To tell you the truth, readers, we’re suffering from a little bit of option paralysis at the moment, although happily not in the same way Peter Murrell is.
The endless torrent of revelations following on from Murrell’s conviction a week ago isn’t just fascinating in its own right – it also forces numerous historical issues to be seen in a new light. At any given second there are half-a-dozen different articles we could be writing, but also so many to read that it’s hard to find the time.
We suspect this matter is going to run and run all through the summer silly season because there are simply so many angles and so many unanswered questions.
Sadly, this turned out to be prescient this morning.
Laura Kuenssberg did give Nicola Sturgeon an uncomfortable time in their interview on her Sunday programme on BBC News, but when confronted with the one gaping open goal that Sturgeon has no answer for – and even when Sturgeon TWICE set it up on a plate for her – Kuenssberg failed to knock the ball into the empty net.
That doesn’t – by some distance – mean there was nothing of interest to note, though, so let’s take a walk through (the first instalment of) what was said.
Now that Nicola Sturgeon is finally free of her gruelling MSP workload, which could give her anything up to two extra hours of spare time a week, she might like to start making a proper dent in the contents of her fully-loaded bookshelves.
The multi-statement meltdown that has been the unravelling of Nicola Sturgeon this week has been quite something to behold. Last night, for example, we swear our Twitter feed presented these two tweets one after the other.
We’ll be honest with you, readers, if we were in a situation where a lawyer was issuing statements for us, this isn’t what we’d want to hear.
“If my client had been charged, she’d be in prison right now” is a worrying distance short of a vote of confidence in your client’s innocence.
But the statement Aamer Anwar put out for Nicola Sturgeon last night – her FOURTH in 48 hours, despite saying on Monday morning that she’d be making no further comment on the Peter Murrell case – had rather more wrong with it than even that.
So, having made a statement on Monday morning which asserted that she wouldn’t make any further statements, then making another statement on Monday afternoon, Nicola Sturgeon and her solicitor issued a third statement in 36 hours last night.
And while we acknowledge that this is a very high bar to clear, it contained one of the most troubling and blatant lies she’s ever told.
And as the Nicola Sturgeon Loyal, led by her most faithful of lieutenants, set out to try to take control of the post-conviction narrative, let’s take a look at just what a boatload of bare-faced bullshit the above is.
There will be no trial, no cross-examination, no explanation. The people of Scotland, the members and supporters of the SNP, the wider Yes movement, none of us will ever know what really happened. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
The image below is a graph illustrating how many seats each party won in last week’s supposedly “proportional” Scottish Parliament election, compared to how many they would have won if the electoral system had been actually proportional.
The SNP and Greens are now over-represented by 37% and 50% respectively, while the Unionist parties are all under-represented compared to their vote share by (left to right) 26%, 19%, 20% and 23%.
The Additional Member System has failed very badly at its job, from either perspective. “Pro-indy” parties have 73 seats (57%) rather than the 52 seats that their 40.8% vote share should have earned, while Unionist parties have 56 seats (or 43%) when they should have 69 for their 56% of the vote.
(The other 4% of the vote was scattered among 24 other parties or independents, with 1.8% going to identifiably pro-independence candidates, increasing the total “pro-indy” vote to 42.6%, fully 10 points short of current polling for independence itself.)
It is, therefore, a little bit of a stretch – to put it mildly – to present the refusal of the UK government to grant a second independence referendum on the basis of the results as an outrage against “democracy”. Indeed, if any outrage against democracy has taken place, it happened last Thursday.
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““he was the best we had” Indeed so. Perhaps the main difficulty with the dominant national party leadership, according to…” Sep 20, 19:23
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The UN stuff is a changing cymbal, an empty vessel making a lot of noise yet achieving and signifying nothing.…” Sep 20, 19:19
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “As usual, Alf deliberately avoids answering the point, instead dressing up his “reply” in a load of psuedoacademic wibble full…” Sep 20, 19:09
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““hypocrisy is indeed off the scale” Hatey, as regular cheerleader here for England-as-UK supporting the Pales**ne bombing and gen*cide, as…” Sep 20, 19:08
Mark Beggan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Remember what happened to the last Charles when he tried to impose the Jiggery Popery on the Scots. It ended…” Sep 20, 19:01
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “So TH LOVES benefits but HATES business. Is that because a private employer is likely to frown on drunken ranting…” Sep 20, 18:54
Southernbystander on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Yes, the island group was ‘colonised’ but in the basic sense of the word in simply colonising an uninhabited place,…” Sep 20, 18:32
twathater on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “So in FACT you are NOT a factchecker YOU are just another LIAR posting LIES in the manner of the…” Sep 20, 18:22
twathater on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “And let us NOT forget Dan the amount of “IN WORK BENEFITS”being paid out by successive governments People who are…” Sep 20, 18:16
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “It’s Sunday, Alf. Take the night off, why don’t you. If you give it a rest until the morn, maybe…” Sep 20, 18:13
100%Yes on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Salmond wasn’t perfect and some of the crap that came out of his month I questioned. Salmond isn’t a hero…” Sep 20, 18:02
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “If you think Scotland has been a republic for a number of years, and you think the union is a…” Sep 20, 18:02
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “I’ve been critical of you before, Bob, but fair’s fair. You got the capital ‘S’ spot on there when you…” Sep 20, 17:58
robertkknight on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “A quick search shows no opinion polls in Scotland during the period 1980 to 2022 (Elizabeth’s death) showing a majority…” Sep 20, 17:27
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Colin Alexander, I apologise for your misspelt name above, the tech equipment is old and pleases it self. My apologies.” Sep 20, 17:05
Colin Alexander on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “My view is that the core foundation of the Scottish independence cause is Scottish sovereignty – the sovereignty of the…” Sep 20, 17:00
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Robertknight. Indeed the monarchs popularity is waning down south, he too seems to be afflicted as a king gone mad…” Sep 20, 16:55
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Colon Alexander. I have no idea why Alex Salmond favoured the English monarch when talking to him he never explained…” Sep 20, 16:35
robertkknight on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The SNP has never been Republican in its outlook, despite the feelings amongst a sizeable minority of members. The popularity…” Sep 20, 16:22
Colin Alexander on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Did Alex Salmond ever give a credible explanation for swearing fealty to King Charles, despite the King’s UK Govt refusing…” Sep 20, 15:59
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “I think we will find that in a colonial society, and based on the hoax of ‘union’, it is a…” Sep 20, 15:51
robertkknight on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Ah, quite possibly an acolyte of the Esoteric Order of Saint Nicla of Thames House and no doubt a fully…” Sep 20, 15:26
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “If Indy is a matter of great urgency, Alf, why don’t you apply your efforts to doing something useful and…” Sep 20, 15:14
James Che on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “All backed by the Westminster governance sent to Scotland to govern Scotland perchance,” Sep 20, 14:04
Oneliner on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “There are some of the mindset that a pejorative is only valid if it comes from HQ.” Sep 20, 13:47
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““politicians are now starting to wake up to another aspect of this rotten Scottish Government” It is a great hope…” Sep 20, 13:45
David Blake on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The more they come up with desperate stuff like this, the more it feels there must be something really nasty…” Sep 20, 13:40
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““Scotland’s national situation” Returning to postcolonial theory (Fanon etc), as we must, reveals that a colonised people: – are ‘out…” Sep 20, 13:38
