‘MATERIAL ON A REGULAR BASIS’

Emails from Quiller lobbyist Gerard Russell to Anwar Gargash, UAE foreign minister; copied in is Mohamed Alharbi, political officer at UAE’s London embassy. BBC reporter Paul Adams also writes to Russell, copying in Gargash

From: Gerard Russell To: anwar.gargash Cc: mohamed ahmed alharbi

Abbas and I had a good conversation today with Andrew Gilligan. He was very interested.

I expect that we will see something published as a result of this meeting (though it may take a while – the libel lawyers need to go through it first).

I plan to send you a proposal that explains how we can do more of this kind of work, and build our relationship with trusted journalists to achieve more results in the future.

We propose that we continue to develop the relationship with Gilligan and pass him material on a regular basis. He works for Boris Johnson as a paid adviser – which just gives us the added certainty that he will not write anything to the UAE’s detriment.

From: Paul Adams To: Gerard Russell Subject: Dr Gargash briefing at 9am today-confirmation

Hi Gerard, That was a stunningly useful briefing – I know Ian and Alan felt the same way. Terrific stuff. So rare to get a barely varnished account of the way things look to a player in the region.

From: Gerard Russell To: anwar.gargash Cc: Mohamed Alharbi

You may be interested to see this piece by Con Coughlin on Islamists in Britain which will be in tomorrow’s digest too. It is very supportive of your point of view. We are in touch with Con but have avoided discussing the UAE in our conversation.