The value of nothing
The most recent insult handed down by the smirking, sneering Permanent Secretary To The Scottish Government to the people of Scotland, who she ostensibly works for and who pay her enormous salary (she gets more than either Nicola Sturgeon or Boris Johnson, and who knows, possibly even slightly more than Peter Murrell), is a crass and dismissive one even by her extraordinary standards.
The Woman Who Remembers Nothing, having asked for some time to think about it, concluded that there was simply no way to estimate the total cost to the public purse of the biased and unlawful fiasco she presided over regarding the investigation of false abuse claims against Alex Salmond, and which had cost taxpayers over half a million pounds in Mr Salmond’s legal fees alone.
Her argument was that because government employees are paid fixed salaries and don’t record how much of their time they spent on specific tasks, there was no way to estimate how much had been spent on the attempt to fit up the former First Minister.
But that isn’t how anything works these days, is it?
Because the Scottish Government, just like everyone else, in fact constantly attaches pretty specific costs to just about everything under the sun, no matter how difficult in reality those costs would seem to be to work out.
We know (or are told) that the cost of treating obesity and obesity-related conditions, for example, costs the Scottish health service between £363m and £600m a year, with the total cost to the economy up to eight times higher.
Which is strange, because doctors and nurses get paid fixed salaries and don’t record how much time they spend treating fat people, or to what degree someone’s fatness affects any other health issues they may have.
And we’re confidently assured by the Scottish Government that Brexit will cost the Scottish economy the very specific sum of £9bn, even though we still have no idea what Brexit is going to look like and whether there’s going to be a deal or not.
We’re told that policing football matches in Scotland costs around £2m a year, even though police get fixed salaries and football matches are a normal part of their duties that they don’t get paid separately for.
We somehow know that the value of Gaelic to the Scottish economy is between £82m and £149m a year, although there is in fact no conceivable way of directly attributing almost any economic activity (other than teaching it) to the presence of the language.
We “know” that mental health problems cost the Scottish economy almost £11bn a year even though, yet again, there is no meaningful way to accurately attribute a financial cost to such a broad and nebulous concept, or to determine how much of a contributing factor it might be in other illnesses.
And we’re informed that “gender inequality” costs the Scottish economy a breathtaking £17bn a year, in largely unspecified ways.
And so on and so forth. We live in a world where anything and everything has a price ticket attached for the sake of punchy headlines, and yet the relatively straightforward matter of estimating how many person-hours were spent on cooking up and enacting a legislative process designed to frame one man is apparently completely impossible to unpick, even though every civil servant involved – except Leslie Evans, it seems – kept notes and diaries of what they were doing and when, and even though lawyers are the one category of workers who DO bill for specific hours spent on specific tasks.
It’s almost as if Ms Evans knows she’s bulletproof and can treat the inquiry with total contempt, certain that the First Minister – pretty much the only human in Scotland who thinks Evans is still up to the job – won’t sack her no matter what.
We can understand why readers might wonder what the reason for that could be.
Aye, we know why
With their power grab, Internal Market Bill, breaking international law etc., its almost as if the Westminster Tories know they can act with impunity, with no consequential reaction from Scotland to their actions.
Why is it they feel so confident that there will not be resistance to what they are doing?
Do they have solid intelligence that tells them there is nothing beyond more S30 requests and whinging on Twitter?
Do they have a compromised agent in a senior position that they believe can ensure there will be no reaction?
“But, Ms Evans, what of the people?”
“Let them eat cake!”
It’s also worth noting that, in her written evidence to the committee (which had to be requested when she failed to remember this, that and whatever else) the links she provides contain frequent rejections of FOI requests because answering the question ‘would cost more than £600’.
Wonder how many working hours she (or likes of yer Mr Wolfe) has to put in to earn that much?
I wonder how accountants, lawyers, market researchers, private hospitals, private medical consultants and others who live by way of invoices manage to survive.
Wonder how the Inland Revenue and Vat Man decides what you have dodged or underpaid.
The Civil Service has its formulae
When are the SNP going to wise up and learn from the most Duplicitous Establishment in the History of the World.
Thry think they are above scrutiny, just look at the contracts handed out to Tory chums over PPE !!
Why don’t they give a PPE to the newly formed WOS Face mask Company and that way the Indy fight can be funded
PPE Contract to the ISP Face masks Company etc etc.
If we want to win the fight we have to fight on same terms, you wouldn’t put a Flyweight up against Tyson Fury yet the SNP do this every day.
