When Nicola Sturgeon is finally held to account for the charred, twisted and shattered ruins that she’s made of Scottish political and civic society in her desperate attempts to save her own neck, the complete discrediting of ostensible support organisations for victims of rape will be near the very top of the charge sheet.
But before we talk about that you really need to read this.
Because if you live in Scotland you can only rationally be one of two things at this moment in history: (a) terrified, or (b) an idiot.
We’ve received information this afternoon with regard to Nicola Sturgeon’s statements at today’s FMQs, which appear to have been wholly and disturbingly dishonest.
The quote below is from an email sent today by SNP communications chief Murray Foote, briefing ministers and MSPs on the official Scottish Government line, which is what the First Minister told the chamber in response to a question from Ruth Davidson.
It brings us genuinely no pleasure at all to report that events in Scottish politics are panning out exactly the way we’ve been telling you they would for nearly two years.
Like an old man getting up for the fourth time in the middle of the night, the Scottish Government has squeezed out another little dribble of its legal advice in respect of the conduct of its shambolic investigation into false allegations against Alex Salmond.
And to push that gross analogy to its outermost limit, it must have found releasing one of the documents in particular as painful as passing a rather large kidney stone.
We just put up a post, readers, but we’ve pulled it again because this has happened:
Because of this:
More as we get it, but this would seem to be an extraordinary move from the Tories if they weren’t pretty confident they had the backing of the other opposition parties. At a minimum it’s quite the scene-setter for tomorrow’s appearance of the First Minister in front of the Fabiani committee. We presume we don’t need to tell you to stay tuned.
In the end the four-hour session ran for almost exactly six hours, and Alex Salmond looked like he could have done another six standing on his head. Now, it would be only fair to acknowledge that this site was on his side before the start, but by any rational objective assessment the former First Minister delivered the performance of his life.
(We use “performance” there in the Lionel Messi sense, not the Laurence Olivier one.)
The contrast with every other witness who’s appeared before the committee was night and day. With Salmond there was no evasion, no hesitation, no forgetting, no “I’ll get back to you on that in writing”. (We recommend the Twitter feed of Scotland Speaks for some choice clips.)
Every question was answered fully, directly, fluently and immediately, without recourse to notes, and the content was never less than devastating from his opening statement to the final surprise bombshell. We were exhausted just watching it.
His words, tone and body language all absolutely radiated candour, solemnity and honesty. When the SNP members tried to trip him up on some arcane point or other, he was on them like an extremely calm hawk, methodically tearing their assertions to ribbons with the correct fact or quote at his fingertips, and ice in his veins.
Salmond came across like a man who’d been planning this day for almost a year and wasn’t going to mess it up. And he didn’t. Heavens, how he didn’t.
Readers, we swear to you we are not making this up. What you’re about to read are genuine extracts from the SNP’s official new (probably illegal) Equalities Mechanism explanatory note, detailing what does and doesn’t count as a disability when it comes to jumping the queue for a regional list nomination.
And straight away it’s a real punch in the gut for firestarters, muggers, rapists, flashers and, in most cases, hay-fever sufferers. THIS BIGOTRY WILL NOT STAND.
We must admit, the terrible people that we are, we’ve been enjoying watching today’s extended meltdown by the SNP’s woke faction about last night’s NEC election results. Because it appears their egos are so huge that they’re not even smart enough to play dignified to spoil our schadenfreudish fun. It’s been full-on public tantrums.
We’ve just been out for our evening constitutional in the relatively cool night air (Bath sweltered at an oppressive 30C today and Bear Patrol was pretty gruelling), and we thought readers might be interested in what we saw.
The city has observed lockdown with great diligence, as we’ve previously documented, and to be honest we’re not sufficiently familiar with the latest rules to say it wasn’t still doing so tonight. But a nearby park, around 9.30pm, was a disconcerting scene.
On the 1st of January, Chinese authorities took the decision to close the Wuhan food market. The following day, 41 admitted hospital patients in Wuhan, were confirmed to have contracted 2019-nCoV (novel coronavirus) which we now know as COVID-19.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a New Year message, from the private island of Mustique in the Caribbean, that the “first item” on his agenda remained his commitment to take Britain out of the EU by the end of January.
Within weeks the virus had spread across the world to many countries including Italy, Germany, Australia, the USA and of course the UK.
