Display of Unity, Dale, et al.

The British blogosphere is currently undergoing a perhaps unprecedented show of unanimity in response to the closing down of Craig Murray's and Tim Ireland's blogs by their webhost in the face of legal threats from lawyers representing Alisher Usmanov. Much has already been said - at the risk of unfairly singling out one blogger, check Unity's musings on a blogger's duty should s/he be called as a juror on a libel case - and this post is, as much as anything, me saying "me too". Usmanov's lawyers complained about alleged libel in articles published by Murray, such as this one. Tim Ireland was targeted merely for linking and commenting on the piece. Clearly, if this action was to set a precedent, then blogging as a pursuit would immediately lose a lot of its value. I can't improve on Mr Eugenides' soundbite: "If you can be silenced for calling a businessman a crook, then you can be silenced for calling a politician a crook, too. Then it's everyone's problem."

Tom Paine says he cannot judge as to the veracity of Murray's claims, but that he now knows all he needs to know about Usmanov as a direct result of what he calls these "Maxwellian methods" That, surely, is the first point - that such heavy-handed tactics are bound to backfire, and there will now be a damn sight more interest in Usmanov's background than there would have been if he had left well alone. We saw this in microcosm with Guido Fawkes' attempts to silence allegations he had sought to collude with the BNP in his younger days - his clumsy threats of legal action caused far more damage to his reputation than the actual allegations - and I say this as no fan of the far-right myself.

The second point is that I do have a fair amount of time for Craig Murray; the very fact that the Foreign Office treats him with such scorn suggests that he has succeeded in touching a few raw nerves, and it should be noted that you do not become a high-ranking diplomat without considerable ability. So I would tend to give his account of Usmanov's career some credence.

Even if your mileage on Murray differs, it is worth considering the general oligarch template that formed in the Former Soviet Union. Yes, the stereotype is of dodgy dealings, but bear in mind that for some time the received wisdom was that, if a business was to pay all its taxes and obligations, it would pay out 130% of its profit. So no business could be entirely clean and also profitable. Bear in mind also the ideologically-driven monetarist reforms that were imposed by Western theoreticians with no account for local tradition. There is a centuries-old debate within Russia as to whether the West should provide a model for Russia to follow, or whether the country should look to its own traditions, of which this was the latest round. Those free-market libertarians who bemoan the influence of Marx on Lenin should maybe also examine more closely the consequences of this bout of foreign inspired dogma on the country. In practice, of course, many of the oligarchs grew out of the old nomenklatura, using their contacts and influence to take advantage of the dikii kapitalism then rampaging, and employing some very distasteful measures. If no small business was entirely clean, how much more murky the obscenely wealthy layer at the very top? Any lawyers reading will understand that I am painting in broad strokes here, and in no way have any particular individuals in mind. Anyway, Usmanov is, of course, an Uzbek.

But my main point remains that, even if Usmanov - who I am sure* is the exception that proves the rule - is holier-than-thou, he has done his image no favours at all by this action, and could scarcely have done more to guarantee that a] the articles he objects to are widely linked and b] that the fine-tooth combs will come out to sift through his background still more closely. One-nil, I think.

This story is moving fast; Chicken Yoghurt appears to be serving as a hub for all the interest.