The Coward’s Run
In the interests of fairness we must note that we did get a response to this post.
Other than being rather more petulant and childish, it was much as expected.
Obviously he didn’t bother to provide any examples of the supposed “inaccuracies, misstatements of facts, misunderstanding of Scot’s [sic] criminal law & a twisting of what I said” to illustrate his point, nor to respond to any of the dozens of people who expressed their disappointment in the replies and urged him to clarify his comments.
One of them accurately, if rather generously, summarised his position:
(Personally we’d have put it in “ad hominem” at best, but we’re biased.)
It was another, though, that got to the heart of the matter.
Andy Wightman has something of a track record of bottling difficult political situations, and in particular with regard to the Salmond affair.
He was the key figure in ensuring that vital evidence was withheld from the Scottish Parliament inquiry, repeatedly voting with the committee’s four SNP members against the four others to suppress the submission of the evidence from Salmond’s legal team, ostensibly on the basis that it might have somehow indirectly led to the identification of some of the conspirators who made false allegations against the former First Minister.
It is manifestly plain from Wightman’s recent and historic tweets that he still considers the conspirators, whose accusations were rejected by a jury after a 14-day trial, to be “victims” and Salmond to be guilty, albeit without the courage to say so openly.
More importantly, it’s clear that that belief caused him to fail at his job of conducting the Holyrood inquiry in a professional and impartial manner, thereby allowing its convener, SNP MSP Linda Fabiani, to preside over a shameful whitewash.
Wightman is most welcome to “take advice” on those comments. Alternatively, of course, rather than whining like a sulky toddler with something to hide he could choose to rise above our “smears and rudeness” – he IS “immune” to them, after all – and just answer the short list of simple and reasonable questions we asked him yesterday.
Even if he doesn’t think WE deserve answers, the Scottish public surely does. The reputation of a nation’s entire judicial and political systems are at stake.
Given the tone of his comments so far I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for answers if I were you!
It;s a bit dissappointing. I expected better. He did a lot of good work on landownership but seems to have totally lost it here.
It will be interesting to see if Whightman answers sincerely or gives another troll type response.
I assume Alex’s legal team has been made aware of this admission by a member of the enquiry committee. Surely grounds to seek yet another judicial review on the basis of bias?
Wightman is one of those people who appear to be eminently sensible, until you closely consider their words and actions as a whole.
Ad hominem without a doubt.
Wasn’t the so-called “Salmond Enquiry” supposed to be an enquiry into how the Scottish Govt had wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money by pursuing cases they could never win against the advice of their legal team?
Yes Wightman we all understand, of course, absolutely.
These questions need answers.
Is there anything in Sturgeon’s tenure that is not ” tainted by bias ” ?
I wonder is Wightman trying to ingratiate himself with the dregs that are left in the nuSNP ? And to what purpose ?
On a completely different topic – There will be Holyrood elections in 2026, and the nuSNP will be fighting like rats in a sack to be high up on that list.
Isn’t the last question referring to a tweet at ‘7.46pm on 20 July’ (not 21 July)?
Andy Wightman: The latest Alex Salmond Hall of Defamer.
What does one expect from a pig if not a grunt?
Here piggy piggy piggy…
Quote > i refute these allegations utterly, endquote.
Well, where is your refutation then?
I find it illuminating for such a pseudo lawyer not to even get the absurdity of his use of such language. Or is he too, like many others just a fraud?
This point has been made repeatedly on Wings, or is it just me?
Prospective employers don’t need to look at Wightman’s CV. They just need to read this and not him give a job. Really would you employ ‘piggy’.
“He was the key figure in ensuring that vital evidence was withheld from the Scottish Parliament inquiry” –
Allowing people involved in an inquiry to choose or accept what information is released and what isn’t shouldn’t be for them to decide. It makes a mockery of the word inquiry. There needs to be some form of control (VAR) to make sure that legal matters determine such things. Without this any inquiry will too often just be a pantomime with a pre-determined outcome. As usual the lack of consequences for actions that allow this to happen ensures that it won’t change until there are. For now though all that can be done is to keep on exposing the shenanigans. The more cracks that are exposed the more likely that the whole charade will fall apart.
