The limits of accountability
The SNP has still not provided any sort of meaningful answer, either to this site or to anyone else, over the missing £600,000 from the party’s accounts that was supposedly “ring-fenced” for a future independence campaign and not under any circumstances to be spent on normal party politics.
Enquiries from members and even elected representatives have met with a wall of silence for months, so we were more than a little surprised to be forwarded a recent email exchange in which the SNP’s chief executive had engaged in discussion on the subject with someone who isn’t even in the party.
We thought you’d be interested in reading it.
We’ll interject here to note that asking the SNP to account for a huge sum of money it appears by its own official accounts to have spent is now a “conspiracy”, and its own elected representatives and members with legitimate and reasonable questions about what’s being done with their money are “opponents”.
Our source wasn’t going to be fobbed off so vaguely, though.
Alert readers will have spotted an interesting concession there – Murrell states that NEXT year’s accounts (or rather this year’s, which will be published next year) may include a separate entry identifying the ringfenced money, because he appears to acknowledge that the current approach (which somewhat implausibly involves keeping funds a secret in case they motivate Unionists to raise their own) is unsatisfactory.
All kinds of fascinating questions arise from that admission. Wings first raised the issue of the ringfenced funds in January. The SNP didn’t submit its accounts to the Electoral Commission until the end of June, so it had six months to implement this transparency and set donors’ minds at rest without asking them to wait ANOTHER year, by which time there’ll have been an election and the party won’t care what people think.
(Incidentally, the accounts contain a signed statement that they’ve been approved “by the Party Officers” on 26 June. According to SNP rules this is supposed to mean the NEC. But in fact the NEC had had absolutely no sight of the accounts until they were published on 27 October, the same as the rest of us. We’ve been told today by Kenny MacAskill that he’s still had no reply from Kirsten Oswald to his letters on the subject.)
But in any event, if the money so definitely exists and can be so easily separated out and identified that the SNP knows to the nearest £1 how much it is, there’s no reason not to produce a statement right now showing where it can be located, and how that squares with the party’s stated total net assets being less than half the value of the supposed referendum fund.
Our source persisted.
Murrell’s first two replies both arrived within 24 hours of our source’s emails. At the time of writing there has been no response to their third one after 11 days. Readers can speculate as to the reason for themselves.
For our part, we’ll keep investigating.
They’re crooks
New SNP are as corrupt as their Westminster buddies
Just thinking about king theodin’s line in lord of the rings – “how did if come to this?”
Somethings very very wrong here. I also donated to that fund.
I see Plan B has been completely shut out of proceedings.
Interesting that they just glossed over continuing to take the guy’s money as well long after the closure date.
It’s a wee bit like continuing to pay your boiler insurance only to be told years later that they no longer stock parts for that model when you find you actually need it.
If it is claimed that they have used the ring fenced money to avoid overdraft charges then that would be a clear case of accounting fraud as the money should have been accruing interest for the fund itself, not giving the SNP a free overdraft.
Have these accounts been audited by an outside firm of accountants? Or does everyone take Mr. Beattie’s word for it?
Perhaps Mr. Murrell could tell us which account they are “resting in”?
As a lawyer, words jump out at me.
I see Murrell’s first response to the inquiry about the supposedly “ring fenced” funds assures the questioner that the funds are “earmarked”.
NOT the same thing at all, as Wings has been at pains to draw out all year. Murrell has very deliberately avoided the term “ring fenced” to the describe the funds because obviously they’re not.
WOOP-WOOP-WOOP, this is the alert tone, this is not a drill…
Looks like the Murrells will have more than the Christmas tree to squabble about this year.
Our source wasn’t going to be fobbed off so vaguely, though.?
Why can’t the £593k ring fenced money be transferred to Scott Martin owned
Yes Scotland holding co. ???
This fund was contributed to by non SNP party members for a referendum fighting fund.
If it is being used by the party to fund other things ( see accounts) then that is funded by false pretences.
Sunlight is the best form of disinfectants, electric light the most efficient policeman.
No scurrying in the dark places.
Scottish Labour 2.0 guys
I’m glad I didn’t have any money to donate to these things. I was not convinced by the whole thing anyway. And there were crowdfunders to go for, suing Carmichael, Andy Wightman’s libel defence etc etc.
Taking money promising to spend it one thing and spending it on another is generally called fraud. Ah the money from your house sale sitting in my imprest account I think I’ll buy me a Porsche, Oh Law Society those folks’ money is ‘woven through our accounts’, the balance is too small for that to happen? I can explain, anyone seen my passport?
Wall of Silence Rev?
Members can’t even phone SNP party headquarters anymore as the phone system is ow set to say that due to Covid they are no longer taking calls and that callers can leave a message and that someone will try to get back within 5 working days.
Absolutely outrageous. Dinging emails, dinging phone calls, this can only go one way.
Look up the top 10(?) principles of accounting.
Transparency is close to the top. It’s a fundamental reason for publishing accounts.
Anything else is tantamount to fraud.
Oh and try sending an email expecting to get a response. Ha, ha, ha that’s a joke.
Oh and try sending a motion for Conference. That’s another joke as Conference motions get interpreted by an NEC sub committee to produce generic stage managed motions – suiting only the coterie of control agenda.
Oh and try and hold a branch meeting. Most folks did not know it but up until September branch meetings were banned. Same went for campaigning. But while the members slept the NEC schemed.
And campaigning, its still banned.
Or try and get any details into the Alex Salmond stich up. Well you’ve more chance in getting to the moon. Nicola ain’t telling, not even parliament. And if she did, she’d just lie.
So don’t expect an answer Rev to where the suckers who donated £600,000 of their money for a referendum has gone. Just fuck off, give the SNP another mandate, and thereafter we can all live in a happy Trans State where all free speech is outlawed under the hate crime bill.
There are only two possible explanations, neither good.
1. The money, despite Murrell’s defense, has been spent. How much? We can only guess but clearly most of it, if not all.
2. The money is indeed, ring fenced & ear marked for another referendum. But in a different account. And if true, quite illegal.
One might allege then that Murrell is torn between admitting that his party has effectively stolen huge sums of money from the party faithful or that he & his party have brazenly broken electoral law.
No wonder he decided to stop replying.
I guess when you’ve dug a hole so deep that it would be hard to climb back out, it’s probably best that you put the shovel down before the walls collapse & bury you in your own bullshit.
Why are the Electoral Commission not acting on the SNP concealing donations?
Murrell gives “his assurance” over the money,
Unfortunately that is insufficient , It requires a “statement of account” as to the location of that money , and at this time only Murrell knows(and I would think a few others)
As I have said before Murrell has a liability( and that will include chums) in regard to the structure of the SNP as an association.
If Murrell can’t say ,and Beattie seems not to have “a clue”
then is incompetence the answer? I would think not
The person who wrote the last letter mentioned within that letter “Money laundering” That too is a valid point
If I had a tenner in jean’s pocket , I know it’s there, If not I go and find it No person within the SNP appear to have the ability to put their hands on the money or know the location of that money These are ALL high earners!
A few are members of the Law Society
McLetchie if my memory is correct got into bother over money,plus the Law Society “tightened rules” in regard to members and money,I’d suggest they more likely just applied the correct standards
I wonder if the Murrels will “crowdfund”their day in court?
@Willie
Looks like the Murrells are walling themselves off. Not a good look that. Battening down the hatches so when the Salmond Inquiry etc get to the real dirt they can try and weather the storm. No chance. They are obviously in denial, just like Trump is.
I’ve had enough of this prevarication, corruption and extinguishing of women’s rights by the SNP. If we continue with the narrative that only the SNP can deliver on Independence then it won’t be happening in my lifetime and I’m 58. We need an entirely new party or maybe a take over of ISP led by heavyweights of the Yes movement including yourself Stu, Alex Salmond, Joanna Cherry, Kenny MacAskill and others who would fight exclusively for Independence in the open, transparent and honest manner we can no longer expect from the SNP. C’mon Stu, it needs to be done now, not after the next election. Your country needs you!
As I have said before if these funds have been ” woven through the overall income figures” then that is simply embezzlement., Thay money was not “income” it was money deposited for a specific purpose. A purpose that the SNP have deliberately caused not to happen.
If that money has been spent on something else other than what it was intended for then it is an illegal act.
It is the same as a bus conductor taking your fare for going from A to B. The bus then failing to go anywhere, then to make matters worse, the conductor then taking the money and putting it into his own bank account. Even worse still, a bank account that is already in overdraft, thereby making the money he collected in fares worth only half of the fares collected.
I am sure that the bus conductor would very speedily find himself securely locked up in jail.
Then Scottish tory leader McLetchie resigned over a few disputed taxi expense claims.
First Minister McLeish resigned over a “muddle not a fiddle” when the impropriety of his finances was exposed.
Both over sums far below the ‘ring-fenced £531k’
This from Wikipedia on Officegate (McLeish)
“There were continuing claims he should resign, mainly from the Scottish National Party who claimed the issue questioned his integrity. McLeish rebutted the charges against him, claiming that the issue was “a muddle, not a fiddle”. Despite appearing to have support from Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats, he resigned on 8 November.”
This has all the hallmarks of the end of days for whoever has their fingerprints on this. The above fell on their swords for a lot less. Despite all requests for clarity, none has yet been forthcoming. If it quacks like a duck etc. If this goes all the way to Mr Murrell, I wouldnt like to be too closely connected, like say his wife or party leader or suchlike. Keep up the good work.
@Dave Beveridge 11:56am
Aye, that was what leapt out at me and would have been my primary concern.
There is a term: ‘sharp practice’, which I would have utilised in correspondence about now in similar circumstance.
