OK, let’s start reviewing Craig Murray’s book Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror (Mainstream Publishing, 2007 edition)

Where better than the covers?

Harold Pinter "salutes a man of integrity"

John Sweeney: "An amazing narrative, beautifully written…"

John Pilger: "A man of the highest principle"

Here is the Sweeney review. It gets off to a fine start, describing said John Pilger as a "moral pimple". Sweeney on Murray:

Brilliant, unorthodox, committed to championing the causes of the United Kingdom, free trade and human rights, Murray had served his country with aplomb in Poland, Ghana and in the Citadel in Whitehall.

Oddly he does not mention Craig Murray’s now largely forgotten aplombless role in the Sandline Affair. The official House of Commons Report is not altogether flattering here, describing Murray’s note of a crucial meeting as "grossly inadequate".

UPDATE:  Craig has pointed out to me that he did not write that note but rather approved the draft submitted by his colleague. True, but Craig had been the lead FCO personality at what turned out to have been a crucial meeting in the whole Sandline affair (see here Tim Spicer’s version of that encounter), so in my opinion it was up to him to take the rap (if any) for the way it was recorded.

Sweeney presses on:

But the rising star sizzled up like an overdone sausage when he came up against the War on Terror. The fascination of Craig Murray’s tale of his fall from grace at the hands of the Foreign Office is that he gives so much ammunition to his enemies … it is the honesty with which Murray reports his predicament that is striking. I do not think that he holds anything back from the reader, and that makes his indictment of the Foreign Office mandarins and then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw all the more compelling. He is an honest man, and that seems to have been his difficulty.

Well put.

Part of me has never been able to understand Appeasement, how the British Establishment could have bent so low. Having read Murray’s story, I can now. Even so, it is a shocking read, to see how often the Foreign Office twisted facts and invented half-truths to do Murray down. Fascinatingly, no one outside bought a word of it.

Sweeney buys 100% of Murray’s version. He concludes:

Some of the most fascinating bits of this book concern how Murray, the insider, used Foreign Office procedure against the FO itself.

But, in the end, he was forced out, and what Murray claims were the big lies – for example, that the British government opposes torture in intelligence-gathering – were able to settle down, no longer challenged from within … But truth will out. Craig Murray is at pains – sometimes absurdly so – to demonstrate that he is no hero. But that doesn’t stop him from being heroic, or his book from being a bloody good read.

Sweeney takes a view on the merits relying primarily on Craig’s book. Fine – up to him.

What I object to is his bold claim that this book is "beautifully written".

Craig’s writing fills to the brim the Bucket of Cliche at the Well of Lubricity, and quaffs deep.

Take Craig’s own description of the recruitment of Kristina as his new locally engaged secretary, a key job:

The moment the first candidate walked through the door, she had the job. She had the most extraordinary classical beauty, a perfect face framed by long blonde hair … Karen agreed she was the best candidate, which I found a very useful defence when Fiona first set eyes on Kristina.

(Professional Judgement Rating:  0/10. Sexist/patronising: the language used here calls into question the claim that the best available candidate was picked. Even a hint of this sort of thing in eg an appraisal on a colleague could trigger disciplinary action.)

Later Craig hosts a small but select – and important – dinner party for Simon Butt, a senior colleague from London sent to Tashkent to try to ascertain what is going on in both Uzbekistan and the Embassy. A mess ensues when several key business contacts do not show on the night.

Craig’s wife Fiona afterwards lays it on the line: "It’s that bloody Kristina. She’s useless."

Craig next day confronts Kristina.

And here, reader, steel yourself.

What follows is without any doubt the very worst passage ever written in any language by someone with diplomatic training:

 … Kristina standing by the back of the car in a thick white jumper with a large roll-up neck that framed her face. I was struck anew by just how exquisite her beauty was, how classical. As she said ‘Good morning’, a little cloud of vapour sprang from her mouth and hung in the cold air. I thought how pleasant it would be to thrust forward my face and be enveloped in the little warm mist of that pretty exhalation.

Sadly, there was no escaping the need to discuss the previous night’s dinner-guest debacle…

Aaaargh.

‘Sadly’?!

Kristina fesses up. She ‘just guessed’ whether the guests would be turning up!

Craig says that he has to give her a written warning.

Kristina looked utterly crestfallen. I squeezed her hand … Silence hung between us for a while. Some tendon in the strong relationship between us had been cut and would take a little time to heal.

(Professional Judgement Rating: 2/10. Sort of the right response to this bewildering stupidity by Kristina for her unacceptable performance in bungling what she knew was a key event for the Embassy and for Craig personally, ie a formal written warning. But again sexist/patronising and operationally questionable – would he have treated an incompetent male colleague in the same way?)

So much for the cover.

Next stop: the Preface.