On Sunday, Nicola Sturgeon told Laura Kuenssberg that the SNP’s accounts “went up and down” as her excuse for not noticing that hundreds of thousands of pounds had suddenly vanished from them overnight.
Several things leap out immediately from that clip.
One, there absolutely very much WAS “something glaringly suspicious in the accounts that I should have seen” – the party she led had raised almost £700,000 in two “ring-fenced” fundraisers that wasn’t there any more, which ought to have made its leader at least mildly curious.
And two, attempting to fob responsibility off onto the independent auditors simply won’t wash. It’s not their job to determine whether the SNP has kept its political promises or not, their job is simply to match up money coming in against money going out and produce a set of numbers to show what it all adds up to. It makes no odds to them if it was spent on a party conference, a fancy motorhome or a 50-foot golden statue of Danny La Rue. All they can see is numbers.
But even leaving those things aside, if we’re going to learn anything about how The Great Indyref Swindle got to this calamitous point unchecked we need to examine just how hard Nicola Sturgeon had to look the other way to fail to see what was going on literally under her nose and literally in her own back yard.
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.
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?
It’s nearly over, readers. Just one more week of this to endure.
The most miserable Holyrood election campaign of all time will end next Thursday with an election which will deliver Scotland’s most miserable devolved government of all time. Only the exact form, colour and shape of the misery remains to be determined.
So as the SNP promise through forked tongues to cut the cost of living with a pledge they know full well they have no chance of being able to actually implement, while using the powers they DO have to INCREASE the cost of everything that makes life WORTH living, let’s look at exactly what flavour of dog vomit we can expect to be choking down along with our state-approved organic broccoli and fat-free gruel for the next half-decade.
If events in Edinburgh today are anything to go by – when a march and rally announced with great fanfare seven months ago, backed by both the “independence” parties in the Scottish Parliament and featuring the First Minister as main speaker, attracted perhaps 1,500 people at the most to Calton Hill on a bright and sunny day – the independence movement faces an imminent final apocalypse.
So here’s how to prepare yourself for when the SNP win a landslide with 35%, Keir Starmer says “So what?” and then a deathly silence descends for another five years.
Even Kelly Given and Iona Fyfe didn’t show up for this one. That’s how bad it is.
As the six-year fight for justice for Alex Salmond continues, we thought you might like to see this clip from this morning’s Mike Graham Show, interviewing Paul McManus, the businessman and drummer in Glasgow rock band Gun who’s stepped up to fund the Salmond family’s case against the Scottish Government despite disagreeing with much of what Alex stood for politically.
This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
The first and most important thing to note about yesterday’s judgment in the Sandie Peggie tribunal is that it’s a very big victory. The tribunal found that Sandie Peggie was gravely and heinously harassed by her employer through no fault of her own, and she’ll be entitled to substantial compensation as a result.
It also ruled, repeatedly and unequivocally, that Dr “Beth” Upton (who’s referred to in the judgment as “the second respondent”) is a man.
Young Lochinvar on Anything But That: “S Agreed, well done Xarcen! Good to see the Unionist AI bot masquerading as Northcode gas just been shown to…” Sep 7, 20:42
Captain Caveman on Anything But That: ““The point you repeatedly (willfully) miss” again and again is that ‘independence is a cultural emotion’. Independence cannot be primarily…” Sep 7, 20:34
sarah on Anything But That: “@ Xaracen: this is an excellent exposition of the Scottish constitution and the failure to comply with it in 1707.…” Sep 7, 20:15
Northcode on Anything But That: “Just to clarify for anyone following along: The idea that the 1707 Union is invalid because a “Salvo session” was…” Sep 7, 20:13
Xaracen on Anything But That: ““Once both Acts of Union (Scotland’s and England’s) received Royal Assent and came into force on 1st May 1707, the…” Sep 7, 19:46
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Looking beyond the skelp. My point is the face to face issue that Sam the bam pointed out. Repeat posts.…” Sep 7, 19:34
Chas on Anything But That: “If you think that the succinct and accurate post will deter the likes of Che, i fear you will be…” Sep 7, 19:25
Alf Baird on Anything But That: ““The point you repeatedly (willfully) miss” again and again is that ‘independence is a cultural emotion’. Independence cannot be primarily…” Sep 7, 19:21
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “But he hasn’t got a valid point. He’s making the unevidenced claim he’s capable of dishing out a skelping. That…” Sep 7, 17:34
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “What can I say, Willie. People a lot smarter than you or I have calculated the sustainable human population for…” Sep 7, 17:17
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “They do not want to understand it. That gives them nothing to rant with. Without that rant they are empty.” Sep 7, 16:23
sarah on Anything But That: “Rev, I’m very pleased indeed to see that you will be at the SSRG conference next month. I think that…” Sep 7, 16:20
Northcode on Anything But That: “I feel it’s important to clarify the constitutional reality surrounding Scotland’s political union with England as there seems to be…” Sep 7, 16:19
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Sam said, “Neither would say to me face to face what they say online for fear of the skelping they…” Sep 7, 16:11
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Just watched footage of AUOB march on the Royal mile. My Cring Meter just went off the scale. Nothing as…” Sep 7, 15:36
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Who would pay to watch Jenny Gilruth mud wrestling Alice Weidel?” Sep 7, 14:58
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “There is a lot of finger pointing going on in Germany today. What is German for ” It was your…” Sep 7, 14:52
James Che on Anything But That: “To cherry pick some old history to make a narrative fit for the sake of the parliament of Englands ….transferred……” Sep 7, 14:48
Willie on Anything But That: “Its an interesting concept that of shirkers and grifters. No doubt the captain of wealth and influence would never come…” Sep 7, 14:47
Northcode on Anything But That: “I feel that my previous reply was a tad flippant and lacked sufficient explanation to be of much use in…” Sep 7, 14:37
James Che on Anything But That: “North code. Just a we correction to the old belief you quoted, That those two states were extinguished, Scotland parliament…” Sep 7, 14:33
Mark Beggan on Anything But That: “Scotland will always be in the state it is in whilst it clings to the socialist ideology that has enslaved…” Sep 7, 14:27
Northcode on Anything But That: ““What date did the treaty of union find it was spent and expired…” 1st May 1707.” Sep 7, 14:23
James Che on Anything But That: “What date did the treaty of union find it was spent and expired, can anyone that states it is no…” Sep 7, 14:03
Northcode on Anything But That: ““I like your turncoat attitude more and more.” Thanks, James. Your agreement with my structural analysis of ‘no longer relevant…” Sep 7, 13:57
James Che on Anything But That: “Including Scotland, Wales or Ireland requiring permission to remove themselves from a spent treaty.” Sep 7, 13:51
James Che on Anything But That: “I have to admit I am enjoying the mythical theory that Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland hold no such 1707…” Sep 7, 13:46
Hatey McHateface on Anything But That: “I mind when I learned that Tolkien was invalided out of the front line in the Great War and never…” Sep 7, 13:31
Young Lochinvar on Anything But That: “HMcH @ 8.56 Try the de-caff..” Sep 7, 13:24
James Che on Anything But That: “The 1707 treaty of union had economics and financial collections, taxation and revenues, Treasury benefits wrote into it that benefited…” Sep 7, 13:18