It’s surely clear what has been done here — and earlier commenters have said this clearly as well: SNP have used the money to pay off some of their overdrafts. The bank have assured them that they would be able to reinstate those overdrafts at a moment’s notice; and somebody in the office has got a scruffy little notebook where he notes down what the nominal total of the ‘ringfenced’ donations is.
Perhaps they’ll get away with this sleight-of-hand: it’s basically the same trick that the character ‘Rick’ in John Le Carre’s ‘A Perfect Spy’ uses to get his start in his life and career as a conman (the character is based on Le Carre’s clever fool of a father). Rick seems (to himself) to ‘get away with it’ for years — but mmeanwhile he wrecks the lives of everyone around him.
Warning Warning in coming o/t
Just read a bit of Craig Murray’s blog regarding Mike Russell’s views on the Scottish National Health Service , oh FFS I bet most SNP members haven’t came across this little Nugget, from the short piece I read I had to check the source again I was sure it was written by Norman Tebbit or some other rabid right wing Tory.
If this is the general view of the management of the SNP my vote has just been withdrawn I refuse to back a party that is not only not pressing for a Independent Scotland but by recent events are actively blocking it and following some weird and wonderful journey into bloody La La Land.
Reminder to the current management you get my vote it I agree with what you are doing or intend doing , that’s the Deal, not and a other or a add on you want to insert after you get my vote , right now it’s a 50/50 call if you get my 2nd vote and definitely my first vote is in the balance , your call at present I have nothing to Lose I can’t say the same for the SNP , I don’t give a Monkeys if your MSPs are out of a job if you lot can’t follow simple directions then don’t expect my support .Thanks
One wonders what the Murrell of this story is gonnae be…
If only there was an education system that taught folk to err on the side of caution instead of being so trusting of wolves!
Charley says: “Meow Meow Don’t give your pocket money to strangers coz they might not be what they seem and spend your money on things you don’t want”.
Interesting how the ones who always give the snidey “conspiracy” reply barbs are actually the ones currently conspiring.
The clusterfuck denouement is coming and the only question remains who is gonna go down with the ship or who is gonna get into the lifeboat and sail off into a lecture circuit sunset.
Good time to go back and watch VEEP episodes when they need a scapegoat..
A large fund visibly growing would motivate the yes movement to give more.
Here’s the thing I can’t understand. Maybe someone could elucidate me, and if it has been explained before, my apologies.
In the third last para,Stuart writes, quote ” We’ve been told today by Kenny MacAskill that he’s still had no reply from Kirsten Oswald to his letters on the subject.”
Now, I assume Kenny, who I think is about the only SNP elected member that I have seen with balls, knows his way to the party, of which I’m no longer a member, headquarters. Could he, or anyone, go along and ask one of the workies inside what the f*** is going on.
Or, if, he bumps into Kirsten Oswald in some Westminster canteen, maybe ask her in person.
Or am I not seeing something.
All we read are, no replies, stone walling, rubber ear.
Squirrel I mean not Blind Squirell ?
stirling MSP, the parachuted Alyn Smith,inadvertently donated this money to Nigly Farridge’s brexit party, didn’t he
ironically, following a ‘money-laundering’ accusation
has anyone asked him how he legally funded this transaction
don’t ask
don’t tell
So many issues here!
Yet again the current party leaders are anything but transparent.
They appear to be spending much of their time on avoidance and cover up.
When I cancelled my DDebit Murrell e-mailed me quite quickly, he has personally
composed the responses above, he has to be in regular communication with the
Many legal teams the party members are paying for.
Is this all the CEO has to do with his time?
If they were honest and transparent an admin worker could answer these questions and offer proof.
With Covid, Brexit, the Internal Market power grab and Independence support above 56% Murrell
appears to be in Admin right up to where his deceit is about to be proven.
Absolutely shocking and completely unacceptable.
Has anyone donated to this fund via credit card? Credit card laws allow refunds of payments for goods and services that haven’t been fulfilled.
Perhaps if contacted their credit company to ask for a refund the SNP might have to prove to them that the funds still exist, ready to be deployed?
It is so obvious now the corruption. But never fear the vaccine is into action in the form of ‘Good Guy’ preferred list of nominees for NEC and key posts of president, treasurer and national secretary of SNP. if we YES activists get our men and women on board change may hopefully come about.
if you know of any member who has not made their nominations let me know here or at iancaisteal@yahoo.co.uk
Hope this is ok Stu 😉
I have no connections at all with this funding or the SNP, but as a neutral observer I am thinking on the same lines as the correspondent asking how @£500k can be instantaneously available when there is less than @£300k available assets.
Any accountancy experts here who can explain this?
I didn’t like the reply about conspiracy theories either. There were perfectly reasonable questions being asked.
So If someone gets paid (say) 100 grand a year for (say) Six years or so and dosn’t go anywhere or do anything much of use that costs a lot and happens to have a partner who’s wage can cover all day to day expenditure, then they’d have a pretty healthy bank account that they could dip into if they really had to in an emergency in order to “appear” a few quid that would prevent the whole fucking house of cards collapsing.
I’ve no doubt the cash can be found down the back of the sofa somewhere if only we could remember where we left it.
The Money donated to the Independence fund was spent stopping brexit. Money well spent in the eyes of the SNP hierarchy!
I guess Murrell thinks that they dont need money for a referendum on Independence as the SNP inner circle have no intention of persuing Independence!
Mibbe Murrell’s spent it all on cunning disguises?
With all this weaving Murrell’s become adept at yarn spinning.
An arresting account or perhaps ‘just resting in my account’…
In the past the SNP used to heavily critisise the Red Clydesiders morphing into professional politicians abandoning their policies and convictions once they reached Westminster.
How Ironic that when hoards of SNP Mps went to westminster (something almost unbelievable in the 80s and 90s), they have morphed into politicians who have utterly abandoned their principles
It’s obvious. The money’s under the mattress in Bute House. I don’t know why anyone is worrying …
I think we can safely say “The Money’s gone folks”.
Like Dumb and Dumber finding the millions in a suitcase then spending it, promising to return it later minus expenses.
Murrell is dumb, we are dumber.
From Michael Russell’s 2006 book “ Grasping the Thistle “
MIKE RUSSELL, CANDIDATE FOR SNP PRESIDENT, ( GRASPING THE THISTLE )
“ Take health first of all. We would encourage the private sector to compete with established NHS hospitals, clinics and other services. We would encourage NHS management and staff to buy out existing NHS facilities and services under favourable financial terms and join the private sector. We would require NHS facilities that remained in government ownership to be run at a profit however modest. Those that failed to maintain profitability over a reasonable time frame would be privatised. In each geographic area the government would solicit bids from the area’s medical facilities and GPs for the various services it required for its citizens. Fragmentation of services may well see the redundancy of large general hospitals and their replacement with privately run clinics specialising and competing in particular medical procedures and services, at least in the more populated areas.
One idea that is worth further consideration is the possibility that some provision may be supported by “Payment vouchers” made available free of charge to citizens in order that patients would receive treatment wherever they wished. Citizens who wished to make their own arrangements with medical service suppliers would be free to do so. Armed with their voucher they could shop for the fastest and best service and if they so wished add to the value of the voucher. “
Very much typifies the views of an ultra right wing Tory mindset, and most certainly at odds with the majority of the population of Scotland, and maybe reflects why th3 current SNP leadership is as right wing and establishment as it is.
Folks might like to think therefore they cast their vote for a new SNP President whose policy would b3 to privatise the NHS.
No wonder ex banker Benny Higgins and now the Duke of Becleugh’s factor is Nicola Sturgeon’s chief financial – economic adviser.
Ian B @1.23
Well, he’s certainly getting his money’s worth. I haven’t seen him in a very long time!
Kapelmeister and Paul D …… very good ?
That was meant to be a smiley face not a question mark.
Ian@1.09pm
Have sent you a request. Thanks.
If it were an overdraft facility – why not just say so.
If it were any other borrowing facility – why not just say so.
Now, the obvious answer to the above would be to admit after all their obfuscation and dithering, that the money was spent or used in some other way rather than being truly ‘ring fenced’.
I believe the money is there (in either of the two mechanisms noted above), but they have dug themselves so deep now in trying to disguise the facts, its going to be the cover up (as always) that gets them.
@Willie
I hadn’t heard of Russell’s book before. That quote is incredible. He should be nowhere near Scotland’s progressive movement with views like that and should be challenged.
What a bloody fraud. I’m really in shock that he’s written that.
I feel like I’ve been taken for a bloody idiot by these careerists. I left the SNP a couple of years back when I smelled a rat wrt to their cosy relationship with property developers. I did however think the neoliberal faction was restricted to a few at the top. I certainly didn’t put Russell in that category.
An overdraft faacility or a loan in principle are liabilities which can be cancelled at any time without explanation by the provider.
The money if in these categories could be gone at the whim of the lender. Doesn’t seem very secure when all you had to do sadly it in an account and leave it.
The money both exists and doesn’t exist at the same time (queue physics analogies).
We will only find out when it is called on to pay for Independence Referendum campaigning:
The SNP has, for some years, been chronically in debt, financed by commercial loans.
These commercial loans have vanished in the 2019 accounts.
‘Woven through’ in this case means that rather than having a large deposit account AND a commercial loan for almost as much the two have roughly cancelled each other out.
Effectively a huge unsecured interest free loan to the SNP.
The money is (to borrow a phrase) ‘resting’ in the SNP general accounts.
This might be efficient and may even be legal but it is disrespectful and sharp practice.
If an Independence Campaign is called, the Treasurer is clearly confident that the ‘loan’ can be repaid. I guess he is confident that the commercial loans can be reinstated or another source found …or the referendum won’t be happening soon.
