear on the face of the affidavit
dated 25 August 2020:

I. §44 – “There was a period of several months when I was fully aware of
the names of the accusers and also fully aware that there was no general
law or court order in place preventing me simply from publishing. That,
however, would not have been responsible journalism.”
II. §54 – “It was, however, a challenge to work out how to tell them without
being in contempt of court given the charges against Alex Salmond. I
therefore very carefully used a number of strategies not to be in contempt
of court. Not to evade contempt of court charges; actually not to be in
contempt of court.”
III. §58 – “At the time I wrote this article there was no order in force against
publication of names. I nevertheless decided not to do that.”
IV. §64 – “I did not consider it to be in contempt of court – I had written it
carefully not to be – so I did not take it down.”
V. §70 – “I had clearly at the forefront of my mind the desire to avoid
identification of [Woman H]”
VI. §72 – “On 18 and 19 March, when I finally gained access to the court,
I continued this policy of taking great care. In writing up that evening,
I google searched on two particular pieces of evidence to check I was not
giving away identities… I was satisfied it could not, and published my
account with good conscience.”
VII. §73 – “I therefore amended my draft to delete reference to her presence
at that meeting.”
VIII. §79 – “In publishing all of my accounts of the trial, I was extremely
mindful of both the law of contempt of court and of my desire not to
identify witnesses.”
IX. §103 – “I actually drafted all that, but then did not publish it as it would
have been in contempt of court. I decided again to give no details.”

23. The Crown did not cross-examine the petitioner in relation to the contents of
his affidavit. Neither did it lead any of its own evidence; choosing simply to
rely upon the agreed facts. Neither did the court put any questions to the
petitioner, notwithstanding his senior counsel having made clear that the
petitioner would be willing to answer any questions arising. The court was
accordingly faced with a detailed account by the petitioner, sworn on oath, that
he had: (i) not intended to breach the s. 11 order; and (ii) taken various steps to
avoid breaching the order.

24. Notwithstanding this, the court rejected the petitioner’s account. At §67 of its
Opinion, the court rejected the petitioner’s explanation of his intention.
Quantum valeat, it is notable that the court chose to do so in circumstances
where it had already held that a test of strict liability applied. Such an approach
continued in the court’s Sentencing Remarks, in which it is noted that it
appeared that the petitioner was “relishing the task he set himself which was
essentially to allow the identities of complainers to be discerned…” This is, again,
contrary to the unchallenged evidence of the petitioner. The petitioner makes
three points regarding the course of action adopted by the court:

25. Firstly, in circumstances where the petitioner faced significant penal
consequences, the court ought not to have disbelieved the petitioner’s account
of his subjective intention without having given him an opportunity to explain
any matters causing doubt, either by way of cross-examination or questioning
by the court. Where a decision-maker has doubts about the honesty of a party,
as a matter of fairness, those doubts ought to be put to the party in question: R
(Balajigari) v Home Secretary [2019] 1 WLR 4647 at §55. Such a principle of
natural justice ought to apply consistently across administrative and judicial
decision-making processes. If anything, the onus is greater when a party faces
potential imprisonment. The comments of the Lord Justice-Clerk (Cooper) in
McKenzie v McKenzie 1943 SC 108 at 109 bear repetition:
“On the other hand, the most obvious principles of fairplay dictate that, if it is
intended later to contradict a witness upon a specific and important issue to
which that witness has deponed, or to prove some critical fact to which that
witness ought to have a chance of tendering an explanation or denial, the point
ought normally to be put to the witness in cross-examination.”
Such a role would ordinarily be fulfilled by the Crown but, in sui generis
proceedings such as this, if the court intends to criticise a contemnor’s account,
it ought to put the questions itself. Accordingly, it was unfair not to give the
petitioner an opportunity to answer any questions in relation to his subjective
intention.

26. Secondly, the court heard no submissions as to whether it could disbelieve the
petitioner’s affidavit, absent any contradiction. That is a matter on which it
should have allowed submissions to be made: Robertson v Gough 2008 JC 146 at
§94.

27. Thirdly, the court’s reasoning with regards to the petitioner’s intention draws
too broad an inference from conclusions it drew about specific articles. At §67
of its Opinion, the court rejects the suggestion that the petitioner had “never at
any time had the intention of publishing the names of complainers in the Salmond
trial”. In contradiction, the court points to three matters (at §70 of its Opinion):
(i) the petitioner’s supposed intention in writing the Yes Minister article; (ii) a
tweet of 19 January 2020 in relation to the Yes Minister article; and (iii) a
comment made by the petitioner in his 12 March article. It is respectfully
submitted that these three adminicles are not sufficient to justify an inference
(to the criminal standard of proof) that the petitioner intended to identify the
complainers in the other articles to which the court’s finding of contempt
relates. Intention in relation to one incident does not imply intention on any
other occasion. Of note, the Yes Minister article predated the s. 11 order. The
court did not direct its mind as to whether the existence of the s. 11 order might
have affected his intention with regards to the March articles.

28. Accordingly, the court erred in law in the way it handled the petitioner’s
unchallenged affidavit evidence.

Ground 3: the court erred in applying a test of a “particular section of the
public”

29. The court considered the issue of whether potential identification by a
particular section of the public was sufficient to make a finding that the s. 11
order had been breached at §54-58 of its Opinion. The court concluded:
“The question which must be asked is whether in its context the material was
such as was likely, objectively speaking, to lead to identification of the
complainers. If the material would be likely to enable a particular section of the
public to do so that would be sufficient.”

30. In doing so, it erred in law. The error is material. The court has, in effect,
imposed a significantly lower threshold to satisfy it that a s. 11 order has been
breached than is created by the terms of the Act. It is much more
straightforward to demonstrate that a piece of information may assist a
particular section of the public in identifying a complainer than the public as a
whole. The court has not found that, if the higher threshold of the public as a
whole was applied, the articles would still have been in breach of s. 11.

31. The court appears to have subsequently disavowed the test it set out in its
Opinion, in its Statement of Reasons refusing permission to appeal to the
Supreme Court. At §8 it notes that it did not limit any findings to the extent
that the complainers were in fact only identifiable by a particular section of the
public. This disavowal is unusual. The court devotes five paragraphs of its
Opinion to this issue. It concludes that the test is whether “a particular section
of the public” could identify the complainers. There is nothing to suggest that
a broader factual conclusion was reached, such as that any member of the
public could have identified the complainers from the articles. Accordingly, the
court’s comments at §8 of the Statement of Reasons are entirely inconsistent
with the scheme of its previous Opinion. There is no objective basis for
concluding that, having identified a specific test in §57 of its Opinion, the court
then applied a different one.

32. The terms of s. 11 are clear:
In any case where a court (having power to do so) allows a name or other matter
to be withheld from the public in proceedings before the court, the court may
give such directions prohibiting the publication of that name or matter in
connection with the proceedings as appear to the court to be necessary for the
purpose for which it was so withheld.

33. A s. 11 order is accordingly only competent in circumstances where the court
has made an order to withhold a name or other matter from “the public”. A
s.11 order is ancillary to the court’s primary power to withhold the name or
other matter from the public during proceedings: A v Procurator Fiscal, Dundee
2018 JC 93 at §27. The s.11 order accordingly cannot be stricter in its terms than
the common law order which is to exclude matters “from the public”. The s.11
order must be made “for the purpose for which” the common law order is
made. That purpose was to prevent identification by the public at large. Any
s.11 order must therefore be read as preventing the publication of information
which may give rise to the identification of complainers to the public at large.
There is no basis within s.11 of the Act (limited as it is in its terms) to suggest
that a s.11 order may restrict the publication of any matter which may identify
a complainer to a particular, potentially very small, section of the public.

34. The approach of the court also renders the reporting of any proceedings in
relation to sexual offences entirely unworkable. A journalist or editor cannot
know what information is already available to particular subsets of the public.
In almost all cases it is likely that some members of the public (particularly
those who are close to the complainers) will already hold a nearly complete set
of jigsaw pieces. For those members of the public, any further piece of
information may form the final piece of the jigsaw, which reveals the full
picture to that member of the public. Publishing any information in relation to
the trial accordingly puts a journalist at risk of a finding for contempt, simply
because some members of the public have been able to join the dots. The court’s
interpretation of the breadth of a s.11 order is accordingly likely to have a
stifling effect on the public-interest reporting of court proceedings. Only by
rendering the account unintelligible to any person who may hold relevant
background information from another source, can the media be safe that it has
not committed a contempt. Such an approach is of particular concern when its
effect is to prevent the reporting of matters of very significant interest relating
to the trial, as the petitioner sought to do.

