Wings Over Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon turned today’s COVID-19 briefing into a full-on smear assault against Alex Salmond. Readers will have seen reports on social media about various aspects of the attack but we wanted to focus on one especially brazen falsehood.

Because Nicola Sturgeon knows for an absolute 100% certain fact that she WON’T be asked about the allegations in Alex Salmond’s redacted evidence, because the inquiry committee is NOT ALLOWED to discuss any material that it hasn’t published, whether it’s “in the public domain” or not.

By the committee’s rules, if it’s not on the committee website then it doesn’t exist, and the redacted parts are – belatedly – no longer on the website. (As far as we can make out the unredacted version was finally removed around midnight last night.)

Farcically, she also denied even knowing that this question from James Matthews of Sky News was about Geoff Aberdein, who is the subject of all the redacted sections, which are all about the meeting Matthews was asking her about.

The First Minister is a liar and has all but given up on even the most token pretence otherwise. She is a disgrace to Scotland.

If we can somehow find the time amid the relentless blizzard of current Scottish political activity, we’re going to put together a list of all the legitimate and important questions that Alex Salmond’s lawyers have asked the Fabiani inquiry which haven’t even had the courtesy of a reply, let alone a satisfactory one.

We fully anticipate that the contents of the letter below, sent today, will be on that list.

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FOREWORD: SNP MPs writing for this website about anything, especially a Plan B for independence, shouldn’t be controversial. We as a party should welcome diversity and inclusion – as indeed we do by giving quotes to every daily UK newspaper and broadcaster, as well as occasionally providing articles and financial help for them.

I for one would prefer it if people would get over posturing about the messenger and deal with the more important message. So let’s get to it.

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It really can’t be overstated what extraordinary tweets these are.

That’s the editor of the conservative, ultra-establishment Spectator openly linking to a document that the Crown Office – the agent of the Queen herself – has threatened to prosecute the Scottish Parliament for publishing, and which has officially been deleted but is for some reason actually still available on the Parliament’s website.

The Spectator is giving the Queen the finger. And that’s not even the mad bit.

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Dear Nicola,

I write to express to you the views of many people in Scotland. Our movement is very upset by the actions they currently see unfolding before them.

These actions are the direct responsibility of your staff, your officials and your advisers. And therefore, ultimately, you.

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Utterly Insane Demented Crazy World version:

And in English:

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As a spinoff from the hysterical Scottish media witch-hunt over last week’s piece on Neil Mackay, today we found ourselves listening to a podcast from last May by Courier editor Davie Clegg and former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale.

While it was obviously of personal interest, we had a specific reason for listening – we suspected it might contain some helpful information that our lawyers had been looking for (which as it happened it did).

But there was also something else really interesting that we weren’t expecting.

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Two days ago this website published a leaked draft version of the SNP’s definition of “transphobia” which was debated at a meeting of its National Executive Committee on Saturday. The party has now published (for members only) the final agreed version, which is essentially identical to the draft except for a few tweaks.

But one of them is very significant.

The highlighted part was not in the draft, and it amounts to an explicit and absolutely terrifying redesignation of basic human biology as a hate crime.

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We’d been wondering why our traffic was so crazy high that we’d already smashed last month’s four-year record to bits with a full week of February still to go.

And then we found out.

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If there’s one subject this site can speak about with authority, readers, it’s defamation. We’re now into the FIFTH YEAR of a court action we brought against former Scottish Labour branch office manager Kezia Dugdale after she’d smeared us in a newspaper and in the Scottish Parliament with a vile personal slur which a sheriff and three senior appeal court judges all found to be unequivocally false and defamatory.

But they also ruled that because Dugdale is a drooling halfwitted imbecile who doesn’t know what simple words mean she was entitled to use her stupidity and ignorance as a defence, so we lost the case and to this day (the original smear having happened way back in 2017) our lawyers are still negotiating with her lawyers over the final costs.

So trust us when we tell you this: today’s front-page lead in the Herald On Sunday is a great big pile of stinky unmitigated horse-bollocks.

Because we know whereof we speak.

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We’ve just been sent this report from today’s meeting of the SNP’s National Executive Committee, which ended a short time ago. There’s no official confirmation yet but it’s come to us from several independent sources and we’re sure it’s true.

(“NS” and “JC” are of course Nicola Sturgeon and Joanna Cherry.)

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On the very fabric of the Scottish Parliament – specifically its Canongate Wall, across the road from a building curiously called “Watergate” – are inscribed 26 quotes, carved into stone hewn from every corner of the country, about the sort of Scotland that the building and those working inside it are supposed to stand for and aspire to.

One of them, from the celebrated author Sir Walter Scott, reads thus:

“When we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament-men o’ our ain, we could aye peeble them wi’ stanes when they werena gude bairns – But naebody’s nails can reach the length o’ Lunnon.”

It’s a phrase that’s hard to interpret as anything but a paean to stern accountability. Should our representatives, it says, fail to live up to the standards that we expect and demand of them, they should be pelted with stones.

Now, we must assume – for this is the 21st century, and public stoning is a barbaric act limited to but a few of the UK’s allies – that said stones were intended by the architects to be understood as metaphorical ones, presumably in the form of harsh criticism.

It’s alarming, then, that so many of the people currently trying to get elected to that Parliament apparently instead believe that any criticism of them should be a crime.

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