The most tedious question we ever get asked when we criticise the SNP – because we’ve explained it a hundred times already and none of the people asking have ever bothered to look – is “But what would YOU do to secure independence, clever-clogs?”
We’ve outlined that plan in detail repeatedly – you can read it again here if you want. But maybe we need something a bit simpler for the hard of thinking, so let’s have a go.
We just noticed a finding from the most recent opinion poll that surprisingly seems to have escaped the attention of every Scottish newspaper except the Press & Journal.
As far as we can ascertain, the P&J was alone in reporting the obviously newsworthy fact that just a quarter of Scots believe the First Minister’s ridiculous cock-and-bull story about “forgetting” the occasion when she first heard that her friend, colleague and mentor of 30 years was facing charges of trying to rape some of her other friends.
But the figures are part of a wider and depressing trend.
We’ve just received the most extraordinary Freedom Of Information response from the Scottish Government, readers. Trust us, you want to go and make yourselves a strong cup of tea before you read it. Or get this guy to bring you one.
It doesn’t take a master analyst to see that the Salmond inquiry committee is running out of patience with the Scottish Government’s endless attempts to obstruct its work.
This afternoon it issued a statement, with obvious irritation, making clear that it did not wish to see documents the Scottish Government was trying to submit to it, which the committee had not asked for, and which had previously been struck down as unlawful by Lord Pentland in the initial judicial inquiry.
The Scottish Government’s only purpose in doing so was to try to put the details of the discredited and disproven-in-court allegations into the public domain with the intention of smearing Mr Salmond yet again, and the committee has made its displeasure with the plan clear, telling the Scottish Government to abandon its intended legal action to release the documents and get on with producing the ones the inquiry HAS asked for.
But there’s a little bit more to the story than that.
We’re grumpy this morning, readers, because it’s Sunday and we were planning a long lie and then someone told us about this. It’s the First Minister appearing on the Sophy Ridge show on Sky News at around 8.45am and you need to see it.
In the light of yesterday’s revelations, we’ve sent the following Freedom Of Information request to the Central Enquiry Unit (CEU) of the Scottish Government.
Back in the 1980s there was a hit game for the ZX Spectrum home computer called Worse Things Happen At Sea. In it you play a robot whose job is to get a heavily-laden cargo ship safely to port, except that more and more disasters keep befalling it.
It springs leaks, it veers off course, the engine overheats and the robot’s power runs down, until eventually the catalogue of catastrophes overwhelms the harassed metallic custodian and the boat slides down into the murky depths.
We wonder if that feels familiar to anyone at the moment.
On 23rd March this year, after Alex Salmond was found not guilty of 13 criminal charges in the High Court, I called on the Scottish Government to set up a judge-led inquiry into the allegation that he had been the subject of a conspiracy involving the Scottish Government, which resulted in him being accused of criminal behaviour.
There’s an especially interesting post on the blog of Scottish solicitor-advocate Gordon Dangerfield at the moment, pointing out that there are no legal reasons whatever for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to be withholding documents relating to the allegations against Alex Salmond, and indeed issuing dire threats of prosecution against him or anyone who might put them into the public domain.
(All of the blog’s coverage of the inquiry in general has been expert and revealing, and should be the first stop for readers seeking to understand proceedings.)
The items in question include the infamous WhatsApp messages exchanged by the group of people attempting to have Salmond imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, among them SNP chief executive Peter Murrell.
When two of Murrell’s messages were leaked recently it was front-page news in the Scottish press, and generated a huge amount of subsequent coverage. Commentators as diverse as Mandy Rhodes of Holyrood magazine and Alex Massie of the Times and Spectator have noted that while they’d initially disbelieved talk of a conspiracy, the Scottish Government’s actions have given them the opposite impression.
The message log is absolutely central to Salmond’s claim of a conspiracy against him, so the last thing that either COPFS or the leadership of the SNP wants is for it to become public knowledge. Indeed, COPFS has denied that the messages exist at all, which makes it a bit weird that the police are currently conducting a serious criminal investigation into who leaked some apparently entirely imaginary documents.
So it would be quite astonishing if they suddenly disappeared, wouldn’t it?
Readers, we can’t tell you how much we want to get back to just dissecting Scotland’s hopeless Unionist media for a living. It’s a lot more fun than what the current political circumstances are obliging us to do, so you can hardly imagine our excitement when we spotted what looked like an open goal in yesterday’s Mail On Sunday.
