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BBC- Alba (Gaelic name for Scotland)

Finance

Responsibility for the financial support of the public television broadcasting service BBC-Alba is remitted to the BBC and Scottish government in 2015.

Annual operational running costs are approximately £25m.

The BBC provides about £10m in the form of broadcasting , technical support and some programming.

The Scottish government allocates around £15m to the service covering the cost of programming.

 

 

 

 

Management and Control

The 2015 Scotland Bill devolved control of Scotland’s Gaelic television channel to the Scottish government together with financial responsibility and governance.

Appointments to the governing board, (responsible for evolving policy) are remitted to the Scottish government.

The funding mechanism requires an allocation of positions on the governing board to BBC management representatives.

It is anticipated that the Scottish government will seek parity of funding with the BBC forming part of recommendations for change contained in the recently published BBC comprehensive Spending Review and Charter Renewal, which indicated a significant negative funding imbalance in terms of financial expenditure by the BBC within and in support of its Scottish subscribers who are compulsorly required to purchase an annual licence from the BBC, currently £147.

Annual income to the BBC from Scottish subscribers is approximately £250m.

Expenditure by the BBC, in Scotland, including BBC Alba costs rarely exceed £90m.

 

 

 

 

Present Programming

The channel broadcasts for 7 hours daily (1700-2400).

Programming content is designed to serve Gaelic speakers and those who wish to learn the native language of Scotland.

It provides many hours of Scottish sport including live soccer, rugby, shinty etc.

Most of the adult programming is subtitled in English and there are plans to provide dual sound with live events.

The channel is watched by about 637,000 adults over the age of 16 in Scotland each week which is remarkable when considered against the Gaelic speakers in Scotland who number about 57,000.

 

 

 

 

Future Programming
An increase in funding by the BBC and perhaps the Scottish government, would provide opportunity to expand broadcasting hours and content, mirroring mainstream television channels.

Programming could be widened to include other dialogues of Scotland eg. Scotch, Doric and English.

 

 

 

 

Policy
The opportunity exists now, through a Scottish government appointed, BBC-Alba governing board to guide the content of Scottish television broadcasting circumventing BBC Scotland and other right-wing media channels, which have abjectly failed the people of Scotland through their preference to implement the policies of the Westminster government and their foreign owners.

The channel could be renamed Alba since the BBC would be a minority partner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19 May 2017: Senior Scottish Conservative Richard Cook At the Centre of a £425,000 (DUP) Major Brexit funding scandal.

A modest, semi-detached house in Clarkston on Glasgow’s Southside seems an unlikely source for a secretive, £425,000 donation to the Democratic Unionist Party’s Brexit campaign. But the occupant – Richard Cook – is the only person publicly connected with the Constitutional Research Council, a shadowy pro-union group that funnelled dark money to the DUP ahead of June’s EU referendum. And Richard Cook is not just connected to Northern Irish unionism – he has links that go to the heart of the Scottish Conservative Party, the Saudi intelligence service and a notorious Indian gun running scandal.

Mr Cook is also a former vice chairman of the Scottish Conservative party and Tory election candidate (for which he was fast-tracked through the selection, according to reports on ConservativeHome). He has campaigned with Ruth Davidson and David Cameron, and his Facebook friends list is a roll-call of prominent Scottish Tories. Scottish politicians are now calling for the Scottish Tory leader to clarify her relationship with Cook, who in the 2010 general election lost out to Labour’s Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire. Key activists in his team were subsequently found burning the EU flag and posting Northern Irish loyalist song lyrics on Twitter.

Cook is also at the centre of a political scandal raging in Northern Ireland. Back in February, an openDemocracy investigation found that donors had taken advantage of Northern Ireland’s secretive electoral laws to funnel hundreds of thousands of pounds to the DUP’s pro-Brexit campaign. Under pressure, the DUP revealed that the party had received £425,622 from a group called ‘the Constitutional Research Council’. Over £32,000 of this money was spent on data analytics company AggregateIQ, a small Canadian outfit that has been linked to Donald Trump’s billionaire backer Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica, who are now at the heart of an investigation by the Information Commission.

We know almost nothing about the Constitutional Research Council. The outfit has no formal legal status. What we can say for sure is that it is chaired by Cook, and he has promised to fund the pro-union campaign in any future Scottish independence referendum. “More people with more money are ready to step up to the plate this time compared with the last referendum” Cook told the Sunday Times earlier this year. He didn’t reveal who those people are.

The DUP has also refused to say who the backers behind the CRC are, and there is little to suggest that Cook himself is a major donor. Former Conservative colleagues describe Cook as “a nice guy but not a rich guy”. Cook – who could not be contacted for this piece – appears to retain an interest in Scottish politics.

He is listed as an advisor on Think Scotland, a conservative-minded website funded by Scottish unionist businessman Robert Kilgour. Think Scotland is owned by former Tory MSP Brian Monteith. Monteith was head of press during the referendum for Leave.EU, the campaign group run by Arron Banks and Nigel Farage.

In 2013, Cook co-founded a company called Five Star Investment Management Ltd with the former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz. The prince’s son is the Saudi ambassador to the UK. The other director of the company was Peter Haestrup, a Danish national who is connected to the 1995 Purulia arms drop case, a long-running multinational scandal that involved weapons being dropped over the Indian province of West Bengal. The company was registered at Mr Cook’s Glasgow address. Annual accounts were not submitted to  Companies House, and the venture was dissolved in December 2014.

Cook also has connections with right-wing pressure groups in the UK. He was Scottish spokesperson for Conservative Friends of Israel and for the Campaign Against Political Correctness, a campaign allied to the Freedom Association, a right-wing Eurosceptic pressure group that supported apartheid in South Africa. Back in 2009, Richard Cook spoke alongside current Tory MSP Murdo Fraser at a Freedom Association fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Perth to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory.

Freedom Association Chief Executive Simon Richards later praised Cook as “one of the hardest working PPC’s (Parliamentary Prospective Candidates) anywhere in the country”. The Freedom Association has historical links with Northern Ireland. Among its original founders was Ross McWhirter, a controversial journalist who campaigned for strict restrictions on Irish people in Britain, including making it compulsory for all Irish people in Britain to register with the local police and to provide signed photographs of themselves when renting flats or booking into hotels and hostel. McWhirter was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in Enfield in 1975.

The Freedom Association boasts of “friendly links” with the Democratic Unionist Party. In 2007 and 2008, leading DUP politicians Jeffrey Donaldson and Sammy Wilson were involved in Freedom Association “fact finding” events in Northern Ireland. At the time, the Freedom Association said it had “taken a close interest in Ulster matters from its earliest days and is keen to strengthen its ties with the province and to demonstrate its support for the Union.” Donaldson was the chair of the DUP’s Brexit campaign – his name appeared on the election material that the CRC’s £425,000 donation paid for – and Wilson was a prominent pro-Brexit DUP voice throughout the campaign, regularly appearing in the media.

After his defeat in the 2010 general election, Richard Cook wrote: “I believe deeply in our party, its membership and in the need for a centre right party to represent the hundreds of thousands of Scots who believe in the same things we do.” Among the activists he singled out for praise during the campaign were Ross McFarlane and Colin Taylor.

McFarlane was subsequently sacked as a Holyrood assistant by Ruth Davidson in 2011 after footage emerged showing him setting fire to the EU standard while dressed in the robes of Glasgow University amid anti-Catholic taunts. McFarlane had been Davidson’s election agent.

Around the same time, it was discovered that Colin Taylor had posted song lyrics on Twitter glorifying Northern Irish loyalist terrorist group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, while serving as president of the student Conservative Association from 2009 to 2010. The social media posts were picked up when Taylor was working for the Tory Press and Research Unit at Holyrood.

An SNP spokesperson said: “These are deeply concerning allegations The fact that we still do not know the source of such a significant amount of cash used to help bankroll the Brexit campaign is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to continue. Just as concerning are the apparent links to the highest levels of the Scottish Tory party. Ruth Davidson must clarify what links she has with Mr Cook, and whether her party has helped itself to money from the same murky sources.”

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/peter-geoghegan-adam-ramsay/meet-scottish-tory-behind-425000-dup-brexit-donation

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/16/scottish-tories-a-party-of-political-eunuchs-managed-by-mundell-and-davidson-left-in-place-by-cameron-to-watch-over-rebellious-scots-part-2/

 

Peter Bleach

 

 

Peter Bleach – Former Intelligence Officer (known As the Milk Tray Man)

Born on 20 May 1951, in Halifax, UK, to an English father (Albert James Bleach) and a German mother (Oceana Felicia Joana Magdalena), Peter James Gifran von Kalkstein Bleach was educated at the Uplands Preparatory School (formerly St Peter’s School) in Scalby, Yorkshire, between 1964 and 1969.

He completed the ‘A’ level and after graduation enlisted in the British Army Intelligence Corps. He entered training at HQ Intelligence Centre at Templar Barracks in Ashford, Kent. He passed corps training with distinction and was awarded best recruit.

In 1972, aged 21y, he was posted to 39 Airportable Brigade, HQ Northern Ireland, Thiepval Barracks, Lisbum, Northern Ireland, serving in the brigade intelligence section.

Thiepval Barracks would later become the command centre for the British Army’s Force Research Unit (FRU) whose members recruited and handled agents to infiltrate the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA)

Bleach excelled again and passed all corps training courses and promotion examinations with distinction, rising to the rank of sergeant. He remained at HQ Northern Ireland until the end of 1972, leaving after a disciplinary offence led him to be offered transfer to another unit.

The transfer was turned down and Bleach left the forces. British Military Intelligence Hit Squads deployed in Belfast   (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24987465)

In 1973, Bleach travelled to Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and joined the Rhodesia Prison Service. He took early retirement on pension aged 30y after reaching the rank of assistant superintendent in 1981.

He then took up the appointment of commanding officer, Chipinga station, on the Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia border, serving with Joint Operations Command for Operation Thresher.

After several security related jobs in Zimbabwe and Johannesburg, South Africa, he returned to the UK in the middle of 1985 and until 1995 was a self employed security advisor and consultant in commerce and industry before setting up his own arms dealing firm.

Bleach, through his company, Aeroserve UK worked freelance for MI6. Interpol maintained a file on him monitoring the ‘odd jobs’ he completed for the agency.

 

Peter Bleach

 

 

Peter Bleach and the 1995 Purulia arms drop

Bleach, (who was in some financial difficulty around that time) successfully secured three legal defence export contracts from the Bangladesh government. His agent in Bangladesh was Captain (retired) Syed Tasleem Hussain, who owned a company called River-land Agencies Ltd, Dhaka, which was accredited to the Bangladesh Ministry of Defence. All of Bleach’s legal tenders were submitted through Hussain’s company.

In July 1995 he was contacted by Peter Haestrup, a Danish Businessman who asked him to quote for a delivery of arms and ammunition to an unknown destination in South Asia. They subsequently met in Denmark and agreed to set up a jointly company, (Cargo Air Transport Services (CATS). They then established a legal point of sale contact in Bangladesh. The owner of the air freight company in Dhaka was Iqbal Ali was also reputed to be the local agent for a CIA backed American freight company.

At a follow up meeting in Copenhagen Neils Christian Nielsen, Peter Haestrup and Bleach agreed any future business would be completed through their offices in Hong Kong.

Two meetings of the board of Sovereign Managers Limited of Hong Kong were subsequently convened on 11 October 1995 and 10 November 1995. The first was chaired by Ms Cecilia D’Cunha. The second by Hugo Cunliffe-Owen.

Sukhvir Kaur Jarhia, the person responsible for setting up (CATS), in the The Turks and Caicos Islands was also at the meeting.

Note: Sovereign Managers Limited was registered in the Isle of Man on 23 May 1988 and dissolved on 17 June 1997 Its offices were located in Hong Kong.

A little over a month after Bleach had sent a costed quotation to Peter Haestrup, the final sixteen page contract was signed between Bleach, Haestrup and Nielson in London on 13 September 1995. Letters of credit were subsequently exchanged confirming the contract which was worth in the region of £6M.

Cargo Air Transport Services Limited (CATS) purchased an Antonov AN-26B from Latvian State Airlines, together with five crew members. The crew along with two other ground crews were contracted to fly the plane from Riga in Latvia to Bangladesh and subsequently to fly cargo flights from Bangladesh to other destinations on behalf of (CATS).

In December 1995 the aircraft flew to Bulgaria where a consignment of 548 AK-47 rifles, 11.3 tonnes of ammunition, 165 rocket launchers and a quantity of anti-tank weapons boxed and labelled as freight was loaded. From Bulgaria the plane flew to Karachi Airport in Pakistan.

 

Neils Nielson

 

 

 

6 January 1996: Flight of fancy:

The Whodunnit?  The mystery surrounding an airdrop of arms: assault rifles, rocket launchers, hand grenades, pistols in the middle of tribal land in West Bengal. An aircraft,  made in Russia, leased from a Hong Kong company, flown by a Latvian crew watched over by a Dane and a Briton, and carrying Bulgarian arms. Globalisation run amok? More likely, the geographical diversity is part of a strategy to make detection of the real perpetrator difficult.

Bleach had been arrested by Indian authorities (and remained in custody) having been caught, in December 1995, air-dropping arms over a remote district of West Bengal, for the “Path of Bliss” guerrilla movement.

Bleach claimed he had completed the delivery with the blessing of the UK Ministry of Defence, Special Branch and Indian authorities who had been advised date and time of the airdrop.

Evidence surfaced in 1997 confirming that British intelligence had indeed provided early information to the Indian authorities on three separate occasions: 10 November, 17 November and 15 December 1995.

Interpol Headquarters, Lyon, confirmed the highly classified Project Purulia report had been shared with the CIA, but not with the intelligence services of Britain or Denmark.

After the arms drop and the subsequent leak that intelligence had been shared by British intelligence, the MI5 officer in the UK High Commission in New Delhi was in a major flap.

