Still dithering over an overdue blog article about the CIA/FBI Petraeus affair in the USA and how a similar adulterous affair involving the British intelligence/military/political securocrat establishment it might play out here in the UK and the slightly different techniques needed in the UK to keep your emails and mobile phone data from betraying your illicit affair, compared with the various US articles on the subject.
In the meantime, it was annoying to have to read about the ConservativesForPutin debacle.
The original media interest seems to have been prompted by Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss, the research director of the slightly libertarian Henry Jackson Society think tank.
Moscow-on-Thames - Britain's Conservatives are rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin's wealthy oligarchs.
There is nothing wrong with a group of Young Conservatives trying to promote better relations with Russia, whether for genuine ideological reasons or for selfish financially ambitious ones, given the number of rich Russians living in, what is for them, an offshore tax haven created for them in London by Labour's Gordon Brown and maintained by the current Conservative / Liberal Democrat Coalition government.
Question: How exactly did a new group, only set up in August, manage to attract several Conservative Members of Parliament and Prince Michael of Kent to support them ?
Following an alleged trip to Russia paid for by the Russian government for some members of the ConservativeFriendsOfRussia in September, they published in October an
article by their spokesman Richard Royal (@TheCommandante) who works in Public Relations for Ladbrokes bookies (and who denies that this trip actually took place)
There is some justified criticism of Labour MP Chris Bryant's inept chairmanship of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Russia i.e. that it could technically be disbanded because it was 6 weeks overdue in holding its Annual General Meeting, as per Parliamentary rules.
However, they stupidly illustrated this with a copy of the notorious old photo of the openly gay Chris Bryant published in 2003 on the Gaydar dating site, which was a landmark in brazen NuLabour's "I'm just going to brazen this out" attitude and which was perhaps a sign of the grudging acceptance or tolerance of such personal life scandals by the public .
The ConservativeFriendsOfRussia website now displays this message, although their Twitter feed (@CFoR1) is still online:
The Conservative Friends of Russia has taken the decision to suspend its website until further notice. Members and event ticket holders can contact info@cfor.org.uk for information
However, Spyblog did retrieve a copy of this article from the Google Cache (without the offending photo of Chris Bryant)
CFoR BLASTS CHRIS BRYANT'S RUSSIA APPG INCOMPETENCE
The article also mentions that Labour's Chris Bryant took over the leadership of the APPG from Liberal Democrat Mike Hancock, without mentioning his affair with Ekaterina Zatuliveter, another person with KGB / FSB relatives who was cleared by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, after an incompetent investigation by the Security Service MI5.
There is also implied criticism of money given to Chris Bryant and / or the APPG on Russia:
It was also recently revealed that Bryant has received nearly £17,500 in the last year from The Independent, owned by Russian billionaire father and son duo Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev, and received £2,500 in 2010 from PR firm Bell Pottinger, which has counted Boris Berezovsky amongst their clients.
Lebedev (astonishingly, a former KGB agent based in the Russian Embassy in London, who used to monitor the UK press and media, who now controls the Evening Standard and the Independent newspapers) and Berezovsky are rich Russians who are opposed to Putin and his cronies.
Despite the denials by Richard Royal (@TheCommandante) of any undue influence or money from the Russian Embassy, this has very understandably raised the suspicion that the ConservativeFriendsoFfRussia were becoming Nashi style ConservativesForPutin
The Daily Telegraph:
I'm a victim of Russian smear campaign, says MP photographed in underwear
The Daily Mail reports: Prince snubs party after photo furore
Luke Harding, from The Guardian has more details, including the possibility of Yet Another Foreign Donors Party Funding scandal.
Tory blushes deepen over activities of Conservative Friends of Russia
How Kremlin got diplomats to woo Tories
The Guardian concentrates on Sergey Nalobin (@SNalobin), the 1st Secretary at the Political section of the Russian Embassy in London. Even if he did not have KGB / FSB relatives, anyone in that post would only be doing his job properly, in trying to influence a group like ConservativeFriendsOfRussia who seem to be in favour of better relations between the UK and Russia. Surely our Embassy staff try to do exactly the same thing in Russia and elsewhere ?
None of these articles draw any attention to the the fact the Sir Malcolm Rifkind is not just any old Tory grandee, he is a former Foreign Secretary and is currently chair of the the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, which is supposed to hold UK intelligence agencies to account on our behalf and is supposedly trusted with secret or top secret documents and information.
As such he is much more of a target by Russian "agents of influence" than was the Liberal Democrat Mike Hancock, a lowly member of the less sensitive Commons Select Committee on Defence.
It is not appropriate for him to be associated with any Friends of {insert Foreign Country] group at all, whether it is is Russia, the USA, China, Israel, France etc..
That applies to both "official" cross party All Party Parliamentary Groups and to unofficial, partisan ones like CFoR. No doubt the people get on to the Intelligence and Security Committee claim to have experience of and an interest in International Relations, but they should suspend all such "Friends of..." schmoozing and lobbying whilst they serve on the Committee, because of the obvious risk of the perception of a conflict of interest, or worse.
What if he had met with someone from the Russian Embassy or elsewhere who was under surveillance as an FSB or GRU intelligence agent ? Would the chairman of the ISC really put in a "contact report" to MI5 about the meeting ? Would MI5 then be justified in intercepting his electronic communications and data mining his communications data, on "national security" grounds, thereby "legitimately" evading the Wilson Doctrine against doing so ?
This would have the effect of making it even more difficult for any whistleblowers from within the intelligence agencies to contact the Intelligence and Security Committee in confidence regarding incompetence, corruption, use of torture etc.
Sir Michael Rifkind seems to have resigned from this group last Friday, but his involvement with them in the first place needs to be questioned.
- When exactly did he sign up to be its honourary president ?
- Why did he do so ?
- Was it off his own bat, or was he influenced (inappropriately) by the intelligence agencies, to provide some credibility for the CFoR group, who could then be used to indirectly or directly help with MI6 intelligence or MI5 counter-intelligence operations against Russian targets, both in London and in Russia ?
Should Sir Malcolm Rifkind resign as chairman of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee ?