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.
Jim Thomson on A Poor Example: “Expect faux queues at the GN ones. Which means there will be no TW or TM working, so that the…” May 10, 00:07
Dan on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “Aye, an aquaintence works in the technical design side of planning and implementing the new HVDC transmission lines from Scotland…” May 9, 21:11
Hatey McHateface on A Poor Example: “How can the law and judiciary of Scotland and the UK be held in even more contempt? Max contempt was…” May 9, 21:01
joolz on A Poor Example: “Anyone can have a meeting for anyone as long as you don’t misrepresent it. If she had publicised the event…” May 9, 20:47
Vivian O’Blivion on A Poor Example: “Another double digit lead for RefUK and another breach of the 30% barrier. BMG Research, Westminster voting intention, field work…” May 9, 20:13
Yoon Scum on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “can the stupid English worshipper ask After Scotland leaves the union What forms of power generation will be allowed?” May 9, 19:27
agent x on A Poor Example: “Scottish trans activists are in “denial” about the Supreme Court decision that confirmed the term ‘woman’ in the Equality Act…” May 9, 19:24
Aidan on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “@Anthem – the wind farms in England are efficient which is why one of the largest offshore wind farms anywhere…” May 9, 19:21
Anthem on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “@Dunx. That’s absolute garbage. They exist because Westminster sell the licences to American equity companies who invest for maximim profit…” May 9, 19:05
James Cheyne on A Poor Example: “It is still obvious. Nothing has changed biological women are and always were women, the supreme court did not change…” May 9, 18:46
Yoon Scum on A Poor Example: “You have to be a whole new level of stoopid to advertise a women’s only event in her position” May 9, 18:12
Mark on A Poor Example: “Don’t think so. As explained above, biological sex is the determiner for a “same-sex” service. “Trans women” are biological males,…” May 9, 17:16
Anna on A Poor Example: “Not for us in Scotland it won’t” May 9, 16:42
Yoon Scum on A Poor Example: “There is part of me that wishes the far left get their dream of Scotland becoming an islamic state Would…” May 9, 16:24
Sven on A Poor Example: “It all just seemed so obvious only a decade ago; Biological men are men. Biological women are women. Anyone gets…” May 9, 15:23
stonefree on A Poor Example: “It stinks like a Sturgeon-esk Franchise 34 Quid off,Decent people are not welcome” May 9, 15:11
Dunx on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “@Michael England does generate a lot of wind power. They are not helping themselves. The wind companies pay the SG…” May 9, 14:58
Vivian O’Blivion on A Poor Example: “YouGov, British attitudes towards discrimination in the workplace, published 9th May. By group, do you think positive discrimination has gone…” May 9, 14:19
Lorn on A Poor Example: “Don’t understand how so many people can read the ruling and still get it wrong. It is – and there…” May 9, 14:14
Andrea on A Poor Example: “Would it be allowed to have an event that is for women AND trans woman? I should think so, but…” May 9, 14:02
Vivian O’Blivion on A Poor Example: “As someone who lives across the road from a Mosque, I can assure you they wouldn’t admit chicks with dicks…” May 9, 13:56
Aidan on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “@Michael – you’re talking about the wind here, not some hugely valuable unique energy resources (e.g. oil and gas) which…” May 9, 13:52
factchecker on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “Wonderful to see some rationality here. Two comments. You say ‘we believe independence to be a normal situation’. I would…” May 9, 13:24
1971Thistle on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “I would agree. Has there been a drop off in the number of ‘anon’ comments on blog? He seems to…” May 9, 13:22
Stuart MacKay on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “The Stalker probably sits all day clicking on the links, with the result that his blog is currently sitting in…” May 9, 13:11
Michael Laing on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “@ Dunx: So we’ve to thank England for helping itself to Scotland’s energy and selling it back to us at…” May 9, 13:05
Lorn on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “Also, Yon, politicians used to at least try and explain their policies to the people. Now, they just ignore all…” May 9, 13:00
Confused on All Or Nothing: ““sons of satan” and “enemies of the human race” (*) – do you not read your bible, main? I would…” May 9, 12:58
Captain Caveman on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “Reform – and only Reform. Even the Tories can’t be trusted, particularly concerning “net zero” nonsense. (As for the rest…” May 9, 12:57
Lorn on The Last Thing They’ll Expect: “Yoon, to set up a crowdfunder around like-minded people and build a case to take to the courts. Plenty of…” May 9, 12:52
