Nicola Sturgeon has not been charged with any crime. Yesterday she was arrested, questioned and released without charge pending further investigation. We do not even know which specific suspected crime or crimes she was questioned in connection with, so it is manifestly impossible to meaningfully speculate on her innocence or guilt (save of course for the fact that all are innocent in the eyes of the law until proven otherwise, something Sturgeon herself often appears to forget).
Nevertheless, in Scotland the Contempt Of Court Act 1981 applies from the moment a person is arrested, as the country’s most senior lawyer and its official prosecution service were both keen to remind people yesterday in the clearest possible terms, and it applies equally whether you’re asserting someone’s guilt or their innocence.
So you need to be a really extra-special class of boneheaded numbwit to do this:
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, idiots, investigation, scottish politics
Alert readers will have noticed some interesting stories recently.
The Scottish Sun’s scoop on Monday evening – a few hours after we tweeted information from a very well-informed source about the Crown Office’s continued attempts to obstruct Police Scotland’s investigation into the SNP’s finances – would have come as no great surprise to Wings readers already familiar with the way the unaccountable, unanswerable body operates.
But we’ve subsequently noticed a number of attempts by various people to muddy the story by talking about a “draft” warrant request, implying that there was no improper delay. So we checked up, and thought you might like to know how the process works.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, corruption, debunks, investigation, leaks, scottish politics
Alert Wings readers will have noticed recent press coverage of events surrounding North Lanarkshire Council, centred around a scandal of sexual harassment by former council leader Jordan Linden.
Here we present the full story, directly from one of the SNP councillors involved.
Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: Cllr Paul Di Mascio
Category
corruption, disturbing, investigation, scottish politics
Wings always likes to correct any inadvertent errors as quickly as possible, so we were pleased to hear from an alert reader with a correction to this morning’s article in which we claimed that “we’re supposed to be less than six months away from a second indyref, but [Humza Yousaf] hasn’t even admitted that that isn’t happening”.
Our reader informed us that they’d actually had some communication with the Scottish Government on that matter, which we’re happy to share with you.
As far as we’re aware this fact has never been formally stated publicly before for some reason. But just in case you were still holding out hopes, now you know.
Tags: and finally
Category
investigation, scottish politics, surrender
Almost every day is now a new crisis for the SNP.
But it better get used to it.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
comment, corruption, investigation, scottish politics
As the SNP burns down around their ears, nothing stops the gravy bus. But even as they gallivant gaily around another “Tartan Week” junket in the USA, one might have thought the Constitution Minister would have shied away from this particular photo-op.
Let’s find out why.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, corruption, disturbing, investigation, scottish politics
A reader has sent us an interesting follow-up to yesterday’s article.
Let’s just check what we’re being told there.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
investigation, scottish politics
Alert readers may be familiar with the market research and polling company Progress Scotland. Readers of The National certainly will be, as the semi-newspaper has run over 120 stories about it, most of them around the company’s creation in early 2019.
The company was formed by Angus Robertson, at the time an unemployed former SNP MP after he lost his Moray seat in the 2017 election, and its stated goal was to persuade those not yet fully decided.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, corruption, investigation, scottish politics
So it turned out there was very little new information in this story.
But the tiny bit there was raises an extremely disproportionate number of issues.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, corruption, investigation, scottish politics
So let’s just recap where we are with this.
Because it really doesn’t look very good.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, corruption, disturbing, investigation, scottish politics
Well, what an odd day that’s been.
Because for a start, if you’re the one person in Scotland who believes the above, please drop us a line. We’d love to have a chat with you.
Read the rest of this entry →
Category
analysis, investigation, scottish politics
