The Lord Of The Rings
John Swinney knows the rules. He can’t pretend he doesn’t.
So let there be no mistake about this: 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 all of the money, Murrell might well 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.
Indeed.
How does that old song go….all together now, sing along with Peter;
“…you don’t get me I’m a servant of the union…”
or something like that….
[with apologies to the Strawbs]
“The song (especially its chorus “You don’t get me I’m part of the Union”) quickly became popular as an unofficial anthem of the trade union movement. Subsequently, the Strawbs have confirmed that the song was written with genuine celebratory intent, in support of the unions.”
I have to laugh at some of your commenters who have dressed this up as a Unionist plot. You lot will be telling us Nowak ran onto the knife next.
Of course it is. The one positive about Sturgeon we can all agree on is that she is highly competent. To get a once transcendent party into it’s current state, and in such a short time, has to be highly orchestrated. No random walk of wrong decisions could possibly have achieved this. I don’t think that we emphasis this point enough.
Thanks rev. for keeping all of this going. I trust you are enjoying this moment as much as I am. It’s far from over yet but you are making things vey hard for the would be complacent power that be.
If we want to be independent, a good start might be taking responsibility for our own behaviour.
We need to own this so we can fix it – not blame everyone else for our own sh*te.
So the British state organised the election of the SNP using a bunch of stooges to ensure it all went wrong. Jeez what a load of cobblers. I should stay off the sauce if I were you.
How about taking some responsibility for you own actions? You lot elected these cretins and kept electing them because you were so blinded by the prospect of independence you forgot to look for the basics like competence. Always happens with single issue parties. You should thank your lucky stars 2014 went as it did or else you wouldn’t even have the tired old trope of blaming the English for the consequences of your own actions.
Sturgeon’s primary ‘enabler’ over many years, and her main supporter as his successor, was Alex Salmond, a very astute political operator deeply suspicious of the British state. Any suggestion that he was an agent of the ‘deep brit nat state’ is palpably absurd.
Her prominence and power were then magnified by the rock star reception that she was given post-2014 by tens of thousands of SNP supporters.
It is all home grown in Scotland.
I’ll just post Kate’s point here Cunt (any cunt calling themselves factchecker is guaranteed to be one).
Kate says:
5 June, 2026 at 2:39 pm
That was why he came back to politics once he saw the behaviour of Herr Sturgeon he realised his mistake, He even spoke about the things that should’ve been done when we were dragged out off the EU, & the lack of enthusiasm in the 2017 election.. The lot that survived lived him have lined their pockets, some stealing peoples money, yet HE who ran a good government,& did more for the people of this country than any UNIONIST party had ever done before him. He Died a poor man.. NOT a wealthy RICH Millionaire like so many who were NOT Millionaires before entering Politics…That in itself tells you who the good ones were & who the truly awful are today..
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.
Alex Stood down and it was an open floor for anyone to take over the party, as it happens no one stood against Sturgeon.
Alex Salmond did not have anything to do with it and anyone who suggest he did, needs their head read.
That was why he came back to politics once he saw the behaviour of Herr Sturgeon he realised his mistake, He even spoke about the things that should’ve been done when we were dragged out off the EU, & the lack of enthusiasm in the 2017 election.. The lot that survived lived him have lined their pockets, some stealing peoples money, yet HE who ran a good government,& did more for the people of this country than any UNIONIST party had ever done before him. He Died a poor man.. NOT a wealthy RICH Millionaire like so many who were NOT Millionaires before entering Politics…That in itself tells you who the good ones were & who the truly awful are today..
Loney;
That right, aye?
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.
Mr. Beggan, what is your explanation for, firstly, the conduct of electors who support the SNP, secondly, conduct of Scottish Govt. personnel (elected and appointed), thirdly, cinduct of most of the news media in Scotland, all having acted to bring about the circumstances now exposed?
Do you hope that full exposure of the full facts of the Salmond prosecution are exposed?
Do you rule out the possibility that factors mentioned by Alf Baird and Northcode could have played a part in creating this situation?
The analysis made/reported by Alf, Northcode and others does offer explanation of why some people will not acknowledge the possibility mentioned above.
“…Blind denial in the face of reality.”
Indeed… I couldn’t put it better myself – well, actually I could (in both English and Scots), but it would be a waste of words.
No change there then.
All countries are prone to corruption, God knows as an Englishman I am aware of this. Why would Scotland be any different? The backroom deals of a powerful but murky elite and routine covering up of stuff, the sectarianism lurking in the shadows seems to have a peculiarly Scottish character to it looking on from down south
Why has this happened now? I would say the devolved situation does have something to do with it though I think the colonial explanation is, at best, a deflection.
