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.
The SNP’s earth-shattering 2011 majority election victory, which paved the way for the 2014 independence referendum, dropped a bomb on Scottish politics.
What few people realised at the time was that it was also going to set up a series of massive paydays for one of Scotland’s wealthiest demographics: lawyers.
Hatey McHateface on Spot The Problem: “Always the best way, James – Day Zero of Year Zero. As a Sovereign Scot, I hereby declare myself outside…” Aug 28, 11:27
James Che on Spot The Problem: “Hatey, I have never worried about the Crown of Scotland, In Case you have never noticed it is England that…” Aug 28, 11:22
James Che on Spot The Problem: “I forgot the SNP were a Company, Thanks for the reminder. So laws against a Company could differ considerable compared…” Aug 28, 11:13
Hatey McHateface on Spot The Problem: ““Scotlands Crown was not Sovereign over the parliament or people” If you put it like that, James, there’s absolutely no…” Aug 28, 11:06
James Che on Spot The Problem: “The SNP is Company first and foremost. Its a Company running Scotland, Where is that company registered? Can we use…” Aug 28, 11:01
James Che on Spot The Problem: “History from the past creates the present history, the present history creates future records and history, Disassociating one from the…” Aug 28, 10:40
James Che on Spot The Problem: “Your comments yesterday regards the Monarch of England “self declaring ” the position of king of Scotland It helps to…” Aug 28, 10:22
James Che on Spot The Problem: “am firinn. It really is a treat to find intelligent responses to some of the misleading information projected towards the…” Aug 28, 09:41
James Che on Spot The Problem: “Sparten 117, Thank you for your knowledgable intervention yesterday regards the Fabian Society infiltration into the position of governments advisors.…” Aug 28, 09:29
Hatey McHateface on Spot The Problem: “An interesting article “Canada-US trade war has exposed a Brexit double standard”: https://unherd.com/newsroom/canada-us-trade-war-has-exposed-a-brexit-double-standard/ The author is pointing out that Canadian…” Aug 28, 09:03
Chas on Spot The Problem: “You are not alone in your thoughts Rob. The ‘Wings’ comments section has evolved into a forum where bitter, twisted…” Aug 28, 09:02
Hatey McHateface on Spot The Problem: ““sick of the “colonists” are to blame for everything, the union was illegal, the UN will fix it and all…” Aug 28, 08:24
Hatey Mchateface on Spot The Problem: “It’s a verifiable fact that nobody’s fingers ever went through the bog roll while wiping a runny one until Thatcher.” Aug 28, 07:52
Hatey McHateface on Spot The Problem: “@ Dan says: 27 August, 2026 at 11:03 pm “prick” “cunts” Got something on your mind, Dan? Maybe your next…” Aug 28, 07:45
Aidan on Spot The Problem: “What’s even more amazing Chas, is that when this very question was being considered by the Supreme Court, which it…” Aug 28, 06:02
Aidan on Spot The Problem: “Well Northcode – a rare event has occurred, you are right and I am wrong. It is as you say,…” Aug 28, 05:58
Nicky T Naquetti on Spot The Problem: “Oh, fuck – I ran out of toilet paper… the 1707 treaty must be to blame…” Aug 28, 05:19
Mark Beggan on Spot The Problem: “Well for starters get your own patter. ” These people” who are these people? and more to the point what…” Aug 28, 02:27
Alan Scott on Spot The Problem: “It’s quite simple you vote them out. If you don’t then the responsibility is yours. Unfortunately the very clever system…” Aug 28, 00:38
Saffron Robe on Spot The Problem: “In the absence of any meaningful separation of powers, it would seem that only a constitutional crisis can bring about…” Aug 28, 00:26
Rob on Spot The Problem: “Do you know, I am pretty sick of the “colonists” are to blame for everything, the union was illegal, the…” Aug 27, 23:45
Dan on Spot The Problem: “Desperate stuff from the site prick there as he tries to deny, ignore and gloss over the massive influence and…” Aug 27, 23:03
robertkknight on Spot The Problem: “Red… “But surely there must be at least one Labour, Liberal, Reform or Tory MSP who isn’t part of the…” Aug 27, 22:24
Hatey McHateface on You’ll Have Had Your Supper: “Ah, James, how I envy you. You will go to your final rest blissfully convinced that one day, Scots will…” Aug 27, 22:11
100%Yes on Spot The Problem: “The National doesn’t make good reading for people wanting Independence or the SNP membership. It states “SNP members’ fury as…” Aug 27, 22:05
Hatey McHateface on Spot The Problem: ““there is no way the pro-union MSM or “Newspapers” will publish the kind of journalism you get on Wings” The…” Aug 27, 21:54
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Spot The Problem: “LAWYERING WITHOUT LAW (1 May 2026) “What Does Legal Authoritarianism Look Like?” www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdG5J4saY3A” Aug 27, 21:53
James on You’ll Have Had Your Supper: “Jappy again; “Scotland’s real riches do lie in energy. The country exports 24% of its surplus electricity south of the…” Aug 27, 21:48
Spartan 117 on Spot The Problem: “Dan & Robert – I can’t disagree with anything in your posts. All good points.” Aug 27, 21:29
