Fashion And Crisis Hits New York
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.
Although we’re only human, so first let’s just enjoy the moment a bit.
Beaming down the lens with Robertson there are Sally Donald – originator of the infamous “gravy bus” line – and Kelly Given, the SNP’s glamorous and photogenic new star, fresh from a TV reality show and already climbing the party’s greasy pole fast.
Donald, meanwhile, is having an absolute ball living the London SNP life:
She works for Inverness SNP MP Drew Hendry, who spares no expense (of your money, not his, obviously) flying Donald constantly between her home in Edinburgh – which is 158 miles by road from Inverness, just in case you were wondering, with no direct flights – and the UK capital, business class of course.
And naturally you’re also paying for all these fine ambassadors for Scotland:
Now that’s got to be the worst stag do ever. But the full-scale beamer of being given a lesson in how to wear a kilt properly by Douglas Ross of all people somehow wasn’t the most embarrassing part for Pension Pete Wishart:
You’d think even a two-watt bulb like Cosy Slippers would have had the wit to hide behind the big lad in the blue suit when they were posing with the massive “GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND” banner with a blaring Union Jack in the middle advertising a British military display and a London-based drinks conglomerate, but no.
Although in fairness we know SNP politicians do have some issues when it comes to seeing what’s written on banners they’re photographed next to.
(For the curious, the rest of his Westminster gang there are Lib Dem MP Wendy Chamberlain, David Duguid from the Scottish Conservatives, and Andrew Western, the Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston in Manchester, who we can only assume signed the wrong paper by mistake on induction day. Ian Murray, Labour’s only Scottish MP, despite being in the previous pic is NOT on the Scottish Affairs Committee.)
Strangely, Angus Robertson didn’t bring one of his former aides, and his wife’s former business partner, along on the NYC jolly despite his being a huge fan of tartan.
Readers might want to watch out for some more news on the fragrant Nathan Sparling before too long, and not just the stuff they already know about.
But we digress.
The cops pic raised an eyebrow because we got an email from a very senior finance expert after yesterday’s piece about Progress Scotland’s accounts:
“As long as a company keeps in touch with Companies House, by submitting or updating anything at all, even if it’s only pointless minor changes to directors details (Angus has submitted a few) it’s an indication that there’s still an active company so they will leave them alone and not start proceedings against them for minor breaches. I’d say he’s being advised by a professional on how the system works.
An extension for an emergency is pretty much granted automatically for the same reason. As long as a company director is submitting any kind of paperwork, it’s seen as a sort of a proof of life so Companies House don’t push for proof or supporting documents.
If he really doesn’t want to publish the accounts my guess is he will very soon apply for a voluntary strike off of the company. Because there’s no employees and no premises, it’s a pretty simple process to officially cease trading. By doing that he no longer has to submit accounts to Companies House, instead he submits a final accounting statement to HMRC telling them the company is no longer trading. This is not published.
The threshold for a fraud investigation at the HMRC Hidden Economy Team is so high (£millions), they would normally not even look at his statements and just rubber stamp the strike-off.”
So it looks like our optimism about light finally being shed on Progress Scotland’s murky finances may have been misplaced. Our source added (our emphasis):
“If he fails to meet the next deadline there will be a First Gazette notice of compulsory strike off issued automatically. That is, Companies House will publish intention to strike off the company in the Gazette.
If nobody objects (usually creditors) then the company is officially closed down and all assets including remaining bank balances pass to the crown. A second Gazette notice confirms the company no longer exists.
HMRC frequently object to companies being struck off in order to pursue them for unpaid taxes but it’s usually only done for very large amounts.
Another reason why a compulsory strike-off can be stopped is for allegations of fraud/criminality or false statements.
If the source of funding for this company is the SNP £600K, and it features in the current inquiry, then crown office will likely object to the strike off on the grounds of fraud.
I’d keep an eye on the Companies House website for a voluntary strike-off notice and not just wait until the accounting deadline in May.”
So keep ’em peeled, readers. This story has a long way left to run.
Incidentally, every time I wonder why the Scottish Government doesn’t purchase Grangemouth…
Bottomless coffers, it seems.
Great stuff. It must be very embarrassing for Scotland’s Vichy journalists that you are reporting this.
If anyone deserves jail it’s the man who nobbled the NEC.
So, we’re back to the Crown Office being able to shut down this line of enquiry. No wonder Robertson is looking relaxed.
