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’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.
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.
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.
The following article by Conor Matchett appears in today’s Scotsman:
It’s a pretty standard anti-Wings smear piece, except for this bit:
which is simply a flat-out lie. We can’t speak for Kenny MacAskill, but we do know for sure that Wings has NOT been contacted for comment by Mr Matchett.
We’d happily have provided a quote if we HAD been asked, to give the lazy hatchet job (perhaps “Matchett job”) at least a minimal veneer of balance and fairness as a boost to the badly-ailing paper’s “trusted, fact-checked journalism”. Since we’re banned from Twitter, perhaps someone could pass that on to Mr Matchett.
In the meantime, Wings readers should look forward to some more posts from SNP politicians, which we’ll be publishing later today.
In an attempt to freshen up its usual panel of tired and tiresome politicians and pundits, last night’s Question Time (ostensibly from an oddly-vague location in “the North East”) featured moderately-known circus fortune-teller Gypsy Rose Petulengro, crossing her palm with silver for some analysis in a short break from one of her celebrated seances.
The clip above was her take on whether Nicola Sturgeon would resign if either of the current inquiries found that she’d systematically and repeatedly lied to Parliament and broken the Ministerial Code, and the strange thing about it was that for someone who was professing to be looking into the future, she didn’t even appear to know the basic pertinent facts of the present or the past.
So we have our answer. According to press reports today (although we haven’t seen an actual official reply), John Swinney has refused to formally tell James Hamilton that his inquiry into possible breaches of the Ministerial Code by the First Minister over the Alex Salmond investigation ought to include the matter of whether she repeatedly lied to Parliament about what she knew and when.
Wave goodbye to justice, readers.
Because the First Minister and her deputy are now proven liars and cowards.
There are two articles on the Spectator website today relating to last night’s breaking story about Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. One of them readers of this site have seen already, because the Spectator has literally just cut and pasted it in its entirety from Wings (without any attribution or acknowledgement).
It’s the text of Salmond’s submission to the Hamilton inquiry, and we know they copied it from us (rather than having been leaked it independently) because of this paragraph:
As we told readers last night, that redaction was made by us – not by Salmond – as an extra precaution to prevent the possibility of one of the complainers in the criminal trial from being identified. It didn’t appear in Salmond’s actual submission, and so Wings is the only possible source for it being in the Spectator.
Stealing our story lock, stock and barrel without a credit is rather poor form from the magazine, but it’s the other piece we’re more concerned about.
If this site seems to spend most of its time being angry at the SNP these days, that’s because we are. And a large part of that is because there’s very little that hacks us off more than people insulting our intelligence.
Smith’s tweet is just a crassly offensive flat-out lie. This week’s vote is NOT about “EU membership”. The United Kingdom hasn’t been a member of the EU since 31 January. We’ve already left and there’s no going back. The vote is about whether we leave with a sliver of a trade deal slightly reducing the self-inflicted harm, or the total catastrophe of no deal at all, and it’s just crushingly embarrassing for all concerned that Smith thinks so little of his own supporters as to believe he can “frame” it otherwise.
gregor on The People You Most Suspected: “BBC: Yousaf accuses Musk of ‘scouring’ private messages: “Scotland’s former first minister, Humza Yousaf, has accused tech entrepreneur Elon Musk…” Nov 14, 14:48
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The People You Most Suspected: “TRUMP STATEMENT on TRANS ISSUE c/o PAUL EMBERY” Nov 14, 14:24
Muscleguy on The People You Most Suspected: “I work in a secondary school in a poor area. Trans is non existent. There are boys with long hair…” Nov 14, 13:37
Muscleguy on The People You Most Suspected: “We have ISP who are dead set against this assault on the rights of Women and Girls.” Nov 14, 13:23
Muscleguy on The People You Most Suspected: “And the Scots Tories gave their people a conscience vote and half of them backed it too.” Nov 14, 13:21
Muscleguy on The People You Most Suspected: “Only Independence an achieve that. The Scottish Nonce Party is too big a tent to survive post Independence. The only…” Nov 14, 13:20
TURABDIN on The People You Most Suspected: “For info. https://archive.ph/WyyQO how long has the SNP been the government?” Nov 14, 12:27
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The People You Most Suspected: “Interesting profile of KATE FORBES today in the online Irish-language news site TUAIRISC (though let it be said my own optimism…” Nov 14, 12:22
James on The People You Most Suspected: “Well, that’s one explanation of what’s happening. Try looking somewhere different perhaps, maybe not the ‘BBC’?” Nov 14, 12:22
TURABDIN on The People You Most Suspected: “Trump may appear like a circus act but he knows where US strengths lie and they are not in fighting…” Nov 14, 12:20
Alf Baird on The People You Most Suspected: “Yes, the real fascists are the neo-imperialists, the so-called ‘democrats’ and ‘progressives’. Fascism lies at the root of colonialism (Cesaire;…” Nov 14, 12:17
Mac on The People You Most Suspected: “No. “Max Blumenthal : Trump’s Neocons” www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z3582fPbVc&ab_channel=JudgeNapolitano-JudgingFreedom If you can even be honest about it what is the point.” Nov 14, 12:14
Cynicus on The People You Most Suspected: ““……surrounding himself with the worst people, mostly all ne0con scumbags….” ==== While I sympathise with your views, you’re totally wrong…” Nov 14, 11:40
Robert Matthews on The People You Most Suspected: “Arthur Donaldson had some interesting views. So did Ian Stuart Donaldson.” Nov 14, 11:34
Andy Anderson on The People You Most Suspected: “Agreed. It is interesting to me that for decades, particularly recently that the BBC 24 Hour news talk USA all…” Nov 14, 10:44
Andy Anderson on The People You Most Suspected: “Really. How do you know? Many in parliament have no degrees and did not go to private schools. They got…” Nov 14, 10:35
James on The People You Most Suspected: “Thanks for all your interesting, necessary and valuable contributions, Alf. Your posts are the main reason i access this site.…” Nov 14, 09:56
Mac on The People You Most Suspected: “Well on the basis of his intended appointments so far Trump is going to be the biggest sell-out of all…” Nov 14, 09:41
Annoyed on The People You Most Suspected: “Sturgeon is done. She’s a disgraced politician desperately trying to stay relevant.” Nov 14, 08:32
Alf Baird on The People You Most Suspected: “Aye James, Scotland is made into the poorest and most impoverished country in NW Europe by the UK ‘Union’ colonial…” Nov 14, 07:48
Geri on The People You Most Suspected: “U is losing because Angelo Americans WONT stop pouring in weapons. P has no intention of expanding. He certainly doesn’t…” Nov 14, 04:24
Campbell Clansman on The People You Most Suspected: “Fearghas’s constant untruths discredit him. I just pointed out the untruths. And you attack the person who points out the…” Nov 14, 02:37
Young Lochinvar on The People You Most Suspected: “Wrong on this one. From one who has actually seen active service as has immediate relatives I reckon your “pithy”…” Nov 14, 00:23
Young Lochinvar on The People You Most Suspected: “Gloriana; Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Did I mention wrong? Try and keep up, adults are discussing matters of fact…” Nov 13, 23:43
Young Lochinvar on The People You Most Suspected: “The question is JS, how long before big backer trans Atlantic funders worm their way into whoever comes next? People,…” Nov 13, 23:12