His judgement cometh
The Scottish Government seems determined to pile insult upon injury to the Scottish people in relation to the inquiry into its botched stitch-up of Alex Salmond.
A shocking story in today’s Sunday Mail reveals that in addition to wasting in excess of £1 million on the initial unlawful investigation, untold millions on a criminal prosecution and trial, and £55,000 on coaching its inquiry witnesses (so badly that almost all of them were forced to return to the inquiry to subsequently “correct” their evidence), it’s also spent thousands of pounds of your money on lawyers to successfully prevent one of the key witnesses appearing at all.
Possibly because the witness in question doesn’t exist.
Unfortunately we can’t tell you who the “senior official” is, even though we know their identity. We can’t tell you whether or not they’re the same person who [REDACTED] or [REDACTED] or if they’re the one who met [REDACTED] on [REDACTED] and talked about [REDACTED], because if we told you those things the Crown Office would try to put us in prison.
(Even though all of the above has already been published in Scottish newspapers.)
And more to the point, neither can Alex Salmond.
Ludicrously, just two days before the former First Minister is due to appear before the Holyrood inquiry to give evidence, it’s still not clear whether he’ll actually be able to do so without running the risk of being prosecuted for it, because almost every aspect of the events he was at the centre of has been ruled off-limits.
A majority of inquiry members asked on Friday for an emergency meeting to try to resolve the matter, but were refused by its convener Linda Fabiani. It’s very difficult to see how it can now possibly be cleared up by Tuesday, which would be the crowning jewel in the entire farce – an inquiry into events surrounding one man, prevented from hearing that man’s evidence by a government which promised two years ago that not a single obstacle would be placed in the inquiry’s path but has to date interfered with it on at least 58 separate occasions.
Of the five main players in the story – Nicola Sturgeon, Alex Salmond, Leslie Evans, Geoff Aberdein and [REDACTED] – the inquiry might now hear from only two of them, one of whose testimony is so unreliable that she’s already been called back no fewer than FOUR times to “clarify” it.
At this point we know for sure that the committee will never get to hear from Aberdein or [REDACTED] in person, and now perhaps not Mr Salmond either. Written evidence from Aberdein and Salmond has already been blocked. Its members are being asked to solve a 1000-piece jigsaw with 600 pieces missing and without the picture on the box, and it’s not allowed to ask for clues. (And the pieces it does have so far may be from a different jigsaw entirely and can’t be relied on.)
And those aren’t its only problems.
A bombshell piece in Sky News today reveals that not only might the First Minister have lied repeatedly to Parliament about when she knew of the allegations, but also to the Court Of Session.
Having breached the Ministerial Code by lying to Parliament would require Sturgeon to resign. But lying to the Court Of Session would be of a whole other order of magnitude, with even graver consequences for the First Minister.
(The document from which that image is taken, incidentally, is one of a large number connected with the case which have been formatted in a strange way which makes them very difficult to search for text in. The image above comes from page 25 in the document, but if you search it for the word “petitioner’s”, the first result you get is on page 36. If you search for the word “became”, you get no results at all. We are sure this is an innocent coincidence.)
[EDIT 1.11pm: an extremely alert reader explains. We checked and they’re right.]
The court record is an important document.
But the reason for the madly absurd situation by which committee members are being forced to pretend they don’t know things that everyone else in Scotland knows is that if Salmond’s submission to the separate Hamilton inquiry is published by the committee, it will then be empowered under its remit to ask about the events of 29 March 2018.
If it isn’t, the events of that date will be off limits. And above everything else, the 29th of March 2018 is the day the First Minister really, really, really doesn’t want you to know about – so much so that she wiped the details of one of her meetings on that day from both her own memory and her official diary.
(The FOI response above was released in June 2020, a year and a half after the First Minister claimed to have remembered the meeting and who it was with again.)
And while diehard supporters of the SNP leader try to wave the whole issue away as an unimportant confusion over two dates that are just four days apart, they have no answer as to why, if that’s the case, the Scottish Government has gone to such extraordinary lengths to avoid answering any questions about it.
We’ll know within the next 48 hours whether it will be able to continue to pretend – for a little while longer, at least – that the 29th of March 2018 simply never happened. But the truth is coming, and that right soon.
It really is turning onto a bag of shite.
If nothing comes of this enquiry Scotland is fucked, no, double fucked because its fucked already.
Their new Scotland will be based on corruption, cover-ups, malicious prosecution & intimidation of speaking the truth.
So…Yay!!! Move along. Nothing to see here.
Just who would action a Contempt of Court?. The judge involved or The Crown Prosdcution Service?
One has a chance, the other not so much.
The names will all come out anyway so what does it matter.
Sky News just ran the James Matthews story minutes ago again . This is not going away now and the sooner it’s all out in the open what Nicola Sturgeon did in trying to send Alex Salmond to jail the better .
This week i was informed that you had somewhat changed your view and stance on the SNP and perhaps independence(not sure of this).
i too have come along this road of disgust with the SNP, sitting on fence regarding independence, as they have done nothing since 2014 to make Scotland a more viable nation, the exact opposite if i was to be honest. Hand outs from whoever will give them out, seems to be their only position, sounds more like dependence, than independence.
We have also become something of a one party state, which is bad enough, however we are a woke one party state, with the inevitable corruption and running roughshod over citizens rights, all in the name of progress. Backing up every freedom erosion by empowering police to impose draconian restrictions.
If you are innocent you can seek refuge in transparency and justice.
If not, you employ all of the above and establish that both Scottish politics and
our legal process is corrupt beyond redemption.
I have every confidence that Westminster and it’s U.K. media army will be able to
ensure a dramatic fall in SNP votes In May and kill off Indy ref 2 until such times
Scotland has nothing left to steal or manipulate for profit.
“The names will all come out anyway so what does it matter.”
Sorry, what do you mean by that?
It’s possible that Nichola’s job is to turn Scotland into failed State before she inherits her ermine!!
No evidence, except a pile of circumstantial!
In her quieter moments( such as they are) what’s going through Nicola’s head?
Does she ever contemplate the myriad of decisions and choices that have brought her to this moment and the profound implications for herself firstly and secondly for our country?
Does she ever reflect for a moment on how this entire sorry mess could’ve been not only handled better, but completely avoided?
Did it ever cross her mind to sack immediately Judith Evans and have her as the sacrificial lamb and inter aila the UK Government and Civil Service as well?
Well if she did, it’s way too late for her. She’s a dead person walking
I am starting to believe, London is simply playing-out the rope, positive that Sturgeon, the SNP, the Scottish Government, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, will eventually hang themselves.
Then,since Scottish public life is fatally compromised by corruption, London will take back control and Independence is totally fucked.
Rev,
Put all the evidence you have into an envelope and ship it over to Ireland.
You must have a contact or two over on the Emerald isle who would be only too happy to print the lot of it.
Posted under “Anonymous”.
I am growing to hate what the contemptible Murrell’s are doing to my country.
I never thought I would be living in a Scotland where the leadership are, allegedly, using every means possible to subvert the course of law to protect themselves.
Excellent piece. Brilliant
Surely the judge has the power to call people to account on this. I just watched the Netflix, series How To Cover Up A Drug Scandal and the truth only started to come out due to a dogged journalist and when it was proven a judge was lied to.
The similarities are amazing. Watch the last episode (4).
People soon change their tune when they are in the dock.
This is farcical. You are not telling us things we already all know…
You would think the SG had never heard on the Barbra Streisand effect.
This is the Scottish Government bullying Holyrood,that it is so obvious is breathtaking.
Perhaps they are bluffing and nothing would happen if the committee ignored the intimidation.
The only thing that is true, is that this whole thing reads like a story in the National Enquirer minus the bit at the end where it usually says, ‘and then the aliens abducted me.’
STU, in ALL honesty, if you had not been following this shit show of a case that gets away with being called an Enquery, We would have no idea about the lies and corruption thats happening.
Your are removing the blindfold from the publics’ eyes.
I love the reference to the Shawshank redemption.
A message to the liars, we know you are reading this so,
Be afraid Liars and beware. This film predicted your Fate.
The TRUTH is Comming!!
Abandon the inquiry and set up a truly independent inquiry with an impartial judge. Allow nothing to be redacted and include every bit of pertinent information. All on sworn oath. Scotland deserves no less!
David Whitehouse, the Duff and Phelps Director, has proven that if you have £1.5m then you can prove Mallicious Prosecution against the Lord Avocate.
If you’re Alex Salmond then then you have little chance to prove anything and if you are a memebr of the public, you have absolutely no chance.
This is corruption. It should be handled by Westminster and not by Holyrood.
Nicola Sturgeon is a ( redacted) who should be ( redacted) then we would (redacted) ever after.
She knows she is finished. Her handlers know she is finished. Her party knows she is finished. The committee knows she is finished. The MSM knows she is finished. They knew that in 2018.
Everything that has happened ever since, the police investigation, the criminal case and this charade of inquiry has been a nothing but an attempt to keep this infiltrated version of the SNP and its British state assets in control to stop any real pro indy leader to take over and declare a plebiscite election or worse, independence.
She (her handlers?) are desperately hiding that meeting and the person in that meeting because they need to push this until the election, so a smooth transition from Sturgeon and the next compromised British state asset aligned to take over from her can happened “normally”.
If this committee and inquiry was anything other than a tool in the process of preserving the control of the British state of the SNP, those members of the committee would have shown already two fingers to the SnP’s gatekeeper Fabiani and declare the whole thing to be a complete farce. Demand the evidence was released or walk away from it.
The fact they are just going along with it with not even half of the evidence, with the position Mr Salmond has been put in and with Swinney stopping certain civil servants to actually give evidence, tells us they are playing along in the game too.
It is all about timing, isn’t it? All about deception. All about delay. The british state is clearly all hands on deck to delay independence because they realise they can no longer stop it.
That is why Mr Salmond had to be expelled from the SNP. That is why Joanna had to be blocked from Holyrood and is currently being pushed out the front bench. That is why we have professional trolls masquerading as genderwoowoos taking control of every structure of the party with the blessing of this compromised leader. They had to stop this election becoming a plebiscite what come may.
If this blows over before the election, they will need either an emergency seat or an interim puppet before the British State new asset can take over. They have clearly tried to get a seat from Ferrier, from Joanna and now from Hanvey. Where they are going to get that quick seat from?
My bet is Derek MacKay’s or from any of those many MSPs retiring acting as back up seats.
Stu
re: “became” & “aware”
Those two words do not come up in a search of the document because there are spaces between each of the letters within the words, this is a method deployed to stop whole words from appearing within document searches for specific terms.
To any general reader the extra letter spacing just appears as a formatting error in the document, upon closer inspection only then would you find out there have been methods deployed in their publication to stop them from being picked up in document seaches.
If you search for ‘b e c a m e’ or ‘a w a r e’ then you will most definately get hits for each and every use of those terms within the document.
At this point I am wondering just how many documents published by the Scottish Government use this method to avoid scrutiny either directly or via FOI requests, a method which is clearly designed in so that documents are not flagged up in term searches.
Scotland is governed by a vicious, right wing colonialist government in London and by a craven, devolved pathocracy in Edinburgh.
Craig Jones that sounds like a good idea.
Alex Salmond promised that the things he wasn’t allowed to mention in court would “see the light of day”. He’s the wiliest operator UK politics has ever seen so I wouldn’t be surprised if he has something up his sleeve.
I hope so anyway.
NEVER EVER did I believe I would agree with the Sunday Post.
However,to my surprise—- here I am, in full agreement:
“……We said last week that ministers’ disrespect of this committee, their refusal to deliver the information it has asked for, their stonewalling and time-wasting, is a disgrace.
In truth, it is worse than that.
This committee deserves far better. Every one of us deserves far better…….”
A word of advice for everyone; it’s based upon experience – don’t go to any Scottish lawyer if you have a dispute with Scotgov.
I think there should be a different oath being proffered to witnesses (backdated of course). It could include phrases and words such as;
‘as long as’, ‘The FM has instructed’, ‘a version of the truth’
“Those two words do not come up in a search of the document because there are spaces between each of the letters within the words, this is a method deployed to stop whole words from appearing within document searches for specific terms.”
Oh, good work. Very good work.
These are dark days indeed.
We have a stark choice.
Either SCotland as a nation decides that a deep clean is necessary and acts to achieve this via the ballot box, or we have to get others to do this for us.
But what is not an option is to tolerate the corruption, obfuscation, state-sponsored defamation, malicious prosecution of innocent people, and blatant abuse of power any longer.
We are becoming a laughing-stock on the international stage where once we were hld in high regard.
It is not the system that is to blame but those running the system.
Cherry, Salmond, Hirst, Whitehouse are the true patriots and those who inspired against them are ("Tractor" - Ed)s.
And where, for God’s sake is the leadership?
Sweet Jesus,
Don’t ever contemplate Westminster isn’t rotten with corruption.
They have honed the art through starving to death 1 million Irish,
The Highland Clearances,
The Blair Iraqi illegal war
The loss of all Westminster files on leading child abusers
The Billions given to Tory supporters for dodgy PPE equipment.
The Thatcher contracts given to her sons company- Top Secret
The Dunblane massacre files – Top Secret for 100 years.
Our hope was to have a Scottish Parliament nothing like Westminster’s!
Me @ 12.26 pm
Sky news running the James Matthews story again .
‘Corrupt politicians get the other ten percent a bad name.’ Henry Kissinger
Where are the other ten percent?
So many MSPs and MPs know alot, but, Why? are they not comming forward to expose this?
The brit state handlers have been leading up to this for years.
They have been preparing for a time when Scotland was most likely to become Independent, then release their firepower.
In 2015 when the SNP got 56 Mps and even the brit politicians were resigned to Independence as inevitable, Sturgeon immediately states this is NOT about independence’!
Mandate after mandate squandered. AS villified and degraded. NS, the brit states puppet FM, at the helm given strict orders to go for AS.
create as much chaos, lies, discredit Independence so much as to have it ctash! That was the plan.
Backed by a savage unionist media the will go after the entire concept of Independence relentlesly.
NS has been set up for the fall if AS could not be convicted.
Only brave journalidts like Stu, Craig Murray, Mark Hirst, Ian lawason and other are bringing to light the level of corruption.
I really worry about the prospects for independence given the artillary comming our way.
This is where the Indy movement needs to hold together.
Since NS drank from the posioned chalis, she knows those protecting her will do so no longer.
Me n her indoors love those courtroom dramas where the guys n gals take the fifth amendment. We think Big Eck should take the chair and answer “I refuse to answer that on the grounds I might incriminate the Scottish Government “
Excellent article Stu.
Huge thanks for all your hard work.
Do we really need the SNP? or we would maybe have done better with strong individual candidates like Joanna standing in constituents all over Scotland, seems to me Margo McDonald did a brilliant job as an independent and being an independent leaves you free to ensure your voice is heard.
However we are where we are now and as much as no one wishes to see a unionist party gain power in Scotland(I’m not too convinced that isn’t what we have at the moment tbh) I believe the worst thing that could happen in May is the SNP winning by a majority, a minority govt which would have to depend on support from another indy party (not the greens) and dare I dream one led by Alex Salmond, prepared to back them on sensible policies while at the same time holding them to account and pushing for independence.
If by some chance Sturgeon survives the enquiry then what better revenge for Alex than to be the one she has to face on a daily basis in Hollyrood. wouldn’t that just be the icing on the cake. I doubt she could handle that.
I may have missed it, but I do not recall Liz Lloyd being in front of the committee. You’d think she’d be a pretty important witness. Did I miss her appearance or was it completely forgettable?
Joanna Cherry should exercise her Parliamentary Privilege and name the senior official.
I reckon I could write a script that would remove those spaces within the words and leave all other formatting in place.
“I may have missed it, but I do not recall Liz Lloyd being in front of the committee. You’d think she’d be a pretty important witness. Did I miss her appearance or was it completely forgettable?”
A person could be forgiven for imagining that she was the subject of the Sunday Mail piece linked at the very top of the article. Of course we can’t know that.
“I Have a Plan So That We Can Remain Anonymous But Have Maximum Effect”
Therein lies the what is at the root of this and why this rotten cesspit will continue to stink for as long as this ‘anonimity’ lasts.
Skip NC, nope you didnt miss her. She was blocked from being questioned by Swinney as I recall. Incidentally she was due to give evidence at the Judicial Review immediately prior to the ScotGov folding.
I guess there must be some sort of reason for Swinney et al not wanting LL to be asked any questions. Cant really think why…
What a grim laugh when a First Minister can lie to both Parliament and to the highest court in the land..
The judicial system in Scotland is a joke. All these begowned judges with wigs reduced to pantomime puppets sitting on a bench getting fed peanuts. The mighty Scots Law – joke judicial system masquerading as a functioning legal system.
Two fingers to you My Lord Monkey. Oh that’s all right Counsel we’re all in for the pantomime. I’m the pantomime judge, you’re the pantomime prosecutor, let’s all play Jackinory.
And so the grim pantomime proceeds. This isn’t justice, this isn’t a legal system, this is just a joke. Recognise that and realise then that our legal system isn’t even worth spitting on.
Sturgeon’s Downfall.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock …
@lothianlad says:
7 February, 2021 at 1:14 pm
“So many MSPs and MPs know alot, but, Why? are they not comming forward to expose this?
The brit state handlers have been leading up to this for years.”
Those in the party seem too scared to speak up, just in case they are either sacked, blocked on social media or even fucking sued by another party member.