With regards the Glam girl above. She looks like a whoor. That page looks like the old ‘agony page’ on the Sun, where the half naked couple are having difficulties, due to having been unfaithful to each other, and the only solution is to continue having unfettered sex, left right and centre.
Sorry, getting old and grumpy.
Good god, that Sally Donald sort is a narcissistic utter halfwit! What the hell is she getting (probably hugely) paid for? What does she bring to the table?
Honest tae god
So could donors to the company, people who’d been paying money in, also object to any strike off?
Ah, Kelly Given. Looked her up after I saw her first National column. Manhater in Waiting, a young woman who talks in American intersectionalist feminist cliches and who says The Devil Wears Prada is her fave film. A real vapid, misandristic, eyelash-fluttering narcissist wannabe.
Talks all the right bullshit talk, and I see she’s getting her me-so-pretty-look-at-me face seen in all the right lobotomised places. Insipid and uninspired in the extreme. Grew up under Sturgeon and worships the old fraud, purrs the right Dreghorn intellectual backscratcher lovewords in public. A perfect modern Scottish politics Stepford Child, in other words. Horrifying.
As for this disgusting, fraudulent, self-indulgent all-parties waste of taxpayer’s cash, in the quixotic, braindrained, insane, vain delusion America (“Ohmigod I love your accent!”) cares about, or ever even notices Scotland at all (“The Scots are taking over!”), it’s hilariously delusional and ludicrous and sickmaking, especially at this time. Hopefully be their last gravy guzzle. Permanently.
Sturgeon’s rancid SNP…
The gift that just keeps on giving… to those best placed to get their snouts in the trough at the tax-payer’s expense that is.
The sooner this shower are kicked out of their seats, declared bankrupt through association with the NEC or, better yet, imprisoned, the happier I’ll be.
What happens if someone other than a creditor or HMRC objects? Would that let in daylight?
Does any practising solicitor know if those who have given money to Progress Scotland believing it was being used for polling (when it clearly hasn’t been for a while) and who have had no responses from PS regarding stopping direct debits or providing refunds whether an aggrieved person could use Simple Procedure for the return of that money?
link to scotcourts.gov.uk
From memory…registering a claim for a debt owed of £300 or less requires paying a fee of £20. Above £300 up to £5000 the fee is £110 I think. All this can be done online.
Anyone know?
Looks the SNP gravy trainers don’t actually give a toss now, it appears to be a case of get as much as you can out of it before the party folds, and that means having your photo taken with just about anyone or anything.
The new SNP generation of gravy trainers will be thinking to themselves this is great its all for free, as the mug taxpayer is paying for it all.
Vote Alba, Join Alba, get the corrupt gravy trainers (SNP) out.
Sturgeon and Murrell’s puppet Yousless doesn’t know anything about the motorhome, or the stolen 600k, but he’s adamant that the party isn’t bankrupt.
“We’re not close to bankruptcy. This is something I’ve read in some social media circles but, no, the party is solvent”
Yousless reminds me of “Baghdad Bob,” who insisted there we no American tanks in Baghdad live on tv, with American tanks rolling up behind him or everyone to see.
Yousless will parrot the same type of shit right up until the SNP is declared bankrupt, like the obedient puppet he is.
Vote Alba, Join Alba, the sooner we get this corrupt lot of gravy trainers out the better.
Is Sally Donald channeling Steinem???
On the gravy train indeed….free flights to work and the peasants pay for it. Nobody local suitable, no relocation after a certain period. Drew Hendry spends our money so easily……and I thought Labour was bad.
Peter Wishart is a numpty. Thank goodness he blocked me on Twitter – I can hold my head up high. Apart from anything else, showing yourself outnumbered by Unionist twerps aint a good look for any SNP politician.
Well, well, Ms Donald does at least appear to understand the outfit that she’s joined. All aboard the gravy bus indeed. Sally got it right there, and she’s in the gravy right enough. What a great job she appears to have. Mind you, she might have to jump off the bus rather quickly.
What’s that phrase about a picture telling more than a thousand words? There’s a galaxy of meaning in that montage of ‘stars’. Hope the remaining SNP members are seeing this. Do they see the lifestyles of the smiling poseurs they have been supporting? Did they really think that all those passengers who jumped on board the SNP vehicle were hard-working professionals with a plan for independence?
No idea what talents Sally could bring to a serious political party though. Oh wait…
Off topic:
Responding to posts on the previous thread
@ Dorothy Devine 0941
@ Effijy 1016
@ Tinto Chiel 1025
Ref Rutherglen town hall flying the butcher’s apron.