35. The reference to O’Riordan v Director of Public Prosecutions [2005] EWHC 1240
(Admin), at §58 of the court’s Opinion, takes the point no further. That simply
assists in understanding how one should interpret the phrase “likely to lead to
identification”. It does not inform the issue as to the scope of the group the
information must be likely to inform.

36. Accordingly, the court erred in formulating too low a threshold for conduct
amounting to a breach of the s.11 order.

Ground 4: the test applied was incompatible with Art. 10 ECHR

37. The finding of contempt of court is an interference with the petitioner’s Art. 10
right to freedom of expression. That is not understood to be in dispute. Given
the importance of the matters reported on by the petitioner and the plain public
interest in reporting those matters, it is a very significant interference with that
right. It is a more serious interference than if the petitioner had intentionally
sought to identify the complainers for vindictive purposes. Such an
interference may only be justified if the interference is in accordance with Art.
10 (2); that is, if it is prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society.
The test applied by the court is not one which is prescribed by law because it is
vague and unforeseeable.

38. In order to meet the test to be prescribed by law, a provision must be both: (i)
accessible; and (ii) expressed with sufficient precision to enable the petitioner
to regulate his conduct. The accessibility of the terms of s.11 is not challenged.
However, the test applied by the court fails the second arm of the test for two
reasons: (i) it is imprecise; and (ii) its application is unforeseeable.

39. In relation to precision, the terms of the test set out by the court bear close
consideration:
“The question which must be asked is whether in its context the material was
such as was likely, objectively speaking, to lead to identification of the
complainers. If the material would be likely to enable a particular section
of the public to do so that would be sufficient.”

40. What is “a particular section of the public”? Is it based on the number of people
who may be able to identify the complainers? If, so how many people need to
be able to identify the complainers, in order to satisfy the test? Can one person
constitute a particular section of the public? Does it matter that the section of
the public in question already holds additional information which is not
available to the public at large? Do those members of the public who are
actively trying to piece together disparate information from across the internet
constitute a particular section of the public? Do close colleagues or family
members of the complainers constitute a particular section of the public? The
court provides the potential journalist or editor with no assistance on any of
these matters.

41. The court’s imprecision feeds into the issue of foreseeability. Without clear
guidance as to what amounts to a “particular section of the public” the
potential journalist or editor is unable to anticipate the consequences of its
reporting of matters which are legitimately in the public interest, as the
Salmond trial undoubtedly was. Almost any piece of information could be the
final piece of the jigsaw for members of the public who are already aware of
various other facts in relation to the case. Accordingly, publication of any issues
in relation to the charge, the locus, the dates or any aspect of a complainer’s
evidence could result in the author or publisher being the subject of a petition
for contempt of court. A journalist or media outlet cannot adequately predict
whether the court will consider that their individual piece of the jigsaw is the
final one or not. It also gives rise to the fear of arbitrary enforcement.

42. It would be surprising if that was the court’s intention. At §44 of its Opinion,
the court makes reference to the Independent Press Standard Organisation
Editors Code of Conduct and in particular Cl. 11:
“Victims of sexual assault
The press must not identify or publish material likely to lead to the
identification of a victim of sexual assault unless there is adequate justification
and they are legally free to do so. Journalists are entitled to make enquiries but
must take care and exercise discretion to avoid the unjustified disclosure of the
identity of a victim of sexual assault.”

43. The court is clear at §47 that it would expect responsible journalists to follow
the Code of Conduct. It is respectfully submitted that the test applied by the court
goes beyond the terms of the Code of Conduct and accordingly beyond the
realms of what responsible journalists would understand their duty to be. The
Code of Conduct prohibits the identification of complainers or publication of
material likely to lead to the identification of complainers. No reference is made
to the sphere of potential individuals who might be able to identify a
complainer but, in such an absence, it is reasonable to interpret the Code as
prohibiting identification to the public at large. That is consistent with the
terms of s. 11 of the 1981 Act. It is consistent with the fact that the media
frequently does report information relating to trials which may assist small
sections of the public, who already hold additional information, in identifying
complainers. It is the only application of the Code which allows journalists and
editors any confidence that the information they intend to publish does not
breach a s. 11 order. Given the prominent role the court attributes to the Code of
Conduct, the expectations afforded by its terms ought to be given significant
weight when considering the issue of foreseeability. The problem is
compounded, given the strict liability test imposed by the court; no defence is
open to journalists on the basis that they had not anticipated that this specific
section of the public may hold more jigsaw pieces than an ordinary member of
the public.

44. The likely consequence of the court’s approach to the test is a chilling effect on
journalistic reporting of criminal proceedings. Faced with an unforeseeable
test, where identification to any ill-defined section of the public could give rise
to proceedings for contempt, it is respectfully submitted that many journalists
will err on the safe side and opt not to publish information which is otherwise
in the public interest. That may be even more so for those working as
freelancers in the new media, without the protection afforded by media
organisations with the resources to obtain formal advice and defend any
contempt proceedings. Given the emphasis which Strasbourg has placed on
freedom of expression and of the reporting and discussion of matters in the
public interest, such a chilling effect would be intolerable.

45. Accordingly, the court’s test is not consistent with Art. 10 of the ECHR.

Ground 5: the court’s finding of contempt in respect of the 18 March 2020
article was unfair at common law and incompatible with Art. 6 ECHR

46. Fair notice is a cornerstone of both the common law and the protections
provided by Art. 6. This is clear in both civil and criminal proceedings: (i) in
civil proceedings, a party may not seek to prove matters for which there are no
averments on Record; (ii) a conviction must be consistent with the terms of the
indictment; (iii) a note of argument may not raise issues not set out in the
Grounds of Appeal. Art. 6 (3) (a) of the ECHR, similarly, provides that those
facing criminal charges must be informed promptly of the nature and cause of
the accusation against him.

47. The issue of fair notice in contempt proceedings has been repeatedly
emphasised. In re Yaxley-Lennon [2018] 1 WLR 5400, Lord Burnett CJ noted at
§29:
“Procedural fairness has always been a requirement in contempt proceedings,
including the need to particularise the alleged contempt at the outset. An alleged
contemnor must know what it is he has done which is said to amount to a
contempt of court so that he can decide whether to accept responsibility or
contest the allegation. Whilst that is a common law requirement, it chimes with
article 6.3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms which requires, amongst much else, that anyone
charged with a criminal offence must (a) . . . be informed promptly, in a
language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the
accusation against him; and (b) . . . have adequate time and the facilities for the
preparation of his defence”
At §66, he continued:
In contempt proceedings, touching as they do on the liberty of the subject, there
is a need for the contempt in question to be identified with precision and the
conduct of the alleged contemnor identified with sufficient particularity to
enable him, with the assistance of legal advice, to respond to what is a criminal
charge, in all but name.

48. The requirement for fair notice ought not to be in dispute. The court itself
recognised the importance of this principle at §62 of its Opinion. The court
rejected additional submissions which were not made by the Crown within the
body of its petition. However, the court went on to fall into the same error
against which it warned the Crown.

49. The court’s decision in relation to the petitioner’s article of 18 March 2020 is
contained at §80-84. The Crown’s position in its petition was that this article
may, read with other information, identify the complainer known as Ms D:
Petition for Contempt at §33-39. It did not aver that the article would identify, or
contribute to the identification of: Ms A, B, F/J or H. The court nonetheless went
beyond the terms of the petition and made findings that the article breached
the s. 11 order in relation to those women as well. The principle of fair notice
applies equally to the submissions made by the Crown and the findings which
are open to the court. In the words of Lord Hope in Byrne v Ross 1992 SC 498 at
506:
“It is necessary in the interests of fairness that the alleged contempt should be
clearly and distinctly averred and that the proceedings for contempt be
confined to the averments.”

50. The proceedings were not confined to the averments. The court made findings
which went beyond the terms of the Crown’s averments. It was not open to it
to do so (notwithstanding its assertion at §6 of its Statement of Reasons refusing
permission to appeal) and, in doing so, it erred in law and acted unfairly et
separatim incompatibly with Art. 6 (3) (a) of the ECHR.