An Indian joint secretary who was ‘in the know’ of the developments at the time recalled that the MI5 officer representative met then Indian Home Minister S.B. Chavan and Home Secretary K. Padmanabhaiah, among others, to not just express annoyance at the leakage but also to make attempts to steer clear of the controversy that was generated after it became public that the British Security Service had initially supplied India with information about an arms drop in India.

 

 

 

 

 

22 September 1997: Mercenary Made a Mug Out of Me Says Teddy Taylor MP

The 60-year-old MP, (who said he had walked into a Sunday newspaper trap) called the allegations “codswallop.” and said his comments had been intended as light-hearted and he never took the jailbreak plan seriously.

He said his friend Chris Hudson, (secretary of the right-wing Tory Monday Club) had brought John Miller to a meeting at the Commons. Sir Teddy and Hudson are long-standing pals of Bleach. Hudson visited the arms dealer in jail last month. Hudson claimed that Bleach asked him to contact “my old mate Miller” for help upon his return.

Sir Teddy said of Miller: “We met in my office where he revealed a complex plan to free Peter which was so far-fetched I did not take it very seriously.” The MP said he had planned no further meetings with Miller, but Miller had called with the promise of new details about the Lockerbie bombing. A second meeting was held on Saturday at The White Horse pub near Sir Teddy’s constituency office in Southend. Miller turned up with another man, who Sir Teddy now knows was an undercover reporter, and said he had not brought any documents relating to Lockerbie.

He insisted – despite Sir Teddy’s protests – that he introduce the MP to the undercover reporter as “Michael.” Sir Teddy said: “Quite honestly, at the first meeting, I didn’t treat it seriously. “At the second meeting, this chap did seem to have some serious ideas.”

The MP claimed he was not giving orders to Miller over the jailbreak but admitted asking questions as to how it would work and who would pay the £100K being suggested. Sir Teddy accepted that he said: “My friend has been very unfairly dealt with. “You’re going to have to get him. You’ve got the big job of getting him.”

The MP was further quoted as saying he thought the Pakistani province of Peshawar would be a good place to take Bleach on the run after he was sprung from jail. Sir Teddy did not deny saying: “Peshawar’s the place to take him. Peshawar would be ideal. I was there.”

But Sir Teddy said: “At no point have I been involved in any way in conspiring in any plan to release Peter Bleach from jail.

“I thought the whole thing was a bit of nonsense. But it seems the conversation was recorded. “Obviously it was a big set-up and I walked straight into it. I am going straight to the Press Complaints Commission tomorrow to see if this was a proper thing to do.” He added: “I was simply asking various things about it because I was then beginning to think there might be something serious in it.”

Sir Teddy said of Bleach: “I felt that, if he had told the Government what he was doing, they should make this information available to the Indian courts. “I just wanted a fair trial and at no time in any way have I been involved in a conspiracy to get him out.”

Chris Hudson, chairman of the Tory Monday Club said: “I have been a friend of Peter’s for 15 years and I don’t want to see him hanged. “If there was any way I could get him out, I would do it. I believe him to be innocent. “But I would not consider a silly plot to spring him. I was involved in collecting information.”

The Dog of War: John Miller is best known for kidnapping Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs in 1981. He smuggled Biggs out of Rio de Janeiro aboard a yacht, sailed to Barbados and handed him over to the authorities. But Biggs was allowed to return to Brazil. Later Miller, 52, was involved in the hunt for Lord Lucan.

 

 

 

 

1 February 2000: Weapons Drop Riddle – Briton Facing Jail Says MI5 Was Involved

Peter Bleach, who once worked with British Army Intelligence in Ulster, claimed he had parachuted an arsenal of weapons and ammunition comprising: 500 47 rifles, 250,000 rounds of ammunition, 12 rocket launchers and 100 antitank grenades into India, with the support of British secret services.

The former public schoolboy and five Latvian’s who were facing a life sentence were found guilty, after a 22 month trial, of conspiring to supply weapons for use in ‘waging war’ against India.

Bleach has the support of Tory MP Sir Teddy Taylor, who insists Home Secretary Jack Straw has evidence that MI5 and the Special Branch were involved.

 

 

 

 

3 February 2000: Life for Arms Dealer Briton

Peter Bleach, of North Yorkshire, a British arms dealer has been convicted of illegally delivering weapons to an Indian state has been jailed for life in India. He has been in jail in India since he was arrested four years ago along with five Latvian’s, who have also been jailed for life.

Bleach was caught air-dropping arms over a remote district of West Bengal for the “Path of Bliss” guerrilla movement in December 1995. He has always claimed he carried out the delivery with the blessing of the Ministry of Defence, which had alerted Indian authorities to the impending airdrop.

 

Bleach and Nielson

 

 

Autumn of 2000 – Political Intervention
Jack Straw: Home Secretary, made a personal appeal on behalf of Bleach. Three months later, he expressed concern at the long time taken for Bleach appeal to be heard. “In no sense has Bleach been abandoned by the British government” he said.

Robin Cook: A couple of months later, it was the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook’s turn. He asked the Indian foreign minister to review the case. Then, In December 2000, Cook went a stage further and asked the Indian authorities in a formal letter to release Bleach.

 

Teddy Taylor

 

27 Nov 2002: In Parliament:  Sir Teddy Taylor (Rochford and Southend, East):

I want to discuss the case of Mr. Peter Bleach. I apologise to the Minister for the massive volume of correspondence I have sent to the Foreign Office and the many questions I have asked about him. The reason is simply that I believe that a great injustice has been done, and I am seriously concerned and alarmed about the health and security problems which Peter is having in prison in Calcutta. My object in raising the matter in this debate is to try to persuade the Minister and his Department to do all they can to secure Mr. Bleach’s release.

Sadly, the Government of India has so far declined to respond. I hope that the Prime Minister’s latest initiative will persuade them to respond meaningfully, but in view of the seriousness of Mr. Bleach’s health problem, I thought it right to raise the case today.

My first point is that Peter Bleach is a person with a record of high standards. When he was living in Southend, I always found him to be a person of honesty and integrity. When he advised me of the complex and difficult security operations in which he was involved, he always talked about events in terms of the benefits that they would bring to the community.

When he was engaged in a security matter involving pharmaceutical companies in Cyprus, he received a commendation from the police for putting his life at risk to bring criminals to justice. It is only fair to say that Mr. Bleach has been involved in many such interesting events. He has always tried to play fair and straight and to tell things as they are.

I emphasise that Mr. Bleach has advised me time and time again that everything he did in relation to the dropping of arms in Bengal, from the first approach that he received, was notified to the authorities. To protect himself during the preparations for the arms drop, he prudently recorded every word said to him on the telephone by officials.

However, as I reported to the House on 2 March 1999, his home and that of a disabled lady in London were raided, and all but one of the tapes disappeared. One of the raids involved 10 constables. Over many years, I have tried to find out the reason why the constables seized the tapes and the evidence was removed. I have never been given a proper explanation. However, it happened: there is no denying that.

I do not want to bore the Chamber with the many complaints that have been made about the unusual events of which the raids are just a part, or with details of the unusual activities of Sergeant Etlock. The Minister is well aware that I have given full details of the evidence that that gentleman gave, and the ways in which it seemed to be adjusted.

It would save a lot of time if the Government would simply confirm that officials were advised by Mr. Bleach of the issues relating to the arms drop and it would help even more if they would confirm that the Government of India were advised, too. Mr. Bleach was advised not to get involved. That is the usual practice in such matters.

However, the plain fact is that someone who tries to do something of this order and gives all the information about all the events to the Government is rather different from someone who seeks to do the same thing in a secret or malicious way.

Another significant issue relates to the seizure of Mr. Bleach and his five colleagues from Latvia after the Indian air force obliged them to bring down their plane following the arms drop. The Indian authorities carried out that seizure with their usual efficiency, and Peter and his colleagues were seized as they came down the steps of the plane.

However, there was one astonishing omission: Mr. Neils Nielsen, who is a citizen of Denmark, and was the acknowledged and clear leader and organiser of the venture, was permitted to walk away from the plane. He succeeded in travelling out of India and back to Denmark.

Of course, I would fully understand someone escaping if they were coming out of a train or a lorry, but when it is case of a plane coming down in an airfield, it is difficult to comprehend how one of the passengers could escape being seized.

I have tried to find out from the Indian Government why that happened. Why was that person permitted to get away, particularly as he was the leader of the outfit? I have never been given any explanation at all. The matter seems to get more and more mysterious.

Mr. Nielson is alleged to have stayed in Denmark and to have protection there. I have been advised that Interpol has been looking for him. I have also been advised that he has been travelling around quite a bit he has been particularly active in Sudan and that he was quite recently in London at Smith’s hotel, where he was allegedly in the company of some rather official and well dressed people who are often seen at that excellent establishment.

It was there that he allegedly sought to persuade one of my constituents, who resides in Great Wakering and whose details I would be glad to give to the Minister, to engage in some interesting work in Bosnia.

Obviously, I do not expect the Minister to comment on these unusual events, but I would like him to say whether the Government regard Mr. Nielson as a person who should be seized and questioned by the authorities, and whether approaches have been made to the Danish Government. The issue is of some significance. It seems unusual that although everyone says that they want to seize this gentleman, nothing seems to happen and he travels around doing rather interesting things.

(https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo021127/halltext/21127h03.htm)

 

Neils Nielson

 

 

 

Neils Christian Nielson – International Man of Mystery

Perhaps the biggest enigma to linger after The Arms Drop has faded from memory will be Neils Christain Nielson. his criminal past, his involvement with illegal gold smuggling, arms and drug sales, his multiple identities (he has used at least 36 aliases and 15 passports over a twenty-year period), and his baffling rescue by the Danish government and largely unexplored connections with the United States of America and the Central Intelligence Agency.

In support of the foregoing are the four visits he made to the USA, before the arms drop despite being on Interpol’s radar and that he was already wanted in the USA for two federal crimes. His links with the CIA ensured the protection the Danish authorities provided.

The Pakistani company that serviced the AN-26 aircraft in Karachi airport is also said to have links with a CIA front aviation company.

 

Peter Haestrop

 

 

 

Peter Haestrup – Mr Fixit – Protected by the Danish Authorities

The Indian authorities never did request the extradition to India of Peter Haestrop to stand trial for his part in the Purulia Arms Drop. They knew full well that any request would be fruitless due to the place the Haestrup family held in Danish society.

Jurgen Haestrup (Peter’s father) had been instrumental with other brave Danes in saving nearly 4000 Jews from German Concentration camps in 1944.

Having got wind of the Himmler’s imminent order to round up the Jews in Denmark, Jurgen, an influential member of Danish political establishment quietly transported nearly all of the Jews over the water to neutral Sweden frustrating Himmler and Hitler.

The Haestrups are a large family members of which are primarily associated associated with banking and other financial activities in Denmark, Europe and Worldwide.

Peter is the ultimate entrepreneur. If there is an angle he will seek it out and make a profit.

His role in the £4-6M Purulia arms deal and other planned ventures was pivotal and much enhanced by his contact with Peter Bleach and his associates. Yet he was allowed to disassociate himself and his family from the debacle.

 

Teddy Taylor

 

 

Teddy Taylor and the Tory Monday Club – Good Friend of Peter Bleach

Teddy, MP for Cathcart, Glasgow from 1964-1979 was a right wing politician who strongly advocated use of the birch and Capital punishment. He resigned his position in the Scottish Office in protest at the UK joining the European Economic Community.

His loyalty to HM, The Queen and Margaret Thatcher was sacrosanct. He was her Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and a much favoured adviser. He also studiously maintained close ties many members of the English ruling class.

Having lost his seat in Glasgow in 1979 he was found a safe Tory seat in Southend where he served from 1980-2005.

He joined the Tory right wing Monday Club early in his political career and is/was a close friend of Enoch Powell and his acolyte the Rt Hon Jeffrey Donaldson MP M.L.A.; Orange-man and U.U.P. defector to the D.U.P.

He supported Ian Smith in his Unilateral Declaration of Independence (U.D.I.) of Rhodesia. He also fully supported the apartheid system in South Africa and advocated the shooting of the South African terrorist Nelson Mandela.

Taylor was one of the 22 rebel “bastards” who voted against the government on the second reading of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill in May 1992, when the government’s overall majority at the time was only 18. He was singled out and had the party Whip withdrawn.

In the period 1992-1997 John Major’s government lurched from crisis to crisis. A number of Ministers of State and MP’s displayed open rebellion the incidence of infighting of elements in the party increased dramatically. In 1997 the years of sleaze and backhanders finally decided the fate of the Tory government.

 

 

 

Inter Alia: knowledge by association

The following persons are well known to each other through friendship, business and/or politics:

Sir Teddy Taylor; Leading Monday Club member

RH Sir Jeffrey Donaldson; MP, M.L.A.

Mr Richard Cook; former vice chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party

RH Ms Ruth Davidson; MSP, Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party

Mr Peter Bleach; Ex-arms salesman, spy and jailbird.

Mr Peter Haestrup; Danish Banker, financier,  international go-between/ facilitator.

Mr Neils Christian Nielson; Danish International dealer in gold smuggling, illegal arms sales and spying activities requiring him to operate under at least 36 aliases and 15 passport’s

The foregoing relationships and events over a very long period persuade me and I hope readers of this blog, to the conclusion that the Constitutional Monarchy Association donated the £425,000 to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Brexit campaign through Mr Richard Cook.

 

 

 

 

The Constitutional Monarchy Association (CMA) – facilitating those who support and defend our Monarchy

The C.M.A. has thousands of subscribers throughout the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and the rest of the world of many political persuasions, who come from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds and its Council represents this diversity.

It has no formal links with any political or religious organisations or with Buckingham Palace.

It assists the man-and-woman-in-the-street supporters and defenders of our monarchy. Its funding comes entirely from subscriptions and donations.

