Source here is Craig Murray who is possibly the most extreme-biased source one could imagine. Nevertheless it's good to get primary source information from the hearing.
If Murray's account is to be believed, it is the court's fault that no other sources are reporting on this:
> Once again, there were just five of us in the public gallery (in 42 seats) and the six allowed in the overflow video gallery in court 9 was reduced to three, as three seats were reserved by the court for “VIPs” who did not show up.
If there are exactly 8 journalists present, three of which can't ever hear well (from yesterday, "(6 others) were shunted into the adjacent court 9 where a very small number were permitted to squint at a tiny screen, on which the sound was so inaudible John Pilger simply left"), that only leaves 4 other voices to present this story.
I will gladly read other accounts if they are available, but I will not be holding my breath.
He pops up on HN all the time. I'm surprised he's still posting, wasn't he recently prosecuted for the politically motivated release of the names of women in an active sexual harassment trial?
In the UK complainants in sexual offences trials have strong legal protections around anonymity. Murray is alleged to have breached the anonymity of some of the complainants in the Alex Salmond trial. He denies this.
Craig Murray has been wrong about factual matters on rare occasions.
He has not lost the plot or gone mad with speculation.
A recent incident of that is his speculation on why the Prime Minister's SPAD was really in Durham during lockdown, with the assumption this had something to do with a big pharma company in the area and C19 contracts. The evidence is a bit thin for anything linking the SPAD to Smithkline Beecham, but Craig Murray was out there pushing a conspiracy theory, all on his own.
However...
In any given day the mainstream news in the UK will make assumptions that are lazy and untrue. We could be forever debating any one of these. Those that believe the mainstream news and respect the Overton Window given to them by the BBC will not want to hear that some of it is not true. There is this aspect of rinse and repeat, so the narrative on Russia, Syria, the country formerly known as Libya, Iran, Venezuela, Iraq and even Scotland is very different for people who turn off their television sets, boycott the UK papers and seek out news that better suits them on the likes of Craig Murray's blog.
Although Craig Murray has been misguided on occasion, this is a price that has to be paid for anyone who is not bought in to the establishment narrative. I would say lies told by Craig Murray versus lies told by the media is something like a thousand to one.
I would say Craig Murray is biased in favour of values of freedom, truth and democracy. The news from the BBC and the likes of Murdoch is not biased that way.
> Once again, there were just five of us in the public gallery (in 42 seats) and the six allowed in the overflow video gallery in court 9 was reduced to three, as three seats were reserved by the court for “VIPs” who did not show up.
If there are exactly 8 journalists present, three of which can't ever hear well (from yesterday, "(6 others) were shunted into the adjacent court 9 where a very small number were permitted to squint at a tiny screen, on which the sound was so inaudible John Pilger simply left"), that only leaves 4 other voices to present this story.
I will gladly read other accounts if they are available, but I will not be holding my breath.