This is a significant development. (Click to enlarge.)
Weirdly, we’re not actually sure how many members are on the Holyrood inquiry committee at the moment. There are normally nine – four SNP and five opposition – but with Andy Wightman having recently resigned from the Greens we don’t know if he’s still on the committee or not, since he was originally there as a Green nominee. If not, we don’t know whether, when or by who he’ll be replaced.
But the other four non-SNP members have tonight issued a formal request that James Hamilton, who’s conducting the other inquiry into Nicola Sturgeon’s actions relating to the Alex Salmond affair, be instructed officially to investigate the matter of whether she lied to Parliament.
This, of course, is a subject Wings has been covering for some time.
There are two articles on the Spectator website today relating to last night’s breaking story about Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. One of them readers of this site have seen already, because the Spectator has literally just cut and pasted it in its entirety from Wings (without any attribution or acknowledgement).
It’s the text of Salmond’s submission to the Hamilton inquiry, and we know they copied it from us (rather than having been leaked it independently) because of this paragraph:
As we told readers last night, that redaction was made by us – not by Salmond – as an extra precaution to prevent the possibility of one of the complainers in the criminal trial from being identified. It didn’t appear in Salmond’s actual submission, and so Wings is the only possible source for it being in the Spectator.
Stealing our story lock, stock and barrel without a credit is rather poor form from the magazine, but it’s the other piece we’re more concerned about.
You know everything’s definitely going swimmingly for Nicola Sturgeon when the white knight riding heroically to her defence is… [checks notes twice] Duncan Hothersall.
We’re very excited to find out what our secret plan is.
(We must apologise to readers at this point for the late arrival of this week’s typically splendid Chris Cairns cartoon, which in fact arrived entirely on time from our hard-working crayonist but which we’ve put on hold for a bit while we cover last night’s major breaking story and its immediate aftermath. Now on with the show.)
Alert readers will undoubtedly have noticed a number of, to put it mildly, explosive-sounding developments this evening regarding the ongoing inquiries into the Scottish Government’s misconduct over false allegations against Alex Salmond.
Several reports have quoted extracts from the former First Minister’s submission to James Hamilton, who’s investigating the current First Minister over possible breaches of the Ministerial Code relating to the investigation of the allegations.
The submission – delivered on Mr Salmond’s birthday – has been widely leaked to the media but only selectively reported, and like others Wings has obtained a full copy.
We are advised that its contents do not contain anything which breaches or potentially breaches Lady Dorrian’s court order protecting the identities of the complainers against Mr Salmond, and as such there are no barriers to us publishing the entire document in the public interest, because its contents make some extremely grave and disturbing allegations against the current First Minister.
TO: Douglas Chapman MP, National Treasurer, SNP DATE: 8 January 2021
Also sent by email
Dear Douglas,
Congratulations on your recent election as the SNP’s treasurer. You may or may not be aware that in October 2020 this site asked your predecessor in the role, Colin Beattie, some questions on the subject of the supposedly “ring-fenced” indyref fighting fund that was created by donations to two separate fundraisers in previous years – referred to collectively by the party as the Referendum Appeal Fund or RAF.
We did so on behalf of numerous SNP members and non-members who had donated to the two appeals and were concerned as to the whereabouts of the monies.
No meaningful reply was received either by Wings or several individual donors who also contacted Mr Beattie asking the same questions, and a number of those people (as well as some of your elected colleagues) have asked us to put the same questions to you publicly, now that you’ve had a few weeks to settle into your new position and are understood to be interested in finding the answers.
The former SNP, and now independent, MP Margaret Ferrier was today arrested and charged with culpable and reckless conduct, a crime carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, for making a return train journey between Glasgow and London in September last year, two days after taking a coronavirus test.
This site has no comment to make on the charges, as it’s a live criminal matter, but a couple of troubling questions do arise from their existence.
So, for the historical record: I have no belief whatsoever, earnest or otherwise, that I can get rid of Nicola Sturgeon in the next four months.
I’m an idiot with a website. I have no power. I haven’t been elected to anything and I’m not the commander of an army. Information to which I’m privy would get me put in jail if I published it, and would in itself have no power to remove Nicola Sturgeon anyway. The only people who can bring that about between now and May are Sturgeon herself or, collectively, the Scottish Parliament.
This site has for some time called for Sturgeon to resign because it is our belief that she’s going to have to anyway, on account of events over which we have no control or influence. Because of that it would be the responsible and conscientious thing for her to quit early enough that the SNP/independence movement had a chance to deal with the issue of her succession and regroup in plenty of time for this May’s election.
The remaining window of opportunity for that to happen is now getting very narrow. And the enemies of independence will be beside themselves with delight about it.
Because 2020 is the maddest year in history, Ruth Davidson opened her contribution to Holyrood’s debate on the Brexit deal today with a lengthy quote from this website.
Dr Tim Rideout is one of the most serious and respected people in the Yes movement and the SNP. As convener of the Scottish Currency Group he’s presently engaged in trying to solve the party’s self-inflicted weakness over its lack of a coherent currency policy, and he’s sufficiently highly rated by SNP members that earlier this month he was elected to the party’s Policy Development Committee.
So you might think he was entitled to a view on, well, development of policy.
With precisely the grim level of cynicism we’ve now come to expect as standard, the Scottish Government has released a key document relating to the Salmond inquiry two days before Christmas, hoping it’ll be buried in the ongoing coronavirus-and-Brexit-related implosion of the UK.