 

 

 

 

The C.M.A. and its supporters:

1. Co-ordinate interest in, and support for, our constitutional monarchy.

2. Study issues and events affecting the monarchy in order to make appropriate responses to them.

3. Encourage and facilitate meeting together – visits, lectures, discussion groups and social events.

4. Monitor the reporting of royal and monarchical events and issues by TV radio, newspapers and magazines.

5. Press for better coverage by the media of the work done by the royal family here and abroad.

6. Attempt to counter unbalanced, inaccurate or irresponsible reporting.

7. Provide responses and views from a monarchist perspective.

8. Encourage better education of young people so far as discussion of the issues involved in constitutional monarchies and republics is concerned.

9. Provide opportunities for young people to learn about our monarchy by way of participative educational events such as competitions.

10. Seek wider presentation of strong intellectual, constitutional and emotional arguments which underpin our constitutional monarchy which is of great value to our nation the Commonwealth.   (http://www.monarchy.net.)

 

 

 

 

The Constitutional Monarchy Association Membership

President:

The Lord Morrow

Secretary:

Mrs Hilary R Eves

 

 

The Council

HH Prince Mohsin Ali Khan of Hyderabad H Litt;

David Allam DL;

Jacques Arnold DL;

Karen Aston;

Marcus Booth;

Saroj Chakravarty;

Cllr Jason Frost;

Barry Lenz;

Dr Jay Sewell;

Robert Smith;

The Lord Sudeley;

Count Dmitri Tolstoy-Miloslavsky;

Dr Barry Twigg MBE;

The Hon W Denis Walker (Treasurer)

 

Rt Hon Jeffrey Donaldson MP MLA

 

 

The Patrons

H D Dickie Bird MBE (retired cricket umpire and jobbing “character”);

Sir Cliff Richard OBE (say no more);

The Rt Hon the Lord Barker of Battle;

Baron Spicer of Cropthorne

The Lord Cormack FSA DL;

The Viscount Exmouth (otherwise undistinguished scion of the great frigate captain, prototype for Horation Hornblower, Sir Edward Pellew;

Lord Jones of Cheltenham (PR man and former LibDem MP);

The Baroness Knight of Collingtree DBE (the very right-wing and fruity former Tory MP, Jill Knight);

The Viscount & Viscountess Massereene & Ferrard (he is a.k.a. John David Clotworthy Whyte-Melville Foster Skeffington, stockbroker and another Monday Club right-winger, with strong family connections to Ulster Unionism and the Orange Order);

The Lord Northbrook (of the Barings Bank dynasty, a Tory spokesman in the House of Lords, and a London clubman);

Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt CBE (doesn’t publicise his baronetcy, an ecologist with a hot line to the heir to the throne);

The Viscount Simon (a Labour peer, grandson of Sir John Simon, “the slime of hypocrisy” [Lloyd George], “a toad and a worm” [Harold Nicholson]slithered Liberal to pre-War Tory appeaser)

David Atkinson; (car salesman and former Tory MP);

Greg Barker MP (fellow Tory husky hugger with David Cameron; a close associate of Russian plutocrats including Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich);

Roy Beggs (very right-wing Ulster Unionist and Orange-man, advocate of corporal punishment);

Henry Bellingham MP (barrister and farmer; loyalist and reputed nice-but-dim Tory MP and now junior minister);

Sir Sydney Chapman RIBA FRTPI (architect and former retreaded MP, “The dullest Tory candidate” [London Evening Standard] in 2001);

Sir Patrick Cormack FSA (former Tory MP and about to become a life peer: if one must be a Tory, he is as decent as they come);

Nirj Deva DL MEP (Sri Lankan born former Tory MP, Bow Grouper but with links to the Reaganite Heritage Foundation of the Republican Party);

Rt Hon Jeffrey Donaldson MP MLA; (former acolyte of Enoch Powell, Orange-man, UUP defector to the DUP, widely despised in Northern Ireland for upward mobility);

Peter Duncan (presumably the Scottish Tory, rather than the Blue Peter presenter?);

Michael Fabricant MP (another Tory: this one a political joke, mainly for his suspiciously-farmed hair);

Cheryl Gillan MP (former Tory Whip, now Welsh Secretary who previously opposed devolution; ran into trouble over her dog-food and second-home expenses claims);

Gerald Howarth MP (Tory Monday Clubber, who had to be swiftly shuffled at the Defence Ministry because of his over-close ties to arms-dealers);

Edward Leigh MP (about as right-wing and unreconstructed as any Tory can get);

Peter Luff MP (was Ted Heath’s officer manager, but has redeemed himself among straight Tories by hard committee work and an interest in fox-hunting);

Patrick Mercer OBE MP (a decent Tory back-bencher , ex-soldier, sacked from front bench by Cameron because of “racist” remarks about ethnic minorities in the forces);

Andrew Rosindell MP (Romford born-and-bred right-wing hang ’em, Monday Club Tory, expenses diddler);

Bob Russell MP;

Lord Spicer, the erstwhile Sir Michael Spicer (former assiduous and knowledgeable economist on the Commons Treasury Select Committee; ran into trouble over expenses for his helipad);

Sir Teddy Taylor (former right-wing Thatcherite Tory MP, hanger-and-flogger, Europhobe, and leading light of the Monday Club);

Sir Nicholas Winterton DL (and a final right-wing Tory, Monday Clubber, Europhobe, expenses fiddler, bum-pincher and snob).

(https://redfellow.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/royalism-the-last-resort-of-some-scoundrels/)

 

 

 

Neils Holck.

 

 

 

17 December 1995: Illegal Arms Supply to India

The Purilia Arms Drop was an illegal transfer of arms to an unknown group in West Bengal, India. Central characters in the deal included Peter Haestrup.

He surfaced again in 2013 when, together with Tory, Richard Cook and the late, 83yo, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz, former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, he co-founded another company called Five Star Investment Management Ltd.

The company was registered at Cook’s Glasgow address. The firm filed no accounts with Companies House, and was dissolved in December 2014.

This explanation of events is complicated by many intrigues but the article need to be read in its entirety to be sure of a clear understanding of recent actions and activities of Richard Cook, former vice chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

 

David Shayler MI5

 

 

 

The Purilia Arms Drop Part 1:

https://caltonjock.com/2017/06/25/illegal-sale-of-arms-a-complex-tale-of-greed-intrigue-and-betrayal-and-the-yellow-brick-road-to-the-tory-party-in-scotland/

The Purilia Arms Drop Part 2:

https://caltonjock.com/2017/06/26/illegal-sale-of-arms-a-complex-tale-of-greed-intrigue-and-betrayal-and-the-yellow-brick-road-to-the-tory-party-in-scotland-part-2/

 

Holck

 

 

The Purilia Arms Drop Part 3:

16 Mar 2015: Danish documentary and Indian Television revisits the unsolved mystery of the 1995 Purulia arms drop

In December 1995, a consignment of 2,500 AK-47 guns was dropped from the sky on a district in West Bengal. Who was it meant for?

Two decades later, the basic facts of the Purulia arms drop still beggar belief.

On December 17, 1995, a Russian plane with a Latvian crew and passengers that included a British arms dealer and a Danish smuggler flew over West Bengal, dropped 2,500 AK-47 weapons and 1,500,000 rounds of ammunition over five villages in the Purulia district and took off for Thailand.

The five Latvians and the Briton were arrested when they landed back in India and  spent many years in an Indian prison.

The Dane evaded arrest and disappeared, resurfaced in Denmark and eventually defeated Indian attempts to extradite him.

Meanwhile, it is still not clear whether the arms were meant for the Ananda Marga religious cult, as is the popular theory, or whether they were actually supposed to be routed to Kachin rebels in neighbouring Myanmar.

Since then, reams of newsprint have been expended trying to solve the riddle, as have a handful of television documentaries.

The two key characters plead their innocence — Bleach because he alerted British intelligence about the arms deal before it happened and spilled the beans to Indian agencies as soon as he was caught.

Holck because he claims that he is a victim of a high-level conspiracy in which the Indian government sought to overthrow the ruling Left Front in West Bengal at the time.

 

David Shayler MI5

 

 

 

Approval, Coordination and Execution of the Arms Drop Operation.

Holck and Bleach claimed to be mere cogs in a joint operation between the Indian Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), the British MI5 and the CIA which was approved by the ruling Congress Party to unseat the West Bengal government by arming the Ananda Margis.

Bleach and Holck

 

 

 

Holck – International Man of Mystery

Perhaps the biggest enigma to linger after The Arms Drop has faded from memory is Neils Holck himself.

his criminal past, his involvement with gold smuggling, his links with the cult, his multiple identities (he has used at least 36 aliases and 15 passports over a ten-year period), and his baffling rescue by the Danish government and largely unexplored connections with the United States of America and the Central Intelligence Agency.

In support of the foregoing is his four visits to the USA, made before the arms drop despite being on Interpol’s radar and that he was wanted there for two federal crimes.

His links with the CIA ensured the protection the Danish authorities provided.

And the Pakistani company that serviced the AN-26 in Karachi airport is also said to have links with a CIA front aviation company.

At the end of an “immensely vexing, extraordinarily complex and tangled” story, it is felt that the Narendra Modi government must revive the case and pursue every available means to bring Holck to justice in India, and hunt down the Ananda Marg monks wanted in the case but who are still on the run.

Holck’s self-regard and survival skills are on ample display in The Arms Drop.

He painted a picture of himself as a victim of Indian intransigence and insisted that he is just a misguided revolutionary who was troubled by the West Bengal government’s crackdown on the Ananda Marga.

He managed to escape from all the bad things he has done in his life, and he is slippery, but this is not a black and white case.

 

Bleach and Holck

 

 

 

Bleach Sacrificed by MI5?

It is not difficult to feel sympathy for Bleach, who faced a death sentence in India before finally being freed by the British government’s intervention in 2004, and who suffered from tuberculosis in prison.

The Latvians were freed in 2000 on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence.

Bleach claimed that he was not a British double agent, as had been alleged, and that he still hasn’t understood why his MI5 minder (David Shayler), (Detective Sergeant Stephen Elcock) and The Senior police officer concerned, J. K. Dutt, Joint Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) washed their hands of him in court. “You know you are in trouble when there are at least two governments trying to keep you in jail,” he wryly quoted in an interview.

 

 

 

A video investigation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FON8_F159GU Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjNTcEDsXXY The truth about Purulia-1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pOmnwzrDR0 The truth about Purulia-2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpKtOU3_6-E The truth about Purulia-3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePbMDm4SX9Y The truth about Purulia-4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0e_bTy8-8A The truth about Purulia-5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwgtbCsyXbc The truth about Purulia-6

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crcznwwhpj4 The truth about Purulia-7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRpU5OSpVXU Purulia case: ‘Declassify secret documents’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcCixkeazkw Whose version do we believe?

 

 

Summary and Look Forward

A complex mission, involving the CIA, MI5, CBI and goodness knows how many other secret service agencies, required for success the efficient coordination of an operational team drawn from a number of nations was always vulnerable to error and failure.

Leaving Bleach at the mercy of an Indian Judge was a reprehensible act by MI5. See below

 

=================================

 

 

 

 

 

09 May, 1999 MI5 accused of link to Indian weapons plot

The security service MI5 has been linked to a gunrunning plot to destabilise the Indian government.

The trial of a British arms dealer in a Calcutta court has thrown up evidence that the service knew of a plan to airdrop weapons including rifles, rocket launchers, anti-tank grenades and ammunition to Hindu terrorists.

There is also evidence that the British authorities tried to cover up MI5’s involvement by blanking out parts of documents submitted to the court.

In an unprecedented move, an Indian judge last week summoned a Special Branch officer to travel to Calcutta to explain discrepancies in evidence presented by the Home Office.

The strange case began when Peter Bleach, a 48-year-old former soldier and ex-public schoolboy, was arrested after stepping off a cargo plane in Bombay in December 1995.

He was accused by Indian police of masterminding a bungled operation to airlift £312,000 of weapons to the Ananda Marga cult.

The group was locked in conflict with the communist government in West Bengal.

Since January 8, 1996, Bleach has been confined to a solitary cell in Presidency jail, Calcutta, accused under the Arms Act, the Explosives Act and of involvement in a criminal conspiracy against the state.

He faces execution by hanging if he is found guilty.

The mainstay of his defence, which he is conducting himself, is that he was an informant for British intelligence, which was involved from the outset in the plot.

He said he believed that the information passed on by him would be used to warn the Indian authorities.

He said none of the weapons reached its destination because the shipment landed miles off target.

Bleach said he was urged on by MI5 and Special Branch which wanted him to infiltrate the European suppliers of the cult.

The Home Office last year agreed to release details to the Calcutta court of a meeting between Bleach and two Special Branch officers in September 1995 at Bleach’s home in North Yorkshire.

Bleach gave the two details of the planned operation. Police say they warned him not to get involved.

However, it has emerged that sections of notes of conversations between Bleach and the officers were erased by Special Branch before they reached the court.

The sections referred to the involvement of MI5.

Sir Teddy Taylor, the Conservative MP, took up Bleach’s case and wrote to Jack Straw, the home secretary, asking why portions of the documents had been deleted.

Straw claimed in a written reply that: omissions were due to a “clerical error”.

However, a Special Branch officer, who flew to Calcutta earlier this year to give evidence in the case, admitted under cross-examination that the documents had been altered on “advice from the security service” and “as a result of security measures”.

Detective Sergeant Stephen Elcock was summonsed by Judge P K Biswas last week to explain why criminal proceedings should not be brought against him for allegedly tampering with the evidence and attempting to mislead the court.

Elcock denied there had been a cover-up or any impropriety.

The court order gives him until June 10 to appear or a warrant will be issued for his arrest.

