The Prisoner

The UK has now got another political prisoner, namely the former UK ambassador and accomplished blogger Craig Murray. He was found guilty of contempt of court in his reportage of the Alex Salmond trial, when it was said he had revealed sufficient information for readers to piece together the identity of Salmond’s accusers. I am not in a position to address whether an actual contempt took place, but Murray has amply demonstrated that the mainstream media did provide sufficient info for intelligent readers to ‘triangulate’ the identity of accusers. The fact they were not also prosecuted for contempt is the incontrovertible evidence that proves Murray was singled out, in my opinion because he is such a forensic thorn in the side of the establishment. (Having said which, I’m not expecting ‘forensic’ Kier Starmer to be incarcerated any time soon—he clearly isn’t a thorn in the side of the establishment.) I’m no fan of Alex Salmond, the ‘Atomic Dud’ (© Baron Foulkes of Cumnock) and it seems his new Alba party failed to make much impact in the elections last Thursday, so if there ever was a Scottish (SNP) establishment campaign to discredit Salmond and his supporters it now seems to have run its course. Murray is set to appeal to the Supreme Court. If he fails there, then the two or three months he serves of his eight month prison sentence will no doubt lead to some interesting blogs, and an even more analytical critique of the imperial regimes either in Edinburgh or London.