At the council elections in 2017, the SNP gained the most councillors in South Lanarkshire.
This was on the back of the hugely inspirational Yes campaign for the 2014 Referendum. Then the 2015 UK general election when Margaret Ferrier ( Yes! ) took the Rutherglen seat with 53% of the votes. Let me repeat that – 53% of the votes cast. She had a great campaign team with many non-SNP Yes supporters.
Followed by the Holyrood elections in 2016 when the SNP took that seat as well.
Following the gains in the council elections in 2017, there were various discussions in the local SNP branches about the Union flag still flying above Rutherglen town hall. The local councillors dismissed these questions from members saying they did not want to fall out with the councillors from the other parties. Yes you heard that right.
That was one sore point that led to the loss of some good activists.
Looking at the photos from yesterday’s visit to Rutherglen by FM Humza Yousaf, what is telling is the relatively low number of local activists. Excluding councillors, MSP, people from other constituencies, and the likes.
The person who should have been there is Margaret Ferrier. She built that constituency support with constant hard work. She alone would have brought out at least 20 more real activists.
The SNP is now nothing more than an infestation of grifters, shysters and utter vermin. What makes me angry is that they’ll walk away when it’s over. I’d much prefer to see them rot in a prison cell.
“Get woke, go broke” is a fitting epitaph for a once-great party.
Re Union flag in rutherglen, its easily seen from Parkhead. I think that’s why its flown, just down to bigotry rather than national pride.
Companies House is a toothless tiger. The ruling British elite like it that way! Why do you think so much world money is laundered through London? Why is London the capital for mafia funds? Why did the UK leave the EU, just as the EU was closing loopholes on UK company law/money laundering?
I also discovered when making enquiries, re a suspect firm, many years ago, that Companies House does no checks whatsoever on any info filed with it. Names, dates of birth, addresses etc. None of these are checked! It’s crazy! To open a bank account or even set up a new phone contract, you require to submit passports, birth certificates, wedding certs, bank statements, council tax bills etc. etc. ad infinitum
But to set up/close a company in the UK? Bugger all is checked!
I suspected a director of a company was actually deceased but someone in the company was signing forms and submitting these to Companies House purporting to have been signed by the dead person months after his death! I ordered an extract death cert, just to be sure I had the right date of death. Despite this being obviously fraudulent activity, Companies House did not want to know and neither did the police or the firm’s regulatory body.
As you say, it is only if millions are involved that HMRC gets involved. They are useless too.
The UK has a charade of law and order but it’s just a very thin veneer. We live in a wild west where the devil takes the hindmost.
Stop the SNP gravy train.
Join Alba, Vote Alba.
link to albaparty.org
The Lancashire guy who invented the kilt, for military gear, weddings and for looking just a wee bit «kemp» plainly anticipated the time when few would have access to a full length mirror.
The KrispyKreme donut body shape sets the whole off to a tartan T.
Golden rule. Never be photo’d with cute kids, cute animals and hairy old guys in skirts.
red sunset @1:56
I remember when Margaret Ferrier was out of the Commons between 2017 and 2019 she would turn up at her own expense to help the SNP candidate at every single council by election all over Scotland, no matter the location or the weather.
Obviously Sturgeon’s SNP didn’t want people like Ferrier spreading energy and enthusiasm among the activists. Oh no. After all they might stop wheeshting for indy and want to ask awkward questions.
The activists the Sturgeonites like are obviously airheads who take selfies constantly.
Sally the gravy bus handmaiden’s tik tok is quite insightful. Well done to the hard work it took her to make those videos. My favourite video of hers was a day in the life of not doing any work.
A plain black kilt? For TARTAN week? Jeez, Wishart is an eejit – a bigger one even than Jack McConnell when he tried the same nonsense two decades ago.
There’s nothing glamorous about rinsing the Scottish tax payer.
They are all repulsive. Each and every last one of them.
As the SNP have admitted they bought the infamous motorhome surely in their current position they could offer it for sale to ease their cashflow problems? Unless, of course, they don’t actually own it and it is registered in another’s name.
“The Lancashire guy who invented the kilt”
Really?
There were painting of nobles in kilts before 1720. Such as Kenneth Sutherland 3rd Lord Duffus painted around 1712 by Scots artist Richard Waitt.
