Having once been a Scottish Labour MEP, I joined the SNP 10 years ago because I believed we needed the party to secure independence. I was warmly received by local and national members including Alex Salmond.
I became an active member in Edinburgh West and represented them at conference, became a member of the National Council and almost became the MP for Kilmarnock, losing narrowly to Alan Brown (now the MP) in the selection.
(I was incidentally almost blocked from running because I wasn’t “sufficiently loyal”. I was allowed to stand on appeal because Kenny MacAskill on the appeal panel said, “Well Hugh if you don’t agree with a vote in Parliament couldn’t you just go to the opera instead?” I agreed and was approved accordingly.)
My relations with the SNP have not admittedly always been plain sailing. I resigned once, when Nicola Sturgeon held up the front page of the Sun during the 2016 election after it tactically decided to back the SNP in Scotland (whilst supporting the Tories in England) because Murdoch always liked to back winners.
This raised serious questions about Nicola’s judgement and made me suspect she isn’t as smart as she thinks.
We’re only two-thirds of the way through Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence to the Fabiani inquiry, and there’s probably not much point in expressing our opinion on it because you could almost certainly have guessed what it was going to be. The First Minister has been disingenuous, evasive, defensive and at times outright dishonest.
But although we were expecting all of that, this truly shocked us:
That’s the First Minister flatly stating, under oath, that even now she doesn’t know who all the complainers are. And readers can make their own minds up about how credible a claim that is. But I can tell you this:
I know who they all are.
Craig Murray knows who they all are.
Every journalist who covered the trial knows who they all are.
(And we can reasonably assume their editors also know who they all are.)
In fact pretty much everyone who’s in any way connected to Scottish politics knows the identity of every single one of these women. If you’re willing to believe that we all do but Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t, well, fair enough. But also, I’m a Nigerian prince and I’d like to pass several million pounds through your bank account. Please get in touch.
Yesterday’s evidence session at the Fabiani inquiry had several standout moments, but by a narrow margin this was our favourite.
And just in case you were wondering, yes, that IS Scotland’s top prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, chief of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, James Wolffe QC, repeatedly refusing to tell an MSP whether or not it’s a criminal offence in Scotland to refuse to comply with a court-ordered search warrant.
So next time you’ve ramraided a load of iPads and the polis come knocking on your door asking if they can have a nosy around your attic for them, just tell them they can’t come in because it’s a matter of your motivations.
We’ll say one thing for Police Scotland – when it comes to Freedom Of Information requests, dealing with them compared to the Scottish Government or Crown Office is a breath of fresh air. Responses tend to be reasonably swift and you actually get some straight answers, like these.
And in this case they’re pretty remarkable answers.
I became an SNP member aged 15 on the back of the 2014 independence referendum – gutted that we had not taken the step but hoping that it was just a matter of time.
Every Yesser I knew was either in the SNP or had just joined it, so I did too. Like many others, I didn’t want to disappear into the shadows and be put back into our box. We weren’t going anywhere.
Thus Nicola Sturgeon became SNP leader and FM, and rightly so – nobody was more qualified or deserving of the post. I went to her tour of Scotland and began to think how lucky we were that there was one of us, a woman of the people, leading the country.
Someone who spoke honestly, candidly, and you could relate to. Someone who upon speaking everyone’s hearts would open and our smiles would never leave our faces. She reaffirmed my commitment to the SNP and there was no doubt that she was going to take Scotland to new heights.
Alex Salmond had resigned, and even though he was also my hero and without him I would not have joined the SNP nor became interested in politics, the FM was the most important figure. She was FM, he was not. Where Alex Salmond had not succeeded, she would.
We’re just watching today’s session of the Fabiani inquiry, featuring the Lord Advocate, the Crown Agent and the Principal Crown Counsel. There’s been an extremely long preamble from both Fabiani and James Wolffe mainly concerned with the anonymity order passed by Lady Dorrian during (not before) Alex Salmond’s trial, which is the foundation stone of everything crooked that’s happened around the Salmond case.
The order – and for clarity we make no suggestion whatsoever that this was its intent – is the basis for every piece of evidence that’s been suppressed in the inquiry, and for the prosecutions of Mark Hirst, Craig Murray and others, and also for the threats of prosecution issued to this site, The Spectator and to Alex Salmond himself, preventing him giving his evidence in full to the inquiry.
And we couldn’t help wondering how different things would have been, how much less damage would have been done to the integrity and credibility of the entire Scottish political and legal establishment, if it hadn’t been for this guy.
(Doleman was not prosecuted for actually naming one of the women, although Craig Murray still awaits a verdict, five weeks after his trial, which could see him imprisoned for up to two years for merely allegedly hinting at their identities.)
Without the order, it would have been perfectly lawful for people to discuss the names of the complainers – whose allegations the jury found to be false – after the trial. It would have been possible for people to know, and form an opinion based on, who they were and who they were connected to and what the “plan” they were “mulling” was.
But because it isn’t, Scotland has been turned into a laughing stock – a byword for ham-fisted corruption and malice – the independence movement has been torn in two, and the Scottish Government itself may yet collapse.
So, y’know, thanks for all of that, James. Great job.
