Yesterday’s evidence session at the Fabiani inquiry had several standout moments, but by a narrow margin this was our favourite.
And just in case you were wondering, yes, that IS Scotland’s top prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, chief of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, James Wolffe QC, repeatedly refusing to tell an MSP whether or not it’s a criminal offence in Scotland to refuse to comply with a court-ordered search warrant.
So next time you’ve ramraided a load of iPads and the polis come knocking on your door asking if they can have a nosy around your attic for them, just tell them they can’t come in because it’s a matter of your motivations.
We’re just watching today’s session of the Fabiani inquiry, featuring the Lord Advocate, the Crown Agent and the Principal Crown Counsel. There’s been an extremely long preamble from both Fabiani and James Wolffe mainly concerned with the anonymity order passed by Lady Dorrian during (not before) Alex Salmond’s trial, which is the foundation stone of everything crooked that’s happened around the Salmond case.
The order – and for clarity we make no suggestion whatsoever that this was its intent – is the basis for every piece of evidence that’s been suppressed in the inquiry, and for the prosecutions of Mark Hirst, Craig Murray and others, and also for the threats of prosecution issued to this site, The Spectator and to Alex Salmond himself, preventing him giving his evidence in full to the inquiry.
And we couldn’t help wondering how different things would have been, how much less damage would have been done to the integrity and credibility of the entire Scottish political and legal establishment, if it hadn’t been for this guy.
(Doleman was not prosecuted for actually naming one of the women, although Craig Murray still awaits a verdict, five weeks after his trial, which could see him imprisoned for up to two years for merely allegedly hinting at their identities.)
Without the order, it would have been perfectly lawful for people to discuss the names of the complainers – whose allegations the jury found to be false – after the trial. It would have been possible for people to know, and form an opinion based on, who they were and who they were connected to and what the “plan” they were “mulling” was.
But because it isn’t, Scotland has been turned into a laughing stock – a byword for ham-fisted corruption and malice – the independence movement has been torn in two, and the Scottish Government itself may yet collapse.
So, y’know, thanks for all of that, James. Great job.
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.
We’d been wondering why our traffic was so crazy high that we’d already smashed last month’s four-year record to bits with a full week of February still to go.
We’ve just been sent this report from today’s meeting of the SNP’s National Executive Committee, which ended a short time ago. There’s no official confirmation yet but it’s come to us from several independent sources and we’re sure it’s true.
(“NS” and “JC” are of course Nicola Sturgeon and Joanna Cherry.)
Two weeks ago a Wings scoop caused quite a furore to erupt around the SNP’s ham-fisted and corruptly-motivated attempts to increase BAME and disabled representation at this year’s Holyrood election.
We’ve always been opposed to what were until recently known as “quotas”, and prior to that “positive discrimination”, but have now been cunningly rebranded as “diversity and inclusion” because that’s a much more difficult thing to say you object to.
It’s easy to make an honourable-sounding case against any form of “discrimination”, because decent and civilised people are taught to automatically think of discrimination as a bad thing, even if you put “positive” in front of it.
So the word “quotas” was adopted to move the concept from a pejorative term to a neutral noun – objecting to “quotas” doesn’t sound intolerant, any more than objecting to (say) “procedures” does. So that’s fine, because you can still discuss it like adults without too much unpleasantness.
But those pushing the agenda got smarter still by changing the name again. If you say you object to “diversity and inclusion”, you sound like a monster and a racist, because diversity and inclusion are plainly good things – no decent person wants to live in a monoculture, or to exclude anybody from society – and so the debate is immediately drowned out by self-righteous tossers screaming “BIGOT!” and “NAZI!” at everyone.
And yet in the context of social policy the three phrases mean the exact same thing. They’re all systems for overriding raw democracy so as to increase the representation of selected groups at the expense of other groups, for one reason or another.
(Sometimes it’s ostensibly just penance for historical wrongs, while at other times it’s supposedly for economic benefits, and so on.)
And while the proponents of those systems will openly argue that the only group being disadvantaged is straight white men so it’s all fine (because nobody likes straight white men and anyone standing up for them can be easily dismissed as a “gammon” for lots of woke points and Twitter likes), it isn’t even remotely close to the truth.
Because in “diversity and inclusion”, some groups are a lot more included than others.
In an attempt to freshen up its usual panel of tired and tiresome politicians and pundits, last night’s Question Time (ostensibly from an oddly-vague location in “the North East”) featured moderately-known circus fortune-teller Gypsy Rose Petulengro, crossing her palm with silver for some analysis in a short break from one of her celebrated seances.
The clip above was her take on whether Nicola Sturgeon would resign if either of the current inquiries found that she’d systematically and repeatedly lied to Parliament and broken the Ministerial Code, and the strange thing about it was that for someone who was professing to be looking into the future, she didn’t even appear to know the basic pertinent facts of the present or the past.
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.
Readers, we swear to you we are not making this up. What you’re about to read are genuine extracts from the SNP’s official new (probably illegal) Equalities Mechanism explanatory note, detailing what does and doesn’t count as a disability when it comes to jumping the queue for a regional list nomination.
