The Cost Of Truth
The Scottish Government just issued another response in the long-running Freedom Of Information battle with alert Wings reader Benjamin Harrop over its conspiracy to frame and imprison the late Alex Salmond on false charges. Here’s a genuine extract.
Yeah, definitely nothing to hide here.
The release came a couple of days after the Scottish Information Commissioner, who has been trying to improve the Scottish Government’s woeful FOI performance for the last seven years, had once again expressed his dismay at their conduct over the entire three-and-a-half-year affair of Ben’s request.
Which makes this paragraph somewhat ironic:
Let’s just spell that out. Having spent years and hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money, against the advice of their own lawyers, on a futile legal attempt – contemptuously thrown out by the Court Of Session in just 20 seconds last December – to resist handing over ANY of the information sought by the request, the Scottish Government is now refusing on the basis that doing so would cost more than £600.
It’s hard to find words, readers.
(The Scottish Government refuses to reveal exactly how much money it has thrown at trying to keep this information secret since April 2021, but we know that the half-day Court Of Session hearing a year ago cost taxpayers over £73,000 by itself.)
Incidentally, at the time of writing this article we’ve still been unable to locate the release on the Scottish Government’s infamously unreliable FOI website, which is why we’ve uploaded it at the first link at the top of the post. But among the barrage of documents filed on the site in the last couple of days we did stumble across this:
It shows that in the last six months there have, once again, been zero complaints made under the procedures which were initiated almost seven years ago with the specific intention of being used solely and exclusively against Alex Salmond. He remains the only person ever targeted by the process, despite a supposed widespread culture of such harassment at Holyrood.
Readers could ostensibly verify that fact by clicking the link at the bottom of the page which claims to lead to previous updates on the figures, but in fact it leads to a generic UK web archive (not, as suggested, a Scottish Government one), which is broken.
Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon continues to breeze gaily around the country attending drag queen galas and book festivals, although the BBC did remarkably manage to encounter her on one of her extremely rare visits to her place of work yesterday, where she told them how much she was enjoying her life.
She also toured the media studios audaciously explaining how everyone except her was responsible for the “toxic” environment of the transgender debate (while taking credit for equal-marriage legislation passed by Alex Salmond and remorselessly shilling her upcoming book) and boo-hooing about how much abuse she’d had over it.
But the arc of justice bends onwards.
And to be honest, readers, living to see the truth finally come to light is the main driver that’s keeping this website going. There is no hope of Scottish independence under the current SNP, because the SNP now exists solely to try to protect the perpetrators of the conspiracy against Salmond. It’s the only thing they truly care about, and today’s publications are just the latest in a vast dossier of evidence of that fact.
Whatever that truth ultimately costs, it’s a bill that must be paid, because nothing else can happen until it is. Justice is the price of independence.
“And to be honest, readers, living to see the truth finally come to light is the main thing that’s keeping this website in existence.”
This is a laudable goal and one I think all your readers can fully get behind.
2001 – correction – 2021!
“it’s a bill that must be paid, because nothing else can happen until it is. Justice is the price of independence”
Amen to that.
Hmm !
Looks like all your posts are being automatically down-voted by bots, Hatey.
Ah ken.
Like the doughty, formidable Scots heroes of yesteryear, the ones I well recall learning about as an impressionable schoolboy, I’m awa tae menstruate in hysterical quivering shame and horror at being downvoted 🙂
I tried to vote + on it but it says I have already voted which I have not.
The truth of what was done to The Hero and by whom is a fine cause to devote WOS to.
For not until the full account of the extent of the plot, the involvement of allegedly impartial civil servants and the conniving of corrupt and venal MSPs comes to public knowledge can anyone hope to see any degree of honesty and integrity return to Scots politics.
More power to your elbow.
I agree with all said and understand it will be May 2025 before next legal steps will be enacted by Alex Salmond’s executors.
Can the SIC lad not force the issue, seems he’s been laying the groundwork to me. Also, just saying, Current vacancies | Scottish Information Commissioner
“18 UN member states”
UH, Mike, the UN has over 190 member states. Not 18.
