This post was written by an SNP NEC member present at last week’s controversial Zoom meeting, who wishes to remain anonymous. Wings has verified their credentials.
A farce, a shambles, an incompetent mess. There’s no other way to sum up the NEC stitch-up of the Edinburgh Central seat last week.
Bad enough was the situation of the Glasgow Cathcart seat, over which my sources tell me it didn’t take long for someone in ministerial tower to realise “but what if Dornan jumps ship to an Indy list party, we’ve just given them a seat in Parliament to promote why our both votes SNP message doesn’t make sense.”
And of course those looking at what really matters in the near future were noting “we could already be relying on Derek Mackay to turn back up at Parliament – and for Mark McDonald to crawl out from the bus we threw him under – to survive a confidence vote if the inquiry doesn’t go our way, now we’ve just lost Dornan’s vote, the Greens are going to hold us to ransom…”
Fast forward a mere day and James Dornan didn’t even need to threaten legal action to get that decision overturned.
It seems fair to say that the SNP’s shady, ugly coup d’etwats yesterday hasn’t gone down massively well. Social media was awash in pictures of cut-up membership cards and resignation letters, and some of the most moderate voices in the commentariat also decried the stitch-ups of Joanna Cherry and James Dornan.
The NEC meeting which forced through the new rules was held in secret and nobody knows who was present or who voted for what. Indeed, even the identities of the NEC’s members are largely not public knowledge.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new World Speed-Reading Champion:
Almost 1200 words in 15 seconds is mighty impressive going in anyone’s book. (Either that or it’s REALLY slow for a 12-word tweet.) But we wondered if there might be any other reason why Mrs Angus Robertson wouldn’t want people reading that article.
We’ve just been out for our evening constitutional in the relatively cool night air (Bath sweltered at an oppressive 30C today and Bear Patrol was pretty gruelling), and we thought readers might be interested in what we saw.
The city has observed lockdown with great diligence, as we’ve previously documented, and to be honest we’re not sufficiently familiar with the latest rules to say it wasn’t still doing so tonight. But a nearby park, around 9.30pm, was a disconcerting scene.
We’ve often said on Wings Over Scotland that we really don’t mind if journalists are biased. Everyone is biased, including us – we’d just rather people stopped pretending to be impartial when they weren’t. But what we do really hate about the Scottish media is just how astonishingly bad at its job it is.
A particularly striking example arose recently.
Pretty much every newspaper and broadcaster in the country carried the sad story of former Labour MP Paul Sweeney‘s fall from besuited lawmaker to skint benefits claimant. And yet not a single one of them asked the question that literally every single reader of the story would have been shouting at their screen.
We’ve been fobbed off again with another generic response from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which again wholly fails to answer our simple and legitimate journalistic question, and to which nobody has been prepared to sign their name.
(We should also note in passing that not a single Scottish newspaper appears to have followed up on the story in that last link except the Sunday National, btw.)
But this one is considerably more disturbing. You can read it below if you want to know what shameless, transparent corruption sounds like.
Our ongoing quest to discover just who is actually willing to take responsibility for the actions of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) with regard to the trial of Alex Salmond and its aftermath took another diversion yesterday when we received a reply from HM Inspectorate of Prosecutions in Scotland.
It had sounded like a promising lead. After all, HMIPS’ apparent purpose is to “inspect the operation” of COPFS, “improve the way COPFS serves the public” and “make COPFS more accountable”, all of which are exactly what we were after.
We’ve received a response from the Scottish Government to our follow-up letter of last week regarding the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. It’s attached below.
With commendable swiftness, we’ve received a reply to our letter of earlier this week to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. You can read it in full below (click to enlarge).
Sadly, however, it’s precisely the sort of evasion we expected, and it is not acceptable.
We thought readers might be interested in a small update on yesterday’s post. As we told you, Graham Shields – the Head of Strategic Communications and Engagement at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service who fobbed off our complaint about newspapers enabling the identification of sexual assault accusers – was the editor of the Evening Times until he was let go in December 2017.
Which is just two months after this happened:
So you’d think that if anyone knew what jigsaw identification looked like, he would.
It’s now more than a month since this site revealed the widespread breach by a number of Scottish journalists/newspapers – the most prominent being Dani Garavelli of Scotland On Sunday and Tortoise Media – of the legally-protected anonymity of one of the accusers in the Alex Salmond trial.
Until last week we’d had no response from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) beyond an initial acknowledgement, and no action of any kind had apparently been taken against any of the perpetrators, even though the pro-Salmond blogger Craig Murray has been cited for prosecution for allegedly similar breaches.
Alarmingly, all of the information identifying the woman was (and at the time of writing this article is) still publicly available in their articles, exposing her to possible danger. So last week we got in touch with the COPFS to seek clarification.
MaryB on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “I guess he sees it as an alternative route. Maybe they could be done simultaneously? A double whammy.” May 28, 23:43
Alf Baird on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “C-24 can request an opinion from the ICJ and may well do so in the case of Scotland.” May 28, 23:28
Breastplate on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “It’s not logical to believe another country will prioritise Scotland’s needs. Of course, Chas and chums, taking time out from…” May 28, 23:03
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: ““Do you want Scotland to be ruled by another country?” Whats this then? Are we having another EU referendum?” May 28, 22:18
robertkknight on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Other sources citing the same research show differing figures… BBC shows 50.2% of Scots voted Yes https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-34283948.amp YouTube clip above…” May 28, 21:58
sarah on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Voters in Scotland [those who are citizens of another country are not eligible to vote i.e. a similar franchise to…” May 28, 21:44
Anthem on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Totally agree! They had no mandate or public support to even propose this bill let alone try and defend it…” May 28, 21:00
agent x on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: ““The UN is currently in emergency session to discuss the petition before it regarding Scottish Indepence.” Do you have a…” May 28, 20:51
robertkknight on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: ““The majority of Scots do no want independence now or ever full stop” LOL… 53% of Scots voted “Yes” in…” May 28, 20:46
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Somebody slapped the face of the knowledgeable French representative too. Seems that’s just something our snail chomping old allies like…” May 28, 20:44
Chas on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “BREAKING NEWS The UN is currently in emergency session to discuss the petition before it regarding Scottish Indepence. 80% of…” May 28, 20:34
sarah on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “I do remember being a bit worried when Ewan didn’t agree with Salvo’s case. Perhaps he just thinks that the…” May 28, 20:14
Alan Austin on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Folks you are in an echo chamber only talking to people who beleive what you beleive. The majority of Scots…” May 28, 20:09
duncanio on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Sarah – I saw that and it is encouraging. But it doesn’t mirror the MFI since the matter of parliamentary…” May 28, 19:23
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Lots of young people will be wanting to grow transplants. And the Greens will encourage them in this.” May 28, 19:17
MaryB on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Norrie Hunter is going to interview Ewan Kennedy, retired solicitor, who has proposed another route to independence via the UN’s…” May 28, 19:00
agent x on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “The Scottish Government doesn’t have any money – it is taxpayers money that will pay for the failed court case.…” May 28, 18:47
Dave G on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “@James Barr Gardner Everybody remembers the Queensferry Crossing precisely because it is so unusual” May 28, 18:28
twathater on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “The standard response by the police is that they know the high heid yins but if they arrest them and…” May 28, 18:05
twathater on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Lorn you are right that many, eg bastard tax moan and his fellow greedy bastards would have a heart attack…” May 28, 17:55
