THE KENNEDY KILL When Joe Kennedy ordered a Mafia hitman to assassinate Winston Churchill, he set in motion a chain of shocking world shattering events which led to his son, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, being gunned down in Dallas twenty-five years later. At its heart was the Churchill Letter. If it is found by the wrong people it could fracture the American-British Alliance, end the Special Relationship and lose the War on Terror. Newspaper reporter Niven Robb is at the heart of the mystery. He saved Churchillâs life, he knew Joe Kennedy, JFK and Bobby Kennedy, too. He was also a pal of Frank Sinatra. When Niven Robb dies, his grandson Ritchie Robb, who is also a newspaper reporter, falls heir to the biggest story of his or any other reporterâs life. A story which will make Watergate look small potatoes. The story begins in London, moves through the war years to New York and Washington DC, switches to Dallas in November 1963 and finally, dramatically, ends in Thailand, on a small Island in the Gulf of Siam. LONDON 1962 The Old Man was tired. It seemed the least little thing he had to do left him with a world-weary fatigue. And the daily struggle he faced to remember, drained him, too. Sometimes he even found it hard to remember who he was and what he had done. There were other times, though, when he could see his past as clearly as though he was still living it. And it was a past such as few men had ever lived. Tonight, though, was one of those evenings when the dusk closed in on his mind, just as it dimmed the late October day outside his window. He could recall a trip in a car, wrapped in an overcoat and needing help and a walking stick. He remembered venturing a few halting steps into the autumn chill in Richmond Park, with the deer nearby. Today? Yes, that had been in the afternoon. But there was something else he knew he had to recall. Something not from Richmond Park Or from long ago, when he directed mighty events. Something from yesterday. And someone. Someone from those heady days of twenty years ago whom he knew he had seen and spoken to recently. But it was hard for him. Hard to know what was real and what he had dreamed. Was the re-appearance of that familiar face real? And why was there such a nag through the fog of his ancient brain telling him that this was something he had to understand? A reality or a dream? He dreamed a lot these days. And in those dreams his father often appeared, but never seemed to stay long enough for the Old Man to tell him of his life and what had filled it. At first the Old Man truly believed his dear long-departed Papa had returned to finally offer the praise denied him all those years ago, only slowly coming to realize that the visions of his father were dreams. Dreams which he knew were prompted by his realisation that if there was a place where all were re-united, he and his Papa would soon be together again. But the face he kept seeing now was not that of Papa. It was from twenty years ago and it was from yesterday and somehow, he knew, he must remember who it was and what they had spoken about. But it was hard for the Old Man who was just a month away from his 88th birthday on 30 November 1962. Slowly, and before he could summon the extra energy he needed to gain more clarity, Winston Spencer Churchill slipped into slumber.
CHAPTER 2 SURREY, ENGLAND - The Present The old man knew his time was near. He didn't know quite why it was that the realisation had crept over him, for he did not feel any worse, or any more feeble, or even any older, than he had last week or last month. But he just knew it. And it really did not either worry or frighten him. He certainly didn't fear death and he equally certainly did not feel any great urge to cling to life. After all, his three score and ten had been passed by a long way. His had been a life of story-telling. Of searching for the truth. Not that it had always been easy to recognise what was the truth. And not that it was always desirable for the truth to be made known. But there remained one last story for him to tell. One final truth for him to uncover. The fact he had turned away from it for so many years was his secret shame. It had nagged at his mind through his retirement years. And for the previous twelve months the thought of it had been his constant mental companion. Of course, it was impossible now for him to find that truth and tell it. Though perhaps all was not lost for him. For the old man was not the only seeker after truth and teller of stories in his family. Which is why he looked, for what he was sure would be the last time, at the letter he had typed on the battered old Remington portable which had served him so well. He read it for the umpteenth time that night. It was his final hope for his conscience to be salved from beyond the grave. The old man sighed, sealed it and placed the envelope inside the bulging and ancient briefcase which he then locked, before making sure the label tied to it made it clear who he wanted to get it when his time came. The time he was sure was not far away and he was ready for it. His final task completed. The old man, Niven Robb, was only a month away from his 99th birthday when he settled down for his last troubled night's sleep.