APPEAL AGAINST SENTENCE

Ground 1: the sentence of eight months’ imprisonment was excessive

51. The principles in relation to sentencing those who have been found to have
breached the Contempt of Court Act 1981 are helpfully summarised in Lord
Burnett CJ’s decision in Re Yaxley-Lennon [2018] 1 WLR 5400 at §80:
“the factors material to punishment can readily be adapted and applied to cases
involving breach of reporting restrictions. They would usually include: (a) the
effect or potential consequences of the breach upon the trial or trials and upon
those participating in them; (b) the scale of the breach, with particular reference
to the numbers of people to whom the report was made, over what period and
the medium or media through which it was made; (c) the gravity of the offences
being tried in the trial or trials to which the reporting restrictions applied; (d)
the contemnor’s level of culpability and his or her reasons for acting in breach
of the reporting restrictions; (e) whether or not the contempt was aggravated by
subsequent defiance or lack of remorse; (f) the scale of sentences in similar cases,
albeit each case must turn on its own facts; (g) the antecedents, personal
circumstances and characteristics of the contemnor; (h) whether or not a special
deterrent was needed in the particular circumstances of the case.”

52. Taking the above factors, and the general principles of sentencing, into account,
the sentence imposed on the petitioner was excessive. In particular, the
petitioner would highlight the following factors which were given insufficient
weight:
I. The petitioner was otherwise of good character. He had never
previously been convicted of any offence.
II. The petitioner had a long history of public service and public interest journalism.
III. The court was presented with unchallenged affidavit evidence
that the petitioner had not intended to breach the s. 11 order or to
commit a contempt of court. If the Crown, or the court, had
reason to disbelieve the evidence in mitigation, it ought to have
heard evidence in mitigation: Anthony Stewart v HM Advocate
[2017] HCJAC 86 at §9. The practice adopted by the court was
simply to reject the evidence given by the petitioner and find, on
the contrary, that he “relished” his task.
IV. It was accepted that the petitioner had a number of serious health
issues.
V. The Criminal Justice Social Work Report had identified that the
petitioner was unlikely to reoffend in the same manner: Criminal
Justice Social Work Report p. 6.
VI. The petitioner was willing, and financially able, to pay a fine.

53. The sentence imposed was also inconsistent with comparative sentences for
breaches of reporting restrictions:
I. HM Advocate v Clive Thomson (25 February 2021) also concerned a
breach of the s. 11 order put in place in relation to the Salmond
trial. The contemnor in that case was found to have deliberately
named five of the complainers on Twitter and associated them
with the initials being used by the media. The contemnor’s
actions were described as a “blatant and deliberate breach of the
order”. The same cannot be said of the petitioner’s actions, both
in light of his affidavit and the steps taken by him to try to avoid
identification.
II. HM Solicitor General v Mayfield [2021] EWHC 1051 (QB)
concerned the breach of a reporting restriction order by posting
the names of prosecution witnesses on Facebook and posting
videos and photos taken from inside the courtroom along with
text identifying the witnesses. A twelve-week custodial sentence,
suspended for two years was imposed. Again, this is in the
context of a deliberate and specific identification of those
protected by the reporting restriction.

54. In light of all the above, a custodial sentence of eight months was excessive.

Ground 2: the sentence of eight months’ imprisonment was incompatible
with Art. 10 of the ECHR

55. This ground of appeal proceeds on the basis of two propositions: (i) the
petitioner is a journalist; and (ii) it will be disproportionate to sentence a
journalist to a custodial sentence as a result of what they publish, except in
exceptional circumstances.

56. Strasbourg has repeatedly emphasised the important role that journalists play
in civil society: Delfi AS v Estonia (2016) 62 EHRR 6 §133-134; Magyar
Tartalomszolgaltaok Egyesülete and Index.hu Zrt v Hungary, no. 22947/13, 2
February 2016 at §56. Their freedom of expression is accordingly worthy of
particular protection.

57. In seeking to limit the protections afforded to the petitioner by reason of the
form his publishing takes, the court erred. In substance, his work is journalism
and is worthy of the same protections. The petitioner is a “public watchdog”.
That role must include those, such as the petitioner, whose work criticises the
mainstream account. The petitioner accepts that his activities must be held to
the same standards as mainstream journalists (a submission which was noted
by the court at §47 of the court’s Opinion), but the corollary is that he is subject
to the same protections as the mainstream press. The fact that he publishes
through new media is irrelevant and the court erred in drawing such a
distinction.

58. If the same standards are applied to the petitioner as the mainstream press,
then a custodial sentence of eight months cannot be seen as a proportionate
disposal in relation to the finding of contempt.

59. The principle that press offences ought not ordinarily to be punished with
custodial sentences has been clear since at least the Strasbourg court’s decision
in Cumpana and Mazare v Romania (2005) 41 EHRR 14. At §115 the court notes:
“Although sentencing is in principle a matter for the national courts, the Court
considers that the imposition of a prison sentence for a press offence will be
compatible with journalists’ freedom of expression as guaranteed by Art.10 of
the Convention only in exceptional circumstances, notably where other
fundamental rights have been seriously impaired, as, for example, in the case of
hate speech or incitement to violence.“

60. Exceptional circumstances do not exist in this case. The petitioner has not
published hate speech, nor has he incited violence. There are no features of this
case which are analogous to these extreme examples. The importance of
complainer anonymity is, of course, important but it cannot be said that the
publication of information which may, inadvertently, lead to the identification
of the complainers by a discrete and undefined section of the public, is
sufficiently serious as to justify the imposition of an eight-month custodial
sentence on a journalist who was exercising his role as a public watchdog. The
Strasbourg court has made no suggestion that circumstances analogous to
those in this case amount to the exceptional circumstances required by
Cumpana and Mazare. In such circumstances, it is not for the domestic courts to
dilute the protection afforded by Strasbourg: R (AB) v Secretary of State for Justice
[2021] UKSC 28 at §54.

61. It has already been submitted that the imprecision of the test set out by the
court is likely to have a chilling effect of press reporting on criminal
proceedings. That is a fortiori the case in circumstances where an inadvertent
breach of a s. 11 order may have the effect of subjecting a journalist or publisher
to a lengthy custodial sentence. Such a chilling effect is to be discouraged and
the approach taken by the court in the petitioner’s case is accordingly
inconsistent with Strasbourg’s jurisprudence in relation to Art. 10.
62. Again, considerations of comparative justice are instructive. The petitioner has
been subject to a longer custodial sentence than was imposed in Clive Thomson
which concerned a non-journalist deliberately identifying the complainers by
name. There is no principled basis to argue that the activities of the petitioner
were more prejudicial to the rights of the complainers than in that case and
certainly no basis to support a finding that his activities constituted exceptional
circumstances in the sense referred to in Cumpana and Mazare. The imposition
of a fine could have marked the court’s disapproval of the petitioner’s conduct
and, accordingly, the more restrictive disposal of a custodial sentence was
disproportionate and not in accordance with Art. 10 ECHR.

CONCLUSIONS
63. There is no evidence that the petitioner intended to identify any complainer.
Indeed, there is no evidence that any member of the public has identified a
complainer from the petitioner’s articles. There was unchallenged evidence
before the court that the petitioner had sought at all times to remain on the right
side of the s. 11 order. In such circumstances, both the finding of contempt and
the sentence imposed cannot be supported.

64. The court erred in law in finding the petitioner in contempt of court. There is
no basis for: (i) applying a test of strict liability; (ii) criticising the petitioner’s
unchallenged evidence; (iii) applying a test of identification of “identification
to a particular section of the public”; nor (iv) making findings that went beyond
the notice given in the Crown’s petition. Accordingly, declarator ought to be
granted that the finding was wrong, unjust and contrary to law.
65. The court also erred in imposing an eight-month custodial sentence. This was:
(i) excessive at common law; and (ii) a disproportionate interference with his
Art. 10 rights. Accordingly, declarator ought to be granted that the sentence
was excessive and contrary to law.

Roddy Dunlop QC, Dean of Faculty
David Blair, Advocate
2 February 2022

I am afraid that I am going to have to renew my appeal for funds to help with the legal costs. Fighting these kinds of actions is simply crippling. Your dedication to freedom and support have so far saved me from personal bankruptcy, but we now need to raise a further £80,000 immediately – of which we readers have very kindly donated over half since I made the renewed appeal two days ago.