Captain Caveman on Just Good Friends: ““They’rrrrre grrrrreat!” https://www.frostedflakes.us/tony-the-tiger” Jul 13, 17:27
Lorn on According As We Need Them: “The one thing about politicians that I have discovered in my life is that, male or female, black or white,…” Jul 13, 17:24
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Norway’s support per capita for our fighting friends in Eastern Europe is the highest in the world. I guess that…” Jul 13, 17:23
Gaelstorm on According As We Need Them: “Surlely te issue is what were the actual questions in the survey?” Jul 13, 17:06
Craig on According As We Need Them: “I fuckin despise Scotland now and what it has become, of all nationalities to be born, I had to be…” Jul 13, 16:46
Colin Dawson on According As We Need Them: “I wonder how much of the Scottish budget gets spent on supposed “charities” that are almost entirely funded by the…” Jul 13, 16:32
Young Lochinvar on According As We Need Them: “Oh oh! That’ll be you reported to the Polis hurry feels division Rev.. Tell them they’ll never take you alive,…” Jul 13, 16:22
James on Just Good Friends: “You boys spooning again? How sweet.” Jul 13, 15:59
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “Large in size, small in intellect” Jul 13, 15:45
Captain Caveman on Just Good Friends: “@Aidan In the interests of fairness and balance, Aidan, Fatso is anything but “little”. The twat can barely squeeze into…” Jul 13, 15:23
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “If it’s such a cracking idea, why hasn’t the private owner of Grangemouth realised it?” Jul 13, 15:08
Confused on Just Good Friends: “The only relevant benchmark for Scotland’s ECONOMIC POTENTIAL is with our small nation peers, most of whom are in EFTA.…” Jul 13, 14:59
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “Yeah you don’t like people calling out your hysterical drivel do you little man” Jul 13, 14:56
Confused on Just Good Friends: “norway has relatively high oil prices for its citizens but this hides a number of things – the duty goes…” Jul 13, 14:52
Confused on Just Good Friends: “https://archive.ph/SMuis we go backwards, the “backward” nations go forwards. Nigeria also subsidises energy prices for its citizens.” Jul 13, 14:44
Confused on Just Good Friends: “https://archive.ph/p2Bsf why doesn’t england shut down its 5 oil refineries and just import the refined products from amsterdam. – doesn’t…” Jul 13, 14:38
James on Just Good Friends: “What an unending stream of pish. Away and lie in yer water.” Jul 13, 14:35
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “You mean apart from the aforementioned £200m? Scotland is a declining market for oil products, due to policy choices that…” Jul 13, 13:54
James on Just Good Friends: ““Aidan” That’s the whole point, prick, they can find money (our money) to save English refineries (a country with no…” Jul 13, 13:34
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “Who is “they”? The UK government who neither owned nor operated it?” Jul 13, 13:18
James on Just Good Friends: ““Aidan”; Fuck off ya Yoon bampot. They closed Grangemouth. There is no longer an oil refinery in Scotland.” Jul 13, 12:56
sarah on Just Good Friends: “War of the Worlds? It’s a guess as I’ve not read it.” Jul 13, 12:33
James Cheyne on Just Good Friends: “Alf Baird, While busy clearing out the house, I came across a book titled ,The White Country by David D…” Jul 13, 12:26
sarah on Just Good Friends: “@ agent x at 7.47 on 12th July “those links don’t work for me”. Sorry agent x, IT isn’t my…” Jul 13, 12:17
Captain Caveman on Just Good Friends: “@Aidan I’ve heard the expression “great oaks from small acorns” but this really does take the biscuit, good old…” Jul 13, 12:13
James Cheyne on Just Good Friends: “Northcode. 12 july, 9:52 pm, Excellent post.” Jul 13, 12:00
Aidan on Just Good Friends: “You mean aside from the £200m already committed to Grangemouth?” Jul 13, 11:58
James on Just Good Friends: ““…The UK government is working to rescue an English oil refinery where hundreds of jobs are at risk. The Lindsey…” Jul 13, 11:48
TURABDIN on Just Good Friends: “A QUHEIN LETERATOUR, «We have a new type of rule now. Not one-man rule, or rule of aristocracy or plutocracy,…” Jul 13, 11:33