That's genuine, he's turned his hand to writing...badly, just like his blog. CHAPTER 3 SURREY-ENGLAND - The present Ritchie Robb was tired. It had been a long day and it was still a long way, and a difficult journey, from being over. He had travelled down on the early easyjet from Glasgow to Stanstead, made his way by train into London, and then out again to reach Dorking by noon, in good time for the funeral service for his grandfather. The retirement home for journalists - very tired old hacks as one of his granddad’s pals there joked to him - had been where Niven Robb had lived out the last quarter of a century of his long life and Ritchie knew his grandfather loved it there. He was in his element, talking with other journalists and reliving the great days of newspapers. Of hard nights on the booze. Of dashes to find a phone, long before the days of mobiles, to beat a deadline. And, of course, of scoops galore. Real and imagined, but always exaggerated. It was a good way for someone whose life had been newspapers to live out their last years, and Ritchie found his imagination forming a mind's eye picture of himself in one of those armchairs in his own declining years. Ritchie just wished he had managed to visit more often. The last time he had seen the old boy had been ten months previously and his granddad has seemed as indestructible as ever. Though Ritchie had a sense of something he wanted to say. Something he wanted to get off his chest. Family business perhaps. But Ritchie was the last in line. His dad, Niven's son, had died ten years ago and his mum long ago. 'Some day you will know it all,' was what Niven had said to him the last time they met. Rambling a bit, was what Ritchie thought at the time. 'He wanted to make sure you got this.' The voice, younger than most of those he had been hearing during the day, those who had been his grandfather's pals, brought Ritchie back to the present. The nurse who had attended old Niven, had a small suitcase in his hand, which he offered to Ritchie. ''Was most insistent, Mr Robb. Said that you would know what to do with what's inside. Told me I was to hand it to you personally.' 'Thanks.' Not much to show for a life which stretched to the brink of a century, thought Ritchie. Probably some old newspaper cuttings and maybe a picture or two of his grandfather with some of the giants of the 20th century whom he had encountered. Ritchie knew his grandfather had met Churchill, though Niven never went into details about the when and where. But when he finally left the old hacks' home, deep in the Home Counties, the only real thought in Ritchie Robb's mind was not what was in the suitcase, but the hope that it was small enough to count as hand luggage on the late easyjet flight back north and wouldn't mean him having to hang about at baggage reclaim at Glasgow Airport. Something which he knew from past experience could be a long and thankless task. Ritchie was, indeed, tired and weary when the taxi from Glasgow Airport dropped him at his flat just off the city's Byres Road. He dumped his grandfather's suitcase in a cupboard in the hallway. He would have a look inside later.
I know how they feel, I got tired reading his risible writing. CHAPTER 4 GLASGOW - The Present Ritchie Robb's flat was in the heart of Glasgow’s trendy west end. Byres Road was the place, he often joked, where you saw the sort of sights you wish you had seen when you had a gun with you. The flat was big enough for him as he lived alone. A huge bedroom at the front, which he converted into an office and was packed with books, newspaper cuttings and all the other paraphernalia of an investigative reporter. If there was any investigating to be done, that was. For Ritchie knew the truth of the matter was that newspapers no longer had big enough budgets to sustain long and involved investigations, some of which would run into a dead end. Maybe a month of work and a good few thousand pounds and at the end…nothing. Of course, things had been different in the good old days. His heyday. When newspapers invested time and money in journalism and journalists and their skills kept public figures honest. For if they were not honest, the chances of being found out and publicly exposed on the front page of newspapers which sold millions were pretty high. Many a politician had been cut down when Ritchie Robb and those like him got to work. Nowadays, though, newspapers were more interested in television reality shows, minor celebrities and all sorts of trash. Of the sort nobody was interested in. That is why he was fond of telling the young guns in the news business, their papers were dying on their backsides. He might as well have been talking to the wall. So he scraped a living selling bits and pieces to the English papers. The Daily Telegraph would always take background features on Scottish politicians, though, as far as Ritchie was concerned, the so-called tribunes of the people in the 21st century were pygmies. Certainly compared to