Taylor yesterday accused Straw of deceiving him and said the British government had abandoned Bleach because he had become an embarrassment.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.conspiracy.princess-diana/QY8w_5CId6U

 

Richard Cook ex Vice Chairman Conservative party in Scotland

 

 

The Players:

The CIA and the Danish connection: Neils Holck, *Peter Haestrup and Brian Thune (last two senior agents involved in setting up the operation but did not participate)

The Indian Government: J. K. Dutt, Joint Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI

MI5: **David Shayler  MI5, Detective Sergeant Stephen Elcock and Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary

* Peter Haestup set up a company, in Scotland with, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz, head of the Saudi Secret Service and Richard Cook, ex Vice Chaiman of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

Richard Cook, (who hasn’t got two buttons to rub together) later advanced the DUP a sum of money, believed to be around £500K to fund a Brexit campaign in the North of England, (which is where the bulk of the Brexit majority was located. Where did the money originate?

**Google David Shayler

 

 

 

Some of the main characters

 

 

17 December 1995: Illegal Arms Supply to India

The Purilia Arms Drop was an illegal transfer of arms to an unknown group in West Bengal, India. Central characters in the deal included Peter Haestrup.

He surfaced again in 2013 when, together with Tory, Richard Cook and the late, 83yo, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz, former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, he co-founded another company called Five Star Investment Management Ltd.

The company was registered at Cook’s Glasgow address. The firm filed no accounts with Companies House, and was dissolved in December 2014.

This explanation of events is complicated by many intrigues but the article need to be read in its entirety to be sure of a clear understanding of recent actions and activities of Richard Cook, former vice chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

 

Peter Bleach not looking so good

 

 

 

The Purilia Arms Drop Part 1:

https://caltonjock.com/2017/06/25/illegal-sale-of-arms-a-complex-tale-of-greed-intrigue-and-betrayal-and-the-yellow-brick-road-to-the-tory-party-in-scotland/

 

Peter Bleach under arrest

 

 

The bizarre case of the British gun-runner, Indian rebels and a missing Dane – Part 2

 

Peter Bleach

 

The English Arms Dealer Peter Bleach version of events. (given 15 Years Later)

The date was 17 December 1995. Three months earlier, the freelance Yorkshire-based arms dealer had been approached about providing a Danish customer with a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

When he discovered that they were wanted not by a state army but by a terrorist group, he informed the British authorities – who told him to carry on.

He did so, believing he was playing a role in an anti-terrorist sting operation: he fully expected that, before the arms could be delivered, the Indian authorities would bring the operation grinding to a halt, and he would be rescued.

But there had been no intervention and as the Russian Antonov cargo aeroplane plane, laden with a large quantity of arms and ammunition lumbered up into the night sky from Varanasi airport he started to worry thinking that the Indian government might have decided to shoot the plane down and have done with it.

At any minute he expected there to be a flash and the end of the mission. But nothing happened. After 20 minutes the plane peeled away from the major air route linking Varanasi with Calcutta and destinations to the east, and headed for the town of Purulia in West Bengal.

The plane dropped through the night sky to what the crew believed was the right altitude, then they opened the rear-hatch and shoved the loaded pallets towards it.

As the arms and munitions 2,500 AK-47 weapons and 1,500,000 rounds of ammunition) plummeted down and the parachutes bellied out the crew heaved a huge sigh of relief that all had gone to plan.

For Bleach, his nightmare, it appeared, was over. But, it was just about to begin.

Within 10 days, he and the crew of the plane were bound by the arms and legs, flown to Calcutta, locked in the city’s notorious jail, and charged with the most serious offence in the Indian statute book,  waging war on the Indian state, which carried the death penalty.

 

Bleach and the Latvian Crew awaiting trial

 

 

 

Trial and Sentence

The Purulia arms drop, as the operation became known, was then the subject of a “closed door” two-year trial at the end of which Bleach and the crew, five ethnic Russians from Latvia, were convicted and jailed for life.

Years later, all six were freed after pressure from the Russian and British governments.

The case closed with the mystery of who the arms were intended for still intact.

The man at the heart of the operation, a Dane, who went by the name of Kim Davy and who had been spirited away before Bleach and the crew were arrested, had been living in Copenhagen for the last 15 years.

The Indian government gave up trying to extradite him to stand trial and the puzzling mysteries surrounding the incident may never be known.

 

 

Bleach on his way to court

 

 

 

 

MI5 Involvement Confirmed

Peter Bleach never appeared in court in public but, in his defence in court he stated that the British Secret Service (MI5) had been fully aware of his involvement in the arms sale and he had written confirmation of this from MI5 confirming it had informed the Indian government of the sale of arms.

His handler was named as: “David Shaylor”. Another MI5 officer named “Steven Elcock  was also proven to have perjured himself in court.

It was alleged that Kim Davy did not escape but had been spirited away by an Indian Diplomat in his car.

The Senior police officer concerned, J. K. Dutt, Joint Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) (who would subsequently conduct a probe into the arms drops case) arranged for the transport by train of Kim Davy, from Delhi to a train station not far from the border with Nepa.

From there he was taken, by car to a bus depot on the Nepali side from where he escaped back to Denmark. Dutt denied, in court having received a 30 page debriefing report from Bleach.

Pereira, Nair and Mukkophadhyaya were named as additional members of the smuggling team. There was evidence Nair had gone to Latvia to threaten the Latvian crew against giving media interviews.

It was confirmed radar tracking of air movements had been “switched off” at the time of the munitions drop

Six Senior Indian Police officers retracted their Statements.

It was confirmed that Bleach had been working with the British Government, but not employed by it.

He was well cared for in the Indian prison, courtesy of British Deputy High Commissioner, including food sent from star hotels.

In his final statement Bleach surmised the then Congress government under P.V. Narasimha Rao wanted to destabilize the West Bengal Communist Government and that one or couple of politicians and bureaucrats from India and Britain had been involved in the operation.

https://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/purulia-arms-drop-indian-or-international-conspiracy/

 

 

Letter produced in court

 

 

Bleach – Arms dealer or MI5 Agent?

Peter Bleach’s professional life was a useful preparation for the situation he found himself in the thick of in the skies above Varanasi.

He had served in British military intelligence in Belfast during the Troubles, fought for Ian Smith’s white supremacists in Rhodesia and worked as a private eye in Britain before moving into the arms trade.

Now 59 and still sleek and erect despite eight years in Calcutta’s jail, where he contracted TB and at one point nearly starved, he seems a throwback to an earlier sort of Englishman: James Bond, Raffles, John Le Carré’s Honourable Schoolboy. Kipling would have known the type.

He worked as a private eye for years, but when spying went sour on him after one sleazy divorce case too many, he drifted into the arms trade.

He specialised in small-scale orders – a couple of Polish helicopters or 50,000 yards of camouflage material – for governments in the developing world.

So when a German business acquaintance rang him one day and told him about a Danish contact who was looking for a supply of AK-47s, it promised to be nothing out of the ordinary.

Bleach flew to Copenhagen to meet him – “You do want to get an eyeball of the people you are doing business with” – and present his quote for the guns.

But he was in for a surprise. Kalashnikovs are used by state armies all over the developing world, and the quote he had prepared covered their delivery to a bonded warehouse in Calcutta.

But his customer, who introduced himself as Kim Davy, said he wanted the delivery made not to Calcutta, but to a remote spot near the western border of West Bengal called Purulia. He produced a map of India and put his finger on it.

For Bleach, there could be only one explanation: the arms were required not by a government but by a terrorist group. “I was a bit taken aback,” he says. He pointed out that it was illegal, and would therefore cost a lot more. “So he said, ‘Can you give us a fresh quote?’ and I said, ‘It’ll take a lot of doing, I’ll need some time to do it.’

They shook hands on that, Bleach returned to the UK. He telephoned the Ministry of Defence as soon as he touched down. And that,” he adds with a bitter laugh, “is where it all went wrong.”

Informing the authorities of what you are up to is second nature for a British arms dealer, Bleach explains. “In those days there was an organisation called the Defence Export Services Organisation (Deso), which had offices in London’s Soho Square, a division of the Ministry of Defence.”

In a business as sensitive as arms dealing, Deso’s supervision “was a good system: you fed everything back to them, they weren’t bothered about what you were doing so long as it wasn’t exactly illegal, and they got a very good picture of who was buying what and what was going on around the world.

 

Hoch & Bleach the early years

 

 

 

So my only objective was to go back to the UK and telephone Deso and ask them what they wanted me to do – simple as that. Guess what? The British Government does occasionally support terrorist groups and things like that.

“I gave them all the information and they said carry on, don’t let on that you’ve told us anything. Play them along until we tell you otherwise.

“They came back to me some time later and said, ‘We’ve had discussions with the Indian government and they want the deal to go ahead, but we don’t want you to sell the guns.” That was because letters of credit would be traceable to Bleach, “and then they would have to let on that it was me who had told them about the deal, and that would compromise my situation.”

Instead, it was arranged that Bleach would find Davy a different source for the guns, while he himself would arrange to buy the aircraft to deliver them.

“Special Branch told me that the only way for the group behind the arms drop to be identified was for the guns to be delivered, and then [the Indian authorities would] arrest everybody when the delivery happened.”

Thus Bleach found himself caught up in an international sting operation, with four tons of weapons as the bait. “As I was going down the spider’s leg to get on the plane at Gatwick, right at the door of the aircraft there was a guy in a suit who said, ‘How long will you be away, Mr Bleach?’ I said, ‘Not very long at all.’ ‘Have a good flight,’ he said.”

It was December 1995 and Bleach expected to be back within days – in time for a North Yorks Christmas. His plan was to obtain an airworthiness certificate for the decrepit Russian plane sitting on the airfield at Burgas, Bulgaria, stuffed with 77 cases of weapons labelled “Technical Equipment”, bid his customer a fond goodbye then come home. But Davy refused to let him go.

He said, “You know too much, I want you to come with me. I don’t want you out of my sight until this is done and dusted. You won’t be out of pocket, I’ll give you first-class accommodation, you can fly back by whatever route you like, it will be worth your while, but I don’t want you to leave.”

Again, Bleach felt cornered. But he was confident that the British authorities would be keeping a protective eye on him. “I knew that the Brits knew exactly where I was, they were tracking my route, and if I didn’t use my return ticket in a day or so they would be aware of the fact – so I assumed that everything was all right.”

After nearly crashing at Isfahan in Iran, they landed at Karachi in Pakistan. The plane was on the Tarmac for days, but nobody at the airport showed any interest in its contents.

To Bleach’s dismay, an Indian friend of Davy showed up with a consignment of cargo parachutes – Bleach had been comforting himself with the thought that the lack of parachutes would prevent the drop from going ahead. The next stop was to be the holy Hindu city of Varanasi.

“We took off from Karachi,” Bleach recalls, “and the crew had no idea that they were carrying arms and ammunition, none whatsoever. But you’ve got to tell them some time!

As soon as we were clear of Karachi airspace, Davy and his Indian friend started breaking open the boxes so they could load the guns on to pallets, revealing rack after rack of gleaming, brand-new, high quality Bulgarian AK47s.

“One of the Latvians was making tea at the time in the little kitchenette – his eyes just got wider and wider and his jaw dropped and he turned round and went to talk to the pilot.

The pilot came to look, then Davy went forward to the cockpit. I’ve no idea what passed between them but somehow, with a combination of threats and extra money, he succeeded in pacifying them.”

They landed at Varanasi to refuel and feverishly continued to break open boxes and attach the contents to pallets.

Bleach joined in, though expecting at any moment that Indian special forces would storm the plane and arrest them all.

To defend himself in case of a firefight, he quietly pocketed one of the Makarov pistols. Then the plane took off, and Bleach waited for it to be blasted out of the sky.

 

Kim Davy

 

 

 

Profile of Kim Davy (Holck) – the Arms Dealer

Crammed into the Antonov’s rugged interior with Bleach was the 24-year-old Dane he knew as Kim Davy. Like Bleach, he seems to have stepped from the pages of a novel.

Davy, whose real name is Niels Holck, was short and skinny. His bony face, high cheekbones and Marty Feldman eyes gave him an anxious, intellectual look, enhanced by oversize spectacles.

His voice was mild and educated, and what had brought him to this spot high above the Ganges flood plain was, (if his unimpeachable Scandinavian motives were to be believed,) : the urge to help some of the poorest people in the Indian subcontinent to help themselves.

Ananda Nagar, the utopian community far below them in West Bengal, “an ideal community” as it describes itself, “completely self-sufficient and progressing harmoniously in all spheres of life”, was in deep trouble: it had been under murderous assault by thugs loyal to the communist government of West Bengal, which resented the community’s independence.

And that, according to Holck, is why he had decided to help them, by giving them the means to defend themselves.

The flight had been financed by a lucrative gold-smuggling business he had been conducting from China.

It was not a matter of showering the commune with a few pea-shooters. The consignment consisted of 77 cases of Kalashnikov rifles, Makarov pistols, sniper rifles, anti-tank grenades, RPG rocket-launchers, anti-personnel mines, night-vision binoculars and 25,000 rounds of rifle ammunition: enough kit to start a small war, far more than a supposedly religious group would require for self-defence.

The drop might never have come to public attention if it had landed on the intended spot. But the pallet-loading took so long that the plane finally left Varanasi long after dark, when the landmarks, three hills close together, were no longer visible.

And the pilot misunderstood his instructions, unleashing his load not at 300ft but 300 metres, with the result that the parachutes came swirling down in the middle of a village, to the consternation of the inhabitants.

The plane went on to land in the Thai resort of Phuket. It was only when he turned on the television in his hotel room the next morning that Bleach discovered that their consignment had landed miles off target.

It was the lead story on BBC World News. “These villagers in India had found the area around their village carpeted with AK-47s,” he remembers.

Bleach found himself up to his neck in a major terrorist incident gone wildly awry. “I sat in my Phuket hotel room, thinking, ‘What the hell do I do now?'”

