Here comes the flood
Back in the 1980s there was a hit game for the ZX Spectrum home computer called Worse Things Happen At Sea. In it you play a robot whose job is to get a heavily-laden cargo ship safely to port, except that more and more disasters keep befalling it.
It springs leaks, it veers off course, the engine overheats and the robot’s power runs down, until eventually the catalogue of catastrophes overwhelms the harassed metallic custodian and the boat slides down into the murky depths.
We wonder if that feels familiar to anyone at the moment.
Because having been desperately suppressed for so long, the trickle of information concerning the badly-botched stitch-up of Alex Salmond by the SNP and the Scottish establishment is turning into a torrent that even an army of robots couldn’t hold back.
The least dramatic of today’s developments is the release of a deeply embarrassing statement from party CEO Peter Murrell, in which he admits to being the author of the leaked texts urging people to “pressurise” the police to go after his former boss.
Murrell’s excuse is so feebly pathetic that any rational reader could only conclude that he thinks his audience is, to put it gently, educationally subnormal.
Let’s just remind ourselves of those texts:
We’re not going to compound the gross insult to the intelligence of Wings readers by discussing that any further. Anyone who thinks that those texts match up to Murrell’s description of them is probably reading the wrong website.
More interesting is another blog post from solicitor advocate Gordon Dangerfield today, which looks at documents just released regarding why the Scottish Government caved on the judicial inquiry brought by Alex Salmond about the initial investigation.
Dangerfield methodically wades through the Scottish Government’s explanation and observes that, quite remarkably, at no point does it admit that anyone did anything wrong. At every step it claims that every individual involved acted with the utmost propriety and professionalism, at the end of which somehow the Scottish Government nevertheless had to completely abandon its case as being biased and unlawful without it ever going before a judge, at a cost to the taxpayer of a million pounds or more.
(The Scottish Government refuses to admit how much it actually spent on it, but as we know Mr Salmond’s costs were well over half a million it seems wholly reasonable to assume that the Scottish Government’s were of a similar order, including the £118,000 it does admit to spending on external legal advice.)
But still there’s more. Yesterday we received a response to a Freedom Of Information request about the ongoing separate inquiry into whether Nicola Sturgeon’s comments to Parliament on the subject broke the Ministerial Code.
The First Minister had referred herself back in January 2019, after opposition leaders suggested she’d misled the chamber about when she knew of the allegations against Mr Salmond. But the independent panel has still produced no report, and we’d asked what was taking so long and when we might expect its findings.
“I wish to know the resolution of the investigation referenced below, instigated by the First Minister in January 2019. If no resolution has yet been reached, I wish to know (a) why, given that 20 months have passed, and (b) when a resolution should be expected.“
The reply, as we’ve come to expect from the Scottish Government’s FOI team, offered no actual useful information. Instead it directed us to two other documents, one of them a Parliamentary answer from 31 January 2019, just two weeks after the referral:
“The First Minister’s self-referral under the Ministerial Code has been discussed with James Hamilton, the Independent Adviser on the Code. Mr Hamilton has concluded that there is a potential risk of prejudice if the First Minister’s self-referral under the Ministerial Code were to proceed at the present time. It has therefore been agreed that the inquiry under the Ministerial Code should also be deferred while criminal investigations are active.
Both the Scottish Government review and consideration under the Ministerial Code will recommence once criminal proceedings are no longer active and the risk of prejudice has been removed.”
Fair enough. But Alex Salmond was acquitted in late March, which is now more than six months ago. What could possibly still be taking so long?
In the Guardian story linked above, the following sentence appears:
This, if you think about it, is quite strange.
The Scottish Government must have known perfectly well that the inquiry would be likely to compromise the trial, and therefore would have to be put on hold until after the latter was completed. So it’s very odd to give the panel a remit focused on avoiding such a risk, knowing the panel wasn’t going to convene until the trial was already over.
The second document the response directed us to was the actual remit subsequently given to the investigating panel. It was drawn up by the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, and what it leaves out is more interesting than what it includes.
The ONLY thing the panel was told to establish was whether Nicola Sturgeon tried to influence Leslie Evans’ original investigation into the allegations against Salmond. It has strikingly NOT been asked to establish whether she lied to the Parliament, which was the concern actually expressed by the leaders of the opposition parties.
Sturgeon has repeatedly insisted, very explicitly and unambiguously, in Parliament and to the media and in several FOI responses, that the first she knew of the allegations was in a meeting at her Glasgow home on April 2:
But we now know this to be a categorical lie, because the remit that today’s FOI response directs us to openly and officially admits that she met with Geoff Aberdein – Salmond’s former chief of staff and the man who by this point had been acting as his go-between in matters relating to the allegations for some weeks – at her Holyrood office on 29 March.
A meeting the Scottish Government had previously expressly denied:
The inclusion of the meeting in the list officially destroys the Scottish Government’s farcical previous insistence that it was about some other subject.
(And in any event Aberdein told the High Court on oath during his evidence in the trial that it was about the allegations.)
Ridiculously, the First Minister’s written evidence to the commission, submitted five weeks ago but only revealed today, pretends that she forgot about the March 29 meeting until being reminded of it in January or February of last year.
But the official FOI denial of the meeting above was published on 31 July 2020, so she must have also “forgotten” to tell anyone else about it after that reminder, because the Scottish Government was still telling people no such meeting had taken place almost 18 months after she supposedly remembered that it had. So we know that’s a lie too.
And the First Minister’s written submission also admits that the 29 March meeting WAS in fact in relation to the allegations – not just a friendly casual catch-up in passing – in flat contradiction of the denial issued by an official Scottish Government spokesman to Sky News just two months ago:
Incidentally, one of the things that doesn’t initially seem to make any sense about the lie is “Why bother to deny a 29 March meeting when you’re going to admit to one on 2 April? What’s so important about those four days?” And the answer to that is that it’s not the date that’s important but the location.
The meeting on 29 March took place in the First Minister’s office at Holyrood. That fact alone necessarily legally makes it government business, not party business, which must be officially recorded (which we know it wasn’t).
(You’re simply not allowed to use the First Minister’s office for party matters.)
That’s why the meeting was denied for so long – because the failure to record it is itself a serious breach of the Ministerial Code. And the Ministerial Code takes an extremely clear position on the subject of knowingly misleading the Parliament:
Which is, cynical readers might perhaps feel, precisely the reason why the panel has so conspicuously NOT been asked to rule on whether the First Minister did so or not.
But we suspect that the opposition parties, and perhaps even some SNP MSPs, will be unwilling to let the matter drop. Even in the grim bin fire of democratic accountability that is 2020, it is not tenable under any circumstances for any Parliament to be led by someone officially shown to have lied to it.
No matter what else arises from the five-alarm fiasco around the Salmond affair, it is now beyond the tiniest shadow of credible doubt that the First Minister stood up and knowingly lied to the Holyrood chamber, and continued to propagate that lie for the best part of two years, before finally admitting it in an obscure document quietly released last month.
(She appears, ironically, in today’s Times abasing herself with gushing praise for the Scottish mainstream media, presumably hoping against hope that it will protect her, and hilariously pledging to answer questions honestly and fairly, just like she promised to give the inquiry committee anything it asked for.)
With goodness only knows what explosive revelations still to come when all the main players – Sturgeon, Murrell, Liz Lloyd, Geoff Aberdein and Alex Salmond himself – go before the committee, if she has any conscience at all she’ll resign now before any more damage is done to the integrity of her office.
I doubt she has much of a conscience. We all have some elements of psychopathy, but Sturgeon and Murrell must be near the problem end of that spectrum.
Does this same Ministerial Code apply at Westminster?
So we can the FM and head in to potentially the most important election in Scotland’s history devoid of leadership? If we are a democracy, and the SNP secure an overwhelming mandate, despite how exasperated you are with the existing ones, they haven’t replicated 2011, there is no choice but for a section 30.
I get where you are coming from with the above, but how do you reconcile us being closer to independence than every before with tearing down the SNP in its current form?
“So we can the FM and head in to potentially the most important election in Scotland’s history devoid of leadership? “
There are seven months until the election in which to choose a new leader.
Thanks for another informative read. Somewhat depressing that Wings is making a strong case for Sturgeon to resign, in the sense that I think she is a competent and principaled leader in many respects and I had held her in high esteem for the first few years of her tenure. Following the threads here it’s clear that indepdence has lost its track under the current leadership, without even mentioning the semi-bungled stitch-up of Salmond. I mean, why FFS, he did so much for the cause and there was never any evidence.
That aside. Could someone remind me – were there any important events between 29 March and 2nd April. Besides the misleading of the parliament, what is the significant point of difference between the two narratives? Both meetings at Sturgeon’s home? Was Liz Lloyd present at both? Why didn’t Sturgeon just come out with a blanket excuse like getting her days mixed up in the diary?
The UK’s Ministerial Code is separate but broadly the same:
link to assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
Cock up or conspiracy? How consequential was the Geoff Aberdein meeting? What was to be gained by this meeting not being mentioned?
Am I missing something?
I think it would be very dangerous for the independence cause to loose Nicola Sturgeon at this point.
But her husband falling on his sword? Not so much.
“Would be good to know Met looking at events in London”
This totally sinks Mundells craven explanation ‘re the police answering complainers questions rather than the SNP.
What would be good about it?
“But I want to be First Minister for another 5 years”
“What was to be gained by this meeting not being mentioned? Am I missing something?”
Oh FFS. You’re missing 20 months of deliberate sustained lying by the First Minister and her government to the Scottish Parliament. As to why they didn’t want to disclose that particular meeting, you’ll have to ask them. Good luck getting a straight answer.
Oh, and also: “I thought Scotland should be independent but now someone else is leading the SNP I’ve totally changed my mind” is a sentence uttered by nobody ever.
[…] Wings Over Scotland Here comes the flood Back in the 1980s there was a popular game for the ZX Spectrum home computer called […]
The second text – “the more fronts to firefight on” – is disturbing.
For someone in a position where they could possibly influence events, it’s actually downright sinister.
While we allow politics and the act of serving democracy and the people to be flooded with money (the evil incarnate, sole reason for all the horrors that befall humanity), the worst defectives will be attracted to politics.
Invariably, the most ruthless and downright bastard narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths will rise through the ranks of power, either within a party, beside it or as a public servant; and thanks to their absolute disregard for others’ well-being, blatant lack of empathy, innate ability to lie and feign emotions, and misplaced sense of entitlement, they will reach and hold onto power, and abuse it to their personal advantage.
If we want to save humanity, we must make power unattractive to these sub-humans and shove them in the reject pile.
Two people presumably living under the same roof totally oblivious to what the other one is doing.
Aye right
I smell shite
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Won’t Fly
All the above might convince some people as being wrong and perfectly reasonable answers have been given in response to any questions asked,
Aye Head in deep freeze and Zips up the back , God and this response is supposed to convince , well maybe a inmate of Broadmore or Carstaires but the General Public now that’s pushing it .
Pretty Damning.
If we loose NS now it would damage the independence movement!
Really? Really?
We should launch our independence based on lies?
Ever heard the saying you are what you eat?
We should conduct ourselves now as we mean to go on. If a FM lies to Holyrood then a resignation is the only answer.
If its a place in history she wants she has to call and win a referendum or a relevant election.
To be just another first minister for another 5 years like Jack mcwhats his name or Joanne lama what’s her face is lot a legacy worth having.
Does she want a place in history???
I find it quite difficult to listen to Sturgeon now.
Weasel words.
I’m not clear on why she should lie – what are the implications of her being aware of the case before admitting it in April? What is being hidden?
Rev Stuart wrote:
“if she has any conscience at all she’ll resign now before any
more damage is done.”
You’re doing sterling work Mr Wings and thanks a million. So much of it is so meticulous and yet often so blood-boiling: all bad for the blood-pressure.
I think we have no problem in assessing whether Ms Sturgeon has a ‘conscience’, we must be aware, by now, that she is unconstrained by such tediousness. It will be interesting to see how much power she accords herself and equally how much protection others afford her. From hereon the journey should speed up very quickly. The more slowly facts unfold the more people/factions involved in the illegal affairs. It remains to be seen which buses are fuelled and driven by which people in order to flatten folk. It’s my humble guess that the Murrells won’t be slow in trying to allocate their own vehicle for such a purpose.
Shug says:
7 October, 2020 at 1:03 pm
“If its a place in history she wants she has to call and win a referendum or a relevant election.”
I can see another way in which she may have already earned herself a place in history:-)
I can’t imagine Ms Surgeon being forced to step down for lying to Parliament after all the lies told in Westminster. I read the different codes (thanks Stu) and am frankly surprised that there are any Tories in post in either Parliament. However, I agree Nicola needs to go, and Peter, and the the sooner the better. We need to get this over and done with NOW instead of closer to the election.
@ ‘Ronnie says:
7 October, 2020 at 1:06 pm
I’m not clear on why she should lie – what are the implications of her being aware of the case before admitting it in April? What is being hidden?’
That is a very good question. Good luck getting a straight answer from NS. If she’s prepared to lie to parliament, she’s not going to tell us the truth is she.
Deputy FM – John Swinney is not coming out of this smelling of roses either.
aye Daisy (@ 1:19pm)
It implies there’s a smoking gun lying about somewhere
“A free and fearless press is more vital than ever”
Nicola Sturgeon
Nice idea but Covid panic shows the media jumps when officialdom says so.
Free and fearless critique of government policy on this matter is almost non existent.
No wonder you have to turn to alt.
link to off-guardian.org
The US.
link to statnews.com
Even Sky news.
link to news.sky.com
None of the above are likely to be among Sturgeon & Co ‘likes’.
Free and fearless, but only when ‘toeing the approved official line’.
Consider: “There is no term of office for a First Minister; he or she holds office “at Her Majesty’s pleasure”. In practice, however, a First Minister cannot remain in office against the will of the Scottish Parliament; indeed, the Scotland Act explicitly requires the First Minister to either resign or seek a parliamentary dissolution (and with it, new elections) if his or her government “no longer enjoys the confidence of the Parliament.”
Does a First Minister who is held to have lied to the Scottish Parliament “no longer enjoy the confidence of the Parliament?”
Might such a situation preciptate a Scottish Parliamentary election prior to next May?
Faites vous jeux!
“What was to be gained by this meeting not being mentioned?”
Ask yourself who else was there.
She’s never going to resign in the short to medium term. We know how power hungry her and her husband are and there’s no way they are going to give that up without a very long, protracted, ugly fight, taking the whole ship down with them if they will. And I’m afraid that the media are going to see Sturgeon as the lesser of two evils in this affair and not do their job informing the public. And even if they did, there is more headline grabbing news out there ATM ie pandemic, and I fear a lot of these stories will be loaded on the Scottish public in the sea of news. I think it’s down to us and other like minded indy supporters to spread the word and pass it on. Inform, inform, inform
As an aside and nothing more, I was struck by the ‘tone’ adopted by Peter Murrell in his ‘submission’ to the inquiry.
The content is for the Convener of the Inquiry Ms Linda Fabiani (who has announced that she is standing down next year).
The correspondence is headed
‘Written Submission from Peter Murrell, Chief Executive, SNP
Then addressed ‘Dear Linda’
Then signed ‘Yours sincerely
PETER MURRELL
Chief Executive
4 August 2020
This has more than a little (and not very subtle) indication of ‘power play’ to me .
The rest of it is worth reading and I’ve copied it here for those who may not have come across it yet.
link to parliament.scot
FFS yourself.
You clearly don’t know if the Aberdein meeting was of any particular consequence or why hiding the meeting somehow benefited the FM.
I presume he told the FM of the allegations but, hearing details directly from Alex Salmond a couple of days later is what would have stuck in my memory. In the absence of motive, I prefer cock up.
And who, FFS, mentioned people changing their mind about independence?
But envisioning the loss of a very popular FM perceived by the majority of the voters as highly competent and able only months before a critical election is incomprehensible.
PS what does FFS mean?
@Ronnie,
She told parliament the first she knew of this was in April.
In fact it turns out she knew in March, but denied it on several occasions. Politically thieves her a few days breathing perfectionism strategy ‘re who to support and how to minimise damage to the party.
Given that you also have to believe she never spoke about potential party damage to her husband the Chief Exec of the party.
No doubt in the interlude sides were picked and strategy laid out for going forward.
More than one lie was told in this murky business.
I do not understand the number of people who really believe that Nicola Sturgeon is the ONLY person to lead Scotland. The people of Scotland deserve the best and Nicola Sturgeon is NOT the best.
“Murrell’s excuse is so pathetic that any rational reader could only conclude that he thinks his audience is, to put it gently, educationally subnormal”
I feel the tables have now turned and it is the audience thinking this of Murrell after reading his statement! I guess it could have been worse, he could have said he “misspoke”.
My predicatext runs amok today.
So it boils down to nicola said in hollyrood that her first knowledge or meeting with alex was on a certain date..it turns out there was a meeting a few days before said date..and nicola has said in her submission to the enquiry she had forgotten about that one.well got to be honest if that’s what all this vitriol and hate is about then we have lost the plot.the torys are breaking international laws about to subjugate the whole of scotland.have rapists still at Westminster are about to throw millions on the dole.and we are expected to worry about this ? Really..unless I’m missing something this is pish.i was expecting evidence that nicola said get alex on a memo
told the police by txt get alex.phoned the judges put him in the slammer for ever.seriously it looks like some people are exaggerating sturgeons wrongdoing exactly the same way the alphabet sisters have done.is their lies being told yes and I suspect its Mr Murrell and his little gang of McCann Lloyd Evans and summerville to me that’s where it starts and ends. i am expecting the usual britnats that have infected this once great blog to spout their usual pish.but luckly as has been said by many only @3% of people read this.half of them are britnats.unless said memos appear il just switch off till something that isn’t wishful thinking appears.
Ok Stu, question for you.
What’s NS going to do ?
Double down on the denials, brave it out until the next Covid scandal/ Brexit shenanigans take over all media stories late this year/ early next year and desperately try and hold on until May’s elections ?
Come clean now ?
The last thing we want is to reduce our Parliaments integrity to the level of that shower of shite in Westminster. Bring on an enquiry, deal with the pants on fire brigade and a bet the Scots will still vote Aye the next chance they get.
Nicola Sturgeon knew that the Government had acted illegally and conceded as such in 2019.
Lying about trivia can make some people think that it’s all trivia and I think a lot of people do fall into that trap.
There are people who may be up for prosecution at the end of all this and I assume that they’re all jockeying for a position at the back at the moment. These few days may be something or may be nothing in relation to Mr Salmond but it’s certain it will have total relevance to a case that Ms Sturgeon is concocting. She played a very high stakes game.
Les jeux sont faits
I presume TRuthless reads WoS. In which case, jumbo bucket of popcorn for FMQs tomorrow.
“I can’t imagine Ms Surgeon being forced to step down for lying to Parliament after all the lies told in Westminster.”
Please spare us any shitty whataboutery. The issue is that ministers are very rarely OFFICIALLY found to have lied. Any time they are, they resign.
“What’s NS going to do ?
Double down on the denials, brave it out until the next Covid scandal/ Brexit shenanigans take over all media stories late this year/ early next year and desperately try and hold on until May’s elections ?
Come clean now ?”
I suspect the former. I cannot see a way she can succeed, but we live in truly terrible times.
Where is the wings party??
I will not be voting for some loony left wing socialist republican nonsense.
I will consider a Wings party of Alex gives it the thumbs up
“unless said memos appear il just switch off till something that isn’t wishful thinking appears.”
Let me help you with that.
@Stu Hutch,
So Nicola Sturgeon NEVER talked to her husband about any of this? Is that what you are trying to say.
She was utterly oblivious to her husband and his “gang” trying to stitch up Alex?
Are those the qualities of a good leader? Constant ignorance of everything happening.Good luck with that.
Perverting the course of justice is an offence committed when a person prevents justice from being served on him/herself or on another party. In England and Wales it is a common law offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment,not sure about Scotland.Surely trying to push the Police into harassing and arresting an innocent man falls into that category.
And there’s been no talk about Perjury either. If he was found not guilty in a criminal court, then surely the evidence being given was untrue. Does it not follow that the Alphabet Soup lied in court ?
No wonder Sturgeon (Emperor Commodus) moved heaven and earth to prevent Joanna Cherry (General Maximus Decimus Meridius) from entering the Holyrood arena.
Are we not entertained?
Who cares about the SNP and Sturgeon? I LOVED THAT GAME!
“Bob Mack says:
7 October, 2020 at 1:35 pm
My predicatext runs amok today.”
just as well it didnt autocorrect to ‘finger ring’ (being a ring worn on a finger not a thumb)
Imagine the horror
I am interested in language and find the following so disrespectful coming from a FM about a former FM/friend. “My other reason for wanting to meet with him proactively at this stage was the SNP conference that was about to take place over the following days in Aberdeen. I assumed he would be there (though as it turned out, I don’t think he did attend) and I didn’t want to be ‘CORNERED’ by him during it”.
CORNERED = to get a person or an animal into a place or situation from which they cannot escape. Would it not have been more dignified and respectful just to say “the Conference did not allow for privacy”. From my experience I feel her words are actually those of a “Rottweiler” in the Crown Office.
Stu hutch @1:38
Paragraphs! Or Rev Stu will be most annoyed.
As for your ridiculous defence of Sturgeon. You’re telling us she’s blameless, but her husband, her chief of staff, her friend who is also a senior minister and the top civil servant she appointed and rewarded are the baddies.
What next from you? That Stalin was really a good bloke, it was his underlings who were responsible?
Not many folk are lucky enough to have friendships spanning 30 years.
My pal, who I’ve known since secondary school (in my case, 40 years) calls me, asks to see me as soon as possible, sounds distressed. It’s to do with multiple allegations of serious sexual misconduct.
A few months later, someone asks me when I first heard about the ‘allegations’ against my friend. I ‘forget’ where I was when I first heard because, well, er, let me think back, oh I remember now, that’s right, I was unusually busy with paperwork that day.
Aye.
Right.
She will not resign until she is instructed by her British state handlers.
Only when she is no value to them , or when the information against her is released , by them, to damage the indy movement, will they drop her like a bowl of eggs!
Robert Graham says:
7 October, 2020 at 12:58 pm
“Two people presumably living under the same roof totally oblivious to what the other one is doing.”
But do they still live under the same roof?
Chan e na tha mi a ’cluinntinn
Forensic examination Rev.A good read well done.
Alex Salmond to Nicola Sturgeon re his excellent prospects of judicial review success:
You are a lawyer and can judge for
yourself the prospects of success which I am advised are excellent. This will follow
ANY adverse finding against me by the PS in a process which is unlawful..
I’ll permit myself a moment of naivety here:
Is it at all possible NS knew, as the process unfolded, that she’d been duped by individuals but that her ‘High Office’ hubris prevented her admitting this and, importantly, confirmed she was still an underling to the great man? What a realisation?
When she finally resigns – whether down to misleading of Parliament or otherwise – I think she’ll claim ‘attempting to protect everything we’d worked for in Scotland, but was let down by xyz’ – and go out in her personal blaze of martyred glory.
Whatever, the buck stops right on her lap and Scotland’s infinitely worse-off than when Mr Salmond handed over a healthy set of reigns to her. She blew it.
“Yet if he should give up what he has begun, seeking to make us or our kingdom subject to the king of England or to the English, we should strive at once to drive him out as our enemy and as a subverter of his own right and ours, and we would make some other man who was able to defend us our king.”
– Extract from The Declaration of Arbroath, 6 April 1320
The leader is only fit for purpose as the leader for so long as they demonstrably represent and defend the sovereignty of the Scottish people. Determinedly subjecting our sovereignty to an English Section 30 ‘permission’ fails that test.
Alex Salmond clearly states there was a conspiracy against him.
Evidence is slowly emerging that this is probably true
Some ,indeed many ,want us to believe Nicola was not part of that and had no knowledge about any of it. (Nuremberg defence). I’m sorry. It’s inconceivable.
How did the party I supported for more years than I care to remember come to this? Something specific must have led to Alex Salmond’s being snared. There might have been occasions when he overstepped the mark in relation to the women he worked with, and he admitted those, but, if there was anything else that was lying dormant, and we don’t know that there was, in reality, albeit he did apologize for behaviour that had been reported to a line manager, the women went on working for and with him.
So, it had been dealt with in-house, informally, and there is no suggestion that it ever happened again. You don’t accept someone’s apology then resurrect the same thing again down the line – ergo, something specific triggered subsequent actions or the retrospective nature of the new procedure was intended to punish him and ensure his alienation from the party, or both.
The retrospective nature of the new procedure was intended to do what, exactly? It could only have been used to snare Alex Salmond, because no other former FM has been snared by it, but was it for what he had done or for what he might do – stand again, for example? Or was there a festering sense of unfinished business and grievance still rattling around that could be utilized to keep him at bay, away from the party?
Whatever, the best laid schemes, as they say. If you are going to behave in this way, you really have to make sure you don’t get caught. Better still, you don’t hound someone beyond the call of duty, which Margaret Ferrier is now experiencing, and hand the moral ground to your opponents.