the giants his grandfather had known and interviewed in the 20th. It was a point he had made the previous night after he and his old pal from the glory days of investigative journalism, Bert Finlayson, had been on the town for the traditional ten pints and a curry night-out. The good old days had been the main topic of conversation. Bert had trained as a reporter on a weekly newspaper in Dumbarton, a small but hard-nosed industrial town twenty miles down the River Clyde from Glasgow, and then worked as a crime reporter on the Glasgow Evening Times where the pair had first met But, while Ritchie stayed true to his Scottish roots, Bert headed south to the Big Smoke. He had swapped Glasgow for London, but crime was still his beat. But even in London the financial realities of the newspaper industry had started to bite. Again, unlike Ritchie, Bert had read the script in advance. He had already banked the thick end of £100,000 from a redundancy pay-off, plus the same again from a book on the London crime lords when the axe fell again and he collected a more modest £50,000. But it was enough. Enough to see him escape from the print media into television. Bert had always said that the way to make money out of television and stay at the top was not in front of the camera. He reckoned that if he set up a small production company he could get commissions and make programmes and make money. It was working, starting with an investigation into sex trafficking into Britain. Bert had cashed in big-time when the BBC took an interest and when the two-part programme won three television documentary awards, he and his company TellyTrix – Trix was his dog when he had been a boy - were on the path to the top. As far as he could see, though, his pal Ritchie was on the road to nowhere. That much was obvious as the pair downed pint of lager after pint of lager, followed by an Indian curry and then whiskies as they sat talking in Ritchie’s flat with Frank Sinatra, their great favourite, providing the background music. Bert was in Glasgow for the football. Scotland v England. He had arrived on the Thursday and that was the night to the two old mates went out on the town. The game was due to be played on the Saturday and when Bert wakened up on the fold-down bed in Ritchie’s office he knew that if he was going to be in any fit state to see it, Friday was going to have to be a quiet day. Through the haze of the last drops the previous night, he recalled that Ritchie had become maudlin and spoke about Niven Robb, a giant of the newspaper business and someone who everyone who knew about Scottish journalism still held in awe. Ritchie had staggered off to a cupboard, returning with a small suitcase which he brandished, saying, 'Look. The contents of a lifetime in this ****ty old game. Worthless. All of those great men he interviewed. All of those great stories. And it changed nothing. Meant not a ****. Go on, look. **** all, that’s what his life was worth. Mine, too.” Bert knew it wasn’t the time to argue. He had known the old man. Niven was his hero, just as he had been a hero to his grandson. Now Ritchie had gone out for the day, leaving a note saying he was going through to Edinburgh to interview some piddling politician for a magazine article and would be back at seven, bringing pizzas and beer. That sounded good. Bert planned tea and toast and a lazy day, starting with a read of the newspapers. Online, of course. Though he may stir himself, he thought, to nip round the corner and buy a Glasgow Evening Times later. For old times' sake, he smiled to himself. Tea and toast finished, Bert Finlayson settled down for ten minutes or so before he planned to switch on his laptop and find out whether or not the world had ended. It was then his eyes fell on Niven Robb’s battered old case, the one Ritchie had been brandishing with such disdain the previous night. When he opened it the first thing he saw was a manuscript. Ha, he thought, so the old boy was just like every hack whoever lived. He thought he had a book in him. A novel, probably. Bert smiled to himself when he picked it up and saw it was not the crisp clean typeface of something written on a laptop or pc and then printed out. No, this was just like Niven Robb had been, old school. A typewriter’s type face, uneven, with holes where some of the letter 'o' should have been. Well, thought Bert, maybe I can show Ritchie his grandfather did leave a legacy. A great novel of Scotland in the 20th century, perhaps. Bert had plenty of pals in the publishing business in London. If it was any good he would try and get it published. For the memory of the old man he admired so much. And to show Ritchie Robb his grandfather had not lived in vain. Perhaps that would be the boost Ritchie needed to stop moaning and start believing in himself and his work again. Bert Finlayson brewed a cafetiere of coffee, settled into the huge comfortable armchair that Ritchie had sat in the previous night, and opened Niven Robb’s manuscript.
