I came back from Reykjavik on Monday morning [16 October] and I was detained at Glasgow Airport by the police after I came through passport control. … - Craig Murray

[On his early diplomatic career.] You have to realise I never set out to be a hero [...] I was never a great campaigner for human rights. In many ways, I'd always been just as compromised as any other diplomat. When I was working on the South African desk of the London office I had had to send out letters saying we believed that the African National Congress was a terrorist organisation. I didn't think that for a second and nor did anyone else I was working with, but we did it because it was the price of an impartial, depoliticised civil service. The closest I had ever got to any form of stand was by refusing to implement a government directive to persuade the Poles to reduce the size of the health warnings on cigarette packets to conform with EU law.

The next morning brings good news. The two shops I specified are both available. They both belong to the local brewer, Thwaites. The one I choose has two pubs to its immediate right and one to its left. Only one of them is a going concern.
This is one of Blackburn's most striking features. It has an astonishing number of ex-pubs. Some have been converted to other uses, but many more are derelict. I wonder why there were so many and what factors caused this cull. Something else I have yet to learn.
I return to London to find messages waiting from Martin Bell and Brian Eno; both want to help my campaign. Then I receive news from the estate agent. Thwaites has decided it will not let me rent any of its property in Blackburn. Its directors feel it would not be in the company's interests to allow its premises to be used to campaign against Jack Straw.

The whole thing's extraordinary, I don't think anybody can seriously believe I have any connection to terrorism of any kind.