We are, as always, absolutely enthralled at the prospect of discovering from James Kelly what our vile secret masterplan has been over the last 18 months.
So we, at least, will be reading, James.
It really is deeply dispiriting the see the level of utter burning contempt in which Nicola Sturgeon holds the independence movement, if this is the sort of ludicrously insulting garbage she thinks it’ll swallow.
Who told us it’s garbage? Nicola Sturgeon did.
The First Minister released a short film this week.
While it has the character of a hostage video, with terrorists just off-camera pointing a gun at the unfortunate victim and forcing them to read out a pre-prepared text, sadly we doubt that was the case. We think this is really what she believes and intends.
And that’s all kinds of disturbing.
Any time you’re not sure whether something that happens in Scottish politics is good or bad for the cause of independence, here’s a top tip for you: see how the enemies of independence feel about it.
“Running scared” would seem to be a fair, if understated, summary.
We’ve received information this afternoon with regard to Nicola Sturgeon’s statements at today’s FMQs, which appear to have been wholly and disturbingly dishonest.
The quote below is from an email sent today by SNP communications chief Murray Foote, briefing ministers and MSPs on the official Scottish Government line, which is what the First Minister told the chamber in response to a question from Ruth Davidson.
We pass the true facts on to you below.
We’re only two-thirds of the way through Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence to the Fabiani inquiry, and there’s probably not much point in expressing our opinion on it because you could almost certainly have guessed what it was going to be. The First Minister has been disingenuous, evasive, defensive and at times outright dishonest.
But although we were expecting all of that, this truly shocked us:
That’s the First Minister flatly stating, under oath, that even now she doesn’t know who all the complainers are. And readers can make their own minds up about how credible a claim that is. But I can tell you this:
I know who they all are.
Craig Murray knows who they all are.
Every journalist who covered the trial knows who they all are.
(And we can reasonably assume their editors also know who they all are.)
In fact pretty much everyone who’s in any way connected to Scottish politics knows the identity of every single one of these women. If you’re willing to believe that we all do but Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t, well, fair enough. But also, I’m a Nigerian prince and I’d like to pass several million pounds through your bank account. Please get in touch.
Iain Lawson’s fine blog today reveals that Nicola Sturgeon has already taken it upon herself to answer Jim Sillars’ complaint from Thursday – which was sent to Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans, not to the First Minister – about her breaking the Ministerial Code by casting doubt on the jury’s verdicts in the Alex Salmond trial.
It’s certainly an innovative approach to justice – we presume that if we were to murder someone tomorrow the police would now simply forward the allegations to us and allow us to find ourselves not guilty without any external input.
But it was the precise nature of Nicola Sturgeon’s self-acquittal that really left us with an uneasy feeling about the current state of 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.
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.
If there’s one subject this site can speak about with authority, readers, it’s defamation. We’re now into the FIFTH YEAR of a court action we brought against former Scottish Labour branch office manager Kezia Dugdale after she’d smeared us in a newspaper and in the Scottish Parliament with a vile personal slur which a sheriff and three senior appeal court judges all found to be unequivocally false and defamatory.
But they also ruled that because Dugdale is a drooling halfwitted imbecile who doesn’t know what simple words mean she was entitled to use her stupidity and ignorance as a defence, so we lost the case and to this day (the original smear having happened way back in 2017) our lawyers are still negotiating with her lawyers over the final costs.
So trust us when we tell you this: today’s front-page lead in the Herald On Sunday is a great big pile of stinky unmitigated horse-bollocks.
Because we know whereof we speak.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
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