Winnie Ewing, who has sadly passed away a few weeks short of her 94th birthday, was the second SNP politician I ever heard of.
My dad met her, and would speak of her with Billy Wolfe, the party leader who was also his employer at a forest machinery company in Bathgate (and our family friend), during her second term as an MP in the UK Parliament.
She now joins my dad and Billy as people who worked for the cause of independence but died before it came to fruition, after many wasted years under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon.
Still wondering what Humza Yousaf’s going to say to the SNP’s pretend “conference” on independence strategy this coming Saturday? Well, wonder no longer, because this morning he told Sky News.
In other words, he’s waving the white flag and praying for a miracle.
The Scottish National Party’s primary and defining purpose is Scottish independence. Next weekend’s “special conference” will at least notionally determine its policy on that subject for years to come. On the face of it it’s the most important congregation of party members in the SNP’s history.
The Caird Hall can accommodate just 3% of the claimed membership. (And you’d expect at least half the seats to have been reserved in advance for the faithful payroll.) Members ought to be fighting like dogs for a ticket. And yet a week before the event the leader is having to send out pleading letters to try to scare up enough attendees that it won’t be a half-empty humiliation.
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:
Captain Caveman on No Money Back, No Guarantee: ““I wouldn’t trust much of what the ONS has to say” Well, therein lies the problem, in a nutshell. “The…” May 28, 09:50
Northcode on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Conclusion This report looks at the social background of the people who run Scotland… Our research suggests that the top…” May 28, 09:35
TURABDIN on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “«To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try,…” May 28, 08:48
Andouillette on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Thick? Or devious? Maybe both. One thing I am sure of is endless paragraphs of “Oooh look, squirrels” from the…” May 28, 07:11
DavidT on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “It is hard to believe that Colin Beattie could have been paid for being the SNP treasurer all those years,…” May 28, 07:11
Aidan on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Well here’s the good news Geri, the Office for National Statistics produces an extraordinary amount of high quality data through…” May 28, 07:00
robertkknight on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I’m not surprised it doesn’t resonate with the equally deluded and myopic types I imagine you speak to… all regular…” May 28, 04:59
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Stuart McDonald is down as treasurer. My theory doesnae work then! They couldbae hae been that brassneckit.” May 28, 00:42
Young Lochinvar on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Izzie & 7.05 Is that, Izzie, the word coming down the line from the top to the party-before-country faithful? What…” May 28, 00:30
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “If someone else had put themselves forward for selection that would look terrible. If no-one else wanted the job then…” May 28, 00:05
sarah on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I don’t know the facts, I just read somewhere about it. I got the impression that it wasn’t that the…” May 27, 23:51
sarah on Off-topic: “Hello, Peter! The time I saw the goldcrest was from a caravan which was in a wood and was right…” May 27, 23:38
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Sarah. why on earth would a 70odd yr old man, who has gone through years of stress want to put…” May 27, 23:35
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I don’t know but many of us were frustrated at the time it was taking and asked the same thing.…” May 27, 23:31
gm on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Sarah, its strange indeed. I would put money on him retiring was shocked when i saw he was standing again.…” May 27, 23:28
Andrea on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “I tried to leave a comment a couple of hours ago, but it is not there, so I am trying…” May 27, 23:20
sarah on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “It cost him £20,000 to his local branch in order to get the nomination as candidate. Something very, very odd…” May 27, 23:08
Ian Smith on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Why did Beattie stand again? He’s well past retirement age and clearly a clown. There was a massive likelyhood this…” May 27, 22:29
Hatey McHateface on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Economists will say anything to avoid being grilled like that boy you were writing about yesterday, Geri. Any sarnies left?” May 27, 22:28
Hatey McHateface on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Don’t knock being fiddled, Geri, you might have an organism So Maggie killed of the Clyde did she? And there…” May 27, 22:21
Ian Smith on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Better than the Herald did, just mentioning a ‘website’.” May 27, 22:19
Geri on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Leading economists say GDP is a pants way to measure a country by because it adds in things like rents…” May 27, 22:15
Hatey McHateface on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Sounds like Mr Gibson wasn’t paying attention when it was explained to him that a shortfall in the separation of…” May 27, 22:07
Hatey McHateface on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “@Northcode 8:18 Thanks for that rare peep into your personal life and habits, Northy. You’re a sly dog! All this…” May 27, 21:46
Geri on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Scotland is being fiddled. You can quote all the figures you like. Unless they hand over the full accounts you…” May 27, 21:45
Aidan on No Money Back, No Guarantee: “Yes but we’ve been round this roundabout before, the data was wrong when you published it and now it’s both…” May 27, 21:45
Andrea on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “Slightly OT, but has anyone got any idea why the investigation lasted for so many years and why it took…” May 27, 21:36
Hatey McHateface on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “After hundreds of posts, all hoaching with outright lies, why should we choose to believe your latest one, Geri? I…” May 27, 21:35
Andy Wiltshire on All The Dirt From My Eyes: “This whole business is just one more example of how the institutions of Scotland work nowadays.” May 27, 21:32