The new procedure was flawed, and the civil case fell; the evidence appears to have been tainted, and at least one of the women compromised, and the criminal case fell. This is a thread that appears to run throughout the SNP hierarchy: one of using procedures to push through legislation that is not sound and, in some cases, drives a coach and horses through previous, still extant legislation.
To put the best face on it, perhaps Nicola Sturgeon was hesitant about implicating Mr Salmond, or about being SEEN to be implicated in his downfall, and that is why she was less than willing to admit that she knew about the allegations before the meeting, where she admits to be told about them, and left the field to the civil servants – in itself a flawed decision? The does imply a misleading of parliament, either way.
Whatever, this needs to be clarified and dealt with soon or she will not survive till the end of the year, fawning MSM or not.
Stu, you said:
“No matter what else arises from the five-alarm fiasco around the Salmond affair, it is now beyond the tiniest shadow of credible doubt that the First Minister stood up and knowingly lied to the Holyrood chamber, and continued to propagate that lie for the best part of two years, before finally admitting it in an obscure document quietly released last month.”
But Sturgeon stated in an annex as part of her response to the Committee published today that the meeting with Aberdein did not involve discussing the complaints, merely that Aberdein was personally asking her to speak to Salmond as a matter of urgency. She states that she had suspicions regarding what the subject matter of this conversation with Salmond would entail, but that Salmond himself was the very first person to tell her about the complaints/accusations at this meeting, held on April 2nd. link to thenational.scot
Her alibi for the confusion around these two dates, if true, would clear up any accusation that she lied to parliament.
The whole thing stinks, I am not defending either party, I just want to know the truth. And it seems that in light of her new alibi, you’d probably want to comment on that, as it would render much of this post moot – perhaps you’re writing a new post presently, but regardless I’d like to hear your thoughts on this other than that she’s lying or it’s her word against his.
For instance, has Aberdein ever stated (on record or publicly) that he informed Sturgeon of the complaints on March 29th, or has he ever stated what was discussed at that meeting? If so, could you provide this information to us, or if not, could you ask him if he’s willing to comment?
This just seems like a glaring hole in the argument you’ve set out here.
Thank you for your work so far, I really appreciate your blog and I follow it daily. I also really appreciated your twitter account 🙁
If Nicola was to go/pushed what is the process rev for selecting a new leader?
With all the stitch ups etc would we not get more of the same or even worse ?
Can’t wait for Douglas Ross to be the one to lead us through this, the largest public health crisis, followed by the largest economic crisis, in living memory.
Excellent stuff – scalpel sharp analysis which is great to read and painful to come to terms with, but truths we must face up to and address if our movement is going to succeed. The current SNP leadership is a serious roadblock to our independence and you are doing a great job of exposing it for what it is – rotten to the core. Time for Sturgeon to go. We need a new and more radical pro-independence individual and leadership at the top of the SNP. Now won’t be a moment too soon.
When someone lies, they have to be conscious of what the truth is & that is often their downfall since they have to carefully construct a facsimile of the truth which does not lead anyone to the real truth. The more complex the lie, the more that construct has to be fireproof, impervious to any line of investigation that breaks through the wall. Every brick has to hold or light might get through.
When they construct their narrative it has to shut down any avenue which they think might give someone else cause to suspect. It is why someone’s lies might be revealed by their determination to conceal a detail which might seem initially to the casual observer to be a small matter. That casual observer might then be alerted to the fact that there is something bigger behind that lie which the liar is so desperate to conceal.
A dim & distant memory from the past resurfaced with all of this, of an act called the Black Theatre of Prague.
‘A key principle of black light theatre is the inability of the human eye to distinguish black objects from a black background. This effect results in effective invisibility for any objects not illuminated by the ‘black light’.’
(It is still popular in Prague, apparently.) All I can remember from childhood is being entertained by the complex activity of many characters on stage & then when ordinary light was turned on, to be astonished, like the audience, by the fact that all this was an illusion created by only one or two actors who had been on stage all of the time, but clad entirely in black so that they were invisible.
All lot of what goes on in politics is like a black light show.
The British state is within the SNP. You’d have to be gey gypit to believe that Scotland alone is granted refuge from their perfidy, that the very country who’s independence puts an end to the UK is somehow afford the protection of fair play.
When Salmond first gave up the SNP leadership every journalist in the UK searched for the dirt and found nothing, and yet we are now told to believe that he is one of the most unforgivably evil men ever, and the useful eejits of woke in the SNP hop and froth and demand that you don’t think other.
The best weapons we have to achieve independence is openness and truth, yet Sturgeon et al have created the mire Westminster operates best in, and set the conditions for the continued UK exploitation of our precious resources.
Do you want people who can’t even be open and truthful to their own party members negotiating the terms of independence with Johnson and Cummings and MI5?
The SNP is full of good people capable of asking questions. Raise your voice even if it trembles.
Stu, do you not mean they denying it 18 months after she ‘remembered’? (January / February 2019 – July 2020)
*they were
Jeezo, one nips out for a 30 minute shift on the chainsaw to cut firewood and comes in for a cuppa to read yet more on this matter.
A Flood?
Think someone better call Moses Tidal Barrier & Ship Welding Services to see if they can tame these troubled waters and patch up the hull on this rusting vessel.
There’ll be no Mercy for the Sisters with This Corrosion! 😉
Ignore my comment and questions from 2:17pm, I missed the crucial paragraph from your blog post today which shows Aberdein stating on record that the allegations were discussed at the meeting on 29th March.
Stellar work, Stu, really. It’s equally as mind-boggling and unsurprising that the media is not picking this story up. An absolute farce.
I see that Liz Lloyd’s Written submission has been published , this is an interesting part of it ,
“ she cannot remember if it was mentioned in passing “ .
Have all the parties involved in this suddenly developed amnesia because they all seem to be conveniently forgetting what they’re supposed to remember ? .
“ I had no contact with Nicola Richards in relation to the development of the complaints procedure. My limited engagement with James Hynd on this issue has been set out in his evidence. I have no recollection of discussing the development of the procedure with the Permanent Secretary or Barbara Allison, however we would be in touch or meet on a regular basis to discuss the ongoing business of government, so I cannot be absolute that it was not mentioned in passing. “
link to parliament.scot
Sylvia,
I spotted that word and took it, like you, to have some underlying meaning and as a sign of distaste for him. But that is pretty tenuous.
“Stu, do you not mean they denying it 18 months after she ‘remembered’? (January / February 2019 – July 2020)”
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN.
@Maggie C,
Incredible. Top aides and civil servants who can only seem to forget events related to one topic.
On everything else they quote chapter and verse.
EDIT: chatted to a couple of people and realised why hiding the 29 March meeting rather than the 2 April one is important – it’s because the March one was on Scottish Government premises, which means it was government business (you’re not allowed to do party business in the Parliament), but it wasn’t recorded as such, so they had to try to conceal it. Have added that to the article.
Me @ 2.48 pm
Continuing on from previous post , I know that some of the links to the evidence published today have already been posted but I’ve put them all together here for easy reference .
Written submission from Nicola Sturgeon ,
link to parliament.scot
Written submission from John Swinney ,
link to parliament.scot
Additional written submission from Peter Murrell ,
link to parliament.scot
@Ronnie et al:
Rev explains that Nicola denied she knew in March but admitted she knew four days later, because admitting she had discussed the allegations in March would mean admitting she used her Gevernment office, to discuss party issues, something that is not allowed under parliamentry rules.
She was getting caught up in her own web from the very start and we have only saw the tip of the iceberg.
I can’t help feeling that there’s an attempt to throw some stale meat to the wolves to put them off the real scent, but to the conspiritors who will definately be looking in I will say this:
We love Alex and will never ever stop standing by his side and never stop making sure we completely clear his name, which BTW the court case should have done, but because you were so determined to destroy him, you went bleating to your friends in the press to further demonise him.
So now the only way to clear Alex Salmonds name, is to make sure each and every one of you faces a trial and possible (I hope) jail term, for your disgusting conspiracy.
You are in a fight that won’t end well for you!
Am I the only one thinking “just get on with it and resign Nicola so we’ve got time to avoid that big iceberg” “No, no, I’m going to cling on till we’re at the bottom of the sea”?
By the way, this update from Keatings’ S.30 legal case doesn’t help support the belief that indyref is coming anytime soon under Sturgeon. link to r.mail.crowdjustice.co.uk
Stu, she forget being told about allegations against Alex Salmond, during a busy day with FMQs. Seems plausible to me. I often forget things, as every human being. Do you seriously think Nicola should resign?
1 SNP look on course to win a historic victory next year, with record number of seat.
2 she’s never been more popular & trusted by people (including those from outside Scotland).
3 Indy is between 53-56% in the most polls.
I’m sorry Stu but to suggest she should resign is way way off the mark.
Sturgeon’s lies must have surely broken the Ministerial Code, she must stand down if that is the case. Both she and her husband Murrell, have acted in a duplicitous manner in my opinion. Both cannot be trusted.
Sturgeon spoke for eighteen minutes today before making the announcement the whole country was waiting to hear. I maintain she is an egomaniac.
Furthermore, this claim of forgetting is almost trolling in its sheer brazenness.
It really boils down to this- Has NS done Wrong? Answer – YES – so doesn’t matter what else happens where this is still fact – so she should follow the rules just as she expects us to……end of.
An overpaid CEO who says he needs to express himself better. Is he fit for the job?
Frankly, I find his conduct appalling. There is something very nasty about this man.
Why, then, did she lie? Why?
People lie in order to hide the truth. What truth, then, was intended to be hidden behind the lie?
Was it simply that the earlier meeting compromised her in terms of the respective hats she has to wear as party leader and first minister of the government?
Maybe. I can’t rule that out. Can anyone?
I think this is all a bit of a distraction from the central and more important questions that are at the heart of all this, as much as it’s convenient to have dishonesty on the record.
I wouldn’t be satisfied if Sturgeon resigned over this.
It seems to me unless I misunderstand this but the March 29 lie was really quite trivial,
I’m not saying the fact she lied to parliament was trivial but what she lied about was nothing more than a minor indiscretion, I don’t think that in itself should be a resignation matter
Even if Sturgeon and Murrell were both squeaky clean we still need shot of them, for they’re not interested in obtaining Scottish independence.
Just saw the shocking news that NS is forcing all hospitality venues to shut at 6pm, and pubs are also not going to be allowed to sell any alcohol. She may as well just close them all down, this will be a fatal blow to the industry, you can’t just keep turning the industry on and off again without expecting there to be massive damage. It has also got to be asked where are all the new infections coming from? Because it looks to me like they are all coming from schools and hospitals, very few are originating or being spread in pubs and restaurants.
NS says these new measures are backed by the science and there is no alternative, but that is obviously a lie. There is no scientific evidence to back these measures whatsoever, this is purely a political move.
sorry….pretty much denies us the chance of ever enjoying our Right to Health….
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Working Group (1995-1998)
Natural Law and Laws of Nature
link to mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
A Curious situation maybe someone can recall it better than me. , I seem to remember a lifeline was thrown in the form of advice against doing what was being proposed was offered by the Mandarins at Whitehall ,
I seem to remember they advised against using any widening of the proposed new guidelines of employee harassment to include former ministers or in this case former First Ministers , First Minister could include only Include one person ,
They anticipated this could happen and could only have included again one Person.
It defies belief this warning was totally ignored ,it was that Stark it might have had a big bloody flashing light and a sirens attached ,
A oversight Christ on a bike these highly paid and apparently well educated people missed this ?
Ah that’s what happened to all those Mandates she forgot where she put them.
“Stu, she forget being told about allegations against Alex Salmond, during a busy day with FMQs. Seems plausible to me. I often forget things, as every human being.”
Do you often forget hearing that your mentor and best friend of three decades has been accused of the attempted rape of people you both know? Sober the fuck up.
“I’m not saying the fact she lied to parliament was trivial but what she lied about was nothing more than a minor indiscretion, I don’t think that in itself should be a resignation matter”
A minister lying to Parliament is ALWAYS a resignation matter. The Ministerial Code could not possibly be any more explicit about that.
The last article about a Free Press , is very telling.
Salmond whenever questioned about the press always said:” We have to live with them”. In other words , they are a bunch of shysters.
That Nicola is now courting the 99% unionist press will be her undoing. The unionist press have no place in the independence movement. Because they are not a free press. They report their opinions , they don’t report the news. They are not our friends, they are our enemies. Every newspaper sold in Scotland is owned by millionaires and unionists.
The fact that Nicola employed Murray Foot of the Daily Retard , as a press adviser. Gives you an insight into what she is up to. Courting the enemy hoping for cuddles, when we know that they are just waiting like hyenas to devour their prey.
I hope that Craig Murray and Rev Stuart Campbell will not mind me doing this but I’m posting these posts from Craig Murray’s twitter for anyone not on twitter as they make for interesting reading ,
“ I have written to Linda Fabiani and the committee with a list of the documents and suggestion they should request them from the Crown Office.
The Crown Office has said they will prosecute anybody who reveals or transmits the documents. “
“ The Murrell WhatsApp messages so far released are not the most damning ones by any means. “
“ It is those about the efforts of this senior SNP group to (ahem!) assist the police in organising and obtaining “evidence” that are truly shocking to any honest person. “
“ Smearing? Murrell has admitted the Whatsapp messages are genuine.
99% of people in the SNP are brilliant. A small clique at the top decided to frame Alex Salmond. Those same people appear to have a less than intense interest in actually pursuing Independence.. “
Link to Craig Murray’s twitter ,
link to mobile.twitter.com
The crown office should be made to publish the relevant papers to this whole “ affair “ and then we the general public could see exactly who was involved and what actually happened instead of it being hidden away .
My post re. Kelsen on Natural Law appears to have vanished. That kind of completely disables my potential to show folk how the law works.
It seems to me that Nicola Sturgeon could have told parliament about the March meeting and accepted what, I assume, would be a slap on the wrist and minor recompense to the taxpayer. Something like “Geoff Aberdein asked to see me, not the other way around…”
If I am right that the consequences would be relatively minor, why did she lie?
Jeez!! Here’s me up to 90 watching Mrs. Murrell single handedly destroying the hospitality and tourist trade in Scotland then I come here and read all this??
Surely her position’s untenable now?
Skip.
The answers in the article above.
“The meeting on 29 March took place in the First Minister’s office at Holyrood. That fact alone necessarily legally makes it government business, not party business, which must be officially recorded (which we know it wasn’t).”
RepublicofScotland, I agree with that, but what is the penalty for conducting party business at Holyrood? Presumably, it was a relatively short meeting and if Geoff Aberdein called on her at short notice, holding the meeting there seems like a relatively minor error of judgement.
Stu has established for us that telling a lie to parliament is a resignation matter. She could have admitted the error of judgement and taken a bit of flak for it. Non-political folk would most likely have shrugged their shoulders. So what was so important to keep secret that she lied to parliament?
Mist – What I find baffling , is that the death rate is not directly correlating with the daily infections.
My question being. Is Covid-19 now not as dangerous as it was 6 months ago?
Do we need to re-evaluate the risks? Are we basing the risks on what happened before , and not the present.
The measures taken a few weeks back , haven’t reduced the infection rate. So if these ones have no impact will there then be further restrictions.
It seems to me that this is like trying empty a toilet cistern with a tea spoon. But do we need to empty it at all? Is it an exercise in futility?
There’s not much point in having a healthy hospitality and tourist trade in Scotland, if it is supported by a failure to protect public health. This bug isn’t simply fatal to some, it is likely to cause long-term health problems for those who recover. Don’t be fooled by those that appear concerned, public health sustains democracy, so needs to be privileged in policy and practice. Try to remember that “heard immunity” may not be possible, and would be a completely unethical approach to supporting public health and the universal rule-of-law, as it rejects the core legal principle of “equality in law”.
Tell you what, how about some of you shouting for the resignation of Waffle Johnson and the most corrupt, inept, useless, lying, self serving, narcissistic shower of thieves this country has ever had to endure.
Its only because of the other useless clown running the USA, that the light is deflected from Johnson and Co.
Yes Sturgeon and the Scottish Government have problems, but hey, get real with the “pointing the finger at corruption”.
Nigel @ 2.19
I suspect we will need more than just a different SNP leadership if we are ever to see independence. Most of the current SNP MP’s and MSP’s appear at best lukewarm on independence and owe their positions to a rotten leadership and its closely controlled vetting process; by all accounts next May’s cohort will be even more dire. Their only aim is to run a colonial administration, and inflict oppressive laws on folks. Scots might as well vote Tory.
Most SNP MP’s and MSP’s are not nationalists; real nationalists would have used their successive national elected majorities to assert Scottish sovereignty by now. Real nationalists would also have done something about the British civil service which still runs Scotland and its many institutions.
Scotland needs a Real National Party and real nationalist politicians who refuse to participate in colonialism.
Sturgeon appears to have broken ministerial code on several occasions.
Holding party political meetings & conducting party business inside Bute House is strictly forbidden. No wonder she “forgot” all about the meeting with Aberdein.
And blatant lying to parliament which here is an unarguable, provable fact is also an infringement of ministerial code.
Isn’t it amazing how many times Alex Salmond referred himself, consequently never found wanting, yet Sturgeon with at least two serious strikes against here, and to the best of my knowledge, has never referred herself once?
You might also wonder at the claim that she & Murrell apparently never discussed any of this with each other. Then again, you’d have to live in the same house for that lie to be plausible.
“So what was so important to keep secret that she lied to parliament?”
Well I’d imagine whatever was said, if/when revealed wouldn’t show Sturgeon in a good light.
The ice is cracking, the SNP fence-sitters are thinking of speaking out. And the woke are eyeing each other wondering who first to throw under the bus.
An honourable man in murrell’s position would have resigned long before now.
And regarding lesley evans I can only surmise malfeasance in public office is no longer a crime.
Nicola has also got to resign.
What is very ironic is that labour and the tories would have swept this all under the carpet. A show trial is never a good look.
THE BIG QUESTION IS WHY DID THEY CHOOSE A SHOW TRIAL ?
To put it simply A.S.. Was found not guilty so those who accused him were found to be guilty except in one not proven case so why are the rest of them not being charged with deformation of character ???they have all shown that they are unfit to hold office hence the hiding of their names Cowards the lot of them I wonder if they still have the cheek to go to a church on Sunday’s or the courage to lookin a mirror???
-Gary45%-
First of all, even my dog knows that Boris Johnson is a buffoon. For us to spend our time repeating this would be a bit unnecessary. Preaching to the choir is too easy.
Second, we could make the case for independence more vigorously if there was any prospect of a referendum any time soon. Due to the duumvirate’s lack of interest in this, there isn’t going to be one,
Third, while my contempt for Johnson would be difficult to surpass, even he has not tried to put Theresa May in jail.
Alf – As much as Jim Sillars gets on my wick. He is what I would describe as an old fashioned nationalist. I don’t agree with him on the EU though.
One thing he has been saying since 2014. Is that Nicola hasn’t advanced or addressed the problems in the last referendum. She also hasn’t moved WM one inch regarding actually having a referendum.
Mhairi Black is an example of someone who is a modern SNP MP. She isn’t an instinctive nationalist. It’s more a means to an end for people like her. In other words she is more interested in socialism than nationalism. She thinks independence is the best route out of capitalism. Not that Scotland should simply be independent because she is Scottish.
There are loads of young MP’s with micro agendas. That’s a consequence of old Labour moving into the SNP. They bring their baggage.
For me personally. I don’t think I have been anything other than a nationalist. Even at primary school I felt it. I might not have understood politics, but I knew who I was and where I came from.
It’s in my political DNA.
And who has came out of this with the greatest of integrity. Alex Salmond. I expected nothing less. A huge contribution to the Independence cause. He has kept quiet and behaved with the patience of a Saint.
CBB,
“ This bug isn’t simply fatal to some, it is likely to cause long-term health problems for those who recover”
That is wildly inaccurate. Most people will have no idea they have or have had the virus.
It was admitted in court that there was a conspiratorial WhatsApp group to keep Alex Salmond from returning to frontline politics.
I think Salmond doesn’t want to damage the cause. That’s why he has been so kind to Nicola , when he could have destroyed her.
However , even his patience will run out. He probably concludes as we do. That removing the Murrells is the only thing that might save Scotland.
Nicola winning another majority in 2021 , will not advance the cause. Because she has already given up on independence.
She has allowed the narrative to take seed that we require another majority. We fecking don’t. We just need to use the ones we have.
“Nicola winning another majority in 2021 , will not advance the cause. Because she has already given up on independence.”
Big Jock.
We need Sturgeon (and Murrell) out before the next Holyrood elections take place, I for one would like to see Joanna Cherry as our next FM, she’s definitely independence minded.
Agreed Big Jock,
What amazes me regarding independence is how easily the narrative has been shifted to after another election. There are only a few still arguing for the SNP to fulfill their current mandate on the subject.
Ah well, I’m off out for a walk.
Big Jock
Yip, the new brood are all in her and Murrells image. And national liberation aint their bag, for sure.
It might occur to us who we would prefer to be on Scotland’s ‘UK Withdrawal Negotiating Team’ if it ever gets that far:
-Sturgeon, Swinney, Lochhead, Matheson, Yousaf, Sommerville, Freeman
OR
– Salmond, MacAskill, Neil, Cherry, Craig Murray, Rev Stu, Tommy Sheridan
A ken wha A wad want oan Scotlan’s team! (Sturgeon’s team widnae even get that far)
Astonished @4:18pm
I think they got caught up in the whole #MeToo fervour and wanted a big name scalp to burnish their credentials. Weinstein II if you like.
@breastplate,
Most people will have no idea they have or have had the virus.
That’s the crux of the problem right there, IMO. You can be asymptomatic for DAYS, happily going about your daily business and exposing dozens or hundreds of people without even knowing it.
-Alf Baird-
Good point.
Matt Hancock once considered a career as a jockey.
link to spiked-online.com
Truly the horses had a narrow escape, not so the humans.
Who’s afraid of the big bad virus…..nobody with a yoctogram of sense, whether common or not.
@JGedd 2:25
Brilliant post! Thank you
Do Sturgeon and Murrell have chinthe tattoo’s on their upper arms.
“The 77th Brigade has been accused by a member of parliament of targeting the Scottish independence movement and its supporters. In 2019, Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Douglas Chapman repeatedly claimed on Twitter that the Brigade was “working against elected MPs and parties” in a “highly organised” manner, “attacking and undermining our democratic choices”.
Chapman’s tweets prompted such a deluge of abuse from other users that he deleted some of the postings.
Opposition to Scottish independence is a viewpoint shared by some of the Brigade’s known members who serve as reservists in the unit. These include former Conservative MP and armed forces minister Mark Lancaster (the unit’s Deputy Commander) and current Conservative MP and chair of the House of Commons defence committee, Tobias Ellwood (a Lieutenant Colonel in the unit).
Both Lancaster and Ellwood have voted consistently against all legislation transferring further powers of any kind to the Scottish parliament.
Also reported to be part of the Brigade is Kate Watson, Labour’s unsuccessful candidate for Glasgow East in the 2017 and 2019 general elections. She was formerly the operations director of Better Together, the principal “No” vote campaign group in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.”
link to dailymaverick.co.za
CBB. Show me the evidence thats this is caused by the hospitality industry! Odd how this latest spike coincides almost exactly with schools and Unis going back.
“I think they got caught up in the whole #MeToo fervour and wanted a big name scalp to burnish their credentials. Weinstein II if you like.”
Stuart Mackay.
Stuart forgive my interruption (If talking about Salmond) but I’m under the impression the fit up was to stop Salmond ever coming back into Scottish politics and leading the country to independence. Something Sturgeon and Murrell have no intentions of doing.
Framing an investigation remit in terms that avoids the major issues is typical of investigations in Scotland.
Choosing an investigator sympathetic ( biased) in favour of the body is also common.
The report then finds minor faults or partially upholds some complaints or rejects all complaints.
“The elephant in the room” glaring misconduct complaints are not part of the investigation.
The body can then claim the issues have been investigated and it’s all done and dusted. Case closed. End of Story.
Any further complaints that the real issues were not examined are then deemed to be “unreasonable persistence”.
The complainant is then deemed to be the guilty party if they press for the real answers and threatened with sanctions or legal action.
——————————————-
Being told your mentor and biggest political ally for years is under investigation for serious misconduct. Of course that’s the sort of thing that can easily slip your mind.
“Memory problems”. The professionals’ stock answer to accusations of misconduct and lying.
It’s the professionals’ equivalent of the neds’ solicitors’ ldefence: My client was intoxicated at the time and has no recollection of the alleged incident, My Lord.
Martin Keatings’ new email to supporters of Peoples Action on Section 30 raises some very serious questions about the SG’s approach to independence, including its questionable “draft” bill to be included in the SNP’s Holyrood election manifesto.
Breastplate
Most folk might be under threat of little risk of sever illness, but that does not mean that our environment is safe yet. I don’t think we can’t tell who is most prone to infection yet (happy to be corrected). Apart from those who are in lower wage brackets so tend to work in environments where H&S might not be well respected. Those who recover are prone to a higher risk of long-term health problems related to our autoimmune systems. Or have you got evidence to the contrary?