I’d wager the unpleated kilt or a similar garment was around long, long before that.
link to nationalgalleries.org
Tractors on Broadway.
So, none of the women saw fit to wear traditional Scottish dress for women. Not skin tight and skimpy enough it seems. Rather a poor look to me. Scots dress is not just for us lads.
Ess Enn Pee is barely turning up these days. Rather a poor show that.
Ottomanboi. @2.29pm.
A wee bit more info.
“But what of the kilt itself? Was it really invented by an Englishman in 1727? The notion was given academic respectability by Hugh Trevor-Roper. This might be a fuss about nothing were not Trevor-Roper’s assertions still being repeated uncritically. Colin Wells, in A Brief History of History, writing about the influence of Scott, declares that: “The Highland warrior wrapped in his tartan kilt, marching to the stirring sound of bagpipes – this iconic figure is a fantasy, and his associated emblems were either fantasies themselves (like the kilt), or at best marginally significant recent arrivals elevated to symbolic status only much later (like the bagpipe).”
Tell that to the 500-plus pipers from across the globe who attended the dedication of the statue to piper Bill Millin, commemorating his playing on Sword beach during the D-Day landings.
Wells relied on the work of Trevor-Roper and Eric Hobsbawm, and now accepts he was wrong. That was in 2008 and was taken seriously by a student in Benbecula, where such misinformation should be automatically ridiculed.
Then, just last year, came an entertaining book on tartan by Vixy Rae where she, too, succumbs to Trevor-Roper’s myth. It’s a myth because there’s no evidence in the detailed surviving papers that the supposed inventor of the kilt, Thomas Rawlinson, ever purchased cloth or paid for the production of kilts for the Highlanders working at the iron foundry – which collapsed under his sole management from 1729-36.
Rawlinson was dead by 1738, so the myth rests on a letter said to have been written (we don’t know to whom) by Evan Baillie in 1768 and partially published in 1785, the year after Baillie’s death. We don’t know who submitted the letter to The Edinburgh Magazine as no original survives.
So why has this myth taken hold? Coinneach Maclean’s 2019 article (in English) in Rannsachadh na Gaidhlig 9, Clo Ostaig, provides an answer. He shows that Trevor-Roper was mendacious for the specific purpose of denigrating Scottish culture and iconography immediately prior to the 1979 referendum proposing a new Scottish assembly. Here is how Maclean concludes his article: “Trevor-Roper had sought to achieve, through the reapplication of his wartime skills for dissimulation, the immediate political goal of defeating Scottish devolution. His reward was ennoblement by his political masters, but the cost to his country was continued political contention.”
There are things one shouldn’t say , Still most are ahead of me
“Another reason why a compulsory strike-off can be stopped is for allegations of fraud/criminality or false statements.”
Hypothetically speaking if a compulsory strike off can be stopped in certain circumstances, can they not also stop a voluntary one if they suspect wrongdoing or being wrongdoing adjacent?
Jeez.
Is there one of them that can wear a kilt correctly?
Wonder if it is possible to get a FOI as to the cost of this beano that the tax payer is footing? And what business is being undertaken that merits such a trip?
I’m embarrassed looking at the photos. What has happened that they are employing yoghurt-for-brains influencers that know sweet FA about politics and are more interested in social media? What a beamer.
Humza talking to trade unions about energy and cost of living, damage of Brexit and no mention of independence.
If ever there was a time to link these issues up it is now.
Oh here is a big yellow bus coming
The Midlothian MP Owen gravy train Thompson and his partner, also should have their activities scrutinised.
The SNP is riddled with careerists.
Muscleguy says:
16 April, 2023 at 2:56 pm
“So, none of the women saw fit to wear traditional Scottish dress for women.”
I’m wondering what that would look like. Would it follow the tradition of the Highland or Island crofter, a North East fisherwoman or a Border Reiver woman? Maybe it would look like the fantasy figures presented as “traditional” Scottish women in the National Portrait Gallery? I don’t think the working class women of Scotland were uniform in their dress.
How does Humza, or any SNP member, know they are not close to bankruptcy? They didn’t even know they had bought a motor home/battle bus, that the auditor’s had resigned mo this ago, nor had any financial reports to the NEC!
Will there be a great increase in self declared bankruptcy from NEC members. Politicians don’t have that option!
I wonder if the NEC asked for an update on anything else they can expect to come down the track, soon?
So there is absolutely no-one who will protect the interests of the people who donated their hard-earned cash to Progress Scotland? I suppose we’re only indy supporters. The forces of “law and order” don’t protect us, and the governing party just sees us as sheep to be fleeced.