Holck proposed sending Bleach and the crew back home directly from Phuket without touching India. But Bleach, who clung to the idea that he was still under the protection of the British authorities, insisted that they complete their flight plan by returning to Europe in their Antonov via India.

But Bleach was, in fact, under the protection of nobody, and all but the Dane were arrested at Bombay airport.

Davy was the lucky man in the Purulia saga, having skipped out of Bombay and back to Europe before he could be identified.

But today, the boot is on the other foot. “I may have had an unpleasant few years,” says Bleach, “but these days I can go anywhere I want in the world, with the possible exception of India. But Niels Holck dare not leave Denmark.”

 

 

 

 

Kim Davy (Holck) – The Early years

Holck first became famous in Denmark after committing a series of bank robberies – one of them in the bank where his mother worked – when barely out of his teens.

After escaping from a courtroom without his shoes he became known as the “barefoot robber”.

Interviewed by Skype, from Copenhagen he painted a glowing picture of himself as a humanitarian who was fired by anger at state brutality inflicted on some of the poorest people in India.

He said: “In the early 1990s I was involved in a comprehensive development project in Purulia run by Ananda Marga.”

Ananda Marga, “Path of Bliss”, the group behind the Ananda Nagar community, was founded in Bihar in 1955 by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, an Indian Railways accountant and teacher of Tantric yoga.

It describes itself as an organisation of sannyasin – monks and nuns – who dedicate their lives to meditation and social service. Like other modern Indian spiritual schools, it has spread across the world, with communities from Utah to Copenhagen.

What marks it out from the rest is its readiness to fight back against state power.

Holck spent 13 years working as a volunteer with different eco-sustainable projects around the world.

He said: “I was inspired by Ananda Marga’s work among some of the poorest of the poor in India, where they were building a community with sustainable energy resources, promoting cottage industries with the help of micro-loans and so on. It was a big inspiration for me.”

But a bitter feud was under way between the Ananda Nagar community and the communist state government of West Bengal, which sent its thugs to level the hospital, attack the monks and nuns, and destroy the community’s agricultural projects.

Holck said: “in 1990 to 1991, I made contact with an ex-US marine and we created a 30-man squad of guards, patrolling this huge area which contained 40 villages. We trained them in unarmed combat.

Then in 1991, four guards and an agricultural specialist they were escorting back from the fields to a village were murdered by the West Bengal police.

The attacks continued until an Indian politician requested me to bring in enough weapons to arm the guards and the tribal people in the area.

When I raised the question of safety, he said, ‘Don’t worry about the Indian side of things.’ It was thanks to him that our plane was not inspected at Varanasi, and that the radar was turned off on the night of the arms drop.”

A humanitarian activist Holck makes claim to be, but is a highly unconventional one.

While apparently a sincere and committed member of the peaceful Ananda Marga. he admitted he financed his voluntary work by buying gold in China and arranging for it to be smuggled into India, where it could be sold for a much higher price.

He was also involved in smuggling gold, gems and Rolex watches out of South Africa, and gold-smuggling and even gold-mining in southern Sudan. There is so much that is unknown about Holck.

The Ananda Marga community has consistently denied any involvement in the plot, and few people familiar with the case believe Holck’s claim that it was the intended destination.

So who were the arms really meant for? Some claim that they were intended for Bangladeshi insurgents to attack the Bangladesh army. Another possibility is that they were meant for Maoist militants, to enable them to destabilise West Bengal’s communist government in the run-up to the general election of 1996.

Whatever the true destination, Holck is not the central figure in the story, despite his exotic CV.

“His was not the main conspiracy in this affair,” says Bleach. “Like me, he was a pawn.

A lot of people close to the summit of Indian government and intelligence would have to have signed off on the arms-drop plan for it to go ahead.” This may explain why India was in no hurry to extradite Holck before – and also why, according to both Holck and Bleach, the enigmatic Dane will be in grave peril if the extradition goes through.

“Personally, I don’t want Holck anywhere near India and that kind of risk. In an ideal world, I want him standing before a Danish judge, telling his entire story on oath.”

Bleach, who on his return to England got a job helping look after a castle in his native Yorkshire, knows what it feels like to be a pawn – then to be discarded and disowned. “The Special Branch knew everything about the drop at least three months beforehand,” he says, with a trace of bitterness. “They knew its flight plan, they knew it had to land at Varanasi. But when I got to court, suddenly nobody had even heard of me.

They started off telling the court I was a suspect in one of their investigations. They tried very hard to pretend I hadn’t told them all about this in advance. It took me two days of cross-examination to break the guy. He finally admitted that he was sent out by MI5…

“The crew and I were shocked when we discovered that we were to be charged with an offence that carried the death penalty. We didn’t know that at the time. It’s one thing to say, ‘You’re on your own mate.’ But they lied – and the only reason to lie was to try to get me hanged. And I thought that was carrying things a little bit far.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/up-in-arms-the-bizarre-case-of-the-british-gun-runner-the-indian-rebels-and-the-missing-dane-2230475.html

 

 

 

 

2,500 assault rifles & 1.5 million bullets supplied

 

 

 

17 December 1995: Illegal Arms Supply to India

The Purilia Arms Drop was an illegal transfer of arms to an unknown group in West Bengal, India. Central characters in the deal included Peter Haestrup.

He surfaced again in 2013 when, together with Tory, Richard Cook and the late, 83yo, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz, former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, he co-founded another company called Five Star Investment Management Ltd.

The company was registered at Cook’s Glasgow address. The firm filed no accounts with Companies House, and was dissolved in December 2014.

This explanation of events is complicated by many intrigues but the article need to be read in its entirety to be sure of a clear understanding of recent actions and activities of Richard Cook, former vice chairman of the Conservative Party in Scotland.

I intend to add to the content routinely with the purpose of easing the burden of assimilation of information

 

Loadsa weapons supplied

 

 

21 May 2007: The Purilia Arms Drop – A Story of intrigue and Secret Service Bargaining With Lives

There was a slim chance the mystery behind the Purulia arms drop case would be resolved, but this required one of the accused, Kim Davy, the Danish pilot, to be extradited to India.

Davy was the key conspirator in the crime but managed to escape from Mumbai’s high security area and had been on the run ever since.

He was finally tracked down by Interpol in 2002 in Copenhagen.

The progress of the case since 17 December 1995, when a cache of arms was air dropped over Purulia in West Bengal, is now becoming a distant memory for most but behind Davy’s possible extradition is a tangled web of diplomatic intrigue, questionable bargaining and an investigation that has covered more than 12 years and a dozen countries, including the UK, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Italy.

His co-conspirator, Peter Bleach, spent years in a Kolkata jail in India, before being released under pressure from the British Government.

The Purulia arms drop conspiracy had its origins in Copenhagen in August 1995 when Davy met with British arms dealer Bleach and two other dealers, both Danish nationals, Peter Haestrup and Brian Thune, to discuss the mission, dropping a cache of arms and ammunition in West Bengal breaching the air defence and security of India.

The consignment was reportedly intended to arm the Anandmargi sect which had a strong presence in the Purulia district.

Ten days later the group, basically mercenaries for hire, flew to Bangkok. Bleach had acquired an AN-26 aircraft bought in Latvia for $250,000 while Davy had sourced the weapons from Bulgaria on forged papers that showed it was intended for the Bangladesh Army.

They included AK-47s and rocket launchers which were loaded on to the aircraft in Bulgaria. The plane then left with the arms cache, making a mysterious stopover in Karachi on 13 December 1995.

It then flew over Indian air space and dropped the cache in Purulia in West Bengal, and flew on to Phuket in Thailand instead of Yangon as had been scheduled earlier.

On the way back from Phuket to Karachi, the aircraft landed at Chennai on December 21 1995, for refuelling. As it took off, Indian Air Force jets intercepted the aircraft and forced it to land at Mumbai airport.

There, another drama unfolded. While the others were arrested, Davy managed to escape and flee the country.

The Latvians, who were the crew members of the aircraft, were let off following pressure from Moscow on the eve of a visit by the Russian President Vladimir Putin in July 2000.

Bleach was also released after intervention by the British Government in January 2004.

 

 

 

Deportation From Denmark to India

The successful deportation of Davy might have revealed who financed the operation and the supposed recipients of the arms together with Pakistan’s involvement, as Karachi was a key hub on the flight route.

But there was a problem: The Repatriation of Prisoners Act 2003 did not permit transfer of custody of a prisoner if the act for which he was to be convicted of is prejudicial to the sovereignty and security of India. The others had been charged with waging war against the state. Davy was not extradited.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/davys-arms-drop-case/1/155854.html

 

 

 

 

But What the Hell Actually Happened?

On 17 December 1995, unauthorised arms were dropped from an Antonov An-26 aircraft in the Purulia district in West Bengal.

The arms dropped included a very large consignment comprising 2,500 assault rifles and 1.5 million rounds of ammunition were scattered over four villages in the district.

The aircraft reappeared in Indian airspace within a few days and was forced to land. Its crew, comprising five Latvian citizens and a British mercenary, Peter Bleach, were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

But the chief accused, a Danish citizen named Niels Hock (aka Kim Davy) escaped arrest and was able to ship himself out of India.

An investigation into the incident pointed the finger of fate towards ‘Anand Marga’ a spiritual organisation operating in India since 1955, as the intended target of the weapons.

This claim was validated later by the court, citing the Pilot’s testimony and photos of Anand Marga headquarters found in the aircraft as credible evidences.

Ananda Marga, had been, since the 1980s, in a continuous confrontation with the ruling authorities and its cadres in West Bengal.

The organisation had also been facing staunch opposition from the locals and were labelled as ‘child kidnappers’ with numerous instances of violent confrontation between the two groups.

The investigation reports claimed that the arms were dropped so that the the organisation would be able to defend themselves against continuous threats and attacks. Kim Davy, himself a member of the Ananda Marga brokered the ‘transaction’.

All the arrested crew members were released by the government after persistent pressure from Russia and Britain. The Latvian crew were released in 2000 while Bleach found his way out in 2004.

Davy was arrested by Danish authorities in 2007. On April 9, 2010 he was due to be extradited to India but the Danish court refused the extradition request.

Kim Davy later came up with a stunning revelation that both the Central Government (under the Congress) and RAW (India’s spy agency) had prior knowledge about the arms drop and the weapons were dropped to help the Anti-Left forces in Bengal and thereby creating a pretext to impose President’s rule in West Bengal.

He also revealed that prominent politicians from Bihar, Pappu Yadav, had masterminded his escape from India.

Later Peter Bleach aligned with the ‘Davy story line’. But the CBI ruled out any conspiracy involving the Central government in the arms drop and considers these revelations by the accused as attempts to block their extradition which has continuously been rejected by the Danish high court.

 

 

 

 

Oct 15, 2015 Villager’s comments:

Those were the winter days, in an area inhabited by Santhal tribe in Purulia an old man had died. His remains were being cremated,

but the funeral pyre was mistaken for a beacon for dumping arms. As it was twilight, the pilots too didn’t notice the difference.

Seeing a huge haul being dropped from sky, the terrified innocent villagers notified the local administration and soon everyone came to know about it.

If it weren’t for them, these arms would have reached their intended buyer. Locals still laugh about it.

Yes, It is true. The arms were dropped near Khotonga village in Jhalda Block on 17 December 1995 from an Antonov An-26 aircraft in Purulia district in the state of West Bengal in India.

By chance, that day someone died. The body was being burned and the arms were dropped on the village by mistake. Next day the villagers informed the police. (quora.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 May 2010: Richard Cook The Man Behind the Rebirth of the Conservative Party in Scotland

The former Deputy Chairman of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party said “I believe deeply in our party, its membership and in the need for a centre right party to represent the hundreds of thousands of Scots who believe in the same things we do.

Putting it bluntly, our General Election results were not good.

In all but a few seats the people of Scotland turned out to stop the Tories and not to support us despite the worst economic disaster in British peace time history.

It is time the Party strengthened the Scottish (CFS) Conservative Future.

Conservative Future Scotland did a fantastic job of mobilising its members to help in constituencies across Scotland at the 2010 General Election.

Now we need to do everything we can to support and grow this organisation.

They move faster, get through more and have a different view on life than our more mature members, and while they bring with them certain challenges they are an essential part of a vibrant political party.

In East Renfrewshire I was blessed to have the support of a large and very dedicated bunch of young people, largely students, who dedicated Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings – right through the bitter cold of last winter – to the canvass activity that helped grow our vote.

Richard Anderson, Ross McFarlane and Colin Taylor, to name just three, did everything they could to coordinate a group of 20+ young activists from Conservative Future branches at Glasgow University, Strathclyde University, Caledonian University and beyond – and what a job they did.

Not that their activities were restricted to canvassing.

There were the numerous thousands of leaflets they dropped through doors and the myriad of new ideas they brought forward to the benefit of our campaign.

These guys are from a generation of people who are among the first to have grown up with Labour as the political establishment.

They look at the state of our economy and blame lack of job opportunities on our opposition, not the Tories.

For them the word “Tory” does not throw up bad memories of Conservative government and in seeking to end perceptions of a toxic brand we should be asking CFS members to be active participants in brand modernisation.

How do we help them? First of all we need to ask them what they need in order to be able to continue to grow and prosper.

We are talking about a generation of people who have grown up in an online world and for whom modern campaign techniques are second nature.

As a result they have a very different outlook on life and will want to take us in exciting new directions – both in our structure and our campaign activities.

Then we need to help them deliver exciting organisations on the ground.

This is particularly the case on University campuses where political celebrity is often used to attract new members.

People like Boris Johnson are extremely popular (hence the range of Boris material produced for CF use at Freshers’ Fairs) and with a young and dynamic new Prime Minister we need to use the positive images we have to there best advantage.

So, we need to help CFs branches organise good local events, with a good profile of speaker, and to support these events in person, where appropriate.

Finally we must recognise than in return for their support of campaigns in our constituencies we need to support them.