The point (well made point) by Mary Cuthbertson is indeed very important, I’d be a bit more than slightly angry if I was Alex, and I really do not know how he has kept his cool over the years. When he gets back into court, I hope that Mary’s point is used, it really does hammer home the pressure that must have been applied to keep him from returning to front line politics in Scotland, and how he was denied a fair “inquiry” from Holyrood. Most of all what annoys me is the lack of support (since the day the Daily Record reported the story/leak way back) he has had from the people he guided into politics in the first place. You all know who you are :/
As I have observed online before, the despicable stitch-up of Alex Salmond and its aftermath surely provides us with a clear case of what contemporary Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, in his book State of Exception (2005), terms “homo sacer”, ie an individual who in an extreme Kafkaesque manner finds themself in a no-man’s land neither conclusively inside nor outside the judicial order.
Agamben points to Guantanamo Bay internees and stateless asylum seekers as classic examples. The individual is here viewed by the State as a “non-person”, paradoxically trapped by the law but also abandoned by the law. The consequence of that latter vulnerability is that (and this is the relevant point here) they can be attacked with impunity — and let’s never forget Kirsty Wark’s hatchet job scandalously re-enacted by the BBC.
We also noted the parallel in another post somewhere that protesting women in Scotland can find themselves under attack while police are present yet who disgracefully refuse to protect them. The “State of Exception” before our eyes.
Agamben further points out that in any state of emergency (eg involving martial curfews, “national security” measures etc) the State ironically thereby also itself steps — legally as it were — “outside the law”, and is therefore able to act injuriously and with due “legally illegal” impunity against targeted citizens.
And to take our train of thought a bit further today, it seems now arguable that Scotland itself exhibits such a condition of being “homo sacer”, increasingly manifesting as a no-man’s land at the mercy of UK “special measures” whim, and with no higher international referee. Especially so if our own historic Scottish judiciary fails us all by being deviously complicit, naively compliant, or just grievously cowardly.
Brilliant
How far down the gutter can Wightman’s reputation go.
He answers like a petulant child.
He is in the right just because. Full Stop.
I’m in If there were to be a fund raiser to take advice and go to court for this man’s blatant refusal to accept the Judge and Jury’s thoroughly investigate verdict of not guilty.
This guy deserves prison for his blatant bias and dogmatic determination to slander and destroy an innocent man.
If Mr Wightman wants to clear the air, and restore respect for himself, respect that frankly has ebbed away over the last few years (and he should want to) then he should answer the questions, unless of course he has something to hide.
Do the right thing
*Answer the Questions*
He is bought and sold!part of the cabal. Most likely he has alot to hide so will comply with the cabal without hesitation. And/or has an agenda which is biased!
pretty loathsome!!
Numbers 32:23 seems appropriate here AW.
This free-for-all, consequence free, smear Salmond all you want, needs to stop, and there is only one way to do it.
Salmond should take a good holiday to somewhere which respects freedom, Iceland, or Switzerland, and maybe “get the writing bug” – then blow the doors off, from a safe distance. It all starts with the names of the alphabetties, and once you know who they are, it all becomes “obvious”, e.g. woman H and her motivations. It really is a criminal conspiracy, and there is only one person, one control-freak at the heart of it who could have set it all up. It’s really Sturgeon and woman H, then the flying monkeys, Lloyd, Evans are pulled in to do their thing, and I think most of the rest of them were more or less bullied into signing on to the enterprise, anonymity being a big part of getting them onboard.
People have mocked the “failure” of ALBA; well, I think Salmond always hoped for some reconciliation, but it’s now time to go scorched earth; you can’t start re-planting while the “japanese knotweed” of scottish politics, the SNP, are still in root.
I don’t remember which one it was but did one of the members of the WhatsApp group not message to the others that ‘I know how we can do this and yet remain anonymous’? ( Or words to that effect.)