The party is getting more and more like a certain parish council that went viral…
The very end of the Sunday Mail piece is interesting. They say $180,000 was spent on government lawyers for the judicial review. Didn’t at least one person say to the committee that it was not possible to quantify how much was spent because the government employees are paid a salary and would have been at work anyway? Either the Sunday Mail made up the number or a witness, under oath, told a fib to the committee.
I have no idea how Scotland will survive this catastrophe, even if Mcsturgeon resigns!
Where does that leave us then?
Can we get Cherry to take over and quickly regain some sort of dignity from this crock of shit devised and executed by SNP?
I always said Mcsturgeon was a bought woman now I think she was a spy for westmonster. There’s fuck ups then there’s a Mcsturgeon FUCK UP!
It’s devastating and no one seems to have the power to sweep up the mess and bin it along with those incompetent lying fools. Governments and law officials seem to be above the law. Apart from a civil war and hang them what else is available to bring those people to justice?
“The very end of the Sunday Mail piece is interesting. They say $180,000 was spent on government lawyers for the judicial review. Didn’t at least one person say to the committee that it was not possible to quantify how much was spent because the government employees are paid a salary and would have been at work anyway?”
Two different things. The figure in question is for EXTERNAL lawyers (Roddy Dunlop and Christine O’Neill, the ones who said they’d quit if the SG didn’t concede the judicial review). The “impossible to define” one is for the regular Scottish Government employees and advisers who worked on the case.
“Joanna Cherry should exercise her Parliamentary Privilege and name the senior official.”
Parliamentary privilege protects you against defamation, not contempt of court.
Meanwhile the nasty Fiona Robertson has asked fellow Rainbow club members to sleekitly browse Sarah Philimores defamation crowdfunder. Perhaps Another list getting prepared for doxxing and/or sending to Gestapo HQ for further public punishments?
‘James says:
7 February, 2021 at 12:25 pm
The names will all come out anyway so what does it matter.’
I wonder whether there has ever been an instance – eg. D notice, private gagging order, or court order – where the sanctioned information was divulged into the public domain by some knowledgeable source, possibly seeking to act in the public interest, and the info then broadcast or distributed widely by multiple independent individuals?
The said hypothetical info might pertain to facts, dates, names, documents, etc.
If so, I wonder what the results and any legal responses may have been?
As a thought-experiment: Would there be any official attempt to fine or charge the distributors if these were not just a few individuals or media outlets but numbered – say – in the hundreds, or tens of thousands?
Asking for no-one in particular.
Is misleading the Court of Session not a bit like…..er….
…. perjury?
So the question has become how can the independence movement save its integrity, and its momentum, from the destruction being wreaked on it by Sturgeon and her crew. Their self-interest, entitlement and self-aggrandisement is close to bringing the whole thing down.
lothianlad @ 1:14
“The brit state handlers have been leading up to this for years.”
Aye, for 300 years and more. The recent revelations by Craig Murray and Iain Lawson’s blog suggest that MI5 agents and assets are running ‘justice’ and the civil service in Scotland, and with immunity from prosecution for whatever crimes they may commit. Scotland is therefore in the very same boat as former colonial India, Kenya and Ireland etc. Which is why we really do need to cast out our colonial oppressors in aw thay’re mankit naitur.
@Skip_NC
The QCs presenting the Government’s case to the JR are private practitioners so the 180,000 would be their fees only. Not bad for a couple of weeks work!
The COPFS salaried lawyers would have done the legwork. Any competent accountant could have calculated the cost of their work, but you already know that I’m sure.
If I were Alex Salmond, I would go to the committee, tell the truth, and basically dare them to try and prosecute me.
I’m no legal expert, far from it, but I would be prepared to call their bluff on this because I think the stakes are now much, much higher than they were ever meant to be.
David Earl @1:42
The FM’s people now compiling dossiers on opponents. The beginnings of a Sturgeon private police force.
The Tontons McCoutes.
Isn’t it odd that so much comes down to whether she was “told by Salmond” of the complaints at the end of March or the beginning of April.
It is inconceivable that she didn’t know months earlier who this uniquely retrospective code was carefully tailored to fit. Why else would she, also uniquely, recuse herself from any responsibility for its operation notwithstanding her obligations under the Ministerial Code.
She had to be seen to wash her hands of the matter, much like Pontius Pilate.
It turns out that the stains are less easy to remove as another famous hand washer, Lady MacBeth, discovered.
SilverDarling says:
7 February, 2021 at 1:27 pm
“I Have a Plan So That We Can Remain Anonymous But Have Maximum Effect”
Therein lies the what is at the root of this and why this rotten cesspit will continue to stink for as long
That is why a lot of people should be in jail. Surely they can’t get away with it. Disgraceful that Rape Crisis Scotland are not pointing out ho rape victims are being used.
Just had a wwee check of the brit journalists twitter regarding this.
It seems the general spin is to portray NS as protecting AS and his ‘DeedS’ Through a cover up.
I really despise the brit media in all its forms and reaches.
Alex Salmond was proved Innocent!
Ns and the Alphabet conspirators should be in the dock!!
Valdez is Coming. Blinky was here. One is an excellent movie starring Burt Lancaster the o t h e r legend on cell wall.
The senior official refuses to attend. Government refuses to publish their legal advice. But what’s to stop the Committee publishing the correspondence with the law firm?
Let Parliament publish the name of the senior official and the crucial questions their lawyers demand cannot be asked of them.
Something *very* strange going on if we don’t even get to see that.
Socrates @ 12.30
Do you not think that Alex, possibly Joanna, Kenny have already got a plan b, c, d.
This is going to get messy – which is what WM wants and their timing is impeccable. Have a bonfire of the vanities weeks before we go into an election, but the dream will never die and who knows – a phoenix may be about to hatch as we speak.
Sincerely hope so!
“Those two words do not come up in a search of the document because there are spaces between each of the letters within the words, this is a method deployed to stop whole words from appearing within document searches for specific terms.”
Rev Stu, I think you should make an official complaint to the Information Commissioner that the SG is deliberately hiding information from FOI requests. Yet another example of the corruption of this Sturgeon government.
Blackmail only works if the target is more afraid of the threatened consequences than they are committed to doing the thing the blackmailer wants to hide.
An idle thought: Salmond could turn up to the hearing and tell all in every lurid detail with all supporting documents and references.
SNP is so absolutely shit-scared of that happening that they have moved mountains to prevent it. If they are so terrified of him doing it, then maybe he should.
I have no idea if I would be brave enough to do that, but it seems obvious to me that he would have pretty much an entire country’s population behind him if he did. And we all know what genuine people power can achieve.
If I had that kind of support and what I was doing was so right, I think I’d run the risk and do it for the principle.
one of the curiosities of this affair is that early on a senior spad initials(LL)figures frequently in the events around the march meeting, For some reason she (or is it he?) is never mentioned now despite being a key person in the whole affair.It is palpably obvious to anyone who has followed the matter consistently who this person must be.Since it is so obvious why is anyone bothering to cover it up.
I know this site isn’t always a favourite here, but this is very interesting and pretty damning. Scotland definitely needs a change.
https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/04/18/bono-groupthink-and-partners/?unapproved=526558&moderation-hash=fa1abf2caeefa3b10997c5a97d0d2e8b#comment-526558
I am copying and pasting a previous message slightly edited. one of the curiosities of this affair is that early on a person )figures frequently in the events around the march meeting, For some reason she (or is it he?) is never mentioned now despite being a key person in the whole affair.It is palpably obvious to anyone who has followed the matter consistently who this person must be.Since it is so obvious why is anyone bothering to cover it up.
It’s easy to lose sight of the why the wiping of that first meeting is so important.
For those wondering, the following is a possibility…
By wiping out, or failing to record the initial meeting on 29th March, you wipe out a record of all who attended.
If one person there, which at that time, comprised all the ‘officals’ with responsibility to conduct the investigation, are named, and subsequently one of the ‘officials’ adds their name to the list of alleged complainants against Alex Salmond – then they have been privy to detailed and confidential evidence from the initial complainers, by adding their complaint to the list, it completely destroys the credibility of the entire investigation – unlawful and tainted by apparent bias – right enough.
And this is just plain, basic, fundamental, employment, first line mananger knowledge. One would not need a degree in law to work this out.
If, in addition to that, they are known to be within NS’s close personal and professional circle – NS looses all hope of convincing the bulk of the remaining loyalists that a big boy did it and ran away/nothing to do with me guv.
David Earl says:
7 February, 2021 at 1:42 pm
Meanwhile the nasty Fiona Robertson has asked fellow Rainbow club members to sleekitly browse Sarah Philimores defamation crowdfunder. Perhaps Another list getting prepared for doxxing and/or sending to Gestapo HQ for further public punishments?
Sleaze as well https://twitter.com/Ms_Leeze/status/1358103545409662978?s=20
Graham King @1:43 – ” I wonder whether there has ever been an instance etc”
The “gagging order” of the secret joke that everybody knew about except the woman herself turned out to be a HOAX – most people still unaware it was a hoax.
Dave Beveridge says:
7 February, 2021 at 1:03 pm
”Alex Salmond promised that the things he wasn’t allowed to mention in court would “see the light of day”. He’s the wiliest operator UK politics has ever seen so I wouldn’t be surprised if he has something up his sleeve.
I hope so anyway”
My understanding from a Times article, yesterday or Friday is that if he does not give testimony on Tuesday he will hold a Press Conference.
The Scottish Government has spent tens of thousands of pounds blocking the Scottish Parliament’s inquiry into it’s conduct.
Surely, Parliament must take action given its responsibility to the Scottish people.
If it was Westminster, Lindsey Hoyle would be doing his nut.
I’m still puzzled as to why that meeting has to be deniable. Even though many people know exactly who was at it & how it was arranged – why deny when you first heard about the allegations – as long as she can claim it was post Feb 2018 – which I think she can just about do ?
Using her government office to discuss party business ‘informally’ is surely a trivial matter – must happen in every administration in modern democracies, she probably has plenty of hours minuted as government business – is she not allowed a tea-break ? As long as its not the majority of the time then nobody is gonna care. Its unavoidable, people get occasional diversions, happens in every office.
Unless of course it was originally considered a government matter – but why arrange such a meeting in the first place if you wanted to deny it later ?
Was the denial just a clumsy attempt to protect somebody & she is now stuck with the claim?
I think NS is sympathetic to independence but she is more driven by other issues & she has been foolish to get embroiled in a conspiracy against Salmond. I don’t think the state was the instigator, but its operatives have certainly taken advantage of circumstances.
For those who say AS should just ‘publish and be damned’ be aware that if he does so at Holyrood or via a Link – there will be ‘technical’ issues and the ‘truth will not actually get out’.
And btl on the Toady article is an update from the Sunday Post re Rangers. I replied as follows:
I am increasingly beginning to think that the Rangers Malicious prosecution is even bigger than the Salmond scandal.
And just when you think it cannot get any worse, you read the above and find that the main prosecutor – Frank Mullholland – did not drift on into retirement, but has been appointed and is serving as a High Court Judge!
A six day lie down in Police cells for a financial type enquiry beggars belief. That length of detention (by Police) is nearly always and only done under emergency powers and for terrorism investigations.
What they hell were they playing at and why. I wonder if they were looking for a bribe.
What it absolutely does highlight is that there is no independent investigative body into the COPFS, or the Judiciary. None.
What the hell is going on folks. We now know about MI5 placement at the top of Crown Prosecution, and presumably still working for the UK Gov.
But why on earth would a corrupt UK sympathising COPFS go after Rangers – the core football club with Unionist leanings. It makes no sense.
We are missing a very big piece of the puzzle, and the only thing I can think of is a Scorched earth plan to discredit, Scots Law, Police Scotland, Holyrood, and have the whole lot shut, just like Stormont.
Daisy Walker at 2:11pm
I don’t think it’s a possibility, I think its a deliberate action taken for the purposes of keeping specific names off of official records.
IMO, it is the same reason they have supressed Geoff Aberdein’s evidential statement from the committee, as I think without a doubt that it corroborates Alex Salmond’s evidential statement, which has also been supressed, and is part of evidence submitted to the trial which found the Scottish Governments’ Harrassment Complaints procedure on former minsters unlawful and tainted with apparent bias.
Why they would wish for evidence which was part of that trial to be blocked from the committee which was set up to investigate the procedure the trial was based on, is at this point I think fairly obvious for anyone following the entire debacle.
StuartM, as a competent accountant in private practice, I do indeed know that!
As a starting point, let’s make some big assumptions
1. That the Counsel in each side charged roughly the same amount for their work.
2. That assistance from Roddy Dunlop’s team was minimal.
3. That each side spent roughly the same amount of time working the case.
So we are left with 512,500 less 180,000 = 332,500. That number represents the commercial rates for the work I am assuming was undertaken. Now, government-employed lawyers do not charge out at commercial rates. Billing rates are generally 1/3 to the person doing the work, 1/3 to overhead and 1/3 to owner. So that last third doesn’t apply for SG in-house lawyers. So, at the top end, the cost is 332,500 x 2/3 = 221,667. Let’s round down to 220,000. So the total cost of the government’s defence is about 400,000. That makes it about 900,000 of your money being spent on this pointless exercise.
Of course, SG overhead may well be lower than your average Stable’s. I’ve heard that, rather than 2/3, a more appropriate percentage is about 60%. So the 220,000 or do now becomes 199,500.
So it comes back to my big assumptions. If those are broadly correct, anything else is just tinkering at the edges.
What are the costs of running both inquiries? They are a direct result of the judicial review and should be accounted for to Scotland’s taxpayers.
At Mia 12.52pm
Surely as they have their alleged asset ready to walk into Edinburgh Central at the election there’s not going to be a need for anyone else in the 3 months remaining before then.
What would happen if Skip in the US constantly posted the
names of the Alphabet women and the redacted documents
copies that reveal all on this site.
The Rev may be due to remove them each night when he
finds them but everyone would be forwarding them and
everyone would know.
I am really intrigued by this whole situation.
1) What is the purpose of keeping witnesses secret?
2) Who does this benefit by keeping these witnesses secret?
3) With the players we know, losing a few wouldn’t harm the SNP, even replacing some of the big names wouldn’t harm the SNP.
4) If everyone within the SNP is expendable and replaceable and we know this wouldn’t harm the independence cause. Then who is being protected?
All this could have been finished along time ago but it hasn’t. It all stinks as if someone is being protected and hidden, again who and why?
Not just the the words “became” or “aware” looks like most words in the offending paragraphs have had the space treatment.
Unbelievable that they woudl sink this low, no wonder it wouldn’t appear in any search engine.
It’s got to the stage now where we need to see some members of the SG/Civil Service take their medicine. I guess you come to believe you can do whatever you like in an effectively one-party system of governance. They’ve been firing off countermeasures like a torpedoed submarine for some time, and now the ocean floor is looming awful close.
THE MAIN PRINCIPLE OF GROUPTHINK IS THIS:
“The more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making ingroup, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups”.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100401033524/http://apps.olin.wustl.edu/faculty/macdonald/GroupThink.pdf
https://off-guardian.org/2021/02/06/a-tale-of-three-old-men-symptomatic-of-the-world-today
There seems to be an awful lot of contempt of court strictures, I know about the secrecy over the witnesses but is there, in fact, the same contempt of court restrictions over the evidence to the committee and which judge/judges granted it. If there are these restrictions in place surely they could be challenged by a judicial review
“Tontons McCoutes” – priceless!
As Daisy Walker says;
”A six day lie down in Police cells for a financial type enquiry beggars belief”
Utterly shocking, long story, but having NEVER had any police bother in my 58 years, not even speeding points, last year I spent 5 hours in a similar shithole of a cell at Govan Poloce Station, I really could not believe the barbarity of the conditions or the way I was treated.
Our ”justice” system is a fucking disgrace, worthy of the most authoritarian, lawless, regimes. As for the courts, jeezo, fucking joke.
Aye when I am all flitted I will be investigating, in depth, just how appallingly people in the system are treated.
It in and of itself is, in my view, criminal. Ashamed of Scotland, I really am.
”A six day lie down in Police cells for a financial type enquiry beggars belief”
I read the cell didn’t even have a bed in it. Was that true? If so that would surely break basic human rights legislation, wouldn’t it? I can’t begin to fathom why anyone, far less professional person accused of a financial crime (even if it wasn’t a malicious prosecution) would be kept in a cell like that even for one night. (I can vaguely imagine why a very drunk person picked up at 3am might be kept somewhere like that to sober up, but even then…
“What would happen if Skip in the US constantly posted the
names of the Alphabet women and the redacted documents”
Nothing. The anonymity order only applies in the UK. People overseas can post whatever they like.
prj says:
7 February, 2021 at 2:35 pm
I am really intrigued by this whole situation.
1) What is the purpose of keeping witnesses secret?
2) Who does this benefit by keeping these witnesses secret?
Keeping the meeting off the record, ensured that the names of those present could not be recovered by Alex Salmond – and it would have been the first piece of evidence he would have gone after.
There would be no reason to keep the names of the officials conducting the investigation in the allegations against AS secret.
Unless or until one of them started to wear 2 hats, and became part of the Investigation Team, and also a complainer against Alex at the same time.
All of the above is speculation, deliberately so on my part, so that inadvertent jig saw identification is not done.
If this official is publically known to be a close personal and professional friend of NS – it benefits Nicola that their identity is kept secret, so she can continue to claim, ‘I knew nothing’.
