Wings Over Scotland

The SNP have historically been swift to suspend any party members when there’s any hint of inappropriate conduct, never mind even a whiff of illegality. It’s been that way since 2015, with the axe falling on elected members as well as candidates in target seats and critical elections, and ordinary activists.

Not even a by-your-leave, let alone an explanation, is afforded – just suspension with immediate effect. And that’s all well and good, some might say. No hint of impropriety should attach to the party and making a virtue of acting swiftly can be both necessary and appropriate.

So why then no action against the Chief Executive?

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Following up this morning’s article, we’ve been trawling through the Publications/FOI section of the Scottish Government website to see which other articles might be being hidden from its search function. We found quite a few, and you’re never going to guess what the common factor in all of them is.

We’ve given you a wee clue with that picture, though.

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We’ve just sent a Freedom Of Information request to the Scottish Government.

You can read it below.

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Whichever side you’re on, it’s simply observably true that the Scottish Government is doing everything in its power to obstruct, delay and derail the Parliamentary inquiry into its ruinously botched investigation of false allegations against Alex Salmond.

Any investigative journalist attempting to get to the bottom of the subject and find out what really happened is met with a wall of secrecy and misinformation while trying to navigate their way through the publicly-available information, and just to give you some idea of what it’s like, we’d like to offer you one tiny but typical example.

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Readers may recall that this site is engaged in an ongoing attempt to clarify why the Scottish justice system is choosing to selectively only pursue those supportive of Alex Salmond for contempt of court with regard to his trial, while conspicuously turning a blind eye to those in the media who have committed exactly the same crime but are hostile to Mr Salmond and therefore apparently immune from prosecution.

During that investigation we received a reply from Police Scotland last month stating that contempt of court is in fact not a criminal offence in Scots law (although you can be tried and imprisoned for it), and so is nothing to do with them, and that they only act in relation to contempt when instructed by the courts or the Crown Office.

So naturally we asked them if they had been so instructed.

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Over the last year or so, this site’s commentary on matters surrounding the attempted imprisonment of Alex Salmond over false allegations of sexual abuse has attracted a considerable amount of ire from a section of the readership, demanding “proof” of the involvement of the current First Minister.

Such proof has been impossible to provide for legal reasons. But it’s always been the case that the truth could only be suppressed for so long, and events in recent days have brought the first chinks of light through the wall of smoke and mirrors the Scottish Government has been attempting to surround the matter with.

So in our very lightest and softest shoes, let’s tiptoe through what is both a labyrinth and a minefield and see if we can make some of it a little easier to understand.

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On 17 January last year, the First Minister told the Scottish Parliament that she, her administration and her party would “co-operate fully” with the parliamentary inquiry into the Scottish Government’s handling of false allegations made against Alex Salmond.

She further assured the Parliament, unambiguously and without any qualification, that the committee investigating the matter “will be able to request whatever material they want, and I undertake today that we will provide whatever material they request”.

So just over a month in, we thought we’d check on how that was going so far.

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The SNP’s official 2019 accounts, which were due to be published today (five weeks late), have not appeared on the Electoral Commission website. We’ve rung the EC and we’re still waiting for someone to get back to us with a reason and/or a new date.

[EDIT 3pm: the EC say they’re “fairly confident” the new date will be 23 September.]

In the meantime, there’s something else of note.

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We’ve had another letter from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

And slowly, painfully, we’re starting to get at least some answers.

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An alert viewer noticed this evening that after being broadcast twice in two days, “The Trial Of Alex Salmond” has tonight disappeared from BBC iPlayer.

We have no information as to why, although we do know it committed contempt of court by providing so-called “jigsaw identification” of one of the complainers in the case. If that’s the reason for the show being pulled, it’s going to be VERY interesting in terms of our ongoing enquiries with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service about why a number of Scottish newspapers and websites critical of Salmond haven’t been acted against for publishing exactly the same information, while pro-Salmond blogger Craig Murray faces a trial and a potential two years in prison for doing less.

We’ll keep you posted with anything we find out.

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In a development which has caught us somewhat by surprise, we’ve just had a reply from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) which was both timely (in more than one sense of the word) and actually contained a straight answer.

Join us in our astonishment below.

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There’s been a lot of talk in the last couple of weeks about the SNP NEC, the rather secretive body that controls the operation of the party (and therefore also in effect the Scottish Government).

Extraordinarily, even if you’re a party member there’s no way to access a full list of the 42-member committee – something which for pretty obvious reasons of basic political transparency and accountability ought to be recorded prominently on the SNP website, let alone available to rank-and-file members.

(Ordinary party members aren’t even permitted to see the minutes of NEC meetings, which are restricted to NEC members.)

So we got our investigating hats on.

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