Carole Cadwalladr Profile picture
Mar 4, 2022 15 tweets 8 min read Read on X
This is Oakeshott with Williamson at launch of her book.

Plus new statement she made about Brexit funder as agent of Russian influence.

Below is thread with new court docs.

Key q: Did Williamson help Johnson bury Russia investigation (involving Johnson)? Is knighthood payback?
Oakeshott gave evidence + statement to Sunday Times in Nov 2017.

This is letter from editor Martin Ivens. He’s left but @ShippersUnbound is still there. Does he know what happened? Can new editor @EmmaTuckerST find out?

Did Oakeshott change mind? Did govt ministers intervene?
News International didn’t cover Banks court case. So they maybe don’t know that Banks’s witness statement conflicts with this.

Letter from editor shows Oakeshott gave emails to Sunday Times in Nov 17.

But Banks says it was Wigmore who gave emails to Sunday Times in June 18.
Banks says Wigmore rang Sunday Times deputy editor @cazjwheeler & gave her the emails in order to spike mine & @peterjukes’ story for @ObserverUK.

Banks made this statement on oath.

But we know from Martin Ivens’ letter that Oakeshott gave Sunday Times emails months earlier
Why does this matter? For whole load of reasons.

The failure to sanction UK-based oligarchs is not only a moral stain, it’s a national security risk. Every extra day we give Putin matters.

And Williamson knighthood throws up invidious new qs about Johnson’s failure to act.
Theresa May made this speech Nov 14, 2017. Sunday Times letter is dated 3 days later.

Did Sunday Times alert NCA or intelligence services? Did they go for comment to Williamson or Johnson in Nov 2017?

Why was story spiked?

theguardian.com/politics/2017/…
Theresa May got it. She tried to warn us. Listen to this speech again. She said it all here.

She called Putin’s invasion of Crimea what it was. She calls out ‘election meddling’. And its attacks on our information space.

Her cabinet colleagues - Johnson & Williamson - didn’t.
Johnson was asked about Russian interference by @RhonddaBryant just 2 weeks earlier. ‘Not a sausage,’ he replied.

This is not true. Theresa May isn’t just calling out Putin in that speech. She’s calling out her own foreign minister.
Johnson’s failure to take action against Russian £ even now is a national security risk & we need to know what happened in Nov 2017 when FBI revealed London investigation, when Theresa May warned us, when Sun Times spiked explosive scoop.

Where was NCA? Where was MI5/6?
Britain’s national security apparatus was paralysed by a failure of leadership. The Russia Report told us that explicitly. And our political leadership was paralysed by Brexit.

I think @theresa_may got it. And I suspect she has answers.

The evidence suggests Johnson directly involved in covering up Russian interference. New docs I published yesterday reveal Williamson’s involvement.

This is photo of Johnson in Congress with Mifsud who head of FBI called ‘a Russian agent of influence’

Will Sunday Times tell us why it spiked its story? I hope so. It had explosive story about Brexit funder as 'Russian agent of influence' 3 days after Theresa May's speech on Russia dominated the front pages.

We know Johnson had already tried to bury the story once. Did he again?
Why did Arron Banks state on oath that Wigmore gave emails to Sunday Times in June 2018? When ST editor confirms he has them in Nov 2017?
Nov 14, 2017: Theresa May dominates front pages with speech saying Russia has attacked our elections.

Nov 17, 2017: Sunday Times indemnifies Oakeshott over explosive story of Brexit funder as "Russian agent of influence"

Nov 19, 2017: This is Sunday Times front page.
To be clear, I am not trying to lay blame with Sunday Times or even Oakeshott. I don't know what happened. There were other forces at work here at highest levels of govt.

But I do think @ShippersUnbound & others can help expose what happened here. And hope they will.

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More from @carolecadwalla

Dec 23
Hahaha. I just got a call to ask if 'I'm going to the Indie'. To be clear, this is Lord Lebedev trolling me. But the serious point is that we just lost a liberal independent newspaper. With everything that entails for both journalists & readers.
1/
This week the Scott Trust sold the Observer brand to Tortoise Media. But they're using this to slash 70 core Guardian jobs in a sleight of hand. Observer journalists are *Guardian* journalists on *Guardian* contracts.
2/
But TUPE legislation legally allows the Guardian to transfer any part of its company out. So, 70 journalists on Guardian contracts have a choice to make this Christmas: go to a financially struggling start-up which may or may fail in a couple of years. Or take voluntary redundancy.
3/
Read 9 tweets
Dec 22
Well this is very exciting. My investigation into the Guardian’s new partner & the Observer’s new owner has just got the thumbs up from the Baron of Siberia.