This is another reason we won’t win Indy wiyh them if we can’t even fight this case properly. The SG is too wee, too weak and to small minded to fight WM
I say bollocks to ‘don’t record how much of their time they spent on specific tasks’ as there is a project management system and (some?) staff have to allocate time spent on projects – but even if not all staff allocate time spent on projects, it is possible to retrospectively calculate this as at the end of the staff reporting year. Staff costs are known as there is (or should be) a formula based on salary (raw costs) times an overhead raising factor to give the true costs.
My first job in analysis was manpower accounting.
I’m not a budget specialist, but every employee has a cost attached to them, including factors such as base salary, sickness, leave, clothing, heating etc.
You can make a reasonably accurate estimate for a specific task. For example, if you spent half a day for a week, then that would be estimated at 17.5 hours (assuming 37.5 hour week). Multiply that by your employee cost (not their salary) and that will give a reasonable figure as a baseline. You then add in any additional costs as required. It’s not rocket science.
“pretty much the only human in Scotland who thinks Evans is still up to the job – won’t sack her no matter what.
We can understand why readers might wonder what the reason for that could be.”
Obviously Nicola Sturgeon can’t sack Leslie Evans because Evans knows too much about certain matters. For the same reason Sturgeon can’t go for independence. Her controller wouldn’t like it. That’s certainly how it looks, but maybe we will find out otherwise at some point. I certainly hope so, for the sake of all of us.
Only Westminster can sack her?
Simple.
If she won’t provide the estimate, they demand that she gives them all the documents, time-sheets, memos, out-sourced invoices etc.., and the full list of names of everyone who had any part to play in the matter, as well as a detailed summary of what each of them did – and the inquiry can work it out for themselves.
“Wonder how many working hours she (or likes of yer Mr Wolfe) has to put in to earn that much?”
Well, assuming a standard 35-hour week £600 would be a bit less than one day of Ms Evans’ time.
Another perspective on Evan’s latest duplicitous statement belies
The fact that she and her team of civil servants could be tasked with
a job that could reasonably be expected to take 8 hours could take a
Full month as who records their activity or lack of it.
We obviously face two corrupt governments determined to prevent
Independence, truth, justice and democracy.
The lot of them must go!
John H…
Disagree I’m afraid…
It’s “Handler”, not “Controller”.
I’m off to apply for a job in the Civil Service.
Apparently, nobody can calculate the cost of any work undertaken by anyone at any time, so I can sit at my desk pinging elastic bands into the waste bin all day and still collect my £45k salary.
Huzzah!
“Only Westminster can sack her?”
In an abstract technical sense, but in every practical and meaningful one it’s up to Nicola Sturgeon. Stop clutching at straws to avoid facing the unpleasant reality.
Whose Oil?
link to coup53.com
A documentary on the British and Iran’s oil.
The Iraq and Libyan wars were also oil fuelled.
Scotland beware.
I suspect the will of the inquiry will determine how far certain matters are taken. Sadly it suits too many to avoid toppling Sturgeon, so eff the taxpayer.
@Oneliner
I’m pretty sure the Rev has established previously that she serves at the pleasure of Sturgeon – Sturgeon extended her contract and Sturgeon can sack her
It’s name, rank, and serial number from Evans. Amnesia and deflection for everything else.
Surely there comes a point however when this renders her unfit for public office. Never forget, this was a conspiracy which could have seen an innocent man branded a sex criminal and sent to prison. Not just a man, but a pro Independence First Minister of Scotland’s whom the Establishment wanted to see disgraced and discredited.
Her evasiveness and forgetfulness makes her look as guilty as sin.
If I was on the committee, I would warn Evans that further evasion and insincere amnesia will see her evidence discredited and taken with a pinch of salt. If she declines to produce the evidence, the committee should interpret the evasiveness as evidence of guilt wilful evasion… or at least be free to.
If you costed a civil servant at let us say £80k to £100k cost per year to include salary, national insurance and pension contribution, and applied these rates to estimated times and durations spent preparing and pursuing the initial complaint into Salmond you would come to a pretty penny. ( let’s say ten folks for two years equals £2 million )
Add in then the legal costs of defending a Salmonds action in the court of Session and you get another pretty sum. Indeed, if Salmond was awarded £500,000 costs then the government’s costs would have been similar – plus all the government witness time costs too.( let’s say £1.5 million )
And then there’s the criminal case. No less than twenty three in the Police Scotland Alex Salmond pursuit Team for a year ( say £2.3 million ) And then a COPFS team ( say £1 million) And more civil service time giving statements, appearing in secret ( let’s say another £1m )
Adding these ball park figures up you get to around £6 million. No wonder Lesley Evans doesn’t want to look.
But if she’s saying, and she is saying that she has no control, no budget, no cost allocation for her civil service then she must resign. A civil service with ABSOLUTELY no budgetary or cost controls is an outrage.