Our ears pricked up immediately at the sight of the words “up to”, which is invariably a sign of dodgy doings on the way, and so it proved. The article contained no solid data at all about the size of Scottish Government special advisers’ pay rises, only how many SpAds there were and which general pay bands they were in, each of which spans a wide range of between £14,000 and £23,000.
But while the Mail had spooned the sitter six feet over the crossbar – because the crude spin they’d put on it was total rubbish – there was still a loose ball just waiting to be knocked into the back of the net.
Graf Midgehunter on The Nobodies: “You will never need an excuse to show a photo of Monica Bellucci..! And anyway, it’ll help cleanse the site…” Jul 28, 00:30
Oneliner on The Nobodies: “I think that his brother adopted the same attitude to VAT” Jul 28, 00:27
Ex President Xiden on The Nobodies: “I remember Sarwar when asked to comment on his hypocrisy of fronting a party advocating the abolishment of private education…” Jul 27, 23:06
Young Lochinvar on The Nobodies: “Well said Dan.” Jul 27, 22:32
willie on The Nobodies: “The X link is to a parody of the US police detective Lieutenant Columbo investigating Nicola Sturgeon. Peppered with real…” Jul 27, 21:47
Spartan 117 on The Nobodies: ““Scottish” Labour are irrelevant and will remain so forever more.” Jul 27, 21:24
100%Yes on The Nobodies: “Its a pity when the Redcoats went to their country’s they didn’t have an option. Lets all turn a blind…” Jul 27, 20:24
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Calm down. It’s just DEI. It won’t personally affect you. Be much more concerned by the DEI appointments in your…” Jul 27, 20:20
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “Somebody defo told somebody to piss off.” Jul 27, 20:16
Mark Beggan on The Nobodies: “Monica Bellucci was at my door again last night with a red rose. I told her to piss off.” Jul 27, 20:06
Hatey McHateface on The Nobodies: “I think any politician who could fix period poverty will find running the country a dawdle by comparison. Of course,…” Jul 27, 20:03
diabloandco on The Nobodies: “Well put!!” Jul 27, 19:56
Owen Mullions on The Nobodies: “It’s just an AI video of Sturgeon being investigated by Columbo. Quite funny but sadly not happening in the real…” Jul 27, 19:49
Chas on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “My social status is just fine Sam however I can readily understand why yours is on the floor. As to…” Jul 27, 19:31
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Most of that list (primarily elderly academics) will be long-since retired by the time there is any chance of Scotland…” Jul 27, 19:04
100%Yes on The Nobodies: “Willie, I don’t have a X account so whats the breaking news?” Jul 27, 18:41
DaveL on The Nobodies: “Strangely enough I was trying to think of that Labour guy’s name the other day, I was pretty sure it…” Jul 27, 18:29
Effijy on The Nobodies: “I think this is the 19th Change of leadership for London’s North Accounting Office, sometimes referred to as Scotland not…” Jul 27, 18:27
Dan on The Nobodies: “Who really cares about the mainstream “Scottish” political parties pissing about in the poundshop devolved Parliament, they just seem to…” Jul 27, 18:27
Joan Savage on The Nobodies: “Excellent comment” Jul 27, 18:19
Northcode on The Nobodies: ““Number 10 North” is a slogan, not a shift in power. A new office in Manchester doesn’t rebalance the constitution……” Jul 27, 18:10
Craig on The Nobodies: “Great picture, made reading the article much more interesting. ?” Jul 27, 18:10
willie on The Nobodies: “It’ll not be the House of Lords that Nicola Sturgeon will be going to with US detective Columbo on the…” Jul 27, 18:06
Nicky T Naquetti on The Nobodies: “If the SNP actually wanted independence, instead of simply keeping their jobs for the next 4 or 5 years -…” Jul 27, 18:06
sam on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Mair shite from Chas who, like me, has a deep seated need to feel a rise in social status. Here’s…” Jul 27, 18:04
100%Yes on The Nobodies: “Theirs a lot in the SNP who are envious that they haven’t been selected to go into the house of…” Jul 27, 17:40
Andrea on The Nobodies: “I said this before, but I think it is worth repeating, who would want to be in the SP? OK,…” Jul 27, 17:24
Chas on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Mair shite from the supposedly learned professor. Can I ask, for the umpteenth time, when we are free for the…” Jul 27, 16:44
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““hard-headed, grounded Scot who prefer a modicum of comfort and prosperity, whilst speaking English”. That’s a fair description of the…” Jul 27, 16:00