Dev I really don't think any more should be posted he might try and sue you for copyright and that would be embarrassing getting done for stealing off an pished stained alcoholic. Also its quite bad.
There is so much wrong with that paragraph I don't even know where to begin! For a start, having a night getting drunk and eating curry is hardly "on the road to nowhere". Surely it should simply be "downed pint after pint of larger"? And is Frank Sinatra actually in the room with them? It's ****ing dreadful
Here's another guy who's "Tired". CHAPTER 5 ENGLAND - July 1939 William C Bullitt was tired. Dealing with the French would have made anyone tired, he thought as he stepped off the ferry from Calais at Dover and walked through the steadily falling rain towards the waiting car. Bullitt sighed. The drizzle and gloom that had engulfed the Channel extended on to the shores of England. A damp little island, was another thought which occurred to Bullitt. And, as if it wasn’t hard enough dealing with the French in his official capacity as the United States Ambassador to France, now he was going to have to sit, sup and break bread with another prickly character, this time not a Frenchman, but an Englishman. Bullitt wondered again just why Brendan Bracken had travelled to Paris and virtually begged him to make this trip to see the man who was the British MPs political master and mentor, Winston Churchill. He also wondered why he had agreed and made the crossing over a choppy Channel. The previous day had been a trying one for Ambassador Bullitt. The Fourth of July was always a round of parties and pleasantries for any American Ambassador anywhere, as Independence Day was celebrated. And this year the links the French had with American War of Independence, the alliance of 1917 against the Germans and the worsening international crisis, with Germany once again the threat, had given added importance to a day which saw Bullitt go to Chalons-sur-Marne to dedicate a plaque there to the American Unknown Soldier of the Great War. As he settled into the back seat and the car moved off into the Kent countryside, Bullitt thought that if he had his way there would be no more unknown American soldiers scattered around Europe. Just as he knew that Churchill was determined to ensure there would be. War was coming, Adolf Hitler was sniffing at the scent of blood. The German people had been whipped into a bloodlust by him. Bullitt knew it. He accepted it. But he also accepted there was nothing the British could do about it. Or the French. As for America, Bullitt had his own views, but his job was to represent those of the American Government. Churchill, he knew, would disagree. Certainly about the British being too feeble The old man had been out in the political cold for nearly a decade, exiled from the cabinet to the backbenches as no more than a mere MP. But now, with those war clouds gathering, the British people and even the British Government, knew that when the first shots were fired, a place in the Government would have to be found for Churchill. Bullitt knew all of this, just as he continued to wonder just what all of it had to do with him. Surely anything Churchill had to say on the matter should be conveyed through the United States Ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy? But, Bullitt mulled over in his mind, there was no love lost between the Churchill, the British Imperialist with the aristocratic background, and Kennedy, an IRA supporter who had made his money during Prohibition as a bootlegger. While Churchill, as a young man, counted the Heads of the Royal Houses of Europe among his friends and confidants, Kennedy numbered Al Capone as a business associate and a pal. Bullitt had always thought President Roosevelt’s choice of Joe Kennedy a strange one to send to Britain to present his credentials at the Court of St James to King George V1 and negotiate with Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, though Bullitt had heard Kennedy and Halifax got on well enough. Perhaps they were united by their mutual loathing of Churchill. It took the car Churchill had sent to collect Bullitt an hour to travel through the wet but beautiful and rolling French countryside before the driver turned off into a driveway which led to an imposing house. The tall quiet and thoroughly competent looking man wearing the trench coat and soft hat who sat in the front beside the driver and who had introduced himself only as Thompson, was out quickly when the car stopped. But not quickly enough. For there, almost dancing from the front door of the house to reach the back door of the car first, was a small man wearing stripped trousers, a black jacket and a bow tie, but with dainty monogrammed velvet slippers on his feet. Winston Churchill was impervious to the rain which continued to soak the Kent countryside. ‘Mr Ambassador. Welcome to Chartwell. I trust the crossing was not too unhelpful? ‘The Channel was choppy.’ Churchill positively beamed at the news. His smile was almost like a child discovering his Christmas presents were the ones he had asked for. ‘Ah, the English Channel, Mr Ambassador. Fortress Britain’s moat. If Herr Hitler tries to cross it he and all his Narzee hordes will perish there. Britannia will see to it.’ Bullitt could not help but smile at the way this great speechmaker lisped and pronounced Nazi as Narzee. He smiled again, realised that Churchill’s eyes had left him and that he was gazing across the hill behind Chartwell and sniffing the air. ‘Smell that, Mr Ambassador. On a day like this when the rain falls on this green and pleasant land, you can actually smell England. It never fails to make me realise what a sacred trust we have.’ Bullitt merely nodded, but he had to admit there was a scent of Kent, a smell he had never experienced before. But he was no romantic English Imperialist like Churchill. And he wanted to get in out of the rain. Churchill, he knew, kept a good table and a fine wine cellar and he relished the thought of sampling both. The American was not disappointed as Churchill led him into a room where the table was set and where there were two armchairs beyond the dining table, facing each other and with a smaller table between them on which sat an array of drinks. Churchill nodded Bullitt towards the chair with its back to the dining table and then nodded to the servant who hovered. ‘Whisky for the Ambassador,’ said Churchill, who had no need to tell Sawyers, who knew his every whim after more than ten years as hi s valet, what he wanted. Soon Bullitt was taking a deep pull of a large whisky, served over ice in the American-style, while Churchill sipped from a tall glass of what looked like a small whisky and lots of water. The English did not put ice in whisky. Without warning, Churchill almost barked a question in Bullitt’s direction. ‘Will they fight?’ Bullitt was startled for a moment, but quickly realised Churchill meant the French. ‘They gave so much in the Great War, sir. But if they must, the French will fight. I am confident of that.’
Silence descended and Bullitt found it unnerving as he watched Churchill glower and sip at his drink. It was only at that point that he truly noticed the old man’s age. Churchill was closing in on his sixty-fifth birthday. He was an old man. If this was what England was to rely on, thought Bullitt, then the French would have to not only fight, but do most of the fighting. Bullitt was again startled when Churchill rasped once more. “Certainly, Mr Ambassador. But will they fight well? ‘Yes, again, sir. They have a bigger army than the Germans and they have the Maginot Line.’ Bullitt paused and wondered if he dared. He leaned forward. Churchill, sensing a verbal attack, leaned forward a little, too. Bullitt noticed the miniscule manoeuvre, but knew he had to press home his attack. ‘The question is, sir, will you British fight?’ If he had been expecting Churchill to be angered, or nonplussed, Bullitt was wrong and the unexpected nature of Churchill’s response pleased him to such an extent that he committed the cardinal error no diplomat can make. Bullitt smiled. ‘Politics, Mr Ambassador, are almost as exciting as war. In war you can be killed only once, but in politics, many times.’ Clearly encouraged by Bullitt’s reaction to that, Churchill added, ‘The English never draw a line without blurring it. ‘Herr Hitler may think that we have already drawn that line after Munich and that is the end of the matter. That he can now do as he pleases. He is wrong. ‘France has been a great nation and will be again. What is in doubt is whether it remains a great nation now. Great enough to plough the bloody furrow of another war, another great devastation of her soil. I ponder that and wonder. ‘Since the Great War, for good or ill, the French people have been masters in their own house and have built as they chose upon the ruins of the old regime. The difficulty is to like what they have done.’ Bullitt sensed Churchill was waiting for some sort of declaration from him. Not of America’s intention to fight. Or, at least, not from the start. But perhaps of American intent to be on he right side. To be firm enough and belligerent enough in her language, warning Hitler and, hopefully, making the German leader think again. He looked straight at Churchill and declared, ‘I believe my government should warn all leaders of all nations not to break the peace, but that it is, therefore, natural that wherever there are lines of battle there will be courage and self-sacrifice by soldiers, made necessary by an evil cause. Nations which believe, as do Americans and Britons, that human beings are an end in themselves and not instruments to be employed by the will of a powerful individual, naturally seek to achieve their aims without war.’ It was not what Churchill wanted to hear, but more than he expected. Certainly a lot more than the American Ambassador to Britain, Joe Kennedy, had ever uttered either in public or in private. Churchill gave no more than a glimpse of a glint in his eye at Bullitt to convey his pleasure. ‘But I have not asked you here to talk about the willingness of the French to fight. I think that when their sacred soil is threatened by the Hun they will rally to their colours and there is nothing to stir the soul more than a Frenchman marching behind that fluttering Tricolour to the beat of the Marseillies. Apart, of course, from the tramp of the British boot to the sound of the British Grenadiers. ‘No, what I have to tell you, what you must know, is of no concern to France. Bracken will join us after we lunch. There will be someone with him. It is what this man has to tell you that I pray you listen to. The very fate of this nation, of even American freedom, too, may depend on what you think. Of what action you may deem you must take. ‘You are about to be entrusted with a secret so awful for the honour of your great country that it is intolerable to consider it becoming known. Not even by the British Government. First, though, we shall take luncheon.’ Bullitt thought that there could never be a better way devised to put him off food, or lead to the lack of digestion of anything he did manage to eat than what Churchill had told him. But when he looked across the table after the soup had been served, Churchill was busily and messily slurping it into his mouth. Bullitt was beginning to learn about this Englishman. Old, or not, he was formidable.
Obviously leggo could not afford a proofreader, this is Vanity Publishing at it's very worst and most desperate. Robb wondered if Kennedy had suddenly realised he had said too much. That the bourbon had taken over. However, when the American Ambassador to the Court of St James spoke again, the Scottish newspaper reporter realised that he had weighed and measured, possibly even rehearsed, ever word. Kennedy, Niven Robb was convinced, was happy with what he had told him.
Ch. 1. "The Old Man was tired." Ch. 2. "The old man knew his time was near." Ch. 3. "Ritchie Robb was tired." Ch. 5. "William C Bullitt was tired." I'm ****ing tired reading it! And, William C Bullitt. Billy Bullitt
CHAPTER 6 Scotland 1939 Niven Robb had not been happy with the whole thing. Not comfortable at all. As a journalist he knew he should be reporting the story only. But now he was part of it. Indeed, he was now right at the heart of it. Despite those misgivings, he knew he had done the right thing. Niven worked for the left wing Labour supporting Daily Herald newspaper and had already made a name for himself as a firebrand left wing journalist who had been to Spain to report on the Scots who fought in the International Brigade against General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Although he was based in Glasgow, more than 400 miles from the centre of political power in London, Niven Robb’s reputation in the corridors of power in Westminster and among foreign diplomats was high.
Even before he met Kennedy, Niven Robb was puzzled by the subterfuge attached to what he saw as a perfectly normal interview. It was only as their time together progressed that the young reporter began to realise what he was getting himself into. Kennedy had arrived with a companion who he introduced as Cassidy James. Robb took an immediate dislike to this small, weasel-featured individual with lank grey greasy hair, a pock-marked face and a moustache, who was opposite in every way, as far as appearance was concerned, to the tall, slender, well-scrubbed Kennedy. Niven Robb was to learn that everywhere Ambassador Kennedy went, Cassidy James went with him and that his first impression of the small slightly overweight Irish-American, was spot on. Cassidy James, people who knew him, told Robb that he was an evil man. Surprise surprise, the baddie's an Irishman.