It creates a perverse disincentive for the SNP ever calling a vote.
Would any of the donors consider raising a civil law Simple Procedure claim in court to have their donation refunded?
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/law-and-courts/legal-system-s/taking-legal-action-s/taking-someone-to-court-using-simple-procedure-s/simple-procedure/costs-of-civil-court-action-using-simple-procedure/
https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/taking-action/simple-procedure
The point is this. The money was there it was ringfenced. I was not asked if it would be ok for the SNP to use my contributions to it to reduce their borrowings or for any other reason.
That is deception.
The SNP…now too big to Succeed.
ClanDonald says:
10 November, 2020 at 1:09 pm
Has anyone donated to this fund via credit card? Credit card laws allow refunds of payments for goods and services that haven’t been fulfilled.
Perhaps if contacted their credit company to ask for a refund the SNP might have to prove to them that the funds still exist, ready to be deployed?
Interesting idea.
This is all seems very strange that Peter Murrell can reply to someone who isn’t a member of the Snp but can’t send a email out to members with information about the accounts and I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve still NOT received the email that Colin Beattie was supposed to have sent out to members on 28th October about the money that’s missing from their accounts.
They were able to send out at least five or six emails last year when looking for donations , I wonder what all that money was spent on ?.
All these money issues are worrying to put it mildly but a few posts back(12.57)Robert Graham drew attention to the Mike Russell quote from his co-authored book “Grasping the Thistle” from about 2008. OK, context is everything but, like Robert I was struck by the oddness of the quote appearing to promote the dismantling of the NHS in Scotland and its replacement with a full-on American style private health insurance system.A complex issue, but for one of the bigger hitters in the SNP to take such a swerve away from the idea of a collectively funded health system seems remarkable.Some explanation is required but how does one get an explanation?I rather doubt that one would be forthcoming if I was to enquire by say email as I am not in that constituency. Even if I was able to ask the question I suspect there would be no answer.
Just trying to be objective here…
If I knew that I had access to a stack of dosh which was ‘earmarked’ for a referendum which I also knew wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon then I’d take that dosh, put it on the stock market, and share the dividends with my pals.
I mean, how much could you reasonably expect to trouser per annum from, say, £600,000 if invested in relatively safe stocks?
Brilliant work, Wings, made an otherwise miserable grafter quite jolly.
Note the pattern… as soon as it becomes clear that the bullshit isn’t going to work, they go into lockdown and you don’t hear another word about it.
@Ian Brotherhood,
Not a lot of returns due to current climate in market.
However we know the Treasurer has said the money is woven through the accounts, not invested. I see no returns of investments in any case in those accounts, especially of that magnitude.
Monsieur le Roi
You can do what I did – buy the book secondhand off Amazon for £4 and read for yourself. There is no unusual surrounding context. It really is what he thinks should happen to the health service.
Ian, if they did that it would at least be possible to locate the money and argue the case for doing so. And there’d be some sort of allocation in the accounts.
The money is exactly where they’re saying it is – blown on propping up the party which by the sound of things is strapped for cash.
Someone mentioned there may be an overdraft facility in place that they could use, if required, to mobilise the funds. But that’s not the point.
Words have meanings. It matters. When you say “ring-fenced” you are using a word with a very specific meaning. When you use words to deceive people into giving you money, we have words for that too… some of those words can be found in legal dictionaries.
Monsieur@2.01
I am sure like so many of us the views that people like Michael Russell expresses will be absolutely alien to them. But there is now I am afraid an ultra right wing tendency at the heart of the SNP and privatisation of the NHS as Russell recommends is not the only such idea.
Indeed, when you look at the economic gurus who surround Nicola Sturgeon the very same right wing tendency shines out. Ex banker and now adviser to the Duke of Becleugh Estates is an example of that. Ditto the right wing Andrew Wilson.
Or what of land reform. Scotland with more of its land owned by the super rich than any other country in Europe reinforces that credential even further. Indeed, at Loch Lomond the Scottish Government wanted to sell off lands around the southern end of the loch to a property developer called Gordon Gibb who as well as developing property.
So what kind of Government is it that sells off iconic National Park land to a property developer to build a hotel, lodges and chalets. When it’s gone it’s gone – but of course ours is a government where many of the great and the good of the SNP only last year went to the big glitzy international Property Conference in Cannes in France. ( and yes the finance minister was there, as were SNP council leaders from the big cities!)
Not exactly the sentiments of a supposedly left of centre social democratic party- nor of a party as we now know committed to democracy and transparency.
But people need to make their own minds. So ask yourself, what has our SNP delivered these last five our six years.
Maybe repeating myself, but if the money was ring fenced, that literally means it is NOT woven through with other accounts, it is by literal definition, segregated from other monies.
Furthermore, you cannot lead people pledge money for a specific purpose, say the money is ring fenced for that purpose explicitly, but then suddenly announce the funding is only ‘earmarked’ for that purpose. That is surely a form of embezzlement. You are taking people’s money under false pretences.
Depending on what has happened to the money, it might be a low grade kind of error that is borderline embezzlement, or it might be full on theft, it depends on what has actually happened, and whether the money has been spent when it shouldn’t have been, or whether its been misappropriated or stolen.
What a fking trainwreck.
Hands up anybody who still believes Scotland is on target for an Independence Referendum next year. I think we’ve been sold down the river by the SNP, and if we are serious about Scottish Independence, we should consider ourselves at ground zero, and start building a new Independence organisation from scratch.
AND I MEAN FROM SCRATCH. Not to fight for Holyrood or Westminster, but to dedicate ourselves to the resurrection of Scotland’s Sovereign Parliament, not seen sitting since 1707, and defend Scotland’s Sovereign Constitution, and the Constitutional Sovereignty of the Scottish People.
We should castigate and denounce both Westminster AND Holyrood as Colonial Institutions which are complicit in Scotland’s unconstitutional and unlawful subjugation.
I stopped voting Labour when it became apparent that neither Blair nor the Labour Party were in any sense left wing.
(Quietly privatising parts of the NHS for instance)
I switched my vote to the SNP.
Now, in addition to the bourach re.independence, Russell comes out with some right-wing guff, which I would not have expected from him. I didn’t vote SNP for them to turn into a gang of right wing Tories.
If there is no new Indy Party next year, then “None of the Above” it is.
So the british secret service mission to infiltrate the SNP hierarchy and inner circle, influencing policy and direction to distract from Independence is complete!
Mike russell in favour of privatising the NHS, nature denying policies, the implosion and coming shit storm over the planned stich up of AS, the fidling of accounts, all part of the brit nat plan to destroy the main veichle for Independence!
A once proud and morally direct party now a sesspit of careerists and unionists, betraying the members and founding principles.
It wouldnt have happened under Alex salmond!
What actually concerns me is that there are lawyers, even QCs in the SNP… yet IF laws are being broken over Salmond, this money, lying to parliament… no one is speaking up?
If any elected member of the SNP *knows* that a single law has been broken, it is their duty to resign and let the sovereign people of Scotland know… [that does not mean the same thing as going to Police Scotland]
I am beginning to think it is like one big mafia scam… and this actually reflects WORSE on the decent people in the party…
Article from The National ,
“ The architects of the original Plan B for independence have called on Nicola Sturgeon to name a 2021 date for a second referendum. “
SNP MP Angus MacNeil and councillor Chris McEleny made the request as they revealed they will not try to force their proposal, seeking an alternative route to independence, on to the party’s conference agenda after it was rejected for debate. But they said they want the party’s leadership “to prove” Plan A will work and will deliver independence.
https://archive.vn/d4bin
It’s just unfortunate that this years conference is online and not taking part in a hall or the members could have organised a mass walkout from the hall to show the Snp how unhappy that I’m sure the majority of the members are about the party’s hierarchy in refusing plan B to be debated at conference .
@ Frazerio at 12:48 pm
I can’t remember why but the Law Society got involved with McLetchie ,Could have been bringing the profession into disrepute
@Hatuey, Breeks et al –
I really am quite slow on the uptake at times but I wonder if anyone can explain why Murrell isn’t being investigated by the police?
Hasn’t anyone made a formal complaint yet?
Was talking to one of my pals and he thinks he knows how there gonna get the money.
SNP HQ credits each branch via centrally held accounts approx £10 per member per year, this is mainly a fighting fund to pay for leaflets, newspapers and other Election paraphernalia.
They have already taken a 3 month holiday from crediting the branch accounts due to Covid which if around 100k members is around £250k which figure they now have available at HQ which they would not normally have.
They are charging £30 per head per delegate , with say 1000 delegates that gets you to the £550k
Needed. They dont have the costs of hiring a large conference centre and all its associated costs as previous years so most of the Delegate money is profit. I think many if not most branches pay the delegate costs of their members, perhaps they should advise HQ to take it out of their branch account at HQ and not send them cheques.
While we’re waiting for someone to explain why Murrell hasn’t had his collar felt by Scotland’s finest, here’s a very short video of him (disguised as Tommy Cooper) making things appear and disappear – he’s actually pretty good at it!
😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9UMvfKBaZI
Just emailed Mike Russell re health care, totally shocked if this is true. I am an NHS nurse and would be horrified if they wanted to do this. I will be letting my colleagues know as well, some soft yes’s among them too – possible mind changer. Definite mind changer re the embezzled funds. Why is Murrell not charged with theft and fraud?
Ian Brotherhood @2:42
That’s Murrell? So there’s been emfezzlement.