The document, which contains legal advice relating to the judicial review brought by Salmond regarding the Scottish Government’s investigations into false allegations of misconduct against him, is extremely heavily redacted. But a few interesting passages remain, so let’s have some fun.
We woke up this morning intending to write about something else, readers, and then we saw perhaps the most horrifying thing we’ve ever seen in the two years since we first started taking an interest in transgender ideology.
It’s only tangentially related to this site’s purpose, but the truth is that as human beings we cannot stand by and watch this happening without at least trying to use whatever platform we have to raise awareness of it.
(The black bars on images in this article were added by us.)
Last week the High Court in England ruled that children under the age of 16 were not medically competent to consent to treatment with so-called “puberty blocker” drugs of the type that were used to “chemically castrate” the computing pioneer Alan Turing for being homosexual (a crime in the UK in the 1950s), which is believed to have led to his suicide by cyanide poisoning at the age of 41.
On 8 December this site ran an article about the Chief Executive Officer of the Scottish National Party, Peter Murrell. It has recently been drawn to our attention that the piece contained a serious inaccuracy, which we would like to remedy.
diabloandco on What Went On: “In a nutshell , thank you Robert Louis!” Nov 29, 08:22
diabloandco on What Went On: “I thought it was 11 a.m – am I wrong?” Nov 29, 08:19
diabloandco on What Went On: “Nothing is impossible with medical intervention (or so some would have us believe!) – and then there’s miracles!!” Nov 29, 08:18
Mark Beggan on What Went On: “Swinney will be severely beaten for expressing an opinion to the Media.” Nov 29, 08:15
diabloandco on What Went On: “Written by Pish Washout – what an excellent present!” Nov 29, 08:05
Brian Crawford Hill on What Went On: “I’m not sure to which KC you are referring. The irony perhaps, as the KC for the appellants mentioned, is…” Nov 29, 01:05
Robert Matthews on What Went On: “Will Alf Baird and James be attending? If not, why not?” Nov 29, 00:19
ben madigan on What Went On: “many years ago I worked with a urology surgeon who had created a “penis” for a woman who wanted to…” Nov 28, 23:47
Oneliner on What Went On: “Those from parties not based in and controlled by London/England. Some shuffling of desks and slippers may be required. House…” Nov 28, 23:47
Gregory Beekman on What Went On: “She walked up to me and she asked me to dance I asked her her name and in a dark…” Nov 28, 23:28
Mark Beggan on What Went On: “The less said about that’ the better.” Nov 28, 23:22
Robert Hughes on What Went On: “My partner was telling me about this ( I’m not on TwitX ) and that the Scottish dairy brand -…” Nov 28, 23:17
Ian Brotherhood on What Went On: “A stushie has erupted over whether or not fart suppressant being added to cattle feed is harmful to humans. I…” Nov 28, 22:28
crazycat on What Went On: “I think there are two strands of lunacy here. As you say, men cannot be pregnant. But people who swallow…” Nov 28, 22:08
znovak on What Went On: ““Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” It is…” Nov 28, 21:53
Craig P on What Went On: “The Scottish Government needs to take UEFA to court. Scotland clearly won the last Euros.” Nov 28, 21:50
Anthem on What Went On: “Exactly! There seems to be no law against their fraud, deceit and lies. How do we prosecute these people?” Nov 28, 21:40
Robert Matthews on What Went On: “Colonial Bingo – 0 ?” Nov 28, 21:39
Robert Matthews on What Went On: “Colonial Bingo- knock at the door 4.” Nov 28, 21:37
Andy Anderson on What Went On: “Is he not to old to become pregnant!!” Nov 28, 21:31
ben madigan on What Went On: “could I do that? Identify as a surgeon, I mean? I am confident I could scrub up and wear the…” Nov 28, 21:18
Lorna Campbell on What Went On: “The KC involved in fighting the SG’s corner is a woman – the biological kind. She was just doing her…” Nov 28, 21:09
Hatey McHateface on What Went On: “Looks like the 2024 award for the most institutionally gormless governing body in world politics is in the bag. The…” Nov 28, 20:55
Hatey McHateface on What Went On: “What’s the status of our bet, then? £50 too rich for you? This time of year, there’s plenty of temp…” Nov 28, 20:45
Hatey McHateface on What Went On: “Aw, are you missing him already? S’not even 24 hours. 🙂 Story I heard, he’s ordered a certificate of professorship…” Nov 28, 20:40
Robert Louis on What Went On: “Can no politicians see, as clear as day, the madness of this gender stuff? I mean seriously, we have leaders…” Nov 28, 20:38
SteepBrae on What Went On: “O/T (from ALBA): Saturday 30th November 2024, 12.30pm, His Dream Will Never Die, We call on all Scottish Patriots to…” Nov 28, 20:36
Chas on What Went On: “Great stuff. Another link to mince written by an erse. Have you not got anything original or new? Is plagiarism…” Nov 28, 20:33
Alf Baird on What Went On: “Swinney himself would need to become pregnant to prove his case; tho A widna haud ma breith.” Nov 28, 20:29
Nae Need! on What Went On: ““The UK Conservatives largely voted against the GRA 2004, but did little to repeal it when they returned to power.”…” Nov 28, 20:28