I wonder who had told them that this would happen. Who would have the authority to tell them that in advance? The whole conspiracy to take the case to criminal court hung on that assurance being given to the accusers.
I think Mr Wightman is on the run, at the time of the Inquisition, it may have seemed that accountability would not have to be accounted for and the hubris that led from this position has led to the alternate position where it is now demanded.
The demands cannot be met without admission of a clear bias, and therefore the shit is about to hit the proverbial fan and in that expose the corruption of governance structures of Holyrood the judicial system, the integrity of SNP, and the Scottish Parliament.
It is not a pretty picture and illustrates how an immature political system becomes lost in the domination of its own ecosystem due to forgetting it not only has a duty to the party but more salient the Scots electorate, which is the heart of the larger ecosystem and the determinants that make that ecosystem viable.
Scotland’s unicameral system is fraught with antidemocratic features and the Salmond affair has quite rightly emphasized its limitations, although it may in our early stages leave a trail of devastation to those who have relented to the allure of power it must be viewed as a step in the right direction and alternate modes of governance must be examined to remedy its flaws.
In fact, the Salmond affair is an opportunity to re-examine the Holyrood system and make appropriate adjustments
There seems little doubt that this is the start of yet another orchestrated attempt to finally finish off Alex Salmond, as a statesman, as a political figure, as a person, as a former leader of the former SNP (airbrushed from party history, remember?) There must be SOMETHING that we can do.
I daily mourn the slow murder of the sovereign state of Scotland. I salute Mr Breeks who has been one of the few who documented the myriad of lost opportunities amid the rejoicing of the trolls who now inhabit btl.
I too used to respect Mr Wightman, especially for his book THE POOR HAVE NO LAWYERS.
What can they have offered him for this truly lamentable smear attempt?
What on earth has possessed poor old Andy Shightman? He may be less frail but his evidence-free “arguments” (if they deserve to be dignified with that label) are Biden-style cognitive decline in action. Utterly bizarre.
I gave him credit for his split from the worst Green loonies over what men and women are – although let’s remember that’s only common sense, after all. But now he just seems to be a bitter has-been. Everyone should ignore him, although I’d understand if a certain A. Salmond took this disgraceful mud-throwing slightly more to heart.
It seems some folk find great difficulty in understanding the clearly stated legal principle that someone accused of a crime is entirely innocent of that crime unless it is proven beyond all reasonable doubt they committed it.
Scotland’s legal system doesn’t require an accused to prove their innocence, it requires the prosecution to prove their guilt.
The prosecutors in Salmond’s trial failed to come close to proving his guilt.
Therefore, Salmond was innocent of the charges made against him before his trial, during his trial, at the conclusion of his trial, for all the time that has passed since and for all time yet to come until the end of eternity.
Salmond was, is, and always will be, not guilty of the charges made against him and as such his innocence remains intact – this is an indisputable legal fact ratified for all time by a court of law and a jury of his peers.
To deploy the adage ‘no smoke without fire’ against Salmond is no more than vile rumourmongery motivated by stupidity, ignorance, spite or malice – or all four combined.
Pure political snobbery on Wightman’s part. How very dare a blogger question his right to rule!
Same as the SNP hierarchy’s snobbery and arrogance towards lowly independence supporters that dare question their rule.
Could it be that he is trying to make himself employable in certain circles?
How much his public stance on certain issues might have been influenced by the scare of the defamation court case brought against him must be considered.
I wonder what may have been happening in the background.
According to the press, on 21 March 2017 he was served with a defamation case presented by Wildcat Haven Enterprises CIC for some historic tweets Mr Wightman had posted. This would not be heard in the Court of Session until October 2019. It was not until March 2020 that it was made public that Wightman had won the case. His court expenses would not be awarded until February 2022. These must have been 5 years of hell.
According to the Holyrood Parliament website, Wightman joined the parliamentary inquiry on the 1 December 2020 as a substitute of Alison Johnston from the Green Party. Bizarrely, in her parliamentary website, Alison Johnston still appears as “member” of the inquiry from 06 February 2019 – 04 May 2021.
