Alert readers may recall our last foray into Freedom Of Information requests, when a couple of weeks ago we belatedly received a peculiarly evasive response from Police Scotland with regard to a meeting in February between the then-Chief Constable, Deputy Chief Constable and the justice secretary Keith Brown.
We duly followed it up with an FOI to the Scottish Government for Keith Brown’s official diary on that day – just about the most mundane, run-of-the-mill request possible. We expected nothing remarkable, just a short list of meetings, fully corroborating what we were told by Police Scotland.
What we got was rather more intriguing.
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Tags: foi
Category
comment, disturbing, scottish politics, wtf
Goodness knows we could all do with some cheering up at the moment, so let’s have a momentary change of tone and kick today off with a chuckle or two.
We’ve been working a bit too hard lately, and yesterday’s Wings post went to press with an unprecedented FOUR errors in it, including an “is is” instead of “it is”, a “more far” in place of a “far more” and a “strata” where there should have been a “stratum”. We’re deeply ashamed, and thanks to the alert Wings readers – including our mum – who swiftly drew our attention to them.
The most embarrassing clanger was this one, which we fixed promptly:
So imagine our surprise when we were reading this morning’s Scottish press.
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Tags: hypocrisy
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comment, idiots, media, scottish politics
Almost every day is now a new crisis for the SNP.
But it better get used to it.
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comment, corruption, investigation, scottish politics
Some years ago while working in the NHS I investigated a situation where a group of very senior staff colluded in an attempt to cover up the misdeeds of a colleague, in the full knowledge of the devastating effect their dishonesty would have.
Yet in amongst that betrayal of professional ethical values one person’s integrity could not be swayed and they spoke the candid truth. I don’t know how it affected them in the long run, but it was clear that integrity mattered to them and doing the wrong thing was a burden they were unwilling to carry.
Anyway, their courage to hold firm to these principles impressed me and chimed with the values I believe are absolutely necessary when you are charged with responsibility over the lives of others: honesty, integrity and a strong sense of justice.
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Tags: Neale Hanvey
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comment, corruption, scottish politics
As the SNP burns down around their ears, nothing stops the gravy bus. But even as they gallivant gaily around another “Tartan Week” junket in the USA, one might have thought the Constitution Minister would have shied away from this particular photo-op.
Let’s find out why.
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analysis, corruption, disturbing, investigation, scottish politics
A reader has sent us an interesting follow-up to yesterday’s article.
Let’s just check what we’re being told there.
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investigation, scottish politics
Alert readers may be familiar with the market research and polling company Progress Scotland. Readers of The National certainly will be, as the semi-newspaper has run over 120 stories about it, most of them around the company’s creation in early 2019.
The company was formed by Angus Robertson, at the time an unemployed former SNP MP after he lost his Moray seat in the 2017 election, and its stated goal was to persuade those not yet fully decided.
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analysis, corruption, investigation, scottish politics
So it turned out there was very little new information in this story.
But the tiny bit there was raises an extremely disproportionate number of issues.
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analysis, corruption, investigation, scottish politics
7 April 2023: “Your priorities will be my priorities.”
1 April 2023: “Here are our priorities.”
Now for the surprise!
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Category
comment, idiots, scottish politics
So let’s just recap where we are with this.
Because it really doesn’t look very good.
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analysis, corruption, disturbing, investigation, scottish politics
Readers with any modest working knowledge of Scottish politics in recent years would naturally assume at first sight that the illiterate, corrupt, self-serving, gravy-hoovering drama student with whom the SNP hilariously replaced experienced KC Joanna Cherry as shadow justice secretary simply couldn’t spell “final straight”, a term meaning the easy last stretch of a horse race where there are no jumps or turns.
(We are, after all, talking here about someone who can’t spell her own name.)
But they might be wrong.
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comment, corruption, idiots, scottish politics
