Wings Over Scotland

In 2014, it was women who stopped Scotland becoming independent.

But it was still a man’s fault, of course. Those of us who were around at the time, while many of the SNP’s earnest young activists of today were still squeezing their spots, will recall a multitude of media articles on how it was apparently the fairer sex’s personal antipathy to Alex Salmond that was responsible for the No camp’s victory.

And who knows, maybe that was true and maybe it wasn’t. We have no idea. But what we do know is that you can’t have it both ways.

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There’s literally nothing about this that isn’t toe-curlingly embarrassing:

The only challenge is knowing where to start.

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On pain of a grisly death, we’re not allowed to tell our splendid cartoonist Chris Cairns what to draw cartoons about. Artists are funny that way. And it’s a shame, because if we were we’d have a great idea for this weekend’s toon.

Because what’s being demanded of Alex Salmond right now is extraordinary.

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During today’s session of the Holyrood inquiry into the botched conspiracy against Alex Salmond, committee MSP Jackie Baillie gave the Permanent Secretary, Leslie Evans, an especially uncomfortable time with some persistent and forensic questions about the Scottish Government’s failure to uphold its legal “duty of candour” in respect of the disclosure of relevant documents to Lord Pentland’s judicial inquiry.

(A report publicly released on Christmas Eve noted that on 2 November 2018 external counsel had stressed to government lawyers the importance of that duty of candour, and that on 6 November 2018 in the Court of Session, Lord Pentland had directed that he expected full candour and disclosure from the Government.)

A flustered Evans simply swerved most of them. And we’re going to show you why.

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So we have our answer. According to press reports today (although we haven’t seen an actual official reply), John Swinney has refused to formally tell James Hamilton that his inquiry into possible breaches of the Ministerial Code by the First Minister over the Alex Salmond investigation ought to include the matter of whether she repeatedly lied to Parliament about what she knew and when.

Wave goodbye to justice, readers.

Because the First Minister and her deputy are now proven liars and cowards.

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We know we’ve given you quite a lot to digest already this year, readers. But spare a thought for us – trying to keep on top of all the fast-moving developments in Scottish politics in the first 11 days of 2021 has been rather like trying to tunnel our way out of an avalanche while it was still happening.

We’ve had a bit of job even finding a spare moment to squeeze the cartoons in. But today’s task looked like one of the most challenging of all.

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The freelance journalist, broadcaster and former SNP staffer Mark Hirst was last week acquitted at Jedburgh Sheriff Court, after a very short trial, of a charge of threatening behaviour against the anonymous complainers who made false allegations of sexual misconduct against the former First Minister, Alex Salmond.

Many hundreds of years ago a very different type of law used to operate in Jedburgh, or Jethart as it’s known locally. “Jethart Justice” was once meted out to the Reivers – the lawless cattle stealers and highwaymen who used to range freely in that part of the Borders – which was that the local prosecutors would hang suspects first, then try the dead men afterwards. Some believe it’s where the concept of lynching originated.

Anyone who thinks those days are over doesn’t know the Scottish media.

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We’d still been scratching our heads about the sudden flood this week of Unionists all demanding the Scottish Parliament election in May be postponed, the latest example being angry old uppercase-letter-phobe Euan McColm in today’s Scotland On Sunday.

Bizarrely, the piece doesn’t even attempt to acknowledge the fact that literally dozens of countries on every inhabited continent have managed to carry on with democratic elections and referendums during the COVID-19 crisis with no significant problems, just insists that it’s something Scotland definitely can’t do.

But then we had a lightbulb moment.

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Before we got distracted by a(nother) completely gratuitious and unprovoked personal attack from a pro-indy blogger yesterday, this is what we’d been going to write about.

So since the SNP haven’t even bothered themselves to issue some sort of half-hearted token response to Boris Johnson’s declaration yesterday that he wouldn’t contemplate a second indyref before 2055, we might as well while away a few moments analysing the current state of Scottish Labour thinking just to cheer ourselves up.

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On 31 January last year everything changed. On that date – the one when Scotland was officially dragged out of the EU because it was in the UK, despite the SNP’s repeated pronouncements that such a thing would not happen – sane people finally woke up and realised that Nicola Sturgeon had no plan to secure independence.

Almost a year later, a shrinking rump of less-sane people are still clinging desperately to a variety of irrational beliefs (there’s still a secret genius strategy waiting to be unveiled and we simply can’t give away our hand yet; Boris Johnson is an honourable democrat and will cave in if the SNP get a majority in May’s election; magic pixies on unicorns will descend from the heavens and grant Scotland its freedom), but most of us have now realised that 31 January 2021 will be just as pivotal as 31 January 2020.

Because an awful lot of stuff is about to happen in a hurry.

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Yesterday we noted that rational people arrive at decisions about things based on the facts, not the personalities of who else might support or oppose those things. But in the interests of balance, allow us to present the counterpoint.

Yesterday the SNP’s defence spokesman at Westminster cited the position of French National Front leader Marine Le Pen when arguing with someone who suggested that an independent Scotland should leave NATO.

As it happens, we agree with McDonald on NATO membership. It would be a pointless folly and an exercise in self-destructive virtue-signalling to leave an organisation which is willing to defend Scotland militarily for free because of its strategic location, and it would be extremely unpopular with the Scottish public (including SNP voters), no matter how much those on the left might wish otherwise.

His reasoning above, however, is a wretched embarrassment.

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If this site seems to spend most of its time being angry at the SNP these days, that’s because we are. And a large part of that is because there’s very little that hacks us off more than people insulting our intelligence.

Smith’s tweet is just a crassly offensive flat-out lie. This week’s vote is NOT about “EU membership”. The United Kingdom hasn’t been a member of the EU since 31 January. We’ve already left and there’s no going back. The vote is about whether we leave with a sliver of a trade deal slightly reducing the self-inflicted harm, or the total catastrophe of no deal at all, and it’s just crushingly embarrassing for all concerned that Smith thinks so little of his own supporters as to believe he can “frame” it otherwise.

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