It was published that Wightman left the Greens on the 18 December 2020 and from then on sat as an independent in Holyrood. However, he was not replaced from the parliamentary committee and remained as the substitute for Alison Johnston despite no longer being a member of the Green party.
In May 2021 Wightman lost the seat
In January 2022, it was published by the Daily Record that Mr Wightman had said to have had only 4 days of paid work from May 2021.
According to the press, it was in February 2022, when Mr Wightman was awarded the expenses of the defamation case.
In November 2022, Mr Wightman was reported as saying that he no longer supported a second indyref until there was sustained support for it.
According to the Scottish Parliament website, on 21 June 2024 he was invited as panellist in a discussion on the land Reform (Scotland) Bill hosted by Holyrood’s Net Zero Committee.
Let’s look a little bit more at what was happening in 2017 around the time Mr Wightman’s defamation case started.
He was served with the defamation case on 21 March 2017
On 29 March 2017, England (as the UK) notified Brussels of the intention to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union.
On 8 June 2017 the UK GE took place and, thanks to successful strategic voting by unionists, Mr Salmond was removed from Westminster.
On 2 November 2017, it was published that Mr Salmond joined a bid to take control of the Scotsman. That send some into throwing the toys out of the pram.
On November 2017, it was also published that Mr Salmond had agreed to host a talk show on RT. This sent shockwaves across the entire Uk, apparently, with the MSM and many politicians, including Sturgeon, going into complete meltdown mode.
November 2017 is also when the whole brouhaha of the unlawful complaint procedure against Mr Salmond started on a hurry.
Nov 2017 is also when Mark McDonald was forced to resign from his position as minister.
November 2017 was also when legal representatives of Wightman and others wrote to the UK gov asking for their position on the ability for the uK to unilaterally revoke their triggering of A50. The Uk gov was given until 12 Dec 2017 to respond.
In December 2017, Wightman and others submitted to the Court of Session a case to determine if the UK could unilaterally revoke their Article 50 TEU notification to leave the EU.
It seems that the centrepiece against most of what might have been happening in 2017 hinges around was the triggering of A50. So, how long before/after 29 March 2017 Mr Wightman had decided to lead the court case to establish the ability of the UK’s unilateral revocation of triggering A50?
How long in advance was this decision known by others?
Did the timing of the defamation case had anything to do with this other court case at all? If you do internet searches about it, it seems that finding out if the UK could unilaterally revoke its triggering of A50 was already being discussed at the end of 2016. Jolyon Maugham had even set up a fundraiser around December 2016.
In the current climate and in the political sewers circulating under Holyrood, the survival instinct of siding, even loosely, with perjurers, conspirators, corrupt crown agents, dirty politicians and unprincipled civil servants may be far too strong to resist.
Also, siding with criminals and “the law of the land” may be far more lucrative than siding with the actual victim.
Stabbing the yes movement on the back by publicly reneging on indyref and openly protecting criminals while publicly criminalising the victim, appear to be today’s two indispensable skills to succeed in the Holyrood cesspit.
Who knows. Maybe the man is just trying very hard to ride two horses at once. It may have worked out for him for a while, but now that each horse is strongly pulling in a different direction, it has become a bit more complicated.
I would endorse and reiterate Mary Cuthbertson’s tweet, on reflection of his actions and demeanour at the time of the enquiry of which I was suspicious, I would indeed agree that Mr Wightman appeared to be re judging the already cleared charges against Mr Salmond rather than the actions committed by the corrupt and grossly incompetent MISNAMED Scottish Government
56 out of 59 MP’s, yet Sturgeon’s Allstars can’t (won’t) do a damned thing.
9 out of 57, “The SNP remains in a “strong position” despite the general election “setback”, John Swinney has said…
Carry on regardless.
@ Ian 1.44pm you said
“Allowing people involved in an inquiry to choose or accept what information is released and what isn’t shouldn’t be for them to decide.”
