The battle to save the soul of the SNP – formerly a party of Scottish independence but now a career vehicle for intolerant science-denying cultists solely interested in social engineering – is already almost lost.
By delaying its online pretend “conference” until the end of November, the party has ensured that the chronically dysfunctional current National Executive Committee (NEC) controls the selection of candidates for next year’s election, and it’s using that power every bit as crookedly as anyone who’s been paying attention recently might fear.
Following the stitch-up of Joanna Cherry, the latest victim of the SNP’s woke cabal is Caroline McAllister, a woman who the party considers quite fit to be a councillor – and indeed the Deputy Leader of its group on West Dunbartonshire council – but who has suddenly somehow become unacceptable when she tried to seek nomination for the MSP seat currently held by Jackie Baillie of Scottish Labour.
At the climax of a popular and multiple-Oscar-winning movie from 1995, the Scottish leader William Wallace is portrayed heroically roaring the word “FREEDOM!”
We’ve just received the most extraordinary Freedom Of Information response from the Scottish Government, readers. Trust us, you want to go and make yourselves a strong cup of tea before you read it. Or get this guy to bring you one.
It doesn’t take a master analyst to see that the Salmond inquiry committee is running out of patience with the Scottish Government’s endless attempts to obstruct its work.
This afternoon it issued a statement, with obvious irritation, making clear that it did not wish to see documents the Scottish Government was trying to submit to it, which the committee had not asked for, and which had previously been struck down as unlawful by Lord Pentland in the initial judicial inquiry.
The Scottish Government’s only purpose in doing so was to try to put the details of the discredited and disproven-in-court allegations into the public domain with the intention of smearing Mr Salmond yet again, and the committee has made its displeasure with the plan clear, telling the Scottish Government to abandon its intended legal action to release the documents and get on with producing the ones the inquiry HAS asked for.
But there’s a little bit more to the story than that.
We’re grumpy this morning, readers, because it’s Sunday and we were planning a long lie and then someone told us about this. It’s the First Minister appearing on the Sophy Ridge show on Sky News at around 8.45am and you need to see it.
In the light of yesterday’s revelations, we’ve sent the following Freedom Of Information request to the Central Enquiry Unit (CEU) of the Scottish Government.
Back in the 1980s there was a hit game for the ZX Spectrum home computer called Worse Things Happen At Sea. In it you play a robot whose job is to get a heavily-laden cargo ship safely to port, except that more and more disasters keep befalling it.
It springs leaks, it veers off course, the engine overheats and the robot’s power runs down, until eventually the catalogue of catastrophes overwhelms the harassed metallic custodian and the boat slides down into the murky depths.
We wonder if that feels familiar to anyone at the moment.
On 23rd March this year, after Alex Salmond was found not guilty of 13 criminal charges in the High Court, I called on the Scottish Government to set up a judge-led inquiry into the allegation that he had been the subject of a conspiracy involving the Scottish Government, which resulted in him being accused of criminal behaviour.
There’s an especially interesting post on the blog of Scottish solicitor-advocate Gordon Dangerfield at the moment, pointing out that there are no legal reasons whatever for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to be withholding documents relating to the allegations against Alex Salmond, and indeed issuing dire threats of prosecution against him or anyone who might put them into the public domain.
(All of the blog’s coverage of the inquiry in general has been expert and revealing, and should be the first stop for readers seeking to understand proceedings.)
The items in question include the infamous WhatsApp messages exchanged by the group of people attempting to have Salmond imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, among them SNP chief executive Peter Murrell.
When two of Murrell’s messages were leaked recently it was front-page news in the Scottish press, and generated a huge amount of subsequent coverage. Commentators as diverse as Mandy Rhodes of Holyrood magazine and Alex Massie of the Times and Spectator have noted that while they’d initially disbelieved talk of a conspiracy, the Scottish Government’s actions have given them the opposite impression.
The message log is absolutely central to Salmond’s claim of a conspiracy against him, so the last thing that either COPFS or the leadership of the SNP wants is for it to become public knowledge. Indeed, COPFS has denied that the messages exist at all, which makes it a bit weird that the police are currently conducting a serious criminal investigation into who leaked some apparently entirely imaginary documents.
So it would be quite astonishing if they suddenly disappeared, wouldn’t it?
Readers, we can’t tell you how much we want to get back to just dissecting Scotland’s hopeless Unionist media for a living. It’s a lot more fun than what the current political circumstances are obliging us to do, so you can hardly imagine our excitement when we spotted what looked like an open goal in yesterday’s Mail On Sunday.
