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.
The Scottish Government and Nicola Sturgeon have tonight embarked on a last-ditch desperate throw of the dice to undermine and sabotage the already-compromised and endlessly-obstructed Fabiani inquiry in its impossible quest for the truth.
Having previously deployed her paid mouthpiece Rape Crisis Scotland last week, the First Minister – who’s spent the last six months insisting that she’d save her comments for her appearance at the inquiry – suddenly popped up on BBC and STV (but not, curiously, Sky News) to issue a challenge full of gunfighter bravado to her predecessor.
As a spinoff from the hysterical Scottish media witch-hunt over last week’s piece on Neil Mackay, today we found ourselves listening to a podcast from last May by Courier editor Davie Clegg and former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale.
While it was obviously of personal interest, we had a specific reason for listening – we suspected it might contain some helpful information that our lawyers had been looking for (which as it happened it did).
But there was also something else really interesting that we weren’t expecting.
It’s difficult to know where to even start on the absolutely extraordinary reaction to our post about yesterday’s meeting of the SNP National Executive Committee. Our traffic exploded to levels not seen since 2014, racking up tens of thousands of pageviews an hour, and social media was aflame with argument into the small hours of the morning.
A whole raft of issues arose from our exclusive revelations, but the one we want to talk about now is the one that was buried at the bottom of what a panicked SNP hastily and laughably produced as the “minutes” of the meeting, and we didn’t even notice it until a couple of hours after the original post.
Iain More on The Modern Politician: “Sarwar, another one of England’s lap dogs, should have resigned over Grangemouth. We all knew he wasn’t going to though.…” Feb 10, 21:58
Alf Baird on A Dumber Nation: “Liberation is the only remedy for colonialism, the process outlined here in Phase III: https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/05/25/the-three-phases-of-decolonization-lessons-for-scotland/” Feb 10, 21:11
GM on The Modern Politician: “”An ex British Prime Minister was involved in a three some with Ghislane Maxwell according to Andrew Lownie who has…” Feb 10, 20:57
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Why would they admit they are wrong, Lorna? Which part of “the SNP look set fair to be re-elected with…” Feb 10, 20:46
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “If only he did believe in Zionism. We could have a grown up debate between the pros and the antis…” Feb 10, 20:34
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “I would say it was Flynn that got horsed. But then he didn’t have to resign either. I posted earlier…” Feb 10, 20:18
GM on The Modern Politician: “We expect society to protect women and children. Legislation should reflect what is viewed in our society as just/unjust, etc.…” Feb 10, 20:01
100%Yes on The Modern Politician: “Anas Sarwar thinks the Labour party is a business and he owns it and it belong to him and he…” Feb 10, 19:47
100%Yes on The Modern Politician: “Oh Yes, the British born Anas Sarwar MSP, has shown us all around the world how politics is done in…” Feb 10, 19:31
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Modern Politician: “Also, at least Thatcher stuck to her fucking guns. You can’t tell what Starmer believes in from one day to…” Feb 10, 18:47
Lorna Campbell on The Modern Politician: “Labour always overplays its hand, or, at least, the Left always does. Even more than the Right. It is as…” Feb 10, 18:47
Rev. Stuart Campbell on The Modern Politician: “Swinney took over not long before the 2024 election, got absolutely horsed, but didn’t have to resign.” Feb 10, 18:47
Red on The Modern Politician: “I’ve never known a prime minister as hated as Two Tier, and I remember Maggie Thatcher. At least with Maggie…” Feb 10, 17:53
Alistair on The Modern Politician: “…and we still don’t know the official length of “a generation”…….” Feb 10, 17:52
Hatey McHateface on A Dumber Nation: “@Red I suspect we’re arguing at cross purposes. I’m for Reform – repatriate the lot. But, if that doesn’t happen,…” Feb 10, 17:49
Andrea on Echoes of history: “I had noticed (I remember when the rainbow trio where in charge of all the parties), but only latterly I…” Feb 10, 17:39
Hatey McHateface on The Modern Politician: “Nobody can go until after May. Simply because Labour is going to lose big in May. That will demand resignations.…” Feb 10, 17:38
Insider on A Dumber Nation: “Alf ! Can you also clarify Memmi’s quotes on grey squirrels please ? Surely they completely contradict the clearly expressed…” Feb 10, 17:30
James Cheyne on A Dumber Nation: “This proves there was no guardrails and data personal protection had not not vetted the company / was not in…” Feb 10, 17:23
Red on A Dumber Nation: ““FFS. We’ve already had one of them as FM and the penny still hasn’t dropped.” Quite right. He told you,…” Feb 10, 17:21
Red on A Dumber Nation: ““This isn’t a neatly judged process where are declining Scots population is bolstered by carefully managed immigration deftly making sure…” Feb 10, 17:19
Joe Loney on A Dumber Nation: “Snp was captured by the far left who having failed to capture labour moved into SNP and this is where…” Feb 10, 17:17
Hatey McHateface on A Dumber Nation: “Brilliant, Alf! I did wonder if Fanon or Memmi might have touched upon the subject of beavers. Glad to hear…” Feb 10, 17:13
James Cheyne on A Dumber Nation: “Appropriate timing and sounds like a darn fine excuse from a government with dodgey backgrounds trouble that were pushing to…” Feb 10, 17:09
Hatey McHateface on A Dumber Nation: “James You probably have enough wind blowing around your garden, and enough rain falling on your roof, to keep you…” Feb 10, 17:06
James Cheyne on A Dumber Nation: “I think the whole system is collapsing, not just Scotland, all governments political parties and finances in Britain, Scotland can…” Feb 10, 16:58
Alf Baird on A Dumber Nation: ““Different animal species and different human species introductions that change the face of Scotland.” Which may be referred to as…” Feb 10, 16:47
Hatey McHateface on A Dumber Nation: “Great stuff, sarah. Is CM gonna be flogging tea towels through his blog? Gotta be some grift to be banked…” Feb 10, 16:46
Hatey McHateface on A Dumber Nation: “Took you to wonder about it, Confused, then post about it at great length. Sure you wouldn’t want to see…” Feb 10, 16:41