The SNP has been in power for 20 years, they keep getting voted back with considerably the largest vote share, yet their core aim of independence is going nowhere and at best the country is divided 50/50 on the question. This has led to an impasse, a limbo-land, but with an apparent mandate – but for what?
At the same time the SNP is responsible for running the country and despite the devolved arrangement does have considerable powers to raise and spend a lot of money and enact various policies independent of Westminster. This is a further contradiction / conundrum as being a successful nationalist government in domestic everyday matters can lead to opposite conclusions – devolution is working well / Scotland is ready for independence.
But there is no current mechanism to determine / enable that independence, and that is known by all – politicians and voters.
All of that means dysfunctional stasis that can only increase and what inevitably comes with that is a sense of complacency, a centralisation of power and a desire to keep it no matter what, a loss of sight of the core aim / performative lip-service to it, and thus ultimately, corruption.
You’re overlooking tribalism. It intersects to some extent with the sectarian divide, but it’s not an exact match. Our Scottish tribalism ensures that however badly our tribe behaves or performs, most of us will continue to support it.
Because the alternative is unthinkable to the committed tribalist – victory for the other tribe.
And then there’s the ingrained victim hood, the certainty they’re all agin us. That warped world view excuses the low expectations we see elsewhere when the losing mind set ensures failure from the get go. Like the ANC in South Africa and the tunnel skulking ham ass boys. And now in Scotland.
Last but not least, there’s our long history of colonialist expansion into other people’s countries. Regardless of what caused that, there can be no doubt that if you drain a small population of its best, brightest and most ambitious over generations, what remains is unlikely to be hoaching with high achievers.
I believe that any one of these national impediments could be overcome, but working together, they present a formidable barrier to our ability to survive and prosper as an independent nation.
Hence the surrender presented as the solution by the SNP and gladly accepted by the tribe, the victims, and the aspirationally bereft. The oxymoron of “Independence In Europe”.
Yes I daresay these are aspects one would have more of a handle on from growing up and living in Scotland. Many of them are also true in England but perhaps less so – we have the much more embedded class system of ‘tribes’ but politically that can actually be quite fluid. The victimhood is obviously not there, in terms of the union anyway – we have no-one to blame except, generally erroneously, the usual ‘other’ and this type of victimhood also crosses right over politics from ultra-woke whinging to the total opposite; identity politics infests hard left and hard right.
The SNP is (or has become) above all a political party and no longer just a vehicle for independence after which its job is done. But like all political parties in any democracy, after a while in power it all goes very stale and they can bomb badly at the polls. Rarely does this mean the extinction that is predicted, not for big parties anyway. Time out of office, of a decade or even more allows a come-back but it cannot happen whilst, somehow, still being in power (think Major in 1992 – the worst win the Tories ever had). The current weird jostling between the Tories and Reform in England where somehow Badenoch has stared to look reasonable, the Tories not quite as dead as some might think, despite the rise of Reform. It is not impossible to imagine Reform crashing and burning under the weight of their own incompetence (and oddly, sense of victimhood), the old Tory establishment waiting in the wings.
Is there any other serious party vehicle for independence? No. There seems no appetite for that. Can the SNP deliver from here? No, obviosuly. But people keep voting for them. It seems like the reasons for that are tied up with the analysis you give plus the genuine worry that the end of the SNP literally means the end of the dream of independence.
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
Colony; Government whose powers are defined exclusively by a foreign nation.
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.
I left the SNP in 2019, having become sickened by what it had become under Sturgeon. It had become a party of suspicion and scheming. Mirroring Sturgeon’s own nasty personality.
I suspect that the ringfenced money is only the tip of the iceberg. I think that millions are involved and that others apart from Murrell have been taking money from the Scottish people. There have been so many projects that have gone badly wrong that there has been plenty of scope for criminality.
I hate to say it, but I think the best chance of getting to the bottom of this is to involve Westminster. Clearly, none of our institutions can be trusted.
Neither can Westminster. For all we know they had a hand in it. The Salmond plot was well orchestrated. Murrell was allegedly hounding the police to get a move on and charge Salmond. We now know Murrel is a crook but it would have taken more than him.
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.
If Murrell can afford to pay the money back, and with a pension pot like that, he can afford to pay his own legal costs. Utterly ridiculous.
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.
Precisely.
It’s illogical to subscribe to the “If their mouth is open, then they’re lying” school of thought yet still expect a politician to be prosecuted for lying.
The latest poll (Norstat, May 29) has the SNP support holding firm at 34% (UK Parliament voting intentions). SNP support is even UP a bit from the last Norstat poll.