It’s shite being Scottish. At the moment.
I. Despair says:
16 April, 2023 at 2:38 pm
A plain black kilt? For TARTAN week?
Is it to match his black cockade ?
@red sunset 1.56: thanks for that. Had no idea SNP councillors had had the chance to take the flag down but didn’t want to upset the unionists.
I always found Margaret Ferrier to be pretty direct and honest (and perhaps a little naïve tbh). She worked hard to give arch-Blairite Tom Harris a real beating in 2015, and for her constituents afterwards. Strange that in the Ru’glen voxpops I’ve seen on TV, the BBC can’t find a constituent with a good word to say for her……..
Of course, she was later stabbed in the back by The Covid Queen but then, so have many others whom SWMBO considered a threat or off-message.
Margaret would have nothing in common with the two females in the foaties at the top of the page, that’s for sure.
Pictures taken in ManHattan?
The notion that the kilt is a modern invention, or an English invention, is not just any bollocks. It is bollocks specifically designed to mock the sense of Scottish national identity.
Here is an authoritative article on the subject by a particularly brilliant journalist in the Independent.
link to independent.co.uk
Narcissistic grifting careerist sex cult vibe abounds.Horrible.
@RoS 2.58: yep, Trevor-Roper really didn’t like us
.
Of course, the whole Hitler’s Diaries thing proved conclusively he was nothing but a credulous booby.
Better optics might have been for Humza to take his family, together with those of Ash, Kate and Margaret Ferrier, to the Trump Plazza and let these guys chap doors in Rutherglen to explain why.
(eg : the week Margaret Ferrier was abandoned by party colleagues national records of FFS scotland reported 20 deaths where coughid was mentioned on the death certificate (and 1196 in total) whereas, in the week ending april 3 2023, there were reported to be 34 deaths where coughid was mentioned on the death certificate and 1110 in total).
@ Ottomanboi and Republicofscotland: when was tartan invented?
historyscotland.com/news reports a piece of tartan cloth carbon- dated to between 1500 and 1600.
But cloth has been made for thousands of years so why not tartan – especially given the useful camouflage effect for different terrains would produce a need for different colours in different districts [my own surmise here!].
If a business just no longer ‘engages’ with Companies House, eventually they just strike them off unless the tax man says otherwise. We had to do that with OHs pub in 2010. Unless a creditor objects it happens all the time. Sometimes it is to costly for the creditors to chase any debts owed. Getting a business declared insolvent can cost a couple of grand too. People register business names all the time but never do business. Like those PPE ‘supplier contracts’ that Torys gave away! Hancock had a few ‘NHS supplier’ type of businesses listed. SNP have their playbook by look of ut!
Talentless, third-rate players are a commonality throughout our society, where it’s never been a case of what you know but rather a case of who you know. Those offended by the existence of this corruptive closed-shop rarely shout about it for fear of losing their place at the trough. Controlled by greed and ruled by fear, as has often been suggested.
If a business just no longer ‘engages’ with Companies House, eventually they just strike them off unless the tax man says otherwise. We had to do that with OHs pub in 2010. Unless a creditor objects it happens all the time. Sometimes it is to costly for the creditors to chase any debts owed. Getting a business declared insolvent can cost a couple of grand too. People register business names all the time but never do business. Like those PPE ‘supplier contracts’ that Torys gave away! Hancock had a few ‘NHS supplier’ type of businesses listed. SNP have their playbook by look of it!
The three smiley people at the top. They are not smiling they are sneering at the Scots and Scotland. Their greatest ambition is to become English second class. These are the people who loath the fact that they were born in Scotland, it makes them feel dirty they are ashamed of their nationality, they cover themselves with the union flag incase they are recognised as Scottish.
@I. Despair
Jack McConnell in a kilt – I’d forgotten about that. I’m richt off ma tea noo.
Must’ve boucht it wi’ some o’ the money he didnae gie back tae his maisters.
So wait.
She is flown to London and out up in a hotel to do some teams calls and an event plan on her computer?
Could all of this not have been done from Edinburgh?
@ PhilM at 1.23
I’m currently trying to decide whether it’s worth my while using the Simple Procedure to retrieve money from a builder who failed to complete work on my house, and made a mess of what he did do.
I think the fee is £130 for amounts under £5000; I was advised to send a series of letters giving him a couple of weeks to respond to my requests. I assume similar letters would have to be sent to Progress before they could actually be taken to court.