Effijy, if I knew more than one name, I would already have published via a website hosted on US servers. Federally Authorized Tax Practitioners have to disclose if they use servers outside the US so I can easily identify solutions for hosting a website.
As long as I do not commit a felony under US law, my license to represent clients before the Internal Revenue Service is safe, unless they go for the generic “Conduct Disreputable” charge.
I believe Woman H (I think) lied in court. Therefore, she has, in my view, forfeited her right to anonymity. I am less sure about others. There has been much talk of coercion and I have more sympathy with them.
Completely Off Topic.
Stu, do you have any thoughts on the Now Scotland initiative?
Something about it bothers me, perhaps as simple as the daft name sharing the colour of the “No” campaign, perhaps the lack of a few names in the organising assembly.
I smell breakfast. I’ll be back later to continue this discussion.
Skip, I had deduced that you were a CPA from an earlier comment of yours that you were in the middle of tax season, hence the bit about you already knowing. ?
The only thing I’d add to your costing is the time of the Spads and SG clerks retrieving documents for the lawyers but I doubt they kept any records. Probably add another 50K or more.
I remember that one-third, one-third, one-third split from my own days as a lowly audit clerk, however I always felt that the partners’ third was bigger than mine! When you work for the business owner they think every $ they pay you comes directly out of their pocket.
Daisy walker,
I think you are closer to the truth than you might think.
Shut down Holyrood, thwart Independence, Spend years and years by political parties pledging to support devolution again.
Yep, that seems to be their plan
@Cath
My guess it will have been the same as the one I spent 5 hours in, that was Govan Police Station It had an open toilet and only a plastic covered mattress and plastic pillow on the floor SO if you were elderly, had bad knees etc there would be no way to get down to it and it certainly is not a bed like you see in crime dramas, they are elevated from the ground. The idea they had him in there for 6 nights, a disgrace. Personally even for a few hours I think it is shocking but police station cells surely are only intended for one overnight before being taken to a 0900 court appearance or release.
Let’s remember so shocking was it he and the other person were granted £21 million pounds, that’s how bad their treatment was and it wasn’t only them.
So many civil servants placed in Scottish goverment, so many behind closed doors that we don’t even know what their role is in our devolved government, and so many others taking the queens shilling, including those in the crown office, the crown office does what it says on the tin,
The crown office comes under Westminster I believe.
Yes most snps would be feeling threatened by such a large umbrella of people working for the indirect or direct payroll of southern Britain while being in a devolved government in Scotland,
We knew that something like this would happen the closer, and the bigger the numbers grew for independence, we also were well aware who is actually running the devolved government. The big clue is that it is a devolved government, not actually a Scottish government free from interference,
I agree there will be bosses and handlers in place hiding behind closed doors and in closets, doing an imitation of Danial de foe.
The surprise for those manipulative people on payrolls above their capability is that the people in Scotland are not fooled, and that having planned corruption of and in the Scottish Parliament does not deter the the individuals of Scotland going forward with independence, due to the handlers not recognising that the snp are no longer the front line, the people are. And In large numbers.
and yet social media is full of SNP/Indy supporters that have no problem with the attempt to get a man thrown into jail and the Scottish Governments actions to prevent the investigation into the stitch up. In fact there seems to be a large number that would be happy to see him in jail based purely on the fact that a group of women said it happened so it must be true.
Can someone explain this to me?
If I’m understanding this right, Alex Salmond cannot give certain evidence to this inquiry because he has been threatened by the Crown Office that they will charge him with Contempt of Court, BUT, if he takes an oath to ‘tell, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, he cannot meet his legal requirement to this oath, which means he he can be charged with Contempt of Court?
Apart from the Kafkaesque and Orwellian nature of this catch 22, surelt this must be a breach of his human rights: specifically his right to a ‘fair trial’? I know HE is not the one facing a trial, but surely by definition this inquiry is not a fair procedure.
Can he not apply for another Judicial Review? This time into the inquiry itself? Even if it failed at the Court of Session, could he not appeal this to the UK Supreme Court which has jurisdiction over Human Rights for the whole UK?
Could he do this and show up not just the inquiry and the Scottish Government but the Scottish Parliament itself?
Who wants to live in a country that would make Robert Mugabe or Nicolae Ceau?escu proud?
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
7 February, 2021 at 2:48 pm
“What would happen if Skip in the US constantly posted the
names of the Alphabet women and the redacted documents”
Nothing. The anonymity order only applies in the UK. People overseas can post whatever they like”
What about the person in Scotland who would send Skip that detail?
Hamilton, won’t risk his reputation and future by siding with Sturgeon if his enquiry indicates even the slightest evidence of criminality. He’ll throw her out the window in time-honoured fashion, with the full blessing of the establishment. If in-the- wake of a rumoured Salmond press-conference, his findings may well yet prove to be the final nail in the coffin.
This crown office Scotland, surely refers to the crown of Scotland its not a UK thing or as can be assumed the the crown relating to the English monarch.
The crown office in Scotland should refer to the Scottish monarchy and since the so called union of the crowns is a fallacy and never ever happened and that the Scottish people are sovereign and therefore above the crown. We the people are the crown office. The crown office should be under Scottish public control.
Some people are asking about the purpose of this continued cover up.
A clue may lie in the oath or declaration they have to sign to take up their post.
It may indicate, wording may vary, that they forfeit their pension if convicted of misusing their power, whether that results in a jail sentence or not.
I would imagine that the civil service is under similar constraints.
Rev at 2.48 pm
I fear the suggestion may be of someone from the USA posting here on this blog while you’re blissfully asleep and unable to delete it.
Which would not be good.
I read the cell didn’t even have a bed in it. Was that true?
Police cells are of concrete construction, metal toilet and metal door.
Constructed into the cell design is a raised platform, either just a few inches high (in case the intoxicated prisoner is likely to fall off) and others at more normal bed height.
A waterproof foam mattress is provided, and changed out for each new prisoner. One or 2 blankets provided, again fresh ones for each new prisoner.
The design of the cells is for security and to try and be as vandal proof and suicide proof as possible.
It’s not there for its looks. It’s disigned that way so that there are no handy anchor points for prisoners to hang themselves from, and no sharp metal constructs that they can lever off and use to cut themselves or others.
I appreciate it would look shockingly spartan to those not used to it, but if you’ve seen a drugged up, violent bam pot, going radge, attempting to use their own head to ram their way through the metal door in order to rip you limb from limb, you might like to re-consider why it is designed as it is. It is not designed for the minor offender, it has to be built for the most dangerous kind and in some respects the most vulnerable.
Shoes, belts, anything with cords on are removed from the prisoner prior to going into the cell. In cases where there is a suicide risk, they are put into suicide prevention suits.
Throughout their stay in Police custody, depending on risk assessment the prisoner will be checked by a member of staff a minimum of once per hour and a verbal response is required. This is not to prevent them getting a good sleep. It is to ensure they are still alive.
One thing that came out of a previous Fatal Accident Enquiry is that a prisoner was checked, but no verbal response taken. The reason being, it was obvious they were alive, you could hear them gasping/snoring for breath’. This is actually called a medical conditin called a ‘death rattle’ and for those with underlying health conditions or who’s breathing/heart system is repressed by drugs for example, is the body’s last attempt to automatically get sufficient oxygen into the system.
But again, if you did not know that this is the reason for the hourly wake up call in the cells, it would be easy to assume the Police were just doing it to be arseholes.
Prior to appearing at court, prisoners are offered the chance to have a shower.
There have quite clearly been recent miscarraiges in justice and Police Scotland’s actions raise serious questions, but the bulk of our Police officers do an outstanding job, in circumstances that get no easier from day to day.
The custody Sergeants job is one of the most responsible and high pressured. Not to have a death in custody is of parimount importance. Any death viewed as being in custody, is automatically subject to a Fatal Accident Enquiry, and its the Sergeant who is deemed most likely by all concerned to be first in line as the fall guy.
Where there is a death in a house fire, the Fire Service put the cost of a Fatal Accident Enquiry at a minimum of £4 million (and that figure is from 2013). They’re not cheap, if the deaths can be prevented in the first place that’s a good thing.
I wonder if it’d be worth Alex Salmond holding his press conference, naming NS as being behind the plot and inviting her to sue for defamation? Then ALL the evidence would surely have to be heard in court? This is all just farcical – come along to the inquiry, but no… you can’t say that or that or that…
@DaisyWalker
What you describe is not what was in the Govan Police Cell, was not raised at all and they only check on you if you press the buzzer, oh and no blankets either. Eh no covering on the floor mattress at all. And you can’t have your shoes, now laces I get, but slip ons or slippers. I was left in bare feet, bloody ridiculous. When I asked whay was told be the ONLY decent person, that it’s becuase people damage the cells with their shoes, jeezo come on!!!
It should be noted that Govan police station is where suspected terrorists are held, prior to a court appearance.
I presume all the cells are of similar layout.
Re hindering search engines
Could you not just hide words like there has been a does of fat fingers by the typist?
Ist a sklil I ma particulalry goode ta.
@Captain Yossarion, 1.05
don’t go to any Scottish lawyer if you have a dispute with Scotgov.
Who do you think defended Alex Salmond or Mark Hirst or Craig Murray or David Whitehouse?
Re the Rangers arrests and prosecutions
One of the archived newspaper articles I read had a photo of an unshaven David Whitehouse in a tracksuit being frogmarched by 2 policemen in what was described as a dawn raid on his home in Cheshire. What possible reason is there for manhandling a middle-aged accountant and dragging him out of his home without allowing him to wash, shave and change his clothes in order that he can be photographed by the paparazzi you’ve tipped off? The more rational approach would have been to serve him with a notice to present himself to Glasgow police station and confiscate his passport in the meantime. But then they wouldn’t have got their perp walk photo and he might have come with his lawyers. This sort of treatment is more appropriate for a terrorist or armed robber.
Admittedly these were Cheshire police acting on a Scottish arrest warrant, but the same problems of police abusing their powers is present in Scotland. The unnecessary seizure of Mark Hirst’s phones and computers is chilling. Not only was Mark deprived of the means of earning his living, there’s always the possibility of bent cops planting fake evidence eg child pornography.
The 20 million settlement would relate to the loss of current and future income for the two liquidators. Being charged with fraud tends to scare clients away.
Apparently a board game called Watergate came on the market recently. For 2 players, one player is the Nixon administration and tries to win by covering up and staying in office. The other player has to try and expose the corruption in order to win.
The inventor might like to do a Sturgeon version sometime.
Is Scotland institutionally corrupt? It appears that way but t’s too easy to blame the UK and the Scottish institutions for that.
Scottish MPs have voluntarily made up the numbers in Westminster for over three hundred years knowing that they have no influence and their votes don’t count. They’ve never tried to redress the balance because they can’t. A highly qualified front bench spokesperson gets sacked and it makes no difference. Why are they there?
Maybe the money’s too good. So’s the Short Money and the expenses and the wine lists. Or just to save the Union.
Allegedly independence supporting MSPs govern devolved Scotland in a legally subservient parliament. They tolerate a justice system which accepts malicious prosecutions. They ignored the Brexit vote. They haven’t questioned the conduct of the harassment inquiry. Independence didn’t rate a mention during the last six years apart from pleas for s30s. And so on.
The money’s good though. And it helps save the Union.
The truth might eventually set us free but who’s going to tell it in Scotland?
Just to add to police cell conditions.
If you get lifted at 6am on a Friday morning, then that is you in the cell until you go to court at 8am on the Monday.
And regards getting a shower in the morning, well I have never heard of one Police cell where you get a shower in the morning of the court appearance.
You get 5 quick minutes to wash your face, no shave, no mirrors, then put back in your cell until the prison bus turns up.
All done to make you feel like the lowest form of life ever to walk on Earth, and even though you could well be totally innocent.
Avoid at all costs.
I refuse to accept the term gradualist anymore. There are real nationalists and there are fakes, and that’s it.
Alison, I’m not sure this is the best venue to discuss this.
Some cells don’t have the raised platforms, or a toilet, because they have internal CCTV, a clear front, and are designed for the high risk suicide prisoners and/or it is anticipated they will not be staying in custody for long.
And sometimes, when busy, these cells get used for other prisoners until regular cells become available.
Shoes in addition to the laces/hanging risk, are also extremely useful for drugs, or sharps to be concealed within, the only way you can establish with certainty that they are not, is to pretty much dismantle them, and they never fit back together quite the same.
And so, you get a blanket rule, no shoes in the cells. And no, they are not going to debate it with every new prisoner coming in wearing a different design of sandals.
I’m not sure why you never got a mattress or blankets. That’s unusual. They should specify why if not, and it should be on the custody record. You are entitled to ask.
Please remember cells are designed, not for minor offenders, but for the most prolific and dangerous. As are the policies with regards Prisoner handling.
To put it into some perspective female prisoner at Corton Vale brought into custody from court had ‘banked’ drugs, but they could not find them despite numerous strip searches.
Eventually they put her in a cell with CCTV.
She had banked a full heroin kit and supply, internally, within a Can of Fanta! including needle, spoon, matches and tournique.
But that’s as nothing compaired to ‘the vendor’. The Vendor prepared for his forthcoming long stay at the big hoose, with all sorts of new and exotic narcotics, along with the old faithfuls such as Heroin, cocain and hash.
He swalled them, and when they came out the other end, he swalled them again, and again, and again. In dribs and drabs they were recovered (the parts not ingested), over the course of 2 weeks, under 24/7 constant obs.
Eventually 1/2 a carrier bag of assorted drugs were recovered.
The other prisoners named him ‘the vendor’ by the way.
@cirsium – I don’t have a spare £1.5m in my hip pocket….do you?
Scottish lawyers lifted the SNP coin years ago. Some of them flaunt their adoration for Sturgeon on their Twitter pages.
Change is coming. Scots have had enough of this legal shit. I’d put the lot of then under ‘Special Measures’. They have let us all down.
Stu, I’ve just seen Anonymoose’s excellent explanation (thank you!) of the way the Scottish Government’s documents have been rendered unsearchable (and useless to Google as well).
This also makes it impossible for screen reader software to correctly read the document aloud to a disabled person.
The best a screen reader user could hope for in this case would be that words like “became” would end up spelled out ‘bee’ ‘ee’ ‘cee’ ‘ay’ ’em’ ‘ee’. Every single time, with a pause between every single letter. It slows things down to a crawl and it’s incredibly disruptive to the mental process of actually understanding the document.
I would be interested to know why the SNP are happy to give lip service to disability when it comes to getting their cronies onto the Holyrood election list, but haven’t made sure that the Government they control produces documents which are properly accessible to blind people and other text-to-speech users.
I also wonder if the Scottish Government realise that they’re leaving themselves wide open to losing even more time and money when the open-and-shut disability discrimination complaint lands on their desks?
I’m a newish reader here but never commented before. The approach the crown office has taken to redacting the attendees of the 29 March 2018 meeting is quite baffling. I work for a legal institution that publishes information and the approach to redaction is that complainants and those accused of crimes but who have never been charged should of course be redacted when talking about the alleged crimes that took place. But when names comes up in other circumstances (meetings, minutes etc) names should not be redacted as it draws attention to the fact that a person has been accused of a crime, or is a complainant. Especially as newspapers have named all the persons in attendance at that meeting in the past. All it takes is a quick google search. Talk about jigsaw identification.
Add to the cost to the Scottish taxpayer £10 million pounds, which included the 22 strong team of Police Scotland searching for four years looking for non existent dirt on Alex Salmond, add in the cost of the judicial review by civil servants, lawyers costs, high court costs, court of session costs (as you pointed out), parliamentary costs, and of course the half a million pounds award to Salmond, and Sturgeon’s disgraceful attempt to send Salmond to prison and then cover it up, has cost the Scottish taxpayer a fortune so far.
She should do the right thing and resign her credibility and trustworthiness, has a evaporated.
The person who does not exist, was actually a bit of a mystery to me. I had ideas, based on earlier coverage in the mainstream media, like the Daily Record, but wasn’t sure.
What do you know, a quick google for one of the names I thought of myself, and, BINGO!, up comes the story via a news leak site.
This is why making a person not exist, is daft nowadays.
I now know, by virtue of a google search, even more than I expected or realised. I, too like everybody else, despite it apparently being common knowledge, cannot say or write the possible name of a non existent person, without getting hauled into court, I guess (though I don’t know for sure, but I’m taking no chances).
The fact that not even mainstream (skynews etc..) journalists can legally now tell Scots what is going on, is beyond ridiculous in a democracy.
This whole Salmond business really, really stinks to high heaven. It really is much worse than I realised.
O/T.
According to Pete Wishart, you and a whole host of indy bloggers ( who tell the truth) are very bad. Barrhead Boy gets it in the neck from Wishart as well.
“This is where the anti SNP baad ‘indy’ bloggers are now. Everybody thinks it’s just the vile Wings but there is a whole community of them spreading this sort of self defeating rubbish to thousands of online followers. They are by far a much bigger menace than the unionists.”
https://twitter.com/PeteWishart
How on earth can people decide to ignore this as being somehow a mistake of interpreting the facts. More importantly, how can people ignore this when one day we could all be living under the authority of not just the people who did it, but in addition who are preparing to arm themselves with The Hate Crime Bill which makes it an offence to say something even in your own house.
