Wings Over Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon turned today’s COVID-19 briefing into a full-on smear assault against Alex Salmond. Readers will have seen reports on social media about various aspects of the attack but we wanted to focus on one especially brazen falsehood.

Because Nicola Sturgeon knows for an absolute 100% certain fact that she WON’T be asked about the allegations in Alex Salmond’s redacted evidence, because the inquiry committee is NOT ALLOWED to discuss any material that it hasn’t published, whether it’s “in the public domain” or not.

By the committee’s rules, if it’s not on the committee website then it doesn’t exist, and the redacted parts are – belatedly – no longer on the website. (As far as we can make out the unredacted version was finally removed around midnight last night.)

Farcically, she also denied even knowing that this question from James Matthews of Sky News was about Geoff Aberdein, who is the subject of all the redacted sections, which are all about the meeting Matthews was asking her about.

The First Minister is a liar and has all but given up on even the most token pretence otherwise. She is a disgrace to Scotland.

If we can somehow find the time amid the relentless blizzard of current Scottish political activity, we’re going to put together a list of all the legitimate and important questions that Alex Salmond’s lawyers have asked the Fabiani inquiry which haven’t even had the courtesy of a reply, let alone a satisfactory one.

We fully anticipate that the contents of the letter below, sent today, will be on that list.

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FOREWORD: SNP MPs writing for this website about anything, especially a Plan B for independence, shouldn’t be controversial. We as a party should welcome diversity and inclusion – as indeed we do by giving quotes to every daily UK newspaper and broadcaster, as well as occasionally providing articles and financial help for them.

I for one would prefer it if people would get over posturing about the messenger and deal with the more important message. So let’s get to it.

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It really can’t be overstated what extraordinary tweets these are.

That’s the editor of the conservative, ultra-establishment Spectator openly linking to a document that the Crown Office – the agent of the Queen herself – has threatened to prosecute the Scottish Parliament for publishing, and which has officially been deleted but is for some reason actually still available on the Parliament’s website.

The Spectator is giving the Queen the finger. And that’s not even the mad bit.

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Dear Nicola,

I write to express to you the views of many people in Scotland. Our movement is very upset by the actions they currently see unfolding before them.

These actions are the direct responsibility of your staff, your officials and your advisers. And therefore, ultimately, you.

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(Click to enlarge.)

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Utterly Insane Demented Crazy World version:

And in English:

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The Scottish Government and Nicola Sturgeon have tonight embarked on a last-ditch desperate throw of the dice to undermine and sabotage the already-compromised and endlessly-obstructed Fabiani inquiry in its impossible quest for the truth.

Having previously deployed her paid mouthpiece Rape Crisis Scotland last week, the First Minister – who’s spent the last six months insisting that she’d save her comments for her appearance at the inquiry – suddenly popped up on BBC and STV (but not, curiously, Sky News) to issue a challenge full of gunfighter bravado to her predecessor.

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Alex Salmond’s written evidence to the Fabiani committee:

 – on the Ministerial Code
 (largely previously published by this site and The Spectator.)

– final written submission
 (working link, the actual one on the committee website is broken)

– previous written submissions: 1, 2, 3

Analysis will follow. Read the rest of this entry →

As a spinoff from the hysterical Scottish media witch-hunt over last week’s piece on Neil Mackay, today we found ourselves listening to a podcast from last May by Courier editor Davie Clegg and former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale.

While it was obviously of personal interest, we had a specific reason for listening – we suspected it might contain some helpful information that our lawyers had been looking for (which as it happened it did).

But there was also something else really interesting that we weren’t expecting.

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Two days ago this website published a leaked draft version of the SNP’s definition of “transphobia” which was debated at a meeting of its National Executive Committee on Saturday. The party has now published (for members only) the final agreed version, which is essentially identical to the draft except for a few tweaks.

But one of them is very significant.

The highlighted part was not in the draft, and it amounts to an explicit and absolutely terrifying redesignation of basic human biology as a hate crime.

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We’d been wondering why our traffic was so crazy high that we’d already smashed last month’s four-year record to bits with a full week of February still to go.

And then we found out.

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