The fucker, and quite frankly that is the only word applicable to this fast and loose lush bag, should be sacked.
a rare visit, I know, but..
Every UK Civil Servant has a contract of employment, and their performance and standards are assessed each year based on a Staff Appraisal System.
Each civil servant, no matter how high, how lowly, has a Job Description, and a set of Key Work Objectives which describe every aspect of their work, a detailed list describing what the individual does every day, ‘objectives, which are testable and monitored by their Line Managers.
These key work objectives specifically contain a description of each objective (task), and the time quality and quantity of performance needed to undertake each objective
A LM would use evidence of performance to assess whether or not an individual had demonstrated the required skills, knowledge and competencies required to perform each duty assigned to them to an effective standard, with regular appraisal reviews throughout the year culminating in an annual review, and Assessment of performance.
Examples of work undertaken throughout the performance period are recorded by the individual and their Line Manager and used during the Annual Appraisal meeting.
It is a nonsense to argue that salaried civil servants do not/cannot apportion time spent on a piece of work.
I cannot imagine the situation where this challenging episode was not recorded by individuals and not discussed with their LM as evidence of their competency at Annual Appraisal time in such an essential Key Work Area; sexual harassment bullying and actual physical assault.
In other words, the salary costs and accompanying non salary costs of this whole episode can be easily calculated, in terms of staff hours, salaries, and related expenses.
That Leslie Evans is a member of the WM FDA, the ‘Trade Union’ for the Sir Humphries of London, and attends TOTO meetings down there, is always suspect. She is a Brit senior civil servant when you get right down to it. Her loyalties lie with Britain/England.
But it is a nonsense to say that salary costs cannot be apportioned to this sad piece of work.
@Rev (12.32) –
‘£600 would be a bit less than one day of Ms Evans’ time.’
Over 600 sovs A DAY!?
Blinkin blimeyness and bloody Nora!
Yes , she thinks she is bullet proof because at the moment, she effectively is.
utterly protected by the british state, these people work not in the public interest, but to a very specific agenda of ‘protecting’ the state from all internal ‘enemies’!
As I will repeat again, Sturgeon and several other high profile SNP politicians and employees in the ‘Scottish Government’ are under the direct control of the british secret service!
State security means that the SNP SG will be influenced and infiltrated by the british secret service, influencing policy, strategy and direction to ensure Independence is thwarted.
Be under NO illusions, The british state is at War, an open and at times covert war with those who advance Scottish Independence.
as several intelligent posters have posted before, In Ireland the agents of the british government infiltred the highest levels of the IRA.
This led to bloody internal power struggles within the republican movement. It continues to this day.
only the unionist trolls and naieve sturgeon loving grannies would dispute thet high profile SNP members are having their strings pulled by the British state.
Bribery, corruption, blackmail, greed and fear are powerful weapons in the war to save the british state.
those who want evidence….. look at what happened to AS as a recent reminder. open your eyes.
The biggest threat is Within!!
Are we ever going to find out the truth Stu? I take it you know but can’t say?
A must watch movie!
link to mobile.twitter.com
Just another thought about the odious stinking Evans.
Maybe she should attend every event in a jacket declaring …” I don’t give a damn, do you ‘ because that typifies the women.
Again, not wishing to be intemperate, but it’s difficult not to think that this is a women who shits all over people. A veritable high paid seagull, free to do as she wishes. And she’s Nicola’s pal.
Aye well toss enough cash at any problem ” Alex Salmond ” who cares about the cost just the result ,
it’s only when people start asking inconvenient questions , like eh the result and the actual cost of the failed vendetta because it was not just a failure it was a total clusterfuck of the highest order , suddenly everyone is struck dumb it wasn’t me , of all the people involved not one shoulders any blame , we are supposed to believe this f / k up happened all by itself no one was guiding it , some uncontrollable force was moving it along , I admit not being particularly bright but Christ even I smell shite and no amount of bloody perfume and scent can cover this smell .
The brightest and the most handsomely rewarded people in the country all suddenly having a collective memory lapse and conveniently all at the same moment in time , it wasn’t me ,I had no involvement, I don’t recall for the brightest and the best it ain’t looking good what’s the point when on any street in the country we can get more reliable people to fill these highly paid jobs, a total bloody White Wash that fools no one,
Now we have the Committee going into private session ? , A parliamentary committee who we pay for is hearing evidence we are not allowed to see yep makes perfect sense , f/n Disgusting
Leslie Evans is using a well honed technique to avoid telling the facts. When faced by questions she could just lie,, but that complicates matters when further questions are asked based on that lie. It leads to more lies and more need to remember what you said.
She practices evasion rather than lying outright. She based most of her ‘replies in the truth but deflects uncomfortable questions by having poor memory or no recollection of those facts. It is classic tecchnique for those facing uncomfortable interviews..