LLOYDS BANK did play a key role in the sell out of Rangers by David Murray to conman Craig Whyte. I can now reveal that is the case, despite persistent denials from Lloyds chiefs. In fact, as recently as earlier this month, Lloyds Banking Group chairman, Sir Winfried Bischoff, a season ticket holder at Parkhead, told Lloyds shareholders at the Annual General meeting in Edinburgh that the bank had no influence whatsoever in the deal. If facts emerge to the contrary, that statement by Sir Winfried Aiden Bischoff could have extremely serious repercussions for the Lloyds Banking Group chairman. For it is a criminal offence for a company chairman to mislead shareholders at an Annual General Meeting. Any part played by Lloyds in the handover of his 85.3per cent shareholding in Rangers by David Murray to conman Craig Whyte for a quid, relates to a type of security held by the bank which is called a Negative Pledge. There are three documents involved, a Directors’ Guarantee, which is self explanatory and a Fixed and Floating Charge, which relates, in part, to fixed assets such as Ibrox, the Albion car park and the Milngavie training ground. But it is the third, The Negative Pledge, which is the important one in the case of the sell out of Rangers by David Murray to Craig Whyte and the dodgy deal Whyte set up top get a £24M loan from Ticketus by mortgaging season tickets before he owned Rangers. That was, in fact, the money which funded the £18M pay off to Lloyds Bank. And handing over that £18M to Lloyds in a lump sum was a condition of Craig Whyte being allowed to buy Rangers for a quid. For Craig Whyte could NOT have gone ahead and bought Rangers WITHOUT the say so of Lloyds. Because of the Negative Pledge, Whyte and David Murray would have had to inform Lloyds Bank of the deal with Ticketus and get their permission for the Whyte-Ticketus deal to go ahead. And without the £24M Ticketus handed Whyte, the trickster would not have been able to hand over £18M to Lloyds before the ink was dry on the contract which gave him ownership of Rangers. Which hardly sits well with what Lloyds Banking Group chairman, the Celtic supporting Sir Winfried Bischoff told the bank’s shareholders at that stormy AGM in Edinburgh when he was under pressure to answer a number of questions about the way the sale of Rangers to Craig Whyte, a man with a dubious past and no visible means of support, was handled by Lloyds. Now, nearly two weeks after that AGM, Sir Winfried Bischoff has still to honour a pledge he made at the meeting in response to a question about the role the controversial Donald Muir played in the dodgy deal. Muir, you will recall, was a Rangers director, put there by Lloyds and was the Lloyds man on the Ibrox board. Yet amazingly, proud Roman Catholic, Sir Winfried Bischoff asked the AGM to believe that he had no idea what – if any, he said – Donald Muir played in the dodgy deal which delivered Rangers to conman Whyte and which led directly to the Ibrox club’s current crisis. But Sir Winfried Bischoff, whose mother hails from County Cork, did publicly pledge that he would find out and get the answer to the shareholder who quizzed him. I spoke to that shareholder last night and now, almost a fortnight after Sir Winfried Bischoff made his public promise, no answer has been forthcoming. Amazingly, despite their controversial and as yet not full explained role in delivering the deal which sent Rangers hurtling into administration, Lloyds remain Rangers bankers. Perhaps now, a year on from the start of the WHYTE SCANDAL, something which Lloyds sparked and which they remain at the heart of, Lloyds Banking Group – 43per cent owned by the British taxpayer – may be prevailed upon to do some proper due diligence on Charles Green, before Rangers are sold out again. And not just on Charles Green, but also on the Green Gang and the MEN of MYSTERY who are closing in on winning their sleekit fight to snare Rangers without ever revealing the names of the men with the money and what their visible means of support may be. But given Sir Winfried Bischoff’s bungling performance at the Lloyds Banking Group’s Annual General Meeting and his lack of knowledge as to what role the Lloyds' man on the Rangers board, Donald Muir, played in the sell out, plus his apparent denial of the Negative Ple-dge Lloyds held over Rangers, which meant the bank had to sanction to Tickets-Whyte £24M deal, I am not hopeful. Lloyds Bank, having got their mitts on the £18M, funded entirely by the dodgy deal between conman Whyte and Ticketus, don’t seem to care what happens now.