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Appeal Against Imprisonment for Journalism, Wednesday 23 February

I will never get back the four months of my life I spent locked at least 22.5 hours a day in a 12 foot by 8 foot cell. I have nothing personally to gain from carrying on the legal fight – I was a civil prisoner and do not have a criminal record.

But the legal distinction made by Lady Dorrian’s judgement between “new media” and “mainstream media”, in terms of their liability to prosecution and to imprisonment, has to be fought, because coming from a three judge bench of the High Court in Edinburgh it is a citable precedent throughout many English speaking jurisdictions (and is directly contrary to ECHR rulings).

On Wednesday we appeal to the nobile officium, the Scottish appeal court of five High Court judges, where Lord President Carloway will hear the appeal. In pursuit of my commitment to Open Justice and to giving readers original sources so they can make up their own mind, I had intended to publish our Submissions to the Court here, but the legal team informs me I cannot in law do this until the court starts its hearing. So watch this website on Wednesday.

However what I can tell you is that a common theme emerges from the various points of appeal – the arbitrariness of Lady Dorrian’s proceedings. Consider these points, all part of my appeal:

1) Neither the Crown nor the Court ever suggested in the proceedings or papers, a distinction between “mainstream media” or “new media”. It was never put to us, so we could never argue against it. Lady Dorrian simply formed it in her head and then set it in stone. Had the distinction been put to us at the trial, we would have wished to bring forward expert witnesses to refute Lady Dorrian’s dicta that “mainstream media” is more ethical than “new media”. To introduce the distinction into law is deeply worrying. To do so without hearing arguments is extraordinary.

2) The majority of the jigsaw clues to identification found in Lady Dorrian’s judgement, were never in the accusation against me, so we had no opportunity to refute them in court. The Crown identified in its petition a number of phrases they claimed could be identifying, and we argued in submissions and in my affidavits that this was not so. But Lady Dorrian in her judgement came up with a number of new phrases she stated were identifying, but which proposition had never been put to me in proceedings, and I had no idea were claimed to be identifying, until the judgement.

3) Lady Dorrian entirely discounted my affidavits as untruthful without ever putting that to me to give me a chance to respond. I submitted two detailed affidavits on oath setting out that it had never been my intention to disclose identities. I stated the steps I had taken to ensure I did not do so, and how my precaution was greater than that of the mainstream media. My counsel informed the court that I was prepared to answer any questions on my affidavits, either from the Crown or from the Court. Both Crown and Court declined to question me. The normal presumption is that if evidence is not challenged in court, it is accepted. To dismiss my affidavits with no cross-examination is extraordinary.

4) Lady Dorrian had based her substantial prison sentence on her judgement that I had “relished” giving clues to identity. This had not been alleged by the Crown, the court had heard no evidence from anybody to this effect, and it was directly contrary to my own unchallenged evidence on oath.

5) It is impossible for the journalist to know exactly where the line lies for “jigsaw identification”. My article of 11 March, for example, consisted entirely of material gleaned from mainstream media as I was not in court nor yet had my own sources in court on that day, yet I was found in contempt for publishing nothing but what the mainstream media had already published.

This is all remarkably arbitrary, in the most literal sense.

These are points of process. The more fundamental point is that I, as a journalist, had access to both written and eye witness evidence that led me to believe that the current First Minister of Scotland was orchestrating a plot to frame the former First Minister of Scotland on entirely false charges: a belief of which I am now quite certain. This was a matter of the highest possible public interest leading to an overwhelming Article 10 ECHR right to publish. I realised that right was in conflict with the Article 8 right of the accusers to the privacy ordered by the Court, and I did my best to balance the two (even when I was publishing articles on the plot for eight months before there was a court order in place protecting identities).

However, Lady Dorrian gave no weight whatsoever to the Article 10 Freedom of Speech side of this equation. This was worsened by the fact that the Crown held the documents which I had seen which convinced me of the plot against Salmond, many of which are still not public, and the Court refused my application for their disclosure, so I could assert the reasonable grounds for my belief in the plot against Salmond.

The current situation is that Wednesday’s appeal will be held with no public gallery and no streaming or dial-in access. I have asked my legal team to object to this, and will keep you posted. I am frankly furious that the public will be kept away from the hearing.

I am afraid that I am going to have to renew my appeal for funds to help with the legal costs. Fighting these kinds of actions is simply crippling. Your dedication to freedom and your support have so far saved me from personal bankruptcy, but we now need to raise a further £80,000 immediately.




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Ukraine: Where to Find the Truth in Enormous Detail

In the massive propaganda blitz over Ukraine, there is one place where you can find, in enormous detail, the truth about what is happening in the civil war conflict zone on a daily basis. That is in the daily reports of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Monitoring Mission.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is a brilliant organisation set up to monitor implementation of agreements on human rights and arms control during the Cold War period. It includes Russia, the UK and the USA among its 57 members as well as all EU states. It has been operating in conflict zones for over half a century.


Over 40 member states have monitors in the Ukraine monitoring mission. The head of the mission is Turkish, and almost all members have a military or diplomatic background. There are 700 monitors, and they have been in Ukraine since 2014. Their job is to patrol both sides of the civil war conflict zone and to record infringements of the ceasefire and de-escalation agreements, bringing these to the attention of the relevant authorities.

Their work is very comprehensive indeed, and their detailed daily reports are public. These provide the most fantastic journalistic resource for what is actually happening on the ground – which is why Western mainstream media never use this resource, because the truth is the opposite of the picture they wish to paint.

For example, three OSCE monitors attended the site of the famous “kindergarten missile” attack, to verify what kind of missile was used, where it came from, and then tally this against the OSCE’s detailed record of weapons on both sides in the area and their daily movements. This is, literally, the basic everyday job of the mission. The team of OSCE expert observers – two of whom were from European Union countries – were denied access by the Ukrainian government to the kindergarten when they arrived to determine what kind of missile it was and where it came from. This is in direct violation of the ceasefire accord.

For those of us who saw the kindergarten attack stunt as propaganda to begin with, this is powerful corroboration.

This is from the OSCE’s daily report of 18 February:

Damage to a working kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska, Luhansk region
On 17 February, the Mission followed up on reports of damage to a working kindergarten in
the north-western part of Stanytsia Luhanska (government-controlled, 16km north-east of
Luhansk), located about 4.5km north-west of the north-western edge of the disengagement area
near Stanytsia Luhanska.
At 22 Depovska Street, about 20m south-west of a two-storey kindergarten building, the SMM
observed a crater in the kindergarten playground, as well as marks assessed as caused by
shrapnel on the inner side of a concrete wall surrounding the building. Also, it observed a hole
(about 1m in diameter), and one shattered window on the north-eastern facade of the same
building, and two shattered windows on the building’s north-west facing wall (on its ground
and first floor).
The SMM assessed the damage as recent but was unable to determine the weapon used or the
direction of fire.
Staff from the Youth Affairs Department of the Stanytsia Luhanska Civil-Military
Administration told the Mission that 20 children had been in the kindergarten at the time of the
incident, but reported no injuries.
The SMM was only able to conduct its assessment from a distance of about 50m from the
north-eastern facade and of about 30m from the south-western facade of the damaged building,
as a law enforcement officer did not allow the Mission to access the site saying that an
investigation was ongoing.

