Talk:Rory Stewart - Misplaced Pages

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Claims of M16 membership

Recent deletions relating to the claims of Craig Murray appear to confuse the nature of the material deleted. It did not assert that Mr Stewart was an M16 officer. Clearly, if it had, the source provided would not have been sufficient to support the claim. In fact, the deleted material asserted that Craig Murray has claimed on several occasions that Mr Stewart was an M16 officer. This assertion is factual – and demonstrably and incontestably true. A link was provided in the initial edit, but more can be found here:

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/09/iain_dales_brac.html http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/another_old_eto.html

Credibility of Murray The question then becomes is the material relevant and credible? As a high profile former diplomat whose public recognition relies on his achievements, it’s clearly relevant. As to credibility of Mr Murray, he was a senior FCO employee for over 20 years, including time in Uzbekistan as the Ambassador, a key partner in the War on Terror. Clearly then he would have knowledge of the security services and, indeed, if high profile individuals were working for the FCO.

The explanation for the deletion suggested that Murray was, in some way, discredited by his sacking. In fact, Murray has always claimed (along with many mainstream media outlets) that he was sacked for exposing British reliance on secret intelligence obtained through torture. A claim that has been subsequently vindicated.

The ostensible reasons given for his sacking – a series of administrative misdemeanours – were all dismissed by the FCO’s own investigators with the exception of one: informing his staff that he was the subject of a disciplinary inquiry. The FCO also gave Murray a substantial financial settlement on his departure. All of this is public domain and so the claim he is somehow inherently untrustworthy bears no weight.

Political rivals? As to his political allegiances and a supposed conflict of interest, Stewart is a PPC, Murray is simply a member of the Liberal Democrats – not an office holder nor a candidate in any forthcoming election. They are not in any meaningful sense political rivals. In any case, Stewart is PPC for Penrith. This is a safe Tory seat – it hasn’t changed hands in over 60 years – so the idea that this is a political intrigue seems unlikely.

Finally, the claims by Murray date from before even Stewart had been selected as a PPC. Indeed, by his own admission Murray he did not rejoin the Liberal Democrats (he left in 2005) until March 2010 – six months after the claims cited.

In summary, I think the deleted material appears to meet the requirements of Misplaced Pages’s biographies of living people.

It is not the job of Misplaced Pages to protect national security or the reputation of public figures. And, while such material may be embarrassing or inconvenient to Mr Stewart, that does not mean that it is has no place on Misplaced Pages.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.118.69 (talk • contribs)

(Added section header and unsigned note) --h2g2bob (talk) 21:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree - the statement on the page ("Former British diplomat turned political campaigner Craig Murray has claimed on several occasions that Stewart did not work for the Foreign Office and was, in fact, an agent for the Secret Intelligence Service also known as MI6.") is supported by the reference. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm unclear about use of a personal blog as a source of information. Even if you cite the source, it's still only a rumour. Since the source is a blog and the claims in it unsubstantiated, should the sentence in the article be revised to indicate that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.189.194.204 (talk) 23:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

In the blog, Murray claims to have direct, firsthand knowledge of Stewart's membership (“Let me be plain. Rory Stewart was an officer for Torturers'R'Us (formerly trading as MI6). Now I know many MI6 officers personally and I know the identities of hundreds of them.” http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/another_old_eto.html) - so I don't know that 'rumour' is the correct word for the nature of the claim.

Of course, generally speaking, it will always be difficult to have unassailable evidence of M16 membership – it’s conceivable that even a claim or a denial of membership by the individual concerned wouldn’t provide clear proof. However, as above, the statement under debate is factual and is from a source sufficiently credible to make it worthy of inclusion. As per line one of Verifiability: “The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.”

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