@ Tinto Chiel at 4.27
Pedant alert: Margaret Ferrier beat Tom Greatrex in 2015. Harris was defeated by Stewart NATO McDonald.
panda paws says:
16 April, 2023 at 3:06 pm
“Another reason why a compulsory strike-off can be stopped is for allegations of fraud/criminality or false statements.”
“Hypothetically speaking if a compulsory strike off can be stopped in certain circumstances, can they not also stop a voluntary one if they suspect wrongdoing or being wrongdoing adjacent?”
Simply because Companies House isn’t resourced properly now. Same as the Environment Agency and pretty much every other Govt agency which the Tories don’t care about – they’ve all been gutted over the last decade.
Revenue & Customs can’t even get Companies House to do their job competently where there’s clear evidence of VAT fraud in the millions so a few hundred k isn’t going to fly. You pay your £12 to register a limited company & then you can do whatever the hell you like.
Only way this gets dealt with properly is from the other end – the SNP accounts.
Telegraph now leading with calls for Sturgeon to be suspended from the Nasty Party.
What Rot says:
16 April, 2023 at 1:08 pm
Good god, that Sally Donald sort is a narcissistic utter halfwit! What the hell is she getting (probably hugely) paid for? What does she bring to the table?
Honest tae god
I think we all know very well why Drew Hendry employed her, and it was ZERO to do with a spectacular grasp of political issues.
The irony isn’t lost of the SNP employing the self styled “Fit Brit” of a few years ago, when she was running up all manner of harebrained “entrepreneurial” cunning plans – a pilates instructor one minute, a “social media business executive” (?) the next, and none of them lasting because like most under 30s all she wanted to be was famous and have people chuck money at her for being so.
Of course, the local rags in Inverness gave free column space to whatever she told them she was up to next, as the dead tree media – most of them stuck in a Jimmy Perry/David Croft universe – is inclined to do with any remotely aesthetically pleasing female.
Had she’d told them she was digitally releasing a recording of her eating toast while farting through a kazoo, they’d have told their readers it was going to be No.1 in the charts next week – with the Sun and Record doubtless doing the same if she flashed them a bleached smile.
If ever there was a symptom of the current malaise in the body politic – not just in Scotland – it’s that an oxygen thief like Donald is regarded as suitable as an MP’s assistant. Of course, like MP Stella Creasy under Blair, the SNP have been quick to front her for populist campaigns on token feminist causes such as stopping sexual harassment (the brass neck of anyone in the SNP doing THAT after the last few years!) as displacement behaviour to fool no one but themselves that it was for reasons of female objectification this airhead was ever employed in the first place.
Face it Germaine Greer, despite all the platitudes they spout, Generation Triggered is every bit as shallow and rotten to the core as your parents’ generation was back in the day.
We’re busy doing nothing working the whole day through
Trying to find lots of things not to Drew
Am I getting this right?
The SNP had a fundraiser for a second referendum which took in $600k. That money was then secretly given to Progress Scotland, which claimed to have signed up subscribers which generated $650k. PS spent only $50k and now have no money left. The SNP give excuses about the missing $600k claiming it’s still there or was legitimately spent, but really, it has been funnelled through PS presumably to private individuals, and a cover up operation is in progress.
If I’m understanding this correctly, we’re now relying on the good offices of Police Scotland & the Crown Offices to ensure these accounts ever see light of day, which is reassuring…
As far as the vacuous, smug insights into life of Sally Donald – they’re actually laughing at us. That’s as much as I’d risk saying.
@ Anne Don 4.09pm Anne as the old saying goes “god helps those who help themselves”
Without being disrespectful TBQH I am fed up advising people that if they feel they have been fleeced or scammed or misled by carpetbaggers they should attempt to get in touch with others with the same mindset, one lone complaining voice no one will hear, lots of people with the same anger that their hard earned money has been STOLEN or misappropriated WILL make a difference
There is an advert running on the radio just now from a no win no fee legal company who maintain they will get your money back for you if you have been scammed by individuals or companies, if a group of people approached this company with the information they have and how much has been taken from their accounts and provide the evidence of how difficult it is to STOP standing orders or direct debits from this company ,they I presume would advise if there was a case to answer and even if they said it would be too difficult the bad publicity alone may cause others to reflect and join you in challenging the COPFS on the legality of obtaining finances for a distinct action promised but currently ignored for an extended time whilst money was and is still withdrawn for the missing services
Just heard 6 Music news; apparently there’s been a Sunday Times story about the SNP being short of money, so they had Ian Blackford on to say it ain’t so.