It is like temporary insanity has gripped the population.
deerhill says:
7 February, 2021 at 3:38 pm
It should be noted that Govan police station is where suspected terrorists are held, prior to a court appearance.
I presume all the cells are of similar layout.
I don’t know anything about Govan being nominated as where ‘suspect terrotists are held’. I rather think it would depend on cirumstances and security relating to that.
Most cells are as described above. Most custody cell areas also have juvenile holding cell (hardly every used anymore, as arrests of juveniles are almost unheard of now). These are plain flat floored cells with a metal door and are most often used for the purpose of carrying out a strip search, before moving the prisoner onto the normal cells.
The other type of cell has the clear reinforced glass faceing, and internal CCTV and is for the most at risk prisoners. Again, if busy it will be used for the less at risk until a normal cell becomes available.
Kapelmeister at 404pm,
That is it exactly. Thos who genuinely want independence, do anything they can to achieve it. The so-called ‘gradualists’ are just frauds, stringing independence supporters along, whilst not progressing indy at all.
It keeps us busy and stops us genuinely pushing hard for independence. I am lead to believe that Nicola Sturgeon is one such ‘gradualist’.
I think COPFS have helped me identify the missing person (I thought is was Aberdein), whom I’m guessing is also one of the complainers since I presume that’s the reason the person’s identity is hidden.
Should I report this to the police so they can investigate if COPFS are in contempt of court?
Its not the names of the Alphabets which matter at all.It is the relationships between them. Apparently 400 police interviews were conducted and the handful of actual complaints which resulted came from a very very small subsample. There is nothing of value to be gained by knowing all the names, but it is significant what they have in common. So there is little to be gained trying to find ways of posting those names in another jurisdiction, other than having this site injuncted – even frivolously. Ms H.identity is known widely in the party, and it is inconceivable that she herself would be able to stand for office without the branches learning quickly it was her.
It is very possible that Sturgeon will talk her way out of the 29.3.18 and 2.4.18 problems, and the parliament and media and public will not care.
Another important date, from the Open Record, is 29.11.17. See Gordon Dangerfield’s analysis at https://gordondangerfield.com/2020/10/25/what-did-the-first-minister-know-and-when-did-she-know-it/
summarised in comment by David Ferguson, just below the article.
Worth exploration by the committee; or maybe they already did?
“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.”
? Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
“Despotic governments can stand ‘moral force’ till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force.”
? George Orwell
The invocation of science, of its ground rules, of the exclusive validity of the methods that science has now completely become, now constitutes a surveillance authority punishing free, uncoddled, undisciplined thought and tolerating nothing of mental activity other than what has been methodologically sanctioned.
—Theodor Adorno
Sign of the times, system in repeat mode.
I must be thick like two planks of wood, but there is an awful lot on this that I still don’t understand neither I could make any sense of.
I mean, everybody and their dog knows by now there was a meeting on the 29th March 2018 in government premises and that meeting was attended by Aberdein, the FM and somebody else. You only have to look at the information that has been published extensively at the time (March 2018) to know that Mr Aberdein was a witness in the criminal case against Mr Salmond and he openly told about the existence of this meeting and the fact that somebody in that meeting told him about complaints against Mr Salmond.
Different publications say different things. Some newspapers say this person told Aberdein about one complaint. Others say he was told there were “two retrospective complaints” (“The Press and Journal”, Mackay, D. published 18 March 2020). So I am not sure if Aberdein was made aware of one complaint or two because I did not read his declaration during the criminal case, only the newspapers.
If I understood correctly, the fact that this meeting in March took place at all, as explained by the Rev, is already a breach of the code because there was no official record of it and no minutes were taken. So what can possibly be the enormous fuss that is being made about this extra person in the meeting? I don’t understand.
I mean, in what way in practice does this actually matter to establish if there has been a breach of the ministerial code when no minutes and no official records can be provided of this meeting? Nicola Sturgeon has already admitted to it and the minutes are nowhere to be seen, so I do not understand in what way it is relevant for the case of the breach of the ministerial code if Aberdein’s evidence is released or not to the committee regarding this meeting and this other person is asked to corroborate the existence of the meeting and what was discussed. We already know the meeting existed, it was not recorded in the books and we know what was discussed in the meeting from Mr Aberdein’s declaration during the criminal trial under oath.
Unless there is something else even more important they don’t want us to see from Aberdein’s evidence or hear from this person.
In what way does it matter if Mr Salmond’s evidence is redacted AFTER it was released in full? I mean, I do have a decent memory and when I read the statement of Mr Salmond at the time it was released, I do not remember reading the redacted paragraph and going: wow! shut the front door! that is going to melt the foundations of Bute House any minute now! because to be brutally honest, it was information that was already in the public domain. So all this stopping the evidence with regards to that meeting reaching the public when it already reached the public in March 2020 seems rather childish to me. But again, I admit I can be a bit rather slow sometimes.
It is not like they are going to erase the meeting out of existence, so I don’t undestand what this game of hide and seek they are playing is about. Are they perhaps trying to concentrate our minds in the meeting date to stop us looking elsewhere?
I am guessing here that the option between communicating to Mr Aberdein during that meeting of the existence of just one complaint as published in some newspapers or the option of communicating to Mr Aberdein about the existence of two complaints as published by other newspapers, makes all the difference. I cannot tell which one of the two options is the correct one because I have only read newspapers and not the original witness statement of Mr Aberdein during the case.
In any case, how can it be demonstrated that this person did not know about these complaints back in December or even November, for example? The only way would be by looking at the emails they received/sent but if their name has to be redacted, we are back at square one.
I am beginning to wonder if there is something else far more important here than the open secret of a breach of the code and that something is what is making ministers in government, crown agents, COPFS, private lawyers, Fabiani etc rushing off their feet to stop this person being interrogated and the evidence being seen by the committee.
The way they are behaving around this person brings a dejavu with the way Murrell is approaching the inquiry: he seemed to be happy to attend when he could bend the truth and was only going to be asked easy questions and was in no danger to be prosecuted for perjury. The moment that possibility was put to him, then he said he was not coming. Then, they stopped a chunk of Mr Salmond’s evidence to be considered by the committee and voila! like a miracle, Murrell is no longer worried about perjuring himself and can therefore come to a walk in the park, I mean the inquiry.
Well, the way they are behaving with regards to this person in the meeting of March is pretty much the same: they can only attend if they are not asked about A, B, C.
What the hell does this mean? It is not like the civil servants interviewed so far did not bend the “all the truth and nothing but the truth” beyond breaking point when they were interviewed, is it? So what is so especial about this particular civil servant that cannot possibly behave in the same amnesiac, deflective and vague way?
1. Does this person openly refused to lie under oath and to put their own arse on the line to save the FM’s own backside? That would be commendable, actually.
2. Does this person know where all the bodies are hidden and has threatened to spill the beans if they are called to the inquiry?
3. Is that meeting of the 29th March 2018 just a door to something even more important and this person holds the key to that door? How did this person know there were already a complaint/s? Who told them?
4. Who asked this person to organise the meeting of the 28th? Did they do that on their own accord? if yes, why? if not, who asked them to organise the meeting? If the FM did not know a thing about these complaints, what was the excuse she was given to put in her diary the meeting of the 29th March and to ask her to come? That she was going to be for a session of gossip coffee and biscuits? I mean, as FM she would like to be prepared for every meeting she attends, so are we expected to believe this meeting just appeared in her diary out of thin air without subject?
5. Is this person MI5 or an MI5 asset and they are protecting them because they have a further use for them down the line, like for example helping other assets to keep their minds focused?
5. Is somewhat this person central to the entire conspiracy?
If Murrell was threatened by members of the committee with the using of legal means to bring him to the inquiry if he refused to come voluntarily, why the same tools cannot be used against this particular government employee? Why is this person wrapped in cotton wool by the committee when this is clearly to the detriment to the inquiry?
What is so particular about this employee that makes everything else suddenly stall around them?
Is this employee also the reason why an awful lot of the evidence submitted to the inquiry has been over redacted and rendered totally useless?
Re the Rangers thing ‘Admittedly these were Cheshire police acting on a Scottish arrest warrant,’
English Police may well have assisted, but it will have been a Police Scotland lead enquiry.
Interestingly, they will have had to take the Scottish warrant to an English magistrate and do the English equivalent of ‘depone’ that the facts of the warrant were all true, etc. In this way the Scottish warrant becomes ratified for exicution in England.
Oh dear, that may well mean that Police Scotland have misbehaved in Englandshire as well as Scotland.
Likewise, the photographing of the suspect as he’s being lead from the house is a clear indication that Police have been the source of the data protection act. I’m sure they are looking into that as a matter of urgency.
Pete Wishart is seriously understimating the people of Scotland and his constituency if he thinks critical bloggers are the problem.
Blatant corruption on an outstanding scale, at Holyrood, at Police Scotland, at COPFS and at JUSTICIARY LEVEL.
Looks like Pete’s taking the low road.
Bloody hell thanks to both @deerhill and @daisywalker’s responses, I have a LOT of food for thought about what happened to me, I am not an idiot so had my suspicions.
But that’s really helped.
WOW what a corrupt shit country we inhabit.
@mia asks
”Is this employee also the reason why an awful lot of the evidence submitted to the inquiry has been over redacted and rendered totally useless?”
An emphatic YES
A complete and utter farce, an embarrassment to Scotland. A legal disgrace and injustice of the highest order. Shame on them. Shame on every single one of them. CLOWNWORLD.
“Let Parliament publish the name of the senior official and the crucial questions their lawyers demand cannot be asked of them.
Something *very* strange going on if we don’t even get to see that.”
Thing is – anyone with half a brain and has been following this knows who – and what – this person is. The name is everywhere. We’re just not allowed to say it in this context.
“*very* strange” is not what it is **very** **Very** corrupt and legally connived corrupt is what it is.
This is of Soviet proportions. Sturgeons Government has turned our country into the USSR.
General point Pete Wishart is an utter arse, so much so had I still been living in that constituency I would have pegged my nose in the last WM election and voted Tory,aye really.
And me really more in step with Corbyn’s policies clearly apart from Scottish independence, but hey I’m out, had enough, 2014 at Yes Scotland HQ was so fucking depressing. Like to think I worked my arse off for a Yes vote, as did others there BUT those above, eh the Sturrells and lawyer Scott Martin, the, now, odious 2 Robertsons, Liz Lloyd, Sue Ruddick, christ I could go on, did not.
He is a disgrace of a person.
Mia says:
7 February, 2021 at 4:25 pm
I must be thick like two planks of wood, but there is an awful lot on this that I still don’t understand neither I could make any sense of.
Mia, your not thick – far from it.
The complainers names have been lawfully protected from the get go. Without that, you cannot join the dots.
But lets play this senario and look at it from the point of view of the defendant, looking to build his defence case.
A meeting is called, with a view to notifying the defendents representative of 2 complaints, the procedure against him, and ‘encourage’ him to retire from Politics or be publically besmirched for ever, and to have it publically disclosed, so that his wife will find out, about an act of marital infidelity (to some extent).
The employment procedures are newly made up, and deeply unlawful.
At the meeting, wearing 2 hats, is an official on the enquiry team and someone who is also a complainer either then or soon to become so.
Much of the ‘strength’ of the complaint relies on the Moorov Doctrin, ie establishing a pattern of behaviour, made by complainers who are separate from each other and therefore not in a position to collude, or contaminate each others evidence by oh, lets say, forming a mutual support group, while the enquiry is ongoing.
In circumstances such as the above, any defendent, with even a modicum of intelligence, would seek to find the minutes of that meeting, showing the list of persons there. For the simple reason it blows the whole enquiry out the water right from the get go. One simply cannot be the complainer and one of the investigators at the same time.
That the official/complainer was there, shows an incredible arrogance on the part of the protagonists, and they must have felt it was a game changer. I’d wager a full packet of chocolate biscuits the details of the meeting were recorded and have been removed after the event, and only once AS came looking for them.
Hope that helps clarify the mystery a bit.
Daisy Walker says:
7 February, 2021 at 4:25 pm
Re the Rangers thing ‘Admittedly these were Cheshire police acting on a Scottish arrest warrant,’
English Police may well have assisted, but it will have been a Police Scotland lead enquiry.
Interestingly, they will have had to take the Scottish warrant to an English magistrate and do the English equivalent of ‘depone’ that the facts of the warrant were all true, etc. In this way the Scottish warrant becomes ratified for exicution in England.
Hit the nail on the head Daisy – a close relative of mine – a Scottish lawyer said to me yesterday that it was ONLY because ENGLISH police and ENGLISH barristers were involved in this case, that it was successful.
A case involving the Crown Office and Rangers would not have been successful had it to rely on Police Scotland and the Scottish Bar and an unscrutinised Scottish Judiciary.
What does that say about us?
Cath says:
7 February, 2021 at 2:47 pm
”A six day lie down in Police cells for a financial type enquiry beggars belief”
“I read the cell didn’t even have a bed in it. Was that true?”
You get a thin foam pad to lie on, on a slightly raised part of the concrete floor, and an army blanket.
Is it possible to make the case that the legal powers sturgeon is using are not being used in the way they were intended and therefore illegal.
This is truly horriffic.
What they (the SNP under Sturgeon) are doing to Scotland and its public institutions, yea, even Scotland as a democratic, transparent, modern (independent) nation and all her sovereign people is truly horriffic.
The buck stops with Nicola Sturgeon.
It doesn’t much matter whether she has been tragically inept and incompetent, or totally corrupt. She’s the First Minister of Scotland, so it’s all on her head, this is all her responsibility – unless she thinks she can run to Westminster to get her out of a hole of her own digging.
Just reflect on that for a while.
Does she even want independence if she thinks Westminster reigns supreme and she has to beg for her “gold standard” Sec 30? This woman has carelessly thrown away one of the underpinnings of Scottish nationhood, popular sovereignty (Declaration of Arbroath, 1320).
Just reflect on that for a while.
Just reflect on whether this is the kind of a leader who you’d want to – eventually, after many delays – to lead Scotland to independence, only to make it a mini-me Westminster, a hotbed of corruption and cronyism.
I thought the idea was to make a better nation?
The rat James Doran giving it to Wings and Iain Lawson, though he’s not getting it all his own way.
https://twitter.com/glasgowcathcart/status/1358123640420765697
Methinks Pete Wishart and some of the high heid yins in the SNP are getting the breeze up. I think that it’s beginning to dawn on some of them at least that the will not be able to count on the votes, and grumbling that a lot of activists have left the party.
Well to those and such as those at the top. I’m not in the party but I did my bit for Indy in 2014. Leafleted, talked to folk, marched. I didn’t do it for the SNP, surprisingly enough I did it for independence. But you rotten, corrupt, evil self seeking buggers, have done nothing about it. It doesn’t look as if you will anytime soon.
I don’t know just how daft that you think we the people of Scotland are. We’ve been there with SLAB, and we cleaned them out. That is coming to the party you belong to as well. The arrogance of some of you, wheest for Indy. NAW, feck that. I want a decent honest government that will take my country forward. Something that we can all be proud of and stand together. Sorry, but that ain’t the SNP. You need to kleen your house out PRONTO.
You’ve lost my vote/votes and I never thought that I would say that. A plague on your house you useless show shower of bastards.
Now I know for sure who woman H is.
Dont get sidetracked by the Rangers affair
The important thing is that it proved that COPFS has previous with malicious prosecutions
Therefore it is not possible to dismiss the idea of them doing the same to Alex Salmond as a dumb conspiracy theory
I have no doubts that certain members of the committee will have to self isolate soon.. all in the name of safety rather than a delaying tactic to run the clock down.. cough cough….
“At the meeting, wearing 2 hats, is an official on the enquiry team and someone who is also a complainer either then or soon to become so”
Now, I find that most interesting. If this person communicated about the TWO complaints to Aberdein, and not just about one, and if as you say turns out they might have also been a complainer themselves, then if they ever claimed they did not know about any of the complaints until March they would be lying.
There were only 2 official complaints using the procedure, therefore they should know at the very least about one, their own.
The meeting took place on the 29th March 2018. The official complaints were already filed in January 2018. Complaints to the police were not made until August 2018, so we are talking about the two complaints filed through the procedure that led to the judicial review.
SGov representatives interacted with both complainants already in November 2017. So, if this person is really a complainer, the idea that they only knew about the complaints in March 2018 is not credible. What else did they lie about?
The only explanation for this person to say they did not know about the complaints is that either they meant to say they did not know anything about the other complaint or that they were pretending to portray a level of “impartiality” at the time they could no longer have. In other words, they were attempting to deceive both Aberdein and Mr Salmond into believing she was speaking as a third party.
As an Englishnan newly come to this story because of the fears of his Scottish friends:
The Scottish government makes Handforth Parish Council’s Zoom meeting look like a model of devolved democracy.
If the conduct of the Scottish government was to be replicated in any metropolitan council in England or Wales commissioners would have been sent in long ago to rclean up the mess.
mike cassidy says:
7 February, 2021 at 4:58 pm
”Dont get sidetracked by the Rangers affair
The important thing is that it proved that COPFS has previous with malicious prosecutions
Therefore it is not possible to dismiss the idea of them doing the same to Alex Salmond as a dumb conspiracy theory”
Good point. Who knows how many, how many people have been unjustly treated but in the absence of deep pockets bereft of an adequate defence were screwed.Shocking.
I would like to ascertain who the operatives in the ‘Yes’ world are,they clearly exist.