I hope to organise a CFS summer get together (come conference) in Glasgow to thank them for their support of my campaign in East Renfrewshire.

More importantly, I hope this will show Conservative Future Scotland we value their involvement and want to hear from them what direction they believe our Party should now take.

http://revivingourparty.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Richard Cook and Cameron

 

 

19 May 2017: Senior Scottish Conservative Richard Cook At the Centre of a £425,000 (DUP) Major Brexit funding scandal.

A modest, semi-detached house in Clarkston on Glasgow’s southside seems an unlikely source for a secretive, £425,000 donation to the Democratic Unionist Party’s Brexit campaign.

But the occupant – Richard Cook – is the only person publicly connected with the Constitutional Research Council, a shadowy pro-union group that funnelled dark money to the DUP ahead of June’s EU referendum.

And Richard Cook is not just connected to Northern Irish unionism – he has links that go to the heart of the Scottish Conservative Party, the Saudi intelligence service and a notorious Indian gun running scandal.

Mr Cook is also a former vice chairman of the Scottish Conservative party and Tory election candidate (for which he was fast-tracked through the selection, according to reports on ConservativeHome).

He has campaigned with Ruth Davidson and David Cameron, and his Facebook friends list is a roll-call of prominent Scottish Tories.

Scottish politicians are now calling for the Scottish Tory leader to clarify her relationship with Cook, who in the 2010 general election lost out to Labour’s Jim Murphy in East Renfrewshire.

Key activists in his team were subsequently found burning the EU flag and posting Northern Irish loyalist song lyrics on Twitter.

Cook is also at the centre of a political scandal raging in Northern Ireland.

Back in February, an openDemocracy investigation found that donors had taken advantage of Northern Ireland’s secretive electoral laws to funnel hundreds of thousands of pounds to the DUP’s pro-Brexit campaign.

Under pressure, the DUP revealed that the party had received £425,622 from a group called ‘the Constitutional Research Council’.

Over £32,000 of this money was spent on data analytics company AggregateIQ, a small Canadian outfit that has been linked to Donald Trump’s billionaire backer Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica, who are now at the heart of an investigation by the Information Commission.

We know almost nothing about the Constitutional Research Council.

The outfit has no formal legal status.

What we can say for sure is that it is chaired by Cook, and he has promised to fund the pro-union campaign in any future Scottish independence referendum. “More people with more money are ready to step up to the plate this time compared with the last referendum” Cook told the Sunday Times earlier this year.

He didn’t reveal who those people are.

The DUP has also refused to say who the backers behind the CRC are, and there is little to suggest that Cook himself is a major donor.

Former Conservative colleagues describe Cook as “a nice guy but not a rich guy”. Cook – who could not be contacted for this piece – appears to retain an interest in Scottish politics.

He is listed as an advisor on Think Scotland, a conservative-minded website funded by Scottish unionist businessman Robert Kilgour.

Think Scotland is owned by former Tory MSP Brian Monteith. Monteith was head of press during the referendum for Leave.EU, the campaign group run by Arron Banks and Nigel Farage.

Cook’s interests are not confined to politics.

Since general election defeat in 2010, he has been involved in a number of international business deals.

In 2012, his company Cook Consulting (UK) Ltd held a press conference in Glasgow announcing its involvement in a £640m water desalination project in Pakistan.

The firm failed to submit accounts in 2014 and was dissolved by Companies House via compulsory strike-off in 2015.

In 2013, Cook founded another company called Five Star Investment Management Ltd with the former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz.

The prince’s son is the Saudi ambassador to the UK.

The other director of the company was Peter Haestrup, a Danish national who has been connected to the Purulia arms drop case, a long-running multinational scandal that involved weapons being dropped over the Indian province of West Bengal in 1995.

Five Star Investment Management Ltd was registered at Mr Cook’s Glasgow address.

The firm filed no accounts with Companies House, and was dissolved in December 2014.

Cook also has connections with right-wing pressure groups in the UK.

He was Scottish spokesperson for Conservative Friends of Israel and for the Campaign Against Political Correctness, a campaign allied to the Freedom Association, a right-wing Eurosceptic pressure group that supported apartheid in South Africa.

Back in 2009, Richard Cook spoke alongside current Tory MSP Murdo Fraser at a Freedom Association fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Perth to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory.

Freedom Association Chief Executive Simon Richards later praised Cook as “one of the hardest working PPC’s (Parliamentary Prospective Candidates) anywhere in the country”.

The Freedom Association has historical links with Northern Ireland.

Among its original founders was Ross McWhirter, a controversial journalist who campaigned for strict restrictions on Irish people in Britain, including making it compulsory for all Irish people in Britain to register with the local police and to provide signed photographs of themselves when renting flats or booking into hotels and hostel.

McWhirter was shot dead by the Provisional IRA in Enfield in 1975.

The Freedom Association boasts of “friendly links” with the Democratic Unionist Party.

In 2007 and 2008, leading DUP politicians Jeffrey Donaldson and Sammy Wilson were involved in Freedom Association “fact finding” events in Northern Ireland.

At the time, the Freedom Association said it had “taken a close interest in Ulster matters from its earliest days and is keen to strengthen its ties with the province and to demonstrate its support for the Union.”

Donaldson was the chair of the DUP’s Brexit campaign – his name appeared on the election material that the CRC’s £425,000 donation paid for – and Wilson was a prominent pro-Brexit DUP voice throughout the campaign, regularly appearing in the media.

After his defeat in the 2010 general election, Richard Cook wrote: “I believe deeply in our party, its membership and in the need for a centre right party to represent the hundreds of thousands of Scots who believe in the same things we do.”

Among the activists he singled out for praise during the campaign were Ross McFarlane and Colin Taylor.

McFarlane was subsequently sacked as a Holyrood assistant by Ruth Davidson in 2011 after footage emerged showing him setting fire to the EU standard while dressed in the robes of Glasgow University amid anti-Catholic taunts.

McFarlane had been Davidson’s election agent.

Around the same time, it was discovered that Belfast born Colin Taylor had posted song lyrics on Twitter glorifying Northern Irish loyalist terrorist group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, while serving as president of the student Conservative Association from 2009 to 2010.

The social media posts were picked up when Taylor was working for the Tory Press and Research Unit at Holyrood.

An SNP spokesperson said: “These are deeply concerning allegations The fact that we still do not know the source of such a significant amount of cash used to help bankroll the Brexit campaign is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to continue.

Just as concerning are the apparent links to the highest levels of the Scottish Tory party.

Ruth Davidson must clarify what links she has with Mr Cook, and whether her party has helped itself to money from the same murky sources.”

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/peter-geoghegan-adam-ramsay/meet-scottish-tory-behind-425000-dup-brexit-donation

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/16/scottish-tories-a-party-of-political-eunuchs-managed-

by-mundell-and-davidson-left-in-place-by-cameron-to-watch-over-rebellious-scots-part-2/

 

 

 

 

 

 

2010: Conservative Future in Scotland

The Tory Party youth wing in Scotland is comprised of all party members aged 30 and younger.

Members are both professional and students alike and participate in the life of the Party in many ways.

They enjoy an active membership life participating in the campaigns of their local MSPs, MP or Councillors at all levels of the Party structure and often meet to socialise and debate together.

Many are office holders at constituency level and some are elected members of Local Councils.

In Scotland the Tory Party membership (many aged between 50-80) at 2011 numbered around 8000.

This created problems since it was not possible to conduct any meaningful electorate canvassing without troops on the ground.

Ruth Davidson’s strategy resolved her problem when she turned away from the “Tory Old Guard” instead preferring to raise the profile of her personally selected “Conservative Future Footsoldiers” so that they would cement and implement her doctrine in all areas of the Party in Scotland.

But there was a price to pay for creating this two tier Party and the behaviour of a number of young Tory thugs associated with an increasing number of unsavoury incidents gives warning to the electorate not to provide unfettered support to a political group closely modelled on the ideals of a National Socialist Party.

 

DUP leader at No10 Downing Street for talks

 

12 September 2011: Ruth Davidson’s Conservative Future President & Colleagues in Drunken Anti-Catholic Rant

Footage has emerged of Ross McFarlane, who was also the MSP’s election agent, setting fire to the EU standard while he was wearing Glasgow University robes.

Davidson fired him after being told of the incident, which happened after a St Andrew’s Day dinner last year.

Video footage shows McFarlane and some friends in Hyndland, in Glasgow’s West End, at 2am after the dinner, which was attended by Ms Davidson and a guest speaker, right-wing Tory MEP Roger Helmer.

The footage shows three people, including McFarlane and another individual draped in a Union Flag, trying to burn the EU flag on the pavement.

Struggling to set the cloth on fire, McFarlane says “F**k sake”, before adding: “Get a lighter.” An off-camera voice is heard to say: “Douse it.”

At this point it becomes clear the group is planning to burn the flag using alcohol and a lighter.

McFarlane is then seen to pour liquid on to the flag, prompting an associate to say: “What a waste of vodka, by the way.”

A frustrated McFarlane exclaims: “Somebody get a lighter.”

The failure to destroy the flag then becomes a source of merriment for a member of the group off-camera.

He can be heard saying: “There’s more chance of f*****g seeing the Pope confess to paedophilia.”

The group laughs. The same person then says: “There’s more chance of Hugh Dallas telling us he’s a f*****g tarrier.” – a derogatory term for an Irish Catholic.

The jibe prompts more laughter. McFarlane finally sets the flag alight.

The group expresses its approval before one of them starts to sing God Save The Queen.

The fire peters out and McFarlane says: “S**t disnae burn, lads.”

 

Davidson and her Conservative Future Team at Glasgow University

 

 

Ruth Davidson’s Press and Research Unit Assistant and Conservative Future Member in Anti-Catholic Rant

Also in her first week as national leader of the party, it emerged that Belfast born Colin Taylor, a Glasgow University graduate and former President of Conservative Future Scotland (CFS) and now employed at the public’s expense at Holyrood in the Tory press and research unit, tweeted lyrics from the song “Here Lies a Soldier”, which sings the praises of the Ulster Volunteer Force, an anti-Catholic Northern Irish terrorist group.

In his tweets Taylor casually refers to “tims” another offensive name for Catholics. The account has since disappeared.

As embarrassing as such behaviour may have been for Davidson, it was her response to Taylor’s tweets that has earned her the most criticism.

Taylor was allowed to keep his position, his punishment for his behaviour being no more than a “formal warning.”

Labour MSPs have called this “insufficient” and demanded more “disciplinary proceedings.”

Peter Kearney, of the Catholic Media Office, said: “The Catholic Church in Scotland condemns in the strongest possible terms any sectarian behaviour or criminality, from any quarter whatsoever, as having no place in a civilised society.”

The sectarian incidents occurred at a time when the ruling SNP was steering its anti-sectarianism bill, which would see much tougher punishments dealt to those who make sectarian comments at football grounds and, like Mr Taylor, through social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Scottish Tory objection to the bill led to the late Roman Catholic criminal QC Paul McBride quitting the party, just one week before Taylor’s tweets became public knowledge.

http://scottishpol.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/talking-bout-ruths-generation.html

 

Stewart Green

 

 

 

25th September 2011: More Trouble For Ruth Davidson As Former Secretary of Conservative Future Scotland Posts Racist Comments Online

Stewart Green, Glasgow University Graduate and former secretary of Conservative Future Scotland and a key figure behind the “Tory Hoose” blog, claimed it was not possible to be racist against “blacks” and said it did not matter how many black people went to university.

Green was one of the Tory members embroiled in a flag-burning row that resulted in party leadership hopeful Ruth Davidson firing one of her aides.

Toryhoose.com was formed by senior party supporters in 2011  as a Scottish version of the acclaimed Conservative Home website.

The blog describes itself as a forum for “fresh thinking” in the Tories and is edited by activists.

Contributors have given extensive coverage to the Scottish leadership contest and organised an opinion poll of members’ views last week.

However, Green has posted his controversial views on race elsewhere online. Green, the site’s webmaster and “leadership editor”, said in a post on university admissions on microblogging site Twitter: “Why’s it ‘racist to conclude no blacks good enough’? Wasn’t aware black was a race.”

On the same day, he tweeted: “Shock: Oxbridge has only few black students. However, They have zero single armed, black, lesbian mothers. How outrageous.”

He later said: “As far as I can see, racism is discrimination against a particular race.

So you can be racist against Jews, but not against black people.”

Green also tweeted: “An Asian festival is taking place a few doors up, either that or several cats are being strangled. Can’t quite decide which.”

On UK Government policy towards Pakistan, he said the Asian country’s “first mistake” was “ending imperial rule”.

Green was one of those present when another young Conservative, Ross McFarlane, set fire to a European Union flag on a Glasgow street last year.

McFarlane was sacked as Davidson’s parliamentary assistant after footage of him burning the flag emerged.

It clearly shows Green and another individual holding the cloth as McFarlane tried to set it alight.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13037019.More_trouble_for_Tories_as_website____master____posts_racist_comments_after_EU_flag_burning_shame/

 

Conservative Future St Andrews University

 

 

 

20 September 2016: St Andrews University Investigation Confirms Conservative Future Society Election Fraud

An investigation conducted by the Students Association has found that allegations of “election fraud” and other allegations of abuse of authority, against the St Andrews Conservative and Unionist Society Chairman and committee were in fact true.

There were a number of serious allegations including an anti-Roman Catholic sentiment within the Society.

Stephan Maier, (member) said that at times there was a “general sentiment” of anti-Roman Catholic feeling in the Society stating that, anti-Roman Catholic remarks were made.

He said: “I’m not someone who feels very uncomfortably easily myself, but I believe others would.

People would easily be put off by that immediately, I completely agree with that.

Certain people would feel their presence was unwanted, and their opinion carried little or no value because they were Roman Catholic.

It put off people from joining or attending.”

