Wings Over Scotland

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.

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Just a couple of hours now.

From 12.30 this afternoon, Alex Salmond will attempt to tell the people of Scotland the truth about what happened to him in the last two years – a grave injustice which saw an innocent man have his reputation dragged through the gutter, be placed under incredible personal stress, be left greatly impoverished by proving his innocence, and then have the jury’s verdict endlessly traduced by the media and a gang of criminal conspirators protected from the consequences of their lies by lifelong anonymity.

His job will be a difficult one. Every single person in the room will be bitterly hostile to him – the four Unionist committee members because he’s Alex Salmond, and the others because he represents a deadly threat to the First Minister.

The inquiry’s convener – a woman sacked by Salmond years ago – will attempt to prevent him from presenting large swathes of evidence, despite having made him swear to tell “the whole truth”. The SNP members will try to run down the four-hour session with questions designed to only deflect from the real issue – the actions and behaviour of the Scottish Government. Andy Wightman will probably just cry.

We’ll be extremely surprised if there aren’t some attempts to slyly re-try Mr Salmond and paint him as a guilty man who cheated justice, and to drag up salacious details of the allegations in an effort to smear him in front of the cameras.

We believe Alex Salmond will be more than equal to the task.

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When the Faculty Of Advocates – the most senior body of lawyers/QCs in the country – is handing out barely-veiled smackdowns like this to the First Minister, then you know you’re in some pretty uncharted jungle.

Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland is a rogue state.

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I was until this week a member of the SNP’s Conferences Committee. After being elected last November I sought to fulfil my “manifesto” pledge — that is, to attempt to restore the power of the membership, which has been systematically eroded by the party leadership over the last two years, through conference, the proper constitutional vehicle for all internal party democracy and governance.

I had hoped that Stewart Stevenson, the new National Secretary and convener of the Conferences Committee, would be similarly inclined.

In summary, my endeavours have been ignored.

In the three months since our election (supposedly more than halfway towards a spring conference), and despite repeated emails, documents and requests for meetings, the Conferences Committee has never been convened.

As a result I have resigned from both the committee and the SNP, and the reasons for my doing so are outlined below.

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Well, obviously you.

Any more?

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For the record, we thought you should see what the Scottish Parliament considers to be the appropriate treatment of an “Urgent Question”.

For a little over eight minutes, the Lord Advocate was allowed to ignore and avoid a series of questions put to him regarding the abjectly corrupt Crown Office’s recent interference with the work of the Fabiani inquiry by redacting evidence which in no way identified anyone as a complainer in the trial of Alex Salmond.

By the end, he’d left nobody any the wiser.

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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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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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(Click to enlarge.)

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Utterly Insane Demented Crazy World version:

And in English:

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