Physiology and Pathology of Infectious Diseases: The Autoimmune Hypothesis of Chagas Disease
link to intechopen.com
Stuart MacKay and republicofscotland.
I had not considered the #metoo angle. Show trial found guilty bask in glow of “righteousness”. yeah I can see that. Thank God for the honest, decent jury.
I think an investigation would have furnished enough to keep AS out of politics. They wanted showboating and public humiliation.
Again; Thank God for the honest, decent jury.
Can anyone answer my question at 2.17pm
Cheers.
Mungo Armstrong
I think you have me back-to-front. I’m not blaming our hospitality or tourist industries for anything, I’m simply point to the logic of prioritising the security of public health in public policy.
Mungo Armstrong@4.56
Certainly, the current spike coincides with the Uni’s opening up.
But the rise started 2 weeks after the hospitality opened up on the 14 July, and has continued to steadily rise.
Add to that, the “how do we get around the rules brigade”, and this will just keep going on and on.
Have they learned nothing about the political culture of Great fucking Britain? Those willing to remain schtum and tolerate sleaze and corruption so as to, in their minds, enable a higher-end i.e. a landslide victory for the SNP in next May’s elections, ought to be called-out for the unprincipled, devious sleeveens that they clearly are.
JaMuR: it was said a couple of threads back that 100 members from 20 branches are needed to nominate a candidate for the Party leadership. And this procedure is done before the National Conference.
I don’t myself know the procedure. But I wish someone would stand and get on with this – I think being FM and SNP leader is too big a job for one person right now because there is the independence project to be driven on.
-Astonished-
And thank God, indeed, for the jury system handed down to us by our ancestors from time immemorial. Only a thing in Scotland and the English common law systems. Everywhere else you are tried by a judge (a government employee) alone.
Mark my words, they will come for this next.
@crisiscult, 3.17
Thanks for posting that update from Martin Keatings. The exposure of the underhand dealings of the Scottish Government is useful.
Gary45% “ Tell you what, how about some of you shouting for the resignation of Waffle Johnson and the most corrupt, inept, useless, lying, self serving, narcissistic shower of thieves this country has ever had to endure.”
As opposed to shouting for the resignation of one of his key accomplices?
@bipod, 3.29
NS says these new measures are backed by the science and there is no alternative
My first reaction was to quote the late James Sanderson “Bunkum”. My second reaction was to ask “whose science?” The advice of Professor Fergusson and SAGE has caused immense and irreparable collateral damage. Why continue to follow it?
@Sarah says:
7 October, 2020 at 5:23 pm
“I think being FM and SNP leader is too big a job for one person right now because there is the independence project to be driven on.”
Fair point, but goes against “protocol” across global democracies. I can’t of any country leader that was not also the leader of their party.
Such a situation is probably asking for trouble, and could cause a lack of public confidence. The key factor would be is the FM implementing policies for the benefit of the entire population, or simply to drive independence through?
The other question would be who would be the true leader? The Greens have suffered with their ludicrous “co-convenor” positions in the past.
Appointing someone to public office for the role of planning independence is a tricky one as well. Unless there is a “Yes” vote, how can the expense to the taxpayer be justified?
I’m not against the suggestion, merely thinking out possible issues it would cause.
I see Wings has updated the article and furthered our understanding of this particular lie. As I suspected, it was more to do with the two hats which Ruth Davidson alluded to rather than any underlying conspiracy.
It is plainly obvious to me that a part of the Independence movement is after the scalp of the first minister.
Can I ask them who they think would be the new leader to take us to the next stage.
The obvious choice to me would be Joanna Cherry but I cannot really see her gaining the support for the YES vote that Nicola Sturgeon has built up over recent years.
The rest of the candidates are IMO just nobodies or yesterday’s men/women.
The “long term effects of covid” thing is a total red herring that has conveniently came up now that it has been decisively proven that for the under 55 demographic this virus is about as dangerous or less dangerous than flu. Of course there are some long term symptoms but that is true of every respiratory virus it is not unique to covid.
There is just so much wild conspiratorial speculation around so called “long covid”, I have seen people claiming that it can change your “mental state”, cause joint pain, cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia and I even read a story this morning claiming it may cause male infertility. It is just another form of the covid hysteria, in a few months time we won’t be hearing anything about it.
The rule of six, mask wearing and all the other restrictions clearly have not worked or made any difference at all. These new restrictions will not work either. I know people intuitively think that if we all wear masks, reduce contact with people and shut down everything that must stop the spread of the virus, but the reality is much more complicated than that. There is still no evidence that shows any correlation between lockdown and successfully controlling the virus.
Not all experts agree with the governments current policies. Over 5000 experts and medical practitioners have signed a petition calling for a more focussed approach link to gbdeclaration.org
This is like living through a live version of A House of Cards, what amazes me most about the whole sordid affair are the amount of Indy supporters who feel we should just ignore the fact that a small cabal of power hungry people tried to destroy an innocent mans life and not just any man, one who has spent his life fighting for his people and his country and the only real threat we had to the union, some may be willing to forgive and forget, I certainly am not, I want to see every one involved end up in the docks, Scotland should never forget or forgive these rogues.
Maybe she could write a Book about it!!
After all its all she has achieved in the 6 years at the Helm. She reads plenty so writing a Book will be no problem.
I have a title ‘ From Here to Oblivion’ is my choice
@gullaneno4
Cherry is indeed the obvious candidate, and streets ahead of the FM both intellectually and in terms of her outlook.
She has the added advantages:
– not having lied to parliament
-not being in hock to a-scientific gender woo flat-earthers
– wanting to take the fight to the enemy rather than sit about for the next 5-10 years on the promise of that Gold Standard #indyref2 being graciously allowed by Westminster
Perhaps the question you ought to be asking is why wouldn’t anyone sane prefer Cherry to be in charge?
Stuart Mackay: “I think they got caught up in the whole #MeToo fervour and wanted a big name scalp to burnish their credentials. Weinstein II if you like.” Definitely part of this whole fiasco. Vengeful, hateful, jealous manhaters in government wanting revenge on one of the most important Scottish men in history, knowing they could never reach his achievement heights, and riding on America’s ideologically retarded coattails as usual. Why have they not learned yet that impersonating American idiocy leads nowhere but the gutter?
The remit literally says
– 5 (ii) whether there code has been breached?
How does that equate to the panel not being asked to check whether the code has been breached?
“World beating track and trace by the 1stJune 2020” was the cry from Waffle Johnson.
£12 billion spaffed away, feathering the nests of his Tory cronies,+ another £370 million wasted on PPE which will be in the back pockets of even more Tory cronies, and Sturgeon is the baddie in this sorry saga?
The UK is FKD because of Johnson and his sorry excuse of a government, I accept the Scottish Government are not perfect, but its Champions league compared to Johnsons Sunday pub league.
On the covid-19 restrictions, let’s clarify what’s actually going on.
1) the big driver of increasing infection rates is schools, but more recently colleges and universities. Everyone knows this. The data is there for all to see.
2) the new restrictions won’t make a blind bit of difference; transmission rates will continue to rise dramatically and we will probably need to go into full lock down for longer than would have been necessary if people faced the truth of point 1 above earlier.
3) despite the daily song and dance act, Sturgeon has very little influence over any of this. The strategy comes from head office in Westminster.
Instead of telling us the truth, Sturgeon couldn’t resist the temptation to jump in front of the cameras and do her Mother Theresa act. Being liked is her obsession and it overrides everything.
Had she told us the truth, it could have been part of a hugely compelling argument for independence; more compelling than even Brexit. Instead we have this diseased mess and a pile of crap about young people and pubs.
I am almost starting to enjoy this for the reason that it is obvious that while these people are vicious nasty bullies in the extreme they are also hilariously incompetent and thick as pig shite.
None of them were picked for their competence or intelligence and it is really showing. Their evilness is only matched by their ability to fuck everything they try to do majestically up.
For example Murrell’s excuses… wow he actually thinks people will believe that risible shite. He will be telling us he does not sweat next.
@ Beaker: you are right – this is a difficult subject to find an answer to.
The government does govern “for the whole country” BUT this doesn’t mean they are neutral/consensual – it is always government according to the policies of the party in power.
So independence should be the “flavour” of an SNP government.
Nicola is always saying that she has to concentrate on governing, and on covid, so she is not, and cannot, be working for independence at the same time. Apparently she is abandoning that aspect – not merely delegating it to her deputy leader, Keith Brown. And no-one seems able to make her change her priorities.
Clearly she is also determinedly sticking in place, as is Peter Murrell. So really perhaps what we need is a Leadership
challenge – but no-one is coming forward to do it.
My thinking in suggesting separating the Leadership role from
the FM role was to take the controversy out from Nicola being sidelined in the work for independence because so many Members think she is attracting No voters to Yes and fear that votes will be lost in the 2021 election.
Does a party leader need to cost the public purse? I wouldn’t have thought so. Is it not a party cost? [I would do it free!]
Gary45%, when you described the Scottish government as “Champions league”, did it occur to you to explain why you believed that?
Or do you just shout random crap in support of Sturgeon without compunction? Is that what you are reduced to?
I see public health ethics and the principle of equality of law are coming under attack again.
Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Pathophysiology, Epidemiology, Clinical Management and Public Health Response
link to frontiersin.org
When the schools are closed for the holidays, transmission rates will drop. When they go back, they’ll rise again. That’s pretty obvious to anybody and shows that Mrs. Murrell and the rest of them are just playing a big game because if they weren’t, they’d do something serious.
They won’t close the schools because people will have to take time off work and look after the kids. It’s the economy, stoopid! Mind you, that won’t be much of a problem for those in the hospitality sector because Mrs. Murrell is doing her best to relieve them of any employment obligations.
So, they keep on with this charade that the schools are safe to remain open.
It’s a fucking game.
The fact Murrell wanted police to investigate and presumably believed the complainers is not evidence of a stitch up
The fact Sturgeon hasn’t got a meeting date right, or even if she’s “lied” to Parliament about that isn’t evidence of a stitch up either.
Looks more to me like a leadership that wanted to cut Salmond loose the minute they heard the nature of the allegations and how it would blow up the party and cause if they were seen to help him.
Margaret Ferrier for new leader of the SNP because she obviously doesn’t give a fuck what anybody thinks and that’s what independence needs, someone who can just focus on the matter at hand and not allow outside distractions to bother them.
She is just playing us.. BADLY!
From Martin Keatings today..
“ Now onto the troubling issue
As you are all aware, the Scottish Government withdrew from proceedings, indeed this is what has caused the disruption with re-writing the record and the primary reason we’re having to move the by-order roll hearing to the 4th of November while a formal amendment procedure is going on (compulsory 4-week time limit).
On the 1 st of September, the First Minister stated in her programme for Government speech that she intended to bring a “draft bill” before the Scottish Parliament before the next election. You will note the term “draft bill” not “bill”. Which means it will simply be published, not voted on. We have established that this bill is anticipated to be laid before the parliament in the first 3 weeks of March 2021.
Unfortunately, the words spoken during that speech do not seem to track with what we are seeing in this case.
At page 126 of the programme for Government, it makes mention of there being no “moral” or “democratic” justification for the UK Government failing to acquiesce to an order in council under Section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998. It is noted, however, that that passage did not include the words “legal justification”. Indeed, it is also noted that on that same page it states, “it will clearly not be possible to organise and hold an independence referendum that is beyond legal challenge before the end of the current Parliamentary term next year.” Which is a clear admission by the Scottish Government that they expect the UK Government to challenge any bill for a second referendum when it is put to the Scottish Parliament formally.
The First Minister has for all intents and purposes stated the SNP’s intention to stand on the promise of this draft bill, which should the Scottish electorate cast its votes in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament elections, the SNP risks perpetrating a fraud on the electorate if the election campaign is conducted on the basis that Scottish National Party is asking people to vote for it to carry out a measure in government – to introduce an independence referendum Bill before the Scottish Parliament – but where there has been no legal clarification as to the constitutionality of the Scottish Parliament legislating for such a bill.
In other words, the SNP is saying it will put a bill to the Scottish Parliament either, with a section 30 order (which there is virtually no hope of getting) or a bill without a section 30 order which it knows would be immediately challenged by the UK Government creating exactly the same scenario as what happened with the continuity bill – and the exact scenario we’ve been warning about for the past year. That is the same as promising something it knows it may not be able to deliver, while also giving the UK Government an open goal to trash any bill it might put forward. It is the 2021 version of “give us a mandate”.
link to r.mail.crowdjustice.co.uk
Just remember my “cunning plan” of sacrifice from a few weeks ago.
Independence will get a massive boost when Joanna Cherry takes over.
How does it feel living in a dictatorship? Hope you all Have a good supply of masks
see if you’ve got evidence of a stich up go and tell us what it is because somebody not getting a date right isn’t it.
Schools are off from Friday. Except Edinburgh which is next friday. Hard to believe the bairns have been back for twa months already.
@Ross
From where most of us are standing, the party seems to be making a pretty good fist of blowing itself up now, having tried and failed to fit Alex Salmond up.
Believing in the face of the evidence now that they are just incompetent not actually criminal isn’t the recommendation you appear to think it is.
@Andy – Without using evading language, what’s the evidence of criminality please? More than willing to be convinced.
Helen Yates @ 5.49
“I want to see every one involved end up in the docks”
I used to work in Leith Docks and, ‘forshore’ (excuse me, Graeme Souness), some folks did end up there.
Ross the Sturgeonite SNP staffer is back to try and spin things. Except he’s pure rubbish at it.
@Andy in additon to my question above, i should note I like Salmond and I’m glad he was found not guilty but there is absolutely no evidence that the party sought to put him behind bars. People keep saying this without any evidence and the more they say it, they more they believe it.
@ Rev Stu EDIT: chatted to a couple of people and realised why hiding the 29 March meeting rather than the 2 April one is important – it’s because the March one was on Scottish Government premises, which means it was government business (you’re not allowed to do party business in the Parliament), but it wasn’t recorded as such, so they had to try to conceal it. Have added that to the article.”
I have my doubts about this reasoning.
Playing devils advocate, suppose I was an employee in Westminster, and I wanted to make a formal complaint of harassment / civil or criminal against a recent former Prime Minister, a member of the current PM’s party. Only someone of a PM’s rank would be able to ensure fair procedures were followed.
Likewise, if my employment roll within that government was in a position of trust to Government ministers (of any rank) and there were reasonable causes to suspect I was making false / malicious allegations, once again it strays into the realms of Government business.
I would suggest an allegation of that nature becomes both party and PM/Government business, including from the point of view of employment law.
In addition, it was at the height of initial Covid lockdown procedures, with emergency demands on the FM’s time. For her to have left HR for a neutral (and of necessity) discrete venue would have taken several hours out of her day – which anyone in her position under those circumstances, simply would not have had available.
In view of that, I’m sure she could have declared this meeting for all of the above reasons and if fault was found – offered up genuine apologies.
Has Mr Murrell produced the letter of resignation from Mr Salmond?
In his public statement, Mr Salmond writes that he will re-apply for membership once his name has been cleared. Surely, as very old acquaintances and colleagues, Mr Murrell would have had the courtesy (if nothing else) to respond to such a letter and surely Mr Salmond wrote a letter of resignation to the SNP and surely the SNP needed to contact him to return a portion of his subscription to the party? Mr Murrell must have had some communication with Mr Salmond about all of this.
haha i’m an SNP staffer for asking for evidence. it’s not spin that wings has erred here. He says the remit doesn’t include checking if the code has been breached when 5 (ii) of his evidence literally says just that…
that’s just one inaccuracy.
OK, let’s get real. Murrell takes the rap and resigns. She states her intention to retire and in return for the party letting her go quietly, she drops GRA bollocks and purges the NEC of the woke entryists. Then Joanna Cherry can take over and get the whole independence issue back on track.
@Ross,
Your hiding behind facts that cannot be revealed by court order and which would explain many things.
If the Rev and Craig Murray, who are both in the know, tell you there is much to be revealed, you should pay attention.
-Ross-
If Sturgeon and Murrell were just sitting in their house one night and got told that Salmond had been charged with sexual offences, then yeah, fair enough, cutting him loose would have probably been the necessary thing to do, for the overall good of the party and, okay, for their own self-preservation.
But their involvement goes rather deeper than that, doesn’t it?
Furthermore, Sturgeon’s forgetfulness about her meeting with Aberdein is…questionable. I can only speak from experience but I can remember fairly accurately where I was and what time it was that I heard certain bits of shocking news. It’s not a bit of juicy gossip, it refers to an allegation that a man she worked alongside for years raped her close colleague. You remember things like that.
Besides which, does she not claim “I do not recall when and where I met Geoff Aberdein”, implausible though that is. She claims, “I do not recall my meeting with Aberdein at all”- something which I find virtually impossible to believe.
Ross says:
7 October, 2020 at 6:27 pm
@Andy in additon to my question above, i should note I like Salmond and I’m glad he was found not guilty but there is absolutely no evidence that the party sought to put him behind bars. People keep saying this without any evidence and the more they say it, they more they believe it.
How naive can you be?
What do you think the punishment for attempted rape is?
So many, many SNP members are a cross breed of Lemmingsheep and it does NOT help the cause of Scottish Independence one iota.
Can you give ONE instance of how the party attempted to assist Mr Salmond in his ordeal? And has the party made any statement since? Mr Murrell is so careful to separate Government from Party business and yet not once has he said that the SNP would be delighted were Mr Salmond to rejoin them now that the trial is over. Time to find the key to wind up your brain Ross.
Daisy, I believe the meeting was in 2018, not this year. See the grey bit in the article, just below the YouTube video. So I disagree with your COVID argument.
If it was government business, shouldn’t it have been in the diary? With FOIA, I should imagine it is critical that this be kept up. I try to believe that issues such as this are more incompetence than conspiracy. However, I find it hard to believe that she forgot about the meeting with Geoff Aberdein. Even if she did, surely she should have come clean as soon as someone jogged her memory? I cannot imagine that the penalty for conducting party business (and I take your point it may have been government business) is more serious than having to resign over telling a lie to parliament.
Gary45% @ 5.58
Champions league?
The tories and their cronies haven’t pocketed the billions, its all in offshore accounts accruing interest, so that when brexit goes through,theyll come and buy everything they can in Scotland.
all thanks to Scotlands inept “leaders” action over the last 6 YEARS!
O/T
On a previous thread Scozzie was kind enough to reply to my post.
And in my reply,i finished with,WTAF,it should have read, WTAF are the SG playing at?
My humblest apologies if misconstrued
link to ucsusa.org
Quote from the above “The news media needs to responsibly cover COVID-19 news by interviewing health experts, directing readers to official sources, and debunking disinformation. Social media companies have taken some steps toward removing harmful disinformation from their sites, but more must be done to improve transparency and to reduce the echo chamber effect”.
I BELIEVE THAT’S CALLED CENSORSHIP.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is plainly concerned about suppressing opinions that do not accord with its own.
Daisy Walker says “it was at the height of initial Covid lockdown procedures”!! Daisy, do wake up! In attempt to justify the FM’s behaviour you’ve blamed Covid. Only problem is- the meeting was in 2018-Covid was this year 2020. Try again! But 10 out of 10 for “loyalty to the Party Leader”.
Thanks Sarah and I agree with you.
Balaaargh,
I understand your point of view, however where you see a problem, I see an opportunity.
The people who are at less risk from the virus (under 50s) than we all are from the flu should be allowed to go about their business normally (I am not in this category). These people will not be a burden on the NHS.
Those at a higher risk should protect themselves from the virus.
There is very little downside to this and there are plenty of positives.
CBB,
No environment is completely safe, just acceptable risk factors.
Poor Alex Salmond. All the Nicola luvvies telling him and us to prove his allegation against Nicola and the rest whilst fighting with his hands ties behind his back by court orders preventing him from revealing the truth.
I believe Alex to be an honourable man.I believe what he said outside the court. I believe him rather than Nicola.
@Bob Mack
Agreed.
Ross says:
7 October, 2020 at 6:06 pm
The fact Murrell wanted police to investigate and presumably believed the complainers is not evidence of a stitch up
The fact Sturgeon hasn’t got a meeting date right, or even if she’s “lied” to Parliament about that isn’t evidence of a stitch up either.
Looks more to me like a leadership that wanted to cut Salmond loose the minute they heard the nature of the allegations and how it would blow up the party and cause if they were seen to help him.
……………………………………………….
How come you’re so certain it wasn’t a stitch up Ross?
It took well over a year to come up with an attempt at a Moorov prosecution.
One of the charges was dropped before it came to trial
Another of the ‘charges’ wasn’t even a charge because it took place abroad and the Scottish courts had nothing to do with it.
We know what happened to the remaining charges:-)
Want to know what I think?
The Scottish Government internal cabal tried to get in on the ‘me too’ act and make a name for themselves.
Somebody mentioned Mr Salmond and one other person joined in. The plea of ‘consent’ was accepted against one of those people and it was heard in court that she had sex with Mr Salmond a year earlier. Once the gossip of ‘me too’ had been slipped to the newspapers there was no going back for some folk.
However, I’m no lawyer, but I think that charges of rape and sexual assault have to be brought by individuals and cannot be brought by a company on behalf of individuals, therefore the Government involvement in collecting and collating information against Mr Salmond was illegal and he could have taken them all to the cleaners. I can’t help but feel that after the Inquiry, Mr Salmond allowed breathing space for them to retract and apologise – instead they concocted a whole string of accusations, just so that they wouldn’t be shown up to be useless idiots. They chose sending Mr Salmond to prison over saving face.
That’s my narrative and I’ll stick to it for now. However I’m with Heraclites and I am prepared to change my opinion should further evidence come to light.
The only things I doubt I will ever change is my admiration and respect for the way Mr Salmond has behaved and conducted himself throughout this sorry business. AND my admiration for Stuart Campbell, another man who sticks to his word and his principle whatever the world may try against him.
I’m not claiming I’m right. BUT Mr Salmond has never wavered in his declaration of ‘innocence’ and he has shown himself to be strong , honest and able to face his own demons. These are not the traits of a man who could be accused of being a sexual predator, which is what the Moorov doctrine was attempting.
The ‘woke’ (for want of a better description) brigade around Sturgeon have shown themselves to be poor philosophers and philologists but they are very good at being downright nasty and their self-centred egotistic attitude towards anyone who doesn’t agree with them makes them capable of carrying out awful deeds with complete self-justification.
When the truth comes out on this, and I mean the whole duplicitous truth and nothing but the duplicitous truth, as I’m sure it will, the way Sturgeon strings Salmond along as evinced in the materials released today could make her look very bad indeed. I’ll just leave that there, though, for now…
It is completely unacceptable that the first minister thinks reference to a hashtag (#metoo) in some ways validates any aspect of her decision making. Is she really that lightweight? Or is this a desperate attempt to convince us that she was motivated by some ethical considerations rather than the selfish and ruthless pursuit of power?
In the released materials, note the repeated references to attempts to direct Salmond attention to the supposed substance of the allegations rather than process. But Salmond knew the substance was crap and he was never going to be tricked like that.
This is really tawdry stuff, well and truly in the gutter.
Breastplate @ 7.12pm.
That very much sounds like – “stay in the hoose ya auld bat you’ve hud your fun”
Do you think that old people over 50(gasp,50) old as you say! should stay in and the young will sort it all out?
Let me tell yi, 90% of the over 50’s service a huge part of the economy with shekels during day and night!. How the effing fuck is that going to solve anything?
The under 50s don’t spend their day at pubs,restaurants, shops and other facilities do they,well 95% don’t.
The duplicitous Sturgeon and Murrell, will try and ride out this storm by focusing on the machinations of the Tory government towards Scotland via thing s such as the Internal Market bill.
Her trusted lieutenants will help push this head turning agenda until the next Scottish elections ,by then Sturgeon and Murrell will hope that this whole sordid affair will just be a distant memory, and they can get back to pushing their unpopular wokest policies, and lining their pockets.
Independence won’t even come into it.
Get Salmond and Cherry back in sharpish. Clear out the woos. Sorted. Needs to be very soon.
Ayrshire Bob,
Tell me and take as much time as you need, is it better for society to have everyone self isolating regardless of risk or to have only the people at risk self isolating?
CBB at 6.05 – You kindly provide a link to help educate us. It provides 360 articles x 2648 authors.
Could you slim it down a bit, please?
*Rob that should be, my apologies.
Breastplate
We are faced with the choice of taking a relaxed approach to public health, and so privileging short-term economic recovery over sustainably robust economic health. This is one of the driving motivations of the radical right, who do not support the principle of equality in law. Or we can priorities public health and support the potential to realise the principle of equality in law, and the subsequent sate of democracy that entails. 😉
P.S. the principle of equality in law does not empower minors with the capacity to give legal consent to gender re-assignment, as they lack the mental capacity to conceive the holistic scale and scope of the decision they are being empowered to take. Insisting they are capable of making such life changing decisions when not sufficiently competent, undermines child protection law.