My automatic reaction is to mistrust the motive of one of Murdoch’s rags, but then again the SNP have been a tad disingenuous of late…
REPUBLICOFSCOTLAND.
Colonialism infects everything, dress, language, habits, thought. So often the colonial layer is taken for the «authentic», and has a certain resilience too.
Shortbread tin culture, Scotland is certainly not alone in the false allure of that.
In order to put the garment from which the «kilt» originated on, the wearer needed either a servant or had to roll on the ground, in that it has much in common with classic Greek and Roman attire. The toga certainly needed help.
As for «tartan», a word of uncertain origin.
link to tartan.galician.org
Scotland has worldwide connexions.
The way they are dressed is embarrassing. They have made no attempt to look statesman like. They have no coordination.
The two Labour guys to the left of the picture are the worst for me. Ugliest people I’ve seen in my life. You can tell they hate Scotland. No doubt cutting about New York telling the Americans how cheap we all are. While complaining about the price. You know the type that can’t even be bothered to wear a kilt.
Sickens me.
@crazycat 5.09: no need for a pedant alert, you’re quite right. As BDTT knows, pedantry is good
.
In my defence, I think I mentally bracketed Harris and Greatrex as mere Blairite placemen parachuted into a safe seat Labour seat: a distinction without a difference, as the lawyers say.
Strange thing about 2015 was that I was talking to the BLiS activist quite civilly outside Burnbank (citrus fruit tendency à gogo) polling station (M. Ferrier’s constituency, the other half of Hamilton) about half an hour before polling closed, when his mobile suddenly went off. He read the message and then abruptly Bulgared off without any explanation. Seems he magically knew the result before any of us did.
If I might insert some pedantry of my own on the tartan/kilt question, Frank Adam’s “The Clans, Septs and Regiments of The Scottish Highlands” has some pretty illuminating stuff from p.351 onwards which blows the Rawlinson theory right out the water.
It is possible the SNP found some way to channel cash into Progessive Scotland from their own dodgy 666k funds. Consultancy services… whatever.
The entire PS entity does seem to exist to give Angus Robertson an income and purpose until they could find a way to parachute him back into a safe seat.
But probably more likely or as likely is they were finding ways to remunerate it through the vastly larger Scottish government budget. Look at the shady trans groups they fund… so I’d not be at all surprised if they found a way to fund Robertson somehow through PS by channeling grants or whatever to PS.
AnneDon says:
16 April, 2023 at 4:09 pm
“So there is absolutely no-one who will protect the interests of the people who donated their hard-earned cash to Progress Scotland?”
100% correct.
The State of Scotland is rotten to the core.
The so called “sovereign” plebs of Scotland have no effective rights whatsoever.
£600,000 of people’s hard-earned cash has been stolen and after 18 months the police have not even charged anyone with theft.
If it wasn’t for the tireless and brilliant efforts of the Rev. Stuart Campbell, we wouldn’t even know about these frauds and crimes.
@Twathater
In a way I 100% agree with you.
As an example, there’s scores of people with truly terrible stories who have been victims of public corruption in Scotland but no-one appears to want to do anything about it collectively.
As for your legal firm is it in fact a Scottish firm? That being the case, does it do the kind of work (as advertised on your radio channel) North of the Border because if you type ‘no win no fee’ into Google (as I suspected) the areas of law for NWNF arrangements in Scotland are typically personal injury and clinical negligence, whereas a case against PS would be under Contract law (I think. PS’ Terms and Conditions which I read an hour ago suggest as much).
If you found a firm willing to take these cases, the firm would need to start a ‘group proceedings’ case against PS but (from memory) you would need to clear the hurdle of getting the permission of a Court of Session judge first. Is that likely? I doubt it is especially when the sums are going to be small in each individual case.
Most people don’t have the stomach for a protracted legal case against powerful people/organisations which is why they ‘get away with it’ time after time.
Anyway, I am not a lawyer. I studied it at university years ago and kept up the interest over decades. What I can safely say is the idea people have of the law is often very far removed from how it works in practice which is just how many many solicitors in Scotland like it…sadly.
The parcel o’ rogues on full display!
Remember that Angus Robertson has on numerous occasions been mentioned as a very likely MI5 plant within The SNP.
