The entire mainstream Scottish media has picked up this afternoon on our intriguing scoop from yesterday about Peter Murrell lending the SNP £108,000 last year.
(The official SNP line is that it was for “cash flow reasons after the 2021 election”, although that doesn’t explain why less than half the money has been paid back more than 18 months later. Surely the party’s had enough cash flowing back in since then?)
And it’s enlightening to see how Scotland’s “proper” journalists handle such things.
The SNP love to indignantly tell everyone how healthy the party’s finances are these days, especially in response to impertinent queries about the infamous “ring-fenced” £600,000 for a second indyref that everyone now knows isn’t going to happen.
Word reaches us, readers, that Nicola Sturgeon was “furious” when she joined the most recent meeting of the SNP’s Westminster group by Skype. Her rage was driven by the suggestion that the party should trigger a Holyrood election to act as a de facto independence referendum, a policy we’re reliably told is supported by a number of MPs who are too scared of being browbeaten by Sturgeon in front of their colleagues to actually speak out in favour of it.
(We won’t mention their names at this point.)
Our source mentioned to us that they seemed to remember an interview in which the First Minister had revealed a possible reason for her extreme antipathy to the idea – one for the BBC’s extensive and rather good three-part documentary “Yes/No – Inside The Indyref”, which was broadcast in August 2019 and never seen again.
It’s not available on iPlayer or YouTube, but fortunately we happened to still have the show recorded on our Sky+ box, so we went to check, and lo and behold our source’s recollection was correct. Apologies for the slightly wonky quality of this video, as we had to record it off the TV screen.
It’s nice to see the British media (and perhaps, if we might be allowed to dream for a moment, the law) catching up with Michelle Mone.
It’s such a shame nobody did any proper investigative journalism into what a crooked, venal chancer she is before now – seven years ago or even four years ago, say – or the country might have been saved a few billion quid. Ah well, you live and learn, eh?
For anyone with the slightest remaining grip on their critical faculties, the cat was truly let out of the bag on the day of the First Minister’s infamous “broom cupboard” video last January, in which she abjectly grovelled at the feet of a tiny handful of adolescent transactivists who’d left the party in a loud and choreographed public tantrum because it still hadn’t burned Joanna Cherry at the stake for believing in human biology.
One of those she was abasing herself to that day was the repulsive and now mercifully deceased drug dealer and abusive racist misogynist Leeze Lawrence (above, left), but he was only the tip of a filthy iceberg.
We were sent something disturbing recently. It’s from a training course civil servants are being sent on by the Scottish Government.
As you can see, one of the sites that staff are directed to is something called The Trans Language Primer. We thought you should see some of its content.
For many years now, whenever I’ve done one of those “Which Political Party Should You Be In?” online quiz things, it always says that I’m a Green, which is weird because I really hate cyclists. Nevertheless, it was still the result when I did one most recently, just last month.
So I decided that for the first time in my life it was finally time to join a political party.
Craig Murray, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan, the father of a newborn child, a man in very poor health and one who has no prior convictions, handed himself over to the Scottish police last Sunday morning. He becomes the first person ever to be imprisoned on the obscure and vaguely defined charge of “jigsaw identification”.
Murray is also the first person to be jailed in Britain for contempt of court for their journalism in half a century – a period when such different legal and moral values prevailed that the British establishment had only just ended the prosecution of “homosexuals” and the jailing of women for having abortions.
Hi lads. This website has, we’d be the first to admit, made some pretty strong criticisms of you fellas in the last week or two, but we’re pleased to note that you finally HAVE actually manned up and released your “minifesto” tonight.
We’ll let readers judge it for themselves, but we do have one question.
Fresh from being embarrassed over a ridiculous smear story this week about someone complaining to the police about the use of a well-known political phrase by a Wings commenter, Tom Gordon of the Herald went on quite the attack yesterday.
The thread, which contains a number of basic factual errors about events*, continued for several more tweets all generally rubbishing our scoop from Friday afternoon and suggesting that no proper journalist (“the rest of us”) would have run the story.
So he must be feeling quite left out this morning.