This is the same as “It is NOT in the public’s interest” when these clowns refuse to release anything that doesn’t suit them
WTF do they think they are , their contempt for the electorate is palpable, they think they are the elite when half of them couldn’t tie their own laces
Roll on DIRECT DEMOCRACY
Mia
Many thanks for unravelling and explaining what indeed must have been 5 years of hell for Mr Wightman. This makes me more ashamed than ever of what Scotland has become.
I think you mean the new film “Carry on CLOWNS” Breeks, they’ve been making that film for 10 years and TBQH they will have plenty stand ins for Hatty Jacques,
“’The SNP remains in a “strong position’ despite the general election “setback”, John Swinney has said”
Evidently, the handler forgot to update Swinney’s chip after the election.
He came out with much the same obviously biased commentary on his own blog, straight after the enquiry, which I thought was pretty outrageous.
https://andywightman.scot/2021/03/committee-on-the-scottish-government-handling-of-harassment-complaints/
These questions have just crossed my mind:
What would happen to SNP MPs and MSPs in the imaginary scenario where the party has to declare bankrupcy before 2026?
Would MPs and constituency MSPs have to sit as independents for the rest of the parliament?
Could the party still operate until the end of that parliament?
What would happen to MSPs who were appointed from the party list? Would there be a by-election for those?
In the case of Holyrood, would parliament have to collapse and an election would have to be called because there would no longer be a party in government, or can another party take over?
How would Westminster be affected if the SNP declares bankrupcy at any point? Would it simply be a matter for the SNP Mps to sit as independent from then on or would by-elections have to be called?
Is there a precedent at all for this in any of the (England as the) UK’, Wales’ or NI’s parliaments? I am sure there is no precedence on this in Scotland’s parliament. Actually, is there a precedent in any parliament of the world for a situation like this?
I would not normally get involved but I see this unsavoury Ellis character is now trying to get republicofscotland banned.
How do people feel about that? Let’s have a poll.
Who would be better banned on here?
Comment 1 for Ellis
Comment 2 for republicofscotland
1.
Mia @ 6:59pm – I don’t think it would be as complicated as you might imagine if the SNP became bankrupt and ceased its formal/legal existence. Any eejit can set up a new political party and register it officially. There is no shortage of eejits within the ruling SNP clique. Parliamentarians at Holyrood or Westminster (and councillors too) could just become members of the new party and operate under that banner from that time on.
No doubt someone in the (existing) party has already given this some thought. Remember the excitement (what was it, a year or so ago?) when it was spotted that a new web domain name had been registered that sounded like it would be just ideal for a successor to the SNP? I can’t recall offhand what the name was – The Party of Scotland or something like that? – but I’d bet there will be plans out there.
Parliamentarians and councillors can and do change their party allegiance without a by-election. The only thing you ask that I’d want to look into is what happens in the case of people who are next in line from the list vote. I can see that anyone hovering in the background who was voted for on a party list and ended up as just missing out on a list seat is in an awkward position to be “promoted” if a Holyrood vacancy arose (by death or resignation, not just a change of party allegiance) and yet their original party, which people voted for, no longer exists.
@Mac 7.55pm
Where did I call for him to banned? I definitely think it’d be no great loss if his vatnik fluffing shite disappeared, but Rev Stu hopefully has that in hand.
Maybe you should work on your reading or comprehension skills, or you know if it’s just you being disingenuous for effect…be less of a throbber?
If independence is dead for the foreseeable future (which I agree with) then truthfully I am only mostly reading this blog for the BTL comments.
Truthfully I am not reading it for another hundred tranny stories while the world burns. lol.
Please be tolerant of ROS. I have no idea why he went so extreme on the crazy spelling but he is not completely wrong either.
The modbot is so seemingly random it does provoke these mad responses over and over again it has to be said… you never fix it though so it must be by design.
I cant get the hint either. So please can you SPELL IT OUT Stuart.
Once and for all. I am all fucking ears.