@ Bob Mack at 1:43 pm
The phrase used is “All sums Due” (or very similar) linked to the time limit (the lender give the facility for a set period usually one year) but within the agreement it has a clause worded similar to “recalled at any time” (I’ve seen it written in various ways to disguise what it is)
I still subscribe to the idea that the IndyRef2 campaign funds have been used in place of an overdraft facility so as to avoid the associated interest charges of such.
In the unlikely event of IndyRef2, those funds would magically reappear, thanks to the use of the overdraft facility.
However, if the banks suddenly decided to withdraw such a facility, as they’re entitled to do, this would place the SNP in a bit of a predicament.
Slightly O/T…
I see ex-PM Major is calling for not 1 but 2 referenda. Cunning plan to bankrupt the pro-Indy campaign by ensuring double the expenditure required to secure a victory for ‘Yes’ in the face of the British State bankrolling ‘No’.
Craig Murray @ 2:19
Since you’re here could you please answer a very simple and straightforward (O/T) question?
Why is Julian Assange being gagged by his own inner circle?
He is in prison, on remand not under sentence, and has all the usual rights including the right to communicate.
He is not being gagged by the U.K. government or the Courts or the prison system – and yet we have not heard a direct statement from him to his supporters in over 2 and a half years (since he was first shut off Twitter in the embassy).
Why can we not hear or read any statement direct from Julian?
Thanks in anticipation of a straight answer.
O/T re Harassment and Complaints Committee ,
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service responded to the Convener’s letter of 5 November on 10 November 2020: ,
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/General%20documents/Letter_to_L_Fabiani_MSP_05.11.20.pdf
And it’s in response to the Convener’s letter to the Lord Advocate on 5th November which I’ve posted again here for reference ,
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/General%20documents/20201105ConvenertoLordAdvocate.pdf
Mmm, tasty grass fed coo burger anyone… 🙁
(I really hope this is actually a cgi’d tae feck vid as the animal welfare aspect of being caged like this are awful)
https://twitter.com/Iblogtoglasgow/status/1326136053711908866
“I see ex-PM Major is calling for not 1 but 2 referenda”
Great! We’ve had the first one already.
@robertknight at 3.07pm:
“I see ex-PM Major is calling for not 1 but 2 referenda. Cunning plan to bankrupt the pro-Indy campaign by ensuring double the expenditure required to secure a victory for ‘Yes’ in the face of the British State bankrolling ‘No’.”
Is John Major Scottish? And even if he is, have a majority of Scots ever voted for him or his detested party? Who is he speaking for? Who does he represent? What makes him think his opinions are of any relevance to us?
@kapelmeister (2.49) –
’emfezzlement’
Soo-perb!
I hope Rev Stu awards you the rest of the day off for that one.
@ Ian Brotherhood at 2:04 pm
£24,000 should be easy
£32,400 with Barclays
Inclined to think that Wings’ “source” for these e-mails must be someone high-profile and/or a particularly generous donor. Actual SNP members don’t get answers, so why, otherwise, would a non-member be treated to such initially prompt and eager replies?
And now that said important person has had the temerity to share the correspondence with the vile demagogue and orchestrator of conspirators and opponents (sic) the already delayed reply will probably never be forthcoming.
whar about a crowdfunder to get this bloke to take the SNP to court over fraud ?
@ Lenny Hartley
Is it really £30 quid for a Full Delegate Pass to obtain voting rights. Was told it was usually aboot a tenner.
So you huv tae buy yer democracy these days then with the party that supposedly wants to lead us to self determination.
@MaggieC re the harassment letter…
Oh dear. The response is both poor and smug in equal measure.
Short version for those who don’t do legal jargon.
‘We’re not going to give you what you want, because we don’t believe the laws that say we have to have been met.
Tell us exactly what documents your looking for, then tell us exactly in what way they comply with the law that says we have to give you them, and we will disagree with those legal points for every document.
If you go to Alex Salmond for a copy of the documents, we will prosecute his lawyers and him – so nah, nah, nah nah nah.’
That sort of sums it up. No doubt the committee and Alex could chip away at this, but it will take years, and come out in dribs and drabs, by which time we will be out of the EU, the SNP will be discredited beyond belief and we will be screwed.
Someone is going to have to make a formal complaint to Police Scotland with regards Embezzlement x 2.
For that, it wold be useful to have the names of the executives responsible, or who had the authority to manage the IndRef2 account. They would be the Suspects for the Police to Investigate.
If, in addition to misusing the moneys for purposes other than stated, the executives responsible could be shown to have increased one of their pay packets by 2 or 3 times, and gone from a 2 figure salary to a 3 figure salary in the same time period, this could reasonably be construed to go part of the way towards motive, and allow for the court to attempt to reclaim at least some of the money’s from those person/s.
A second possible crime of Theft by Embezzlement may have been committed if,
1/ no existing written terms and conditions of membership and/or SNP employment exist covering said persons for legal advice and indemnity in the event of unlawful acts.
For example, if an MP were to commit slander/libel, and the cost of legal advice and settlement came to over £100,000, and these damages were paid for out of party membership contributions, if party members were not consulted, and no written terms and conditions already existed at the time – then it could be legitimately argued this was a crime of Embezzlement.
Obviously, it would not be in the interests of public justice, to pursue this, if the hypothetical MP were to go and get the money somewhere else, and refund the SNP party in full.
Someone above stated that the above state of affairs reflects almost worse of the decent members of the SNP who are currently not calling it out. I get where your coming from, and agree with you, however, I think its one of those things, just trying to keep the wheels on the bus. If – and increasingly it looks like it will have to be when – a criminal complaint is made to Police, that will be when they are able to come out publicly.
Someone else suggested the Small Claims Court – this would not fit, and not be accepted at this court. Horses for Courses and all that.
Someone else wondered if the Electoral Commission would be the investigative body to look into it. Not for the common law crime of Theft by Embezzlement. Which is not to sayPolice Scotland would not jump at the chance of off loading onto them. The Electoral Commission would be more suitable to investigate if said ring fenced account is actually sitting somewhere and the SNP have failed to declare it.
Ian Brotherhood says:
10 November, 2020 at 2:37 pm
@Hatuey, Breeks et al –
I really am quite slow on the uptake at times but I wonder if anyone can explain why Murrell isn’t being investigated by the police?
I find it hard to believe the whole gang hasn’t been rounded up, interviewed under caution, and had their premises searched, computers and electronic devices seized as potential evidence. Bute House should have been treated as a crime scene.
That can happen to people quite easily if they’re under the slightest suspicion, (just ask Rev Stu), and given the despicable conspiracy exposed during Alex Salmond’s trial, and the revelation there are written texts which substantiate the fact there was an orchestrated conspiracy, you have to ask what the ‘laissez faire’ police are playing at.
If that wasn’t enough, it would seem a substantial sum of money has gone A.W.O.L. and still there’s no criminal investigation.
That seems odd, to put it mildly, when Alex Salmond was facing jail as a sex offender for contrived events which didn’t even happen, and Craig Murray and Mark Hirst are soon to be prosecuted on Mickey Mouse trumped up charges which already have the Lord Advocate trying to have Craig Murray made criminally responsible for things other people have said online.
Apart from there being a massive stinking corrupt conspiracy to explain it all, a judicial / political conspiracy that would rewrite the book on judicial / political conspiracies, I admit I’m struggling to come up with a plausible and rational explanation for any of it.
Occam’s razor is looking pretty sharp for a huge, monumental conspiracy being the most obvious and least fantastical explanation… by a mile!
Any other country in the world would have hungry journalists crawling all over this, trying to win themselves a Pulitzer Prize for getting to the truth, but Scotland is a nation that lives permanently through the looking glass. Nearly everybody knows whodunnit, and what they ‘dun’, but there’s no Inspector Calling… yet.
It would be interesting to compare the number of nominations the individual candidates get from the overall membership, against the number of full delegate votes that actually elect folk into the positions.
I mean there’s bound to be a proportional alignment in the figures right, and not some wild deviation and discrepancy in outcome caused by running the votes through a 30 quid filter…
there’s £900k in ‘prepayments’, note 20, page 27.
but either your readers are disingenuous, or are being mendacious.
shame on you for leading them on.
Direct Debit
The person in the article paid by Direct Debit.
There is a Direct Debit guarantee scheme:
https://www.directdebit.co.uk/DirectDebitExplained/Pages/Incorrectpayments.aspx
Maybe the donor should request a refund via the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme by contacting their bank.
‘fraser reid says:
10 November, 2020 at 3:41 pm
whar about a crowdfunder to get this bloke to take the SNP to court over fraud ?’
Investigation into Criminal matters is the responsibility of the Police in Scotland.
There should be no need for a crowdfunded to report this to Police, (at least in the first instance) but a co-ordinated reporting of the matter would make it more difficult for them to be fobbed off. Crowdfunding might become necessary at a later stage (we’re talking years) if the Police enquiry was inadequate, and further private court action was deemed necessary).
Police, If they have sufficient evidence submit a report to the Procurator Fiscal, and it is the PF who decides if it is in the public interest to take the matter to court.
There are very rare circumstances when a private prosecution can be brought to the court for Criminal Offences. The last one was the Glasgow Bin Lorry Driver.
The prosecution case will only be heard in a court of law, in these circumstances, if in the first instance, the High Court of Justiciary reviews the case and decides that there is a case to answer, and that it is in the public interest to be heard. The bar is set very, very high.
The determined correspondent in Stu’s post mentions in the emails that the payments were taken by Direct Debit.
A Direct Debit Mandate is not an instruction to your bank to make payments. Rather, it is your permission to your bank for them to allow an organisation to take money from your account.
The important point is that the SNP had to apply to your bank to take the money from your account each month.
The purpose of the money and the amount were the subject of a separate agreement between you and the SNP.
