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 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.
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.
The Scottish Government and Nicola Sturgeon have tonight embarked on a last-ditch desperate throw of the dice to undermine and sabotage the already-compromised and endlessly-obstructed Fabiani inquiry in its impossible quest for the truth.
Having previously deployed her paid mouthpiece Rape Crisis Scotland last week, the First Minister – who’s spent the last six months insisting that she’d save her comments for her appearance at the inquiry – suddenly popped up on BBC and STV (but not, curiously, Sky News) to issue a challenge full of gunfighter bravado to her predecessor.
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.
It’s difficult to know where to even start on the absolutely extraordinary reaction to our post about yesterday’s meeting of the SNP National Executive Committee. Our traffic exploded to levels not seen since 2014, racking up tens of thousands of pageviews an hour, and social media was aflame with argument into the small hours of the morning.
A whole raft of issues arose from our exclusive revelations, but the one we want to talk about now is the one that was buried at the bottom of what a panicked SNP hastily and laughably produced as the “minutes” of the meeting, and we didn’t even notice it until a couple of hours after the original post.
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:
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.
J Galt on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““The Demons” comes to mind – although that may give them more dignity than they deserve – a shame Dostoyevsky…” May 31, 16:38
Graham on The View From Row Z: “My wife teased me for buying salt & pepper grinders for just under £200 a couple of years ago, but,…” May 31, 16:37
Andy Wiltshire on The View From Row Z: “She claimed she didn’t even recognise them.” May 31, 16:35
Andy Wiltshire on The View From Row Z: “An interview was probably only granted on the proviso that it would be undertaken by a London bod who didn’t…” May 31, 16:32
alan_b on The View From Row Z: “The camper van is listed in the balance sheet as a fixed asset, presumably at current (second hand) value. The…” May 31, 16:31
GeoffC on The View From Row Z: “She loves the tax regime she helped introduce in Scotland, she’s decided to live in England…..” May 31, 16:30
robertkknight on The View From Row Z: “I’m afraid that the coffee went all over the keyboard the moment I read the contribution from Sam Taylor in…” May 31, 16:30
Nemisis Benn on The View From Row Z: “To be quite clear, I have no wish to even think of taking sides, be it this woman’s or her…” May 31, 16:29
Shibboleth on The View From Row Z: “I don’t know all the various financial positions in this squalid affair, but am I correct in assuming that Murrell…” May 31, 16:07
crazycat on The View From Row Z: “The National’s article from 28/10/20 claims that “the SNP has e-mailed all of its donors in a bid to “quash…” May 31, 16:03
Neil Mackenzie on The View From Row Z: “Have the books that so many people weren’t allowed to see been seen, yet?” May 31, 16:03
Jeremy Wickins on The View From Row Z: “The only thing I’m willing to cut Sturgeon some slack on is the cruet set – until the week, I…” May 31, 15:56
duncanio on The View From Row Z: “By 1. Signing off the accounts 2. Shutting down questioning and scrutiny of the books 3. Raising money for a…” May 31, 15:48
Cameron Lochiel on The View From Row Z: “It feels like she realises things are going drastically against her, so she’s desperately trying to throw everything she can…” May 31, 15:43
Black Joan on The View From Row Z: “Maybe time too change your pinned tweet, Rev? I mean: “Alert readers will have noticed we’ve been a bit short…” May 31, 15:40
Cynicus on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Very interesting, TURABDIN Of the 40 listed, I managed to recognise six: Chris Smith Alan Cumming Alan Carr David Hockney…” May 31, 15:13
Knuckle_Heid on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Couldn’t agree more Hatey – if only Big Eck was alive to see this…” May 31, 14:27
J Robertson on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “How on earth does she think this constant media engagement after the only statement ( of 3 was it ?)…” May 31, 13:39
Mark Beggan on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Vivactive Inconsistency Pants! That will ensure a good nights sleep for the silent Churners.” May 31, 13:36
Mark Beggan on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““As long as it is harming no-one, it’s between consenting adults and it is not forced upon everyone else they…” May 31, 13:21
robertkknight on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “No need to wait, just cast your mind back by three weeks. Compare and contrast… 2021 Election Results SNP Constituency…” May 31, 13:20
Saffron Robe on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “Do not say, “I did not do it,” when you know you have done wrong, for “ill-gotten gains have no…” May 31, 13:13
Confused on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “I sometimes see Brookmyre walking about; he is a local. “your books are shite” I banter in passing, listing a…” May 31, 12:56
Captain Caveman on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““Reading shite crime novels gives middle class pricks a vicarious dark streets of Scotland fix, whilst making them feel as…” May 31, 12:51
TURABDIN on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: “SCOTS BORN could be around 100k mark as census returns may be conservative owing to family data withheld. Second &…” May 31, 12:50
Hatey McHateface on Nicola’s Summer Reading List: ““I suspect those ‘customers’ who once supported the SNP in their many thousands have just silently abandoned it” I guess…” May 31, 12:44