Right, we are encouraged by this website to be alert, so I looked where I thought the answer would be, Scotland Act 1998 as amended: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/section/10
As I said before (7:57pm), an MSP – list or constituency – changing party allegiance does not cause a by-election. For example, John Finnie was a list MSP for the SNP until he resigned from the party in 2012. He was not automatically punted out of Holyrood. He continued his term of office as an Independent (even though he joined the Greens in the background, he never sat officially as a Green MSP). Jean Urquhart was also a list MSP, resigned at the same time as Finnie and continued to sit as an independent list MSP. There are other examples too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_elected_British_politicians_who_have_changed_party_affiliation#Members_of_the_Scottish_Parliament_who_have_changed_party_affiliation
However… if an MSP who was elected on a party list dies or resigns mid-term and that party no longer exists as a registered political party, things are more interesting. The person who was next in line on that party’s regional list WILL NOT take up the vacant position, because s.10, subsection 4(b) of the 1998 Act cannot be complied with. The returning officer for the region has to contact the person next in line on the party list, ask if they want to serve as an MSP and the person in question also has to get the OK from the relevant official of their party that the party is happy for them to become a new MSP. That cannot happen if the said party no longer exists: there is no longer a “nominating officer” for that party to give the OK.
If the top runner-up on the party list can’t take up the vacant seat, the returning officer for the region should then work through the lower-placed runners-up on the party list… but of course, that would have the same negative result if the party has ceased to be registered. There seem to be no other provisions to fill the vacancy by any other method, so the vacancy would remain until the next full parliamentary election.
I have never seen anyone on any forum getting away with posting this endless open stream of personal abuse as this Ellis character.
@ I Despair
Thank you for the explanation. It is very helpful.
I think you are absolutely right. They have been definitely floating the proposal for a name change for a while now.
These are some headings:
“It would be entirely reasonable for “the SNP to change their name”
(Section Letters, by REaders of the National), published on 22 Jan 2024
“Nicola Sturgeon would change SNP name”
Published in BBC News, 18 August 2017
“Now is the right time to change both the name and the logo of the SNP””
(Section Letters, by Readers of the National), published 16 March 2023
“Humza Yousaf: I’ve never been comfortable with ‘national’ in SNP name”
Kirsteen Paterson, Holyrood, published 18 January 2024
“Brian Cox tells SNP to change name to Scottish Independence Party”
Darren McConachie, The Times, 12 April 2023
I had seen those but I never put two and two together. I thought the name change was more to do with the opportunity to change the constitution of the party and completely demoting it to a devolutionist one. It never crossed my mind that seeking a name change could more related to the possibility of the party becoming bankrupt!
It is interesting that Sturgeon already talked about name change as early as August 2017. That is after the GE2017 and after the fundraiser for the independence referendum had been closed, wan’t it? You have to wonder therefore for how long this political fraud knew about the possibility of party entering bankrupcy.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed a sudden unexpected flurry of support for Wightman from a few surprising characters. Have they all been honest in their take in the past or was their earlier defence of Salmond just a smokescreen to divert attention away from something in their own actions they’d rather wasn’t examined too closely. Are they anticipating a major exposure of the main characters’ roles on the conspiracy to convict Salmond leading to exposure of minor parts they played that were hitherto unknown? Things are about to get very interesting methinks!
@Mac 8.38 pm
That only goes to show you’re either very new here and have little or no awareness of Tourettes’ Ruby, Republicofscotland and a number of other of the “Usual Suspects” and/or that you must lead a very sheltered cyber existence.
Or of course you’re just a disingenuous, tone policing blow hard? All of the above is also an option. Happy to help.
I mean just on that pyramid diagram above …
ROS, despite the crazy spelling shit is several layers above the ‘shit in your hand and throw it’ levels of Ellis.
Point being, is talking about certain subjects on here a bigger sin that flat out personal abuse?
I mean just on that pyramid diagram above …
ROS, despite the crazy spelling shit is several layers above the ‘shit in your hand and throw it’ levels of Ellis.
Point being, is talking about certain subjects on here a bigger sin that flat out personal abuse?
He really has lost the plot. Once upon a time he stood up to the creepy Wokes but no longer it seems.