They should not have taken any money from your account after June 2017 if the fund was closed, as that was the agreed purpose and destination of the money.
You should ask them to pay back the money that they took from your account between June 2017 and July 2020, tout suite.
This is a separate matter to your valid questions regarding the whereabouts of the money that they took by direct debit, for the agreed purpose, prior to June 2017. Unless they can answer them to your satisfaction, you should ask them to pay that money back too.
If not,
https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/taking-action/civil-online-gateway/welcome2
Wtf is going on..
https://twitter.com/CaroRance/status/1326078728741523456
The tories are going to upstage the SNP at this rate with direct funding to councils without the neoliberal stipulations the SNP have put on their own funding.
What a mess.
@ Dan: I am a delegate and haven’t been asked for £30 so I checked with my Branch Sec yesterday and she said the money is taken from the Branch account by HQ. I can reimburse the Branch if I wish. [I will wait until after Conference to see how it goes. Of course, an on-line Conference makes it much easier to quash dissent as well – just mute/black out the delegates.]
The telling thing for me is the change in language ie the shift from “Ringfenced to “Earmarked”, It’s actually quite difficult to get a tangible meaning to “Earmarked” but “Ringfenced is quite explicit,
“What’s the meaning of the phrase ‘Ring fencing’?
Separating something from usual judgement and guaranteeing its protection, especially the funds of a project.
What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Ring fencing’?
This term has been in use since the 1980s to denote the funds that are set aside for a project and cannot be spent on anything else. Before that it had a more general meaning, of anything that was protected”
The key words here are “funds that are set aside for a project and cannot be spent on anything else.” now no matter what woven into the accounts actually means anyone with even the most basic grasp of simple arithmetic knows you can’t withdraw 540k from 274k so clearly the money has been spent even if it’s with the intention to replace it via an overdraft or some other means (ie earmarked), the money isn’t there, we can all see that, so where is it?
So maybe the question to Mr Beattie or Mr Murrell should be when did the status of the money change from Ringfenced to Earmarked ?, Who authorised it? and why?
@ Breeks ‘If that wasn’t enough, it would seem a substantial sum of money has gone A.W.O.L. and still there’s no criminal investigation’.
Until someone, goes to a Police Station, make a formal complaint of Embezzlement, produces corroborated documents to substantiate a suspected crime, and starts the ball rolling on this, then it is not a case of the cops doing nothing. At the moment the above suspected crime is a blog article on the internet, and that’s it.
The following information would be needed/preferred in order to make a formal complaint to Police:
A group representing contributors to the fund, including some evidence of the money’s they personally donated.
2 or more screenshots of the Crowdfunded Page, which show the terms and conditions, ‘ring fence for IndyREf2, not to be used for day to day running of SNP’
Ideally these screenshots/print offs will come from more than one contributor. A screenshot showing final amount raised, and when closed,
Screen shot showing terms and conditions changed on very last few days of fundraiser.
Each contributor while providing a statement to Police would be sure to include within their statement that they saw, and contributed money, on the basis of the above terms and conditions, and for some would not have contributed for day to day running of the SNP.
For members of the SNP within the complainers group, a copy of the published SNP accounts which show the ‘ring fenced’ money interwoven/no longer there.
Authorised copy of the Treasurers letter – stating the money ‘interwoven’ and alluding to expensive overdraft facility being reduced within the time period.
Any information with regards the named persons within the SNP who had the authority to manage the account.
Any evidence linking Peter Murrells 6 figure pay rise, within the same time period – especially if either he, or his wife are named persons within the SNP with the authority to manage the account.
The reason for a protest group to make the complaint, is if 100 people report this, it will still end up as one Police Enquiry.
A group representation can keep tabs on evidence submitted (so nothing is missed), be a single piont of contact for updates from Police, and release public updates in a co-ordinated manner.
Should the Police, or PF, ‘drop the ball’ on this, a co-orinated group would be in a better position to crowdfund for further legal assistance than lots of individuals.
Lenny
£30 x 1000= £ 30,000 not £300,000
So the £30,000 added to the £250,000 = £280,000
So unless you mean £300 x1000 or £30 x 10,000 it won’t add up to the £300,000.
My apologies if I have misunderstood your comment at 2:41pm.
Why aren’t the usual suspects doing what they normally do with this? Why are the press not all over this like rabid dugs?
Has a deal been done? No referendum, no negative headlines? You can have the Scottish parliament, but no more.
Even the enquiry into the Salmond trial is being kept quiet…
What’s going on?
I think its pretty obvious that the account figures don’t lie, and that the ringfenced funds aren’t there.
The third and straight to the point letter won’t be answered because the accounts plainly show the money isn’t available.
I’d go as far as to say that Murrell only replied to the source because the source had been an unquestioning donor for so long, and donors that give without questioning are very welcome indeed.
Breatplate sorry heid fogged up just now, And didnt notice i had missed something out, there are around 5000 delegates, so if £30 per head thats 150k . Conference income is around £800 k in total per year a whack of it coming from other than delegates which will be reduced this year, however for this year they will still be raking in a substantial amount for little outlay. . So with monies which are not going to the branch accounts and the profit from conference they should be able to magic up the needed 550k or so.
One other thing should not these branch accounts not be accounted for separately from general income. Dont think they should be woven into general balances should they. . Maybe a branch treasurer could advise if the branches have to report the amounts held by HQ in their accounts.
Cheers Sarah, will wait and see what it will cost. Unfortunately the conference falls on the very weekend I plan to see my mother for the first time since Feb so really don’t want to spend it sitting on a laptop.
@ Paul
This may explain lack of press interest…
https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202000062491/
Regardless of how this income has been presented in the Income & Expenditure account, should it not be sitting as a balance on the balance sheet? I don’t understand why it has been “threaded through different income streams”, but surely it should be obvious on the balance sheet, however it wended its way there?
Biden Bristles at Bumbling Boris in Tweet Technical Tribulation
https://archive.is/t0xsV
Keep it up chaps, we’ll all be independent by Christmas.
I think we’re having a Father Ted moment!
I’ve just had another look at the e-mail I received from Jim Henderson in 2017, after I had donated to the “ring-fenced” fund-raiser.
This is what it says:
Although it witters on at length about a referendum, it also thanks me for my donation to the Scottish National Party, of which I am not, never have been, and never will be a member. The first sentence of the final paragraph is perhaps important, but there is no mention in this communication of ring-fencing, or even earmarking, with respect to my donation.
Hmmm.
What the bleep bleep is wrong with all our elected MPs & MSP’s that they blindly, even with some, fawningly, accept the SNP HQ’s bull shit on stilts.
The Murrells have spent our money whilst making sure they continue to earn between them circa quarter of a million.
The pair are a couple of control freaks. I can hardly watch Sturgeon anymore when I think of the missing money and how she lied to Parliament and just laughs at the toothless ‘inquiry’ regarding her stitch-up of her former mentor, Mr Salmond.
The Murrells will cost us independence. No wonder they moved heaven & earth to keep Ms Cherry (her natural successor) out of Holyrood.
@Lenny Hartley says:
10 November, 2020 at 4:52 pm
“So with monies which are not going to the branch accounts and the profit from conference they should be able to magic up the needed 550k or so.”
Would that still leave a chunk of money outstanding and unexplained though? I may have misread the figures!
Andrew F,
I assume it is because there is a law that prevents prisoners from making statements – I don’t think I have ever seen a political statement from any prisoner. Can you think of an example?
His dad speaks with him by phone every day. Sometimes I get passed a suggestion as to an angle I might take in my writing. But I have never been asked to carry a statement attributed to Julian. I assume that is because it would be unhelpful to his legal case, or to his conditions within Belmarsh. But I have never asked directly.
Ian: “ I wonder if anyone can explain why Murrell isn’t being investigated by the police?”
The police are unlikely to involve themselves in issues related to accounts. Basically, in corporate law terms, shafting people is not only tolerated, it’s considered good business. Unless of course you do something really mental and obvious, the cops rarely get involved.
There’s still I’d say a good chance the police will look at the Salmond stuff. It’s hard to believe they could possibly just ignore the claims of a conspiracy.
If they do ignore it, I’ll be the first In the queue to vote against independence in any future referendum.
The Chief executive should change his name to Warwick Hunt.
I feel I am living in an episode of the Prisoner and everyday another way out far fetched story develops but happens to be true.
I must have been spiked with LSD by some SNP member who in their blinkered vision thinks the sun shines out of the Murrells erse’s as having a go on FB brings out the hounds with rage that you dare call out Wee Mother Theresa Nic !!
I think someone needs to report a deception or fraud to the Police.
“there’s £900k in ‘prepayments’, note 20, page 27.
but either your readers are disingenuous, or are being mendacious.”
Sigh. We’ve been over this before with all the gullible party loyalists when we broke the story in the first place. Suffice to say it isn’t the explanation. If it was, don’t you think the SNP would have just said so? FFS.
Johnny Beattie show at drivetime was good old BBC!!
They provided the Scottish Government update followed by a number of firms whining about not understanding why they are closed, part closed or otherwise struggling. The government is not being clear!!
If the virus is going to be controlled the BBC has to get on message and tell people to grow up, stay home, were a mask and follow the rules. The BBC is actively making things worse.
Hateyou says: If they do ignore it, I’ll be the first In the queue to vote against independence in any future referendum.
Wow! Is that you showing your true colours? Independence is about FAR more than Alex S or Nicola S, or any of the rest of us. Do you imagine that the UK Govt is pure and innocent?
Anyone remember being sold this shit when they were looking for our support , the grudging way SNP MPs and MSPs including Nicola Sturgeon joined in the marches , oops strike that Nicola Sturgeon has never once joined in a independence march as far as I know unless it was in disguise.
