Voting is now open in the selection contests to determine who the SNP’s candidates at next year’s election will be. Given the extremely dodgy secret-Survey-Monkey-ballot shenanigans recently adopted by the party NEC, we’re uncomfortably reminded of a famous quote attributed to Joseph Stalin: “it’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes”.
An excellent blog by the former SNP Trade & Industry spokesman Iain Lawson today highlights the near-impossibility of effecting change from within the SNP now, due to changes made by the leadership to eliminate the influence of ordinary members.
Indeed, so secure do the party’s controlling faction consider themselves that they now feel able to openly call their own supporters “bitches”.
But not quite SO secure that they still don’t want to cheat.
The battle to save the soul of the SNP – formerly a party of Scottish independence but now a career vehicle for intolerant science-denying cultists solely interested in social engineering – is already almost lost.
By delaying its online pretend “conference” until the end of November, the party has ensured that the chronically dysfunctional current National Executive Committee (NEC) controls the selection of candidates for next year’s election, and it’s using that power every bit as crookedly as anyone who’s been paying attention recently might fear.
Following the stitch-up of Joanna Cherry, the latest victim of the SNP’s woke cabal is Caroline McAllister, a woman who the party considers quite fit to be a councillor – and indeed the Deputy Leader of its group on West Dunbartonshire council – but who has suddenly somehow become unacceptable when she tried to seek nomination for the MSP seat currently held by Jackie Baillie of Scottish Labour.
We’ve just received the most extraordinary Freedom Of Information response from the Scottish Government, readers. Trust us, you want to go and make yourselves a strong cup of tea before you read it. Or get this guy to bring you one.
It doesn’t take a master analyst to see that the Salmond inquiry committee is running out of patience with the Scottish Government’s endless attempts to obstruct its work.
This afternoon it issued a statement, with obvious irritation, making clear that it did not wish to see documents the Scottish Government was trying to submit to it, which the committee had not asked for, and which had previously been struck down as unlawful by Lord Pentland in the initial judicial inquiry.
The Scottish Government’s only purpose in doing so was to try to put the details of the discredited and disproven-in-court allegations into the public domain with the intention of smearing Mr Salmond yet again, and the committee has made its displeasure with the plan clear, telling the Scottish Government to abandon its intended legal action to release the documents and get on with producing the ones the inquiry HAS asked for.
But there’s a little bit more to the story than that.
We’re grumpy this morning, readers, because it’s Sunday and we were planning a long lie and then someone told us about this. It’s the First Minister appearing on the Sophy Ridge show on Sky News at around 8.45am and you need to see it.
A column on a Sturgeon-loyalist indy website that we read yesterday has been mildly annoying us ever since, and in the interests of open debate (but mainly because it’s cold and grey and rainy outside and we can’t go out and feed the swans) we thought it was worth taking half an hour to walk through it a little and explain just why it’s such a dangerous piece of fantasy nonsense.
But first here’s one of said swans. She’s about five months old and her adult feathers are just starting to come through. Isn’t she lovely?
In case things get a bit rough later we’ve got some squirrels and a really fat dachshund as emergency backup, so buckle in.
The weekend just past saw a convulsion as big as any we can ever recall witnessing on Yes social media, triggered by a series of tweets by Nicola Sturgeon which caused an extraordinary negative reaction out of all proportion to their ostensible content.
The reason was that the First Minister – who had remained silent about countless episodes of hideous misogynistic abuse aimed from her own side at MPs and MSPs like Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry – had chosen to suddenly leap into action in defence of the toxically divisive horror that is Glasgow councillor Rhiannon Spear after Spear had been widely criticised for making blatantly false claims in a video promoting her attempt to be selected as the candidate for Argyll & Bute.
(Sturgeon had no such public condemnation for the torrents of abuse the SNP Twitler Youth then unleased on Kirsten Thornton, the female SNP activist and Generation Yes founder who’d pointed out Spear’s untruths.)
The move sent the party’s woke and sane factions into a frenzy of bloodletting which in itself will have little if any impact on the wider electorate, but nonetheless threw into sharp relief the life-and-death battle currently going on for the SNP’s soul.
And since that’s related to what we’ve been writing about on Wings for the bulk of this year, it seemed worthwhile to get some things down on the record once and for all.
Whichever side you’re on, it’s simply observably true that the Scottish Government is doing everything in its power to obstruct, delay and derail the Parliamentary inquiry into its ruinously botched investigation of false allegations against Alex Salmond.
Any investigative journalist attempting to get to the bottom of the subject and find out what really happened is met with a wall of secrecy and misinformation while trying to navigate their way through the publicly-available information, and just to give you some idea of what it’s like, we’d like to offer you one tiny but typical example.
Over the last year or so, this site’s commentary on matters surrounding the attempted imprisonment of Alex Salmond over false allegations of sexual abuse has attracted a considerable amount of ire from a section of the readership, demanding “proof” of the involvement of the current First Minister.
Such proof has been impossible to provide for legal reasons. But it’s always been the case that the truth could only be suppressed for so long, and events in recent days have brought the first chinks of light through the wall of smoke and mirrors the Scottish Government has been attempting to surround the matter with.