In essence, voters don’t seem to care enough about the fraud to vote the SNP out.
If COPFS refuses to investigate, the question becomes whether the Lord Advocate can credibly claim the matter doesn’t meet the threshold —Hint She can’t do that credibly,
given Swinney’s public admission, the documented solicitations, and the specific legal citations.
It would look less like prosecutorial discretion and more like protection.
That is exactly the territory where JR becomes genuinely dangerous to the establishment.
Last JR I funded was Alex Salmond against Nicola. I will support this one too
Gonnae use a Ringfenced crowdfunder if needed. Ironic if you need one to get her in court.
The disgraceful argument that everything they do is aimed at achieving an independence referendum, and therefore they could/can legitimately spend the indyref fund on anything they like, is not an argument that is likely to hold up in court. Everybody knows that’s a feeble argument and I have no idea why they keep regurgitating it.
On that basis, I anticipate they will move on to a new argument along the lines of ‘we will produce the funds when/if we secure an independence referendum’ which of course could only be falsified if a section 30 was granted, etc. And that is, legally speaking, a slightly better argument, even if it leaves open the question of where the ring-fenced money is right now.
As for the topic here and the likelihood of the police opening a new investigation, of course they will.
Just remember that police investigations for the SNP have always served as a sort of sanctuary that allows them to put thorny issues on the back-burner, often for years; so, get ready for that tired old line, ‘we can’t comment on an ongoing police investigation…’
And a police investigation is a better solution for the SNP than any sort of Holyrood inquiry, for other obvious reasons. Police Scotland is basically a tyranny with one head which is a lot easier to ‘influence’ than a cross party inquiry and the many people that would take part in that kind of investigation.
The big added bonus of a police investigation is that it would effectively put major limits on what the general public (and Wings) can say on the subject, and that must be a top priority for them right now, probably the highest priority of all.
For all those reasons, a new police investigation is to be expected.
They know perfectly well they couldn’t legitimately spend the indyref fund on anything they liked.
When I requested the return of 2 donations, the criterion for refusing refund of one of them was that they had spent the money correctly (I had asked for it back to see whether they could identify its purpose from their records since the receipt didn’t mention it). So if they could spend the other one (for ref.scot) on anything they fancied, they should also have refused to refund that using the same criterion.
I got my money back. They were thus admitting they hadn’t spent it correctly, though at that stage they were still pretending it was hiding somewhere.
Interesting that you should cite the Lockerbie case. When I began to look at that I genuinely believed that if it could be proved that the bomb was in the suitcase John Bedford saw at Heathrow, then the legal system would recognise this, recognise its implications for Megrahi’s conviction, and sort itself out. The difficult part, I thought, was proving that the bomb had been in that suitcase.
I know better now. I proved that the bomb was in that suitcase, and all I’ve had is the runaround. The latest move (SCCRC in 2020) was to say that that indeed, if my theory was correct (it is!), that would be fatal for the Crown case. But since the evidence on which I base my conclusions was all before the original trial, that’s essentially irrelevant. You need new evidence to challenge a conviction.
Then they went on to say that in any case, they know something I don’t know, which means that it’s not *absolutely certain* that the bomb was in Bedford’s suitcase. But they’re not going to tell anyone what that is. So go away, annoying person.
I am now completely and utterly cynical. I believe that if someone were to find a long-lost CCTV film of a terrorist putting that suitcase in the luggage container while Bedford was off on his tea break, they’d find some platitude to justify setting it aside. Nothing is to be allowed to disturb the official narrative that Megrahi did it in the airport in Malta. And to hell with actual verifiable truth.
That’s the country we’re living in.
The SNP have become a very corrupt political party. This did not happen by accident!! MI5 will have played a huge part in the downfall of a once honourable political party. All since Sturgeon took over.
MI5 will protect those who corrupted the SNP. A warning shot to the conspirators is that they can make or break at a whim, Imprison indefinately, or, ensure at the very least a lenient sentence with huge wealth at the end of it. All pain for by the way, by the very people who donated to see Scottish Independance!
The brit security forces will be very pleased with their work! Discredit an independence party, have the people loose confidence in the SNP and put Scotlands independence on the back burner. All this whilst the british state syphon of our resources and continue to ingrain the colonial mind set.
Those SNP supporters who continue to support these criminals are almost beyond contempt!
I’m sure that MI5 will employ psychiatrists who check out any up and coming politicians. They must have been rubbing their hands with glee when Sturgeon came along. A wrecking ball indeed.
