The weekend just past saw a convulsion as big as any we can ever recall witnessing on Yes social media, triggered by a series of tweets by Nicola Sturgeon which caused an extraordinary negative reaction out of all proportion to their ostensible content.
The reason was that the First Minister – who had remained silent about countless episodes of hideous misogynistic abuse aimed from her own side at MPs and MSPs like Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry – had chosen to suddenly leap into action in defence of the toxically divisive horror that is Glasgow councillor Rhiannon Spear after Spear had been widely criticised for making blatantly false claims in a video promoting her attempt to be selected as the candidate for Argyll & Bute.
(Sturgeon had no such public condemnation for the torrents of abuse the SNP Twitler Youth then unleased on Kirsten Thornton, the female SNP activist and Generation Yes founder who’d pointed out Spear’s untruths.)
The move sent the party’s woke and sane factions into a frenzy of bloodletting which in itself will have little if any impact on the wider electorate, but nonetheless threw into sharp relief the life-and-death battle currently going on for the SNP’s soul.
And since that’s related to what we’ve been writing about on Wings for the bulk of this year, it seemed worthwhile to get some things down on the record once and for all.
Just two days ago the Electoral Commission gave us a fourth supposed date for the publication of the SNP’s 2019 accounts: having first been due out in early August, they then told us to expect them in early September, and then last week, and then in “the next three weeks”, ie the middle of October.
But someone gave us a tipoff that we might be able to request them via Freedom Of Information, since ostensibly the only holdup was that the EC wanted to wait until ALL of the main parties’ accounts were ready and publish them all at once for tidiness.
So we sent one in, and we just got a very quick reply.
During a debate on the UK government’s recent decision to abandon the notion of gender self-ID, SNP MP Anne McLaughlin told the Commons chamber that it was still the Scottish Government’s “strong commitment” to go ahead with highly controversial reform of the law BEFORE next year’s Holyrood election.
But that isn’t what Scottish voters were told earlier this year.
The SNP have historically been swift to suspend any party members when there’s any hint of inappropriate conduct, never mind even a whiff of illegality. It’s been that way since 2015, with the axe falling on elected members as well as candidates in target seats and critical elections, and ordinary activists.
Not even a by-your-leave, let alone an explanation, is afforded – just suspension with immediate effect. And that’s all well and good, some might say. No hint of impropriety should attach to the party and making a virtue of acting swiftly can be both necessary and appropriate.
So why then no action against the Chief Executive?
Senator Claire Chandler is a Liberal Party member of the Australian Parliament. Some recent experiences she’s had send a very serious warning about the likely outcomes of the Scottish Government’s wildly unpopular new Hate Crime Bill. She’s graciously allowed us to publish this column she wrote on the subject.
Early this month I received a letter from Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner directing me to attend a compulsory “conciliation” conference with somebody offended by my comments about the need to protect women’s sport and women’s toilets and changerooms. You can watch them here:
Ironically, the complaint against me was about an opinion article I wrote about free speech. You can read it here and make up your own mind whether bureaucrats at the Anti-Discrimination Commission should be able to censor any Australian citizens for this kind of public policy discussion.
Following up this morning’s article, we’ve been trawling through the Publications/FOI section of the Scottish Government website to see which other articles might be being hidden from its search function. We found quite a few, and you’re never going to guess what the common factor in all of them is.
We’ve given you a wee clue with that picture, though.
Whichever side you’re on, it’s simply observably true that the Scottish Government is doing everything in its power to obstruct, delay and derail the Parliamentary inquiry into its ruinously botched investigation of false allegations against Alex Salmond.
Any investigative journalist attempting to get to the bottom of the subject and find out what really happened is met with a wall of secrecy and misinformation while trying to navigate their way through the publicly-available information, and just to give you some idea of what it’s like, we’d like to offer you one tiny but typical example.
Readers may recall that this site is engaged in an ongoing attempt to clarify why the Scottish justice system is choosing to selectively only pursue those supportive of Alex Salmond for contempt of court with regard to his trial, while conspicuously turning a blind eye to those in the media who have committed exactly the same crime but are hostile to Mr Salmond and therefore apparently immune from prosecution.
During that investigation we received a reply from Police Scotland last month stating that contempt of court is in fact not a criminal offence in Scots law (although you can be tried and imprisoned for it), and so is nothing to do with them, and that they only act in relation to contempt when instructed by the courts or the Crown Office.
So naturally we asked them if they had been so instructed.
Over the last year or so, this site’s commentary on matters surrounding the attempted imprisonment of Alex Salmond over false allegations of sexual abuse has attracted a considerable amount of ire from a section of the readership, demanding “proof” of the involvement of the current First Minister.
Such proof has been impossible to provide for legal reasons. But it’s always been the case that the truth could only be suppressed for so long, and events in recent days have brought the first chinks of light through the wall of smoke and mirrors the Scottish Government has been attempting to surround the matter with.
So in our very lightest and softest shoes, let’s tiptoe through what is both a labyrinth and a minefield and see if we can make some of it a little easier to understand.