And straight away it’s a real punch in the gut for firestarters, muggers, rapists, flashers and, in most cases, hay-fever sufferers. THIS BIGOTRY WILL NOT STAND.
We don’t yet know what happened regarding the supposed definition of transphobia – our source thinks that it may have been postponed due to not being able to get the required 2/3 vote for an emergency agenda item.
But we know that something even madder DID happen.
Young Lochinvar on Before Action: “Meant to add; for the best impression of The Wallace see the excellent wall mural on Castlegate in Lanark.” Aug 22, 03:28
Young Lochinvar on Before Action: “One to sadly note tomorrow; Disgusting anniversary of the 1305 judicial show-trial and judicial show-murder mob spectacle of William Wallace…” Aug 22, 01:31
Old John on Before Action: “One hopes that, as the “Turbulent Priest” of the 21st century, you will not suffer the same fate as Thomas…” Aug 22, 01:29
Young Lochinvar on Before Action: “Amen to that.” Aug 22, 01:12
gm on Before Action: “It confused me after the referendum, everything had changed. It took me until 2018/2019 to get a handle on it.…” Aug 21, 23:09
Captain Caveman on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “”did you think you acquitted yourself well yesterday?” In comparison to you, my meths-imbibing, solvent-sniffing pal? Fuck yeah. Who wouldn’t?…” Aug 21, 22:55
Stevie on Before Action: “All the Brit political parties are disgusting, but the worst is the SNP – they betrayed everything and everyone including…” Aug 21, 22:27
GM on Before Action: “Good news is shy these days. Well done to councillor Higgins. Any analysis yet on the repercussions?” Aug 21, 21:54
GM on Before Action: “Absolutely spot on. The paid UK trolls on here are similar to the paid UK trolls squatting under an upturned…” Aug 21, 21:44
Alf Baird on Before Action: ““When did the Indy movement become the post colonial movement?” I think you may mean ‘become the liberation movement’. According…” Aug 21, 21:21
Mark Beggan on Before Action: ““You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes you get what you need.” A Rolling Stones…” Aug 21, 20:17
James on Before Action: “That right, aye, Einstein?” Aug 21, 19:56
Alf Baird on Before Action: “Scotland is not “the colonialist mother country”, Hatey, that’s the country next door that annexed us in 1707 and has…” Aug 21, 19:55
Confused on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “come on then caveman and spartan – say something interesting, or insightful, or the slightest bit funny that indicates an…” Aug 21, 19:39
Mark Beggan on Before Action: “Badges? Badges! We don’t need no stinking badges!” Aug 21, 18:32
twathater on Before Action: “So gobshite what are you doing about making Scotland a better place ,who did you and your fellow unionists vote…” Aug 21, 18:29
Hatey McHateface on Before Action: “If you’re coming to the colony, form an orderly queue behind the flood of formerly oppressed and crushed colonised victims…” Aug 21, 18:06
Captain Caveman on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “Another day, another stellar display of rank, ignorant stupidity I see Confused. You’d be banned anywhere else, ten times over.” Aug 21, 18:03
Mark Beggan on Before Action: ““What good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play Life is a Colony, old chum Come…” Aug 21, 17:45
Hatey McHateface on Before Action: “Very true, Alf, we can only imagine. In fact, the rest of us don’t even have to imagine while we…” Aug 21, 17:36
Hatey McHateface on Before Action: “No referendum, section 30, or UDI required? It’s bold, James, but I guess you wouldn’t have posted it if you…” Aug 21, 17:29
Spartan 117 on The Land Of Do-As-You-Please: “You can’t help yourself, can you. You’ve just proven my point, yet again. What an arse to make of yourself,…” Aug 21, 17:14
Mark Beggan on Before Action: “The cash incentive is one thing but I prefer, ” tell us what we want to know or it is…” Aug 21, 17:10
Alf Baird on Before Action: ““The Scottish establishment will always kowtow to Westminster until we manage to get out from under the “union”.” Yes sarah,…” Aug 21, 16:03
Gavin on The Aims Of Justice: “Thank you for sticking with this, Stu. What you are doing is really important. Without your courage and tenacity, we…” Aug 21, 15:37
James Che on Before Action: “All this effects and affects how the law is dealt with in Scotland. If a Colonial Country comes to light…” Aug 21, 15:35
James Che on Before Action: “For instance is the 1800 Anglo- Irish agreement in 1800 with the parliament of England or the supposed parliament of…” Aug 21, 15:27
James Che on Before Action: “Alf, Indeed this is not Scots laws but the justice and laws of England, That said Scots know now that…” Aug 21, 15:18
Mark Beggan on Before Action: “I reckon the Scottish establishment will fight this with every means at their disposal. If they lose the legal battle…” Aug 21, 14:37
And Spouse on Before Action: “What is the chance that there might be a long game here. If they, SNP, can summon up the money…” Aug 21, 14:21