Captain Caveman on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Kit Bee said: “Its the IT providers who see public sector contracts as a cash cow- they know every trick…” May 28, 15:11
Kit Bee on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Captain Caveman says ‘Are civil servants even capable of running the proverbial piss up in a brewery north or south…” May 28, 13:37
robertkknight on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Whether an independent Scotland, thanks to malicious behaviour on the part of the departing colonial power ended up behaving like…” May 28, 12:59
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Robin defo talks a good talk. I’d much prefer to see HR prioritising drill, baby, drill. Opening a coal mine…” May 28, 12:47
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: ““Every disastrous policy foisted on the Scots by Holyrood is ultimately sanctioned by England and is therefore England’s disastrous policy…” May 28, 12:20
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: ““I guess Scotland should never aspire to be a normal, independent, sovereign state” Beats me how you could read that…” May 28, 12:09
James Cheyne on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Dan, May I add that people where they have a garden or piece of land available to them and are…” May 28, 11:56
Captain Caveman on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “As a matter of interest, has there even *ever been* a successful public sector IT project roll out in the…” May 28, 11:14
Northcode on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “This is my view. As usual – each can cleave to their own. The ‘Scottish’ government is England wearing a…” May 28, 10:49
Dan on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Other things going on where a bit of common sense usage wouldn’t have gone a miss… I understand our Health…” May 28, 10:43
James Cheyne on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Dan, Like your common sense approach, to many airy fairy think tanks seeking payed for employment In Scotland as there…” May 28, 10:30
Southernbystander on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Alf, you remind me of the dad on Goodness Gracious Me who whatever his son is talking about, it is…” May 28, 10:17
robertkknight on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “I guess Scotland should never aspire to be a normal, independent, sovereign state, like the 200 or so others on…” May 28, 09:03
Sven on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Dan @ 08.08 Always interested in your common sense posts, Dan. As someone once said, “it’s strange it’s called common…” May 28, 08:27
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: ““the inescapable conclusion ….in the words of Mr Baird – Independence IS Decolonisation” Hey, I’m not knocking the idea, Bob,…” May 28, 08:11
Dan on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “See if your country was caught in an ongoing unmitigated disaster with aw thing like its infrastructure and services going…” May 28, 08:08
Robert Hughes on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “From Robin McAlpine’s latest ( typically incisive ) post talking about the outrageous but entirely predictable green light given to…” May 28, 07:18
Willie on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “The SNP are not for turning. Certainly not underthe current coterie of control that continues to show them as an…” May 28, 03:11
Jim Dryburgh on The Undertaker: “whether it’s 75% or whatever with each year the amount of indigenous Scots v Non Indigenous Scots is becoming less…” May 28, 01:31
duncanio on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Sarah – Yes there is time for them all to change their minds. And we must keep trying to persuade…” May 27, 22:57
sarah on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “@ duncanio at 8.56 re ISP and the M4I. I’m perplexed. However there is time for ISP to change their…” May 27, 22:03
duncanio on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Sarah – I’m afraid Collette Walker was quite explicit in her email to me about the ISP developing their own…” May 27, 20:56
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Sorry Alf. Common sense tells me that even if you accept the existence of the Coloniser (with one set of…” May 27, 20:00
Hatey McHateface on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “Be honest now, Marie. Wouldn’t you be better for shedding a few pounds? If you don’t want to entertain any…” May 27, 19:39
sarah on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “I am really surprised at that response from ISP. I’ve read and thought over the MforI and cannot see anything…” May 27, 19:26
duncanio on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “twathater I have supported SSRG, Salvo and Liberation since inception, having attended the Edinburgh Proclamation gathering on 1st September 2022…” May 27, 19:13
Alf Baird on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “We cannot treat “the colonial question…as a subsidiary part of some more important global matter” (Robin D. G. Kelley). And…” May 27, 18:47
twathater on What Are We, And Where Are We Going?: “I agree with you Sarah regarding Roddy and Peter Bell, duncanio criticises Liberate for having no publicly clear immediate route…” May 27, 18:25