A spokesman for the membership said: “It is some relief to be vindicated by the Union, and that our claims that the election had been unpleasant and corrupted have been confirmed.”

http://www.thesaint-online.com/2016/09/association-investigation-confirms-conservative-society-electoral-fraud/

Richard Cook and his supporting team East Renfrewshire

 

 

 

4 May 2017: Callum Purves, former Conservative Future Society President found Guilty of Election Foul Play at University is Newly Elected Kinross Councillor.

Callum Purves (Society President) and Ian Donnell, (Ulsterman: believer in Faith, Flag and Family and Society Chairman) were investigated and found guilty of serious electoral foul play.

The odious behaviour of senior officers of the Society, many since promoted to senior positions within the Scottish Conservative Party is symptomatic of a failure on the part of Ruth Davidson and her colleagues to provide leadership and guidance to younger members of her Party.

It is conjectured that, had the information contained in this article been made available to the Kinross electorate it is doubtful Purves would have been elected to serve as a councillor.

Might be he will do the right thing and stand down and submit himself for re-election. But “pigs might fly” before that happens.

Full report: http://www.thesaint-online.com/2016/10/whatever-happened-to-the-st-andrews-conservative-and-unionist-society/

 

 

Ian Donnell behind Ruth and members of the St Andrews University Conservative Future Tory Club

 

 

Ian Donnell – Strabane – Northern Ireland

Ian is a descendent of one of four Donnell brothers, all of whom were first members of the Tullywhisker Border Guards before serving with the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR.

One brother, Winston, was the first Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) casualty at the start of Operation Demetrius (internment) in 1971.

Ian excelled academically at school in Strabane and qualified for then gained a degree in Medicine, from St Andrews University.

A brilliant orator he commands an audience when he speaks (as did the late Ian Paisley.

He is well connected politically and socially with the Unionist community of Northern Ireland and easily transferred his loyalty to Ruth Davidson and the Conservative and Unionist party in Scotland at the start of his University studies in 2014.

Within the year he manoeuvred himself into the powerful role of Chairman/President of the Conservative Future Movement.

Membership of which comprises all of the Scottish Conservative Party’s members under the age of 30 or who are currently in higher education.

His leadership brought with it an increased political campus profile of young conservative activists.

St Andrews and Glasgow Universities became hotbeds of political intrigue as different factions battled for supremacy.

Davidson’s side won the day by the end of 2015.

Donnell and Davidson had established total control of the party in Scotland. This is how they did it:

https://caltonjock.com/2017/05/14/newly-elected-kinross-tory-councillor-guilty-of-agm-election-fraud-callum-purves-society-president-and-ian-donnell-ulsterman-believer-in-faith-flag-and-family-and-society-chairman-were-inves/

Davidson’s next move was to nurture long lapsed links between Scotland and Ulster and in this she had a willing and well versed assistant in Donnell.

Around 40% of the population of Northern Ireland are Ulster Scot’s.

Very many retain very strong family links and voting influence with Scotland and value their Scottish heritage.

Ulster Scot’s elect DUP candidates to office.

Next month will provide confirmation of the foregoing.

Monitor the number of Belfast bands marching in Scotland.

Each one is sponsored by the DUP and Unionist “Better Together” Orange Order supporters.

 

 

Donnell, second from left with Liam Fox and members of Conservative future

 

 

 

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) manifesto for the 2017 General Election

The manifesto was published not long before the election and many might have missed reading it.

It was a truly remarkable document in many ways, revealing a hitherto modernist approach to government in Northern Ireland and a number of policies of relevance to Scotland.

There was no mention whatsoever of gay marriage, abortion, Christianity or churches, probably because these aspects of policy are already addressed rendering Ruth Davidson’s pointless

 

 

Donnell “Ulster” Young farmer of the year

 

 

 

Policies that would impact on Scotland, if implemented:

1. The manifesto pledges to “freeze, then cut or abolish the TV licence fee and reform the BBC”, describing the licence fee as a “highly regressive tax”.

2. Proposal for improved [energy] interconnection with Great Britain, pertinent as the current electricity inter-connector has been running at part-capacity for a long time due to problems with the undersea cable.

3. Pursuit of a “Hard Brexit” establishing formal border controls with the Republic.

There are 300+ crossing points so this could be interesting if implemented.

Why a hard Brexit?

A “soft Brexit” would provide an open border between Ulster and the Republic but a closed border between Ulster, Scotland and the rest of the UK. Bit daft.

 

Glasgow University Conservative Future members with Ruth

 

 

 

Informative links

http://www.thesaint-online.com/2016/05/st-andrews-conservative-society-under-fire-over-allegations-of-agm-foul-play/
http://www.thesaint-online.com/2016/10/whatever-happened-to-the-st-andrews-conservative-and-unionist-society/
http://www.thesaint-online.com/2016/09/st-andrews-conservative-society-disafilliates-from-students-association/
https://thestand-online.com/2016/12/29/st-andrews-students-join-national-political-organisation/
https://thestand-online.com/2017/05/08/stauca-members-confront-visiting-lib-dems-market-street/
http://www.thesaint-online.com/2016/09/association-investigation-confirms-conservative-society-electoral-fraud/
http://www.pkc.gov.uk/media/39332/DeclarationOfResults-Report-Ward-8-Kinross-Shire-05052017-140744/pdf/DeclarationOfResults_Report_Ward_8_-_Kinross-Shire_05052017_140744
http://www.thesaint-online.com/2017/05/dominic-nolan-elected-to-fife-council/
https://thetab.com/uk/stand/2015/09/15/a-quick-guide-to-student-politics-at-st-andrews-14332
https://thestand-online.com/2017/03/29/sallies-chapel-fly-union-flag/
https://www.facebook.com/University-of-St-Andrews-Students-for-Britain-984563828247658/?hc_ref=SEARCH
https://www.facebook.com/dergvalley.victimsvoice/posts/1381194718573682:0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2015 General Election

The General Election in Scotland in May 2015 was completed only 6 short months after the 2014 referendum.

The election provided a unique opportunity for Scots to confirm the results of the 2014 referendum and there appeared to be no definitive reason why this should not be the case.

But the result stunned Westminster who even when faced with the reality that the fiddled postal vote in the 2014 referendum had been tumbled by Scots went into denial mode big time.

The final result was:

Total votes cast: 2,911,391

Total votes for SNP: 1,424,424

Equates to: 50.5% in favour of “Yes”

 

 

 

 

 

32 constituencies voted “Yes”

70378: Glasgow East, “mp”:”Natalie McGarry MP”:1970-2.80% 53.49% 24116 56.90%

58875: Glasgow North, “mp”:”Patrick Grady MP”:1582-2.69% ***** 19610 53.10%

66678: Glasgow N E, “,”mp”:”Anne McLaughlin MP”:1300-1.95% ***** 21976 58.00%

68418: Glasgow NW, “mp”:”Carol Monaghan MP”:2126-3.11% ***** 23908 54.50%

70945: Glasgow Cen, “mp”:”Alison Thewliss MP”:1717-2.42% ***** 20658 52.50%

74051: Glasgow S, “mp”:”Stewart McDonald MP”:2175-2.94% ***** 26773 54.90%

66208: Glasgow SW, “mp”:”Chris Stephens MP”:1960-2.96% ***** 23388 57.20%

59350: Inverclyde, “mp”:”Ronnie Cowan MP”:2230-3.76% 49.92% 25585 55.10%

83071: East Kilbride,”mp”:”Dr Lisa Cameron MP”:3157-3.80% ***** 33678 55.60%

82701: Rug & Hamilton W, “mp”:”Marg Ferrier MP”:2918-3.53% ***** 30279 52.60%

66715: Airdrie & Shotts, “mp”:”Neil Gray MP”:2296-3.44% 51.07 23887 53.90%

73813: Coatbridge,”mp”:”Philip Boswell MP”:2158-2.92% ***** 28696 56.60%

70269: Motherwell, “mp”:”Marion Fellows MP”:2169-3.09% ***** 27375 56.50%

67009: Cumbernauld “mp”:”Stuart C. McDonald MP”:2140-3.19% ***** 29572 59.90%

69193: W Dunbarton, “mp”:”M Docherty-Hughes MP”:2060-2.98% 53.96% 30198 59.00%

61281: Paisley & Ren S, “mp”:”Mhairi Black MP”:2031-3.31% ***** 23548 50.90%

69982: C Ayrshire, “mp”:”Dr Philippa Whitford MP”:2728-3.90% ***** 26999 53.20%

75985: N Ayr & Arran, “mp”:”Patricia Gibson MP”:2631-3.46% 48.99% 28641 53.20%

75283: Kilmarnock & Loudoun, “mp”:”Alan Brown MP”:2285-3.04% ***** 30000 55.70%

67745: Aberdeen North, “mp”:”Kirsty Blackman MP”:1829-2.70% ***** 24793 56.40%

66960: Dundee East, “mp”:”Stewart Hosie MP”:2029-3.03% 57.39% 28765 59.70%

66287: Dundee West, “mp”:”Chris Law MP”:1338-2.02% ***** 27684 61.90%

69781: Glenrothes, “mp”:”Peter Grant MP”:1523-2.18% ***** 28459 59.80%

75941: Kkcaldy & Cowden, “mp”:”Roger Mullin MP”:2193-2.89% ***** 27628 52.20%

78037: Dun & West Fife, “mp”:”Douglas Chapman MP”:2890-3.70% ***** 28096 50.30%

82373: Livingston, “mp”:”Hannah Bardell MP”:3065-3.72% 44.84% 32736 56.90%

21744: Na h-Eileanan Iar, “mp”:”Angus MacNeil MP”:674-3.10% 46.58% 8662 54.30%

67875: Midlothian, “mp”:”Owen Thompson MP”:2182-3.22% 43.70% 24453 50.60%

83380: Falkirk, “mp”:”John Mc Nally MP”:2764-3.32% 46.53% 34831 57.70%

66208: Paisley & Renfrew N: Gavin Newlands MP: 3158-4.77% 47.19% 25601 50.70%

72447: Perth & North Perthshire: Pete Wishart MP: 3033-4.19% ***** 27379 50.50%

86955: Linlithgow & E Falkirk, “mp”:”M Day MP” :3570-4.11% 46.53% 32055 52.00%

78037: Dun & West Fife, “mp”:”Douglas Chapman MP”:2890-3.70% ***** 28096 50.30%

82701: Rug & Hamilton W, “mp”:”Marg Ferrier MP”:2918-3.53% ***** 30279 52.60%

65792: Angus, “mp”:”Mike Weir MP”:2355-3.58% 43.68% 24130 54.20%

 

 

 

 

 

 

24 constituencies confirmed the 2014 referendum result. Of these 10 improved the “Yes” vote by 1-5%

77268: Inverness, Nairn, “mp”:”Drew Hendry MP”:3073-3.98% ***** 28838 48.10%

54109: Ross & Skye, “mp”:”Ian Blackford MP”:2038-3.77% ***** 20119 48.10%

47558: Sutherland, “mp”:”Dr Paul Monaghan MP”:1679-3.53% 47.80% 15831 46.30%

34551: Orkney & Shetland, “mp”:”Al Carmichael MP”:1062-3.48% 35.00% 8590 37.80%

68875: Argyll & Bute: Brendan O’Hara MP: 3277-4.75% 41.48% 22959 44.30%

67236: Stirling: Steven Paterson MP: 3175-4.72% 40.23% 23783 45.60%

77379: S Perthshire: Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh MP: 3645-4.71% 39.81% 26620 46.00%

73445: W Aberdeen: Stuart Blair Donaldson MP: 3961-5.40% 39.64% 22949 41.60%

68056: Aberdeen South, “mp”:”Callum McCaig MP”:3618-4.65% ***** 20221 41.60%

71685: Moray, “mp”:”Rt Hon Angus Robertson MP”:2995-4.18% ***** 24384 49.50%

68609: Banff & Buchan: Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP: 2772-4.04% ***** 16283 48.00%

79393: Gordon: Rt Hon Alex Salmond MP: 3711-4.68% ***** 27717 47.70%

66178: Edinburgh E, “mp”:”Tommy Sheppard MP”:1854-2.80% ***** 23188 49.20%

71749: Edinburgh West: Michelle Thomson MP : 4388-6.12% 38.90% 21378 39.00%

65846: Edinburgh South: Ian Murray MP: 3579-5.44% ***** 16656 33.80%

80978: Edinburgh North & Leith: Deidre Brock MP: 4280-5.29% ***** 23742 40.90%

79481: East Lothian:George Kerevan MP: 3676-4.63% 38.28% 25104 42.50%

72178: Edinburgh South West: Joanna Cherry QC: 3283-4.55% ***** 22168 43.00%

62003: North East Fife: Stephen Gethins MP: 2937-4.74% 44.95% 18523 40.90%

78037: Lanark & Hamilton East: Angela Crawley MP: 3272-4.19% 45.33% 26976 48.80%

69982: East Renfrewshire: Kirsten Oswald MP: 4241-6.06% 36.81% 23013 40.60%

66966: East Dunbartonshire: John Nicolson MP: 3977-5.94% 38.80% 22093 40.30%

68483: Dumfriesshire: Rt Hon David Mundell MP:2816-4.11% 34.33% 19961 38.30%

74179: Berwickshire,& Selkirk: Calum Kerr MP: 3026-4.08% ***** 20145 36.60%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2017 General Election

I first posted this forecast 6 weeks before the GE and am following up with this before and after report which makes interesting reading.

The General Election in Scotland will be a re-run of the 2014 referendum and the landslide victory achieved by the SNP in the last GE cannot realistically be achieved.