[…] Wings Over Scotland The value of nothing The most recent insult handed down by the smirking, sneering Permanent Secretary To […]
John H
‘For the same reason Sturgeon can’t go for independence. Her controller wouldn’t like it’.
Yes Sturgeon is controlled by those who helped facillitate her rise to the top.
blinded by selfish ambition and greed for power, influential people opened doors and oppertunities arose.
seeing the potential of a future SNP leader in their back pocket, the british state went to work moulding their secret weapon!
And here we are. Never so close to regaining our freedom, and never so far!
Am I alone in thinking Nicola Sturgeon might just be more dangerous to Scotland than Boris Johnson?
Nicola Sturgeon and Leslie Evans are just going to giggly diddley flourish in the Brave New World, don’t ya know.
Ms Evans is bulletproof, in the sense that NS could ask for her removal (she can’t sack her as she doesn’t employ her) but that would just result in another senior role elsewhere in the CS, maybe they would move her to Wales.
So in a sense she is untouchable and under the protection of the UK Government, no matter what we do we cannot harm her.
I wonder what the cost of our hugely over-inflated bureaucracy is in this country and how much money is wasted on the over employment of management layers in the public sector. Why is the worth of Leslie Evans valued more than the FM and PM in financial terms (and doctors for that matter)? Under an independent Scotland I would certainly like to see us being a lot wiser with our spending. Maybe the SNP can give us a figure for how much tax payer funded money is wasted on sky high salaries that could be invested in the public good? Fat chance
I wish someone had asked the question: “So, given that you and your colleagues were well aware of the new procedure, why did you not follow it? At what point did you become aware that you were not following it – was it not until the opposition lawyer dug out your own document for you? Or did you proceed knowing that you were not following your procedure?”
Does anyone have the footage of Evans struggling to take the oath on her first committee appearance?
I’ve followed most of the sessions, at least in part, but missed that and would very much like to see it.
Talking brave new world, there’s an ‘Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace : 1958’ on YT, worthy of a spare half hour.
Helen Yates says:
15 September, 2020 at 1:04 pm
Am I alone in thinking Nicola Sturgeon might just be more dangerous to Scotland than Boris Johnson?
She already has been.
Scotland has been subjugated by Brexit, our Sovereignty swept aside, but not by Boris Johnson on some colonial misadventure, but by Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, sweeping aside Scotland’s emphatic and sovereign democratic rejection of Brexit. Absolutely disgraceful and unforgivable.
Nicola Sturgeon rushed ahead to squander Scotland’s Constitutional strength in a way that even the Clown Prince Boris Johnson might never have dared.
If I had my way, it’s Sturgeon’s Holyrood which should properly be impeached.
Nicola loves Leslie ?
Looks like Leslie Evans is untouchable, protected from the very top. Meanwhile the lickspittle British nationalist press cherry pick Alex Salmond’s former Permanent secretary’s comments at the inquiry as does the Britnat media, focusing on that he could display “bullying and intimidatory” behaviour.
What a country Scotland is it has more (Fifth) columns in it, than the Greek Parthenon Acropolis of Athens temple.
If someone with a subpoena should come knock knock knocking on Evans’ door (you know who’s civil action ‘gainst the ABCs) she’ll no be looking so smug.
O/T
I spotted the wokes on twitter today are going bananas about a new JK Rowling book about a cross dressing killer.
Anyway I’m off to watch ‘Dressed To Kill’.
L.E first appears in the halls of infamy in The Only Game in Town II, or is it I, I can’t recall, nor can I find a link for II, anyway here’s the link for I.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
I think the polls have lulled the SNP into thinking they can do no wrong and are untouchable. The Greens are supine with the honourable exception of Andy Wightman MSP. I’m beginning to think poor Andy might have had more influence if he was not an MSP.
About the only way the wider Yes movement has to send them a message is to lend your second vote to the ISP on the List. We will remind Sturgeon every FMQ’s that we need out of this septic union and note how many weeks since the election and still no indyref2 or moves towards getting us out of it.
We will push the SNP do more, much more with the powers that we have. They are hanging back worried that making Devolution work too well will turn folks off indy. Which would be fine if there was any prospect of Indy. Failing that there are no good reasons not to exert ourselves to the utmost to make life better for as many as we can.
ISP2 you know it makes sense.
An ability to be economical with the truth appears to be the only skill which the loathsome evans possesses.
Scotland desperately needs leadership – Sturgeon, Murrell and Blackford are simply not providing any.
o/t Am I alone in being heartily sick of Blackford’s pious bleating?
the holyrood hearing looks and sounds like the civil service re running alex’s trial.
i wonder when the mind blowing block busters, promised by craig murray, will happen?
re westminster protecting well paid london employed civil servants…. meh, who wadda thunk it?
