Wings Over Scotland

Alert readers will undoubtedly have noticed a number of, to put it mildly, explosive-sounding developments this evening regarding the ongoing inquiries into the Scottish Government’s misconduct over false allegations against Alex Salmond.

Several reports have quoted extracts from the former First Minister’s submission to James Hamilton, who’s investigating the current First Minister over possible breaches of the Ministerial Code relating to the investigation of the allegations.

The submission – delivered on Mr Salmond’s birthday – has been widely leaked to the media but only selectively reported, and like others Wings has obtained a full copy.

We are advised that its contents do not contain anything which breaches or potentially breaches Lady Dorrian’s court order protecting the identities of the complainers against Mr Salmond, and as such there are no barriers to us publishing the entire document in the public interest, because its contents make some extremely grave and disturbing allegations against the current First Minister.

We therefore do so below.

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As more and more information fights its way past the Scottish Government’s bouncers into the public domain, and the First Minister’s continued dogged insistence that she knew nothing about the false allegations against Alex Salmond until April 2018 looks more and more ridiculous, lots of things still aren’t clear.

One of them, of course, is who leaked the story to Davie Clegg of the Daily Record in August of that year, when the whole thing should have been confidential and passing it to the press was an unambiguously malicious and criminal act.

(The Information Commissioner’s Office investigated the leak but were sadly unable to locate any evidence. A second investigation is currently in progress.)

So let’s see what we know.

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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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Readers, have you ever noticed how the letters pages of Scottish newspapers are full every day of the same names, a clutch of a couple of dozen super-hardcore frothing ultra-Yoons tirelessly and reflexively raging against independence, the SNP and pretty much anything without a Union Jack on it?

Have you ever found yourself thinking it must be some sort of co-ordinated group that gets together, plans topics in advance then writes in backing each other up, to create an illusion of speaking for a wide cross-section of society, before dismissing that idea as a daft paranoid conspiracy and getting on with your day?

Because we thought that too, until an alert reader infiltrated it.

Our very favourite bit is “we must not advertise the existence of the group. It can be mentioned verbally, in safe environment, that some people share letters/encourage each other, but anything more risks editors discriminating, nationalists reacting, and this diverse group being portrayed as a monolithic campaign”.

Probably don’t put it in an email, then. But your secret’s safe with us, lads.

Our undercover agent inside Labour (whose identity we can’t reveal, other than their codename “Nasa Warsar”) just leaked us this internal security-camera footage from both the Scottish and UK party HQs at the time of Johann Lamont’s resignation.

We’re sure readers can work out who’s who.

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Our mole in the No camp risked life and limb to bring us this behind-the-scenes footage of the filming of the exciting “Scotland, You’re Our Best Friend” video.

To be honest, it only confirms our suspicions.

Andrew Nicoll in the Scottish Sun, 7 July 2014:

“The summer break means there are now only nine sitting days of the Scottish Parliament left before the big independence vote.

It also means I’ve more time on my hands to catch up with stuff, like a fascinating report from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre looking at how Scotland has changed since we first hosted the Commonwealth Games, back in 1970.

Take shipbuilding, for example. There are endless dire warnings that shipbuilding will be killed off by independence. All I can say is that, reading this report, the UK has already had a damned good try.

In 1970 Scotland’s shipbuilding industry employed 34,000 people, with 10,000 jobs in Glasgow alone. When the Games returned to Edinburgh in 1986, we had 25,000 shipbuilders and now there are just 6,000, half of them in Glasgow.

That doesn’t sound to me like a recipe for success.”

Our emphasis. The full report can be read here.

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Our secret agent in the No camp’s taken a real risk to bring you this one, readers. Smuggled out under cover of dusk, we’ve managed to get hold of the early rushes of the first ever combined referendum TV and cinema broadcast on behalf of the Unionist parties and the main campaigning organisations.

As you can see, they’re turning up the fear. Don’t have nightmares.

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