Mystic Craig strikes again (maybe)

Talking of Marks at the BBC (as we were in the post now bumped up above this one!)...

One I trust vastly more than slippery Mark Easton - namely Newsnight's Mark Urban -  has been digging into the 'Corbyn=Czechoslovak spy' story. 

And, yes, as I result of what I've read from Mark (on Twitter) this afternoon, I'm going to go out on a blogger's limb and firmly predict (with no other evidence yet to to support it other than knowing what the BBC is like) that...

...drum roll please!...

...yes, Newsnight is finally going to report the story tonight - and, even more,  is actually 'go big' with it.

And why do I think that? Because Mark has sounded the 'All Clear' for the far-left Labour leader. 

Yes, from his digging, all's apparently coming up smelling of Bohemian, Moravian and Slovakian roses for Agent Cob...

• 1/3 spoke to some fmr British spooks about the Corbyn 'Czech spy' claim. They consider it nonsense, 'he had no secrets to give away' says one, E. Bloc officers in London 'had a pattern of exaggerating the importance of their contacts' says another
• 2/3 most intelligence agencies define an agent as 'under control', or 'taskable', say former spooks, & having had full access to Czech StB files post cold war, MI6 evidently do not consider Corbyn met that definition
• 3/3 one former case officer jokes Corbyn 'may have been naive in his contacts [with a Czech spook] but I'm not looking for any more evidence of his naivety'.
• p.s. British intelligence officers had the run of Czech & Stasi files at the end of the Cold War + Mitrokhin gave them the KGB's crown jewels. For many years they've had the evidence who betrayed what and to whom.

After its most respected reporter has now found the Labour leader innocent of being a Soviet bloc agent, shall we take bets on how long Newsnight will spend on the story tonight, having spent no time whatsoever on it up till now?

What do you reckon? No time at all? 5 minutes? 10 minutes? 15 minutes? More? 

Guido Fawkes, however, isn't sounding the 'all clear' and is continuing to do its own digging.

If Newsnight takes the impartial high ground and doesn't much a lot of Mark Urban's researches today, after ignoring the story for nigh on two weeks, I'll give them credit tomorrow. 

I really doubt they'll be able to contain themselves though.

We'll soon know.

Update: And the answer is: They didn't cover it. I'm about as 'mystic' as 'Mystic Meg' herself!