If any of this rubbish that’s been dragged out in the last year was being made public by the MSM I wonder what the approval ratings would be now , Why the usual suspects are not all over this is anybody’s guess , I figure it’s being saved up just like some people in the SNP were saving up evidence to fire at Alex Salmond it needed,
This wasn’t the SNP I was sold in order to continue supporting them , the main thing was going all out and fighting non stop using every opportunity to gain Independence , it seems the main aim the whole point has been forgotten in this popularity contest this management seems to be fixated by
Did the auditors know this was money received as a response to an advertised request for a specific ring-fenced fund?
Is it just me or does reading this feel all to familiar for some reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
Marshall whatever: “ Wow! Is that you showing your true colours? Independence is about FAR more than Alex S or Nicola S, or any of the rest of us. Do you imagine that the UK Govt is pure and innocent?”
You make three stupid points there.
1) yes, I don’t want to live in some corrupt little ulster-like cesspit. I can assure you that’s my true colours.
2) if this is covered up, the implications go way beyond my personal feelings about Alex or Nicola. It would mean the whole political system, the judiciary, police force, media, and civil service was corrupt to the core and the last thing I’d want to do is give them more/real power.
3) No. but colonial rule is impersonal. Westminster is quite content to leave us in peace as long as the oil flows. I’d prefer that to 2 above.
o/t
BBC website a question is being posed ” Will the Vaccine be compulsory ”
Answer don’t even ducking attempt that Fascist Shit ,
Vaccines usually take years to test and develop this one breaks all and every existing record
Surprise Surprise and this amazing scientific breakthrough will be pushed by all and any method by the most accomplished advertising agencies in the world I wouldn’t discount a catchy theme tune along with daily updates praising the wonderful progress and record uptake , the stupid public will be fighting over the right to be first appointments will be traded on E/Bay it will be a Christmas rush with bells on .
People seem to believe this ninth wonder of the world will protect them , sorry folks it won’t , at best it might suppress or alleviate the effects of the Virus it won’t actually stop you contracting it , once they cure the Flu or the Common Cold now that truly would be a breakthrough just now it’s just one of these comfort blankets kids cling to .
An interesting read Dan. Its applicable to Trade unions, political parties and yes, the current SNP!
Impressive investigative work all round, but I’d like to reflect on one other possible outcome of all of this:-
While it’s true that the FM has now been seen, at the very least, to have lied to Parliament and thus broken the ministerial code, isn’t the talk of resignation premature here? I say this insofar as while there may be a vote of no confidence, she may actually survive it, not due to the Greens but by Unionist MSP’s who will have cottoned on to the fact that (as Rev has so eloquently said) keeping power for another term is their best strategy?
@Hatuey,
are you actually saying you would vote NO to Scotland`s independence ?
you would prefer living in `masters` comfy house than the hardships and problems of freedom,
jeezo.
Always remember they finally got Capone on tax evasion….where there’s a will….Oh yeah 🙁
No not just you you Dan.
You have to wonder as to how many people are involved in this. It really has gone beyond a mere resignation issue and is now a matter for the law.
The Murrells are despicable for what they have done to the SNP and I still quite take in the enormity of their betrayal.
Thanks for the video
One of the best.
Oh yeah, and seriously where is the fkn money?
Beaker, yeah but its in the intermingled accounts so they would be be able to magic it up in for example a new line in the accounts as suggested by Murrell. what I am saying is between the money not going to the Branch Accounts and the surplus from Conference they will have the monies available this year to cover the hole. might still leave them a bit short for operating expenses but they can pretend it was there all along. (although the accounts for last year show that is not the case)
Me @ 3.09 pm , Re Harassment and Complaints Committee ,
I’ve previously posted the first part of this ,
Evidence submitted by Alex Salmond ,
Legal firm Levy & McRae, representing the Former First Minister Alex Salmond, submitted documents relating to the Judicial Review for the Committee’s consideration (please note due to the size of this file it may take several minutes to open this document):Documents submitted by Levy & McRae (7,027KB pdf)
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/AS_Documents_(Final_Redactions_02.11.2020_GD_PM)_Redacted.pdf
And this has now been added to the page ,
Levy & McRae also submitted the initial version of the Judicial Review Petition (this document is also contained within the above bundle of documents)Initial version of Petition submitted by Levy & McRae (1.47MB pdf)
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/General%20documents/AS_Initial_Petition_Redacted.pdf
Scot Finlayson says:
10 November, 2020 at 8:18 pm
@Hatuey,
are you actually saying you would vote NO to Scotland`s independence ?
you would prefer living in `masters` comfy house than the hardships and problems of freedom,
jeezo.
——————————————-
Remember that the dog that eats the scraps from the masters table doesn’t have the stomach for rebellion.
MaggieC @9:46
Both links come up Error 406 Client bla bla does not accept the Mimi or summit
@lenny Hartley says:
10 November, 2020 at 9:15 pm
“Beaker, yeah but its in the intermingled accounts so they would be be able to magic it up in for example a new line in the accounts as suggested by Murrell.”
Sounds very much like the creative accounting that was PFI – the ability to put huge amounts of debt off the books for 25 years so it becomes someone else’s problem.
That’s me done. Let me know when there’s something worth voting for.
Other plans are afoot for remainder of ma days.
Adios
Scot: “are you actually saying you would vote NO to Scotland`s independence?”
I could not have been clearer.
A lot of people who would quite naturally vote for independence have concerns. The antics of the scheming schemie has done nothing to assuage those concerns.
Is it going to be a sort of SFA, covering up corruption and the usual Masonic stuff, forcing crap like GRA and Hate Crime Bills on us, whilst robbing us blind through tartan PFI type scams? With more money and more power, are we to simply expect all that on a larger scale?
Sharny Dubs @ 9.55 pm
That’s strange about the links because I’ve just tried them now on my phone and they were fine but here’s the link to the Judicial Review page and you’ll find the documents there ,
https://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/115759.aspx
Sharny Dubs @9:55
Copy and paste the links, they will then open.
Aside from criminality and wrong-doing, it occurs to me that Nicola Sturgeon is completely impotent in terms of defending Scotland and delivering independence. Someone so ineffectual is of no threat to Westminster or the Union. That is why the Unionists are so desperate to keep her in place.
Around 10 years ago Mike Russell also wanted to sell of Scotland’s forests to the Americans…. said it would be cost-effective !!
robert graham says: 7.50 pm
“o/t
BBC website a question is being posed ” Will the Vaccine be compulsory ”
Answer don’t even ducking attempt that Fascist Shit ,
Vaccines usually take years to test and develop this one breaks all and every existing record
Surprise Surprise and this amazing scientific breakthrough will be pushed by all and any method by the most accomplished advertising agencies in the world I wouldn’t discount a catchy theme tune along with daily updates praising the wonderful progress and record uptake , the stupid public will be fighting over the right to be first appointments will be traded on E/Bay it will be a Christmas rush with bells on.
People seem to believe this ninth wonder of the world will protect them , sorry folks it won’t, at best it might suppress or alleviate the effects of the Virus it won’t actually stop you contracting it, once they cure the Flu or the Common Cold now that truly would be a breakthrough just now it’s just one of these comfort blankets kids cling to.”
—————
Sorry, but have you tried reading up what this mRNA research by the company is actually doing. I posted some links yesterday to give folk a small bit of background info as to why this vaccine technology is so very efficient for us.
Perhaps this from the New York Times about the company might help you to be a bit more serious with your comments.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/business/biontech-covid-vaccine.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Thanks for the link, Graf. How poetic that the vaccine was produced by Turkish immigrants to Germany. How doubly painful for Boris and Brexit Britain – they wanted Oxford to be the first to market.
All those immigrants, the people who take to boats to get out of the various hell holes we we created, the masses of impoverished people all over the world, we must wonder how many lost scientists and great artists are among them? How many solutions to the profound problems we face as a species are in all those untapped minds?
Just to re-cap.
Here’s a list of the very serious SNP-related issues/speculations/questions that have arisen, basically in response to queries about the SNP’s lack of interest in campaigning for Independence.
They are written as I remember them, not in any particular order. You may think of others.
1) The SNP has very little money (today’s post)
Has it spent on something else the “ring-fenced” fund that was raised by public donation for indyref2?
2) Why are party officials paid such high salaries?
3) Has the SNP been taken over by a clique with special interests (Gender and Hate Bills), possibly former members of the labour party?
Remember: Conference direction of SNP activities is limited.
After disbanding the National Council, the clique dominates the NEC. It attempts to pilot candidate selection by sidelining Branch organisations.
4) Communications with party officials and members/non-members ranges from poor to non-existent.
5) Do SNP leaders like being big fish in the small Holyrood pond? And don’t want to upset the apple-cart of pay and privilege?
6) The Murrell / Sturgeon leadership is a bad idea because they’re a married couple.
Comment:This particular penny has taken a long time to drop!
7)Continuing fallout from the Alec Salmond affair.
Who framed A Salmond? Did/does FM Sturgeon lie to the Scottish Parliament? Why is the SNP reluctant to supply the documents the Inquiry Commission repeatedly requests? What exactly was the role of certain senior civil servants?
8) Has MI5 infiltrated the SNP, to destroy them from within?
9) Why did the SNP and Lord Advocate interfere in the crowd-funded request for legal clarity on whether the Scottish government could hold an IndyRef without Westminster’s consent?
10) In 6 weeks’ time Scotland will be Brexited, despite voting Remain.
Why did the SNP do nothing to uphold the will of the Scottish people to remain in the EU?
@Maggie
Your links are fine I think 149 pages is a bit of overload for some devices.