That same report records numerous violations of the ceasefire agreement by the Ukrainian government in moving heavy weaponry in to menace separatist held areas and in keeping weaponry outside agreed storage facilities. It equally reports precisely the same kind of violations by separatist rebels. None of which balance has been recorded by the same western media which loves to give detailed accounts of troop movements within Russia. Here is just one tiny example of hundreds of the OSCE information, from the same report of 18 February as the kindergarten visit:

The SMM continued to monitor the withdrawal of weapons in implementation of the
Memorandum and the Package of Measures and its Addendum.
In violation of withdrawal lines, the Mission observed a surface-to-air-missile system in a
government-controlled area of Donetsk region. It also spotted 21 howitzers, five anti-tank guns
(four of which probable) and one probable multiple launch-rocket system, in two training areas
in non-government-controlled areas of Luhansk region.
Beyond withdrawal lines but outside designated storage sites, the SMM saw ten towed
howitzers and two surface-to-air-missile systems in government-controlled areas of Donetsk
region, in two compounds (of which one near a residential area). It also spotted two surfaceto-air missile systems, 12 mortars and 41 tanks, in two training areas in non-governmentcontrolled areas of Luhansk region. (For further information, see the tables below.)
Indications of military and military-type presence in the security zone
In government-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the Mission saw seven
armoured combat vehicles. In residential areas in non-government controlled areas of Donetsk
and Luhansk regions, it also saw one anti-aircraft gun and two armoured combat vehicles
(including one probable). (For further information, see the table below.)
During the day, the SMM saw a minibus, three minivans, two cars and ten men (age unknown)
wearing military-style clothing and carrying assault rifles in a residential area of Oleksandrivka
(non-government-controlled, 20km south-west of Donetsk).
The Mission also saw a convoy consisting of four trucks (three Ural and one Kamaz type) and
three cars carrying at least seven men in a residential area of Brianka (non-governmentcontrolled, 46km south-west of Luhansk) heading north-west. Later in the day, the SMM saw
the same convoy in Alchevsk (non-government-controlled, 40km west of Luhansk).

Three countries have now withdrawn their staff from the OSCE Monitoring Mission in preparation for a coming war – the UK, the USA and Canada. In my view, that speaks volumes about who is actually planning on starting a war here. Extraordinarily, having withdrawn their staff, the western powers are now briefing the media that the OSCE (which has for decades been a key tool of western security architecture) is a biased organisation.

Yet again the parallel to the Iraq War is striking to those of us who recall the rubbishing by the US/UK of the reports of the UN weapons inspection team, in favour of propaganda and outright lies in order to start a war.

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Cry “Havoc!” and Let Slip the Dogs of War

The mainstream media is, without exception, repeating the unevidenced claim from the Biden administration that Russia is about to invade Ukraine. They do this with no proper journalistic questioning or scepticism. They do this despite the fact that, in the last month, not only have we had repeated cries that invasion is “imminent”, we have had specific secret intelligence sourced claims from the Americans, that a Russian staged false flag attack was about to happen, and from the British, that there was about to be a coup in Kiev led by very minor figures. Both claims turned out to be nonsense.

Perhaps more pertinently, the media do this as though the invasion of Iraq had never happened and they had never before been misled by US and UK governments, citing intelligence sources.

Last night I watched the Press Review of today’s papers on both Sky and BBC News. They showed all of today’s front pages, all of which repeated, without qualification, the warning that Russia will invade in the next few days. The discussion, like the news output all day, took the accuracy of this as certain.

Wars are of course good for the media; wars bring news viewers and sell newspapers. They are also very good for the arms industry. Pity the poor arms manufacturers and arms dealers, who haven’t had a really full-throated NATO military action since Libya. Massacring women and children in Yemen and through drone strikes throughout Middle East and Asia is a nice little business, but nothing like as profitable as proper all out war.

It’s An Ill Wind – BAE Share Price

A BBC reporter on Radio 4 this morning stated that the USA was sending troops to the Baltic States and elsewhere in Eastern Europe “to deter Russian aggression”. What a stupid thing to say. The “aggressive” Russian forces are inside Russia. The American troops are 5,000 miles from home.

One swallow doth not a summer make; I was hopeful that this reporter’s following example might lead others to engage their brains, but that was fanciful:

It is interesting that a number of people lost their jobs for not supporting the Iraq War, both in the media and civil service. Greg Dyke lost the leadership of the BBC, because the BBC had questioned the non-existence of the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. David Kelly was murdered for giving them information.

But not one single person suffered any career detriment at all for supporting the Iraq War and for spreading the lying narrative of the Iraqi WMD. In the UK, Blair, Campbell and Straw are treated as gurus by the media. The journalists who now shill for war with Russia are precisely the same journalists who shilled for war with Iraq. Why would they not push fake intelligence now, when pushing fake intelligence then boosted their careers, as they enabled so many of the powerful to get richer still from war?

The UK’s “Dirty dossier” on Iraqi WMD consisted more or less entirely, where it used intelligence sources, of declassified human intelligence rather than signals intelligence. “Human intelligence” simply means something an informant told us, usually for large sums of cash. The “intelligence” on Iraqi WMD did exist – there was no shortage at all of Iraqi colonels willing to make up stories about WMD in return for briefcases full of dollars or krugerrands. What Blair and Straw did, with the practical help of fellow war criminals like Sir Richard Dearlove and Sir John Scarlett, was to ignore the filters that assess such “intelligence” for credibility, in favour of presenting the picture the government wished to show to the world to justify war.

Signals intelligence, by contrast, is communications intercept, and is generally more accurate (though of course there can be planted misleading communications). I can tell you that the NSA have shared with GCHQ no communications intelligence that indicates an imminent Russian attack. As those two deeply integrated agencies share everything, this “imminent attack” knowledge is therefore human intelligence, like the Iraq dossier. Alternatively it issimply a surmise from satellite and other monitoring of the movement of Russian assets.

Biden and Johnson both have an interest in stoking the fires of conflict to try to improve (well deserved) terrible poll ratings at home. NATO has an interest in promoting Cold War, its traditional raison d’etre. The disastrous results of NATO’s attempts to expand its role in Afghanistan and Libya have led to the organisation needing an apparent success.

For all these western political interests, they see a win-win over Ukraine, because when Putin does not invade, they can claim it is a victory and that they forced Putin to back down.

There is a real problem here. By taunting Putin with the position that Johnson and Biden will claim Putin lost if he does not invade, they are effectively daring him to invade.

This is terrible diplomacy, unless the USA and UK actually want a war – and that takes us back again to the interests of the military and security services and the arms industry.

I maintain the view that Putin is far too wily to be pushed into an invasion. If Putin really wished to escalate matters, he would be much more likely to cut gas supplies than to invade Ukraine. There are two points to make on this.

Firstly, Ukraine is said to be less dependent now on Russian gas because, rather than buy direct from Russia, it buys from third countries. But it is still Russian gas, which is being sold on by another state merely on paper. The multi-invoicing may provide some diplomatic cover and some protection against price sanction, but not against the tap being turned off.

Secondly, it is argued that if Russia cut gas to Ukraine, Ukraine could cut off transit supplies to much of the rest of Europe, reducing Russian income. But that would almost certainly happen more seriously if Putin did indeed invade Ukraine, which would almost certainly trigger Ukrainian destruction of transit infrastructure.

There remains much else Putin can do before invading. NATO’s ultra-aggressive attitude to Russia, insisting on encircling it with missile systems ever creeping closer, is unlikely to be changed in the short term. But Russia has already achieved the exodus of many NATO “trainers”, diplomats and nationals from Ukraine in the last few days.

While the West was looking the wrong way, Putin has also, with a tiny use of troops, greatly increased Russian influence in Kazakhstan, a massively resource rich country. That may well prove to be the most important diplomatic move of the year.

As for Ukraine itself, I annoyed some Putin fans when I posited that Russia’s annexation of Crimea was a pyrrhic victory for Putin. After 30 years of contention, it swung Kiev much more firmly into the Western diplomatic orbit and made the coup of 2014 irreversible, when it had been shaky.

The Minsk Agreements appear to be a very sensible way forward in Ukraine; in fact the principles embodied in the Minsk agreements appear to be essential to a settlement. They are really very simple, covering Ukraine gaining control of its borders, devolution and a high degree of autonomy for the Russian speaking areas in the East, disarmament and the withdrawal of all foreign forces and mercenaries from Ukraine, release of prisoners and an amnesty.

The western media ignores or dismisses the Minsk agreements. But these were negotiated by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which both the UK and the USA are members, together with Russia and Ukraine. They were lodged with the United Nations as a binding international agreement.