On 17 January last year, the First Minister told the Scottish Parliament that she, her administration and her party would “co-operate fully” with the parliamentary inquiry into the Scottish Government’s handling of false allegations made against Alex Salmond.
She further assured the Parliament, unambiguously and without any qualification, that the committee investigating the matter “will be able to request whatever material they want, and I undertake today that we will provide whatever material they request”.
So just over a month in, we thought we’d check on how that was going so far.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “‘ST PATRICK’S BREASTPLATE’ also called ‘THE DEER’S CRY’ Prayer for protection of travellers attributed to St Patrick. This version linguistically…” Mar 17, 17:17
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Agentx @ 16.38. And not before time, although the words, “Too little, too late” also spring to my mind.” Mar 17, 17:00
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Who cares if it was St Patrick or St Brendan? The facts are they both walked here. Saints knew what…” Mar 17, 16:59
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““The next ref won’t be our 1st Rodeo” Good to hear we’re defo getting that second referendum, Geri. I’d ask…” Mar 17, 16:54
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: ““slavering acquiescence in the name of ‘kindness’ and ‘virtue-signalling’, ‘green’ lies and a disregard for truth. No more heroes anymore!”…” Mar 17, 16:47
agentx on Looking up at the stars: ““Police Scotland confirmed it was finally ending Nicola Sturgeon’s gender ideology by updating its systems to ensure that the biological…” Mar 17, 16:38
Cynicus on Looking up at the stars: ““St Patrick was the first illegal immigrant to enter Britain in a dinghy.” ====== St Patrick was born in the…” Mar 17, 16:11
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “@ Marie: I’m so sorry – there is nothing worse than sibling disagreements. We had some in my family but…” Mar 17, 15:06
Marie on Looking up at the stars: “I had a sibling ask me to stop feeding our late terminally ill mother because they were impatient to get…” Mar 17, 14:54
Sven on Looking up at the stars: “Mark Beggan @ 14.04. That would have been before we elected so many of those turnips who have now taken…” Mar 17, 14:38
sarah on Looking up at the stars: “O/T: Today’s the day to see how the Assisted Dying votes go at Holyrood. I wrote to all my MSPs…” Mar 17, 14:36
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “‘Rigidity of thought ‘ Entrenched bitterness against their own kind. ‘All problems will be solved after independence.’ How many times…” Mar 17, 14:04
Alf Baird on Looking up at the stars: ““Scotland will issue another framework on important issues, a starting point” Thankfully there is a published research-based ‘theoretical framework’ identifying…” Mar 17, 13:54
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Nope! Setting out a general framework of where we’d be starting from is very different from a political parties individual…” Mar 17, 13:44
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “Okay so now it’s exactly the opposite of what you were saying earlier, glad we ironed that one out.” Mar 17, 13:03
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “St Patrick was the first illegal immigrant to enter Britain in a dinghy.” Mar 17, 12:50
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Dan: maybe you just don’t see others’ viewpoints as valid discussion issues? Wings is still, by far, the most influential…” Mar 17, 12:50
Geri on Looking up at the stars: “Scotland was perfectly capable of writing a framework before. Even Wings wrote the wee blue book along with thousands of…” Mar 17, 12:35
Lorncal on Looking up at the stars: “Anne: I honestly do not think that the vast majority of posters on here are Unionist trolls. It is just…” Mar 17, 12:33
Mark Beggan on Looking up at the stars: “For Scotland to achieve independence now the supporters will have to vote for the Unionist party most likely to form…” Mar 17, 12:24
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “I’m not going through the bins sorry, but looks like you’re absolutely right, it ain’t from the Tay, perhaps it…” Mar 17, 11:55
Aidan on Looking up at the stars: “It’s a great strategy from Geri, I love it. So when people ask perfectly reasonable questions in hustings/on the doorstep/in…” Mar 17, 11:48
100%Yes on Looking up at the stars: “Why does it bother you? Ignore them entirely, most people do and they’ll just go away.” Mar 17, 11:33
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “(Another attempt at the Gaelic version, hopefully free this time from misformatting question marks after each Gaelic accent) COIRE A’…” Mar 17, 11:23
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “CORRYVRECKAN George Orwell wrote his novel 1984 on the Island of Jura. I saw something about it on tv recently.…” Mar 17, 11:07
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “That which doesn’t kill you makes you strong, Anne. It never ceases to amaze me how so many pro-Indy Scots…” Mar 17, 11:07
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Looking up at the stars: “COIRE A’ BHREACAIN Sgri?obh Seo?ras Orwell 1984 air Eilean Diu?ra. Chunnaic mi pi?os mu a dhe?idhinn air an tv o…” Mar 17, 11:05
Anne on Looking up at the stars: “This site isn’t what it was because of the increasing posts from unionist trolls but one area where Wings has…” Mar 17, 10:22
Hatey McHateface on Looking up at the stars: “Ah hear it’s grand fer fleas oan dugs.” Mar 17, 10:19