Fuck the elected SNP sorts who care more about their dosh and status, the absolute WORST of us. Up there with Pinochet’s Chile, Stalin’s Soviet Union. Hitler’s Germany, etc etc.
Someone must have done that ‘spacing’ thing and someone else authorised them to do it.
They must know we’ll find out all about it eventually so why are they so desperate? Like Mia above, I’m at a loss. It’s wheels within wheels stuff…
🙁
Re that document
Page 67 is an image, so that’s a big no to any text searchy-searchy…and as the font colours are blue and green, automatic OCR is a bit of a pain, so external ‘indexers’ might miss it.
*sigh*
So we don’t just have the SG withholding evidence from the Judicial Review (which Lord Pentland was mighty pissed off about btw), the criminal trial court AND the committee inquiry, as well obfuscating and delaying giving evidence to the committee – the SG is actually paying lawyers to harass the committee to get them to look elsewhere in their inquiry?! Doesn’t that have a name? I dunno, corruption in public office or something?
This frantic covering up and patchwork covering up is madness – it’s obviously not going to work, they’re an embarrassment as well as a failure! Give it up! This is worse than Italian politics (,,, well, nearly).
As for all the money they’ve spent, well, I guess we voted them in to spend the money as they see fit – jeez, I wouldn’t have ever guessed it would be squandered so free and easily. I don’t remember any of this being in the manifesto, mind you, so ,,, actually, the SNP are kind of really not very good with money and budgeting, are they?
That jigsaw analogy is spot on. Having just completed the last third of a jigsaw without looking at the picture I can attest to that much being extremely difficult, let alone the rest.
(Daisy, I think you’ve said too much there, even if it’s not totally clear; I’ve had some mild rebukes of ‘don’t go there’ or ‘don’t go any further’ in my case – I don’t mention anything to do with the accusers normally, but have occasionally done so to make a seperate point unrelated to associations and identity. But one thing to avoid is to make any kind of inference to associations regarding either complainers or accusers – it has now got so bad that not even idle speculation is allowed on that, let alone suggestions of possible identity, which is a total honey trap. No one is thick if they don’t understand something to do with this, I certainly don’t know half of it, but folk will just have to live with the not knowing for now)
Re – mike cassidy says:
7 February, 2021 at 4:58 pm
Dont get sidetracked by the Rangers affair
The important thing is that it proved that COPFS has previous with malicious prosecutions
Therefore it is not possible to dismiss the idea of them doing the same to Alex Salmond as a dumb conspiracy theory.
—–
I get what your saying Mike, but actually I think the Rangers thing is the elephant in the room and we are all being sidetracked.
The Prosecuter in charge of it, has been made up to High Court Judge.
The take over Lord Advocate James Wolfe is still in post.
There has not been a peep about it from the opposition, or the First Minister, or Humza, or our world famous Human Rights lawyer who’s name I can’t recall.
MALICIOUS PROSECUTION £20 million in damages
And they went after RANGERS !!!!
I mean, I understand why a unionist infiltrated SNP and COPFS went after Alex – that makes sense.
But to go after RANGERS hmmm.
@ Mia: The conclusion I drew some time ago is that the unnamed person at the 29th March meeting is one of the accusers, and that’s why all reference to them is banned. If this is the case, it’s outrageous that a massive criminal conspiracy is being covered up on the basis that someone whose accusations were found in court to be false cannot be identified.
@Daisy Walker – We currently have a DELINQUENT legal profession, a DELINQUENT Police Service and a DELINQUENT Holyrood government.
Look at it that way and it all makes sense. I think almost everyone on these pages now knows who alphabet woman H is and it’s just a matter of time before she is named. From overseas, of course.
It’s all coming together wonderfully for Alex. Good for him; he’s waited a long time for it and it could all have gone tragically wrong for him.
Ian Brotherhood @5:11
Yes you’re right and think who are trained in the Art of Deception and you’ll have your answer.
BBS is defo protecting Nicola. No Politics Scotland this week at 10am. And Sunday morning politics show on BBC Radio Scotland at 8am was replaced today. But check this – Politics Wales and politics Northern Ireland – they are still on. A news embargo in Scotland? Nothing to see here. Scotland.
Search a text image with google….
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/google-photos-text-search-pictures-google-lens-2089452#:~:text=Simply%20type%20the%20text%20you,detect%20images%20with%20that%20text.&text=Google%20Photos%20is%20the%20default,Pixel%20and%20Android%20One%20smartphones.
Something fishy over on twitter this last hour and still going on- Derek McKays RTs and tweets being deleted – check out tweets deleted by mps.
All the woke are at it.
Other method to search text image
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-search-blog/search-for-words-in-your-images-in-office-365/ba-p/135703
Daisy Walker’s comment about the dark state taking the opportunity to discredit Scots Law and the Scots Parliament is not I think all that far removed from the truth.
A senior conservative politician has already said that the devolution experiment will be ended soon and certainly shaping up that way with the UK Internal Market Act and the new UK Government civil service complex in Edinburgh.
So why not neuter Scot’s Law at the same time. With a corrupt COPFS and corrupt SG folks can now see that there are no end of legal prostitutes without a shred of principle prepared to open their legs for the lucre. And the Law Society of Scotland or the Faculty of Advocates – do they do anything about it. No of course they don’t as the reputation of Scots Law and the Legal System of Scotland goes down the toilet.
@ Contrary re (Daisy, I think you’ve said too much there, even if it’s not totally clear’
I hope not, and as I’ve clearly used the words, if, guess, possible, and talked in terms of complainer and offical – with absolutely no names.
Very deliberately so for that very reason. It is one possible reason why the meeting has been concealed. There may be others.
But just to speak in vaguer terms.
There are 2 reasons in the AS ‘thing’ to cover up evidence.
The first is to legitimately and lawfully protect the Identities of the complainers.
The second is to protect the reason why Scot Gov lost the Judicial Review and hide any evidence that would disclose that.
A routinely recorded meeting would show 2 things – the subject being discussed and the names of those present.
NS has already ‘confessed’ to Holyrood about ‘forgetting’ the meeting on 29/3/18 at her office.
So, its not that the existence of the meeting is an issue, and its not even that the records of it being recorded properly is a breach (she has to have ‘knowingly’ breached the rules remember, and there is zero indignation about this from the oppositing).
But still the names of who was there is a mystery.
If one of the complainers was at that initial meeting, to inform AS’s representative of the complaints, in an official capacity as part of the investigation team, with Nicola Sturgeon present – then that was not a meeting to instigate complaints proceedure. That was something much more akin to a strong arm/off you go or else type meet.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Tony Blair is in this mix somewhere.
Having been the victim of a witch hunt I have given this a lot of thought. I do not believe NS is at the heart of this. I believe those who are, have spun her a load of lies about Alex Salmond. She will have been told he said this and that – this and that will all be remarks he allegedly made to discredit her. They may even have produced documents to be even more convincing. Eventually, they’ve programmed her enough to believe it – the same people will be ensuring her and her gang will all be protected.
I don’t know the answer to this, but is there not some basic responsibilities of government ministers and officials in regard to the spending of public funds, requiring them to justify allocation of funds on the basis of evidence and competence? Where is the accountability for financial prudence? I would have thought in the private sphere financial incompetence and colossal waste would not go unpunished, what restraint is there in the public sphere?
What kind of banana republic just lets officials spend grossly wastefully, in order to cover up their own culpability in politics chicanery?
I must say the SNP are making a flawless case of how not to run a government, demonstrating why we will need a watertight modern constitution which will never allow people like these to govern in such an incompetent, malign way with so little accountability or scrutiny. They have made the case for never allowing any of them near a real government in an independent country. We need a professional administration and civil service with high standards and the separation of powers, not this amateur hour shambles of mickey mouse politicians who deem themselves above the law or answering to the people whose money they disburse in their own interest. Just think, they had the chance to show what a Scottish government might look like and do, and they have trashed it.
And just think, if Nicola falls, how many of these people who enable her, cover up for her, and turn a blind eye to what is going on, will suddenly profess themselves ‘shocked and surprised’ and how they didn’t know a thing about what was going on, and how they are determined to ‘move on’ from it.
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
Once said one of Scotland’s finest. Here’s a free gift.
My friends in my independent small (by population, our landmass is actually quite large, more than four times that of Scotland, similar 5M+ population, though) country know that I’m very interested in and quite knowledgeable about Scottish politics, especially about independence.
Back in 2016, after the Brexit vote, they ask me, will Scotland go independent, I say, yeah, probably, this must be the last straw.
By 2017, they’re asking about Scotland’s independence again, and again in 2018, and 2019, and in 2020 they’re asking why isn’t Scotland independ yet and now in 2021 I have to explain that Scotland won’t be independent for a while yet because… the main independence party lost heart and bottled it and went astray?
My Finnish friends who’re vaguely supportive of Scottish independence just cannot understand what went wrong. How such a golden opportunity (Brexit vote and subsequent shenanigans) was not capitalised on. Squandered.
“Do they actually even WANT independence?!?” “We took the plunge, we didn’t know every detail!” “Are they so short-sighted? Lose a few quid the first few years, then reap the benefits forevermore!” “I guess they don’t care about the democratic deficit, or democracy that much either, like other Brits.”
I’ll never talk down Scottish independence but it’s been strange and hard to try to explain why Scottish independence is now further away than it was in 2016. Four years of stagnation and even going backwards… while the polls go up!
The rev dun a stealth reveal of woman H not so long ago – for the sharpwitted connoisseur only
– it was …
the Malabar Squirrel
Salmond invited it back to his “for a nibble” AND A PACK OF NUTS … fnarr fnarr … boom tish try the veal
Any poundshop Assanges out there talking about being naughty … stop … some diddy on twitter already tried it
– get yourself the nearest 14 year old and explain what you want to do; he will say stuff like VPN TOR SecureLinux pastebin anonymous forums blockchain …
then you just get them to do it for a Steam voucher and a pack of Pringles
As for the search sabotage : OCR the document, then regex-replace to avoid the extra spaces (or just get the 14year old to do it as well)
If anyone is still unaware of the sheer “shock and awe” potential of a meeting held almost three years ago, read the following links, where they mention a “late March” meeting and/or a meeting on “29th March”.
Then you can compare the different elements in each story and work out who was there. 2+2 usually = 4.
I’m not doing a copy/paste, just in case.
From a month ago…
https://www.bicesteradvertiser.net/news/national/19000781.government-denies-salmonds-claim-sturgeon-aide-leaked-complainers-identity/
From a Daily Record story, March 19, 2020…
https://www.magzter.com/stories/Newspaper/Daily-Record/Former-Aide-I-Arranged-Meet-With-Sturgeon-After-Sex-Complaints-Emerged
From last month…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/11/salmond-affair-call-for-investigation-into-sturgeon-to-be-widened
From 15 Jan 2019…
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/3752309/nicola-sturgeon-richard-nixon-alex-salmond-cover-up-watergate-jackson-carlaw/
Sylvia:
Nicola Sturgeon is many things, but she’s not stupid.
Margie Davidson says:
7 February, 2021 at 5:35 pm
Something fishy over on twitter this last hour and still going on- Derek McKays RTs and tweets being deleted – check out tweets deleted by mps.
All the woke are at it.
—-
His Twitter account was deleted today:
https://twitter.com/DerekMackaySNP
‘This account doesn’t exist’
All of those tweet deletions were at the same time as the account was deleted, for a full list of the deleted tweets see:
https://www.politwoops.co.uk/p/scottish-national-party/derekmackaysnp
Sylvia says:
7 February, 2021 at 5:42 pm
Having been the victim of a witch hunt I have given this a lot of thought. I do not believe NS is at the heart of this.’
————-
Nicola Sturgeon had a statutory duty, to ensure the complaints procedure was lawful and fair. For any person.
Had she done that, none of this would have been possible.
The complaints procedure was so blatantly bad, that a failed drama student, or the teaboy, never mind a QC could have told them so.
It was that bad. And Nicla (a lawyer) signed off on it.
@Michael Laing
What bothers me the most is that if the person in question was really a complainer, it stands to the obvious it could have never been “impartial” in that meeting and attempting to do so and furthermore pretending they knew nothing of it until very recently would be deliberate deception on their part. So what were they really doing there?
I feel very uncomfortable about that meeting since learning there was a complainer there, actually. It is a strange feeling. Like there is a whiff of something cold, dark, premeditated, twisted here. Like a vindictive game where they were wanting to see the reaction when Aberdein/Salmond were told about the accusations. It is not the spontaneous behaviour you expect from a victim. You would expect a victim to distance themselves as far as possible from any of it.
I don’t understand why they did not contact Mr Salmond directly and chose to use Mr Aberdein as intermediary instead. It is not like they could not get his contact details – I mean Sturgeon contacted him via Whatsapp in November 2017. Did they wanted to see the reaction in Aberdein’s face? Were they hoping Aberdein would simply tell Mr Salmond about the accusations without disclosing the source from which he got the information? Was this person requesting the meeting at the FM’s request? Was it to show Mr Salmond even more disrespect? Who knows.
Now, in what way disclosing to Aberdein the existence of those accusations before Mr Salmond was even informed, does not constitute a breach of confidentiality and Mr Salmond’s rights?
I am finding anything to do with this meeting unpleasant. It is revealing a dark side I don’t like.
@lumilumi says:
7 February, 2021 at 5:48 pm
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
I get a bit of that – I have a Scottish* friend who’s married to a Finn and lives in Oulu – he sends me cartoons and interesting articles from the Finnish press and websites.
*Passed all his tests, so I suppose he’s Finnish now…
One of the deleted tweets is as follows:
RT @ScotGovFM: First Minister @NicolaSturgeon in Glasgow to announce almost £2m @scotent funding for @EncompassCorp to develop artificial intelligence software tools. She met staff including software engineer Louise Meney & company CEO Wayne Johnson. https://t.co/iNMX7opLwV
I wonder if this company provides the kind of software that inserts spaces between the letters of words so that a search engine cannot find government documents containing them.
Further to my comment above (5.59).
A quote from the Garavelli ‘story’ in The Scotsman.
http://archive.is/dnNrM#selection-1877.0-1881.266
The Daily Mail (I know …) of all places, published 2 reasonably-straight takes on Salmnondgate last night; they went up about 11pm, but for whatever reason have now slid off the frontpage.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9231967/Did-Nicola-Sturgeon-conspire-frame-old-SNP-boss-false-sex-charges.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9231981/Nicola-Sturgeon-wanted-drive-stake-heart-rival-Alex-Salmond.html
the headlines are not holding back.
– their motivation seems to be that : this is “bad for Sturgeon and can damage her drive for independence” (- which is typically “Middle English” i.e. totally fucking ignorant)
The general point is – this is good if this “parochial” story escapes into the wider news-sphere (even if they don’t understand), as our “scottish press” is doing all it can to just not talk about it.
MorvenM & Daisy Walker Thanks – I am not NS No 1 fan, however, I am still convinced her mind has been poisoned against AS.
Mia,
Salmond was informed of the complaints on 7th March 2018 by Leslie Evans, as part of their official procedure. Alex Salmond, believing everything to be above board at that time, didn’t want the FM informed.
But, I really would say any more about the matter if I were you – horrific and shocking, and leave it at that. No speculation is ‘allowed’ on that particular subject.
MorvenM:
I would disagree strongly. Nicola Sturgeon is one of the most incompetent creatures ever to grace Scottish politics.
That she is still trying to squat in Bute House deluding herself says it all.
@contrary
Thank you.
@Mia
Given the verdict, an alternative way to think of it might be Salmond asking what all the fuss was about, slapping her bum and saying “Christ, even you and I kept it strictly professional back in the day..”
I think Alex is in this position because they couldn’t buy him, not the British establishment or the Scottish establishment (which is basically one and the same thing under Sturgeon).
Alex battle is our battle
Stuart McTavish.
Sorry. I do not understand what it is that you are trying to say.
Daisy Walker says:
7 February, 2021 at 6:07 pm
Sylvia says:
7 February, 2021 at 5:42 pm
The complaints procedure was so blatantly bad, that a failed drama student, or the teaboy, never mind a QC could have told them so.
It was that bad. And Nicla (a lawyer) signed off on it.
Are you bringing Anne McLaughlin into this?
She is the new Justice spokesperson for SNP in Westminster.
Although it’s a simple trick, as a software developer, I think that adding extra spaces to defeat search engines is pretty f**king evil.
The person who wrote the code knew exactly what it would be used for so there’s no escaping the immorality of it. I really, really hope they have extreme trouble getting a good night’s sleep.
I wonder if the Scottish Government keeps records of the documents it doctors – they probably don’t do it routinely or systematically since that would be too easy to spot. It certainly gives you an idea of how deep the rot goes.
Folks…
About the spaces in the words to foil searches.
I’m my experience, this can occur when a printout is put through a duff (cheapo) OCR (optical character recognition) program. Ie a photograph/image/scan is turned into text.
I have had this happen to me on many occasions, admittedly, quite a few years ago.
@Mia
Without checking, my assumption is that the accuser(s), or prospective accusers, were not necessarily known to (all of) those present.
@Stuart Mackay –
It’s really astonishing that no significant whistleblower has appeared. Aye, there was the Whatsapp stuff to MacAskill, but someone MUST know how far this goes up. The temptation to dish it must be huge and yet no-one has? Are they all so scared?
