Wings Over Scotland

We’re important!

Something to look forward to there, then.

To the surprise of most of those watching, including ourselves, the Court Of Session delivered its judgement immediately at the end of today’s hearing, after only the most cursory of conflabs between the three august panel members.

The short version is that the Scottish Government lost, and must now comply with Wings reader Benjamin Harrop‘s FOI request regarding evidence that was supplied to independent adviser James Hamilton during his inquiry into the unlawful investigation of false allegations against Alex Salmond.

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So this popped up this afternoon.

I checked, and it’s legitimately from Apple.

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This one goes out to all the “rebel” MSPs at the SNP desks in Holyrood.

Because it’s nearly time for you to choose whether you want to fight, or die meekly.

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On a day like today, all an honest person can really do with the Scottish National Party is make like Pontius Pilate and wash their hands of it.

Because there ain’t no resurrection from this.

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The mainstream Scottish political media might not have many professional standards, but there’s one it’s still pretty diligent about upholding.

And that’s that if a political party’s press office starts really taking liberties and making them look like fools, all bets (and gloves) are off.

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This is the SNP members’ website tonight.

Looks like anything goes, folks.

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I am greatly honoured to have been targeted for censorship in the same weekend as two great artists as rightly esteemed as Salman Rushdie and Jerry Sadowitz. (Though thankful to have not yet been violently physically attacked for my views, as both have.)

To be honest, I was amazed my most recent Twitter account lasted three months. I set it up in May for the sole purpose of a throwaway rude reply to Darren “Loki” McGarvey and Kenny Farquharson of The Times, expecting it to be banned within hours, then somehow it had thousands of followers and I figured I might as well have a bit of fun with it for however long it lasted against the barrage of shrieking outrage and mass organised complaints from the SNP Twitler Youth.

Which turned out to be until Saturday night.

Twitter has declined to identify who I supposedly incited the harassment of, or to offer any examples of the offending tweets. Obviously I did no such thing, but it’s good to know that “in order to ensure that people feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs on our platform”, only some opinions and beliefs may be expressed.

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Just for a little bit of fun. This is actual footage of North Korean TV news (source: NK News), but I thought it deserved a more moving soundtrack.

Just for a little bit of fun. This is actual footage of North Korean TV news (source: NK News) from today, but I thought it deserved a more moving soundtrack.

It’s now official that blogger and former diplomat Craig Murray has been found guilty on several charges of contempt of court (although also cleared of several others).

It is of course not for this site to question the judgement of Lady Dorrian (while noting that the verdict may well be subject to appeal and is therefore not yet final), although we do find some aspects of it somewhat troubling – particularly paragraph 74 in which the fate of a defendant appears to be held hostage to the speculative “imagination” of a hypothetical observer.

But it’s not the conviction (NB we are not lawyers and the strange civil/criminal hybrid that is the offence of contempt of court makes the correct terminology somewhat uncertain) of Craig Murray that’s the true cause for concern in this matter.

What’s alarming, as this site has noted previously, is the highly selective and partisan eye with which the Crown Office appears to be pursuing the offence.

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