Equality and
discrimination :
understand the
basics
link to archive.acas.org.uk
sog
I’m doing my best mate. This bug is nasty and we’re not going to get around it, and discriminating on the basis of biological vunerablity to a particular disease simply won’t help. So the only way we can get on top of it is be privileging the security of public health in public policy. I’m afraid it’s not my job to make sure that happens though.
link to openscholarship.wustl.edu
Sorry CBB,
Your whole argument is premised on your belief that you are right, I simply disagree with you, I’ve disagreed with you for a goodly amount of time now, certainly enough to know that you are steadfast in your view no matter what information is laid before you.
So let’s just agree to disagree.
@Breastplate,
“These people will not be a burden on the NHS.”
That statement is a stunning generalisation of the risks involved.
“Those at a higher risk should protect themselves from the virus.”
What do you think we’ve been doing? And to further Ayrshire Bob’s point, have you looked at a population pyramid for Scotland recently? We’re not talking about a few folk in care homes, this is pretty much half of Scotland’s population!
No need to take a long time.
Simple,we’re all equal are we not? When you start separating age groups in society then we’re done for.
I’m not sure non-government usage of the FM’s office on 29th March is the reason for the lack of clarity, there are probably informal conversations that take place all the time. Who was privy to the conversation that took place ? Nobody was there in a ‘party’ capacity as I understand it. GA & the Gaffer did not know who the accusers were at this point, not all of them anyway, it was apparently a Government investigation, as far as they knew. I hope nobody was lurking. Who keeps the diary ?
Hi Daisy Walker at 6:27 pm.
You typed,
“In addition, it was at the height of initial Covid lockdown procedures, with emergency demands on the FM’s time. For her to have left HR for a neutral (and of necessity) discrete venue would have taken several hours out of her day – which anyone in her position under those circumstances, simply would not have had available.”
As others have pointed out, the meeting under question took place on the 29th March, 2018.
For those who wish to refresh their memory of who was at that meeting and to show that this matter wasn’t just reported in Scotland, check out this page from the Shropshire Star.
link to archive.is
To get the important context of that 29th March meeting, at this link to the Garavelli article, read the short paragraph that begins,
“The second woman was Nicola Sturgeon. She too was said to be on the witness list though never called. And yet, she was omni-present. Every time her name was mentioned, political journalists pricked up their ears.” (The interesting bit is after that quote.)
link to archive.is
That paragraph is quite far down the page.
Do you know what.
Above all else, the Murrell’ S administration is tired. Sturgeon ran out of good ideas 4 years ago. She has nothing dynamic to offer Scotland. It’s just constant tinkering with limited powers.
Bringing Cherry in would give us fresh ideas. Above all else it would bring the real nationalists back on board. It will increase the turnout at the election. We won’t mind Joanna asking for a mandate, because she has never had one.
Nicola has had at least 3 , people just can’t be arsed playing her games anymore.
Getting rid of Sturgeon will not destroy independence. It will save it.
Breastplate
I’ve no problem with that, but my perspective is critically informed and legally sound, so is capable of supporting public health. Your’s isn’t. Apparently.
Inquiry
An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Volume 53, 2010 – Issue 3
Equality in Law and Philosophy
link to tandfonline.com
Been many years since I have commented here. Anyway. One for the road.
Anyone who still doubts there’s a serious problem at the heart of the Sturgeon/Murrell control of the party is sadly deluded.
I have watched since 2014 and raised concerns with media, elected members and party members and yet few took any real interest. Vividly remember, in 2015, raising the dearth of reporting on the husband/wife situation with a well known journalist who said; ‘yes I agree but no one will go on the record’ WHAT?
As a recent Chris Cairns cartoon on Trump illustrated, chickens come home to roost.
Sadly the SNP is a pretty unhealthy party; elected members brief against colleagues, regularly tip off the media,operate in cliques and currently have little or no appetite for another independence referendum.
The power at the top is Nicola Sturgeon/Peter Murrell/Sue Ruddick/Shirley Anne Somerville/Liz lloyd and assuming he’s still there SNP lawyer Scott Martin – who has heard of him? Have you? Yet he’s still listed as the secretary and a director of Yes Scotland.
The sooner this current set up is dismantled, the better. I am not an SNP member, never have been but am a supporter of an independent Scotland.
Balaaargh,
No it is not a generalisation, the risk factor to the under 50s has been measured at 4 to 5 times lower than the flu amongst the general population.
I’m arguing that we don’t need to imprison nearly an entire nation in another lockdown like some people are calling for.
What have we been doing so far?
I don’t know what we’ve been trying to do, I have no idea what the strategy is now, I knew what it used to be but I’m quite willing to listen to somebody who knows what we are trying to do.
What is the strategy?
Is it containment?
Is it delay? If so to what end?
I’m all ears
CBB,
Yeah, I get it , you’re right and I’m wrong.
@ A Person at 5.23
I read that and thought “don’t they have juries in the US?”
So I checked:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Some jurisdictions do indeed only use judges, but there are many others where jury trials take place in some circumstances.
I also looked at this : link to en.wikipedia.org
and discovered something I didn’t know –
“Once all the prosecution evidence has been given, the jury may at any time, of its own motion, decide to acquit the defendant. Few juries will realise that they have this power unless advised by the judge. Such judicial intervention is deprecated by the Court of Appeal and, as of 2007, is rarely exercised.”
(In the equivalent article about Scotland, there is no mention of this power.)
Ayrshire Rob,
I’m not discriminatory, the virus is.
Breastplate
Yes, that’s correct. Otherwise you would be able to prove me wrong. No?
@Sarah says:
7 October, 2020 at 6:03 pm
“So really perhaps what we need is a Leadership
challenge – but no-one is coming forward to do it.”
Probably because it is a high risk move, and as things currently stand there is not enough cause – although that could change in a heartbeat.
There seems to be a lot happening just now, some of which could damage the SNP. Maybe everyone just wants to lie low until things calm down a little.
@Alwi 7.39: Chung with clicky-ba? I enjoyed that. Hotspur?
I’m finding it strange that we have new restrictions in urban areas in Scotland yet London, with more than twice our population, has none.
CBB,
Is that the exact same way that you proved me wrong?
Patrick Roden says ” We love Alex and will never ever stop standing by his side and never stop making sure we completely clear his name, which BTW the court case should have done, but because you were so determined to destroy him, you went bleating to your friends in the press to further demonise him.
So now the only way to clear Alex Salmonds name, is to make sure each and every one of you faces a trial and possible (I hope) jail term, for your disgusting conspiracy.”
I agree wholeheartedly, Patrick. They started digging a hole with their smutty made-up allegations, and then they just kept on digging. Even though they lost the first court case, such was their venom that they just had to keep on digging. They lost the criminal court case, and yes, they have kept right on digging with the help of the likes of Garavelli in the press. Well, that hole they dug is just about big enough now to bury them all, and here’s hoping they get the shove at the perfect time. All of them. Women like the alphabet soup disgust me, they bring all women into disrepute and undermine the potential for justice in real genuine complaints of horrible sexual assaults.
And still the level of betrayal by politicians that so many of us trusted and even admired – swinney, robertson, sturgeon, et al – hurts. They all deserve all bad things which are hopefully coming to them now.
Definitely time for popcorn now, things are becoming interesting again.
Had campaign leaflets for 2021 election from John Scott and Douglas Ross today. Not surprisingly they have the same ideas as a large number of posters on here, that the SNP are bad, not to be trusted and need to be damaged as much as possible.
Apparently support for Independence is polling around about 55%, the British Nationalists are worried and this time want to keep talk of Scottish Independence on the back burner.
Many years ago I was told by a fellow SNP member that the place to go for good information on the ’cause’ was here, doubt if he’d push it forward now.
When you stand side by side with Ruth, Richard, Willie and almost all the MSM in an effort to ensure the SNP fail to win a majority, then Independence for Scotland certainly is not your main goal.
I am proud of my local MP Philippa Whitford, she is an excellent representative for our area. Philippa without doubt like all the members I have came into contact with in the SNP are there because they believe in Scottish Independence.
Without the SNP there would be no fight for Scottish Independence.
Without the SNP there would never have been a devolved parliament.
Without the SNP competent government, support for Scottish Independence would never be at the level it has reached.
Without the SNP this site would never have existed.
SHAZBOT!
Further to my comment at 8.08pm, I’ve just realised that I can link directly to that paragraph in the Garavelli article:-
link to archive.is
Clearly the virus disproportionately effects older folks, that is one of the unique things about this virus. Rather than taking a more focussed approach and advising (not requiring or mandating) that everyone in a vulnerable category should isolate or take precautions if they feel vulnerable, we are using the sledge hammer approach of forcing everyone to lockdown even if the risk posed to them is extremely negligible. That is not a long term sustainable approach.
I wonder if the people complaining about age discrimination here had the same outrage when nicola unilaterally banned students from going to pubs and restaurants. I doubt it.
Old Pete @8.38
There are good people within the current SNP including your local MP. The problem is the hierarchy who seem intent on ensuring independence never happens and that they keep their well remunerated colonial posts. Wake up Pete – nobody enjoys kicking the SNP but at the moment the Murrells and their acolytes need kicked out. Otherwise we will be kowtowing to Boris and his ilk in perpetuity.
I mentioned yesterday about Covid taking over threads – I hadn’t been aware this was happening.
Anyway, again reading comments about schools and universities being to blame for increases.
Not sure the data supports that theory. A quick glance at the Covid Daily dashboard and the last weeks new cases broken down into age groups is roughly:
15-24 years @1600
25-44 years @1300
45-64 years @1400
65 years + @440
That seems to imply that cases are widespread – yes schools and unis, but also workplaces, pubs, restaurants etc and that the elderly are continuing to self isolate regardless of actual rules.
Have a look at the data, this is what I was looking at
link to public.tableau.com
Breastplate
Exactly what background do you have in contemptary legal philosophy, phenomenological legal analysis, or policy design? I’m not being a conceited arse here, you are simply refusing to acknowledge I have professional insight you lack.
Handbook of Phenomenology and Medicine pp 87-108
The Phenomenology of Health and Illness
link to link.springer.com
-Crazycat-
The majority of the jurisdictions which use juries are former British colonies where English common law was imposed. So USA, Canada, India, Australia, NZ, Singapore, South Africa.
Most of the other countries appear to use them in very limited scenarios or in some cases (like Argentina) they have been introduced recently.
The emphasis on jury trials in Scottish and English systems stems, if I’m not mistaken, from the seventeenth century and fears about the king sending people to prison which culminated in the Civil Wars and the 1688 convulsions.
But you’ll see that Singapore has recently abolished jury trial by claiming that juries can be bused. They’re a major check on state power imo and should be guarded.
@BDTT –
Thanks for the link.
In the paragraph following the one you highlighted –
‘If she is found to have breached the ministerial code then her position will be challenged.’
That seems fair enough.
And it seems, from what we have seen today, that she did just that. Because she lied to the Scottish parliament.
Nicola Sturgeon had months to prepare her submission for the committee and account for discrepancies re significant dates and meetings. ‘I forgot’ is the best she could come up with?
Her ‘explanation’ is, literally, unbelievable.
It makes no sense to most indy supporters that she got herself into this situation and perhaps it never will, but the bare-arsed fact remains – she lied to the parliament and that is a breach of such magnitude that she must resign.
There’s no wiggle room here, and those casting around for excuses are either in denial or (unwittingly perhaps) condoning the misleading of parliament.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow at FMQs.
(I take it there is a FMQs scheduled for tomorrow?)
There’s no one in lockdown.Hasn’t been for months. Stop f’ing lying.
So you don’t think the weans need a clip room the ear noo and again, naw.
Get them in the army and they’d be in for a shock if the think a couple weeks out of a pub is end of the world.
Aye and btw ,I like a bevvy like a lot of blokes but don’t drink in house.So
CBB,
Are you saying that only people who have a background in contemptary legal philosophy, phenomenological legal analysis, or policy design can be correct?
“I’m not being a conceited arse here”, I would also disagree with that statement.
@Breastplate,
“the risk factor to the under 50s has been measured at 4 to 5 times lower than the flu amongst the general population.”
Nice straw man, I never mentioned flu. You’re going to need to give evidence for that claim which gives a better definition of what that risk actually is rather than you stating “these people will not be a burden.”
“I’m all ears”
Nice deflection from my second point. I’ve already stated my view that this pandemic is a perfect example of the trolley problem. Other countries seem to have handled it much better, it’s not just about poor government measures but the buy-in and support from the population which decreases day after day in the UK.
Ayrshire Rob,
I’m sorry if this is confusing for you but some people on here have already been talking about the need for another lockdown like we had months ago.
No, I don’t think kids need a clip round the ear.
Ah I see Breastplate. So are you emulating there that covid is 4-5 times more more deadly that flu? Lol
Don’t tell bipod and ottomanbo whatever.
To Old Pete, Fuck off. It’s not the SNP that is at fault, just the leadership. Without this site and the WBB, we would have not even come close to winning in 2014.
If you’ve ever taken in anything that the Rev has been pointing out for years is that you should ALWAYS read past the headlines.
‘So what do the Great Barrington Declaration authors suggest we should be doing? “Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open…. Extracurricular activities, …, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open,” they write. Sound familiar? These are – more or less – the policies that the UK government has been following since September’
link to archive.is
Breastplate .No one wants to be locked down ,but when some people act like like arses and don’t follow simple instructions to try and mitigate things and help,this is the result. It was actually for your ally the ‘bipod’ that hates anything the Scot government does cos-for obvious reasons ,they ain’t wearing a yellow mask that’s for sure- tory through and through.
Here’s another letter to the committee, from Liz Lloyd.
I don’t understand why a government website, designed to be viewed publicly, doesn’t date the submissions. Unless I’m just missing it altogether, I don’t see any date on the letter, or beside its link. Likewise, the ‘new’ material from Nicola Sturgeon, Murrell and John Swinney earlier today would not have been immediately obvious to anyone who wasn’t familiar with what was already at the bottom of that list.
Anyway, this is worth a read, if for no other reason than it gets increasingly nippy as it goes on. (‘I’m a special advisor don’t you know – how very dare you ask me about that stuff!’)
link to parliament.scot
Hi Ian B.
Did you tie that paragraph in with the first link I gave at 8.08pm?
Balaaargh,
It’s not a straw man.
If the risk factor of 0.1% from flu is an acceptable risk that needs no lockdown then surely it follows that a risk of .02% certainly doesn’t.
If you concede that the older generation are more at risk then it follows that the younger generation are less at risk.
There is abundant information giving risk factors for each demographic.
No, there is no deflection.
Whatever strategy is in play is entirely pertinent to what argument is deployed. We initially had a containment strategy and then a delay strategy, these would have different supporting arguments.
I’m not sure what your second point was. If your second point was that it is better to have the whole population in lockdown rather than half then I would have to disagree with you.
The problem with the covid response is that the government started listening less to the science and more to business concerns.
Science brought the virus under control – but no knock-out punch because we need an effective vaccine to get the virus where it doesn’t spread as easily as it does now.
They didn’t listen to the Italians who said that the biggest mistake they made was delaying lockdown for three weeks so as not to upset business.
Science is going to have to bail us out again otherwise we will be back at March’s levels by the end of the month. That will mean a second lockdown which nobody wants.
Of course the covid-deniers will claim it’s not a second spike, because they said that would never happen.
@BDTT –
How do you mean ‘tie-in’?
Is there a hidden meaning?
😉
No Ayrshire Rob,
According to WHO, covid is 6 times deadlier than the flu amongst the general population but that does not correlate demographically.
@Ian Brotherhood I’m not sure she did lie in a deliberate sense, its being presented as a very informal meeting and certainly not party business, not entered in the diary, by whoever manages the diary. One wonders, very briefly, who GAs old colleague was and why he was visiting Holyrood. If I read Stu’s article again, it will all become clear I have no doubt.
I’ve gone back over WoS archives, trying to get the timeline of events a bit clearer in my head.
What a worthwhile exercise, if only to see how often we’ve had our hopes kicked into the long grass, again and again.
So, in case this is of help to others, and with obvious missing bits:
2017 Terrible May calls a GE and wins. AS loses his seat. NS takes IndyRef2 off the table. Now is not the time. A marked difference in her attitude is seen. Not until the Terms of Brexit are Known becomes the mantra.
The Brexit deadline time line is I think November 2018 ish.
Both Pete Wishart and Tommy Shepherd start to talk about ‘not until after Brexit and the hard effects are felt, should we go for IndyRef2’. PW is fully supported in this view by John Swinney.
November 2017 AS gets his own TV Show on RT. First Documentary ‘The Only Game In Town’ is aired on WOS.
Jan 2018
Sky News approaches the SNP re allegations of a sexual nature against AS. This may be the first complaint registered with Scot Gov against AS, or indeed the first complaint by employee may have been registered at this time, its not clear.
Feb 2018 Murray Foote Resigns from DR
March 29th 2018 NS meets with Aberdein (who is in parliament to see former colleague) and is informed of AS issue. Meeting takes place at Holyrood – and she later forgets the timing of this meeting possibly due to not being supposed to hold party meetings in this venue.
April 2018
2/4/18 thinks AS will resign
WM votes to illegally bomb Syria.
Legal appeal against Brexit begins.
22/4 AS sends NS message
May 2018 Brexit – attitudes to Indy due to Brexit, ways of gaining Indy all still being talked about.
31/5 AS sends message to NS requesting a meet.
June 2018
3/6/18 AS threatens legal action. Asks for Permanent Secretary to be notified re arbitration procedures.
6/6/18 PS notified by NS
7/6/18 NS meets AS alone
SNP high in Polls
13/6/18 SNP walk out of WM in protest at treatment of the Skye Banker and what was to become the UK Internal Market Bill.
Same Date Iain McWhirter writes about Devolution ending not with a bang but a whimper over this bill.
23/6/19 MSP Mark MacDonald scandal
July 2018
5th July meeting with AS
18/7/18 No further contact after this date
Wings over Scotland has its You Tube BBC content taken down without its knowledge by BBC in London.
August 2018
17th August WOS appears in court re Kezia Dugdale
19th August Campaign in Edinburgh by many English people campaigning for Peoples Vote on Brexit and begging Scotland to assist.
Kirsty Hughes – lobbyist for same – also showed up on list of ‘journalists’ who have received same ‘support as female journalist who was later quoted by Craig Murray and yet CM gets take to court over it. (Sorry forget her name, and can’t spell it anyway).
UK Brexit Appeal lodged
Allegations against AS made public. Civil law complaints, 2 complainers at this time. AS initiates record breaking fund raiser and instigates Judical Appeal.
30th August 2018 permanent Secretary Leslie Evans meets with Civil Servant Unions to attempt to gain support against AS.
Sept 2018 Polling shows support of Indy increasing due to brexit
Oct 2018 AUOB march – Edinburgh big turnout
Nov 2018 Brexit deadline reached – Transition period entered. No talk from NS or other top SNP members as to how we save Scotland. Not until the Terms of Brexit are Known is the mantra, and the sound of the can rattles down the road again.
Dec 2018
19th 12/19 Vote of No Confidence in Terrible May at WM. Boris elected. Actions by the Labour party ensure Brexit No deal is the only game in town.
January 2019
During this month or the next NS manages to recollect she had that meeting with Aberdeen on 29th March 2018.
8/1/19 AS wins Court of Judiciary process – procedure deemed unfair and tainted by apparent bias.
The Times calls for Leslie Evans to be sacked.
20/1/19 LE contract of employment extended (possibly with 20,000 £ pay rise)
From memory – it was within weeks of A initial win that Criminal Procedures were taken out against him.
Feb 2019 Brexit, nothing resembling a plan from the SNP
March 2019 Another Brexit Deadline comes and goes, no real progress, transition extended.
April 2019
24/4/19 NS puts before Holyrood legislation for HR to hold referendums without permission from WM
May 2019
6th May AUOB march in Glasgow 100,000
End May GE called for December
June 2019 GE talk
July 2019
4th July Mhairi Black post video of herself referring to all who have reservations about GRA Self ID as ‘Jeremy Hunts’.
August 2019
Westminster Brexit Coup
Polling shows Support for IndyRef2 growing
Sept 2019
WM unlawfully prorogued – as found by court
SNP policy now officially ‘Stop Brexit’ Full support for Peoples Vote on a second Brexit Vote
Oct 2019
SNP at WM prevent a Vote of No Confidence in Boris.
Tories High in polls (UK)
16th Oct 2019 – NS to demand powers for Holyrood to hold Referendums . Now openly calling for second Brexit ‘peoples vote’ on Brext.
Electorial Commission demand 9 months notice for any further Indy Ref.. Indy Ref 2 now pencilled in for second half of 2020. ‘Trust in Nicola’ becomes the theme.
Nov 2019 Only Game in Town part 2 is shown on WoS. Leslie Evens is named within for questionable actions.
Dec 2019 Wings over Scotland Twitter account suspended weeks, just weeks before AS trial is due to go ahead, following complaints from woke members of SNP. And just in time for the GE.
GE Neale Harvey and Denise Findlay suspended from SNP over dubious complaints, and with little regard for proper procedures for carrying out same.
SNP withdraws all funding for Neil’s GE campaign and instructs SNP supporters not to assist him. He gets elected anyway. Motive thought to have been for having singed the Womans Pledge, and complaints thought to have been instigated by Woke element within SNP.
Jan 2020
11/1/20 Boris says No
31/1/20 Brexit officially happens – NS gives much hyped speech during which it becomes apparent there was no Plan A, never mind a cunning plan B. ‘Trust in Nicola’ not such a good theme.
Feb 2020
Covid getting closer. GRA under ‘consultation’ open to every country under the sun to contribute. Somerville openly declares her determination to push it through. Only organisations openly biased in favour are getting ministerial time to present their case.
Polls show agenda to be major vote loser.
March 2020
23/3/20 AS trail – Cleared on all charges. Journalists with pro indy credentials excluded from the trial and subsequently charged with contempt of court for quoting main stream media reports verbatim.
Craig Murray the only journalist (as far as I’m aware) to record and publish, in any detail, the evidential statements given by defence witnesses. A trial in search of a crime, best description of it.
No comments of support, or compassion or relief of any kind toward AS and his wife, over whole debauchle.
Covid Lockdown begins.
NS unable to delegate to her Health ministers for press briefings even months down the line.
October 2020 – final transition period for Brexit deadline November – now approaching and No Deal the only thing on the cards.
Internal UK Market Bill passed at WM an open destruction of devolution and power grab. 3000 civil servants moved into Edinburgh to fascilitate same. SNP official policy – `now is not the time’ ‘Only when we can win’ Covid, covid, covid, look at the polls, look at the polls, look at the polls.
@Ayrshire rob
I am just pointing out the inconsistency of it. Many of the covid bedwetters on here were quite happy when nicola banned students from going out (effectively making it difficult for all younger people regardless if they are a student or not), but now you are saying that a more targetted approach focussed on the elderly is unfair age discrimination and a dangerous road to walk down? That’s ridiculous.
The lockdown has been continuing for 7 months now, it was eased but never was fully lifted. Of course it must be those nasty rule breakers that have caused the increase in the casedemic, not that these measures are all nonsense and don’t have anything scientific backing.
“It’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled”.
I don’t know what country you have been living in but according to the polls at least the Scottish people love lockdown and enthusiastically follow the restrictions, people like me who disagree with this are supposedly a tiny minority.
I always find it odd that so called nationalists like you think that the Scottish people are too thick manage their own risks and need someone like nicola to micromanage their lives for them.
Hi Ian Brotherhood.
A, B, C, D…
@Daisy Walker (9.37) –
Wow.
It shouldn’t be shocking to see how much has happened in the past couple of years but it really is.
Looks like the next couple of weeks/months could be every bit as eventful.
Here’s hoping we go into 2021 a wee bit closer to what we all want.
😉
Breastplate
I’m not claiming to be a better person than you, I’m simply pointing out I appear to be better prepared than yourself to support the rule-of-law and public health. So I’m more able to judge the likely socio-legal implications of public health policy choices.
There is no concept in pointing out facts of life in a non-demeaning, non-exclusionary, fashion. Perhaps you might acknowledge this. TA.
I also appear to be more competent the the party of hope’s NEC. Sigh.
link to journals.sagepub.com
I also appear to be more competent the the party of hope’s NEC. Sigh.
I’m still crap at proof reading. 🙂
George Wood,
What do you think the outcome would be if a thousand 18 year olds contracting the virus versus a thousand 80 year olds contracting the virus.
The number of infections are not really important, whereas who gets infected is.
Apologies for OT and if this has already been posted, and if this doesn’t convince people that there is something rotten at the heart of the SNP SG I give up.
The machinations and duplicity that Martin Keatings is FACING by the SG in an attempt to frustrate and divert an effort to gain our independence by an individual on OUR behalf is SICKENING and unbelievable.
I must ask are these BASTARDS any better or worse than WM bastards
link to r.mail.crowdjustice.co.uk
@BDTT –
Aaaarrrgh!
Too cryptic for me man, come on, spit it out!
What am I missing?
😉
Re my earlier post I got my years mixed up re Covid and the main bit of the Salmond incident kicking off in 2018. Its an age thing.
Sylvia, I was one of the first to have reservations about NS’s integrity, and got a severe kicking on this site for doing so.