Whatever happened to time recording in the public sector? Everyone moaned about it, everyone had to do it – if only, for no other constructive reason, to calculate the costs of processing FOI requests. (as was the widespread suspicion).
Ian Brotherhood @ 1.41 pm
Here’s Leslie Evans on 18th August when she first gave evidence to the committee ,
link to scottishparliament.tv
I would dearly like to see a legal argument which gives an ex-employer the right to ‘fact find’ about a complaint about sexual harrassment which has been made about an ex-employee. Surely only where it involves theft/abuse of money or goods belonging to the employers can (and should) they carry out research. . They may as well be going out into the streets to find the person responsible for a sexual assault. It is a police matter and has, and had, nothing whatsoever to do with the Government – it is outwith their jurisdiction, even if Mr Salmond had been guilty. The only involvement the Government should have had is in answering questions posed by the police during an investigation. As it was, it appears that Leslie Evans was (by her own admission) busy handing over ‘evidence’ collected and collated by her and her co-workers, to the crown prosecution and, indeed, seemed to head up the case for quite some time. It is quite apparent that Mr Salmond was innocent of all criminal charges against him and that it took hours of discussion and coaching and wording and re-wording to trump up the charges for the police to bring. Eventually the women had to go to court because if they hadn’t, Mr Salmond could have sued the daylights out of all of them. By going to court and sticking to a pretence of having followed (but not quite to the letter) a government procedure the women who made the accusations and the SNP Government have legally protected themselves and achieved the right of anonymity- BUT I am sure that there is a simple law which can be used to unmask them. The ‘Route Map’ seems to be a good starting point with the newspaper article hot on the heels – these are the weakest points.
@MaggieC –
Cheers.
To be fair, that was probably Linda Fabiani’s fault. Certainly wasn’t the stammering suspicious performance some reported. Just a shame about the rest of what she said (or didn’t).
“Over 600 sovs A DAY!?”
£165,000 a year/52 weeks is about £3200 a week, which on a standard 35-hour week is £91 an hour, so yeah.
Intransigence or Incompetence – sacking offence either way
Estimates are just what they say they are An Estimate.
Ball Park Estimate of Alex Salmond Stitch Up.
1st Case
Salaries of 20 policemen fer 2 years £1.5 million + court officials £1 million + salaries for 5 civil servants for 2 years £500K + £500K Scot Gov (Legal) + £500K Alex Salmond (Legal) + Expenses £750K + Odds&Ends £500K
= £5.25 million Plus 10% contingency = £5.775 Million
PLUS
2nd Case
Salaries of 10 policemen 6 months £250K + court officals £1 million + salaries of 4 civil servants £250K + £750 SG Legal + £750 AS Legal + Expenses £600K + Odds&Ends £400K = £4 million Plus 10% contingency = £4.1 million
1st & 2nd cases Grand Total = £9.875 Million {+/- 5% (7.315/10.369)}
So more than likely total cost of the stitch was in access of £9 million, however when Alex pursues this injustice the cost could easily double. It is an estimate however ball park at that but at least it is an estimate, not I cannae dae it estimate from a sneering woman who has cost the Scottish purse possibly £20 million quid !
No doubt there are additional stationery costs ! Brown envelopes ?
So, a large tranche of my previously paid up SNP membership fees (now cancelled) was set aside to frame a former First Minister, an innocent man, but no one at the SNP is able to tell how much was splashed out? If I recall, John Swinney was heaped upon with praise for balancing the books – every last penny – when he was Finance Sec; if Swinney can balance to the nth degree a country’s budget and expenditure, why can’t the current SNP reveal how much to hack a frame-up? Well, of course they’re shy, the crooks.
Seems I very much did the right thing by questioning anomalies within, and ultimately quitting, the SNP – what a parcel they’ve become.
Is there any reason why the Scottish, Welsh and NI governments cannot set up their own national Civil Services?.
All Civil Servants in each country who report to the respective governments would be transferred to these bodies who would be responsible for recruitment, promotion and discipline.
Those Civil Servants who work for those functions of government which are not devolved would continue to be employed by The WM Civil Service e.g. those based in the new Elizabeth House in Edinburgh.
Now she’s just trolling, isn’t she?
link to twitter.com
mike cassidy @3:06 pm
“…individuals who’ve went…”
She’s the top civil servant in Scotland and that’s her idea of grammar. Sturgeon certainly picks them.
Tory MP jailed for sexual assault cases.
Strange that with Good Behaviour in prison he might be out again in less that 18 months and yet
The media suggested if Alex Salmond was found guilty he could end his days inside?