I know for many this is all a foregone conclusion now, and I more or less agree, but it’s probably about time someone gave consideration to alternative views. I say this because I expect the next logical step for this debate is in the direction I am outlining below. Please bear in mind that only so much can be said for legal reasons which makes explaining things quite difficult.
Until now we have all assumed that the laws in regards to anonymity worked quite exclusively against Salmond and his case in terms of preventing him alone from discussing his version of events. That’s mostly true, I think, but I’m sure Wings and others who have put time into all this are aware, as I am, that those laws must also inhibit those on the other side of the equation too.
And, so, we must consider that the laws with regards to the possible identification of complainers are also preventing Sturgeon from fully explaining her position and involvement. You might think there’s a sort of poetic justice in that, nevertheless, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Could we go further and imagine that those laws and the risk of identifying complainers may be given as a reason (or excuse) for some of the apparent inconsistencies we have seen, in regards to the question of when Sturgeon found out about the investigation, as well as the nature of those meetings, amongst other things?! We could probably go further with this idea.
I suspect this is where this discussion and possibly the Inquiry is heading. I think the Inquiry is basically finished because of this Gordian knot at the heart of everything. Of course, we can’t rule out design here.
From all this springs some rather philosophical questions; is lying morally or legally justifiable if telling the truth would result in a bigger wrong? Is lying justifiable or acceptable if telling the truth would make you a criminal? We’ve already touched on these sort of questions in regards to Salmond’s inability to express his version of events, but, as I said, it looks like they may also work in the other direction too.
I feel I’ve considered all or at least most of the possibilities in relation to this case. We are required to do that if we want to be more than cheerleaders. It’s still my opinion that Salmond was the target of a plot and I think the evidence validates that standpoint, regardless of any assumptions you might make about there being some truth sprinkled on one or two minor allegations at the heart of that plot.
Hi stuart mctavish at 6:47 pm.
You typed,
“Without checking, my assumption is that the accuser(s), or prospective accusers, were not necessarily known to (all of) those present.”
If you read the links I supplied at 5.59, you can work out how many were at the meeting and who they were.
Then the Garavelli link at 6.15 makes one of them, let’s say, ‘a subject of interest’.
Jesus these troughers at Tammany Hall are draining the taxpayer dry.
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/glasgows-2million-wage-bill-16-19788941
The Rangers case is important, because it reveals the poisoned sectarian heart at the core of Scottish Law and politics. There are two distinct groups of lawyers in Scotland: mainly East Coast public school unionists and their West Coast similar counterparts who are ‘religiously’ bigoted i.e. rangers minded in addition to their Britnat prejudices; on the other side is the Catholic mafia of heavily SLAB allegiances. These two groups exist because of the long historical deliberate ‘divide and rule’ policy perpetrated by Unionist adherents to the English crown and its rulers in this country. Both groups are however ironically both pro Union, because of their upper middle class identity.
When Rangers went into liquidation many high level individuals were cock a hoop. The legal ‘malicious’ mess instituted by these people demonstrates emotional reasoning by educated and apparently professional people who are now facing disgrace.
The same errors of judgement appear to be repeated by Sturgeon’s government. Emotional reasoning defeating common sense. But all of it concerted by and aided and abetted by Brit deep state actors in the Civil Service and at the highest levels of UK gov.
As Scots we have been made to look stupid and incompetent dupes by our institutions. Institutions which are tainted and infected by colonial mindsets deliberately groomed over three centuries by our biggest enemy. Camp Zeist for me exemplified the Scottish ‘cringe’..pathetic Scots Lord chief Justices tripping over their frocks to be the patsies to stich up Megrahi and divert blame away from the real criminals. Pathetic puffed up colonial clowns.
Our so-called ‘Parliament’, Legal system, police, churches and much of our so-called institutions are irredeamably corrupt, tainted by association and infiltrated by unionists and settlers all determined to keep us supine. We need to start from the ground up unfortunately.
But first we need honest leaders and a constitutional plan which is based on transparency and democratic principles of separation of powers and limited tenure for those elected . I would also want personally, properly devolved powers spread throughout Scotland, not the bloated locus of cronyism squatting at the bottom of the Royal Mile as at present.
This does indeed stink to high heaven. Why would you format a document with double spaced words except perhaps in a headline? It is indeed bizarre.
It is however good that the MSM are beginning to pay attention even it’s mainly the non Scottish media.
Ian B, that is true although there was some stuff coming from St Andrews house, I think that was mentioned in an article last Sunday/weekend. Might have been in the Brian Wilson article. And there was mention of a letter in Vancouver Globe a few days ago about someone who had recorded their interaction with the interviewer or it might have been the leading accuser.
And there is also the women who pulled out at the last minute and didn’t appear so her charge was dropped. She may have had her conscience pricked.
Someone will be first, they all will be wondering which one goes first. And there was also the confidant who spoke to Craig Murray, the one who was at the meeting with the law officers, I guess Wolffe and prob Harvie MI5. They will all be wondering who in their inner circle has broken the silence.
Tick tock..
Daisy Walker @5.19
‘MALICIOUS PROSECUTION £20 million in damages
And they went after RANGERS !!!!
I mean, I understand why a unionist infiltrated SNP and COPFS went after Alex – that makes sense.
But to go after RANGERS hmmm.’
Just like the press talking of the ‘Salmond Enquiry’ to say this was Police Scotland and COPFS going after Rangers is to turn things on their head. Any conviction of the administrators and thereafter the first owners of the club post-administration was
furra bears (or in favour of the pro-union club, if you prefer).
Ian Brotherhood @ 6.49 pm ,
Re whistleblower , No one will want to ruin their career , remember that they would all have thought it would have ended if Alex Salmond had been found guilty in the criminal case and that would have covered up the civil case as well if he had gone to jail .
@Lochside (7.05) –
Hear hear hear.
Dear Sylvia,
If Nicla believed the poison, if she thought there was any truth or substance to any of the complaints made about Alex Salmond, then she is even more unsuitable for high office than previously thought.
By not ensuring that the process by which the complaints were channelled were scrupulously fair and lawful, she has let all the complainers down in the most appalling way.
At each and every stage of the process it has been highlighted ‘what a powerful man’ Alex is. Nicla can’t say she was blindsighted about his abilities.
Dear Mia, re this being sinister and dark. Well yes, but overwhelmingly I think they’ve behaved like a bunch of 3rd rate bosses from a failing business, with a cut’n’paste copy of the how to be a bully at work pamphlet in their pockets.
Amatuer hour, sloppy in the extreme, and now completely behodden to the English state to try and make it go away, if they weren’t already there before hand.
Dear Red Sunset re Are you bringing Anne McLaughlin into this?
She is the new Justice spokesperson for SNP in Westminster.’
I would never do such a thing, I’m sure she’s busy looking up how to deal with COPFS admitting to malicious prosecution of Rangers and costing the Scottish Taxpayer over £20 million in damages and counting. Wa Haaaaaa.
There is always a basic truisms in such actions as we have seen.
Who gained?
Follow the money !!
There is always a basic truisms in such actions as we have seen.
Who gained?
Follow the money !!
Why would Sturgeon believe her?
O/T
CALLING ALL MEMBERS/POTENTIAL MEMBERS ISP
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At each and every stage of the process it has been highlighted ‘what a powerful man’ Alex is.
He wasn’t when they went after him – he was a private citizen and not even elected in any way. If he was so powerful as FM, then it was Nicola who had that exact same power in 2018. And it was wielded over a private citizen.
What occurrs to me is that the Scotgov are now using cheap law firms. Big law firms have already had their fingers burned. Scotland a real mess at the moment.
Bob Mack says:
7 February, 2021 at 7:23 pm
There is always a basic truisms in such actions as we have seen.
Who gained?
Follow the money !!
*****************************
…and power/prestige
Worth a read now that we know what we didn’t know then: https://www.businessinsider.com/alex-salmond-interview-sturgeon-brexit-scottish-independence-indyref2-russia-today-2017-11?IR=T
FAO with a general interest in the Covid-related stuff – please check out this comment on Craig Murray’s blog, Rhys Jaggar, 17.40.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/02/piers-corbyn-and-free-speech/comment-page-2/#comments
Sylvia says:
7 February, 2021 at 5:42 pm
Having been the victim of a witch hunt I have given this a lot of thought. I do not believe NS is at the heart of this…
I’ve mentioned it before Sylvia, but Peter Wright’s book Spycatcher describes the difficulty which exists trying to establish whether somebody is a spy. Even catching them red handed carrying stolen intelligence they shouldn’t have, isn’t proof of anything, because often legit and sensitive intelligence was sold to the enemy in order to purchase better intelligence from them.
To assess who’s side somebody was actually on, there had to be a massive audit of all the person’s intelligence trading, and the information treated as a kind of tax ledger with credit and debit analysis… what grade of intelligence was ‘bought’ versus what grade of intelligence was sold to get it.
You never really had definitive proof of anything, but operatives who had a massive ‘loss’ in their ledger had clearly traded away more intelligence than they ever gathered, indicating they either weren’t very good at their job, or, on the balance of probability, they were a spy working for the other side.
So, if you were to do that kind on analysis on Nicola Sturgeons Independence strategy since 2014, and weigh up all the things she’s done for Indy, versus all the things she’s done, (or hasn’t done), against Indy, you have yourself a yardstick to gauge performance overall.
Now, what has Sturgeon done for Independence? Frankly, I’m struggling to answer that. Even trying to be generous for arguments sake, I can barely recall any positive initiative or constructive undertaking.
But across the page in that wee ledger, in the ‘debits’ column…
She did nothing to engage with the massive increase in membership in 2014/15
The massive SNP contingent 56/59 seats sent to Westminster but did nothing with it.
Scotland’s democratic rejection of Brexit was Constitutional dynamite; and irreconcilable standoff between the 2 sovereign entities of the UK. Sturgeon squandered Scotland’s Constitutional strength.
Northern Ireland pursued the Irish Backstop to stay in Europe because the International Community demanded Westminster didn’t breach an International Treaty. Where was Scotland’s backstop while Westminster was breaching the 1707 International Treaty? Nowhere.
In 2016 Sturgeon telegraphed to Theresa May that Scotland would do nothing until she knew the final details of Brexit, thereby abdicating ALL the initiative to Theresa May, hobbling Scotland’s capacity to defend it’s interests and play any active part in negotiations, and presenting May with a free reign to negotiate Brexit WITHOUT the threat of any IndyRef2 or Constitutional dispute.
In 2017 Sturgeon fought May’s General Election with a lacklustre campaign of indifference, expecting May was about to lose, and reduced the SNP Westminster seats from 56 to 35 seats. Early and stark indication that Independence momentum built up under Salmond was already dissipating under Sturgeon’s lukewarm ‘leadership’, and presenting the Tories with a propaganda coup about Tory ‘resurgence’.
Having ‘gifted’ May and Davidson a propaganda coup, Sturgeon’s reaction was to kick Independence into the long grass and fail to deliver on the SNP’s mandate.
I’m gonna speed up, or the list is going to be massive..
Sturgeon has apparently orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to stitch up Alex Salmond.
Sturgeon has presided over the embarrassing and costly debacle to see Alex Salmond jailed, repeatedly ignoring sage advice, and costing the Scottish Tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds, probably millions once the Scottish Government’s costs are included. Resignations? None.
Sturgeon was in charge when Scotland’s £ half million war chest for IndyRef2 ‘disappeared’ allegedly “woven through” other accounts. Resignations? None. Money recovered? Nil.
Sturgeon operates a double standard where Woke MSP’s can abuse others and take Transvestite strippers into Scottish Primary schools with sanction, while non-woke MSP’s can be booted out the SNP for the merest infraction or lapsed judgement.
Sturgeons has allowed the NEC to be bloated with highly dubious and controversial interest groups, who have sought to ‘rig’ the selection of candidates for seats, and for a period of at least 18 months while Scotland was being unconstitutionally subjugated by Brexit,, the SNP NEC didn’t even discuss Independence.
Sturgeon promised to co-operate fully with the Parliamentary Inquiry into Alex Salmond’s stitch up, but had instead presided over a litany of obstruction, obfuscation and non-Cooperation.
Sturgeon seems utterly resolved ‘not’ to use the prodigious skills and intellect of Joanna Cherry, who has TWICE bested the best the UK Establishment had to offer, but instead does nothing to condemn the vitriolic abuse of Ms Cherry from Sturgeon’s own Wokist lunatics.
Still with me Sylvia? How’s that credit and debit ledger looking so far?
Unless you’ve been living in a cardboard box these past 6 years, you’ll know that this is just the tip of the Ice berg of ‘Indy-Negative’ circumstances, but even so, there is still a compelling case for Nicola Sturgeon to go, and go now. Her Leadership has been CATASTROPHIC for Scotland, Scottish Independence, and even the SNP, and it seems increasingly likely that multiple criminal prosecutions are now inevitable.
Even the credit gleaned from Independence polling over 50% is disingenuous, because every man and his dog knows this is fuelled by antithesis to Boris Johnson and Brexit. Doesn’t stop the likes of CosyFeet Pete claiming the credit though..
So maybe we should finish with a poll… Is Nicola Sturgeon unlucky beyond belief, incompetent to biblical proportions, corrupt beyond redemption, or is she instead, playing an absolute blinder for the UK Establishment wrecking the SNP, smashing Scotland’s Sovereign Constitution, kicking Independence so far into the long grass it’s out of sight, and breaking the heart and will of countless Independence supporters who all knew we were within the merest whisker of achieving Scottish Independence at any time from 2016-20.
Captain Yossarian @7:27
I have just read on Twitter “” a scummy wee firm of estate agents and conveyancers” meaning the company who are representing the “senior official” who does/doesn’t exist. I also read in a separate post – the solicitor representing the “senior official” is a FP of St Aloysius – a Jesuit school – an added comment Jesuits – Secret Service of the Vatican. One of Salmond’s former advisers is now a Jesuit priest – Stephen Noon.
Captain Yossarian says:
7 February, 2021 at 7:27 pm
What occurrs to me is that the Scotgov are now using cheap law firms. Big law firms have already had their fingers burned. Scotland a real mess at the moment.
Yes, indeed. Fascinating. I saw your previous post re Scottish lawyers. I share mine with Craig Murray (just by chance) and respect his intelligence and his modesty.
Expensive does not mean good. I paid good money to a lawyer and a lot less to Counsel for a recent opinion and thought that it would have been much better to just get to Counsel directly.
Wondering if there is an intellectual deficit at the heart of ScotGov?
Methinks so.
Land reform?
£3million to the Unionist Press?
Obstruction of Martin Keating’s case?
GRA reform?
Hate Crime Legislation?
…
Breeks @7:42
Thanks that is some post-I will have to read and re-read.
The more that is revealed the more complicated this saga becomes.
My “take”-
It all starts when someone bursts through the door of SNP HQ and announces that Mr. Salmond is thinking of rejoining main-stream politics.
Panic ensues. “He’ll want to go for independence! Bang goes our cushy troughing! Something must be done.
Political and civil service heads are got together and someone remembers some complaint from a few years ago.
The dust is blown off it and someone remarks that it is bit thin. Leave it to me says a “fixer”. I’ll see what I can dig up!
A plan is hatched to scare Alex Salmond into forgetting his idea of a return to front line politics and he is invited round for “a chat”.
Meanwhile certain, lets call them “double agents” think this is not as foolproof as some politicos think.They contact their “superiors” and are given certain instructions in case it all turns “pear shaped”.
Mr.Salmond does not “cave” as they expected but says he is going for a judicial review. The case fails and costs the
SNP administration (that is you and me) a kings ransom in expenses and compensation.
Instead of giving up, the idiots get the police involved,in an attenpt to stop AS. That also fails!
Having stirred up a hornets nest, the conspirators deny everything and everyone learns a new word. “redacted”.
Meanwhile the trail of breadcrums the “double agents laid has been discovered by some astute investigating (thanks Rev), and the wheels are about to come off the Murrell bogie.
It all reminds me of children rolling a snowball downhill.
If the hill is steep enough, the snowball gets too big to be managed and gets away, and everybody ends up in a snowdrift.
Ian Brotherhood
Re: whistleblowers.
Everyone knows that the first person to get shot is the whistleblower themselves. The Americans have a scheme where the whistleblower gets between 15% and 30% of the money recovered. In some cases the amount of money gained must be eye-watering. But yet the whistleblower always comes out the worst for opening their mouths. Nobody loves a ("Tractor" - Ed) – no matter what side of the issue you sit.
As MaggieC says it would definitely be a career limiting move. A lot of these advisors and assistants are probably not capable of doing much else. Government, if you can stand the politicking is probably a reasonably cosy environment compared to the corporate world where there are not that many opportunities.
The problem we have is that far too often there’s no penalty to be paid for incompetence let alone corruption. Underlings will naturally take their lead from the boss hoping they’ll eventually get a shot at running the show. That’s how the system is preserved.
@ lothianlad “So many MSPs and MPs know alot, but, Why? are they not comming forward to expose this?”
I may be wrong about it, but I don’t think the MSPs on the committee are supposed to talk about their conclusion until every witness had a chance to tell their story. The rest of the opposition MSPs are probably just waiting fro the report (and are of course bound by the various court orders too, and may have received various Scot gov lawyers letter).
I also think that the Scottish Government is trying to run down the clock. The committee must report before the end of the (normal) parliamentary session. I can’t see how the report could be anything but so condemning of the government that a vote of no confidence follows. But if the committee reports right at the end of the session, I am not sure if there would be time for a vote of no-confidence. Or does someone knwo better?