My analysis suggests the under-noted 37 seats are safe and should be retained by the SNP:

 

 

 

82373: Livingston, “mp”:”Hannah Bardell MP”,”signature_count”:3065-3.72% SNP Hold

59350: Inverclyde, “mp”:”Ronnie Cowan MP”,”signature_count”:2230-3.76% SNP Hold

83071: East Kilbride, Straven, “mp”:”Dr Lisa Cameron MP”,”signature_count”:3157-3.80% SNP Hold

77268: Inverness, Nairn, “mp”:”Drew Hendry MP”,”signature_count”:3073-3.98% SNP Hold

54109: Ross, Skye & Lochaber, “mp”:”Ian Blackford MP”,”signature_count”:2038-3.77% SNP Hold

69982: Central Ayrshire, “mp”:”Dr Philippa Whitford MP”,”signature_count”:2728-3.90% SNP Hold

72985: Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock, “mp”:”Corri Wilson MP”,”signature_count”:2751-3.77% Tory Gain 2044 65.9%

A tricky area, at one time the mining communities in the East of the constituency ensured a strong Labour vote.

But this is no longer the case and the voting direction is centred on Ayr where there is assured Tory support.

The Tory activists were aware of this and conducted a sustained well organised campaign and it bore them results, a transfer of 15% of voters from the SNP.

The low turnout also benefited the Tory Party to the detriment of the SNP

 

 

78037: Dunfermline & West Fife, “mp”:”Douglas Chapman MP”,”signature_count”:2890-3.70% SNP Hold

82701: Rutherglen & Hamilton W, “mp”:”Margaret Ferrier MP”,”signature_count”:2918-3.53% Lab Gain 265 64%

The SNP candidate was caught in a pincer movement orchestrated by Davidson and Dugdale.

This one would normally be a straight fight between the SNP and labour.

But the spoiler Tory took enough votes from the SNP to achieve the removal of the SNP candidate

65792: Angus, “mp”:”Mike Weir MP”,”signature_count”:2355-3.58% Tory Gain 2645 63%

The very low turnout favoured the Tory candidate. Angus voters rejected independence in 2014 56% – 43% and sustained campaigning was required so as to be certain of a positive result.

The Tory candidate was a pocket dynamo from the first day of campaigning.

She was backed by her entire family and a wider team who believed the seat to be winnable.

She is a farmers daughter and well connected to many people in the Farming sector.

The SNP candidate failed to match his opponents efforts and suffered the consequences

 

Kirstine Hair (Centre) and some of her helpers

 

47558: Caithness, Sutherland, “mp”:”Dr Paul Monaghan MP”,”signature_count”:1679-3.53% Lib Gain 2044 65.9%

His high profile negative media presence was very much a factor and most likely the reason for his defeat

34551: Orkney & Shetland, “mp”:”Rt Hon Alistair Carmichael MP”,”signature_count”:1062-3.48% Lib Hold

21744: Na h-Eileanan an Iar, “mp”:”Angus MacNeil MP”,”signature_count”:674-3.10% SNP Hold

67745: Aberdeen North, “mp”:”Kirsty Blackman MP”,”signature_count”:1829-2.70% SNP Hold

66960: Dundee East, “mp”:”Stewart Hosie MP”,”signature_count”:2029-3.03% SNP Hold

66287: Dundee West, “mp”:”Chris Law MP”,”signature_count”:1338-2.02% SNP Hold

69781: Glenrothes, “mp”:”Peter Grant MP”,”signature_count”:1523-2.18% SNP Hold

75941: Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, “mp”:”Roger Mullin MP”,”signature_count”:2193-2.89% Lab Gain 259 63.5%

Labour vote increased by 3.5%. Corbyn’s manifesto helped rally the troops a wee bit.

The Tories canvassed the area hard and persuaded (13% of the voters to move their vote to the party from the SNP.

 

Ross Thomson Aberdeen South Tory

 

 

75249: Dumfries & Galloway, “mp”:”Richard Arkless MP”,”signature_count”:2498-3.32% Tory Gain 5643 69.5%

This was a Tory stronghold from 1931 – 2005.

It slipped away from the Tories in the period 2010 2017.

The trend has been reversed significantly.

The Labour vote shrunk by another 4% over the 21% they had already lost to the SNP in 2025.

9% of SNP votes transferred to the Tory Party who canvassed the area very hard over the weekend before the election and reaped the benefits.

75985: North Ayrshire & Arran, “mp”:”Patricia Gibson MP”,”signature_count”:2631-3.46% SNP Hold

75283: Kilmarnock & Loudoun, “mp”:”Alan Brown MP”,”signature_count”:2285-3.04% SNP Hold

70378: Glasgow East, “mp”:”Natalie McGarry MP”,”signature_count”:1970-2.80% SNP Hold

58875: Glasgow North, “mp”:”Patrick Grady MP”,”signature_count”:1582-2.69% SNP Hold

66678: Glasgow North East, “,”mp”:”Anne McLaughlin MP”,”signature_count”:1300-1.95% Lab Gain 242 53%

Ultra low turnout.

Tory activists canvassed area extensively and increased vote by 8%.

Labour recovered 9% of the vote they lost in 2010 due to the positive impact of the labour manifesto

 

Christine Hair Tory Angus – Poster placed in every field in the constituency – But at what cost?

 

 

68418: Glasgow North West, “mp”:”Carol Monaghan MP”,”signature_count”:2126-3.11% SNP Hold

70945: Glasgow Central, “mp”:”Alison Thewliss MP”,”signature_count”:1717-2.42% SNP Hold

74051: Glasgow South, “mp”:”Stewart Malcolm McDonald MP”,”signature_count”:2175-2.94% SNP Hold

66208: Glasgow South West, “mp”:”Chris Stephens MP”,”signature_count”:1960-2.96% SNP Hold

66715: Airdrie & Shotts, “mp”:”Neil Gray MP”,”signature_count”:2296-3.44% SNP Hold

73813: Coatbridge,& Bellshill, “mp”:”Philip Boswell MP”,”signature_count”:2158-2.92% Lab Gain 1586 63%

Low turnout compared to 2015.

Labour Party fortunes improved by around 9% due to the positive impact of the labour manifesto.

Tory vote improved by 10% due to very active canvassing of the electorate.

Internal difficulties within the SNP local branch disadvantaged the Party.

70269: Motherwell & Wishaw, “mp”:”Marion Fellows MP”,”signature_count”:2169-3.09% SNP Hold

67009: Cumbernauld & Kilsyth “mp”:”Stuart C. McDonald MP”,”signature_count”:2140-3.19% SNP Hold

69193: West Dunbartonshire, “mp”:”Martin Docherty-Hughes MP”,”signature_count”:2060-2.98% SNP Hold

61281: Paisley & Renfrewshire South, “mp”:”Mhairi Black MP”,”signature_count”:2031-3.31% SNP Hold

66178: Edinburgh East, “mp”:”Tommy Sheppard MP”,”signature_count”:1854-2.80% SNP Hold

67875: Midlothian, “mp”:”Owen Thompson MP”,”signature_count”:2182-3.22% Lab Gain 885 66.4%

Labour increased vote by 6% due to the positive impact of the labour manifesto.

Tories canvassed the seat extensively for many weeks before the election and persuaded 13% of SNP voters to switch alliances.

This is a bad loss and could have been avoided if a more intensive local campaign had been conducted

63380: Falkirk, “mp”:”John Mc Nally MP”,”signature_count”:2764-3.32% SNP Hold

 

 

 

Election Summary

The SNP won 35 seats polling 977,569 votes. The SNP vote share was 36.9%. This was down from 2015 when it got 1,454,436 votes, half of all the votes cast. The SNP came second in 24 seats. he loss of 9 safe seats need investigating.

The Conservatives got 13 seats and 757,949 votes. In 2015 they got 434,097 votes and just one seat. Their share of the vote went up from 14.9% of the Scots who voted to 28.6%, almost double. The Scottish Tories were only second in 9 seats.

Labour only added about 10,000 voters in Scotland. In 2015 they got 707,147 votes and this time they polled 717,007. Their share of the vote rose from 24.3% to 27.1% but their seats went up from one to seven. Labour were the runner-up in 25 seats

The Lib Dems dropped 40,000 votes from 219,675 to 179,061 but they also increased their number of seats – from one to four.

The Greens slumped from 39,205 to just 5,886 – but this was mainly because they only stood in three constituencies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2017 General Election

The freak landslide victory achieved by the SNP in the 2015 GE was a one off.

In view of this and the downward adjustment that would surely follow at the next GE I completed a voting analysis of the Scottish electorate and published it around 6 weeks before the election

My analysis indicated 22 seats would most likely be lost to the SNP.

I am aware of many interpretations, both negative and positive being bandied about the internet and in the right wing British press and the BBC and other television media outlets.

All are distinctly unfriendly to the cause of Scottish independence and their uttering should be judged in that context

Supporters of independence for Scotland should be guided by the information that follows:

 

 

 

 

 

The heads of the Tory and LibDem Unionist parties in Scotland agreed an election strategy which included sustained attacks on the credibility of the SNP government, concentrating on the character assassination of persons they perceived to be the guiding lights of the independence movement.

Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond were singled out for the complete treatment package aimed at destroying their credibility in the eyes of voters in Scotland.

In combination with the foregoing they created the “No Indy 2” movement which required every unionist activist to repetitiously write and or speak the phrase at every juncture.

The tactic is well used in the US and works creating negative feelings in the minds of those it is aimed at. In this case anyone who supported the cause of Scottish independence.

The final part of the strategy was to ensure a target number of seats would be taken away from the SNP at the time of the election by fair means or foul.

This necessitated tactical voting to ensure the seats selected would be assured and transferred to the Unionist cause

The 22 seats listed below were targeted many months before the election and a great deal of work was completed by activists softening up the constituencies.

Mission success was clear and unambiguous. Every seat would need to be won over to the unionists for the campaign to be declared a success.

Anything less than a full house would only serve to confirm that the independent movement in Scotland was a powerful medium and impossible to defeat.

The unionists failed to win all of the target seats.

Eight SNP candidates weathered the unionist storm in which everything but the kitchen sink was thrown at them.

The Scottish independence movement is live and well and with the added numbers of European immigrants to Scotland and the under eighteens the future is clear.

Scotland will be independent soon.

 

 

 

Electorate: 71749: Edinburgh West: Michelle Thomson MP :

Lost votes: 4388 – 6.12%

Result: Lib Gain: 10% switched  from the SNP to other parties.

 

Electorate: 69982: East Renfrewshire: Kirsten Oswald MP:

Lost Votes: 4241 – 6.06%

Result: Tory Gain: Tactical voting: 7% Lab voters switched from Lab to Tory. And 9% switched from SNP to Tory.

 

Electorate: 66966: East Dunbartonshire: John Nicolson MP:

3977-5.94% Lib Gain 5339 78.8% 10% switched SNP to other parties.

65846: Edinburgh South: Ian Murray MP: 3579-5.44% (Labour) Lab Hold 15514 74.1% 11% switched SNP to Lab.

73445: West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine: Stuart Blair Donaldson MP: 3961-5.40% Tory Gain 7949 71.2% Tactical voting 13% Lib to Tory. Plus 9% switched SNP to Tory.

80978: Edinburgh North & Leith: Deidre Brock MP: 4280-5.29% SNP Hold 1625 71.2% 7% SNP switched to Tory. An excellent hold.

66208: Paisley & Renfrewshire North: Gavin Newlands MP: 3158-4.77% SNP Hold 2613 69.1% 13% switched SNP to Tory. an excellent hold.

68875: Argyll & Bute: Brendan O’Hara MP: 3277-4.75% SNP Hold 1328 71.5% Tactical voting 10% Lib to Tory. Plus 8% switched SNP to Tory.

62003: North East Fife: Stephen Gethins MP: 2937-4.74% SNP Hold 2 71.3% 8% switched SNP to Tory. An excellent hold.

67236: Stirling: Steven Paterson MP: 3175-4.72% Tory Gain 148 74.3% Tactical voting 3.5% Lab to Tory. Plus 9% switched SNP to Tory.

77379: Ochil & South Perthshire: Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh MP: 3645-4.71% Tory Gain 3359 70.6% Tactical voting 9% Lab to Tory. Plus 10% switched SNP to Tory.

79393: Gordon: Rt Hon Alex Salmond MP: 3711-4.68% Tory Gain 2607 68.4% Tactical voting 21% LibDem to Tory. Plus 10% switched SNP to Tory.

79481: East Lothian:George Kerevan MP: 3676-4.63% Lab Gain 3083 70.7% 5% voters switched SNP to Lab. Plus 7% switched SNP to Tory.

72178: Edinburgh South West: Joanna Cherry QC: 3283-4.55% SNP Hold 1097 69.4% 8% voters switched SNP to Tory. An excellent hold.

72447: Perth & North Perthshire: Pete Wishart MP: 3033-4.19% SNP Hold 21 71.8% 8% voters switched SNP to Tory. An excellent hold.

78037: Lanark & Hamilton East: Angela Crawley MP: 3272-4.19% SNP Hold 206 65.3% 16% voters switched SNP to Tory. An excellent hold.

68483: Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale: Rt Hon David Mundell MP:2816-4.11% Tory Hold 9441 72.4% 8% voters switched SNP to Tory.

74179: Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk: Calum Kerr MP: 3026-4.08% Tory Gain 11060 71.5% Tactical voting 14% LibDem to Tory. Plus 4% SNP to Tory.

86955: Linlithgow and East Falkirk, “mp”:”Martyn Day MP”,”signature_count”:3570-4.11% SNP Hold 2919 64.7% 16% voters switched SNP to Tory. An excellent hold.

68609: Banff & Buchan: Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP: 2772-4.04% Tory Gain 3693 61.6% 20% voters switched SNP to Tory.

71685: Moray, “mp”:”Rt Hon Angus Robertson MP”,”signature_count”:2995-4.18% Tory Gain 4159 67.4% 11% voters switched SNP to Tory.

68056: Aberdeen South, “mp”:”Callum McCaig MP”,”signature_count”:3618-4.65% Tory Gain 4752 68.5% Tactical voting 6% Lab to Tory. Plus 10% switched SNP to Tory.