Great Britain is free. The unwritten constitution is secure. No one is throwing Craig Murray into the Gulag. He is no John Peter Zenger. He is no Georgi Markov. He is no Anna Politkovskaya. He has committed no crime. The dispute between him and Mr. Usmanov is wholly within the competence of the civil courts of which either man may avail himself, should he choose to do so.

Craig Murray jerked the wrong man around, a man of means who was not willing to accept nonsense from an ‘activist’, a neurotic insubordinate character whose principal success with his sole opportunity as ambassador was to disgrace himself, to destroy his career at the FO and to be threatened by the Treasury Solicitor; thus Murray’s webhost received a demand letter.

His webhost complied. It had a right to request legal counsel to examine Murray’s weblog. It had a right not to enable Murray. It had a right to defend its interest by turning away entirely the custom of a loose cannon with a martyr complex.

If Mr. Usmanov thinks he has been harmed unjustly by Murray, he may exercise his rights, the same rights Murray possesses, as he sees fit. He has the right to complain & to seek redress within the courts & without, using all legal means and venues, including those legal means and venues Murray wishes he would not use. He has the right to complain, to inform, to give guidance to those who do business with Murray, to gather sympathizers & to seek moral redress.

Too many people have the curious notion that freedom of speech means freedom from (societal)consequences (for misbehavior).

Postscript: There have been many powerful and true blogger-driven stories, blogstorms: Harriet Miers, Kathy Sierra, illegal migration into the United States, etc. None were driven by ‘activists’, ‘net kooks, obscure blogs looking for extra traffic, and the smattering of one-off blog entries by mistaken well-known respectables as this nonsense in aid of a crackpot is.

What substantive story with legs needs this: “There are now at least 200 blogs covering this story. Chicken Yoghurt has the details, and the history. It is also being covered by fully one-third of the Top 100 Bloggers in the Country - based on the list published at this time last year by Iain Dale.”, or “According to Chris Paul, 224 bloggers have protested about this, the list is still growing, it’s been phenomenal.”

The majority of those blogs have moved on, back to Brown and the conference, back to Cameron thrashing about, back to Ming and how long he can hang on, back to the Northern Rock, back to Madeleine McCann, back to nudie pics, the Britney Spears trainwreck, the rum-soaked antics of Amy Winehouse and the latest viral video. And of course fully two thirds of the top 100 bloggers the country, based on the list published at this time last year by Iain Dale have to date shown no interest in this story whatsoever.

No. No blogstorm here, just enablers of Craig Murray’s decade long campaign of self-destruction.

Thanks, Matt. You ever want to go jiving (or doing the forensic stuff) and need a 100 word precis, let me know.

Bf Bache, you present nothing as evidence of what you say, which leads be to suspect your just a shill for the useless fat fuckwit that Ashier these blogs are about. Nice try asshole.