There’s no need to remind me that a good few in here would be terrible double partners in a game of CLUEDO.
If you haven’t worked out at least some of the accusers if not all then ,well just give up now.
There’s even still a message live online naming one from march’ish 2020 lol
Also, I don’t understand the Neil Hanvey story, can anyone illuminate what is going on? And why is Iain Macwhirters latest no longer on the Herald’s website?
With the story in the Sun yesterday re Derek McKay and now his twitter account closing what’s the bet he’s tomorrow’s squirrel to take the heat of Pete.
Of course that would mean some prior collusion with the Sun.Oh, wait, there was that £3 million bung the SNP gave the unionist press.
AYRSHIRE ROB @8:02 I also know of a website naming the mystery celebrity at Bute House the night of “that” dinner. I keep checking back to see if it is there, which it is. I’m surprised it is allowed to remain!
Now I think I understand why the evidence of Aberdein is being hidden. OMG.
Recall what Alex wrote in testimony that Geoff was told by certain person the name of ONE of the complainers, only but not the other.
It confirms for me Nicola almost certainly knew!!
Christian Schmidt @8:02
Neale Hanvey was sacked from his frontbench role after he backed a campaign to sue Kirsty Blackman & David Paisley. All linked to Joanna Cherry story.
A nice Daily Express article from 2015, showing how great it is to have lots of friends….
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/609372/Nicola-Sturgeon-T-in-the-Park-aide-role-grant
Christian Schmidt says:
7 February, 2021 at 8:02 pm
Also, I don’t understand the Neil Hanvey story, can anyone illuminate what is going on? And why is Iain Macwhirters latest no longer on the Herald’s website?’
There is a female lawyer in England called Sarah Phillimore who has expressed concerns about Self Id Gender Recognitions issues and how they imapact on female safety.
The transwoke contingent piled in on her and accused her of Transphobia and anti semiticm.
She published all the tweets so people could decide for themselves. Asked all the people slandering to stop (inclduding MP Kirsty Blackman) or she would take legal action. They declined to do so, legal action is in the pipeline. Sarah started up a crowdfunder to fund it.
Joanna Cherry got sacked from the SNP front bench for pointing out the defamation ongoing, Neale Hanvey got sacked from SNP front bench for contributing to the crowdfunder.
I don’t know why Iain MacWhirters article has been removed, but chances are it was not following the current blanket ban of silence on all things SNP corrupt so its been removed.
@TNS2019 – I’m afraid law in Scotland has become delinquent. The only person who could afford to bring a mallicious prosecution charge against the Crown Office won easily. More would follow if they could afford the eye-watering cost, but they can’t.
Like you, I have followed the www route and I am finding it to be successful. I only started it this weekend but so far, so good.
You have an exceptionally well put together case. I have a good case too. I reckon that between the two of us we will soon have the Deputy First Minster’s attention.
Sylvia
The web such a huge place.I don’t suppose they can catch all.
@ Sylvia and Christian Schmidt: I wouldn’t call it a “campaign to sue Kirsty etc”.
The individual who was attacked as transphobic/anti-semitic merely stated that she had contacted KB and others to invite them to delete their tweets and/or apologise. She told them that if they didn’t do so then she would take legal action.
Neale Hanvey merely tweeted his support for the victim.
I’m an absolute thicko regarding politics but having gone through a long drawn out divorce ending up in the high court I know how corrupt they are
During the search for offenders we mustn’t forget that behind the sordid behaviour of our governors there seems likely to be an underlying creed of corruption, protectionism, cronyism and nepotism which has existed for many years and which has served our rulers well.
That won’t go away with the pillorying of a couple of scapegoats.
Sylvia, you mentioned the actor who was at the dinner. It always seemed very odd that he couldn’t be named, and he didn’t even appear at the trial, I think he gave a witness statement by video and this was replayed.
Anyone have any idea why his name was concealed? I do Ken who it is in case you are wondering…
As to Parliamentary privilege, and article 9 of the Bill of Rights / Claim of Right:
“Freedom of Speech.
That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.”
We do now have reference to this:
https://erskinemay.parliament.uk/section/4589/article-ix-of-the-bill-of-rights/
I’m not sure if it helps, but others could try to dig in to it. The section on impeach does seem to suggest the order could be broken, but one imagines that the Speaker may intervene and seek to have Parliament itself impose a sanction.
Sylvia / Daisy / Sarah – thank you
Alan Mackintosh at 8:39pm
Anyone have any idea why his name was concealed? I do Ken who it is in case you are wondering…
Probably due to any potential fallout from this whole debacle directly damaging their career, actors/actresses don’t get jobs if they are viewed by the tv/movie industry to be damaged goods.
Re Harassment and Complaints Committee ,
Just a reminder that it starts at 9.00 am tomorrow morning ,
The Committee will next meet on Monday 8 February at 9:00am when it will take evidence from Peter Murrell, Chief Executive, Scottish National Party. This meeting will be held virtually.
Public papers for the meeting ,
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/Meeting%20Papers/20210208SGHHCPublicPapers(1).pdf
.
Remember to set the alarm clock and enjoy your popcorn for breakfast LOL .
How many days is that now that Mr Chapman has not replied about the missing ring fenced funds.
I can think of 1/2 a million reasons
I could give you a 1/2 million more
But when I look at where I left them
All those reason simply aren’t there anymore.
But I left them wrapped up oh so careful
and round about them I placed a strong strong fence
Now they’ve gone and where abouts is an enigma
And nothing those in charge say about it’s making any sense.
Thank the lord for our wee Sainted Nicla
Oor wee angle in her tarten heels
She got her faults and even she conceeds it
But at least she never ever steals.
I can think of a 1/2 a million reasons
Interwoven when supposed to be ring fenced
And a crooked shower of chancers presiding over
a gravy train and a closed down parliament.
Alan Mackintosh @8:39
The witness statement was played however it was not made under oath. I have not a clue why his name was concealed. I posted something about Jesuits earlier – check out the mystery celebrity’s early life on Wiki.
Me @ 8.47 pm
Link to main Committee page to get the link to the papers for tomorrow’s meeting
https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/111052.aspx
.
They have a habit of cutting off “ the pdf “ at the end of the link sometimes , it’s as if they don’t want us to read them .
Jim Jones@6:47 pm
About the spaces in the words to foil searches.
I’m my experience, this can occur when a printout is put through a duff (cheapo) OCR (optical character recognition) program. Ie a photograph/image/scan is turned into text.
True, the OCR code I ran the the image page through had to be tweaked to read it properly – it’s old code, and as
John Martini@5:36pm (and an earlier post) points out both Google and Microsoft have OCR software ‘baked in’ to their products, tried the Google lens on the page, which worked quite well..I have no truck with Microsoft, but I’ll bet the SG et al do, I expect their ‘baked in’ OCR to be on a par with that of Google.
That page left as an image would lend some credence to the possibility that these documents are OCR’d scans of originals, but as these documents were created electronically in the first instance, they had no need to be anywhere near any scanner&OCR. I’d see the point if they’d dug out some paper drek from the archives, but this stuff?
I suppose expecting logical behaviour from this lot is probably too much to ask.
Noticed another weirdness which may also be an OCR artifact, strange use/appearance of ll where ll was expected.
Mebbies it is, then again, mebbies it isnae..
On an O/T, the network gremlins are at it again, straight Virgin Media connection times out or gives ‘bad gateway’, US VPN works fine.
I am not sure what is happening kn the twitter feed of Salmond Coming Bridges for Indy but sounds interesting re leaving answering machine on.
Old Alex stated in the Daily Telegraph half an hour ago that if his statement to the Fabiani Inquiry is withheld then he will hold a press conference instead.
Sturgeon stated: ‘These theories are an attempt to deflect, but there is a risk that it makes it harder for women to come forward’.
She didn’t say if she was referring there to woman H although I presume she wasn’t and she was just generalising, so to speak.
Something tells me that Sturgeon’s going to get taken to the bag-wash this week. In fact, I’m almost sure of it.
Bob, yep, just had a look, very intriguing. Have you seen this Stu?
https://twitter.com/bridgesforindy/status/1358521633175126027
@ Mia and Daisy Walker: as you have analysed so clearly what has been happening under the current Leader, have you thought of sharing it with the National Letters page? It would be nice to see the truth intelligently displayed there.
Lochside-7.05, though sweeping, got it right. Evidence of covered-up corruption used to have a 10 year frequency-mine started with Paddy Meehan/Hunter report, then Fettesgate, McKee affair, Megrahi stitch-up.
Trouble is, this Covid-era has uncovered the way we are ‘managed’, to such a worrying degree it makes one feel totally powerless.
Why would anyone want to encourage woman to come
forward with false allegations that could imprison and ruin
an innocent man.
In this case these women’s wish not to involve the police was over run.
The women colluded illegally before the court case.
The women wasted a great deal of government, civil service, court and
Police time before being found by judge and jury to be liars.
How on earth are we encouraging more of the same, protecting the guilty
and puting the innocent through the ringer back and forth.
There should be imprisonment, sacking and complete discredit for many
individuals and government bodies at the end of this!
I always find it so funny when people who have not been involved with the corrupt legal system in scotland are surprised when this kind of thing comes out
Myself and tens of thousands like me know this scenario off by heart cause we have been victims of it, it happened to me twice in the last 5 years and twice the liars did not appear to take the oath, once they did that it was prison time, they new it and I new it.
I am not alex salmond, nobody can threaten me with prison time if I say anything, I can not be intimidated by these bawbags.
I have stood in a court and told a judge and a woman prosecutor what I thought of them and their so called justice system.
I never ranted and raved, I was very calm and serene, but hey, I new they could not give a monkeys, but at least they new my contempt for them, their police, their courts, and their prosecutor fiscal’s office, get me on a jury and the accused would need to be really bad for me to convict them.
Its a contemptable system and I could call it some kind of weird pantomime, but I would not do that, I like pantomime so its not fair to compare it with farce
I loved Brian Rix btw
If there is any integrity or honesty left in this country why is there total silence from the legal profession the police and our MP/MSP`s over the corruption and criminality by the Scottish government.
@Mc Duff – because they’re all corrupt; they’ve lifted the coin; where do you think all the money has disappeared to? Do you think old Fabiani and Baillie have the measure of this?
I expect Alex Salmond’s press conference to be explosive. They’ll be a few lawyers, senior police officers and MSP’s shitting themselves tonight.
“Various factors had made the committee’s work frustrating, said Baillie: “The obstruction of the Scottish government in terms of delayed and redacted evidence; third parties leaking information to the media before it comes to committee; and more widely my concern that the Holyrood parliament does not have the powers to hold the executive to account.”
She is especially concerned that, she argues, there has been no opportunity to judge whether the Scottish government’s sexual harassment policy is fit for purpose, because of its ongoing refusal to provide the committee with sight of its legal advice for the judicial review of the process, brought by Salmond, which found the investigation to be “unlawful” and “tainted with apparent bias” in January 2019. “They say the judicial review was conceded on a technical point about the independence of the investigating officer, but they also took legal advice on the policy itself, which would tell us whether that policy is sound for the future.” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/02/women-criticise-release-private-messages-about-alex-salmond-inquiry
Adolf was not at the Wannseekonferenz !
Daisy Walker @8:26pm began:
“Also, I don’t understand the Neil Hanvey story, can anyone illuminate what is going on?…”
Sorry can’t help, but BBC Scotland Politics on-line reported it this afternoon:
https://archive.is/xhkKK
Dave Llewellyn @bridgesforindy-is a mischievous chap tonight!
There are a lot of corrupt practices going on in this country right now, and I am involved in researching one of them, what I am going to do will never see the light of day, but at least I am going to get someone their life back again
This looks ominous for someone in the ‘cabal’
it’s Twitter for anyone who uses that platform:
https://twitter.com/bridgesforindy/status/1358514540116381697
Stupid question, but when folks say the Scottish legal system is corrupt, what do they mean?
Is it corrupt against Indy? Is it corrupt against poor folks? Does it turn a blind eye to a particular group of people?
Is it systemic corruption? Or corrupt individuals or conspiracy?
Who gains from the corruption and who loses? Is it nepotism / you scratch my back / or are there actual brown envelopes changing hands?
Is there a difference between actually corrupt, and the system or process just being clumsy and ineffective?
I have good reason to doubt Scottish justice first hand, but rather than corrupt, I got the impression the Court wasn’t concerned with justice so much as expediency. Your case wouldn’t fare well if there was some error or flawed process which allowed the Courts to fling it out.
The other ‘corruption’ which struck me was a Court will routinely take the word of a Council or Housing Association as gospel, because such expediency suits their system. If a council or utility company applies for a warrant, it will be rubber stamped, and there’s no evaluation if the Council or utility company is either wrong, dishonest or vexatious…
In our immediate context, I am mindful that both Alex Salmond and Mark Hirst were vindicated by the Scottish Courts, and I hope Craig Murray will be too… So if there is corruption, it apparently has limits, and perhaps all is not lost.
In 2019 Mr Hanvey was suspended by the SNP for using anti-Semitic language on social media.
But went on to win his seat as an independent.
He was accepted back into the party, so the allegations were obviously, as bill and ted would say, “majorly bogus and unfair!”
Perhaps his constituency should be designated as a dead zone:
A place where voters just keep getting it wrong.
He apologised for any offence caused in the days following his suspension.
What more could you ask of someone so calumnated?
Have a leak wearing a dress in r spear’s constituency’s public bogs?
With the state subsidised media present?
R spear would consider that a start.
Now that I realise that part of the First Minister’s duties, under the Ministerial Code, is to ensure civil servants carry out their duties lawfully – she breached the Code by not intervening in the unlawful investigation by Leslie Evans and Judith Mackinnon – Nicola Sturgeon knew of the complaints and knew of the concerns with lawfulness – yet the whole thing was completed and got to Judicial Review.
I’ve just read a big pile of emails that Mackinnon wrote to the witnesses that she interviewed in support of the 2 complainers – there were 4 witnesses – keeping them ‘updated’ throughout the process – in them she divulged confidential & legally privileged information from Alex Salmond’s solicitors’ and Leslie Evans’ letters. That’s to WITNESSES: She was the IMPARTIAL Investigating Officer. CONFIDENTIAL information being passed to people that had no right to know.
I don’t know if the Judicial Review had this evidence, but the ‘unlawfulness’ and ‘tainted by apparent (that is: obvious) bias’ is not based on a technicality or a misinterpretation of para 10 or Judith Mackinnon happened to chat with the complainers a couple of times before being appointed by IO – she & Evans behaved in an unfair and biased – and probably illegal – way throughout the investigation. Doesn’t matter if NS recused herself of deciding on the procedure, she still had a duty to halt this (and she knew exactly what was going on).
It’s not just lying to parliament about when and how she found out, it’s what she didn’t do after she found out – all are breaches of the ministerial code.
Monsieur le Roi Grenouilleverteetprofonde says:
one of the curiosities of this affair is that early on a senior spad initials(LL)figures frequently in the events around the march meeting, For some reason she (or is it he?) is never mentioned now despite being a key person in the whole affair.It is palpably obvious to anyone who has followed the matter consistently who this person must be.Since it is so obvious why is anyone bothering to cover it up.
It’s not so much that they are trying to cover his/her identity, it’s more a case of them being shit scared how he/she would perform while given evidence!
He/She has probably gone into a tailspin when they were discussing the trial and they know that he/she is a complete liability, this is why we must get a judge-led inquiry in which he/she will be able to ask anyone they want to give evidence.
Do that, and the whole thing would collapse around the Murrels feet!
place where voters just keep getting it wrong.
…and party workers…they just the are the worst*
*Quoted from alyn smith’s pillow talk.
I believe that the reason for the redactions of Alex’s submission to the Hamilton Inquiry is that one of the participants in the meetings was also one of the Alphabet Women who made allegations against him at the criminal trial. Specifically I believe her to be Ms H of “I have a plan where we can be anonymous” WhatsApp fame. Consequently her identity is concealed by Lady Dorrian’s confidentiality order.
So we have a situation where Alex is discussing the complaints against him with someone who unbeknown to him is also charging him with a serious criminal offence. Sound fair to you?
Corruption – misuse of public office for private or political gain. (Professor Rose-Ackerman)
https://peterabell.scot/2021/02/07/where-stoppeth-the-buck/
Good piece by Peter bell tonight. Very much agree with him.
I’m calm but when someone like mike Russell whom I have respected over the years tells me I should be calm and just accept what is going on with the SNP (I’m referring to what is happening to Mr Salmond) it makes me question everything about the party.
What a huge disappointment and what a betrayal Mr Russell.
I’m calmly removing my vote.
paul says:
7 February, 2021 at 10:08 pm
In 2019 Mr Hanvey was suspended by the SNP for using anti-Semitic language on social media.
Dear Paul, I’m fairly sure your above statement is incorrect. My understanding is that Mr Hanvey re tweeted a cartoon that showed an effigy of the multi billionaire George Sorros as a kind of puppet master, pulling the strings of power over the world.
It was argued that this was anti-semitic.
Mr Hanvey was suspended from the SNP without them following their own proceedures for same.
Patrick, yes and not just LL, it was Mackinnon whose appearance before the inquiry was not even videolink, it was audio only. And as such its fair to assume she wasnt alone when giving evidence. I think one of her answers even alluded to that. And the pretext given was due to harassment on social media… except she has no social media presence. For her to be granted these special measures indicates that she may well be the weakest link… Well if she forgot to hang up the phone , she might well need to phone a friend, or a lawyer.
