Wings Over Scotland

Sorry, folks, we had a minor medical emergency today (veteran readers can probably guess in which category) and haven’t been quite as on top of events as we’d like.

We did, however, watch the astonishing fiasco of Peter Murrell’s second “evidence” session before the Fabiani inquiry, at which he basically refused to answer any serious questions from the four Unionist members, convener Linda Fabiani ran interference, the SNP members lobbed him a few timewasting softballs in the inexplicably-rushed one-hour session, and independent member Andy Wightman didn’t say a single word.

So terrible was it that the SNP had a backup plan to distract from it – a nonsense of a press release from SNP chief operating officer Sue Ruddick in which she made an allegation about a supposed “act of physical aggression” by Alex Salmond.

The following statement has been issued in response. It’s an eye-opener.

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Committee on the Scottish Govt Handling of Harassment Complaints

Dear Ms Fabiani and Committee Members,

We have now had the opportunity to consult on Friday evening and over the weekend with our client on your clerk’s latest emails of Friday afternoon. Those followed the convener’s letter informing us that you do not intend to publish our client’s submission on the Ministerial Code, a submission which was sent to you on December 31st and which was carefully considered by this firm, and by Counsel, prior to submission.

Your latest communications and the decision not to publish exemplify the confusion and legal difficulties created by the Committee and which now plainly undermine the capacity of the Committee to fulfil the remit set by Parliament.

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The Scottish Government seems determined to pile insult upon injury to the Scottish people in relation to the inquiry into its botched stitch-up of Alex Salmond.

A shocking story in today’s Sunday Mail reveals that in addition to wasting in excess of £1 million on the initial unlawful investigation, untold millions on a criminal prosecution and trial, and £55,000 on coaching its inquiry witnesses (so badly that almost all of them were forced to return to the inquiry to subsequently “correct” their evidence), it’s also spent thousands of pounds of your money on lawyers to successfully prevent one of the key witnesses appearing at all.

Possibly because the witness in question doesn’t exist.

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It’s hard to believe that it’s barely six months since grassroots SNP members rushed to the defence of Glasgow Cathcart MSP James Dornan when it looked like the party’s woke wing had pushed him out of his seat for electoral vampire Rhiannon Spear.

The loud uproar over a crooked NEC meeting that effectively deselected Dornan – the same one that stitched up Joanna Cherry – saw him reinstated as candidate, although the decision over Cherry wasn’t reversed. But the warning shot across Dornan’s bows clearly worked, because look at the state of him now.

Ever since the summer fiasco Dornan has been the most obsequiously loyal follower of the leadership in the entire party, but today’s tweet is a new low.

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The tl;dr is that Martin Keatings has lost his case over the Scottish Parliament’s right or otherwise to hold an independence referendum. Lady Carmichael in essence declined to make a decision over Holyrood’s authority to order any future vote, agreeing with the defenders in deeming the matter to be “hypothetical, academic and premature”.

We obviously haven’t yet had time to digest the full 72-page judgement, issued about an hour ago, and in any event aren’t really equipped to understand its dense legalese.

But there’s one thing we do understand.

Keatings was opposed by an alliance of the Advocate General for Scotland (despite his title, a representative of the UK government) and the Lord Advocate OF Scotland, who is a minister in Nicola Sturgeon’s government.

It was therefore the Scottish Government, alongside the one in Westminster, who were opposing the court even attempting to establish whether Scotland has the right to determine its own constitutional future.

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At a certain point you just have to laugh, even though it’s not really funny.

The submission being referred to is NOT the one Alex Salmond sent to the Holyrood committee this week, but the one he sent to the separate Hamilton inquiry almost a month ago, which had been cleared by his lawyers and was published in full by both Wings and The Spectator and read by tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people.

(For reasons we’re not allowed to tell you, the Wings version has been totally redacted and the Spectator’s has had one paragraph removed but is still mostly intact.)

Because the Fabiani inquiry won’t be publishing the document, that means Salmond isn’t allowed to discuss it when he gives oral evidence, and the inquiry isn’t permitted to consider any of its contents, just as with Geoff Aberdein’s submission.

(There’s very little Salmond actually WILL now be allowed to talk about if he appears before the committee. He might just about be able to confirm his name before the Lord Advocate has him arrested and charged with whatever the opposite of perjury is.)

In other words, the exact people who are supposed to be getting to the bottom of what happened are the only people in Scotland who have to pretend they haven’t read the evidence of the primary witness. (While also not being allowed to see the evidence of the other most important witness, or almost anything else.)

You really would struggle to make this stuff up, readers.

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We almost missed something today because it was hidden behind a bad headline.

One way or another, the current hell of Scottish politics will soon be at an end.

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Tonight somebody’s sent us a copy of the SNP’s official Social Media Policy, which is exactly the sort of awful corporate wonk-drivel you’d probably expect it to be.

Our favourite part was this masterpiece of unrememberable gibberish in the vein of the Scottish Government’s hopeless “FACTS” slogan (honestly, without going and looking can you remember what ANY of the letters represent?) for the coronavirus :

And here’s a tweet from earlier today from a prospective SNP candidate:

We’re not sure which of the letters that conforms to.

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Alert readers will have noticed by now that while we were at the dentist getting rid of all our excess money, the Fabiani inquiry has published Alex Salmond’s written evidence submission, ahead of his in-person appearance currently scheduled for next week.

(Depending on whether he’s allowed to tell the truth or not, of course.)

It’s a big document, so allow us to walk you through a few of the highlights.

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We’re feeling a bit confused this morning, readers. Maybe someone can help.

Below is the key part of the letter sent by the Clerks of the Scottish Parliament, acting on behalf of the Fabiani committee, to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) a week and a half ago, requesting material for their investigation into the Scottish Government’s botched handling of false allegations against Alex Salmond.

As we’d told you at the time, the request was a sham, designed to produce nothing of any value, because it carefully excluded the only person whose communications with Sue Ruddick were actually of relevance – SNP chief executive Peter Murrell.

(Murrell being an employee of the party, NOT a member of the Scottish Government, a civil servant or a special adviser.)

But yesterday it all went really weird.

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Having never been part of a political party, an area where Wings lacks expertise is in understanding the nuts and bolts of their operation, and how a party’s rules can be used to usurp their members’ power. We’re delighted to have someone equipped to provide a valuable insight into how that’s happened to the SNP in the last two years.

The following line is still a definitive statement in the SNP constitution:

“National Conference is the supreme governing and policy-making body of the Party.”

But in practice it is no longer the case. The 2018 redraft of the constitution centralised power in the Leader and in the NEC. The party Leader has sole and total power over policy – both in the manifesto and in government – and the NEC has sole power over who represents the party and what they are allowed to say.

So in effect, since 2018 the party elite – not the membership – has ruled the SNP.

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