When she wants something she has to have it? Any obstructions to her getting what she wants will be removed? Others were tasked with signing for it, the getting of it? No Sturgeon signature, no notes or minutes and where evidence did exist and began to surface the Others stepped in to provide protection? If we knew then what we know now we would have expected nothing less from her. We ken noo I suppose.
While reading the articles and comments this week that mentioned Peter Murrells spending.
I was wondering who commissioned and paid for the painting of Nicola Sturgeon in Bute House and where will it be put?
I was wanting it myself but I guess you beat me to it.
We need to stop blaming MI5, the British State etc. The SNP is full of people. People are fallible. People are weak. People respond to incentives. Holyrood clearly hasn’t been created with sufficient institutional safeguards – second chamber etc – to keep law sensible. The Scottish State’s functionality – sitting minister as head of law etc – needed a calm-headed commentariat & political parties willing to push for changes to it. Instead, tons of pro-Indy people bought the Salmond lie, because it was socially incentivised to do so. Instead, we have Peat Worrier moving from one of the finest, most clear-sighted Scottish bloggers of the pre-2015 era to trying his best not to say anything about anything. Why? Because it became socially incentivised to do so. Now the woke moment is ebbing, people are left looking at the mess left from the total abdication of responsibility from so many. But it’s ordinary people who are answerable for it. It’s the cowardice, not the conspiracy, that got us here.
“We need to stop blaming MI5, the British state, etc”
Crivens! Steep learning curve ahead!
I didn’t say the British state hasn’t had a role to play, Hatey Mc. I said “It’s the cowardice, not the conspiracy, that got us here.” Put another way, if one is willing to going to go up against the British state, one needs to be willing to question openly, to hold opinions that might lose them dinner invitations in the short term, &, crucially, to be critical of one’s own side. The Irish Parliamentary Party never achieved Irish home rule (on the ground), let alone independence. They suffered state chicanery, confected sex-scandals etc but it was becoming a nest of competing egos & compromised bench warmers that finished them off in the eyes of the public.
I take your point Lewis E. and man do I hope you are right that the woke period is coming to a close. A fucking chancers charter if ever their was one. If we weren’t living under a pretty dominant ideology amongst the ruling class – Self interest, the individual rather than the collective good – it would have been seen off for the corrupt nonsense it is. Extreme economic self interest where money inevitably flows up from rich to poor, from the powerless to the powerful suits the political class and their parasites. They benefit from it. They grab onto that which is being handed down to them, the US woke shite because they think it makes them look good. They can steal their wages and more from us as long as they hand out Scotland’s property for coppers.
In elite circles (if you can describe Scotland’s ruling class as elite) the woke shite seems well established, some are like rabid dugs after it! It is causing problems everywhere some that can’t be solved. This is the worst cultural change I have seen in Scotland in my 50odd yrs. I hope you are right.
Thank you, you’ve just said exactly what I was about to try and put into words.
When I lived in Scotland, the Scottish Nationalists were often the meanest, most dishonourable people I met, the kind of people who claw their way up to the top of the greasiest pole.
Scotland doesn’t deserve any of this, but until politicians of a higher calibre are elected, Scotland is stuck with the current bunch of weirdo psychopaths, voted in by the unthinking masses.
Where are intelligent, clear-thinking candidates going to come from though, now the once incomparable education system is in the pits?
Oh fuck off. Scottish nationalists were the first in line to be shafted here you twat.
I repeat my suggestion of yesterday to all btl commenters: send an email to John.Swinney.msp@parliament.scot. Say as much or as little as you like. He won’t see it but the message will be seen by his staff. A flood of disapproval will perhaps start a weakening in the dyke.
My brief email was on the grounds that this was the only Scottish government to be found in Contempt of Court. Since we voters have no power to punish politicians for their errors, I said that I must rely on him to step down.
It is also a good idea to email your constituency MSP, whatever their party, and all your SNP MSPs.
I’ll give it a go Sarah.
@ GM: I hope that you won’t be the only one! 🙂
‘A flood of disapproval will perhaps start a weakening in the dyke.’
Really, Sarah?
How dare you!
That’s no way to talk about our former First Minister.
Did you ever see the film, ‘The Music of Chance?’ based on the story the late by Paul Auster (well dated now). Well in it, let’s just say, there are other forces at play, unseen by the protagonists but evident nonetheless. And that’s what I know exists in this aptly-named, ‘best ‘wee’ corrupt country in the world’. Sure, it’s a pantomime we have to suffer, this artifice of a sham democracy in this colonial outpost of Freedonia, but who knows, them that really govern darn sarf in the imperialist gaming rooms may decide to have just a little blood-letting and throw some minor player to the judiciary to satisfy the barbarians and maintain the illusion of order. And if not, what can the barbarians do? Nothing. Nothing at all, really. And those dupes in that counting house can just keep coining their pensions. So no need to get excited, folks. Business as usual.