I am still not convinced that NS’s meeting with Geof Aberdein on 29/3/18 within Holyrood could not have been genuinely argued as both party and Scot Gov business (different story if the complainers had not been employed within the Scot Gov environment, but since they were….who else would ensure a fair enquiry carried out on a former First Minister, than the current one – and I appreciate that is not what has happened).
So, I’m keeping an open mind that the reason she lied / forgot the date of this meeting might be for entirely other purposes.
Someone earlier posted, why lie, and the answer came back – to hide the truth. My question would be – which truth? the one you think they’re hiding or the one they don’t want you to know even exists.
I’m a bit of a cynic.
@Breastplate,
I challenged you about your statement about “not being a burden on the NHS.” You bring up flu (and don’t cite any evidence) and start arguing on a completely different point. Which you then double-down on.
That is called a straw man.
link to en.wikipedia.org
And I said no such thing about lockdown, stop trying to put words in my mouth. I won’t play your game of reductionism.
The story is in the British papers
The Times,
1)ALEX SALMOND INQUIRY
Alex Salmond inquiry: Nicola Sturgeon had ‘concerns’ harassment claims would emerge against Alex Salmond
2)The shine is coming off Nicola Sturgeon
A political and sexual scandal, not to mention rising cases of Covid-19, is eroding support for Scotland’s first minister
Telegraph
Nicola Sturgeon tells inquiry she ‘forgot’ key meeting in which she was told of Alex Salmond misconduct claims
First Minister vigorously denies being part of a ‘cover-up’ against her former mentor
All behind paywalls so I can’t access them
Financial Times.
“The handling of the allegations against Mr Salmond has become a political minefield for Ms Sturgeon since her Scottish government accepted in 2018 that an initial civil service investigation into them had been “tainted by apparent bias”.
link to ft.com
Even the Guernsey Press has a story about FM Nicola Sturgeon
“Sturgeon took three days to reveal legal action by Alex Salmond was likely”
link to guernseypress.com
I don’t know all the facts concerning the AS and NS saga – neither do you or anyone else apart from these two individuals. In time, we may learn what really happened, but for now, respectfully – it isn’t important given everything else we are facing.
Nicola Sturgeon has gained the respect of many outside Scotland and the independence community as someone who can speak for the ordinary person. She has rightfully gained trust with her handling of the contagion – and is the ONLY political leader on these islands who can navigate us through the difficult times ahead, without an internecine implosion.
We tcan ear each other apart as the chaos unfolds – or we set aside all our differences and come together in unity. To do the latter, we must all be prepared to sacrifice many things. We are on a new road with an altogether different destination to anything we could previously envisage.
Who else is able to speak for the majority – right here right now? Johnson? Starmer? Salmond? Cherry? Davidson? Campbell? Murray?
In your shibboleth: Get Fucking Real.
Have listened to about as much Radio Scotland ‘news’ as I can stomach for one day but can’t remember hearing a solitary word about the Sturgeon/Murrell/Swinney/Lloyd evidence finally being published by the ‘Salmond’ Committee.
Oh no, wait…they’re doing it right now on the 10pm news!
Aha!
😉
-Daisy Walker-
What an interesting and informative post, thank you.
-Iain Brotherhood-
Certainly seeping into the mainstream media now.
Breastplate
Sorry….There is no conceit, obvs. None intended anyway.
A critical evaluation of the use of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in Health Psychology
link to core.ac.uk
Time the bastards, like Mussolini, were metaphorically hung upside down from a lamp post.
Murrell and Sturgeon are scum, its coming out, and they need excised. Fuck them and their criminality.
Good stuff the Rev for exposing what they do, how they do it. But there comes a stage where enough is a enough. The SNP is already in chaos. There are no rules, only the malign corruption of these two and their clique, and the absolute vile manipulation of process.
And now Freeman wants to introduce Identity Cards, Pass Cards redolent of a 21st century apartheid South Africa. All for a good cause.
No chance bastards. We will resist. You and your filth will not prevail.
@tartanfever,
don`t know how relevent but the year gap seems a bit askew,
15-24 (9) years @1600
25-44 (19) years @1300
45-64 (19) years @1400
65 years + (?) @440
if they stuck to the 9 year gap it would show up the 15-24 as being (at least) double any other similar age range,
why Universities allowed `freshers week` to go ahead is criminal,and once all the studends sober up realise they are sick (don`t get tested cause that will put them on lockdown) they head back home and infection spreads throughout the nation.
Bipod @ 9.42pm
I’m quite capable of looking after myself thank you.I learnt at an early age how to cross the road,stay away from hot stoves etc. No one is standing at my door with a gun keeping me in the house.No one is micro managing my life,just giving me some advice on how to prevent the spread of a highly contagious disease that is killing people.
We don’t have a vaccine like the flu which protects the old and the young and we get on with it still people unfortunately die each year. You cannot have a contagion running riot at same time as other stuff .How bloody daft would that be? How many people would be overwhelming NHS,dying, also preventing the continuation of other important NHS treatments that you keep moaning about.Urgent cases never stopped.Now the routine stuff is getting done too you still whinge constantly .
Mitigations- You will have to suck it up- thems the consequences.
Am sure the crochet club will be open for you soon enough bit cold now though,no?
The problem we have in our persuit to remove Sturgeon is that about 95% of the Scottish population haven’t got a clue what we are talking about.
They see the Sturgeon who is saving Scotland from this evil Covid Virus.
And they still see Salmond as a bad guy who tried to rape a woman colleague.
Like it or not,,, that is the reality of the situation.
Try it for yourself.
Ask any ordinary, non political punter what they think of Nicola Sturgeon, and sure as hell you’ll get,,, “what a brilliant job she is doing”.
They haven’t a clue about what evil deeds she done to Alex Salmond.
Sturgeon knows this and is playing it up for all it is worth. Her tactics are,,,
Covid19, morning, noon and night,,,day after day after day, right up until the elections in May next year.
“They haven’t a clue about what evil deeds she done to Alex Salmond”
It doesn’t matter. If a minister lies to Parliament they have to go. Them’s the rules. What the public think doesn’t count for diddly.
Balaaargh,
Ffs what is so difficult to understand?
Who is less of a burden on the NHS, one thousand 18 year olds with the virus or one hundred 80 year olds with virus.
The younger generation have very little ill effects from the virus hence they won’t be going along to the doctor or the hospital hence no fucking burden on the NHS.
The problem we have in our persuit to remove Sturgeon is that about 95% of the Scottish population haven’t got a clue what we are talking about.
They see the Sturgeon who is saving Scotland from this evil Covid Virus.
And they still see Salmond as a bad guy who tried to sexually harass women colleagues.
Like it or not,,, that is the reality of the situation.
Try it for yourself.
Ask any ordinary, non political punter what they think of Nicola Sturgeon, and sure as hell you’ll get,,, “what a brilliant job she is doing”.
They haven’t a clue about what evil deeds she done to Alex Salmond.
Sturgeon knows this and is playing it up for all it is worth. Her tactics are,,,
Covid19, morning, noon and night,,,day after day after day, right up until the elections in May next year.
this is concerning
@’Skip_NC says:
7 October, 2020 at 6:50 pm
Daisy, I believe the meeting was in 2018, not this year. See the grey bit in the article, just below the YouTube video. So I disagree with your COVID argument.
If it was government business, shouldn’t it have been in the diary? With FOIA, I should imagine it is critical that this be kept up. I try to believe that issues such as this are more incompetence than conspiracy. However, I find it hard to believe that she forgot about the meeting with Geoff Aberdein. Even if she did, surely she should have come clean as soon as someone jogged her memory? I cannot imagine that the penalty for conducting party business (and I take your point it may have been government business) is more serious than having to resign over telling a lie to parliament.’
I got the 2018 bit wrong, sorry folks. With regards her meeting with GA – it could legitimately be argued it was as much Scot Gov business as party business – there is most certainly a cross over. If the meeting was off the cuff and short, is it possible it was missed in the official diary. Very probably. But then why not come clean about it at a much much earlier stage.
I’m not trying to defend NS. I’m just not buying this excuse as the real answer, It doesn’t fit. I’m open to the possibility something else is being hidden behind it.
ffs stu, who wooda thunk this even possible?
For anyone interested here is a paper discussing the UK lockdown in comparison to Sweden, its old but it is certainly relevant again.
link to arxiv.org
@scot finlayson
Yeah thats true, but there’s a whole load of information missing that would be required to make a thorough breakdown ie – population breakdown, no of tests for each group etc. So it doesn’t really matter about the precise breakdown of age groups.
The only tangible point I was making is that out of @ 5000 new cases that week, @3000 occurred in age groups over the age of 24 – which suggests that most new cases are not being found at schools and universities.
Those cases will be where 24 year old (and older) are to be found, ie work, home, bars, restaurants etc.
Ayrshire Bob. You’re clearly not about to lose your house and your job and everything else you sweated your arse off for decades for. I think those of us who are about to lose everything are perfectly entitled to question the government’s ridiculous lock down measures!
.
Old Pete,
You write that this site, Wings Over Scotland would not exist without the SNP. Then you have a rant about people on this site kicking the SNP.
Are you being obtuse, indolent or just stupid?
Aye, the old SNP brought good things. But to use your own vernacular, “people like you”, the willfully blind, lazy amadans bury your head in the ground and ignore the fact that the best First Minister Scotland ever had was stitched up by the current Woke infested leadership of the SNP.
Old Pete, you are right about one thing: this site would not exist if the SNP did not exist.
But take this one point and get yer erse out of yon armchair where you fail to read the facts the owner of this website researches and puts on here and know this…
The Woke SNP you defend are about to have Sturgeon acolyte number three Humza Yousaf bring the Hate Crime Bill onto the statute books.
If that Orwellian piece of legislation receives Royal Assent, Stuart Campbell will be closed down, or at best move to Iceland where their Modern Media Initiative will keep this site alive, but at a risk Stu, will end up getting stitched up.
If you doubt the McWoke SNP just go and read Stuart Campbell’s latest post on Twitter. Oh you can’t! Aye, because McWoke SNP and their ilk closed WoS Twitter down.
My Scotland is a tolerant place and I will be fucked right off if I am told what I can and cannot write, within reason, by the corrupt Woke fifth column that have their Duracell device right up the endorphins producing orifices of those Derek Mackay types who took over the SNP when Tractor Sturgeon took the turbo charged SNP and drove it into the ground.
‘Circling the wagons’ is one thing, but this is something else.
Hasn’t Margaret Ferrier been scapegoated enough already?
Weasel words about ‘friendship’, ‘heavy hearts’ etc – I have it on good authority that Margaret Ferrier hasn’t received so much as a ‘howyedoin hen?’ from any of them.
Utterly shameful.
link to twitter.com
Mango Armstrong.
How would you know ? You know nowt of my situation.
Mark Russell @10;00
“Nicola Sturgeon has gained the respect of many outside Scotland and the independence community”
That’s a good one – made me chuckle anyway.
Within the “independence community” however, the Empress has been seen to have no clothes and no intention of pursuing Indy. The double act performed by her and her husband is the political equivalent of a Victorian séance, with all the table-tipping, ouija boards and planchette now exposed as a cruel charade.
An impending hard Brexit, the UK Internal Market Bill, a Tory majority Govt, COVID-19 and inaction on the part of the SNP/Scottish Govt. have all combined to knock the likelihood of Indy back by a few years, irrespective of the recent polls.
Time then to do some badly needed house cleaning within the SNP – starting from the top!
@ Breastplate
Logically for your ideas to work, we would have to have those at greater risk to covid in full lockdown until this virus is under no longer a threat. We don’t know yet whether this virus mutates enough to render vaccination less effective and hence we don’t realistically how long the lockdown for the vulnerable would be.
Meanwhile those not at as much risk can carry on merrily infecting the population. Oh and this virus hits harder than flu – one of my colleagues, who is an extremely fit young man with no underlying conditions, has been poleaxed by this virus and can barely get out of bed.
-Ronald Fraser-
That’s what I was finding until about two weeks ago, however, the new lockdown is causing extreme fear among people for the reasons Mungo Armstrong names. So if people sour on NS just as this stuff all comes out, as it is coming out…
Look, it’s as simple as this. If you want to start discriminating against folk on the basis of their biology, then you do not support the principle of equality of law, you are, in fact, a bit of a
NaziTory.International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being Volume 1, 2006 – Issue 3
The “core category” of grounded theory: Making constant comparisons
link to tandfonline.com
I must have just imagined the mask wearing mandate, the fines, the rule of six, the encouragement to snitch on your neighbours and all the other threats the government has issued recently.
Yes lots of people die of the flu and all the other respiratory infections in larger numbers this time of year and that is despite the flu vaccine. But the idea that we take these exceptional and unprecedented measures to curb any of those other infections would have been considered ridiculous in any other year. It does raise an interesting question, despite the daily covid death count increasing somewhat there are still no excess deaths being recorded yet and curiously deaths from other respiratory viruses are only slightly below the average for this time of year. If it really is these restrictions that are keeping covid deaths so low, why has that not been reflected in the other deaths.
Anyway the NHS still is not back to normal service and won’t be getting back to normal service this winter as they have already been ordered to run lighter in anticipation of covid overwhelming the hospitals. This in the long run will have huge consequences and will kill people, and that is not even mentioning the collapsing economy which will also lead to many worse health outcomes for people that have been forced into poverty.
You can continue following the “mitigations” all you want that is your business. Just stop trying to force the rest of us to follow this nonsense.
Bipod
Sweden is 5 times bigger than Scotland in land mass.Twice the size of the UK. The population density is nowhere near the same as UK. If Sweden was same size as UK and had same population and density as UK -then what do you think their strategy would be then?
One country out of approx 200 and you tout that as a great panacea.We’ll see if the route Sweden took when the fire is out.
There is restrictions in Sweden and has been from start. Why is it you never compare them to Norway,their next door neighbour?
@bipod –
More power to ye.
I’m fed up going on about it but I suppose we can take turns!
For those who still haven’t watched it (CamB!), here’s the Fuellmich video again, before it vanishes from YT forever.
link to youtube.com
AH Bipod -the economy.
You won’t have any economy if half the bloody population is dead or in bed.
Those who seek to undermine social solidarity in the face of covi-19, really need to get a grip. You’re precious personal liberties won’t help you much if you are six feet under. And they are certainly not more valuable than the universal respect for the principle of equality in law. So you are simply being self-centered A-holes, but each to their own I suppose.
Restrictive and Expansive Views of Equality: A Grounded Theory Study That Explores the Influence of Racial Consciousness on the Behaviors of White Faculty in the Classroom
link to digitalcommons.du.edu
Good on Scotland Tonight eventually.You are getting there. The Murrells must be sweating unless of course NS is going to throw her husband under a bus. Nothing new there.
Simple question if I may.
What have the Westminster majority of SNP MP’s achieved.
Everyone still supporting Nicola Sturgeon is preventing us moving forward to independence. The people still clinging to ‘don’t say anything bad about the SNP’ are clinging to a meme probably created for this purpose – without Nicola Sturgeon gone and replaced, we will get nowhere. Everyone still equating Nicola Sturgeon to the SNP or Scotland is putting us and them to shame, and associating what appears to be a narcissistic sociopath, who has badly betrayed us all, with an institution and a country that still have some integrity.
Nicola Sturgeon does not = SNP, and does not = Scotland.
If Nicola Sturgeon truly believed in an independent Scotland – or rather, cared either way about the subject – well, none of this would of happened, but she would have stood down as soon as things started to go wrong,,, at any stage in fact. Clinging onto power now is an act beyond stupidity, and I doubt her mind lives in the real world.
She has revealed she knowingly lied to parliament, if she admits a meeting took place but it was not entered in her diary, she lied. She would have to take Aberdein to court and accuse him of lying under oath, to have any chance of wriggling out of that one. That she claims she forgot when she has been constantly reminded of the event,,, perpetuating the lie. She has no choice but to step down. But she’s embarrassingly clinging on.
I found Nicola Sturgeon’s submission to the committee interesting:
That she insisted repeating again and again that identification of the accusers should not be made. This is a court order, repeatedly emphasised by the court, why does she even need to mention it once? Because she cares so very much? Because she made a promise to those accusers there would be no backlash, and she cares about that promise? Because, perhaps, if their identities are revealed some might come clean and admit they were put up to it, and by who? I doubt any ‘caring’ on her part.
That she switches tenses – past to present – in a paragraph describing that she thought it was just about how Alex Samond may (not ‘was going to’) leave the party: lawyers do not usually make this kind of mistake. Minor I know, and just strange, but could be indicative of losing it.
That she says she didn’t want to be ‘cornered’ by Alex Salmond at the conference as an excuse for meeting or talking to him at a certain time, after claiming a friendship of 30 years. On an official submission – ‘cornered’ ? The implication being she was being intimidated,,, perpetuating the lies being told about Alex. A ‘friend’ for 30 years, don’t think so, not from her point of view.
The text conversations given in evidence make it very clear that Alex Salmond had no idea about her or what she was doing, and he still wanted everyone to save face, but she continued to play him, take advantage. To do that, it takes a very calculating and cold mind. There has been no indication they had fallen out or she secretly hated him, or that she actually has any feelings at all. What has been done has been malicious and in cold blood.
I would never have considered, even with all the warnings – which I didn’t disbelieve, but couldn’t jusdge for myself without evidence – that the acting has been, well, so well done, but has been used to betray us so thoroughly, with no real remorse (otherwise she would not have continued on this path). The cringing submissive behaviour towards the British establishment has been teeth-grindingly embarrassing of late,,,
Murrell’s leaked texts and admission – well, he certainly wasn’t trying to encourage level-heads and thoughtful consideration, was he? But it’s the implication that he thought he would get anywhere with this sort of accusation in Westminster – – are these numpties as THICK AS MINCE??
They were told by the Westminster civil service ‘not to go there’ regarding past ministers and harassment – for good reason! Those ministers never grass each other up, evidence disappears frequently – hah, Alex Salmond has been in Westminster for decades, he has friends in high places (who knows what dirt he has on others), why the hell did Sturgeon and Murrell think there was any chance of getting dirt from that place? They obviously do not have a clue, either the extent of how evil Westminster is, or how pathetic they are – the SNP are never going to not be under scrutiny or to be allowed to play the same shitty games they play in that place – it’s cringingly stupidly embarrassing, they have embarrassed us, our parliament and our country. They can’t even do a fucking conspiracy right.
See the repeated excuse of #MeToo and identifying a gap etc etc – this really irritates me. Harassment is, and was already previously in this case, covered by employment procedures and the ministerial code etc. See if you think about the big picture, and what it would be that you would like past ministers and past prime/first ministers to be held accountable for ,,, would you not choose something like, oh I dunno, let’s see, killing people maybe? Like in illegal wars, like in hugely detrimental policies that allow people to starve to death, like torture, like fraud, like giving yer pals our money. I don’t give a shit if some poor dear got her hair fucking pinged TEN YEARS AGO and she got a bit upset about it! That the procurator fiscal thought this was a grand thing to call sexual harassment, and thought that was a worthwhile use of public money time and effort instead of prosecuting ministers that actually do great harm – and still they think it’s okay to withhold evidence to cover it up! I am absolutely livid.
*clears throat*
We got an update on the Section30/ Martin Keatings case – it was long, describing why things won’t kick off until the 4th of November. The delays are all caused by the Scottish Government – that’s all the Scottish Government does now, is delay things (and lie and obfuscate) – delay for what? Well, the most obvious one is Brexit, do they think that crisis will distract everyone enough? Well, the public are kind of inured to crises now, so it’s seems unlikely. Unless you were thick as mince and you thought it would make a difference.
Martin made it clear that the draft referendum bill was worded such that it’ll never see the light of day – if people vote for a promise of that, they’ll be voting for thin air. He also made it very clear that the Lord Advocate is still representing Scottish Ministers despite the Scottish government, who see to be employing plausible deniability – what? A bit like the way Nicola Sturgeon made all her excuses of if wisnae her while prosecuting Alex? – and that’s us paying for the Lord Advocate via the parliament.
I really hope that Murrell and Sturgeon are both sued personally; by the SNP and by Alex Salmond – maybe the Indy fighting fund could be full again? (Though, the time it takes to get things through the courts,,, that wouldn’t be soon).
Ayrshire Rob,
I’m guessing you don’t like anyone comparing us with Sweden because the comparison does not favour your argument.
Why aren’t all the Swedes dead yet?
H ian Brotherhood at 9:54 pm.
You typed,
“Aaaarrrgh!
Too cryptic for me man, come on, spit it out!
What am I missing?”
I was trying NOT to paste direct quotes, leaving it to peeps to put 2 and 2 together.
However, when I first posted this info a couple of months ago, I checked with Rev Stu, regarding it as, possibly, coming under “contempt of court”.
He said it was ok, as it was already in the public domain.
So, here it is naked.
From the first link at 8.08pm…
link to archive.is
“Nicola Sturgeon’s chief of staff suspected a complaint had been made to the Scottish Government about Alex Salmond the month before he informed his successor about the probe, it has been claimed.
Geoff Aberdein, who served as Mr Salmond’s chief of staff during his time in office, has revealed he met Ms Sturgeon’s aide Liz Lloyd twice in March last year.
At the second meeting in late March he said Ms Lloyd confirmed “she suspected the Scottish Government had received an official complaint about Mr Salmond”.
Mr Aberdein said: “She made clear she did not know the full details of any potential complaint and had not alerted the First Minister to her suspicions about a potential complaint.””
And from the second link to the Garavelli article,
link to archive.is
“The second woman was Nicola Sturgeon. She too was said to be on the witness list though never called. And yet, she was omni-present. Every time her name was mentioned, political journalists pricked up their ears.
When Salmond’s former Chief of Staff Geoff Aberdein told the court he and one of the complainers had first met with her on 29 March, 2018 – four days earlier than the date she previously gave the Scottish Parliament – several of them almost spontaneously combusted.”
I’ll get me coat…
Ian Brotherhood
You have zero relevant expertise so I don’t know why you think yourself more competent than myself to judge on how to secure public health and democracy. By all means hold an opinion, but please appreciate you are simply guessing, where as I’m not.
Old Pete
The SNP only exist because of the desire of the Scottish people to regain our lost
statehood. If there was no SNP, another party would have formed in order to give a political voice to this asperation.
My gratitude to the SNP exhausted itself after I lost my European citizenship. My patience was exhausted by unused mandate after mandate. My stomach was churned by your deviant finance minister and the casual predatory nature of people and policies towards children. But the Salmond affair? My contempt for the party leadership is beyond words.
Still, I believe in independence with all my heart. Have done for the past 35 years, and I’ve voted accordingly when I have had the opportunity. I would probably still vote SNP 1, but the notion of these “leaders” negotiating independence with Westminster is laughable anyway.
Too compromised, too many weirdos with alternative priorities.
Time for change at the top.
Contrary
Spot on post.
@Ian Brotherhood
Thanks Ian. It is tiring but I think it is important to present some scepticism of the government narrative. My sense is that the opinion of the general public is now moving away from the pro-lockdown group.
Here is another good video on the data link to tinyurl.com
@George Wood,
It’s ok, as long as your young and fit workmate stays at home he won’t be a burden on the NHS.
@Breastplate,
Stop with the straw man arguments. You said, “These people will not be a burden on the NHS.” I replied that is a generalisation and it still is. The fact that it is less likely does not make it zero and it is reckless and ignorant of you to portray it as such. That figure is based on all things being equal and does not take into account any other risk factors such as poverty.
And by allowing the numbers infected to increase exponentially – as they are – you increase the physical count that makes up that smaller percentage. It doesn’t matter if you lock away 1,000 pensioners (and seriously, if you are advocating that then don’t ever complain about how sad it is that all these old yins died alone without their families like some people have on this site) when you are on a path to tens or hundreds of thousands of younger victims. You have dissociated from the fact that this 1%, 0.1%, whatever number it is, is a human being and made a decision based on an arbitrary number. Something other commenters have already alluded to as a slippery slope.
I would like to hope that in order for Scotland to unpick itself from the asset stripping, money-grubbing union we can look at ourselves as a collective and behave collectively and work through national and international problems like this but if we cannot pull in the same direction like most Far Eastern countries, like New Zealand, like all of the Scandinavian countries (even Sweden) then what future is there?
@robertnight @10.33
“Time then to do some badly needed house cleaning within the SNP – starting from the top!”
And replace with whom?
@ Mark Russell, ‘We tcan ear each other apart as the chaos unfolds – or we set aside all our differences and come together in unity. To do the latter, we must all be prepared to sacrifice many things. We are on a new road with an altogether different destination to anything we could previously envisage.’
As the chaos unfolds.
I’m a key worker. I saw people from all walks of life, overwhelmingly, and by vast majority, behave in a decent, orderly, common sense manner, in response to the first Covid lock down.
And they did so when they were scared. Even the drug addicts behaved – as best they could. Even they were scared.
They did not tear each other apart. And chaos did not ensue. As difficult as it was for many.
If people, from all walks of life, can behave in such a humane and decent manner, in times of such stress – I won’t have them miscried and I won’t have Chaos labelled upon them in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
That ‘new road with an altogether different destination to anything we could previously envisage.’