They wouldn’t want him going down with the ship.
Is there not a Register of Members’ Financial Interests to provide information about any financial interest which an MSP has, or any benefit which he or she receives.
Aren’t people who paid money to PS subscribers, rather than donors? If they subscribed and the promised service hasn’t been provided, perhaps a complaint to Trading Standards would work.
@Mark Boyle, 16 April, 2023 at 5:13 pm
Thanks for the background. What an utter waste of space.
HMRC’s Hidden Economy Team isn’t the only department that’ll undertake financial investigations, indeed a great number of different departments do and for varying amounts of income/expected fraud.
If someone was aware of financial wrong doings and wanted to share the details of those wrong doings with HMRC, they can do so anonymously online. It’s very easy. I’m advised for certain that the details published in the previous post about Mr Robertson and Progress Scotland are EXACTLY what some intelligence departments would love to get their teeth into were it to ever come across their desks.
no need to chuck brand Scotland out with the SNP bath water.
I’m happy tartan week is a thing and our politicians go.
I’m also happy for us to have an External affairs Sec doing air miles.. we should be open to dialogue with other countries.
Never understood this mocking ourselves, we are a nation and deserve an international voice, even if we’re in the UK.
That’s no support of individuals necessarily
is this a new caucus within the SNP – selfie-queens and influencers for indy?
I suppose if the politics-thing doesn’t work out, there is always OnlyFans; halfway there already anyway, with the instagram.
– you see them in the gyms, very tight yoga pants, bare midriff, full make-up on, doing very little, stretching in front of the biggest lifters … phone out
OMIGOD A CREEPY GUY JUST LOOKED AT ME
I FEEL SEXUALLY OBJECTIFIED
“T&A” – as old as the hills; the IDF puts models in combat fatigues wielding TAVORs, “for the cause”.
Or just go with the spirit of the times and signup our own “big beasts” – maybe Talia Storm is an ALBA supporter? Talia “sizzles” according to the Sun, whatever that means.
The unionists can have Lana Fox (along with the wirebrush and dettol)
maybe this is the future – get GPT to work out what your policies are, then get some attractive blonde to read it off the autocue. If Talia says EFTA is the best fit for an indy Scotland, that’s good enough for me.
Just wondering what exactly Inverness did to deserve Sally Donald and Emma Roddick. Must have been something really, really bad.
Jolly japes all round as these lads and lasses jet set around the world.
And the picture of Pete Wishart posing alongside a big Union Jack reinforces how this lush’s no holds barred propensity for gravy juncketing freebies.
And the first picture of Angus Robertson posing with Police. My fist thought of that was that he was getting. Hopefully that may yet happen.
Tinto Chiel says:
I always found Margaret Ferrier to be pretty direct and honest (and perhaps a little naïve tbh). She worked hard to give arch-Blairite Tom Harris a real beating in 2015, and for her constituents afterwards.
Of course, she was later stabbed in the back by The Covid Queen but then, so have many others whom SWMBO considered a threat or off-message.
Ferrier is as thick as Sh*te as proven by Her own actions during covid. The people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be glad to see the back of Her. There will be lots of Votes for any Alba Candidate that stands.
@AnneDon 4:09 pm
“So there is absolutely no-one who will protect the interests of the people who donated their hard-earned cash to Progress Scotland?”
A supply dispute between subscribers and a content publisher would fall within the scope of the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
After reasonable attempts to resolve the matter directly, enforcement is by Trading Standards Scotland or a court order.
PS published that it aimed at “… keeping pace with the views of the people who make their lives here.”
To keep pace would require reasonably frequent reasonably current activity. But that’s a PS aim, not an implicit obligation it offers to fulfil.
PS’s published offers are that it would:
– “research the opinion of people in Scotland…”
– “provide insight and analysis on what is needed to persuade people…”
It related both polling and analysis to subscriptions: “Polling and analysis for Progress Scotland depends on subscriptions to fund the research.”
If someone subscribed they offered to “keep you updated with a newsletter and the key findings from our polling and research.”
The service offered is lawful and demonstrably capable of fulfilment by PS.
So the elements required for a contract are present and met when a person subscribes.
A difficulty with a claim could be that the offer includes no currency of information nor frequency of communication terms.
Unfortunately this is absolutely ludicrous. How the SNP has sank to this level is now inevitably believable.
The calibre of people entering public life has really deteriorated.
This has politically correct grift all over it.
link to news.nhslothian.scot