My publisher stands by the dictum “you can’t launch a book twice”.
Consequently, timing is everything.
Now, it might just be a fortuitous coincidence, but Sir David Murray doing the media round about his new memoir on the back of regime change at Ibrox is as good as it gets.
However, many things are different from his heyday in the Blue Room.
One reassuring constant is the slavish obedience of the local media to whoever controls the home dressing room at Ibrox.
Sir David might be about to discover that he is no longer in charge of that cultural asset.
I’ve actually detected some mild pushback on his claim that Craig Whyte duped him regarding the sale of the Ibrox club.
Of course, this ludicrous assertion wasn’t challenged in 2012.
His book launch came in the wake of the new Stateside consortium at Sevco securing its Delaware Deal at the EGM.
So, it’s been all out on Operation Soothe ever since.
Then up pops the Knight of the Realm.
Awkward..
The Stenography Corps doesn’t need reminding of those epochal days in 2012.
In fact, they still expend a lot of energy in trying to deny that anything of importance actually happened.
This ridiculous piece in the Daily Radar about the “operating company” at Ibrox couldn’t go unchallenged.
In propagating the Orwellian lie that Rangers survived liquidation, they contradict their own factually accurate front page from 2012.
The events of that year definitely tested the mettle of the local media, and they were largely found wanting.
Very few of them emerged with any decent claim to self-identify as a journalist.
It seems to your humble correspondent, Sir David’s claims about the Big Tax Case have, so far, gone unchallenged in this media round.
I would refer them to this piece from the BBC, published in 2017, when the UK Supreme Court finally handed down its judgment.
Quite simply, it was how Rangers OPERATED their EBT scheme that HMRC found to be in breach of the rules.
That evidence only became available to them after the City of London Police raid on Ibrox as part of the Jean-Alain Boumsong investigation in 2007.
Sir David has stated that “everyone can be smart after the event”.
Well, dear reader, this site is fully searchable by date and keyword.
Unlike the local media in Glasgow, I was charting financial trouble for Sir David’s empire, including Rangers, from the start of 2009.
Once he had taken Craig Whyte’s Pound, my reportage predicted that failure to secure Champions League revenues would result in an insolvency event before the end of the 2011-2012 season.
Not “smart after the event”, rather it was accurate, contemporaneous journalism from an NUJ member who wasn’t obeying succulent protocols.
In fairness, his publishers have done a professional job on the cover.
Single word title with a strap line is the way to go.
A bit like this best seller from 2012.
For the avoidance of doubt, my publisher is delighted that this autopsy on the death of Rangers, written in Dún na nGall, is still in print due to popular demand.
Have a good one!
Murray is quoted as saying, in the record, as ‘when you googled Craig Whyte only one article came up’ this was to excuse the poor Due Dilligence by Murray on Whyte.
I’m no expert, but if I were selling a business I wouldn’t rely on google as to the buyers bona fide.
This is history rewritten, in the small world of Scottish business, Whyte would be easy to find out about. It suited Murray (& the record) to spin the myth of the ‘billionaire’ buyer.
2010. Keppel Fels shipyard, Singapore. In drydock and watching the installation of a new bit of kit by a Scottish (management buyout) company, hearing my accent asked “What team you support”. My reply “Not the one about to go bust”? Produced excuses about EBT’s were legal and he were using same method?
Boasted about being a debenture seat owner/holder (How did that work out)
No way were he a dummy, yet he knew 2 years earlier something were coming down the road.
As you say Phil, the silence were deafening as for the blind, they could not believe they would be allowed to die.
Although there’s been all the lies, smoke and mirrors and nonsense trying to ‘prove’ that Rangers FC wasn’t dead after Liquidation, I would also have to question the part played by Companies House. Rangers (The Rangers Football Club PLC) was allowed to change its name to RFC 2012 PLC once Liquidation was a certainty and was clearly a deception. Why?
The name for the new company (never been a football club) Sevco Scotland Limited then changed to The Rangers Football Club Limited. Why was this deception allowed?
Aye, and there’s more, more questions never asked publicly that should have been.
Then later in 2012 we get Rangers International Football Club PLC, a name change from Rangers Football or suchlike all allowed by Companies House against any form of proper company behaviour and clearly to pretend Rangers FC didn’t die. The Glib and Shameless Liar knew and at one point made noises about buying them out of Administration/Liquidation. Why?
And if you read the BBC article linked in Phil’s post above the word “club” is mentioned several times when relating to Rangers FC. They can’t help but trip themselves up but there’s no-one calling them out. It’s an utter disgrace and don’t get me started on Lawwell’s part in all this.
There’s fraud galore, all over the place and no-one lifting a finger. Sickening is not sufficient. The Law is indeed an ass!
PRATTLE more like, with the emphasis on pratt.
And now they’re selling the silver ware!
Phil,
Is there not a rule in place to say that The Scottish Cup cannot be sold to anyone other than back to the SFA?
Something along the lines of the Oscars where the statue can only be sold back to The Academy for $1.00 or in the fine old Ran*ers tradition £1.00
Hail and Hail again!
A more apt title would have been:
Aye Riddy
Downfall 👏👏👏
Fivers and tenners
Fivers and tenners Davie boy
If I remember correctly, when Private Eye reviewed Richard Branson’s autobiography “Losing my Virginity” it said that it was more interesting for what it didn’t include than for what it did. Could this be the case here?
Why is he still getting to arse about with a title? It should be stripped from him to reflect the scrap mettle merchant he really is. Syphoned hundreds of millions from local communities in tax avoidance and below market value purchases, especially from his own failed group of clumpanies.
As glib and shameless as his antipodean partner in crime . One would think matters from over a decade ago were like his club* best left to rest in pieces . It is a timely reminder of what a thoroughly nasty piece of work he is . Claiming Lawell tried to bury Rangers* when he and his BoS pals tried to do that to Celtic and did that to Airdrie over a 30k debt takes a special brass neck. I can’t see his version of the downfall as popular as yours. He who laughs last as they say.