Did they mean the Tories would arrange an accident in there for him?
Ex-Tory MP Charlie Elphicke jailed for two years for sexually assaulting two young women | London Evening Standard – link to standard.co.uk
I hope fork haven’t forgotten that it is probably Ms. Evans who instructed the Scottish civil service to stop following a gender-critical approach to law and public policy. Scotland’s legal officers appear to be desperate to force Scots law to reject a respect for Natural law, in order to promote genderwoowoo and maintain coherence with British constitutional practice. So there does appear to be a pattern of conduct taking shape, that is clearly not compatible with democracy or the rule-of-law.
Ah well another wee victory for this Tory government assisted by the corrupt legal system in England , women’s fight to regain their State Pension rights again knocked back by people probably mostly old white establishment appointed men who will never be affected by their decisions.
A free democratic country my Arse , it’s probably just the same up here but our lot are better at hiding it , a bit like land reforms just dropped with no apparent reason just to keep some people happy , and don’t cause to many ructions or make waves it might get you noticed.
The timing of Alex’s appearance at this toothless inquiry will be staged in ord er to a minimise its impact , I imagine it will coincide with a breaking news story , it looks like we might get some action in a few weeks time when Bawjaws publicly breaks the Acts of Union when his bill finally passes its last stage in the house of ill repute commonly known as Westmonster ,
Aye expect some action from our political representatives ,blood on the Carpet , the House of Commons descending into chaos a veritable constitutional Armageddon , or then again the SNP MPs doing the usual f/k all but moaning , that’s their limit so suck it up Suckers you have been had
Evans exemplifies the hold that Mother England continues to hold over us….impervious to any challenge, despite her gross negligence and extreme malice in pursuit of Salmond. A clear record of collusion and downright manipulation of ‘evidence’ from willing dupes, all combine to create a picture of a cold calculating creature of the Britnat State, planted there for a purpose.Questioned by incompetent and chastened timeservers chronically unable to land a telling blow.
Sturgeon, completely compromised by either complicity or incompetence. Either way also unfit for purpose. Why have the evil tendrils of Westminster been allowed to entwine their deadening grip on our Civil Service? Like so much that should have changed since 2007…nothing has.Indeed it is now almost all over.
The result is total paralysis of our movement. The head is dead but the limbs are still twitching… but to no effect!
OT but not really…
You know all this back stabbing, plotting, conspiracies, wee cleeks, then all the wormy words, evasion and not giving a straight answer? It’s THE reason that most fellas who work outside in all weathers, work up a sweat physically doing their job, and slouch in front of the TV at night because they’re absolutely bushed, – would never, ever consider getting an office job and putting up with all the “shite”.
That’s guys on building sites, farmers, foresters, fishermen, all your lorry drivers, steel workers, blacksmiths, all the people who “physically” work, (and I say guys and men, because it mostly is, but even the women who do choose that lifestyle too), look at Lady Muck Evans, fucked up to the tune of a half a million, on an obscene fat salary but doing fk all to earn it, except talking impenetrable garbage you need a lobotomy just to listen to, and sits there with smarm oozing from every pore… man alive it just gives you the dry boak.
If any of these guys cost their boss £500, never mind a cool half million, even through a fair mistake or moments inattention, you’d expect to get your jotters and you probably wouldn’t even argue about it.
These fuckers live in a different world. Zero accountability.
I don’t think it’s misogyny saying so. I’m not just including women to be politically correct. I’ve genuinely worked beside women on building sites, I’ve employed some, and even had a young lass as an apprentice, and they were all “sound” and were all on the same wavelength.
But any office with the likes of Lesley Evans and her bullshit would be pure suffocation from dawn til dusk. You’d literally be hanging out a window just to breathe, and you’d be watching the clock just aching for the minutes to pass so you could just get the fk out the building.
But the point is, there must hundreds of people in Scotland who could do her job ten times better than the likes of Evans, and deliver objective productivity and happy people who love their jobs for a fraction of the money she’s on.
Just get her moved on and find a replacement. It won’t be difficult.
Does anyone know when Kirsty Wark’s BBC Documentary programme is coming out on ‘The Trial of Charlie Elphicke’…better source for a documentary as he has been found GUILTY and JAILED for two years….you might not be able to ask her directly as believe she is in the process of making another one in anticipation of the OTHER TORY who currently has been accused of sexual assault …..but NOT suspended from Tory party…you know the one that is currently invisible and apparently above public scrutiny….
Mind you Charlie WAS suspended from Tory party via these allegations of sexual assault then got HIS suspension lifted from Tories to vote in a HOC vote when Theresa May was PM….then shortly after suspension reimposed……..a bit like a Hokey Cokey suspension process a La Tory party…
There is laws and there is orders…for the MANY (us)……while the FEW (Tories) are above such petty concerns of having to respect and adhere to Laws and Orders….as if…..
