The Lord Of The Rings
John Swinney knows the rules. He can’t pretend he doesn’t.
So let there be no mistake: if Police Scotland and the Crown Office refuse to investigate the First Minister’s open public confirmation this week that a serious crime was committed by the SNP over the “ring-fenced” fundraiser money from 2017 and 2019, it will be beyond any fair dispute that Scotland is a corrupt banana republic where the powerful and the elite can simply do whatever they want, as brazenly as they like, and the law will turn a blind, uncaring eye.
That the prosecutorial service of a nation is run by a government minister answerable to a political party leader has always been a source of embarrassment. It makes Scotland look like a tinpot dictatorship, a joke state where a vast, elaborate artifice of pantomime is constructed to disguise the fact that the country is a naked plutocracy.
The dangers are self-evident, but rarely have any leaders in such situations been so crass as to actually demonstrate them with such stark and shameless clarity by freely admitting to serious crimes, in complete confidence they won’t be held accountable.
That’s an opinion increasingly widely shared in Scotland.
That editorial leader from today’s Scottish Sun is speaking for every single person of integrity and decency left in the country. We have prima facie evidence that a crime has been committed – the misappropriation (at a minimum) of well over half a million pounds. We know exactly who did it, and they’ve confessed unambiguously and openly in public, in front of news cameras. Multiple properly-constituted complaints have been filed. And yet despite a five-year investigation, nobody has been prosecuted for it and we haven’t even been given the most cursory explanation of why.
And there are growing suspicions too, that the one person who WAS convicted – over an entirely separate crime which indirectly led from the investigation – might be about to be let off incredibly leniently for it.
Natalie McGarry was sentenced to almost two years in prison for embezzling £25,000. If Peter Murrell is handed a shorter prison term (or even no prison term at all) later this month – with the nation helpfully distracted by Scotland’s World Cup campaign – for stealing more than EIGHTEEN TIMES as much as McGarry did, on the grounds that he’s paid back the money to the people who also committed a crime with it, it will be a scandal of unprecented proportions in the history of Scottish justice, save perhaps the case of the Lockerbie bomber.
It was revealed this week that Murrell’s assets include a £613,000 pension fund. It is entirely conceivable that Murrell’s embezzlement contributed significantly to the size of that fund, which will have earned a very significant sum in interest over the years that he was stealing large amounts.
So by the time you also factor in the selling of all his illegally-obtained trinkets, it’s within the bounds of possibility that even after paying back the money, Murrell will come out of his crimes financially ahead. The SNP, meanwhile, will have been fully reimbursed for its losses and will be the happy recipient of a welcome and substantial unexpected boost to its threadbare coffers.
Unlike Alex Salmond – who Murrell conspired to imprison on false allegations, was found innocent on all charges but left financially ruined by the £500,000 cost of his defence – Murrell won’t even be out of pocket on legal fees. We all paid those for him.
The only people who will have lost out will be the people, supporters of all parties and none, who donated to a fund that was specifically, explicitly, stridently – and criminally – advertised as being for Scottish independence and NOT for general SNP purposes, and instead saw it spent on the latter.
And ever-useless, the Scottish media is allowing Swinney to dodge that issue and focus solely on donations from SNP members – the only donors to the “ring-fenced” funds who might reasonably be imagined to accept the money being spent on broader SNP interests.
(Coincidentally, a study today revealed that less than half of 2014 Yes voters voted SNP at last month’s election, with a whopping 31% of them voting for Unionist parties. “The SNP” and “independence” are not synonyms.)
Operation Branchform made front-page headlines across the globe, so it’s probably not an exaggeration to say that the world is watching to see the outcome of the new complaint lodged with Police Scotland and the Crown Office yesterday.
If there is to be no rule of law for the powerful in Scotland, if we are to be revealed as the only bent dictatorship in the world where the idiot population keeps voting for the crooked dictators of their own genuine free will, then that is something that the rest of the planet will notice, and then turn their faces away from the circus of our shame.
Nothing will convince me otherwise that the mess now in the SNP was orchestrated by the deep brit nat state. They enabled sturgeaon to rise to prominance and power, and she was only too willing to betray for the price of wealth and power.
Thank Heavans for wings and the work STU does. Without him, this would all go unreported.
You’re not a fan of Occam’s razor, are you?
It would appear The Sun is doing their bit, but Yes the man does deserve a lot of credit I’d like to see The Sun and Wings work on this.
If nobody (at the SNP) is charged for the open and shut case of a fraud crime and the convicted perpetrator of the embezzlement crime then we can amend House Jock McConnell’s tagline from 20 years ago thus:
Scotland: the best small corrupt country in the World
The record for 400K is 13 months.
“the country is a naked plutocracy”
Its even worse that that, Rev, for Scotland has all the features of a colony, including a colonial justice system that always protects the interests of the colonizer:
link to salvo.scot
colonizer and collaborators.