I’m not entirely sure he’s familiar with my journalistic oeuvre, mind… Image
The Guardian is cancelling my contract after 19 years continuous employment with no pay-off so totes happy to go to the Indie to continue my investigation into Evgeny’s dad, the ex-KGB spy.

The UK media: so many fine choices.

theguardian.com/media/2019/nov…
To be clear, I’m not being singled out: fully one third of Guardian & Observer staff are on either zero hours or sham ‘freelance’ contracts. The Guardian issued notice on all these this week. If you’re an employment lawyer, feel free to slide into my DMs!
Read 4 tweets
Dec 20
This week the Guardian's owner, the Scott Trust, gifted the 233-year-old Observer to Tortoise Media.

This isn't just a dark day for journalism, it's a sign.

Meet the team.

This is Putin giving Tortoise's energy advisory board member an 'Order of Friendship' medal in 2017.
1/ Image
Independent news is under pressure across the world. The US is already crumbling: ABC settled with Trump. WaPo pre-obeyed.

This week Guardian lost 100 journalists & one of its arms. To understand what's lost, let's start with Putin's friend: Ivan Glasenberg, ex Glencore CEO.
2/
Glasenberg didn't just get a medal from Putin, he sat on the board of a Russian oil company, Rosneft, chaired by one of Putin's closest allies

And here he is: on Tortoise's energy advisory board, assembled by Tortoise, founder, owner & editor, James Harding.
3/ Image
Read 17 tweets
Dec 15
This is what the Observer team & I were doing between strikes. Please read it because it couldn’t be more relevant. I interview Asif Kapadia about his alarming new film, 2073, with its stark warning of where Trump, Musk & Farage are taking us..

theguardian.com/film/2024/dec/…
Kapadia won an Oscar for Amy, his heartbreaking film about Amy Winehouse. This is emotional too, a sci fi thriller with Samantha Morton set in the future made of fragments of the present. I tell the story of how I accidentally ended up in the film. But it’s so much more than that
It’s a chilling warning of what’s to come. The first film I’ve seen that attempts to unravel the technological crisis that underpins our democratic one. And I’m so pleased to be able to write about in Observer New Review, where I work with the best editors & designers in Britain including @JaneFerg who commissioned this & made it look beautiful. It’s where we’ve relentlessly covered the technoauthoritarian takeover that’s at the heart of Asif’s film…as part of the Guardian’s core journalistic output. While Asif’s film has journalists & journalism at its heart. I’m proud & flattered to be part of it but it also brings home what we stand to lose 😢Image
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Read 4 tweets
Nov 28
This is an incredible short film. If you want to understand why the Guardian & Observer journalists are fighting for our survival, please watch it. It gave me the chills.

Winnie Mandela on how the Observer helped save Mandela's life & the ANC leadership
What I find so fascinating film is the parallels to our own time. In the film, the son of legendary editor, David Astor, describes how it was witnessing fascism in Germany that made his father alive to the danger & evil of apartheid. A fact that informed his whole editorship.
And, here we come full circle, with the Observer under mortal threat. Just as apartheid bleeds again into fascism. Because it's 2 men, raised in apartheid SA, with their hands on the steering wheel of the world's superpower & coming authoritarian state: Elon Musk & Peter Thiel.
Read 6 tweets
Nov 25
If you’re a Guardian or Observer reader, please share this. The need for a strong, free & independent press couldn’t be greater. Yet, here it is. The billionaire Scott Trust is preparing to push a core part of the Guardian over the cliff into the hands of speculators & profiteers
If you haven’t heard about this, it’s probably because you’re a Guardian or Observer reader. The one place you won’t read about the turmoil. Or as @paulfwebster - the Observer’s editor until week ago calls it - the betrayal of everything we represent

broligarchy.substack.com/p/how-to-speak…Image
@paulfwebster Thank you to everyone who’s written. If you have views on the sale you can write to observer.readers@observer.co.uk. And/or or copy me in: Carole.Cadwalladr@theguardian.com. I think what makes us feel so sad & naive is that we had this ‘implicit trust’ too. Image
Read 4 tweets

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