The First Minsk Agreement is very short:

Upon consideration and discussion of the proposals put forward by the
participants of the consultations in Minsk on 1 September 2014, the Trilateral
Contact Group, consisting of representatives of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), reached an
understanding with respect to the need to implement the following steps:
1. Ensure the immediate bilateral cessation of the use of weapons.
2. Ensure monitoring and verification by OSCE of the regime of non-use of
weapons.
3. Implement decentralization of power, including by enacting the Law of
Ukraine on the interim status of local self-government in certain areas of the
Donetsk and Luhansk regions (Law on Special Status).
4. Ensure permanent monitoring on the Ukrainian-Russian State border and
verification by OSCE, along with the establishment of a security area in the border
regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
5. Immediately release all hostages and unlawfully detained persons.
6. Enact a law prohibiting the prosecution and punishment of persons in
connection with the events that took place in certain areas of the Donetsk and
Luhansk regions of Ukraine.
7. Continue an inclusive national dialogue.
8. Adopt measures aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in
Donbass.
9. Ensure the holding of early local elections in accordance with the Law of
Ukraine on the interim status of local self-government in certain areas of the
Donetsk and Luhansk regions (Law on Special Status).
10. Remove unlawful military formations and military hardware, as well as
militants and mercenaries, from the territory of Ukraine.
11. Adopt a programme for the economic revival of Donbass and the
resumption of vital activity in the region.
12. Provide personal security guarantees for the participants of the
consultations.

The second Minsk Agreement fleshes this out a little

Package of measures for the Implementation of the Minsk agreements
1. Immediate and comprehensive ceasefire in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions
of Ukraine and its strict implementation starting from 00.00 AM (Kiev time) on the 15th of
February, 2015.
2. Withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides on equal distances in order to create a security
zone at least 50 km wide from each other for the artillery systems with caliber greater than
100mm and more, a security zone of 70 km wide for MLRS and 140 km wide for MLRS
“Tornado-C”, “Uragan”, “Smerch” and Tactical missile systems “Tochka” (“Tochka U”):
– for the Ukrainian troops: from the de facto line of contact;
– for the armed formations from certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk oblast of Ukraine
from the line of contact according to the Minsk memorandum of September 19, 2014.
The withdrawal of the heavy weapons as specified above is to start on day 2 of the ceasefire at
the latest and to be completed within 14 days.
The process shall be facilitated by the OSCE and supported by the Trilateral Contact Group.
3. Ensure effective monitoring and verification of the ceasefire regime and the withdrawal of
heavy weapons by the OSCE from the day 1 of the withdrawal, using all technical equipment
necessary, including satellites, drones, radar equipment, etc.
4. Launch a dialogue, on day 1 of the withdrawal on modalities of local elections in accordance
with Ukrainian legislation and the Law of Ukraine “On interim local self-government order in
certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions” as well as on the future regime of these
areas based on this Law.
Adopt promptly, by no later than 30 days after the date of signing of the document a
resolution of the Parliament of Ukraine specifying the area enjoying the special regime, under
the Law of Ukraine On interim local self-government order in certain areas of the Donetsk and
Lugansk regions”, based on the line of the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.
5. Ensure pardon and amnesty by enacting the law prohibiting the prosecution and punishment
of persons in connection with the events that took place in certain areas of the Donetsk and
Lugansk regions of Ukraine.
6. Ensure release and exchange of all hostages and unlawfully detained persons, based on the
principle “all for all”. This process is to be finished on the day 5 after the withdrawal at the
latest.
7. Ensure safe access, delivery, storage, and distribution of humanitarian assistance to those in
need, on the basis of an international mechanism.
8. Definition of modalities of full resumption of socio-economic ties, including social transfers,
such as pension, payments and other payments (incomes and revenues, timely payments of all
utility bills, reinstating taxation within the legal framework of Ukraine).
To this end, Ukraine shall reinstate control of the segment of its banking system in the conflict
affected areas and possibly an international mechanism to facilitate such transfers shall be
established.
9. Reinstatement of full control of the state border by the government of Ukraine throughout the
conflict area, starting on day 1 after the local elections and ending after the comprehensive
political settlement (local elections in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on the
basis of the Law of Ukraine and constitutional reform) to be finalized by the end of 2015,
provided that paragraph 11 has been implemented in consultation with and upon agreement
by representatives of certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the framework of
the Trilateral Contact Group.
10. Withdrawal of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, as well as mercenaries from
the territory of Ukraine under monitoring of the OSCE. Disarmament of all illegal groups.
11. Carrying out constitutional reform in Ukraine with a new Constitution entering into force by
the end of 2015, providing for decentralization as a key element (including a reference to the
specificities of certain areas in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, agreed with the
representatives of these areas), as well as adopting permanent legislation on the special status
of certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in line with measures as set out in the
footnote until the end of 2015
12. Based on the Law of Ukraine “On interim local self-government order in certain areas of the
Donetsk and Lugansk regions”, questions related to local elections will be discussed and
agreed upon with representatives of certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in the
framework of the Trilateral Contact Group. Elections will be held in accordance with relevant
OSCE standards and monitored by OSCE/ODIHR.
13. Intensify the work of the Trilateral Contact Group including through the establishment of
working groups on the implementation of relevant aspects of the Minsk agreements. They will
reflect the composition of the Trilateral Contact Group.

The Minsk Agreements were endorsed by the UN Security Council. The UK and USA are therefore obliged in law to support them. Yet they have abandoned them in favour of the highly intransigent position of the government of Ukraine in refusing to accept any devolution to administrations in Eastern Ukraine. Instead the Ukrainian government insists on on a highly centralised Ukrainian nationalist state.

I choked on my tea two days ago when a BBC correspondent reported that Ukraine could never implement the Minsk Agreements, because it could result in some pro-Putin MPs being elected to the Ukrainian parliament from the Eastern areas. Remember that when they tell you they are starting a war for democracy.

Western warmongering is always disgusting, but still the more so when it involves abandonment of an entirely sensible framework for peace which they themselves initiated. The press and politicians all want a war. We have been here before, and we know that neither the people nor the truth can stop them.

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How the Establishment Functions: The Real Dark Web 224

Alison Levitt, the lawyer appointed by Keir Starmer to produce the report which “cleared” him of involvement in the decision not to prosecute Jimmy Savile, is married to Lord Carlile, friend of two serial paedophiles, Greville Janner and Cyril Smith.

Carlile played a role in the Establishment cover-up of Janner’s crimes.

As the Guardian article states of Starmer’s successor as Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders:

What’s more, Saunders admitted Janner should have been charged in 1991 and that there were two further missed opportunities in 2002 and 2007 when the “evidential test was passed”, meaning there was a realistic prospect of conviction.

The husband of Alison Levitt, the lawyer appointed by Starmer to investigate the non-prosecution of Jenner, was very much a part of the Establishment rallying around in 1991 to block the prosecution of Janner. On 3 December 1991 Carlile made a speech in the House of Commons which attacked Janner’s public accuser in startling terms:

I can but echo the tributes that have been paid to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner). He is a man of determination and enthusiasm, whose integrity and will power have crossed party lines. I for one value the friendship that he has given me in the eight and a half years that I have been a Member of the House, despite the fact that we are in different parties and disagree on many issues.

Mr. Beck is an evil man. Perhaps more to the point, he is a corrupt man. Several hon. and hon. and learned Members who are present, some of whom have already spoken, have, like me, had the opportunity over the years in their professional lives to meet corrupt and evil people and to examine and sometimes cross-examine them in court. I am sure that those who share my professional experience will agree that those who have trodden in the mire of corruption all too easily become corrupt to the core. They cease to recognise the difference between what is good and what is bad and between what is honourable and what is corrupt.

They turn, like Mr. Beck, easily to more corruption and try to wheedle their way out of their own previous corruption–and that is what has happened in this case. That is why my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West was slandered with dreadful calumny by Mr. Beck.

We now know that the police had a great deal of corroborative evidence for Beck’s claim that Janner was abusing children in care homes. I do not claim Carlile knew this – I do not know. Carlile states that Janner is his friend. They were both MPs, both QCs, both members of Friends of Israel, both patrons of UK lawyers for Israel and of the Friends of Israel Educational Foundation. They were regulars on the same parliamentary committees dealing with legal affairs. They were both to leave the Commons at the same time and both to join the Lords only slightly apart.

Alex Carlile may well have had no idea Janner was a paedophile. After all, he shared a cramped parliamentary office with Cyril Smith for many years, and apparently never realised that Smith was a prolific paedophile. Possibly Alex Carlile is simply a particularly unobservant man.

It is however unfortunate that Starmer chose to appoint as the legal eagle to exonerate him over Jimmy Savile, the wife of the stalwart parliamentary defender of Britain’s second most prominent paedophile. I presume that Starmer never noticed that either, just as he did not notice the decision by his office and the staff under him not to prosecute Savile.