It’s starting to look very much like “the salary has to be seen to come down but we will sort you out with extra pension contributions secretly” has been a conversation.
We also have a HUGE problem with so called Indy bloggers and reporters claiming to hold the moral ground and wanting Independence and yet have decided to misinform rather inform the true nature of the SNP.
Its upsetting to watch crooks claim to be fighting for Scottish Independence, when all they are doing is preventing it for their own ends.
I have no idea why people go out and buy the national newspaper, which in the last 12yrs has done fuck all for Scotland or the cause of Independence. The paper belong to the SNP and we all know the SNP is a unionist party who are prepared to steal money from Independence supporters to maintain the status quo with England.
I posted a video Sean Clerkin speaking to a well informed individual who asked really good question and allowed Sean Clerkin reply.
As far as I’m aware Sean Clerkin and other are not going to let this matter drop. The video has been posted again please take a look its worth the watch.
Stuart you once stated you where going to start doing streaming videos on a regular basis. I really do believe this is essential and would enhance our cause to get the message out their to a different audience. If its a matter of money just ask and it’ll be there.
youtube.com/watch?v=Cip6_O6oLQU
Its a panto and let’s be honest the hero of SNP supporters Salmond groomed the Sturgeon monster to be his replacement so he can take blame as well
The fact Salmond paid for that mistake more than any other person in Scotland, died penniless and with his reputation in tatters probably absolves him in terms of intent. If he had known she was a psychopath and a compulsive liar he wouldn’t have gone along with her being his replacement.
Scotland is no longer the country we would like to think it is.
I made a cup of tea in anticipation of reading this.
I don’t really feel like drinking it anymore.
The last paragraph sums up exactly what will happen: there will be no rule of law for the powerful (I think Murrell will wear a tag for 12 months and nothing more, we will have to foot his legal bill), we will be revealed as a bent dictatorship (plutocracy), idiots will indeed continue to vote for these crooks and the world will look on with raised eyebrows and a mixture of astonishment and pity.
Is there a way of a ref-fund donor making representations to the court to prevent Murrell paying monies to the SNP that likely do not belong to it?
The corruption of the SNP is the direct result of a foreign power’s long-term activities designed to capture the ‘rallying point’ of Scotland’s independence movement and in doing so stall the movement.
The abuse of entrusted power for personal or private gain, often undermining ethical standards, transparency, and institutional integrity is the natural outcome – possibly encouraged, or facilitated, or at the least ignored by Westminster – of placing poor quality, low intellect, criminally minded individuals at the top of Scotland’s government and public institutions.
Individuals who have been told, or led to believe, they are under the protection of a ‘higher power’ than Scotland’s own compromised judiciary or, indeed, the bewildered Scottish people.
Westminster, and the trap of devolved government, sits at the root of everything that is wrong with Scotland.
Scotland is not a plutocracy.
Scotland is not a banana republic.
Scotland is a prisoner of imperial England, a non-self-governing illegally annexed territory, the possession of a foreign power.
Scotland is a colony.
That’s the way Northy. Blind denial in the face of reality.
You have the makings of a good jihadist.
Scotland a plutocracy? Well yes, but then Scotland isn’t short of words that could be used to describe its system of government. A quick google gives plenty of examples –
Pathocracy: Government by a ruling elite made up of individuals with severe personality disorders (such as psychopathy and narcissism) who lack empathy, remorse, or moral conscience.
Kakistocracy: Government by the worst, least qualified, or most unprincipled citizens.
Kleptocracy: Government by those who steal and embezzle state funds.
Oligarchy: Government by a small, well connected self-serving wealthy elite
Puppet State: Government that is partially independent but largely controlled by an outside power.
All of them fit
Clip of KIM LANE SCHEPPELE addressing constitutional challenges for Hungary’s new prime minister PETER MAGYAR since taking over from autocrat VIKTOR ORBÁN:
“A SWAMP FULL OF ALLIGATORS”
link to youtube.com
This reeks of coloniser influence through corrupt wannabe politicians in the SNP.
I knew from 2019 when I left that party as a member there was something rotten, only now thanks to Stu is more of the truth becoming known.
Just wondering, as the items that were taken off the list of goods were mostly items that would suit a woman, were they ordered by NS and paid for by the SNP account?
Maybe that is why the police wanted to charge her.
Sadly, in the UK, politicians are able to tell blatant political lies with relative impunity. The Boris Johnson (lies on the Brexit bus) and Alistair Carmichael (leaks concerning Sturgeon) cases proved this beyond any reasonable doubt. Courts don’t like intervening in politics and take the view that the remedy should be decided by voters at the ballot box. I would be very surprised if action is taken against the SNP for misappropriation of the supposedly ring-fenced fundraiser cash.