Latest insult from Tory Media Millionaire – Jeremy Vine
link to thenational.scot
No comment should be made while this continues
J B Gardener
Aye don’t forget the stationary , and not forgetting the hours spent on shredding any embarrassing stuff that might be printed or hidden in E/Mails that for some reason haven’t been referred to much , a little strange as that’s the preferred means of communication now , a good IT operative could if given access to Servers and Hard Drives uncover some very interesting stuff , it’s unfortunate that the best ones operate from within the Security Services,
Game set and Match to the the English Tory government , if it suits their twisted purpose we will get to know about it through a Tory supporting media outlet , if it’s in any way embarrassing not a hope in hell , it’s like the Outer Limits , they control the Horizontal they control the Vertical , in other words a rigged game we can’t even begin to comprehend .
I just can’t vote SNP any more they’re just too digusting. Please step up a genuine Indy party.
Yet another article which shows up how crap MSM is and the rest of the paid up establishment, thank you.
Aye Charlie Elphick – now convicted and sentenced to two years in jail.
And do the paper blow hard on this Conservative sex offender. Of course not. They suspended him, and then let him back to the House of Commons for a vote.
Yes that’s the Tories all over. They’d literally, like Sir James Saville, have sex with the dead or sex with children.
Like the wider community abused by Conservative social and economic policy, that mindset unfortunately prevails into their abuse of children and minors.
Thatcher protected Saville and many more and it goes on today.
No comment needs to be made while this is ongoing
@david
while the witnesses promise no to tell wobblies before giving evidence, it isnt an oath, it isnt legally binding. there is no outcome for any of the witnesses, no backlash etc for any lies etc. no legal reasons to not comment
I worked briefly in the Scottish civil service, at the now demolished New Saint Andrew’s House, and there was a strong representation of yoons in senior management. Civil servants are human and prone to prejudice just like anyone else. That’s why civil servants follow “best-practice” guides, though not in Scotland, apparently. Or HM Treasury, who approved Brexit, despite there being a lack of costed plans.
As Lothianlad says, the SNP have been infiltrated at the highest levels of the SNP.
Power, bribery, threat of exposure are all powerful weapons of turning senior SNP politicians into agent of the British State.
By way of a hypothetical example let us say the husband of a senior SNP politician has a sex secret, a penchant for little boys, or girls or has been having a series of extra marital affairs. These things happen, they can even be engineered. So what then for the partner posed with the option of everything staying undercover and they carry on, and maybe to a better job when out of office – on the condition that they come on side.
Not difficult to see how previously dedicated politicians could change their focus.
But that is how the deep British state works. It is insidious. And who faced with a choice of public ruination or the option of carrying on and then later again maybe a nice slot in some international governmental organisation.
The security services they’re watching, collating, setting up, and why wouldnt they want to control the organisation that seeks to split up the British state.
And Salmond. Well clearly he couldn’t be bought off, ran them close in 2014 and had to be stopped, and stopped they nearly did.
Open your eyes folks as the SNP squanders mandate after mandate, fails to prepare, fails to engage. It’s no accident.
Maybe we should get some Irish politicians over here to tell us how the dark state ran thing in NI. Just for those whose eyes are currently closed to the inertia from the top of the SNP
“ doctors and nurses get paid fixed salaries and don’t record how much time they spend treating fat people…”
Hahahahahaaa
Breeks @ 3.26pm. Exactly. And there are legions of that type looking down their noses and “managing”, or mis-managing, all manner of enterprises all over Scotland.
[This continues, despite the fact that we’re all supposed to have learnt to distrust bullshit and to value the real “front-line” and “key-workers” who kept things going during lockdown.]
They’ve been “educated” to believe in their own superiority, and they cling to that belief, assisted by a corrupt culture of funding and preferment, which only rewards those who are not deemed guilty of wrongthink.
Anyone who has reached Evans’ stratospheric heights should at least be able to construct a sentence without saying “who’ve went”, but it seems that, along with her strategic amnesia, she’s incapable of even basic grammar.
Her rise to this position, and the damage and cost arising from it, makes no sense, unless she has particularly significant sponsors.
C’mon, give Evans a break.
She doing the job she was brought here to do, she’s done such a good job that Nicola Sturgeon extended her contract.
Surely if she was shit at her job she would be out on her ear.
Being shit at her job for Scotland means she is fantastic at her job for Westminster.