That new road is one I can envisage all to easily – its the one with a no deal brexit, where already WM is drawing up plans to ensure Scottish food supplies are destined for England as a priority.
Where public money – including for essential emergency service personnel is syphoned off – to Tory companies – with no more Tendering process laws, and no ECJ to fight it at. But you can bet there will be money for the Army though.
That new road, is one without an NHS. I have hearing aids, they cost $300 to manufacture. I get them on the NHS – through my taxes – privately the same models cost between £3000 – £10,000. Just one example.
But where it will show up every day, is the child from a working class family, the child with a hair lip, or a clubbed foot, or the bucked teeth – and the family who can’t afford to have them fixed. Or the kid who can’t see the blackboard because eye tests and glasses aren’t free anymore and they fall behind in school.
That new road, is one where all investment, including into renewable energy is stolen by England, and a deliberate policy of keeping Scotland depressed is applied. Look, too wee, too poor, too stupid. Like Thatcher on steroids. And all the oil and gas money is spaffed up the wall.
And no Holyrood Devolved parliament to do a damned thing about it.
That new road, leads to Scotland’s water being privatised. We’ll be paying extra for our drinking water, getting a worse service, and they’ll be using the profits to pipeline our lochs to England. Bit like the national grid all over again.
We must be prepared to sacrifice many things.
What would they be, if we leave aside the above for now.
Our principles? Go ahead, stitch up an innocent man, look at the polls Nicola is loved.
Our democracy – such as it is – the price of democracy is eternal vigilance.
Out cognitive ability. Look at the polls, what lies, Nicola is loved. Covid man, covid.
And what do we lose while project fear is being imposed upon us.
Trials open to the public. Trial by jury.
Freedom of movement under threat,
Our parliaments home and away – not carrying out proper and full scrutiny as Brexit is pushed through by Boris
Anyway. I’ve seen your New Road. And I’m going to sacrifice the whole shebang to ensure Scotland does not go down it.
And as for Nicola. She has a problem.
People are not so scared of Covid now, quite possibly because of the success of the initial lockdown – I think it is impossible to establish one way or another.
Now, it is annoying, now it is boring and inconvenient, oh and did I mention, boring. And for those who are affected by the financial impact – worry, worry, worry.
Now 7 months into it, people are quite rightly asking should NS not have delegated the TV briefings by now, at least some of the time.
.
Can we not just accept that we need to stay together in order to get on top of covid-19. The right-wing, and those of a science skeptical or conspiratorial mindset, are simply not well-placed as guides in this situation. All they do is undermine the moral cohesion of society, thereby opining the potential for capital to exploit market inequalities and inefficiencies. That’s bad. Mkay!
The Meaning of Equality and the Interpretive Turn
link to scholarship.law.georgetown.edu
Breastplate.Here we go.
Have you not been paying attention?
Compare Sweden with Norway.If not,why not?
As I said Sweden is a big country and population is well spread out. 10 million in an area 5 times larger than UK with 66+ million.
The biggest city is Stockholm- 1.5 million approx
Gothenburg-600k approx
Malmo- 320 approx
Uppsala- 160k approx. Now that’s approx 25% of pop.
The rest of the 75% are spread throughout the rest of country 5 times bigger than Scotland.
So you have one city bigger than Glasgow.I’m sure you don’t need me to do the basic stats on how it would go with covid do you? Swedes do social distance a lot better than us that’s for sure No pretty blonde with great figure is going to go 20 feet near some hairy arsed jock!
I never thought I would say it but Neil Oliver is talking sense.
The fools who have been taken in by this will have this on their conscience.
The thousands, the tens of thousands who will die from cancer, heart disease, from suicide, from poverty, to “save” penny numbers, will cry out for revenge against the stupid majority, the morons who have enabled this crime against humanity.
Ian Brotherhood @ 10.30
Too true Ian …. This is cruel ,nasty and absolutely unesessay .
Why are they piling on like this ?
What will it achieve?
It’s not a good look at all, she’s no exactly got the British Establishment at her back like the other ones did ( Auld Charlie Windsor and Cummings ) so where is the need to make themselves big by joining in the witch hunt?
Looks like British politics is much more ingrained than we’d like to think because this sorry saga looks just like them!
@Cameron B Brodie
You really are an extremely sad wee fanny arent you?
@Breastplate
Because an 85 year old can only die once!
OK, its difficult to understand what our phalanx of SNP MP’s have achieved .
Yes Joanna Cherry MP QC has had fantastic results, but the rest, well there’s a question.
Joe
I’d love you to say that to my face. Are you still hostile towards Jews?
Another problem for Nicola now. Scotland’s R number is above England’s.
So the idea that she was managing Covid better than England. Is beginning to lose traction. How many angry people do we hear on tv and radio today! Rightly or wrongly people are fair scunnered with SG actions on Covid.
Because they can’t see any benefits from the restrictions. I still predict a full lockdown in November. Nicola is just buying some time. The hospitality thing is a side issue. The problem is schools, universities and house parties.
@Cameron B Brodie
I am right though. I don’t go in for personal insults as id rather debate, argue or whatever. But you are truly a sad wee fanny.
If you could hold an argument for more than 3 passes without resorting to outright blustering hostility it wouldnt be so bad. But the minute anyone pins you on your BS, requiring you to display any real knowledge and you simply lash out.
The rest of the time its sheer pomposity mixed with barely coherent points again, and again, and again.
Im not sure if its more disgusting than pitiable
Cameron B Brodie
Mibbi no guessing but it seems you are toeing the “Royal Instute” line.
You read like you bought what they taught back in the day and it never seems to occur to you that they pushed as much feudal thinking to the planners as the history departments did to their students.
But
If you did indeed see the flaw in their thinking that would be interesting to know!
Which of the papers you were working on did you disagree with and why?
Which of the many ,many ,many papers you reproduced here reflects your own thinking?
Lizg
Don’t you start, please. I’m trained as a critical legal thinker, not a dogmatist for ideology. Or if you are going to start undermining my point of view, can your please back up you opinion with some science and law. TA. I’m always happy to be corrected when I am wrong. 😉
@tartanfever
‘..The only tangible point I was making is that out of @ 5000 new cases that week, @3000 occurred in age groups over the age of 24 – which suggests that most new cases are not being found at schools and universities.’
‘asymptomatic’ and ‘disease vectors’, look them up…
Do you seriously believe that the sub-24 year olds are somehow magically not catching the bloody thing?, here’s a hint: they are, but mostly they display no symptoms but are still capable of infecting others (cf. Typhoid Mary)
Thanks to some extreme muppetry, the schools, colleges and universities are now becoming obvious reservoirs for Covid. Depending on where you look there are currently six strains out there in the wild, or is it 7? and/or that it has mutated 30 times since being first identified…
Now, what you really really don’t want to be doing then in these confused circumstances is gathering together a whole bunch of asymptomatic hosts for the damnable thing in any or all of its fun loving forms to get together in and swap the equivalent of viral war stories and tips & tricks on how to sharpen their wee genetic teeth, as it were, in preparation for the next campaign.
-Ayrshire Rob-
Come on now. Stockholm’s population density is only low if you look at it as a whole. Most people live in the Stockholm region. It’s like saying our density is low, whereas the vast majority live in the Clyde and Forth valleys, Ayrshire and Fife, with huge empty expanses in the north and south.
I’m guessing many of yooz will have met Wee Annie, AKA Dundee Annie, for those of you bereft of residence in oor fair toon.
Onnyhoo, we’ve been having phone blethers over the past month or so, discussing what’s going on within the SNP.
Background:
I first met Anne in 2014, when Team Yes Bus formed, prior to indyref1.
After indyref1, she joined the SNP and was one of their more active ‘activists’, treading the streets of the east end, canvassing and delivering leaflets for all the elections from 2015 to 2019.
Onnyhoo, this morning she phoned me to tell me that she had finally decided to leave the party.
Why?
The treatment of Margaret Ferrier, compared to the treatment of Derek McKay. He is being provided with counselling, paid for by the party, after sending ‘inappropriate’ messages to a 16 year old boy. He has not been asked to resign and is still receiving salary and expenses from Holyrood.
Annie compare his treatment to the treatment of Margaret Ferrier. Yes she did wrong but why the “pile-on” from Sturgeon, Yousaf and Mhairi Black? The “pile-on” didn’t happen with Derek McKay.
Annie has come to the conclusion that how you are treated by the party depends on which side of the fence you sit and she can no longer be a part of it.
No doubt, when the rallies get under way at some point, she will be back, helping to ‘(wo)man’ the WOS stall.
Big Jock says:
7 October, 2020 at 11:36 pm
Another problem for Nicola now. Scotland’s R number is above England’s.
Please supply facts on this ?
Cameron B Brodie
I’m not starting Cameron, I was trying to have a conversation that actually got somewhere.
There is no science to back up your analysis of your training…that makes no sense.
I’m asking which bits of your training ( because of the source of your training ) are you on board with and which bits do you question?
E.G. I’m pretty sure Crawford & Boyle are legally trained but I take much issue with their legal findings about Scotland being extinguished.
So….which bits of your training do you find sound and which bits not so much ?
And why ?
Brian Doonthetoon says:
8 October, 2020 at 12:03 am
I’m guessing many of yooz will have met Wee Annie, AKA Dundee Annie.
Annie a Guid Wee Winger the best O’ Us awe !
Brian Doonthetoon
I think I first met Dundee Annie when I was twelve or thirteen, I think. Through the Douglas Boys Club. I’m not entirely sure what she did, but she has a long history as a socially concerned and responsible individual. 😉
So, I watched/listened to most of the Fuellmich video… It seemed to confirm that there was a major outbreak of covid-19 earlier in the year and that it resulted in a lot of misery and death.
Next.
Brian Doonthetoon
The mountain of respect I already had for *Wee Annie fae Dundee* (who is an absolute gem) just went into the stratosphere.
It must have broke her heart to do this , but it never and would never break her sense of justice.
The next time you speak with her please tell her that she has done the righteous thing and give her my best xxx
Lizg
My legal position tends towards a critical, anti-positivist, post-colonial, approach to jurisprudence, that is coherent with stand-point epistemology. So I’m actually capable of respecting Natural law, where as British constitutionalism appears to have lost the knack. ;(
Qualitative methodologies: ethnography, phenomenology, grounded theory and more
link to brown.uk.com
Tomorrow’s National twitter.
link to mobile.twitter.com
Cam B
Tell that drunken wee bastard Liz g to go and take a fuck to herself.
She plays to the “crowd”
Tomorrow’s National twitter pages,,,
link to mobile.twitter.com
All the Buckfast sookers crawlin out of their beds to come on here for the night shift.
Do you reckon that the Murrells and the Woke brigade are as mad as Donald Dump and have mistaken the address ‘Holyrood’ for Hollywood’?
Does “Ronald Fraser” = “David Somerville”?
Discuss…
Hi LizG.
Anne reads WOS daily, but doesn’t comment so she will see your comment tomorrow.
Going back to the Revs article – why lie about 29/3/18?
Is it possible the meeting was not recorded as Government business in the FM diary, in order to ensure the names – or one of the names – of the people there were not recorded. Thereby keeping NS – always at arms length of any evidence of collusion.
If, say one of her advisors ( I know not which – speculation only) , was present when GAbeerdein disclosed that AS had been complained about for sexual harassment, in later months went on to become one of the complainers for the criminal allegations….while all the time working for NS.
Hmmm no more, getting too close to jig saws for my liking.
The complaint against AS initially, crossed over into Scot Gov business, in addition to Party business. While the meet should have been recorded, mishaps happen, and both these things could have been rectified with a slap on the wrist, don’t do it again type response.
For NS not to have recalled until Jan/Feb the following year, the exact date of the meet, does not fit.
Her stmt today says, ‘G Aberdein was at Holyrood to meet a former colleague’. I think the question the committed needs an answer to, is who was that former colleague and was the former colleague present with him, when he met NS.
For someone who could not recall the date of the meeting (given its importance), or to ensure it was recorded properly, to recollect ‘G Aberdein was at Holyrood to meet a former colleague’ is quite precise and allows for plausible deniability if found out, ‘Oh didn’t I mention he met his former colleague when he met me… so sorry to confuse, my statement should have been clearer.’
Well done, Daisy!
Brian Doonthetoon
Which aspect of misogynistic social practice would you like to discuss first? The normalisation of gender and wider social inequalities it supports, or the intrinsic link with racism and authoritarianism? 😉
Charting the waters: populism as a gendered phenomenon
Take this first “walking tour” of openDemocracy’s rich archive of material dealing with the complex relation between populism and gender.
link to opendemocracy.net
Brian Doonthetoon
My fan bois have many names but yer right there is only one thank Christ 🙂
Although there’s usually a “support poster ” a potential imaginary friend…who knows or cares as long as the fan me they leave others alone and wreck their credibility…..
Brian Doonthetoon (and Annie!)
I have the same thoughts as Lizg at 12.12, and would also like to pass them on.
Do you think a letter to Santa would turn it for us regarding getting shot of Sturgeon?
Dear Santa,
I would like…
Cameron B Brodie
Which bits of your course were British?
Brian doon
Don’t be so silly, you stupid little man.
Hahaha!!!
O/T – Liam Fox has been knocked out of the contest to become Leader of the WTO. 🙂
Hi CameronB Brodie at 12:49 am.
You asked,
“Which aspect of misogynistic social practice would you like to discuss first? The normalisation of gender and wider social inequalities it supports, or the intrinsic link with racism and authoritarianism? ?”
Neither – I’m off upstairs to Bedfordshire. Catchya anon.
Brian Doonthetoon
See what I mean about a support poster…. 🙂
Brian Doonthetoon
Night Brian, I’m away tae private chat so see ye here soon my friend 🙂
Well said Daisy Walker@11:20pm. I would add that the proposed GRA Reform and Hate Crime Bills are also a road I don’t want to go down. Acquiescing to the mentally ill and the deviant? No thanks, that way lies madness.
Oh and before I forget
…… Hi Crazycat …. haven’t seen ye post for a while I hope you’re well?
Lizg
It’s complex Liz, as is life. I’m trained in post-modern critical social theory and critical legal theory, but I’m certainly not a spook just because I studied under the RTPI’s guidance. I was trained specifically to undo the inter-woven cultural harm caused through colonialism, such as the persistent gender and racial inequalities we face today. And the social, political, and legal inequalities they support. And which Brexit consolidates and promotes. 🙁
I’m trained to liberate individuals and society, not enslave them.
FASCISM AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM
Similarities, Differences, and New Organizational Forms
link to brill.com
@ Lizg at 1.13
I’m doing a lot of sitting on my hands to make sure I don’t type something I later regret these days.
Otherwise, I’m fair to middling as usual, and hope you are too (preferably better than that!). Thanks.
James Barr -12.03
R number today.
The estimate for England is 1.2-1.6, while for Scotland it is 1.3-1.7. The estimate for Wales is 1.0-1.4 and in Northern Ireland it is 1.5.
link to bbc.co.uk
It is hard to defend the principle of “equity in law”, without a respect for natural law and the principles of natural justice. So you’re on to plumbs in Scotland, as our disabled juridical system is being further harmed through British constitutional practice. Which lacks coherence and comparability with international human rights law. Get is sorted please! Mkay?
Mapping the Issues: Public Health, Law and Ethics
link to scholarship.law.georgetown.edu
sorry….COMPATIBILITY not comparability….
European Journal of International Law, Volume 23, Issue 3, August 2012, Pages 613–642
Human Rights and the Environment: Where Next?
link to academic.oup.com
Big Jock @11,36pm
Another problem is that very few appear to have caught immunity in the summer when it was benign and that draconian attacks on the hospitality sector (coupled with irrational attacks on each other*) are a distraction from the fact that last week’s exceptionally high number of deaths (1188 and 150 more than the 5 year average) was manifestly NOT due to covid-19 (18 people died having tested positive in last 28 days and a further 2 people died where it was suspected to be a contributing factor).
*Ian Blackford appears to have gotten away with a particularly bad week (imo) having started it by having another go at the MP for Rutherglen & Hamilton West – despite neither the party nor the Parliament being professional enough to have organised emergency evacuation procedures yet – and topping that indiscretion with a question so indiscreet (requesting £20/ week for every Scotsman** when we were supposed to be millionaires by now) that Boris invited him to ask it again next week 🙂
**Unfortunately, not being UK resident, I wouldn’t be eligible for such a windfall – though I do confess it would not be unwelcome..
Here’s a bit more on the sort of legal shittery that appears to be acceptable legal practice in the eyes of our legal Establishment. It’s probably as a result of their “ambivalence” towards the Natural law, and their ingrained British nationalism. Which is the cultural articulation of Tory ethos and tradition. So they are unlikely to be supportive of the Scottish cultural identity, which they clearly do not consider of equal cultural value to the English cultural principle of Parliamentary sovereignty. 🙁
link to cambridge.org
As that wasn’t open-access.
MANUAL
ON HUMAN RIGHTS
AND THE ENVIRONMENT
link to echr.coe.int
Sorry, but it’s worse than that. Parliamentary sovereignty is only an English cultural tradition, it’s certainly not a principle of constitutional law. And certainly not when interpreted in the populist and authoritarian manner in which it is currently being imposed on Scotland. Yet our legal Establishment are content to sit in its’ lap.
#ragging
WEBINAR: Law at the Intersection of Human Rights and the Environment
link to gnhre.org
To Mark Russell and others decrying and disputing Stu’s posts
I MEAN THIS SINCERELY please go and READ Martin Keatings update on the Forward As One sect 30 appeal which myself and others have posted a link to and ask yourself ARE THESE THE ACTIONS AN INDEPENDENCE MINDED SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT WOULD INVOLVE ITSELF IN
Martin Keatings is FIGHTING for something which we all agree with, independence, and the court case is being FUNDED by 8000+ supporters of indy, YET the behaviour of the SG,the lord advocate, and ministers are DELIBERATELY using EVERY trick in the book to frustrate and obfuscate KNOWING that it will impact on the cost
If you believe in independence READ the bloody thing and ask yourself WHO is taking us for MUGS
link to r.mail.crowdjustice.co.uk
I get why you put so much effort into the lie about the meetings. It’s a bit like doing Al Capone for tax evasion.
But the real issue is that there could be no legitimate reason whatsoever for Peter Murrell, CEO of the SNP, or Sue Ruddick, COO of the SNP, to be involved in a clandestine Whatsapp group with the alleged victims of sexual assaults which were the subject of an ongoing police investigation.
Sturgeon as FM and leader of the party could not possibly have been unaware of what the CEO (her husband) and the COO were up to unless they didn’t tell her. Which would be grounds for their instant sacking and her instant resignation for not having a clue what was going on.
And if they did tell her and she did know, that would be grounds for their instant sacking and her instant resignation for her involvement.
On meeting in a Gov setting – does this not also show she was willing to do so again, this time with Alex Salmond? As it was they met in Aberdeen.
[05/06/2018, 19:24:32] Alex Salmond: Happy to meet – soonest I can get to Edinburgh
is around 8.30. I take it this is totally informal, one to one.
[05/06/2018, 19:42:38] Nicola Sturgeon: Ok – happy for it to be one to one – will have
to be either parliament or Bute, whatever you prefer. The alternative if its easier is
Aberdeen on Thursday night – I’ll be there from around 8, staying in hotel somewhere
near beach ballroom I think.
[05/06/2018, 20:08:30] Alex Salmond: Yes Thursday much better, thanks. I’ll be there
for 8.30 to give you time to settle in.
[05/06/2018, 20:12:37] Nicola Sturgeon: Ok. It’s the Hilton hotel at the beach.
link to parliament.scot
@Ross 6:27
I keep asking useful idiots like you to do this, and you all keep ducking it.
Give me one remotely legitimate reason why Peter Murrell, Chief Executive Officer of the SNP, and Sue Ruddick, Chief Operating Officer of the SNP, should have been involved in a clandestine Whatsapp group with the supposed victims of alleged sexual assaults that were the subject of an ongoing police investigation.
Then persuade me that Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the party who also happens to be Murrell’s wife, knew nothing about what her CEO and COO were up to.
I’m all ears.
@twathater,
Thanks for posting that update. At some point, the panto rhetoric about an S30 has to reach a conclusion so hats off to Martin Keatings for trying to do that where others shoot.
Btw, Stu, I really enjoyed the wee video of the video game ‘worse things happen at sea’, watching the robot scuttling back and forth and the entertaining gentle narrative – almost zen-like in its focus – sad I know that I actually kept watching it, but it was a great distraction. A few tense moments too, mind.
David Fergusson @5.44
It is impossible given the proximity to Sturgeon of all those exposed as having been involved in the Salmons stitch for her not to know – and you are absolutely correct to opine this.
Sturgeon is a nasty piece of work. There is nothing that this wee woman would not do. She has no moral compass whatsoever. Trying to have jailed for life one of her political colleagues tells you that. Had some of history’s most lethal leaders been checked early on then things like Hitler’s Nazi Germany would not have arisen.
The SNP as a party is now totally corrupt. The NEC is corrupt with the key slots under the leaders control. The vetting committee likewise. Conferences are cancelled. Agenda’s rigged. Candidates destroyed, policy objectives subverted, whilst all the time the rank and file kept in the dark.
And COVID. That has become the Leader’s great propaganda show. The Daily Briefings stage show by which the leader tries to milk popularity as a strong decisive wise leader. But like the Salmond affair, the truth is emerging. Scotland is doing very badly in the management of COVID and the spin is being exposed as a tissue of lies and manipulation.
But folks are wisening up. They now see Sturgeon and her rotten party for what it is. She and her entourage need to go, and go now. The electorate will not vote for this filth come May. That is guaranteed and one only need listen to the growing discontent so extant in daily chat to realise that. And in fact private polling is revealing that. An SNP collapse, every bit as stellar as New Labour’s is on the cards unless someone or something turns the tide and takes over from Sturgeon.
The schemers have schemed well. At a time when independence could be to hand they’ve installed a rotten compromised leadership into the SNP that is now causing the organisation to fall apart. Replace Sturgeon and her clique with who we need and it all changes.
And finally, ask yourself this. Would you want to live in an independent Scotland run by individuals like Peter Murrell.
See you Willie!
Ye’ve taen that too far!
Aye the baws burst. Aye right!
Willie,get the door.
And gies ma clicky pen back.
Broke,back ,better!
@BDTT (11.04) –
Forgot to say thanks last night.
I got it – eventually!
😉
Ayrshire Rob,
The grouping of the population will affect the rate of contagion not the effects of contagion.
The schools in Sweden were not closed for under 16 year olds, I’m not sure if you remember Rob but kids don’t do social distancing. They have families to go home to in Sweden also who they will not socially distance themselves.
Closing schools here also means parents need to be of work.
What I want to know is how Sweden can handle all the associated problems yet we can’t.
It’s not about dispersal of the population.
Just read the link to Martin Keatings’ latest update on his case, which David Ferguson kindly put up.
Aprat from the bit where Martin seems to confuse Narnia, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, it all made perfect sense.
The SNP hierarchy, the Scottish Government’s legal officers – sic a parcel o’ rogues in a nation.
Whenever there is a story in the National showing Sturgeon in a bad light, the amount of thumbs up for those defending her is quite staggering.
If the approval is real it is quite alarming and if it is not it is even more so.
I feel that I’m in the minority on twitter re Covid restrictions.
Scotland in the 21st century, no drinking, dancing, music, smoking. Why have we allowed this total control freak with her Calvinistic attitudes, so much power.
The number of non Covid deaths is not current news. There was one death related to Covid, the day our entire hospitality industry was hung out to dry. And yet, it seems the majority on SM agree with these measures.
Scotland is becoming a sad place to live
An interesting read from Paul Hutcheon in The Herald dated 28th March 2018:
“RUMOURS ABOUND ABOUT MOVES AGAINST THE HOUSE OF STURGEON”
And ends with the final paragraph:
“SNP Parliamentarians are well resourced, handsomely paid
and enjoy the media spotlight. They are well looked after.
By contrast, SNP members pay their subs and get little
back in return. Some may feel that taking power from the
House of Sturgeon may be a start”
We always look for motive when there’s been a crime and maybe, just maybe, there was more personal motive for the ‘House of Sturgeon’ than superficially realised by the public
link to pressreader.com
McDuff @ 9.01am
That’s one of the major worries at the moment, when the whole house of cards she and her (cough) husband have erected is brought down, and that could be soon, the backlash from those they have taken for mugs will be hugely-costly to the SNP| and the wider Independence movement.
Rev
Following this story with a great deal of interest.
Any idea when we are nearing the Grande Finale?
So much want to see the little poison dwarf pay for her crimes
But these two paragraphs damn Nicola Sturgeon for life as far as I’m concerned
“However, the Scottish Government would have had nothing to ‘handle’ had complaints
not been raised about Alex Salmond’s conduct.
It was the concerns raised about his conduct – an aspect of which, by his own admission, he apologised for – that gave rise to this matter.”
How dare she pass judgement on a person who is twice the human being she will ever be and fail to acknowledge any of the disgraceful behaviour she has demonstrated.