It is extraordinary that these people manage to become so rich and powerful when they are entirely unobservant. Especially as Levitt, Starmer, Carlile and Jenner were all top QCs.

Anyway, that is just an everyday tale of unobservant folk.

Here is the clincher in this episode of how the Establishment functions. Carlile went on to found a company, SC Strategy Ltd, in partnership with Sir John Scarlett, former Head of MI6, who obtained that position as the main author of the infamous “Dodgy dossier” of lies on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. They were joined for a while as a Director of that company by Lord Arbuthnot, former Tory junior defence minister and husband of Lady Arbuthnot.

Lady Arbuthnot was the initial and later supervising magistrate on the Assange extradition hearings.

The Establishment: like a circle in a circle, like a wheel within a wheel. If you read this together with my initial article on how the Establishment functions, you will have had two doses of effective vaccine against the lies of the mainstream media.

I have often noticed that ordinary people like you and I manage, in general, to live our entire lives with no connection of friendship to paedophiles at all. Yet the powerful are always finding they are connected to Janners, Epsteins, Saviles, Smiths, Mountbattens etc entirely by accident. It is of course all nothing but accident, bad luck and coincidence. To wonder if it might be otherwise is to be a mad proto-Fascist conspiracy theorist, apparently.

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Calling a Spad a Spad

Last week the mainstream media was full of stories of “top aides” quitting Downing Street. But typically the real scandal was entirely missed – the fact that ever-increasing numbers of unqualified and unelected political hacks are given positions of real power, and large salaries, at public expense.

The question is not why Munira Mirza resigned, the question is why the taxpayer was paying £143,762 a year in salary to this very dubious failed politician. Similarly, can anybody find anything about Elena Narozanski that remotely suggests she was worth a public salary of over £80,000 to provide policy advice on equalities to Boris Johnson? What precisely were her qualifications and experience for that kind of income and influence?

There are currently 113 Special Advisers in Whitehall. That has increased steadily over the last thirty years. Liz Truss as Foreign Secretary, for example, has five where Robin Cook had two. Since 2011 there has been a requirement to publish an annual report giving numbers and cost.

The first annual report in 2012 showed, under David Cameron, 78 Special Advisers with a total paybill of £6.2 million. The most recent report shows this has leapt to 111 special advisers with a paybill of £11.9 million. That is £11.9 million to pay Tory Party hacks (because that is all they are) over £100,000 a year each on average.

Did you ever wonder where Dominic Cummings came from? He went from somebody very few had ever heard of, to the man running the country, in an extraordinarily brief period of time. Which did not involve anybody ever having voted for him.

Well, in the 2012 report, there he is, already ensconced behind the scenes on £69,266 a year of public money, as Special Adviser to Gove as Minister of Education. There Cummings epitomised the Special Adviser by bullying and harassing long-serving civil servants who actually did know something about education. The taxpayer had to pay compensation to one female victim.

Special Advisers are supposed to fulfil the role of Stalin’s political commissars, ensuring the ideological views of the party are adhered to by the government machine.

There is in fact little evidence the civil service is unable to put into effect the ideological views of governments. The Attlee government introduced the largest revolution in the British state of modern times, nationalising the major industries and utilities and creating the National Health Service, with no Special Advisers at all. Ministers told the civil service what to do, and the civil service did it. Margaret Thatcher ran a counter-revolution with a government that had about two dozen Special Advisers in an average year.

John Major had at most 38; but like tuition fees, academy schools, illegal wars and many other terrible things in public life, it was Tony Blair who first initiated the great expansion of Special Advisers, to 84. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May maintained this or a slightly lower level, until the Johnson boom.

Special Advisers are an actively dangerous tumour on the body politic. Neither elected, expert nor accountable, they are the most entitled and irresponsible set of people, suddenly handed very real and entirely unmerited power. I recognise precisely that arrogance, that sense of entitlement, in the culture of elite privilege that, in their minds alone, justified the culture of partying through lockdown in government buildings, hidden by the multiple screens of official security.

Four of the five “aides” who resigned from Downing Street last week were Special Advisers. I strongly suspect Special Advisers were the main instigators and participants in the parties being investigated by Sue Gray.

It is a factor which the mainstream media has been peculiarly reluctant to explore, and indeed so has Sue Gray. While her “update” at para 20 refers to “officials and special advisers”, there is no indication within it that she is considering the Hooray Henry culture of Tory Special Advisers as central to what has gone wrong. She is ignoring the actual cause, deliberately.

Gray’s conclusion at 23 (vii) that the problem is that the Prime Minister needs even more staff, can only be a prelude to a ridiculous “pressure of work” exoneration cooked up for her final report. Johnson has in consequence announced that he will create an “Office of the Prime Minister” – all of which misdirection is going to lead to the public purse shelling out money to an even greater number of Special Advisers for the new Office.

One of the five aides who resigned last week was Martin Reynolds, the Principal Private Secretary, who is indeed a career civil servant, not a SPAD. In his case “resigned” should be qualified as I understand he is just returning to the Foreign Office. Reynolds is, like David Frost, an example of a civil servant Johnson came across who shared Johnson’s political enthusiasms, and consequently got promoted far beyond his talents.

There has been insufficient scrutiny on Reynolds. As he is both an experienced career civil servant and a lawyer, there is no excuse whatsoever for his sending out invitations to parties in the garden during lockdown, as nobody denies he did on at least one occasion. As a life member of the senior civil servants’ trade union, the First Division Association, it does not really behove me to say that Reynolds should be sacked, but…

Scotland too suffers from infection by Special Advisers. In 2018 it had 14 Special Advisers – SNP party hacks paid from the public purse – costing the Scottish taxpayer over £1 million a year. The Scottish Government is extraordinarily defensive about them. Unlike Westminster, the Scottish government does not provide an annual report on Special Advisers, although it is supposed to do so under the same legislation covering Westminster. Instead, it gives the information out in reply to a well buried written parliamentary question.

This reply from the Scottish Government to a freedom of information request is deliberately obstructive and unhelpful:

Under the terms of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, the First Minister is responsible for all Special Adviser appointments and is required to prepare an annual report setting out the number and cost of Special Advisers and to lay it before the Scottish Parliament. Therefore, some of the information that you have requested about Special Advisers has been provided previously in response to Written Scottish Parliamentary Questions (PQs). Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to provide you with information if it is already reasonably accessible to you. All Scottish PQs and their replies are published on the Scottish Parliament website. The search facility is available at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The reply goes on to give the serial numbers for the relevant questions, but if you enter each serial number in to the search facility you get every government initiated parliamentary question for that session, and you have to search manually through a great many to find the answer you want. It all seems a less than open way of putting out information the Scottish government has a legal obligation to publish.

Sturgeon’s special advisers are particularly pernicious. They are used as a conduit to leak to the media, and famously were involved in orchestrating the attempt to have Alex Salmond falsely convicted. The mainstream media unanimously presented the SPADs involved in the orchestration as “civil servants”, to give a misleading impression of reliability and impartiality.

You may ask, why do the opposition not campaign against this Spad disease affecting our politics? Well, the problem is that they are in on the act. The opposition parties receive “Short money” and “Cranborne money” from the taxpayer to finance their own cadre of political hacks. The more Special Advisers there are, the more cash the opposition parties get. Thus in 2021 the Tories got £11.9 million of your and my money for Special Advisers, but the opposition parties split £10.2 million of public money from Short and Cranborne plus a further £1.1 million in “policy development grant”.

In fact the nomenklatura of unelected opposition hacks supported by the taxpayer is a slightly larger number of people than government special advisers, though on average paid a bit less.

This public financing of political parties – for that is what it is – has been brought in by stealth and foisted on the people. Opinion polling has always found strong opposition to the public purse funding political parties. When you add to these SPADs and Short staff, the ever expanding allowance for personal staff for each MP, again funded by the taxpayer, the problem is serious.

It is not that they constitute any even slightly significant percentage of overall public spending. It is that we have bred an entire political class, unelected, entitled and deeply unpleasant, who enter politics as a profession. Labour Special Advisers and Short money staff, with no interest whatsoever in socialism, played a key role in the destruction of Jeremy Corbyn.