Mixing up a couple of game shows there… not on purpose!
Patrick Roden says:
7 February, 2021 at 9:58 pm
“This looks ominous for someone in the ‘cabal’
it’s Twitter for anyone who uses that platform:
https://twitter.com/bridgesforindy/status/1358514540116381697”
Sounds like someone forgot the answerphone was on!
Popcorn.
@Alan
MacKinnon’s appearances were by video link to the committee. Only the audio was broadcast though.
Given Mike Russells ‘keep the heid’ advice, I was so tempted to try a spoof on Rudyard Kiplings poem If… but on reading it, this bit jumped out and bit me (so much more powerful)..
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools
Right just now I think I’m one of the worn out tools.
But I’m aw fir the rebuilding. Yes we can. Now we must.
Breeks,
On corruption of our legal system – I think systemic, or even worse, it might even be that the whole thing was set up to fail – what if devolution was introduced to destroy our legal system (though I think that’s attributing far too much skill and forward thinking to London!). I know that sounds melodramatic, but I found a late comment to a post earlier on Iain’s blog – and though I can’t verify the accuracy, seems to be bona fide – and I find it very concerning:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/02/05/letter-of-the-week-from-jim-sillars/#comment-7924
Guys, this answerlhone conversation was recorded by David Llewelyn. He claims he is sending it to a “friend”for legal advice. He does have a chequered history making synthetic drugs in Antwerp. “Legal highs. He is a chemist with a history of drug abuse of his products.
However he is adamant this is the real McCoy and will publish if legal to do so.
As you can imagine him and the law are not strangers.
Wait and see.
O/T for those who follow Wings from outwith Scottish shores & who were asking what the limits were on donating to @NowScotland.scot, I’m pleased to confirm that there are no limits as we are not a political party so donate away if you will with our thanks 🙂 🙂
Breeks, I see that Iain himself commented on that comment I linked to saying he’s aware of the report mentioned (I think, it’s a bit cryptic). Sounds serious … And very very worrying.
“Sounds like someone forgot the answerphone was on!”
I wonder if in the answerphone recording they were inviting someone to a meeting?
A meeting that they now say didn’t happen!
Time, opportunity and motive.
Its the motive I don’t get. Nicola riding high in the polls yet allegedly lying about something that, on the face of it, is fairly trivial.
The alleged lying is not trivial but why. Who or what is being protected here because it definitely isn’t Independence.
Contrary: “Now that I realise that part of the First Minister’s duties, under the Ministerial Code, is to ensure civil servants carry out their duties lawfully – she breached the Code by not intervening in the unlawful investigation by Leslie Evans and Judith Mackinnon – Nicola Sturgeon knew of the complaints and knew of the concerns with lawfulness – yet the whole thing was completed and got to Judicial Review.”
That’s the big one. Hiding in plain sight. And it’s the big one because it’s imperative as the Ministerial Code says that the Government acts lawfully. The JR found that it had acted unlawfully.
All the more damning because the Government has a team of lawyers and experts at its disposal, costing us millions, there to make sure the Government does not act unlawfully. But it ignored its legal experts and chose to act unlawfully.
It’s really that simple.
Kipling, for all that he was very much of his time, was a good observer. He then had to bury his son, and wasn’t – unsurprisingly – the same thereafter.
Hatuey,
I think there is a very good reason we aren’t getting to see that legal advice – defying Parliament twice to stop it being shown? It probably condemns them all, not just Sturgeon.
@Frogesque,
Try loyalty and frienship as a motive as I believe it was in this case . It makes people impulsive and irrational.
Breeks @ 10:07
“Stupid question, but when folks say the Scottish legal system is corrupt, what do they mean?”
Well, as illustrated on Iain Lawson’s blog, and to some extent Craig Murray’s, if MI5 have agents and assets running what Osborne referred to as ‘the arms’ of the British state in Scotland, which are copfs, police and civil service, which we may recall are the three main actors in this and other relevant cases, then that means an awful lot of people have immunity from prosecution, while everybody else is fair game, much as we see is the reality in any unequal contest. If that’s not a corrupt legal system then I don’t know what is.
Jockanese Wind Talker says:
7 February, 2021 at 11:03 pm
“Sounds like someone forgot the answerphone was on!”
I wonder if in the answerphone recording they were inviting someone to a meeting?
A meeting that they now say didn’t happen
But if it’s that meeting the person inviting someone does not exist in a legal sense.
@anonymoose Hats off to you sir.
@whoever said this; of course the other words have spaces between letters too, otherwise it would be friggin o b v i o u s that only that word has been treated thus.
@graham I guess one of us should use a different username
Scottish legal system.
Who do you think was advising Lesley Evans et al up to the point they hired Senior Counsel? The Lord Advocates Office.
They got it all wrong and were eventually told so by a competent lawyerbwhen he knew the full facts
Would you as Lord Advocate not want to bury this following the Rangers Administrator fiasco.
Protecting their already sullied reputation.
Given the monarchs last involvement in indy ref1 and the recent proposal so send Edward up what are your thoughts on making it clear to the palace if there is a repeat there may also be an early review of the monarchy.
In any case there needs to be a coronation
I think the gist of what happened was reported by – of all people – the Sun, a long time ago in respect of ‘Woman H’.
“The witness, the first to give evidence at the trial, said she tried to find out about the SNP’s process for dealing with sexual harassment complaints after publicity surrounding the #MeToo movement was sparked in 2017 by allegations about ex-film producer Harvey Weinstein.
She said she’d started to have “flashbacks” about what Mr Salmond had allegedly done and contacted Ian McCann in the SNP’s party HQ on 5 November 2017.
She told the court: “It was on the back of the Harvey Weinstein case and the issues which started to be discussed and I started to have what I would describe as flashbacks.”
In text messages shown to the jury, she asked Mr McCann who to contact to “100 per cent confidentially discuss sexual misconduct”.
He responded by asking if it was about a current parliamentarian, and told her he was the first point of contact in the party, or that she could speak with a solicitor who’d been appointed “for that purpose”.
Ms H said she’d rather speak to Mr McCann than “use a lawyer’s time”.
She told the court that at that point she did not formally take the matter any further.
Under cross examination by defence counsel Shelagh McCall QC, it was pointed out that MSP Mark McDonald had resigned from his role as children’s minister in the Scottish Government the day before on 4 November.
She asked the witness if she thought at the time that Mr McDonald might also resign as MSP for Aberdeen Donside, to which Ms H replied: “I didn’t give it a lot of thought.”
It was suggested to the woman by Ms McCall that if Mr McDonald had quit, she may have thought there was a “possibility” Mr Salmond would try to re-enter Scottish politics.
Ms H said: “I don’t think I linked the two events together. I wasn’t aware he (Mr Salmond) wanted to stand for the Scottish Parliament again.”
The QC asked if it was “coincidence” she’d contacted Mr McCann the day after Mr McDonald resigned and said: “You didn’t want Alex Salmond to pass any future vetting process.”
Alf. Good point.
Maybe the whole Salmond thing can be traced right back to Whitehall. Sturgeon the bought and sold stool pigeon.
Perhaps she has been taking orders from Whitehall since 2015. They obviously have something on her.
Jesus. It’s taken me months and months to figure out any of the alphabet lot, and I think I just cracked 4 of them.
What a bunch of snake b****ds. I can’t think of any comparable or bigger public betrayal than what these people are committing. Where would they even be without Alec Salmond?
This, coupled with the fact the GRA thing could put my young daughter and my fiancé directly in harms way in some public spaces where I can’t protect them just finishes it for me with the SNP. They’re deranged, dangerous and absolutely consumed with greed. I don’t believe in god, but if I was doing what they’re doing, I’d be on my knees praying for forgiveness in my quiet moments.
I think I’ll stop providing pertinent links and go back to tossing out the odd opinion, now and again.
I had thought that my comments tonight, at 5.59 and 6.15 would have generated some response but, no, nuhin’. Maybe pointless providing links for others to read, iye?
If you’d read the links, you would know that there were either three or four people at that 29th March meeting, from AS, NS, GA and Superman’s girlfriend.
From my 6.15 link to the Garavelli ‘story’, we know that one of them was actually a complainant in the Salmond criminal trial.
So which of them was the complainant?
AS? Don’t think so.
GA? Don’t think so.
Join the dots…
Brian Doonthetoon Supermans girlfriend ??? better than my Turra Coo analogy the other night !
Hello Brian Doonthetoon.
I’m deliberately not attempting to join the dots and identify the females.
And I’ve been reading the articles as they’ve come out. For that reason I did not comment.
Sorry, no offence intended re your efforts which are worth while for those still looking to join the dots.
David Lyon:
Intelligence and competence are not the same thing. Some intelligent people are incompetent at their jobs. They may lack the necessary skills or have character defects.
Do I think Nicola is the worst leader we could have had at this time? Absolutely. It’s hard to imagine anybody making a bigger hash of the opportunities she’s had.
But the idea that she’s a silly wee women manipulated by others is just wrong. She knew exactly what she was doing. That makes it all the worse.
@ Daisy Walker
You seem to have a very detailed knowledge of the procedures for arrested persons. I hope it derives from experience on the other side of the cell door and not because you’ve been incarcerated yourself! ?
Someone commented that the case against the Rangers administrators could only have been prosecuted with the aid of English police and English lawyers. Since Scotland and England are separate jurisdictions I presume the situation is the same as it is in the USA or Australia: Scottish police officers have no authority to arrest or search in England and have to apply to an English court for extradition to Scotland and search warrants. Any subsequent arrest and search can only be carried out by English police.
My concern about the Cheshire police was not that they arrested David Whitehouse – they had a legal obligation to comply with a Scottish arrest warrant once rubber-stamped by an English court – but that the time and manner of the arrest was unnecessary and infringed the arrestee’s human rights. Pinning a person’s arms to his sides and frogmarching him before the paparazzi for no other purpose than public humiliation is not acceptable.
The English police can scarcely have avoided involvement since apparently both of the arrested Administrators live in England and so presumably that’s where their office is located. DW can hardly have commuted from Cheshire to Glasgow every day. Any search warrants to obtain documentation from that office would have to be executed by English police.
The only role I can see for English lawyers is in acting for COPFS in applying to English courts for search warrants, etc. My understanding is that Scottish law is sufficiently different from English common law that lawyers in one cannot automatically practise in the other. So I can’t see any reason other than paranoia for seeing English police and lawyers as part of a conspiracy. The real conspiracy lay closer to home in Scotland at the COPFS.
Like others Brian I read those links and came to various conclusions non of them repeatable as I hate porridge , but the mere fact that so much information is still accessible freely only gives credence to Craigs Murrays claims , it is reprehensible and completely sickening that COPFS are making Craig the fall guy when so many journalists have exposed much more
Alex Cole-Hamilton is a boil on the arse of humanity
And his middle name should be enough to get him all fired up lol
If you ever get a letter through your box that says To The Occupier ignore it, there is no such person called The Occupier at your address, and if is not signed with a signature its not a legal document.
Just a little piece of common law for anyone that’s interested, there’s lots of it, and people should make themselves aware on how to best use it against the pests that think they are so clever
@ Daisy Walker
Sorry, that ? at the end of the first paragraph was supposed to be a smiley face. The Wings site doesn’t support emojis apparently.
[REDACTED] As I live in NZ & left Scotland 50 years ago, will it be legal for me to put her full name up here?
This write up from two years ago. Guess it’s squeaky bum time for her now.
So, this is the person Swinney wouldn’t let give answers to the committee. I wonder why?
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20190116/281706910855000
@ StuartM.
I’m retired Stuart so any knowledge I have is getting rusty by the day.
Re the Rangers thing – Police Scotland officers will have carried out the arrest in Cheshire and been the lead investigators. Any English Police there were to provide back up, resources and assistance.
Cross border powers mean that the suspect will have been arrested under Scots law, including custody procedures, even though utilising English Police Station.
Where an arrest warrant is issued it will specify if it can be executed throughout the UK, or Scotland only.
Arrests can be made cross border, in close pursuit/serious crimes, but most commonly an arrest warrant is craved.
The main issue with the Rangers arrest in Cheshire is that they have craved a warrant (which circumstances would suggest they had no evidence to substantiate) and basically lied to a Judge in order to get it. They have then repeated this lie to an English magistrate.
With regards legal access, an English lawyer will have attended after liaison with the Scottish ones first.
The whole thing is horrendous and heads should be rolling.
But the question remains, why would the Scotch branch of the British Establishment go after Rangers?
>twathater says:
“Like others Brian I read those links and came to various conclusions non of them repeatable as I hate porridge , but the mere fact that so much information is still accessible freely only gives credence to Craigs Murrays claims , it is reprehensible and completely sickening that COPFS are making Craig the fall guy when so many journalists have exposed much more”
Exactly. It first clicked for me after the Dani Garavelli story. It’s just unbelievable Sturgeon didn’t know earlier. I don’t know 100% if she directly encouraged much of it, but its bad enough. And it seems like she could be compromised now, and could be taken down at any time unless she toes the line. Depends where loyalties lie. It’s all difficult because there isn’t an obvious replacement with the same appeal to the public. I don’t know what the best outcome could be, thinking of the big picture. But Salmond didn’t deserve that.
Daisy, were they going after Rangers or were they going after the administrators? I read the First Tier Tribunal decision on Rangers (2-1 in their favour) and the majority opinion was utter tripe. It was, quite rightly, overturned by the Court of Session. If Rangers were doing this scheme, it is logical that other clubs were doing it. Indeed, at the time, there were whispers in English football, which died away after a while. I think we need to look beyond Scotland to explain why the administrators were horribly treated.
Cenchos says:
7 February, 2021 at 5:40 pm
“Wouldn’t be surprised if Tony Blair is in this mix somewhere.”
Not sure f you are hinting but Liz Lloyd worked for Bliar.
Unless there are two Liz Lloyds.
Hi Prasad.
There are at least two.
https://powerbase.info/index.php/Liz_Lloyd_(Scotland)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Lloyd
@ Daisy Walker @ Skip_NC
COPFS weren’t going after the Rangers football club but the Administrators in Bankruptcy appointed to find a way out of its financial difficulties. When a company can’t pay its debts the directors can appoint an Administrator under bankruptcy legislation who is empowered to reach an accommodation with creditors and run the business in the meantime. I’m describing the situation in Australia but AFAIK the situation is the same in the UK.
The Administrator(s) are appointed as individuals and are usually insolvency specialists. Typically they are chartered accountants, each of the big accounting firms has an insolvency practice and there are specialist insolvency firms. The Rangers Administrators were apparently partners in one such firm. The Administrator of a company takes control of the assets of the company and the directors have no more say, the employees now take their orders from him or her. The Administrator’s duty is to find a solution which will return the most money to the creditors.
AIUI Rangers had been losing money for some years and the final straw was when the taxman disallowed some tax avoidance scheme for the players and hit the club with a massive bill for back taxes and penalties. Unless the club owned it’s stadium the major assets are probably its brand and fan base and the tax losses, neither of which can be sold for cash. Therefore the best solution was to sell the club as a going concern. The Administrators found a buyer in Craig Whyte who bought the shares for the nominal sum of 1 Pound and agreed to take over the debts. Trouble was Whyte didn’t actually have the money, defaulted on the debts and is now bankrupt leaving a lot of angry creditors out of pocket. This raises the question: did the Administrators do their due diligence when they sold the business to Whyte? I’d have expected the Fraud Squad and the Companies regulator to take a hard look at the circumstances of such a high-profile company collapse but don’t know what evidence they found.
The Lord Advocate at the time of the Rangers affair was Frank Mulholland who was a self declared hoops fan and admirer of the Green Brigade so obviously that couldn’t have anything to do with it.
There are 3 different Liz Lloyds who have been mentioned in this blog.
StuartM, Duff & Phelps were called in after Craig Whyte bought the company from David Murray. They negotiated the sale to Charles Green.
When you go after big fish, particularly ones with ‘connections’ or suspected to have ‘connections’ you make damned sure you have seriously good evidence.
Its one of those fundamental rules, bit like if your going to misbehave – don’t get caught.
If you do go after the big fish and you are not on solid ground – it should be career destroying. Not a chance for promotion.
As much as the Administrators may have been the target – rather than the club – all the punter in the street is going to see in the newspaper headlines is ‘Rangers’….
Aghh, I wonder what the Administrators were doing in terms of running the club, stopping doing in terms of the way the club used to be run, or in danger of uncovering with regards the former running of the club?
That makes a lot more sense. If – hypothetically a club was run in a very dubious manner, and had all sorts of establishment figures attached to it, gets its management taken over, and cleared out, and the new management are not playing those types of ‘games’ – now that would explain a great big target being painted on their back.
Thanks for shedding light.
“[REDACTED] As I live in NZ & left Scotland 50 years ago, will it be legal for me to put her full name up here?”
No. You could freely publish it on your own site or a NZ-based one, but if you wrote it here I’d be liable.
There are many twists and turns in this, but I am trying to work out the current SNP strategy.
There is an election in three months, and it seems that along with terrible party infighting and settling of scores, Sturgeon has decided to put a video out claiming to be the wokemeister and the saviour of all Scottish diversity.
The question is this… has she forgotten who the core voters are, and what does this have to do with Independence?
This is SUCH a lose/lose situation that it is almost as if it was designed with this purpose in mind.