Wings Over Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon has been arrested an hour ago in connection with SNP finances.

I imagine this all happened on Sunday as it’ll be quieter but the aftermath of this is going to ruin the SNP. I can’t imagine how they’ll spin this & should this lead to anything I can’t see how anyone barring the hardcore SNP supporter will carry on voting for them.

What’s so sad about this is we’ve went from a bright new dawn to grubby corruption and incompetence in less than a decade. All because Sturgeon and her cronies decided to make Scotland their own fifedom.

Hate to say I told you so, but that’s a nice Hives quote.

No doubt her poor memory will come into play (again!!).

It was my 60th yesterday.

Thank you god.

😉

Won’t it be like Murrell et al, arrested for questioning then released without charge? I won’t get too excited yet

The top of that police statement says Poileas Alba. I reckon the mucky paws of that Alicsammin must be behind this atrocious hounding of Saint Nic. Free the Uddingston One!!!

@ Ian Brotherhood

Happy Birthday yesterday!

It’s a welcome moment in the investigation into the corruption/ incompetence that has fully polluted the party,and by extension everyone else.

A sad moment that a group with such a mandate to make real change in the country, whether attaining independence or not, turned out to be as crooked as they are.

Swindling the dreams of others and trashing everything and anyone they touch to stay in power at any cost.

There are still so many questions to be answered regarding the nature and timescales of this investigation that, even with this step, there are doubts that all the truth will out.

The SNP will trot out the same routine of helping with enquiries, once she’s released without charge pending further investigations. Then they will hope the strings they have pulled, and long delays to subvert evidence gathering, will be enough for the investigation to peter out.

Then it’s the usual tricking people into thinking they are supporting the same goal, and parting them from their time, and vitally their money. Then into bed with labour as a triumph for devolution (despite their supposed core purpose), at the next election.

What a sickening bunch. Regardless of positions on independence, everyone in the country deserves better than a group so focused on preserving itself that no act by a supported member or crime committed is considered reason enough to change.

Every decision a car crash. Every scheme a financial disaster for tax payers. Every statement a cover up at best, and often a lazy lie. Hopefully the investigation will result in their end, but I’d not count on it.

Labour/SNP coalition after next election looks more like Labour landslide to me. Still, every election a de facto referendum according to Mr Wishaw.

I look forward to Operation Proudfoot moving steadily towards a conclusion. It is Operation Proudfoot, isn’t it? Pride coming before you trip over your own feet (or something) and fall down?

Hmm, not sure how far this will go but there will be pressure on the police to charge at least one of the suspects after all this effort.

Wonder how long her marriage of convenience will now last. Though I guess they need to ensure neither can be compelled to testify against the other for a long time yet.

She is going to say she didn’t know and rest on that.
That won’t be sufficient when it gets to court.

The police need to ask all the questions and record her lack of an answer,

The third shoe has, at last, dropped.

Is it part of the lackadaisical Poileas Catch&Release programme? Or are they getting serious.

To the best of my recollection when Gail Sheridan was arrested she used the IRA technique of staring at a spot on the wall, at least as far as I am aware.

The Sturgeon/Murrell puppet FM is attempting to con the voters here, into believing that the SNP are still a party for independence when they are not.

“HUMZA Yousaf has insisted he will be the leader to deliver independence for Scotland in the next five years.

During an intense grilling from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg where he was quizzed about whether the SNP could ever achieve self-determination for the country, Yousaf was defiant and insisted he had “no doubt” he would be the one to take Scotland away from Westminster control.”

Don’t vote for the SNP it will be a wasted vote, give your vote to the Alba party.

Vote Alba, Join Alba, sign up to Salvo do it now.

Well, they did said there would be Thunder and Lightning this weekend !

At last! The third shoe has dropped.

I wonder how many times she’ll say, in the Poileas interview “I can’t remember” or “I can’t recall” or “I didn’t know”.

Any co-incidence that the arrest was timed to occur just after the Wee Frees come out of the Kirk? Divine intervention after an interminable and joyless service?

We will see what will see. If convicted of a financial crime Ms Sturgeon could face a two year sentence(suspended).
A much more serious matter, that might involve others, is the suspicion that Ms Sturgeon was involved in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Will we see anything ever happen on this?

“What’s the chances she walks?”

I would say rather high.

This is from the Daily Record (“Ex-SNP committee members interviewed over party’s bank card amid finance probe”, published 11 June 2023):

“And it’s emerged the prosecutor dealing with the SNP fraud allegations will face a selection panel, which government ministers can influence, to keep his job later this year.

Crown Agent John Logue holds the job on an interim basis and will need to go through a formal process to win the post permanently.

He has ultimate responsibility because Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain and Solicitor General Ruth Charteris have recused themselves given they are part of the Scottish Government.

Concerns have been raised that ministers will be able to make significant interventions in a recruitment process he will go through at the same time as probing the finances of Scotland’s ruling party”

So we have again a representative of the crown, the crown agent, up to their eyebrows in the matter. It was also a crown agent (albeit a different one) who instigated the prosecution of Mr Salmond and who also intervened to suppress information from the eyes of the public during the Holyrood parliamentary inquiry that saw Sturgeon claiming at least 50 times that either she did not know, she did not remember or she could not recall.