This is straight out of Hogg’s ‘Private Confessions and Memoirs of a Justified Sinner’. Predestination and personal salvation and the ‘I MUST BE right’ woke brigade. Political leadership is about reconciling opposites for the people you lead NOT about controlling people and forcing them to accept a personal reality of the leader at all costs:
‘That way Hitler lies’
@RutherglenSNP bullying of Margaret Ferrier is nauseating.
I’ve just messaged @RutherglenSNP, telling them that I don’t support bullies and am unfollowing/blocking their Twitter account.
If you do use Twitter, please check if you are a follower of @RutherglenSNP, and if you are? well, it’s up to you…
They currently have 1570 followers, which is precisely 1570 more than they deserve.
Boycotting/shaming them won’t achieve much but it may help send a message to others thinking of joining the pile-on.
Liz @ 09:01 – Re Covid restrictions-Scotland in the 21st century, no drinking etc…
I found a “gem” written by Devi Sridhar and published 8 years ago!!(15 February 2012).The World Health Organization is the only body that can promote health through the use of international law. It should make alcohol its next target, SAYS DEVI SRIDHAR!
link to nature.com
A further interesting point. Geoff Aberdein testified in the Salmond trial that Liz Lloyd, Nicola’s chief of staff, telephoned him to set up the meeting on 29 March about sexual allegations against Alex. That was a day or two earlier.
So we have to believe either that Nicola’s chief of Staff was initiating a meeting with Geoff Aberdein on this subject without discussing it with her boss first – which frankly is wildly improbable – or Nicola not only knew but was actively taking initiatives on the subject still earlier than 29 March.
Which also seems to have slipped her mind.
@Liz (9.01) –
You’re not in a minority Liz.
The ‘majority’ seems much bigger than it actually is because it’s largely composed of blowhards, shouty panic-merchants and propagandists who know exactly what they’re doing. They also have the levers of mainstream media and government at their fingertips.
All we can do is keep ourselves as healthy as possible, mentally and physically, and refuse to be browbeaten into believing nonsense. The most dangerous characters are those who claim to be supporting ‘science’ whilst insisting that the rest of us don’t understand enough to understand ‘the evidence’ (which they don’t actually have).
We’re living in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ – scary as it is, all we can do is keeping calling them out.
Ian Brotherhood@10.47
Thanks for that link. My father had a great mistrust of pharma companies, lawyers and politicians. He wasn’t far wrong. Had read about the PCR test stuff before. In fact, I think even Jason Leitch said the PCR tests were “a bit rubbish” Well, one of my sons is possibly going to lose his job in the pub trade because of all this nonsense and I think that’s a bit rubbish too.
Liz
A wee message of support in your exchanges with the resident ” i am trained in everything so I am intelligent ” Dont waste yer time Pal on a pointless waste of time, banging your head off the kitchen table might be more effective,
Socrates MacSporran @ 9.03:
I think you’re worrying too much about backlash against Independence. The SNP members and the Scottish folk in general will, I believe, be grateful that they live in a country where corrupt behaviour shall no longer be tolerated. There are plenty of really strong role models to take over. Personally, I would favour Joanna Cherry because she has demonstrated a fearless imagination coupled with much knowledge and intelligence.
Mr Salmond has shown how people with real integrity can and should behave: nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see him acknowledged in our Scotland. Wings will be a great communicator for us and people WILL follow this time.
My biggest sorrow is Alyn Smith because he is such a good speaker and I’m so sad that ‘he too’ has passed over to the other side.
@Craig Murray,
Thanks for that Craig. It seems very damming to a reasonable person. I think the narrative previously was that Sturgeon had no knowledge of anything amiss until that meeting on 29th March which was so unextraordinary she forgot about it,has just been blown apart.
She clearly did know, and if she didn’t why the hell is she “leader” of the SNP?
Ian Brotherhood
I love reading your posts Ian. Thank you.
Holymacmoses,
Yes, no matter the disagreements we have with each other here, we will all vote for independence If given a chance.
@Grey Gull(9:30am) I am sorry to hear your son may lose his job-it is absolutely tragic what is happening to Hospitalty – where so many young people work.
There is no rhyme or reason for some decisions taken. I am in Glasgow where we are not allowed guests in our house. However, there are NO RESTRICTIONS on the number of tradespersons who can work in my/your house-regardless if it is a 1 bed flat or a mansion!!!
Most people on social media this morning are still defending NS. Hopefully they will have their eyes opened soon. They’re in for a helluva shock.
Sylvia (9.46). Thanks. I’m hoping the business he works for will be able to survive but nothing is certain. However, nothing in this life is certain anyway….apart from death and taxes. And corrupt politicians.
Was in the pub last night. Overheard the Murrell messages being negatively talked aboot. Pubs are a great barometer of the temperature of the Scottish public (obviously not happy aboot pub closures; the barmaid was bealing) and what we’re talking aboot. Once political matters that were once obscure start to get talked aboot on a grass roots level, you know the sands of public opinion are shifting.
I actually agree that Scotland has a problem with alcohol.
Don’t get me wrong. I think drinking in moderation or going out for a meal is a great thing. However watching all these fat old men with heart disease and high blood pressure. Sitting in pubs and moaning about having nothing else to do when the pubs close. Is absolutely tragic.
It’s tragic in the sense that middle aged men spend all their time in the pub , on their arses slowly killing themselves. Surely there must be more to life than drinking or sitting in a pub all day.
I am working from home. I spend my time looking after my daughter. Running and cycling. Spending time with my wife. To be honest it’s really not that bad. I was never one for sitting in pubs. I did enjoy nights out once or twice a month. But you get to an age where there are more important things than drinking all day.
We have a very unhealthy population. People in our cities don’t walk further than the bus stop. They need to re-assess what is actually important in life. I worked in an office in a team of 10. I am the only one who is not obese. I dread to think what state they are in now, sitting at home all day.
Life is what you make it. Most of us have homes, jobs, food, families. In poor countries people have to live on the streets and others live in daily conflict.
I for one am absolutely bored with the moaners missing their pints. Get over it and go and find something better to do with your time.
Sorry rant over now.
On page 12 of Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence she offers to meet Alex Salmond at parliament
The Scottish Ministerial Code specifically prohibits the use of the parliament for party political purposes; and yet she maintains that the whole issue is party political which is why no minutes of the meetings with Alex Salmond were taken etc etc.
7.2Government property should not generally be used for constituency work20or party activities.A particular exception is recognised where a building has been designated as the First Minister’s official residence.Where Ministers host party or personal events in the First Minister’s official residence, it should be at their own or at party expense, with no cost falling on the public purse.
She forgot the Geoff Aberdein meeting of 29th March, but that was also held in parliament.
Isn’t it also the case that an FOI request for information relating to decisions affecting care homes and old people came back saying that things were all done verbally with no minutes over a period of several months. How can people be held to account if they make sure that no minutes are taken – even where it is government business. How can they look back to remember what they did decide and why? How can there be no minutes of anything over a period of months when key government decisions are being made.
“On page 12 of Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence she offers to meet Alex Salmond at parliament
The Scottish Ministerial Code specifically prohibits the use of the parliament for party political purposes; and yet she maintains that the whole issue is party political which is why no minutes of the meetings with Alex Salmond were taken etc etc.”
Good catch. I wonder if it officially classed as government business by that point.
Socrates MacSporran says:
8 October, 2020 at 9:03 am
“…,the backlash from those they have taken for mugs will be hugely-costly to the SNP| and the wider Independence movement.
Maybe, but IF that’s the way it breaks, it’s still very much the lesser of two evils.
There will be defenders for Sturgeon no matter what, because the Wokerati are nothing if not vocal in their gushing support for their guru, and their train is instantly heading for the buffers without her.
As for the more moderate of the ‘duped’ supporters, well, I think a lot will depend on how compelling the evidence of conspiracy actually is, and rumour has it there is more damning evidence to come. But don’t forget, the ones who have invested the most in Sturgeon are also in line to be those ‘duped’ the most, and perhaps the most angry of all of us. Listen up to… we need to go easy on these folks. They’ll be hurting and angry, and prone to lashing out, even lash out at us, but my advice is take it. Be thick skinned. Don’t overreact. When the anger passes and the truth sinks in, they are people on our side.
But don’t forget too, if Sturgeon goes, then it’s to be hoped the whole exasperating doctrine of feckless and interminable gradualism will be gone too, and maybe, just maybe, there might still be time to resurrect something along the lines of a Constitutional Scottish Backstop / Union busting ultimatum, which might yet make the Union untenable beyond December.
If there was to be a new doctrine, with urgency and clarity of purpose, and I think that most assuredly means a lawful Constitutional route to to put the UK Union into a tailspin, then such would be the enthusiasm for tangible progress and the timely resurrection of Scotland’s position of strength, that nobody will much care for what Nicola Sturgeon has to say for herself.
But time is very, very short, and there’s a great deal needs to happen. If Sturgeon had a good heart, she would delegate COVID to somebody else, and take a leaf out of the Alex Salmond Book of Political Integrity, and step aside to “clear her name” and confront her accusers. Sadly, I don’t think she’ll do that, because unlike Salmond, the prospect of actually clearing her name is not going to fly. So the Murrells and their coterie look determined to burn down the house before they can be forced out.
I think a lot too, maybe everything, will depend on Joanna Cherry. People say, “Ah! But she’s not an MSP, so cannot be new FM”. And yes, so far as that goes, it’s true. But as I keep saying, a strong and forceful Constitutional initiative might see Scotland’s MP’s brought home, and they, plus MSP’s coming together to sit in a “new” Scottish Parliament which draws it’s authority and pledges it’s allegiance to the Sovereign Constitution of the Scottish Nation, and thus bypasses Holyrood and the Office of First Minister altogether. Are you mentally prepared for that to happen? I am.
Now is the time for bold, decisive action, and stage 1 is getting Sturgeon and her recalcitrant Scottish “Government” out of the way. If we circumvent Holyrood, we circumvent Sturgeon, we circumvent the Scotland Act and Section 30, and we circumvent Westminster, and clear the pitch for a Scottish Government to make it’s pitch for the International Recognition of Scottish Sovereignty married to International condemnation of Scotland’s colonial subjugation through Brexit.
Scotland’s 3 objectives for before the end of December should be a Sovereign “caretaker” Scottish Government, a formal dispute to Scotland’s colonial subjugation plunging Brexit into chaos, and talks beginning about Scotland and Europe resurrecting the “holding pen” status for the Scottish economy.
Even for those who don’t like Europe, holding pen status might extend the protection Scotland enjoys under the European umbrella, and that would give Scotland leverage that might be compared Ireland’s leverage over their backstop.
I know, I know, I know,… it’s already October. Is there time? I don’t know. But if Scotland’s impending predicament is ratcheted up to a formal State of Emergency, then I think all bets are off and maybe we can. Carpe Diem.
The following statement is from Nicola Sturgeon:
“As stated above, I suspected the reason Alex Salmond wanted to see me on April 2
was that he was facing an allegation of sexual misconduct.
I thought Mr Salmond may be about to resign from the SNP and that, as a result of
this or other aspects of how he intended to handle the matter he was dealing with, the
party could have been facing a public/media issue that we would require to respond
to.
As Party Leader, I considered it important that I knew if this was in fact the case in
order that I could prepare the party to deal with what would have been a significant issue.”
….
“I had no communication with the SNP relevant to the subject matter of the Committee’s
inquiry, other than approving the party’s public comments after the matter became
public in August 2018.
My husband was obviously aware of Mr Salmond’s presence in our home on 2 April and 14 July 2018, but he was not present at the meetings and I did not share the detail with him.”
I’m confused really. IF Mr Salmond was being accused of sexual misconduct and about to resign from the SNP then SURELY the whole matter at this stage was a Party business and Peter Murrel had every right to be present at the meetings between Sturgeon and Mr Salmond?
2nd April:
“Notwithstanding the suspicions I had harboured going into this meeting, I was shocked
and upset by the reality of what I read.”
I don’t understand how she could be shocked because at this time there were the two complainants and she already knew what they were because by her own admission she had spoken to Mr Salmond about them.
It seems to me that Nicola Sturgeon conflates the Scottish Government and the SNP. She refers to *my Government* and she thinks of the SNP as ‘my party’. As Mr Aberdein has confirmed, Mr Salmond had pointed out to her in 2015 that it wasn’t healthy for a couple to have complete control at the top of both part and government. By the end of March 2018 it was clear that the natives in SNP were restless and Mr Salmonds advice was correct.
David Ferguson @ 4.20
“there could be no legitimate reason whatsoever for Peter Murrell, CEO of the SNP, or Sue Ruddick, COO of the SNP, to be involved in….”
Good point on legitimacy; its not as if the party employed the civil servants or elected members. So why was it sticking its oar in?
WhoRattledYourCage 9:55 am
“Was in the pub last night. Overheard the Murrell messages being negatively talked aboot”.
That is why Sturgeon is shutting down the pubs.
Cut off the bad gossip at it’s source.
That wee wummin Sturgeon iznae daft ye know.
What the actual FUCK has happened to the BTL comments on this forum?
Dominated by one poster’s ‘parklife’ chin-stroking pish.
Forget independence – those we thought were most in favour will detroy it in order to be run by government at Westminstr which is NEVER scrutinized to this extent. No one is perfect – it seems some think they are! Finished with this site which i’ve read since it started. Not at all feeling sorry – this is what we always do – destroy our own hopes!
Forget independence – those we thought were most in favour will destroy any hope of it in order to be run by government at Westminstr which is NEVER scrutinized to this extent. Neither the Rev, Craig Murray or my personal hero Alex Salmond can lead us to independence, Nicola Sturgeon could1 No one is perfect – it seems some think they are! Finished with this site which i’ve read since it started. Not at all feeling sorry – this is what we always do – destroy our own hopes!
@ Willie 08.28
Willie I wouldnae want to get in a bath run by individuals like Peter Murrell. You can tell just by the look of the piggy-faced freak that he’s a wrong ‘un
Bill,
Nicola and those around her tried to fit up Alex and jail him for the rest of his life.
Can you not get that into your head?
If Murrell and she quietly toddle off we will get to Independence pretty quickly.
@david ferguson
Easy. Because they believed the allegations? It’s not that hard to believe complainers wanted support from the party before and during. Its not hard to believe after seeing the number of complainers the party wanted nothing to do with him and wanted an investigation completed. It’s not in doubt that the government was on the side of the complainers in this. That does not mean a conspiracy.
if that group was concocted as a clandestine operation to deliberately put an innocent man in jail the then let’s see the messages that prove it. You have no evidence of this.
Bill – How can we move forward if we pretend everything is fine with the SNP.
Surely we need to have trust in our leaders. Murrell and Sturgeon are now damaged goods. How will I feel having to vote for Sturgeon in 2021. Knowing what she did to Salmond, and knowing she has no intention of using the mandate.
Remember what happened in 2017. Our voters never turned up. There is a real danger that could be repeated in 2021.
That’s why we need a change as soon as possible. So we can get off the Murrell’s narrative and get back to independence.
How can 2021 be positive with this toxic pair in charge.
Big Jock – I get where you are coming from, but the point of my post wasn’t about ‘missing a pint,’ it was about the growing public discussion of this case. Men go to the pub for company, and it’s a good meeting place for those who live alone and who don’t have the luxury of people who care aboot them at home. Loneliness kills too. I get exactly what you are saying, have said the same thing myself, but self-righteous-seeming rants won’t stop anything.
twathater @ 3.45
“ARE THESE THE ACTIONS AN INDEPENDENCE MINDED SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT”
No. But we need to remember that the ‘dev’ ScotGov is basically a spending dept of the UK Gov and hence a subsidiary part of UK Gov and also still very much headed up by Whitehall’s finest. In other words its a rather colonial gov which as should be expected is totally and intrinsically opposed to independence. This is perhaps why ScotGov sought to withdraw from the Keatings case on the basis it wished to remain ‘neutral’ (on independence?). So we know what the ScotGov is, and just as importantly what it is not, however a not unreasonable question would be what does this make SNP ‘Ministers’?
I’m afraid you missed the point of my post Craig. Much as I admire you I will not be responding further on this or your blog!
“But these two paragraphs damn Nicola Sturgeon for life as far as I’m concerned
“However, the Scottish Government would have had nothing to ‘handle’ had complaints
not been raised about Alex Salmond’s conduct.
It was the concerns raised about his conduct – an aspect of which, by his own admission, he apologised for – that gave rise to this matter.”
This is insanity. Alex Salmond’s conduct, which he admitted, is the fault of Nicola Sturgeon?
I am FAR from a woke part of this party. Can’t stand it but there’s an equally mental blind Salmond side here. I’m not comfortable with how both sides have obstructed the enquiry and want to know more. However, there is no evidence of Sturgeon or anyone else deliberately concocting allegations to put Salmond in jail. Wings long winded articles about a date being wrong is being used to hang other innuendos. People talking about crime novels and irrelevant waffle without sticking to the facts. I’m more than willing to be convinced but only be actual evidence related to the case.
McHaggis69 says:
8 October, 2020 at 10:24 am
“What the actual FUCK has happened to the BTL comments on this forum?
Dominated by one poster’s ‘parklife’ chin-stroking pish.”
That’s not a very constructive post:-)
Prince William (spit), and Sir David Attenborough are going to save the planet today.
This is from a Prince who stays in houses with no less than 100 bedrooms in each of them.
These mansions have lighting and heating on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The shear hypocrisy from this pompous english bastard is just breathtaking.
This Prince guy also drives gas guzzling cars to his private airports, where he boards gas guzzling aircrafts.
Ok Willie, am going to follow every guideline you put out there,,,like fuck I will.
@Craig
”
Nicola and those around her tried to fit up Alex and jail him for the rest of his life.
Can you not get that into your head?
If Murrell and she quietly toddle off we will get to Independence pretty quickly”
You saying something is not evidence.
Just wondering what this website is going to say if there is indyref2 in 2022 and Nicola Sturgeon is leading the Yes campaign. It’s a possible scenario but this website appears to be burning bridges.
Big Jock @10:33 am
You’re right. Just because the polls look good for the SNP now doesn’t mean the 2021 election is in the bag. I can’t envisage Sturgeon, beset with all these allegations and problems, which will get worse and worse, leading the SNP through a long, tough campaign to a good result.
The SNP has to bite on the bullet and remove Sturgeon as leader. So some unionist politicians and journalists will sneer and laugh about the National Party ditching the leader before an election. That will be just ephemeral chit chat. What do we care?
Sturgeon has nearly ruined everything. If she stays in post she will complete the job.
Evans let this particular genie out the bottle.
She thinks she’s the most powerful person in Government.
The FM has actively or passively (I suspect a combination) allowed herself to be taken along on what were serious allegations. She got too far in and basically, theres no way out now.
I don’t believe for a second Nicola Sturgeon actively sought or conspired to jail her former mentor, but in her misplaced loyalty to the likes of Evans and the thought that any fallout from Alex Salmond being found guilty as a rapist (when she did nothing), would land on her.
She picked a side.
She lost.
If she had any thoughts to recovering this, she should have sacked Evans immediately the SG lost the judicial review. She should have welcomed Mr Salmond back VERY publicly after his aquittals. Only then, would she stand a chance here. As it is, she is simply digging a deeper and deeper hole.
“That’s not a very constructive post:-)”
Your’e fucking damn right it is.
Ross,
You know full well that the reason we cannot show you the evidence of the conspiracy is that the Crown Office is hiding it, refusing to release it and astonishingly even lying about its existence.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
If as you stated the explanation of the Murrells appalling behaviour was thhat “they believed the complainers” then they showed appallingly bad judgement, as a number of the complainers were proven beyond doubt in court to be lying bastards. Those particular complainers all being, by one of the most remarkable coincidences in the entire history of the universe, all personally close to the Murrells.
Frankly you disgust me.
@ Craig Murray: I would like to know how a leadership election gets started. Do you know?
Thank you.
Big Jock
Not a good idea to preach.
I’m not a great fan of pubs myself, but if somebody enjoys a night at the pub, then good on them.
That might be their only source of human contact that they have.
Nothing else is opened at the moment, and even pubs are closing.
If you are disabled or in need of local events or local information, then the pub might be the only place they can get it.
Aldo – The previous evidence, points to another Sturgeon con. How many times have we heard ” Just one more mandate”.
We have to base our predictions on factual history , not faith. Judge people by their deeds , not their words. Faith is fine if you belong to a church or religion. But on this earthly world , it’s evidence that matters most.
Who were the Murrell whatsapp messages directed at?
Anyone?
@Sylvia, 9.23
Devi Sridher and Chelsea Clinton are the authors of “Governing Global Health: who runs the world and why?” promoting Public/Private Partnerships.
Surely the Lord Advocate must go as well, for he’s allowing the COPFS to with hold very important material from the Alex Salmond Inquiry.
I’m under the impression that the Lord Advocate can allow the material to be seen, and that for some unknown reason he is refusing to do so. His cooperation would help clear this matter up very quickly indeed.
Craig,
You don’t disgust me and i’m not getting drawn into irrelevant trash.
I don’t know either way and want to be convinced. It’s at least plausible to me that they believed the complainers. If true, at worst it’s bad judgement, it’s not a conspiracy. You can’t be an evil conspirator whilst truly believing what you are doing is correct.
I’m glad Salmond was acquitted and donated to his fundraiser as I wanted to see justice done. I am really struggling with the idea the Murrels would deliberately concoct all this and I haven’t seen the motive or the evidence for it. If there’s more evidence, more than interested to see it and may be convinced. Without it a lot of people are coming to their own conclusions.
regards
Ross
@ Hatuey
link to twitter.com
My point was not to preach about alcohol.
It was to point out that Scotland does have a problem with alcohol. Not everyone who spends their time in the pub lives alone or has nothing else to do. That’s simply an excuse for not changing society.
Many men simply go to the pub to get away from their families. The result is that some kids never see their fathers without the stench of booze. It’s not healthy to drink everyday. That’s just a medical fact.
I work with people who live for the pub. Their entire social life involves alcohol. These are not old people or socially isolated. They are just addicted to drinking. Pretending it’s fine to drink yourself into an early grave , because you have nothing else , is not an excuse for the behaviour.
It’s tragic that’s what it is. We need to address it and try and help these people have more balance in their lives. There are massive problems with heart disease and liver disease in Scotland. This puts pressure on the NHS and society in general.
It’s not preaching. It’s trying to say we need to change the health of our nation.
Ross @10:38
“I am far from a WOKE part of this party.”
You’re an HQ staffer trying to earn brownie points by playing spin doctor.
BTW is Boss Murrell in the office today? There’s been speculation on Wings as to his whereabouts.
Ross
The Murrells want never ending Devolution.
They have lost their way.
Has the english establishment got something on them???
Or is it simply the case that Independence would end their very lucrative Gravy Train???
Craig Murray has post up on this as well.
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Ross says:
“This is insanity. Alex Salmond’s conduct, which he admitted, is the fault of Nicola Sturgeon?”
Mmm ….
Do you understand what the two following quotations means?
“O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see
us!”
“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
Now here’s what I said about Ms Sturgeon:
“How dare she pass judgement on a person who is twice the human being she will ever be and fail to acknowledge any of the disgraceful behaviour she has demonstrated.”
On the flyleaf of ‘Howard’s End’ are the words
‘Only connect’
Now if all that is too difficult for you I advise you to brush up on you ‘Practical Comprehension’ skills and stop writing comments which make you read as if you are a dolt.
@Liz, 9.01
Professor Karl Heneghan on the PCR test “We have already written about the inappropriate use of the PCR test as currently used, … Arbitrary thresholds may be so high that the UK may be heading for perpetual lockdown, as every minute fragment and debris of the coronavirus will count as positive. We deduce that a reported ‘case’ is most probably simply the result of a positive PCR test.” from link to off-guardian.org
Christ, I wish I had never opened my mouth now. Chuckling. 🙂
From The Times today – sorry I can’t read it all as I won’t pay to…
“Ministers and Alex Salmond are free to hand over key documents about his unlawful investigation, Scotland’s highest court has ruled.
In a letter to MSPs, Pam McFarlane, the director and principal clerk of session and justiciary, said that evidence from the judicial review won by Mr Salmond in January 2019 could be handed over by the participants in the case”.
Well you did ask Rattled!
I realise it’s probably unpopular , but there you go.
@holy
No. You’re original “analysis” of the “damning paragraphs” made no coherent point.
You’re still making no coherent point but you can write well known phrases. Well done. Hilarious.
I didn’t ask anything. I made an observation aboot pub discussion, and you went off on an angry sociological-cum-psychological analytical rant. Chuckling. I actually hhappen to agree with you, believe it or not.
Alcohol is an anti-social control mechanism, just another self-imposed wound in this country’s outlook and psyche, used to keep us trayslappers fighting amongst ourselves. Which, tragically, we evidently like doing far too much. We use alcohol in the same way Russians or Maoris or Irish people do – blindly, wilfully self-destructive.
The Scottish psyche is a tragic and complex and, in some ways, pathetic and disgusting and disturbing thing. And many people have been swimming in the alcoholic fish bowl so long they don’t even notice the ever-darker colours of the oppressive waters.
I definitely get it.