Thanks.
Hatuey
🙂 🙂
Can we cure the Cold NOPE
Can we cure the Flu NOPE
Will I Take the wonderful Vacation NOPE
Whoever answered my previous post you take the wonderful vacation if you want Pal in fact have mine fill yer boots ,
The same scientists made the same claim about Thalidomide , check out the damage the Gates Foundation has caused in Nigeria and parts of India with the Measles Vaccine Drug companies make mistakes unfortunately their mistakes are us .
ben madigan says:
10 November, 2020 at 11:32 pm
Just to re-cap….
I would expand your No 10. It is a bigger issue than Brexit, though Brexit is a huge enough issue by itself.
Biggest failure of all the unconstitutional abdication of Scottish Sovereignty, by capitulating to the will of Westminster rather than defending the settled will, democratic mandate, and sovereignty of the people, Sturgeon’s “government” has sold Scotland down the river, and set dangerous precedents which might yet do immeasurable damage to Scotland and permanently compromise Scotland’s capacity to defend it’s interests.
I would put this failure and dereliction of responsibility top of the list. Everything else is ephemeral, but abandoning sovereignty could have permanent repercussions beyond Scotland’s capacity to reverse, and worse, yes worse, than the sell out of 1707, which the principle of Scottish Constitutional Sovereignty survived.
@Chris Downie says:
10 November, 2020 at 8:08 pm
“I say this insofar as while there may be a vote of no confidence, she may actually survive it, not due to the Greens but by Unionist MSP’s who will have cottoned on to the fact that (as Rev has so eloquently said) keeping power for another term is their best strategy?”
Don’t think they would support her. Despite everything who is in the position to replace her? The resulting chaos and lack of strong leadership would suit them fine.
But this is 2020 so anything is bloody possible.
Yes, Ben, fair enough, but I see there’s no mention of the diabolical handling of the pandemic. And it has been diabolical.
It’s convenient to forget that the SNP went along with the “herd” strategy early on. They didn’t like calling it that but they went along with Boris on that and tried to sell it to us.
The strategy was only ditched when it became clear that the NHS was on the brink of collapse and morbidity rates rocketed.
Remember Boris on Breakfast TV talking enthusiastically about letting it spread through the population? The SNP (including Leitch) went along with that. And it did spread, like wildfire, which meant a 3 month lock-down instead of a 4 week lock-down.
Here’s Jason Leitch talking about the “delay phase”. Note that his solution is premised on every single one of us getting the virus and that the only alternative he factors in and is willing to consider is doing nothing; https://news.stv.tv/video/health-chief-explains-goal-of-coronavirus-delay-phase?top
That was the choice back then, according to ScotGov and its experts, do nothing and let thousands die or slow down the rate of infection so that we died in an orderly fashion.
We were terribly prepared for this. PPE stocks were basically non-existent (which is why they tried to tell us back in March that face masks were useless).
Airports and borders were kept open throughout, allowing continual re-infections. If the SNP didn’t have the authority to do anything about that, why not make an issue of it – bolstering the argument for independence in the process?
The data on Scotland speaks for itself. Singapore, for example, has a population of equal size to Scotland (5.6m) yet has had 28 deaths in total. We have around 5,000 deaths (at least).
Then there’s the shambles of Scottish Care homes. Let’s not even go there, it’s too depressing.
I remember a time when the SNP was the Party of Scottish Independence. I remember a time when I was a Party member and even a Branch Organizer way back in the day but now sadly they are just a shower of suited yoon kleptomaniacs looking out for number one. In other words fuckin Tories.
———
Craig Murray says:
10 November, 2020 at 5:47 pm
Andrew F,
I assume it is because there is a law that prevents prisoners from making statements – I don’t think I have ever seen a political statement from any prisoner. Can you think of an example?
His dad speaks with him by phone every day. Sometimes I get passed a suggestion as to an angle I might take in my writing. But I have never been asked to carry a statement attributed to Julian. I assume that is because it would be unhelpful to his legal case, or to his conditions within Belmarsh. But I have never asked directly.
————-
Craig, thank you for responding. But I’d note the following:
There is no law against prisoners communicating or making public statements. For example, Tommy Robinson did a TV interview from Belmarsh.
Until 28th March 2018 Julian was a prolific commentator on many topics and then he was suddenly silenced and his Twitter account taken over. He’s smart enough, and has enough lawyers, to know what he could and could not say regarding the legal proceedings.
There has been plenty of commentary highly critical of the Judge, the legal system and the proceedings (including yours) and nobody has ever suggested THESE might be unhelpful to the case.
I don’t understand, and there has never been a clear explanation apart from speculation, why we supporters outside the inner circle can’t hear directly from Julian.
I believe it would be helpful for his support and also for his wellbeing to have a voice. He complained to Nils Melzer “I do not have a voice”. Well, my point is that there is no good reason WHY he doesn’t.
John Kiriakou wrote many “Letters from Loretto” while he was imprisoned and has spoken about how important it was for him to have that direct voice to the outside world and supporters.
I would really appreciate it if you could use your position and contacts close to the inner circle to delve into this and either get direct word out from Julian or provide a cogent justification for his ongoing gagging.
Thanks once again.
.
ON TOPIC.
For Alex Salmond and friends,
Alec, the current gerrymandered fifth column “leadership” in the SNP have, without authority of ordinary, decent SNP members, taken us all to their McWoke cliff edge and the imminent implosion of all that you gave your poicital life to.
Alec Salmond, here are two legal keys. The first almost secured your imprisonment.
The second may well result in the arrest, caution and charge of those within the small cabal at the centre of this Sturgeonite McWoke clique that is obstructing IndyRef2 and poisoning the core of the SNP.
What differentiates this argument from a Peter Murrell conspiracy? Credentials. I gave service as a police officer and have full legal training to the authority up to and including arrest. Alec, specifically in your own circumstance, I cautioned you and others on this very website prior to the fact…
That fact being to forewarn you the Establishment would attempt to deploy the “Moorov Doctrine” against you. For those unfamiliar, this legal stated case sets a precedent burden of proof to obtain a criminal conviction that is LOWER than the normally required bar of proof “beyond reasonable doubt”.
It was the only viable way the Establishment could stitch up Alex Salmond on the very shaky case Murrell cabal had cobbled together and by their own admission were out to get Alex Salmond.
Now the second key. The one that may be used to trigger the police investigation into the political spin of ring-fenced funds being “woven” into general accounts when there is ample evidence those funds were raised in the prospectus the money was to fight IndyRef2 and would be ringfenced as such. The legal rejoinder for Alex Salmond or others to deploy that corrupted use of the Moorov Doctrine is:-
Theft by clandestine possession.
The person who authored the two missives at the head of this page has done a great service to the people of Scotland.
Either the author of that email or a decent individual on this website may need to dig deep and write a formal complaint to Iain Livingstone, M.A., LL.,B., QPM., Chief Constable, Police Scotland HQ., Tulliallan Castle, Alloa, Fife, FK10 4BE
It would be reasonable to expect Alec Salmond to do the honours. But I suspect Alec still has a lot on his hands with THAT inquiry and the fact he is still recovering from the wounds between his shoulder blades.
Ergo one of us may require to report this suspected larceny. Be in no doubt, the £593,501 in question IS now competent to be a police matter.
Something along the lines of…
————————————–
Mr Iain Livingstone, M.A., LL.,B., QPM.,
Chief Constable,
Police Scotland HQ.,
Tulliallan Castle,
Alloa, Fife,
FK10 4BE.
Dear Mr Livingstone,
Allegation against person or persons unknown in the matter of
The Scottish National Party and an unaccounted “missing” £593,501
I wish to report a suspected/alleged crime. Either:-
A). Theft by false accounting.
B). Fraud.
C). Theft by clandestine possession.>
The matter concerns a public fundraising event where almost half a million pounds was raised from the public on the clear PROSPECTUS that it was: “RINGFENCED” for only one purpose. That was to fund a second Scottish Independence campaign.
I allege these funds were unlawfully removed from that fund and used elsewhere without proper authority. Furthermore, the bulk of those funds have been spent and may be irrecoverable.
Evidence
Production 1: https://tinyurl.com/missingYESfunds1
Production 2: https://tinyurl.com/missingYESfunds2
The second item purports to be from a Mr Peter Murrell in which he confirms the fundraiser of the £593,501 was specifically for a SECOND Independence Referendum.
Peter Murrell goes on to deploy the invidious word that the funds in question are now “woven”. That the £593,501 of funds raised by his organisation specifically for a second Scottish Independence campaign are still available. But just a bit invisible to those who cannot see through what he has “woven”. Mr Murrell directs the SNP and is ultimately in charge of the accounts of the organisation for which he holds the position of Chief Executive Officer.
Mr Livingstone, at the very least, to raise funds for a publicly declared aim of supporting a second Independence campaign is quite different to asking the general public to support your own political party. This is precisely the sort of dodgy practices that led to the extensive police inquiry into the “Westminster Expenses Scandal”. That did not end well for the various MPs and Lords that had to serve custodial sentences in HP Prison for theft.
I believe that the appropriate Police Scotland forensic accounts officers would have difficulty locating the MISSING £593,501 and that the written documents provided by Peter Murrell would constitute at LEAST a police inquiry into an allegation of THEFT BY CLANDESTINE POSSESSION.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am now asking you to investigate this matter and the whereabouts of the missing or “woven” half million pounds raised on a public prospectus that was subsequently gerrymandered with the wording of the fundraising website changed after at least £482,000 had been raised.
In addition, I have a serious concern that the £593,501 has been spent by whoever controls hthe account ina fraudulent manner: on things that many of the donors did NOT donate for.