I believe strongly that those engaged in politics, and in putting ideas to the people for democratic choice, should do so at their own expense. Voluntary associations of any kind may choose to back parties. But political activity, as opposed to the business of the government, should not be state funded. It gives established parties a huge advantage over fresh ones, and of course encourages the narrowing of political thought to fall within the doctrine of the state.

Special Advisers, Short money and all public payments to political parties should be abolished. They have a disastrous effect on politics, of which the partygate scandal has given us a little glimpse, though the issues run much deeper.

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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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How the Establishment Functions

I suggested in my last post that the British Establishment may be looking for a way out of the terrible Assange debacle without raising difficult truths about the United States justice and penal system. The functioning of the Establishment, the way it forms a collective view and how that view is transmitted, is a mystery to many. Some imagine instructions must be transmitted by formal cabals meeting as Freemasons or Bilderbergers or some such grouping. It is not really like that, although different fora of course do provide venues for the powerful to gather and discuss.

I have a bit of a feel for it all, having been a diplomat for twenty years and member of the Senior Civil Service for six. And if I was advising someone who wanted to think of it seriously, I would say human nature doesn’t change; read Thackeray and Trollope, Harold Nicolson and watch the amazing Brian Cox in Succession. All these sources give genuine glimpses of insight.

Former foreign office minister Alan Duncan appears to fancy himself as something of a Harold Nicolson, though sadly lacking the wit or writing ability. Duncan has published his diaries. Duncan is the former FCO minister “for the Americas”, who cooperated with attempts to have Julian Assange removed from the Ecuadorean Embassy, and was the point man for the CIA’s various illegal schemes around Assange. Duncan referred to Assange in parliament as a “miserable little worm”.

And who was Alan Duncan’s best friend at Oxford? Why, none other than Ian Duncan Burnett, now Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the judge who heard Assange’s High Court appeals. As Alan Duncan’s diary entry for 14 July 2017 tells us:

“At Oxford we always called him “the judge” and they always called me “Prime Minister” but Ian’s the one who got there.”

On Alan Duncan’s birthday on 7 June 2017 Ian Burnett and his wife were part of the dinner celebration, alongside former Tory leader William Hague, and the arms dealer Wafic Said and wife. Wafic Said was central to the largest bribery scandal in British history, the Al-Yamamah BAE contract for arms to Saudi Arabia, where an eighty billion pound contract involved hundreds of millions in corrupt bribery payments swirling around Wafic Said and his friend Mark Thatcher.

The only reason several very rich people did not go to prison is that Tony Blair – another Oxford University man – and Jack Straw, the recipient himself of BAE largesse, made a historic decision that the Serious Fraud Office investigation must be stopped “in the public interest”. The Serious Fraud Office subsequently “lost” all the thousands of documents proving the corruption. Thus enabling the central fixer, arms dealer Said, to enjoy a jolly dinner and banter with the new Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, rather than eat his dinner in Ford open prison.

That, my friends, is how the British Establishment functions. It also of course enabled the continuing relationship that means British planes, missiles, bombs, mechanics, trainers and special forces are every single day involved in eviscerating women and children in Yemen. I do hope they are proud.

On 27 May 2018 Lord Chief Justice Burnett and Alan Duncan were at Chequers having lunch with Prime Minister Theresa May, Michael Gove and “journalist” Sarah Vine and – to quote Duncan – “two financier couples”. Thus do politics, the law, the media and big money mix, dear reader. These are not special events. It is the everyday milieu. Nobody needs to phone a judge and tell him what to think; they know what their circle thinks from constant experience and interaction, and they can extrapolate from the general to the particular.

The judges know what they are expected to think about Assange. The Scottish judges certainly know what they are expected to think about me.

The politicians freeload – Duncan’s birthday bash had been paid for by Tory party donor, Carphone Warehouse’s David Ross, whose unethical business practices I outlined two years ago. Some of us may feel distaste at the idea of having, or attending, birthday parties gifted by a businessman; but we are not politicians. Or judges.

There is no doubt that Jimmy Savile’s ability to mingle freely at precisely these kind of social gatherings, hosted by royalty and prime ministers down, provided him with the cloak of Establishment protection which enabled his decades of crime. To deny it is ridiculous. It is also very interesting how unanimously the Establishment has decided to protect Keir Starmer. They faced a real danger for a few years with one of England’s two main parties under the control of genuinely radical figures. Having managed to get the big money friendly Sir Keir Starmer into place and neutralise any possible threat to their wealth, the ferocity of the Establishment’s defence of Starmer is fascinating.

There is no doubt that Starmer was indeed Director of Public Prosecution and head of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2009 when it was decided that credible allegations against Jimmy Savile should not be prosecuted (after they had reached that stage already decades too late). Of course the Director of Public Prosecutions does not handle the individual cases, which are assigned to lawyers under them. But the Director most certainly is then consulted on the decisions in the high profile and important cases.

That is why they are there. It is unthinkable that Starmer was not consulted on the decision to shelve the Savile case – what do they expect us to believe his role was, as head of the office, ordering the paperclips?

When the public outcry reached a peak in 2012, Starmer played the go-to trick in the Establishment book. He commissioned an “independent” lawyer he knew to write a report exonerating him. Mistakes have been made at lower levels, lessons will be learnt… you know what it says. Mishcon de Reya, money launderers to the oligarchs, provided the lawyer to do the whitewash. Once he retired from the post of DPP, Starmer went to work at, umm,

It is remarkable that the media has never got as excited about any of the lies told by Johnson, as they have done about what is in fact a rare example of Johnson saying an interesting truth. Starmer was indeed, as Director of Public Prosecutions, responsible for the non-prosecution of Savile.

But just as Savile was to be protected over actual sex crime, Starmer knew that Assange was to be persecuted over fake sex crime. Starmer’s conduct of the Assange case was entirely corrupt.

It is important for you to understand that Assange was never charged with any sex crime in Sweden. He was wanted for questioning, after Stockholm’s chief prosecutor had decided there was no case to answer, but a prosecutor from another district had taken up the case. Assange always believed the entire thing was a ruse to get him sent from Sweden to the United States. His legal team had offered the Swedish prosecutors the chance to interview him in the Swedish Embassy back in 2011, which should have enabled the case to be closed.

Under Starmer, the Crown Prosecution Service told the Swedish prosecutors not to come to London. The emails in which they did this were destroyed, and only recovered by an FOI request at the Swedish end. You will recall that, when after a further seven long years Swedish prosecutors finally did interview Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy, it resulted in the Swedish investigation being dropped.

Had Starmer not prevented it, the Swedish investigation could have been closed in January 2011 following interview.

Then in October 2013, while Starmer was still DPP, his staff emailed Swedish prosecutors in response to reports that they wished to drop the case, saying “Don’t you dare get cold feet”. The Swedes responded explaining they did indeed wish to drop it. The Crown Prosecution Service again dissuaded them.

Why was Starmer intervening to insist a foreign state continue an investigation that state itself wished to stop, and which involved no British nationals?

I am very confident there is no other example of the British DPP interfering in an overseas investigation in this way. It certainly was nothing to do with the ostensible subject matter of the Swedish investigation, which doesn’t rate a mention in the email correspondence. There can be no doubt that Starmer’s motive was entirely ulterior to the Swedish investigation, and almost certainly is related to the illegal CIA activity against Assange and the current US extradition effort. Starmer is revealed as a highly unscrupulous and mendacious character.

That has of course been confirmed by the downright lies Starmer told in seeking election by the Labour Party membership, when he stated he would maintain Corbyn’s popular left wing economic policies, particularly on rail and utility nationalisation. Once in power Starmer simply ditched these pledges in favour of billionaire-enabling policies, and started a purge of the left of the party on an epic scale.

The British Establishment likes Starmer. They can’t allow Boris Johnson – who is fast becoming a liability to them – saying true things about Starmer which they wish to be buried. Watching their propaganda apparatus act in unison to defend Starmer, and reconfirm in the popular mind the binary choice between their blue puppet and their red puppet, has been fascinating viewing.

As I frequently state, I don’t mind if you agree or do not agree, and I certainly want everybody to think for themselves. My aim is to point out facts that are insufficiently considered and project a different perspective to that commonly promoted in the mainstream media. I am not always right about everything. But I hope that you found reading this gave you some ideas to think through.

Correction: The 2011 offer by Assange was an interview in the Swedish, not Ecuadorean, Embassy. This has been corrected,

———————————————

 
 
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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