So in our very lightest and softest shoes, let’s tiptoe through what is both a labyrinth and a minefield and see if we can make some of it a little easier to understand.
The Woman Who Remembers Nothing, having asked for some time to think about it, concluded that there was simply no way to estimate the total cost to the public purse of the biased and unlawful fiasco she presided over regarding the investigation of false abuse claims against Alex Salmond, and which had cost taxpayers over half a million pounds in Mr Salmond’s legal fees alone.
Her argument was that because government employees are paid fixed salaries and don’t record how much of their time they spent on specific tasks, there was no way to estimate how much had been spent on the attempt to fit up the former First Minister.
But that isn’t how anything works these days, is it?
John McGregor on Blue In The Face: “I would have a referendum on Devolution then if the country voted for it too be kept then go for…” Jul 15, 02:21
Northcode on Blue In The Face: “I should have said for clarity that although the 2014 Scottish independence referendum used the local-government franchise that franchise is…” Jul 15, 01:38
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: “Not that it’s going to happen in my lifetime, but if Indyref2 was ever to be held, only those entitled…” Jul 15, 00:34
Northcode on Blue In The Face: “This is a long one… scroll on by if you can’t be bothered ;earning something interesting and informative. I feel…” Jul 15, 00:16
Young Lochinvar on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “SHM I served then, but not in the Falklands, indeed I remember seeing the remnants of the Argentinian debris of…” Jul 15, 00:03
StrangerHereMyself on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Cheering on the Argentinians and not the exploits of the Scots Guards at Tumbledown? This self-identification lark is good, eh?…” Jul 14, 22:23
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “Pastor Fagat Wow! And you suggest I am thick? Phew you’ve got a nerve. Read again your own summaries against…” Jul 14, 22:21
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: “Sorry… Should say “got” not “hot”. Either way, it’s not in the interests of the British State to see the…” Jul 14, 22:00
Andy Ellis on Step One: “@ Young Lochinbore Not even close, no cigar…soz. Any variations are minor. The principle remains: all of them used broad,…” Jul 14, 21:29
Innocent bystander on Blue In The Face: “Within the second paragraph of PS response they apologise that reference was made that they had been advised HOW to…” Jul 14, 20:50
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: ““Would be sweet karma if Nicola bust the SNP by self-obsessed accident.” I’d say by design rather than by accident.…” Jul 14, 20:19
Dan on Blue In The Face: “Aye, indeed it is a rather self-induced wretched state of affairs, but I’m not sad, more frustrated and somewhat angry…” Jul 14, 19:41
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “Pastor Fagat 2nd attempt to post this reply, fingers crossed this time. I am using your numbered list, see below…” Jul 14, 19:39
sarah on Blue In The Face: “Urgent and Important: Scotland’s independent legal status has just been directly denied by the UK government in the Court of…” Jul 14, 19:35
Chris on Blue In The Face: “Apologies Stuart,, I was a bit impatient, sorry.” Jul 14, 19:18
James on The Interests Of The Many: “Aye, just like you, petal. Why don’t you three get a ‘family room’ somewhere for a night?” Jul 14, 19:00
James on Blue In The Face: “Light bulb moment, Inglis?” Jul 14, 18:56
Wally Jumblatt on Blue In The Face: “I don’t know the details of the SNP’s Articles of Association or whatever, but I suspect that they are now…” Jul 14, 18:44
MP on Blue In The Face: “Worth the follow-up Q’s, but I think that they are saying (1) they knew that the money had been spent…” Jul 14, 18:44
agentx on Blue In The Face: “Those Bloody English!” Jul 14, 18:40
Alf Baird on Blue In The Face: “Aye Robert, for a people who are out of the game, “all roads lead to Rome”. The native seldom looks…” Jul 14, 18:32
Eric on Blue In The Face: “There seems to be more buck passing here. It states these “matters were … reported to the COPFS for guidance”.…” Jul 14, 18:25
barelybare on Blue In The Face: “I agree, Houston leaves us hanging by ending the story with report to COPFS. One could conclude he is saying…” Jul 14, 17:54
Captain Caveman on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Heh, well maybe – but not if we’re talking about the Court of Public Opinion? That’s really quite the cliff…” Jul 14, 17:17
Young Lochinvar on Step One: “AI Dun Well you would wouldn’t you! Remember; A is B, black is white and up is down in your…” Jul 14, 16:46
robertkknight on Blue In The Face: “It is becoming clearer by the day that Police Scotland and/or the COPFS have been told this far, (Murrell trial/conviction),…” Jul 14, 16:35
Andy Ellis on Step One: “@Young Lochinbore I see you have comprehension difficulties on top of you other issues. The point of the list is…” Jul 14, 16:33
Young Lochinvar on The Unstoppable Lie Machine: “Pastor Fagat & 1.51 The classroom creep.. “Please Miss! Please Miss! Please Miss!; Alf used the “C” word!!!!”” Jul 14, 16:30
Aidan on Step One: ““Some English person took the piss out of Scots and therefore we better deny all English people living in Scotland…” Jul 14, 16:28