@ I.Despair at 8.27
Fortunately for them, the SNP only has two list MSPs, so if those were forced to stand down leaving a vacancy it wouldn’t make much difference, even in a VONC. Neither would be any loss, in my opinion. That is supposing that the bankruptcy takes place prior to the next election, of course.
Thanks for this Mr Wings. You must find it very tiring. Mr Salmond never ceases to amaze me in his patience and fortitude.
You never cease to amaze me in your awareness and fairness and your capacity to express those virtues.
“Even if he doesn’t think WE deserve answers, the Scottish public surely does. The reputation of a nation’s entire judicial and political systems are at stake.”
Andy Wightman would be one of the last persons to save the reputations of Scotland’s entire judicial and political systems.
In fact, they have become so corrupt and rotten to the core, they are far beyond saving, unless the whole swamp can be drained.
An innocent Alex Salmond almost ended up in jail while his false accusers remain anonymous and avoid justice.
Scotland, the most corrupt “democratic” banana state in the world.
My goodness, the more this conspiracy to try jail an innocent man, Alex Salmond, goes un-investigated, the more people, it would seem, are somehow involved.
Either way, the truth on this will all come out eventually, and the wholly INNOCENT Mr Salmond will have his day in court, to ensure those who conspired against him are held responsible. He was found innocent after a huge investigation by the police, and a trial with a mainly female jury and a female judge in Scotland’s highest criminal court. Does Mr Wightman, with his degree in forestry, rather than law, think they were ALL wrong?
This will simply not go away, no matter how much the ever so compliant scottish so-called ‘journalists’ try to ignore it. No matter how much FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) some folk in public life try to generate.It is one of the biggest political scandals in modern history.
As I have said on here and elsewhere before most MPs and MSPs are USELESS Clowns with some(many) being downright CORRUPT.
This guy Wightman is showing that he is a perfect example of both of these and why MSPs, MPs, Governments, Councils, Courts, Police etc should NOT be investigating anything to do with themselves as this SCAM system is set up to protect itself.
It should be independent Peoples Grand Juries that should be investigating and looking at all evidence with regard to any of these Government etc institutions and the them handing over all evidence to the Police and Legal System to deal with and then deal with them as well if they fail to properly and lawfully do their duty via other independent Peoples Grand Juries and then deal with/jail anyone failing in their duties or cover ups/corruption in Peoples Common Law Courts. Wightman and the SNP MSPs involved in that Salmond Inquiry should and would certainly be in jail if this CORRECT way of doing things and holding these USELESS/Corrupt Clowns was in place as would all of those involved in trying to set up Salmond in the first place.
This is the first major change that needs to be brought in to all of the Parliaments along with two term limits for MPs/MSPs/Councillors to get rid of these USELESS/Corrupt career politicians and NO pensions for doing these jobs.
Crazycat @ 8:27pm – yes indeed, currently only two list members for the SNP (a pair of Emmas, Harper and Roddick). It was four between 2016 and 2021, 16 list members between 2011 and 2016, 26 between 2007 and 2011, 18 for the session 2003-07 and 28 from the list in 1999-2003.
So, a small number at present but it has been substantially higher and if voting patterns were to move back towards those seen in earlier years, seeing as we have the SNP held in wide contempt and a resurgent Labour, the proportion of SNP MSPs from the list might rise again – perhaps a bigger slice of a smaller cake.
There’s also a timing question of what to do if you’re a high official of a party which looks like it might run out of financial road. Suppose you make it through the next election in May 2026 and then the axe falls. You’ve entered a new parliamentary session and then you get caught with the situation I pointed out in my earlier post of having no way to replace any of your list MSPs (who might be more numerous by then) if they die or otherwise demit office suddenly. You might, as that high official, wonder if it would be better to launch the potential new party sooner and get the pain out the way before the next election with everybody standing under the new banner at the election. Kind of like putting a company into administration or voluntary liquidation at a time of your own choosing before your creditors arrive at the door with a winding up petition.
Kcor.
In 1712 Westminster parliament made the house of House of Lords to Act as an appeal Court in Scottish civil cases.
The Court of Sessions was no longer the court of Scots law.