There’s a strange new affliction affecting the SNP: fear of figures.
Now, we should say that we don’t believe for even a second that the SNP has actually had 10,000 new members in the last two days. It’s ridiculous to the point of insulting. But purely for the sake of argument, let’s imagine it was true.
Like an old man getting up for the fourth time in the middle of the night, the Scottish Government has squeezed out another little dribble of its legal advice in respect of the conduct of its shambolic investigation into false allegations against Alex Salmond.
And to push that gross analogy to its outermost limit, it must have found releasing one of the documents in particular as painful as passing a rather large kidney stone.
We’re only two-thirds of the way through Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence to the Fabiani inquiry, and there’s probably not much point in expressing our opinion on it because you could almost certainly have guessed what it was going to be. The First Minister has been disingenuous, evasive, defensive and at times outright dishonest.
But although we were expecting all of that, this truly shocked us:
That’s the First Minister flatly stating, under oath, that even now she doesn’t know who all the complainers are. And readers can make their own minds up about how credible a claim that is. But I can tell you this:
I know who they all are.
Craig Murray knows who they all are.
Every journalist who covered the trial knows who they all are.
(And we can reasonably assume their editors also know who they all are.)
In fact pretty much everyone who’s in any way connected to Scottish politics knows the identity of every single one of these women. If you’re willing to believe that we all do but Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t, well, fair enough. But also, I’m a Nigerian prince and I’d like to pass several million pounds through your bank account. Please get in touch.
We just put up a post, readers, but we’ve pulled it again because this has happened:
Because of this:
More as we get it, but this would seem to be an extraordinary move from the Tories if they weren’t pretty confident they had the backing of the other opposition parties. At a minimum it’s quite the scene-setter for tomorrow’s appearance of the First Minister in front of the Fabiani committee. We presume we don’t need to tell you to stay tuned.
We’ll say one thing for Police Scotland – when it comes to Freedom Of Information requests, dealing with them compared to the Scottish Government or Crown Office is a breath of fresh air. Responses tend to be reasonably swift and you actually get some straight answers, like these.
And in this case they’re pretty remarkable answers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Young Lochinvar on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Aha!! P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface is back after an absence no doubt at Langley and.. T A..v. And upset about a Barbie…” Jul 24, 05:51
Willie on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Reading the various comments it does seem that Alf Baird has very much become the focus of coordinated attack from…” Jul 24, 05:19
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““You’re all afraid and it shows” Sure. I’m forever shitting ma kegs at the idea that TH and ‘Mrs James’…” Jul 24, 03:57
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““There’s barely a comment posted here by a unionist (colonialist?) that is anything other than childish insult, threat, lies, diversion,…” Jul 24, 03:44
Hatey McHateface on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““What does tomorrow hold – an accusation of genocide?” Well, to be fair, the bar for that is being lowered…” Jul 24, 03:26
Young Lochinvar on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Lorn @ 11.32 This deviant crap has been about in Europe for ages. Remember the early 90s Harry Enfield/ Paul…” Jul 24, 01:25
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Ah! I didn’t know Bill Rolston had died. Tá sé anois ar shlí na fírinne, as the Irish say. Ar…” Jul 24, 00:37
Lorn on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I agree, even if I don’t agree with every word Alf says. He is a distinguished academic and researcher and…” Jul 23, 23:45
aLurker on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@Fearghas Thankyou for that Bill Rolston video, Indeed very interesting to hear the distilled observations from his book: “Ireland, Colonialism,…” Jul 23, 23:43
Jay on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Rob does not think ‘gender woo woo’ was really imported therefore he/she must be able to cite at least some…” Jul 23, 23:40
Lorn on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Mark Began: Scottish, British, European, Scandinavian, Commonwealth, American governments all culpable. Perhaps it is time that we stopped to wonder…” Jul 23, 23:32
Jay on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Rob does not think ‘gender woo woo’ was really imported therefore he/she must be able to cite at least some…” Jul 23, 23:08
agent x on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““Mark Beggan says: Which brings us back to the Scottish government.” ——————————————– No – equality training courses started after the…” Jul 23, 21:55
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “‘equality training courses ‘ Which brings us back to the Scottish government.” Jul 23, 21:19
Captain Caveman on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “‘… Alf Baird puts forward a coherent and convincing argument based on sound and methodical academic research.’ He has done…” Jul 23, 21:16
agent x on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““Dr Searle When asked whether she thought Dr Upton was “obviously a man” she responded no. Ms Cunningham went on:…” Jul 23, 20:32
GM on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Aye Dave. There are as many trolling unionist accounts as Scottish nationalists posting now. The words ‘Scotland is a colony’…” Jul 23, 19:49
Aidan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “When was the last time I posted something bad about Scotland?” Jul 23, 19:25
Young Lochinvar on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Charlie Says Episode 1; Bad man/ stranger danger. I was at work and as mommy always told me make sure…” Jul 23, 19:18
Dan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “@ Lorn I’m only saying it like I see it. If you see the danger of all this woke stuff…” Jul 23, 19:13
DaveL on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “All the sad colonialists posting here regarding Alf Baird sound not a hoot different from the mentally disturbed chemical tits…” Jul 23, 19:10
Dan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Happy to talk about that as soon as you point me to the posts where I’ve been promoting the union…” Jul 23, 19:09
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “‘Trust me I’m a Doctor’ has got a whole new meaning now.” Jul 23, 18:38
twathater on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Funnily enough NC, ayden, corporal arsehole,wee chassy the gowfer, agent fuckwit,yoony STUART and a whole host of other yoonies complain…” Jul 23, 18:07
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Finnie looks an English crack head on the run from his London dealers” Jul 23, 17:36