It’s the second sunny day in Bath since last September, readers, so we’re going to go out and feed the wildlife, but we thought you’d enjoy a quick roundup of some of the distractions the Sturgeonite elements of the Scottish media are punting today in a desperate attempt to avoid dealing with the devastating contents of Alex Salmond’s epic evidence session at the Fabiani inquiry on Friday.
Iain Lawson’s fine blog today reveals that Nicola Sturgeon has already taken it upon herself to answer Jim Sillars’ complaint from Thursday – which was sent to Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans, not to the First Minister – about her breaking the Ministerial Code by casting doubt on the jury’s verdicts in the Alex Salmond trial.
It’s certainly an innovative approach to justice – we presume that if we were to murder someone tomorrow the police would now simply forward the allegations to us and allow us to find ourselves not guilty without any external input.
But it was the precise nature of Nicola Sturgeon’s self-acquittal that really left us with an uneasy feeling about the current state of Scotland.
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.
DaveL on According As We Need Them: “‘…on the route to liberation, I reckon mime and interpretative dance are the only way to go.’ Can you explain…” Jul 15, 02:20
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Poetry is all very well if you’re into that sort of thing. But when it comes to illustrating the oppressed…” Jul 15, 00:17
Confused on According As We Need Them: “guy charged was an “aussie”, in a kilt; maybe done an ancestry.com and got told he was “connor macleod of…” Jul 14, 23:32
Confused on According As We Need Them: “I was never an inmate unlike yourself. Did we meet? – if they had held onto the asylums we could…” Jul 14, 23:20
Confused on According As We Need Them: “there was a young poster on wings cheap snarky disruption his thing agent x was his name the union his…” Jul 14, 23:18
Alf Baird on According As We Need Them: “Development of poetry in the native tongue forms a key part of the liberation process and in understanding the colonial…” Jul 14, 23:01
agent x on According As We Need Them: “@ James What in particular did you find Excellent?” Jul 14, 22:00
James on According As We Need Them: “Funny how the unionist rag describes the removal of the stone from a thief as ‘notorious’….” Jul 14, 21:48
Gribble on According As We Need Them: “On the subject of intimidation on the stump, the impression as often given that this is a worsening problem. But…” Jul 14, 21:39
Northcode on According As We Need Them: “Excellent article about a young Martinican psychiatrist’s time studying with the great Francesc Tosquelles at the Saint-Alban psychiatric asylum. Thanks…” Jul 14, 21:30
Breastplate on According As We Need Them: “John Main, You Unionists seem to routinely register your disapproval on the reliance of 300 year old documentation, but accept…” Jul 14, 20:43
agent x on According As We Need Them: “@ Northcode I notice there has been minimal, or maybe make that no support or encouragement for your poems on…” Jul 14, 20:15
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Just Good Friends: “In case you are unaware (and for comparison): WAR O THE WARLDS By H. G. Wells – Owerset intae NOR-EAST…” Jul 14, 20:11
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Enjoying your use of iambic quadrameter, NC. And your random departures from it too. If you’re taking requests, highlights from…” Jul 14, 19:49
Northcode on According As We Need Them: “I posted one of ma braw poems recently about the demon Nuckelavee being cawd up fae the depths o’ the…” Jul 14, 19:38
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: ““trying as usual to undermine anything about Scotland” You should read Rev Stu’s articles and not just jump straight to…” Jul 14, 18:06
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “In this heat you need to be eating salads.” Jul 14, 17:55
twathater on Just Good Friends: “Wow the yoonies are out in force trying as usual to undermine anything about Scotland ,they’re like wee yapping dugs…” Jul 14, 17:35
Dan on According As We Need Them: “In a bid to disrupt mental Main’s posting stream… Related to this article, there’s a fair few quid being spaffed…” Jul 14, 17:14
Mark Beggan on According As We Need Them: “The Gravy boat is just a woke away. Just a woke away Just a woke away Just a woke away.” Jul 14, 16:55
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““can a thief be robbed?” Now I’m confused, Confused. You have stated on here many times that when it comes…” Jul 14, 16:48
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““nothing of the colonizer’s is appropriate for the colonized” Stand out post from Professor Baird. Anybody with him on calling…” Jul 14, 16:20
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: “Nice try, NC, but easily discounted, as you have failed to provide any evidence for your assertion that Scotland’s high…” Jul 14, 16:01
Hatey McHateface on According As We Need Them: ““Scotland as a Lunatic Asylum” When Confused writes on a subject so aligned with his own, lived experience, it behoves…” Jul 14, 15:51
Hatey McHateface on Just Good Friends: “Another post from Confused enthusing over the idea of a bankrupt and socially fractured England just south of our unprotected…” Jul 14, 15:47
Confused on According As We Need Them: “mythology – when Edward 1 stole the stone of destiny it was to make himself legitimate, for a “true king”…” Jul 14, 15:21
James Cheyne on According As We Need Them: “Northcode. The trouble with ignorance is that it can, if left unfettered become an indoctrination of the mind. Even if…” Jul 14, 15:01
Insider on Just Good Friends: “James at 2:34 If you know “exactly what they mean” why do you misuse them ?” Jul 14, 14:58