Ross
Where are you with the GRA/Hate Crime Bill?
Are you all for men entering girl’s/Ladies changing rooms?
Or entering female toilets?
Because that is what Sturgeon has coming down the line.
Topped off with trying to send a man to jail for the rest of his life, based on fabricated evidence.
Sturgeon is such a sweet little darling,,, isn’t she Ross?
@cirsium thanks for that.
Covid is not cut and dried and Jason Leitch is a dentist.
I despair at the knee jerk reactions which is typical of Sturgeon
” if Aberdein is telling the truth […] then Nicola Sturgeon’s private office was phoning him about allegations about Salmond weeks before Nicola Sturgeon subsequently claimed to parliament that she first heard anything of all this.”https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/either-nicola-sturgeon-or-geoff-aberdein-is-lying-on-oath-and-proving-which-will-be-easy/
This from Craig Murray, who was present at the trial, raises interesting questions.
If, as relayed by Murray, Sturgeon’s aids were “phoning him (Aberdein) about allegations about Salmond” in “mid-March”, it would surely destroy any claim that Sturgeon was being dishonest about timing because she didn’t want to be seen dealing with party business on Government time.
In other words, if being accused of getting her hats mixed up was the concern, she could have said the phone calls to Aberdein in “mid-March” were conducted using SNP time and resources rather those of the Scottish Government. Even if that was untrue, it’s a much lesser lie than the one we are asked to explain today on timing.
Which takes us back to the question; why, then, did she really lie about the timing of all this?
Answers on a postcard.
I am glad you agree then.
My point would be. That the more unhealthy Scotland is the more it suits those in power in London. They are forever telling us how bad we are.
It doesn’t have to be this way. But then Scotland doesn’t have the macro levers to change it at the moment. We live in an allegedly dependency culture in Scotland . Devolution is another unionist tool in maintaining that dependency culture.
The lack of revolt against the punitive official lockdown suggests that Scotland’s ageing population actually believes the fallacy inherent in the mask and physical distancing trope proclaimed by government functionaries, lackeys and their selected band of scientific experts.
Johnson and Sturgeon seem to be playing a virtue signalling game. Who can get the most suppression strikes. In the meantime, for those not concerned with pensions, funeral plans etc life has gone into bleak suspension mode. There is just so much that is verboten, ‘coz ya gotta stay safe, that the world has morphed into a place of ‘there be dragons’, best not to venture into it.
There is nothing safe or reassuring about starting out your life in such a situation. And this is something which the system designers appear intent upon promoting unto the last microbe, not to mention the sanity of the last individual.
U K alias Utterly Knackered, except for mega rich that is…
As usual guys on libertarian Spiked see through the Covid cant.
link to spiked-online.com
And the misuse of ‘science’ by snake oil politicians.
link to spiked-online.com
There’s a difference between blaming everything on devolution/Westminster and asking people to exercise some self-restraint in their alcohol consumption habits. People don’t have to wreck their health with alcohol, they can choose not to. Albeit the pervasive, obsessive, subcutaneous nature of booze guzzling in this country can make avoiding it pretty difficult.
If Mr Aberdein’s recollection of events is correct, and someone from NS’s staff called him in mid March 2018 to set up the meeting on 29/3/18, then there should be an audit trail of the phonecall and the appointment being put in the book.
For it not to have been subsequently recorded now reeks of it having been deliberately removed.
Once again, NS’s comment, ‘Mr Aberdein was coming down to Holyrood to see a former colleague’ sets the alarm bells ringing.
Who was this former colleague, is/was the former colleague a member of NS’s staff, was the coleague present at the meeting with NS and GA. If they were privy to details of the complaint, and thereafter went on to become complainers and remainined involved in the investigation, it would go a long way to explaining why the Court of Justiciary threw the case out for ‘unfair and apparent bias’ big time.
@DAve somerville
Instead of dealing with the specific argument you try to change to topic. Revealing and quite sad actually.
For what it’s worth. I’m against GRA. But that doesn’t suit you’re argument does it?
cirsium @11:01- Thanks for that. Some weeks ago I posted on Twitter I felt she was a FBI/CIA sleeper. You see, I am “intrigued” by various American influences within the SG. Even Liz Llyod has an American connection – whlst reading American Studies at Edinburgh -she spent 1 yr at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill…just saying….
Is it safe to assume Ottomanboi is from Ottama?
That might explain the civilisational fault line and clash that he seems to be struggling with.
In our collective culture the value of human life is placed above economics and materialism.
I know, I know, it’s all bullshit, we bomb people left, right, and centre, etc., for oil and such, I get it, but I’m talking about collective culture not foreign policy conducted by cheating politicians.
Maybe in Turkey and elsewhere it’s different. Maybe in other places economics is a matter of life and death.
I don’t know.
All I know is that I would rather see people take some time off work and stop going to pubs than see them dying.
Daisy Walker, I’m following you but I think you’re sailing close to the wind on a couple of things and ought to be careful.
The sort of overlap you allude to is probably an issue here. But there’s very strong circumstantial evidence of more than that.
Liz@9:01
“…Scotland in the 21st century, no drinking, dancing, music, smoking. Why have we allowed this total control freak with her Calvinistic attitudes, so much power.”
Ah, but it’s not just ‘Calvinists‘ in positions of power who’ve religious strictures about drinking, music and dancing.
Let’s just say the SNP, like other political parties, have been infiltrated by a group of people with all sorts of inimical long term agendas based on their religious beliefs, they’re opting for subtlety, we’re the poor Anura in their ideological slow cooker
Control the head; control the body.
I am in two minds about COVID and I do think that fear shouldn’t be a cause to shut down lives, more a reason to wake up to reality.
Ross
I am only highlighting the package YOUR choice of leader is going to force on Scotland if she gets her evil way.
That side of her doesn’t seem to bother you.
Our plan is to replace her and it will stop these Bills in their tracks.
And it would let us get a leader in who actually believes in Scottish Independence.
Sylvia – Humza Yousaf is an alumnus of the US State Department’s International Visitor Learning Programme.
Breastplate
It’s pretty clear to me that you have no knowledge of how human rights work, so you are potentially endangering life with your ill-informned opinion, which has not connection to law. Please take that on board.
Dave , the vast majority of people think Sturgeon wants independence. I doubt Wings even believes she doesn’t want independence. How she thinks it’s best to get there is up for debate, for sure. But there’s no reason to believe she doesn’t want it.
“I doubt Wings even believes she doesn’t want independence.”
Wrong.
Graduates of the US State Department’s nternational Visitor Learning programme: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, Edward Heath. Wee Humza is in illustrious company! Chuckling.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
WhoRattledYourCage @12:30
Thanks for that, I already know. Selection for The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is by nomination of the American Embassy. He must have been nominated by the American Embassy in London.
Hatuey
Your man Ottomanboi is simply a Tory who holds a grudge against Britain, because of Britain’s colonial activities in the middle east. Your man is no friend towards Scotland though, as he is a fan of philosophers who deny the significance of biology and places the will of man above the forces of nature. So he’s simply a bit of a bat-shit crazy, right-wing, troublemaker.
He’s an individual who is politically on the right, and who is unable to support the principles of universal human rights. In other words, his opinion is dodgy as fuck.
Hi Hatuey.
RE: your most recent comment.
I’ll just suggest you read my comment at 11.04pm last night.
I posted the below timeline yesterday morning. Here it is again, with amendments.
I think the timeline is important, it may highlight the tactics used against the movement, and it may highlight some of the players working against the movement.
One example of tactics would be the timing of WOS Twitter being taken down – just before the GE, and weeks before AS trial…
It should also help us to see how often we’ve had our hopes kicked into the long grass, again and again.
So, in case this is of help to others, and with obvious missing bits:
2017 Terrible May calls a GE and wins. AS loses his seat. NS takes IndyRef2 off the table. Now is not the time. A marked difference in her attitude is seen. Not until the Terms of Brexit are Known becomes the mantra.
The Brexit deadline time line is I think November 2018 ish.
Both Pete Wishart and Tommy Shepherd (Tommy did this in a public talk, as far as I can tell he was the first person to run this up the flagpole, since then he has kept his head down on this subject – his background is old/new labour) start to talk about ‘not until after Brexit and the hard effects are felt, should we go for IndyRef2’. PW is fully supported in this view by John Swinney.
November 2017
AS gets his own TV Show on RT. While the Yes movement is delighted at an evening up on the media inequality… the official SNP and NS – pursed lips all round.
First Documentary ‘The Only Game In Town’ is aired on WOS.
Jan 2018
Sky News approaches the SNP re allegations of a sexual nature against AS. This may be the first complaint registered with Scot Gov against AS, or indeed the first complaint by employee may have been registered at this time, its not clear.
Feb 2018 Murray Foote Resigns from DR
March 2018
Mid March Geoff Aberdein is contacted by NS aids to set up a meeting with her on 29th March – this is not mentioned in any way, or officially recorded (as far as we yet know) in NS evidence to the inquiry. GA can corroborate this contact, and has provided this information under oath at AS criminal trial.
29th March 2018
NS meets with Aberdein (who is in parliament to see former colleague) and is informed of AS issue – for the first time. Meeting takes place at Holyrood – and she later forgets the timing of this meeting possibly due to not being supposed to hold party meetings in this venue.
Meeting and all those present is not officially recored in the FM’s diary. She lied to Scottish Parliament about when she was first made aware of the complaints.
April 2018
2/4/18 NS thinks AS will resign
WM votes to illegally bomb Syria.
Legal appeal against Brexit begins.
22/4 AS sends NS message
May 2018 Brexit – attitudes to Indy due to Brexit, ways of gaining Indy all still being talked about.
31/5 AS sends message to NS requesting a meet.
June 2018
3/6/18 AS threatens legal action. Asks for Permanent Secretary to be notified re arbitration procedures.
6/6/18 PS notified by NS
7/6/18 NS meets AS alone
SNP high in Polls
13/6/18 SNP walk out of WM in protest at treatment of the Skye Banker and what was to become the UK Internal Market Bill.
Same Date Iain McWhirter writes about Devolution ending not with a bang but a whimper over this bill.
23/6/19 Msp Mark Macdonald Scandal***
July 2018
5th July meeting with AS
18/7/18 No further contact after this date
Wings over Scotland has its You Tube BBC content taken down without its knowledge by BBC in London.*** Why? What footage did they want removed and why?
August 2018
17th August WOS appears in court re Kezia Dugdale
19th August Campaign in Edinburgh by many English people campaigning for Peoples Vote on Brexit and begging Scotland to assist.
Kirsty Hughes – lobbyist for same – also showed up on list of ‘journalists’ who have received same ‘support as female journalist who was later quoted by Craig Murray and yet CM gets take to court over it. (Sorry forget her name, and can’t spell it anyway). Dannielle Givianni?
UK Brexit Appeal lodged
Allegations against AS made public. Civil law complaints, 2 complainers at this time. (Was it 2 complainers on 29th March 2018? If not then where and by what means did the second one come forward?)
AS initiates record breaking fund raiser and instigates Judical Appeal.
30th August 2018 permanent Secretary Leslie Evans meets with Civil Servant Unions to attempt to gain support against AS.
Sept 2018 Polling shows support of Indy increasing due to brexit
Oct 2018 AUOB march – Edinburgh big turnout
Nov 2018 Brexit deadline reached – Transition period entered. No talk from NS or other top SNP members as to how we save Scotland. Not until the Terms of Brexit are Known is the mantra, and the sound of the can rattles down the road again.
Dec 2018
19th 12/19 Vote of No Confidence in Terrible May at WM. Boris elected. Actions by the Labour party ensure Brexit No deal is the only game in town.
January 2019
During this month or the next NS manages to recollect she had that meeting with Aberdein on 29th March 2018. Does nothing to update the official record of same, at this time.
8/1/19 AS wins Court of Judiciary process – procedure deemed unfair and tainted by apparent bias.
The Times calls for Leslie Evans to be sacked.
20/1/19 LE contract of employment extended (possibly with 20,000 £ pay rise)
From memory – it was within weeks of A initial win that Criminal Procedures were taken out against him.
Feb 2019 Brexit, nothing resembling a plan from the SNP
March 2019 Another Brexit Deadline comes and goes, no real progress, transition extended.
April 2019
24/4/19 NS puts before Holyrood legislation for HR to hold referendums without permission from WM. This will be legally challenged by WM if it ever gets put into action.
May 2019
6th May AUOB march in Glasgow 100,000
End May GE called for December
June 2019 GE talk
July 2019
4th July Mhairi Black posts video of herself referring to all who have reservations about GRA Self ID as ‘Jeremy Hunts’. It is around about this time she is seen in HOC’s putting her hand in her pocket and then taking her hand out rubbing her finger round her gums. Concerns were raised that this is classic Cocaine misuse behaviour – she laughed this off dismissively and stated she was finishing off a piece of Kit Kat.
August 2019
Westminster Brexit Coup
Polling shows Support for IndyRef2 growing
Sept 2019
WM unlawfully prorogued – as found by court
SNP policy now officially ‘Stop Brexit’ Full support for Peoples Vote on a second Brexit Vote
Oct 2019
SNP at WM prevent a Vote of No Confidence in Boris.
Tories High in polls (UK)
16th Oct 2019 – NS to DEMAND powers for Holyrood to hold Referendums. Pretty much empty rhetoric to play to the home crowd.
SNP policy is now openly calling for second Brexit ‘peoples vote’ on Brext.
Electorial Commission demand 9 months notice for any further Indy Ref.. Indy Ref 2 now pencilled in for second half of 2020. ‘Trust in Nicola’ becomes the theme.
Nov 2019 Only Game in Town part 2 is shown on WoS. Leslie Evens is named within for questionable actions.
Dec 2019
Wings over Scotland Twitter account suspended weeks, just weeks before AS trial is due to go ahead, following complaints from woke members of SNP. And just in time for the GE.
GE Neale Harvey and Denise Findlay suspended from SNP over dubious, if not spurious complaints, and with little regard for proper procedures for carrying out same.
SNP withdraws all funding for Neil’s GE campaign and instructs SNP supporters not to assist him. He gets elected anyway.
Motive thought to have been for having signed the Womans Pledge, and complaints thought to have been instigated by Woke element within SNP.
Jan 2020
11/1/20 Boris says No
31/1/20 Brexit officially happens – NS gives much hyped speech during which it becomes apparent there was no Plan A, never mind a cunning plan B. ‘Trust in Nicola’ not such a good theme.
Feb 2020
Covid getting closer. GRA under ‘consultation’ open to every country under the sun to contribute. Somerville openly declares her determination to push it through. Only organisations openly biased in favour are getting ministerial time to present their case.
Polls show agenda to be major vote loser.
March 2020
23/3/20 AS trail – Cleared on all charges. Journalists with pro indy credentials excluded from the trial and subsequently charged with contempt of court for quoting main stream media reports verbatim.
Craig Murray the only journalist (as far as I’m aware) to record and publish, in any detail, the evidential statements given by defence witnesses. A trial in search of a crime, best description of it.
No comments of support, or compassion or relief of any kind toward AS and his wife, over whole debauchle.
Covid Lockdown begins.
NS unable to delegate to her Health ministers for press briefings even months down the line.
October 2020 – final transition period for Brexit deadline November – now approaching and No Deal the only thing on the cards.
Internal UK Market Bill passed at WM an open destruction of devolution and power grab. 3000 civil servants moved into Edinburgh to fascilitate same. SNP official policy – `now is not the time’ ‘Only when we can win’ Covid, covid, covid, look at the polls, look at the polls, look at the polls.
So, that’s it for the moment.
Couple of things stick out, with the benefit of hindsight, at each approaching No Deal Brexit deadline, I thought the SNP would recognise the danger, and put all hands to the pump to fight to save Holyrood, Devolution, Indy, Scotland. And each and every time, its now clear, they had no plan, no resources put aside, and absolutely no intention of doing any such thing. In the face of what NS describes as the biggest self inflicted threat to the UK since WW2.
With regards AS – 17 days after he threatened the Scot Gov with legal action they undertook their actions against MSP Mark MacDonald.
There were only 2 complainers at the initial AS legal proceedings. How many were there on 29/3/18. If it was one, at that time, and became 2 with the subsequent complaint of a person who was at that meeting, then that would explain NS’s forgetfulness about the date, and becomes not so much about the date, and more about the recording of persons present at that meeting and subsequent removing of same from the records.
It would be useful to know – for the bigger picture – when was it authorised, planned, passed into action for the 3000 civil servants to be moved into Edinburgh. That would give an indication of resources and timing of Brit Nat planning.
The UK Internal Market Bill was first floated in HoC on 13/6/18
Why was WOS You Tube Taken down. Specifically what footage did it contain that they did not want viewed in light of the upcoming AS trials.
The taking down of WOS Twitter – again the timing of this was extremely useful to the Brit Nat establishment – who within the SNP knows which wokeratti perpetrated this. Timing is everything.
And one last thought – throughout all of this support for Indy has been rock steady and growing.
Daisy Walker – ‘And one last thought – throughout all of this support for Indy has been rock steady and growing.’ It’s almost like Sturgeon and Murrell are using independence as a shield to hide behind – “Don’t criticise us or Santa Sturgeon won’t bring you an independent country for Christmas.” The increased support is happening despite them, not because of them, and they’re impotently riding the coattails of the prevailing mood of the country for self-aggrandisement and self-defence.
An interesting admission there that Wings does not believe Sturgeon wants independence anymore. A big distinction from the argument over strategy. Of note.
Daisy Walker @12:59
“Wings over Scotland Twitter account suspended weeks, just weeks before AS trial is due to go ahead, following complaints from woke members of SNP. And just in time for the GE”.
Thanks for that.”Every picture tells a story” I would suggest those behind the suspension had more power and influence than “woke members” of the SNP. ” Timing Is Everything”.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
8 October, 2020 at 12:49 pm
“On page 12 of Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence she offers to meet Alex Salmond at parliament
The Scottish Ministerial Code specifically prohibits the use of the parliament for party political purposes; and yet she maintains that the whole issue is party political which is why no minutes of the meetings with Alex Salmond were taken etc etc.”
Good catch. I wonder if it officially classed as government business by that point.’
Had the complaints against AS been made by members of the public – the entire incident would have been a Party issue. As they were employees within the Scot Gov environment it become both a party and a Scot Gov (with the Government having ownership) issue.
When AS stood down from the party, he made almost entirely a Scot Gov issue.
From the content NS has disclosed of AS WhatsApp messages its clear that AS had nothing to fear from his side of the messages being recorded in official minutes.
@ Ross 10:30
Are you a professional stupid person or just a really gifted amateur?
Whether they believed the allegations is neither here not there you fucking moron. These people occupy legally regulated posts in a legally regulated organisation. There are massive conflicts of interest involved here, and only somebody with the brain of a cockroach would think you could justify their involvement in a Whatsapp group of the alleged victims by saying “But they believed the allegations…”
I hope to fuck for their sakes you’re just some anonymous bellend on the internet, and not a member of the official “Sturgeon/Murrell Rebuttal Unit” If the latter is the case then they’re in the shit up to their nostrils.
The message must surely be getting through to Sturgeon
@David
Hi David, tell me where it says they cannot be in a whatsapp group to discuss allegations please? Seen as you keep repeating legally regulated i’m sure you’ll be able to point to it.
It’s critical to your argument whether the SNP believed the complainers… if you’re attempting to demonstrate they made it all up. Unless you’re unable to follow your own line of argument.
you seem very annoyed that your smoking gun is a limp water pistol. You simple saying something is explosive doesn’t make it so. The existence of a whatsapp group involving these people about a huge scandal is entirely plausible unless you’re a simpleton. The contents are another matter. Which we’re all interested in.
Regards
Ross
Ross – stop flogging the horse is dead.
The problem with the 9 women and others having a pre-trial confab is that they were relying on the moorov doctrine to secure a a man’s life imprisonment.
The game is going to be over soon. The wokeratti have lost.
O/T. I was just told by somebody I know that there was an overflow Nightingale hospital built in Glasgow that is sitting empty right now, whilst people wait for medical procedures. Anybody know of the truth of this assertion? Thanks in advance.
@ Ross ‘ tell me where it says they cannot be in a whatsapp group to discuss allegations please?’
For a crime to be proved beyond all reasonable doubt, there must be corroboration whether by witness, or physical evidence. One persons word against another is not enough without something to tip the balance.
Moorov was a Factory owner in the early 1900th century. He sexually molested his workers over a course of years.
But of course, it happened in private, only one person (at a time)’s word against him.
It went to trial and the Moorov principle came into being whereby if a course of conduct can be proved, by similarity of MO and multiple complaints FROM INDEPENDENT WITNESSES, NOT CONNECTED TO ONE ANOTHER. That is, witness who would have no opportunity to sit down and have good old chin wag and ensure all their stories back one another up…
Then a conviction could be achieved and the crime proved.
For your info.
@WhoRattledYourCage 6.09: I thought some expert would answer you, but as far as I know, all these temporary hospitals have been hardly used, mainly because they were the product of Ferguson of ICL’s insane “modelling” of the virus.
I often wondered what the real reason so many of our SNP/MSP did not want to carry on and resigned
We now know the reasons why they quit, there are people who might end up in prison at the end of all this, and I think a certain guy married to a certain woman will allmost certainly be getting his porridge in the big house if there is any justice in this country, and as for all those lying women, you took an oath and you will all be going to prison for perjury
Have a happy christmas cause you certainly will not be having a happy new year in 2021
David Caledonia @ 10:52 pm
“I often wondered what the real reason so many of our SNP/MSP did not want to carry on and resigned”
Retirement?
Gil Paterson 77
Stewart Stevenson 74
Richard Lyle 70
Roseanna Cunningham 69
Alex Neil 69
Maureen Watt 69
Sandra White 69
Jeanne Freeman 67
Mike Russell 67
Bruce Crawford 65
Linda Fabiani 63
Tinto Chiel: well surely they could be getting used right now, to clear any appointment backlogs? Makes sense to me, or about as much sense as any of this shock doctrine madness makes anyway.
@WRYC: yes, there must be a large number of people who have had surgery delayed because of the concentration on Covid.
Dunno what the hell is going on here:
link to heraldscotland.com
Better.
link to www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org
I have been avoiding this Sh1tshower on Wings for the last few months because I can’t believe that anyone on here believes that NS is anything but an asset to the independence movement.
One of the things we need to do as a movement is to demonstrate competence in government which,in the main, we have done. There’s been a few bumps but compared to the catastrophic government in Westminster were doing fine.
I’m not a fan of Murrell and he should resign, but letting the Unionists drag down Sturgeon is to do their work for them. Who knows where this started, and I wouldn’t rule out Westminster and the security services interference. FWIW I also think the Me Too movement has jumped on the Salmond bandwagon, encouraged by who is the question.
Frankly I don’t care if NS is being economical with the truth, Politics is full of Liars and NS is a politician. Sh’es no worse, and probably better than most. The end justifies the means.
‘FWIW I also think the Me Too movement has jumped on the Salmond bandwagon, encouraged by who is the question.’ A load of ‘useful idiot’ young female American-wannabe manhating Scottish political careerists, is the answer to that one.
johnj @9.50pm – you have just written the scariest post I have ever read.
‘the end justifies the means’ was coined by a russian revolutionary. He wanted to murder everyone who disagreed with him. It is the philosophy of the idiot.
Sturgeon cannot be allowed to wash her hands of this. She must go. She has betrayed the cause by not planning for independence. Instead organizing and planning for genderwoowoo and thought crime.
And I’ll leave you with this :
Hitler’s strategy was simple. Lie. Tell blatant lies. Tell them what they want to hear, the truth doesn’t matter. The bigger the lie the better:
“Success is the sole earthly judge
of right and wrong.”
“The greater the lie, the more people will believe it.”
Hitler, and the many who follow his policies, erroneously believe that the end justifies the means. But lies are not supported by the truth. The world of deceit and the world of truth have no connection.
I doubt you actually believe what you have written.
You should just apologise for your youthfulness or this will haunt the rest of your life.
Astonished says:
I liked this bit,
“You should just apologise for your youthfulness or this will haunt the rest of your life.”
I’m in my eighth decade and Iv’e been a close follower of politics all my life. I have discovered over the years that the politician who never tell’s a lie ( I prefer economical with the truth in this case) does not exist, and certainly never gets power. At the time of the act of Union: were they telling us he truth? Sometimes it’s necessary to play by the same rules as everyone else and not live in an Ivory Tower.
And to compare NS with Hitler is luaghable. Do Unionists tell us the truth about the viability of independence, do you think?
[…] could save Sturgeon from those inquiries would be crookedness on a scale only previously hinted at. It’s an ALREADY-ESTABLISHED AND UNDISPUTED FACT that Sturgeon lied to Parliament with regard to th…. The Scottish Government has admitted, publicly and in writing, that her repeated claims to have […]
[…] could save Sturgeon from those inquiries would be crookedness on a scale only previously hinted at. It’s an ALREADY-ESTABLISHED AND UNDISPUTED FACT that Sturgeon lied to Parliament with regard to th…. The Scottish Government has admitted, publicly and in writing, that her repeated claims to have […]