Everyone even remotely connected to Scottish politics has known for months that the below is the case. It’s an open secret.
But what’s playing out right now is something much bigger than the fate of one or two or three individuals. It’s the entire future of the credibility of Scotland’s justice system.
Let us not be ungracious about the use of the term “leading figures” here.
But equally, let’s not waste too much attention.
As we write this article, Sandy Brindley (on the left of the picture below) is still in post as the CEO of Rape Crisis Scotland.
For as long as that remains the case, rape victims in Scotland will not be safe.
This must be some kind of mistake.
Because we’re sure you’ve spent the last decade telling us that just couldn’t happen.
Astonishingly, there isn’t a single word of apology anywhere in this statement.
There isn’t a scintilla of contrition, not the tiniest glimmer of admission of culpability or responsibility. There isn’t even a weasel-worded expression of “regret”.
Rape Crisis Scotland is unfit for purpose, and its CEO must resign.
We’ve just watched the BBC’s new documentary, and we’re confused.
You can see both episodes on iPlayer now, or on TV tonight and tomorrow, but there’s no mistaking what’s being advertised – a personal drama between the two biggest players in Scottish politics in the last 300 years.
But that’s not what you get.
The dogged persistence of alert Wings contributor Benjamin Harrop with regard to the Hamilton inquiry has been truly heroic, and today it has borne fruit in dramatic style.
The 10-page adjudication from the Scottish Information Commissioner that you can download by clicking that image is a somewhat labyrinthine (but fascinating) read, but the upshot of it is that the Commissioner has now ordered the Scottish Government to release all of the legal advice it was given with regard to its refusal to publish the written evidence submitted to James Hamilton for his inquiry into the events around the alleged conspiracy to falsely convict Alex Salmond of sexual assaults.
(See, even that one-sentence summary was quite hard going.)
But why does that matter and what does it mean?
The sudden abandonment yesterday of the Scottish Government’s dreadful proposals for a legislative ban on so-called “conversion practices” is a big victory for this website, which has campaigned hard against it since it was first mooted almost two years ago.
Despite saying as recently as mid-May that it was “committed to continuing with that legislation”, and the new First Minister making a huge fuss about it at Edinburgh Pride just a handful of weeks ago, the administration has clearly (if belatedly) realised that as well as being massively unpopular it would probably be another disastrous high-profile failure along the lines of the Gender Recognition Reform Act, as it too would be likely to be in conflict with UK law.
So on the face of it it’s just a “pragmatic step” to avoid wasting any more time, energy and political capital that could be better spent trying to turn the government’s fortunes around, and leaving Labour to do all the dirty work instead.
But it may turn out far more significant than that.
This sounds like good news, doesn’t it?
But in fact the headline on the STV News website – whether intentionally, through innocent misunderstanding or, as we suspect, a result of being deliberately misled by government ministers – is a flat-out lie.
In fact the Scottish Government has done the exact opposite. It has taken Dr Hilary Cass’s four-year report and set it on fire, so that it can continue to irreversibly destroy the lives of Scottish children in the name of gender ideology.
We’ve just watched a hearing at the Court Of Session with regard to Alex Salmond’s civil claim against the Scottish Government. It was an ostensibly minor one, in which Salmond’s team were requesting a sist (pause) in the case for the fourth time, on the grounds of a number of ongoing police inquiries related to the events around the claim.
For most of the time Wings was the only journalist in a (virtual) room full of lawyers – although a couple of Scottish Daily Mail hacks turned up midway through – and we got to hear a dramatic surprise revelation.
James Hynd is a civil servant who was head of the Scottish Government’s cabinet, parliament and governance division during the inquiry.
(And he may still be – he’s a man with a microscopic digital footprint, and pretty much every piece of what little there is to be found concerns the inquiry. Indeed, the same is true of his entire department, which is extremely publicity-shy.)
But the hearing revealed for the first time that Hynd is currently subject to a criminal investigation by Police Scotland, with the name Operation Broadcroft, on suspicion of the serious crime of “wilfully making false statements on oath” to the inquiry.
And the ramifications of that extend much further than Mr Hynd himself.
Poor old Tommy Sheppard’s got a contract, so he has to keep talking. And this week he said something that, if anyone really thought the constitution was still a current live political issue, would have attracted a lot more attention than it did.
Because even the SNP are now saying another indyref is – at best – a decade away.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