I am guessing it was also a crown agent who has been delaying the launching of this prosecution.

It appears the crown has a very strong interest in protecting Sturgeon and the SNP. It also appears the representative of the crown, in the form of crown agent, appears to have its fingers in all the pies.

The police must seize her phone, while she is under arrest, so that they can download it.
If they fail to do so they will be accused of a cover up.

The warrant for Sturgeon was granted at the same time as those for Murrell & Beattie.
The real question is what crime / crimes they are investigating and are those the same as those they started out with?
It’s obvious that there are questions about where the Indy funds went & it would not be hard to stand up fraud charges ie you give us money we promise not to spend unless on a specified future event but in reality we’re going to spend it on ourselves & cover it up through deception.
It’s the oldest scam in the book – usually linked to promised but non existent future financial rewards- Bernie Madoff.
It’s very similar in that people are invited to invest in their dreams of a better future.
It’s not beyond speculation however that they may also now be looking at the machinations behind the Salmond trial- which in my opinion was and remains the biggest scandal in the whole shit show which has been the SNP Govt under Sturgeon.

Laura Kuenssberg must be birling in her grave!

“It’s not beyond speculation however that they may also now be looking at the machinations behind the Salmond trial”

It would be nice. But I doubt it would ever happen. It is not in the interests of the British establishment to clear up the reputation of Mr Salmond. And judging by the industrial scale level of information suppression surrounding the whatsapp messages, the perjurers’ identities and even the complaints procedure, there are far too many actors involved on this case to just be a matter linked to the Sgov.

They will procrastinate and procrastinate and if forced to pursue it will lead to a dead end, just as it happened with the investigations around the murder of Mr McRae.

2.28 pm on a Sunday? And first paper at top of online search for mainstream info: NY Times. Sounds kind of like the timing might have been geared more for the US media, combined with no scoop here. Low key at home but flagged up internationally. Hm.

I`m not just ready to click my heels. I will only do that if and when she and her hubby are formally charged, but i have no faith in the judiciary who are too cosy with sturgeon.

@ Ian Brotherhood

Happy Birthday yesterday!

Ian Brotherhood says:
11 June, 2023 at 3:22 pm

” It was my 60th yesterday.

Thank you god. ”

Happy B Mr B . Here’s another wee present ….. I finally got round to buying and reading your novel a couple- Bulletproof Suzy – a couple of weeks ago . Relieved to be able to say I really enjoyed it . The eponymous Suzy is a very well realised character , the plotting was excellent , the * tone * just right for the subject matter , the * minor * characters also well drawn . I could go on , but won’t , not here anyway . Suffice to say , looks like you achieved what you set out to do and I highly recommend others to buy n read it . Well done mon frere .

In other news ….. seems some shady ex-politician , one who was once a big playa in the Independence racket – has been huckled by PlodScot . They never learn , eh ? One day yr swaggering about thinking yr the bomb , next day , turns-oot ye were , but someone else eg The Man held the detonator . Ach well , as Ian B ( via Kurt Vonnegut ) might say ….” so it goes ” .

Hahahahahaha 🙂

Does “a 52 year old woman” constitute Jigsaw Identification?

@ thothScot I honestly think that the SNP has morphed into a form of AI (Artificial Intelligence). Like the rogue computer HAL in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey it has become so hellbent of preserving itself it has locked down the political space-pod doors.

What will pass for a police interview do you think? An interview under caution, an informal chat?
Will it be just a half arsed Holyrood Committee style “Ok well, that was pointless, moving on to the next question” or, “No, we’ll need to press you on that.. all day if needs be”

I suppose there is a very, very outside chance there wouldn’t be any advanced briefing, a-la committee questions, so there is an outside chance of damning curveballs sent her way.

NS will probably just produce an A4 sheet with “I don’t recall” printed in 36 point comic sans, stick it to her forehead, and go to sleep.

I wouldn’t read too much into ‘released without charge’. This is par for the course. I’ve been arrested, appeared in private before a Sheriff, been released on bail and received an Indictment 26 weeks later. But what I did find out was that in the interim period the Procurator Fiscal was sending the police out and about in an effort to gather evidence.

Ffyn mwd; palos de barro; paleczki blotne.

Whatever language is used, the effect is the same.

Whatever the outcome, the mark of Cain will always be there.

It gives me consolation after years of anger and frustration.

Mia,

I wasn’t paying too much attention back when Alex Salmond was being investigated. From what I’ve read post the event, I suspect that we’d agree that he was being stitched up like a kipper.

But this business of the crown agent that you keep mentioning. It’s an office entirely under the control of the Scottish government, and completely irrelevant to Westminster. I think you are going off on a very unproductive, and unevidenced, tangent if somehow you think you see the dark hand of the English at play. It really isn’t. It’s a Scottish office, under the control of the Scottish government, and operating under Scots law. Nothing more to it than that.

“Heaver says:
11 June, 2023 at 4:54 pm

There’s a song by the Dixie Chicks “Goodbye Earl”.”

Never heard that; will remedy tomorrow. The version that I have is by Me First And The Gimme Gimmes, so I knew that it was someone else’s!