There’s still a lot more to say - not least that I have still not had a peep out of Schillings, despite sending them a request for an interview within a day of all this going public, and repeating the request this week.

However, we are getting a persistent response, from a personage styling himself - anonymously - “bf bache”, operating from an anonymous email address and an untraceable IP address.

Mr (or Ms) Bache has been trolling around dozens of blog posts since this story started adding comments that gradually expand with each new article.

It’s like an online game of “My Grandma went shopping and she bought…” … a paragraph from Iain Dale, a sentence from Matt Wardman, a couple of words from the Devil’s Kitchen, and so on.

The resulting miraculous ever-expanding boilerplate comment - like an everlasting stew (keep adding ingredients and recooking until you’re sick of stew) - has been used to respond to articles making all sorts of different points.

Note, Mr Bache, that you are allowed the freedom to debate that Mr Alisher Usmanov and Schillings lawyers have attempted to deny Mr Craig Murray and Tim Ireland by legal threats and without proper process.

This is a Fisking of the version of the Universal Comment left on my article on Monday.

If this is too short, try the first article in Unity’s series examining British Libel Law. Well worth a read. He is starting to move the agenda onto the strategic questions that need to be addressed.

Fisking Mr “BF” Bache

Mr Bache’s statements are in italics. My replies are in Roman type.

I see that you have been posting from an entirely anonymous and untraceable email address, across many blogs reporting this story. Why do you feel the need?

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.

So why is it acceptable that Craig Murray is prevented to express his point of view?

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.

You smear Craig Murray. Your evidence?

If he is unwilling to accept nonsense, why is the “man of means” not willing to avail himself of the “competence of the civil courts”?

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.

Of course it had the right to take proper legal advice. And it still got the process wrong. It caved in to a threat - if due process were followed by Mr Usmanov, we would not have a need for this protest. Although the webhost caved in, the party under real critique is Mr Usmanov and his lawyers.

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.

Indeed he may, but why is he closing down open debate rather than engaging with it?

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

Such as? I am not aware of anyone who has covered the story that has argued that they should be free from the consequences. On the contrary, the only people trying to avoid the consequences of freedom of speech appear to be Mr Usmanov and his lawyers.

Postscript: There have been many powerful and true blogger-driven stories, blogstorms: Harriet Miers, Kathy Sierra, illegal migration into the United States, etc.

And many stories covered and resolved by the blogosphere, while the “Main Stream Media” ignored them.

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.

Names, please. This point is answered largely by my next paragraph that you quote. And your defintion of “respectable”?

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.”

You conflate my quote with somebody else’s - ask them about the second quote. I am not concerned whether the response is “phenomenal”, I am concerned that free debate is being stamped upon by bullying and threats,

You also mistake the motivation for my quoting the figures, It is called a reality check..

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.

Again - names? evidence?

In fact they haven’t moved on. They are still interested in the legal threats without legal action from Mr Usmanov, as they may be the next victim. Go and find me statements from the majority of bloggers covering the story - say 150 - that they are no longer interested, and I will listen to you.

“Fully two thirds..”. Do your homework. For example, half of those two thirds you attempt to draft to your support have not posted at all. Some of the rest are Media blogs; media has given little or no coverage after Mr U’s previous legal sabre rattling. Others are no longer live. The 2006 Guide is here. Go and prove your case.

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

I think not. And why the repeated smears on Murray? Just what is your agenda.

Among points you have not addressed:

• The acceptability of a system where legal expression of an opinion can be suppressed without by the powerful without answering the opinion expressed.
• The taking down of senior politician’s websites.
• The acceptability routine use of “FUD” (fear, uncertainty and doubt) tactics as policy by a legal firm.
• The same law firm claiming that those tactics are a good thing.

And that is just for starters.

Sorry, Mr Bache - or whoever you are - you do not make a coherent argument in my view. You need to make a serious case.

Or to put it another way - in “bf” you have chosen a wonderfully appropriate set of initials.

Perhaps it was a Freudian slip?

Tags: bf bache, bloggerheads, craig murray, tim ireland, alisher usmanov, schillings lawyers, nick schilling, british libel law[tags]bf bache, bloggerheads, craig murray, tim ireland, alisher usmanov, schillings lawyers, nick schilling, british libel law[/tags]