Of course it is. The one positive about Sturgeon we can all agree on is that she is highly competent. To get a once transcendent party into it’s current state, and in such a short time, has to be highly orchestrated. No random walk of wrong decisions could possibly have achieved this. I don’t think that we emphasis this point enough.
Thanks rev. for keeping all of this going. I trust you are enjoying this moment as much as I am. It’s far from over yet but you are making things vey hard for the would be complacent power that be.
Keep the pressure up, Rev! Anything from the police yet?
Next HR election is 2031, so I’d give it until 2032.
Putting my flippancy to one side for a moment, a mature Scottish democracy would be by now insisting that the last HR election, 5 weeks ago, be declared null and void and re-run.
With all we have learned since then, with the obvious conclusion that the Murrell trial was deliberately delayed until the election was over, and with all the criminality, corruption and malfeasance that’s going to be drip fed in the coming months and years, seriously, what legitimacy does the shower at HR have to be telling us what to do for the next 5 years?
What other country in the entire world wouldn’t have furious protesters on the streets by now?
I’m in the mood for a dash of melodrama.
And so this:
We are witness to the very last days of a once great empire about to lose its last great possession.
“The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.” – James Baldwin (1924-1987) American writer and civil rights activist.
When the colonisation of Scotland finally comes to an end, and it will, folk will feel it differently.
The old will feel it as a kind of sorrow. They’ll retreat into memory, become storytellers, keepers of a truth the world no longer wants to hear. Some will fade. Some will endure. But all of them will feel the ground shift beneath their feet.
They will feel displacement, mourning, alienation and exhaustion… I know I will.
The young will crackle with restless energy. Rebellion in their blood. Ready to tear down the old scaffolding and build something new in its place.
They will feel exhilaration, confusion, possibility and instability… the lucky wee bastards.
But what of those who profited from Scotland’s subjugation and the suffering of her people?
I suspect they’ll feel panic, resentment, entitlement and a sense of cosmic injustice.
They’ll see the end of their colony as theft — Scotland will take back what they believed was theirs and they’ll rage. They’ll hoard. They’ll flee. They’ll bargain..
Because for them, the collapse won’t be a liberation… it’ll be the bill finally coming due.
“in the mood for a dash of melodrama”
Dinna dae it, Northy!
Either neat, or with some cold (not chilled) water.
It’s an abomination tae treat yer dram ony ither way.
(TBQFH, some whiners are so used to diluting their drams with their own warm, salt tears, it’s unkind and ultimately futile to try to change that)
Anyone who contributed to these indyref fundraisers should, in writing, demand a full refund within 28 days. Keep the demand and any refusal letter as evidence.
Could there be a civil class action / Group Proceedings for recovery of the indyref as it would save lots of people conducting individual legal actions against the SNP for recovery of money?
Sarah above posted Swinney email send your request for a refund.
Good to see that Sturgeon has gone quiet this week after her terrible performance on Laura Kuenssberg show last Sunday.
Apparently she was due at 2 book events this week but pulled out of them 🙂
Where were they to be held?
She’s probably spending some time with Pete…
Could donors to the ‘ring fenced fund’ use the small claims Courts to get it back?
David Brackenbury says:
5 June, 2026 at 4:27 pm
“The one positive about Sturgeon we can all agree on is that she is highly competent. “
==============
She is indeed a highly competent performer in this age of performative politicians .
Over the past half-century you have to look overseas to find her equals or betters
in that respect. Think Reagan, Clinton, Obama, Trump in the US; in Europe Berlusconi, Merkel, Zelensky or even de Gaulle. Most, if not all of these, were crooks and some were real achievers. In England, the nearest is Blair. All of them, whatever their character, were polished political performers, popular with their domestic voters .
As a political performer, Sturgeon at her peak was really in that big league– and better than Blair and certainly her Downing Street Covid contemporary, BoJo The Clown whose presentational bumbling created the fiction of Sturgeon competence.
Pity she was such a monumental non-achiever who trashed the legacy of her predecessor and seriously damaged the country her party was dedicated to advancing to self government.
My worst fears coming to fruition.
Swinney as corrupt as Sturgeon and both assets of Englidh state.
Our police system at the top controlled by English unionist deep state people. A clean out needed.
We need a true rebuild like Ireland had when it adopted Sein Fein instead of Irish Republican party.
If we don’t Independence is finished
It’s frustrating to see this level of inaction. The public deserves to know what happened with that money.