Mr Livingstone, I would draw your attention to the SNP accounts where the £593,501 should be sitting. Excerpt highlighted on this investigative journalist’s page. Alarmingly, under the financial custodianship of Colin Beattie (treasurer) and Peter Murrell (CEO), MOST of the £593,501 is GONE. The statutory accounts of this organisation require examination by the proper authorities as a larceny appears to have been committed where at least £400,000 has been spent on something other than that for which the initial PROSPECTUS allowed. I draw your attention to “Cash in hand and at bank £96,854″…
Production 3: https://tinyurl.com/missingYESfunds3
I respectfully suggest the proper investigative authorities given the amounts of money involve and MISSING, REQUIRE IT TO BE A MATTER FOR Police Scotland to investigate?
The SNP have repeatedly declared that this fundraiser from their #ScotRef would be, and I quote their leaderships allegedly FALSE prospectus: “All the money raised on the #ScotRef website is ringfencd to fight a future independence referendum”…
Production 4: http://www.archive.is/tce0U
Unfortunately this is a FALSEHHOD leading to a FRAUD. The £593,501 was NOT ringfenced. By Peter Murrell’s own written hand, the money is now “woven” into a different fund, the general income of the SNP. Many thousands of pounds were donated by members of the public who do NOT support the SNP, but who DO support Independence. Ergo those monies were raised under a pecuniary deception.
Therefore, I now formally request you, a chief constable, a solicitor and an officer of the law, to investigate the alleged criminality surrounding the MISSING £593,501?
Production 5: https://archive.vn/bQbSR
If there be any doubt that these funds were for the purposes in the false prospectus, I provide evidence from the organisation’s own ledger systems and attesting to these monies being used for the “Referendum Fund”…
Production 6: https://tinyurl.com/missingYESfunds6
In the circumstances, please reply in writing as I too require an evidential trail should this matter require to be investigated by an organisation above the Police Scotlands purview.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely.
…………………………………..
Signed: The Complainant.
————————————–
This draft letter is here for anyone at WoS and beyond to utilise.
The letter mentioned direct debit payments, and someone suggested credit card claw back.
Now direct debit also has a provision for clawing back payments (those since 2017) which should not have occurred, or are disputed. So the letter writer could trigger that. If a lot of people did likewise, I wonder what effect it would have on the SNP bank balance?
.
To Peter Murrell,
You infer many people are “conspirators and opponents” of the SNP.
I work with FACTS. I investigate cases of theft and obtaining money by deception or other pecuniary advantage by examining FACTS. You published allegations that people like me are “conspirators”. You are self-deluded, nepotistic and plain wrong. Your defamatory and offensive comments are about to come back and haunt you.
Peter, you infer I am an opponent of the SNP. Your assertion is wrong, arrogant and reeks of entitlement.
For many years I supported the SNP with hundreds of hours of my time and thousands of pounds of my money. Many other people support the SNP. Or rather MANY of us support the REAL SNP. Not your McWokeist cabal with your twisted, Orwellian ideology as manifest in the GRA and the Hate Reform Bill.
During the 2007 election one of our publications swung behind the SNP, at no small cost. We lost thousands of Unionist favoring readers. But we helped secured a constituency for the SNP camp in 2007 by persuading a few hundred voters away from the sitting Unionist MSP and into the SNP ballot box. The SNP won that Unionist constituency. On 16th May 2007 Alex Salmond became First Minister with a majority of ONE in the Scottish Parliament over Jack McConnell’s Scottish Labour Party.
This is your problem Peter. You seem to think people like me are the enemy. It is actually people like you that are the enemy of the REAL SNP.
To clarify your calumny Peter, I am an opponent of political gerrymanedering and corruption.
I oppose you and your partner as you have the aroma of rodent about you. Worse, you now have a trail of evidence that seems to lead to actionable malfeasance.
Please do not confuse my support of the REAL SNP with being an opponent.
I support Alex Salmond and I support Scottish Independence.
Peter, your tenure and mismanagement of the SNP by clique is almost at an end.
At this very moment, someone somewhere has spent a couple of thousand pounds in private detective fees JUST IN CASE Police Scotland NEGLECT to do their duty.
Best you and your whole turgid selfish McWoke cabal consider going and go NOW.
There are VERY few alternatives left to you and your fifth column.
It is time for ordinary members of the SNP to reclaim their party and to give you and that Oscar award worthy actress partner of yours, the one who presents the nightly Covid-TV channel your jotters.
Here are a couple of things for mulling over at Breakfast…
First, is Alyn Smith in the National…
https://archive.is/rQ4C6
The second is a quote from the war film, Tora! Tora! Tora!
“ In all my fifty years of public service, I have never seen a document so crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions, on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them.”
It’s a speech attributed to Cordell Hull, but I confess, it’s difficult to differentiate whether it’s a quote from Cordell Hull in the movie script, or whether he actually said the words in real life. The other famous quote from Tora! Tora! Tora! about “waking a slumbering giant and filling him with terrible resolve”, was never said by Admiral Yamamoto… but there is still tremendous poignancy in the words.
Sorry if I’ve spoiled your breakfast.
Al-Stuart says:
11 November, 2020 at 3:26 am
.
To Peter Murrell….
Well said Al-Stuart. I hope you’re serious, although I think you are. Bravo.
I’m going for it and I don’t give a damn!
The Chairman of the English FA appears
To be castigated and pushed out of his job
for making statements the Politically Correct
suggest are offensive?
Before I use the terms, I have family and friends that I love and
Respect dearly.
He used people of colour?
I could see that describing a broad spectrum of people with ancestry from
Africa, India, indigenous Australian, New Zealand, Polynesia, etc, etc.
Because their skin has a healthier tone than white I cannot see any offence
in saying their skin tone has colour? They look good.
He also said that it’s more difficult finding young girls who want to be goal keepers
and again the PC nutters say that’s offensive?
He qualifies it by saying they don’t want to be struck by balls being propelled toward them.
Of course some don’t mind it, of course they must be encouraged and given the opportunity
but in general more boys will find that position enthralling.
It’s the nature of the sexes and any imposed rule.
What I do find offensive is the term Politically Correct.
What politicians like Boris?
A serial adulterer with children to various partners, a man using government money to help
the American Blond business women he was having an affair with.
A man who said he would put Scots in a ghetto and eliminate them,
A man who said Muslim women look like letter boxes, African women have
Watermelon smiles, a man sacked repeatedly for lying and known to break promises like
Others break wind.
What have they done with a man who is definitely not PC, they make him
the Prime Minister.
I’m not having any of this! 2 and 2 makes 4 for me and it doesn’t change for no one!
Effijy,
I feel your pain
£600k.
Nicola’s outfits and hairdo’s for all her tv appearances don’t pay for themselves you know.
Effigy – Our day will come.
Sadly, those of us who believe we are all jock tamson’s bairns and skin colour is just that will have to wait for the demise of the professional grievance mongers.
Its coming yet for all that…..
I think the SNP is about to explode.
For the first time in my life I am thinking of stopping my monthly payments and possibly suing for a return of my payments.
I think “people of colour” is a fatuous piece of American PC-speak in itself. Why not just say, ‘dark-skinned’, or ‘mixed-race’, or ‘of African descent’, if it’s really necessary to differentiate people in that way at all? I loathe the language of euphemism, and the idea that calling things what they actually are is somehow offensive.
@Astonished at 8.08am:
“For the first time in my life I am thinking of stopping my monthly payments and possibly suing for a return of my payments.”
Many of us already have. The last straw for me was the barring of Joanne Cherry for standing for the Edinburgh Central constituency. Blatant gerrymandering, which it’s been suggested contravenes the SNP’s own rules.
Breeks @6.28
Apparent collusion with UK health secretary’s promise to inject hope into peoples arms is another red flag from an ongoing dependence perspective (even short term).
For example the £40 billion cost, that the daily mail claims is on the line (/ being borrowed) to supply and distribute up to 300 million doses of a development drug (if not a prozac laced placebo for last years covid), could easily have financed 40 000 nurses for their entire career.
Breeks @ 6:28
Wasn’t you that spoiled breakfast, but Daddy Bear with his wheesht for Indy pish in the Wee Herald.
No discussion of Plan B due technical constraints, Women’s Pledge/Common Weal-Bad for causing division. Critics, both internal and external, be damned, but isn’t our candidate for Stirling wonderful?
@revstu
Sigh. We’ve been over this before with all the gullible party loyalists when we broke the story in the first place. Suffice to say it isn’t the explanation. If it was, don’t you think the SNP would have just said so? FFS.
I’d understood Murrell said why they specifically didn’t want to highlight it. I agree that seems a bit naive on his part, but could be the case?
However, the substantive issue is whether or not the money is there, surely?
The SNP accounts are absolutely fine, and any aspersions to their integrity is a conspiracy theory which has been debunked.
– once the “mail in”/Postal Accounts had been added to the totals, we find the numbers as expected, with a healthy surplus.
Commandante Murrell has nothing to be guilty of, and I hope he is not too disturbed in his new conservatory hot tub, watching his 85inch Samsung 8K television, by this – the whinings of bourgeois nationalists.
– the SNP’s unflinching support of chicks-with-dicks puts us so far on-the-right-side-of-history as to make Boris Johnson’s position -untenable-
@ Breeks and Robert Knight yes alyn talking about divisions doesn’t half win the Gold irony award , and Al Stuart I do hope someone takes your template to the chief constable, I sent a stinky email to Beatty and received a response that no one of my name had donated and a brush off basically, I tried to find my original bank receipts to stick it to him but cannot find the right one
Oh what a tangled web we weave
When we’ve ‘woven’ through to deceive.