Our ears pricked up immediately at the sight of the words “up to”, which is invariably a sign of dodgy doings on the way, and so it proved. The article contained no solid data at all about the size of Scottish Government special advisers’ pay rises, only how many SpAds there were and which general pay bands they were in, each of which spans a wide range of between £14,000 and £23,000.
But while the Mail had spooned the sitter six feet over the crossbar – because the crude spin they’d put on it was total rubbish – there was still a loose ball just waiting to be knocked into the back of the net.
100%Yes on The Secondhand Amendment: “Long tails and short skirts will sooner or later will have to end in favor of biological women and men.…” Jan 19, 10:05
James Cheyne on The Secondhand Amendment: “Lorna, I have replied to you’re comment you made yesterday on Stu’s previous post, so not to interrupt this one…” Jan 19, 09:58
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Lorna, The need to research the accumulated information under one roof would not go amiss, which is something that not…” Jan 19, 09:54
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Lorna. It did not simply expand Great Britain parliament. It dissolved the parliament of Great Britain in 1800, You will…” Jan 19, 09:43
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Rogueslr on The Secondhand Amendment: “When West Midlands Police ‘made up’ evidence to ban fans, and referenced events that never occured, the result was the…” Jan 19, 09:14
John on Learning Insanity: “FYI, The ‘Metagender’ status is specifically fluidity within identity. The technical term is ‘Schrodinger’s Twat’.” Jan 19, 09:13
Vivian O’Blivion on The Secondhand Amendment: “The balance between independence, and oversight of the judiciary is the perennial problem. In the seventies, and eighties, the composition…” Jan 19, 09:09
Effijy on The Secondhand Amendment: “Absolutely unacceptable whitewash and a very large nail in the coffin of justice. Why don’t they just tear up the…” Jan 19, 08:31
WeeChid on Learning Insanity: “I’m so glad I’m retired ’cause if I was still in the workplace and had to go on one of…” Jan 19, 08:26
Adam Hibbert on The Secondhand Amendment: “As I understand it, “Judicial colleague” is a standard phrase only used to refer to fellow judges. So the error…” Jan 19, 08:10
Willie on The Secondhand Amendment: “If it was AI as you suggest Iain then this would mark Judge Kemp as a liar since Sandra Muir…” Jan 19, 04:09
Tim on The Secondhand Amendment: “Are the judges and lawyers (reputed to have been) involved in “Fettesgate” in the early 90s still in place? That…” Jan 19, 03:50
Iain mhor on The Secondhand Amendment: “Everybody and their dug knows it was AI. Every Civil Service letter I get is patently AI generated. Nobody in…” Jan 19, 03:18
Willie on The Secondhand Amendment: “Surely not another cover up? Surely yes I’m afraid Northern Lad. Duvet government, duvet law, might be euphemisms to describe…” Jan 19, 03:18
Campbell Clansman on The Secondhand Amendment: “The Muir reply was pure Sir Humphrey Appleby.” Jan 19, 01:55
Northern Lad on The Secondhand Amendment: “A long time reader and admirer of the site but rarely a commentator. What I would say is that the…” Jan 19, 01:21
Willie on The Secondhand Amendment: “A most excellent informative article Rev Stu. And a thanks too to solicitor Ewen G Kennedy for his excellent complaint…” Jan 19, 01:20
Cynicus on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Whether it was Judge Kemp or our mysterious John or Jane Doe who made them up, they were still made…” Jan 19, 00:44
Young Lochinvar on Learning Insanity: “H McH Another your “bad” to add to your count. Wrong again. FACT!” Jan 18, 22:13
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Learning Insanity: “For an overtly Christian articulation of the case for Scottish independence I would direct attention to the seminal 2009 book…” Jan 18, 20:19
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Learning Insanity: “Professor ALF BAIRD’s commendable letter to the MODERATOR of the Church of Scotland is on BarrheadBoy’s site here: SCOTLAND’S COLONIAL…” Jan 18, 19:34
Alf Baird on Learning Insanity: ““Indy should be such an easy sell, a unifying idea, that we really shouldn’t be bringing religion into it. Not…” Jan 18, 19:23
BigJay on Learning Insanity: “…and I’ve found the letter in reply from the Moderator to the Professor: “Dear Alfie, TL;DR. Lots of love, Rosie.”” Jan 18, 18:45
DaveL on Learning Insanity: “I can’t remember this particular halfwits name but I do recall that he was known for constantly ‘flouncing’ off twitter.…” Jan 18, 18:42
willie on Learning Insanity: “So Trump is now at war with Great Britain. 10% tariff on all goods from 1st February and 25% tariff…” Jan 18, 18:36
Lorna Campbell on Learning Insanity: “But it didn’t end, James. Had it ended, there would be no Union. It simply expanded to include the Treaty…” Jan 18, 18:29