Maybe just to the current UNSC?
Not true, either. the UNSC has 15 members.
A gentle suggestion: Perhaps instead of asking a question about an easily-looked-up fact, you should look up the fact.
Only 18 needed for recognition
Stu why did you remove Mike Fenwicks comment on Sovereign Scot at the UN?
Only 18? More Nonsense, Andy.
To be recognized as a member of the United Nations (UN), a state must go through the following process:
Can the application be made on behalf of the state by a campaign group with half a dozen members? For example, could a local scout group in Dundee decide to take on this brave task?
There’s nothing to prevent a local Scout group, the Alba Party, the Monster Raving Loony Party, or any group with half-a-dozen members, from contacting the UN about Indy for Scotland, Indy for Lossiemouth, or whatever.
The UN would die laughing if any of the four actually applied.
Hi … the 18 were chosen because of an important common characteristic – all 18 gained their own independence from the UK.
But that’s not what you wrote, Mike.
And you should be copying it to all nations, not just 18.
If you make such basic mistakes on your declaration (and I’m not even mentioning the misspelled words) why should anyone take you (or your cause) seriously?
Also there was the WhatsApp scandal – of which oor Mayor Swinney has added this.
“John Swinney has banned the use of WhatsApp on Scottish Government-issued phones following a furious backlash over the deletion of messages sent during the Covid pandemic.
SNP ministers will no longer be able to use mobile messaging apps on official devices from April 2025 following an external review.”
In other news Humza is retiring from frontline politics – is this linked ?
How can someone retire if they haven’t started to work?
“The ancient Greeks were wrong:
Narcissus didn’t become a flower at all,
but a vampire.” (The Midge)
“Bha na seann Ghreugaich ceàrr:
cha d’ rinneadh Nairciseas na fhlùr idir
ach na vàimpir.” (A’ Mheanbhchuileag)
“Bhí dul amú ar na Sean-Ghréagaigh:
Ní dheineadh bláth de Nairciseas
ach vaimpír.” (An Corrmhíol)
There are lots of folk currently shitin# themselves right now which is the karma we will all enjoy so much when the day comes
Is there any mechanism for SNP members to force compliance by the parliamentary party, or even to debate it, given that fact that it needs resolved before the movement can move on.
I was talking about Sturgeon in work this afternoon. I cannot wait to see her have her comeuppance, and I think it’ll unite many people across the various political divides in Scotland. That day cannot come soon enough.
I couldn’t agree more strongly, Stu, and with your last two paragraphs above all. The truth must be revealed and the lying tractors exposed.
“…Whatever that truth ultimately costs, it’s a bill that must be paid, because nothing else can happen until it is.”
Sadly, I fear the enemies of Scotland know this only too well. Indeed, they positively thrive on it, as a long held philosophy.
In what walk of life would such an obnoxious and cynical reply to a legitimate FOI enquiry not be a sackable offence? Haa! Who am I kidding? Any politician, lawyer or Ombudsman in the country would be proud of it.
Contempt of Court will put you behind bars, while these wa*!ers are free to indulge their sheer and utter contempt for the public who pay their wages.
These arrogant c*!%ts need a brutal reminder that they serve the public. I’m sure it will come as quite a shock to most of them.
“Woe to you, hypocrites! For you have shut the door in people’s faces! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves do not enter, and you don’t let those get in who are trying to.”
“Is mairg dhuibhse, a chealgairean! Oir tha sibh a’ dùnadh an dorais ann an aghaidhean dhaoine! Thug sibh air falbh iuchair an eòlais. Cha deach sib’ fhèin a?steach agus bhac sibh an fheadhainn a bha a’ dol a?steach.”
“Is mairg daoibh, fhimínigh! Mar go ndúnann sibh an doras in éadan na ndaoine. Òir rug sibh libh eochair an eolais. Ní dheachaigh sibh féin isteach, agus iad seo a bhí ag dul isteach, chuir sibh cosc leo.”