Willie…
The Russians have name for it…
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
Jfngw@ 1315 . You hit the nail on the head . She doesn’t give a “monkeys “ as she is employed by Westminster and only “ seconded” to Holyrood. Consequently , transfer “ back home to Whitehall” and reward for services rendered to UK state or secondment to Wales or N.Ireland to resume her colonial “ role” for her paymasters .
Willie @4:11pm
Power, bribery, threat of exposure are all powerful weapons of turning senior SNP politicians into agent of the British State.
Or maybe, they’re simply incompetent and are high enough up that saying so will get you fired. After all if you start firing people for incompetence soon enough you might have nobody left.
All this talk about the over-arching power of the state. Well it might be true and then it might not. I don’t look at Johnson or Gove and go all shakey at the knees. By talking up the power of the opposition you make the hurdles seem bigger then they really are and you them grant power that otherwise they would not have.
mike cassidy says:
15 September, 2020 at 3:06 pm
Now she’s just trolling, isn’t she?
link to twitter.com
Yeah, she’s not the only one…
Pete Wishart
@PeteWishart
·
9h
Essentially it’s Scotland vs the Tories. Devolution is under threat and there is no constitutional middle ground anymore. ‘Devolutionists’ and all those that support Scottish democracy must back us now.
link to twitter.com
So speaks the wannabe Speaker of Westminster. “There’s no constitutional middle ground anymore“. Would that be because the SNP forfeited Scottish Sovereignty when they capitulated to the colonialism of Brexit, and actually overruled “Scottish democracy” themselves to do it?
“Back us now! Devolution is under threat! “
Aye Pete, right-o. What about Scottish Sovereignty under threat, sold out by the SNP? Anything to say about that? Didn’t think so.
Support democracy? Fucking hypocrite.
Luckily I’m not a Devolutionist. Nothing short of Independence will do for me.
The Rule of Six, just realised what this is. It’s the six Tories that are willing to sell out their country for some baubles from London, the six that believe not winning a mandate for over 60 years is no obstacle to their lording it over Scotland.
They can see themselves flaunting their real cat robes in the Lords, I think we know which one will be wearing the one with the ‘Mr Fluffy’ collar attached.
They are an affront to democracy to believe they have any sort off mandate to govern Scotland.
So, this from Pete Washout, eh? (I don’t do Twitter).
“Devolutionists’ and all those that support Scottish democracy must back us now.”
Or what, Pete?
What is the difference, pray tell, when the SNP is backed compared to when the SNP is not backed?
Allow me to inform the uneducated…
The square root of SFA!
Waste of time and tax payers cash having them at Westminster, and they know it!
If I’m wrong, then evidence to the contrary please…
Appart from the racists and religious bigots, yoonery doesn’t necessarily indicate that an individual is evil. Much of the blame for institutional yoonery, is down to the automaticity of social consciousness. Though forcing genderwoowoo into Scots law, is simply an attack on liberal democracy.
link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Her earnings would have made a decent start to a Scottish oil fund.
Choices choices eh?
Still, I’m sure she and her ilk are worth every penny.
@dakk says:
15 September, 2020 at 5:32 pm
“Her earnings would have made a decent start to a Scottish oil fund.”
Wee idea for indy Scottish economics. Have the equivalent of National Insurance but have it legally ring-fenced for specific purposes. That way future Finance Secretaries can’t use it as they please.
O/T – The JKR Hate Brigade have now turned their Twitter sights on Robbie Coltrane for having the temerity to defend her and to accuse them of “hanging around waiting to be offended.”
Who’s next?
Edinburgh Western SNP ,my old branch, making a motion to Conference. Referendum bill before three months, vote soonest!
Hope springs eternal in the human breast or is that beast. Never remember which.
Hurray for Hagrid!
The quote? Pope! No not that one. Essay on Man 1732.
Correction. It is Edinburgh West and bill within one month and referendum within three months.
While we all discuss this the Tories are putting forward an entirely “reasonable” case in Westminster why Scotland should be quiet whilst they wrest control of the internal market policies that will change everything here at home on the whim of a Government who only think what is best for England.
That’s where we are. Any service we now enjoy is kaput when this Bill passes.
The SNP have allowed this to happen on their watch.
I know the people Scotland are really tuned into this what with the virus and losing jobs and Environment going to Pot this is really high up the agenda. If you have evidence that this woman has done anything wrong why don’t you just report that to the police.
”
dakk says:
15 September, 2020 at 5:32 pm
Her earnings would have made a decent start to a Scottish oil fund.”
Don’t laugh. National treasure chests can have small beginnings.
In August 1940 the UK was so desperate for funds to buy weapons from the US that the cabinet considered requisitioning all gold objects – including wedding rings.
Just come out that there had been no formal complaints about Alex Salmond prior to this whole shebang? So, what the hell was it all about? “No formal complaints” is suggestive of there having been informal complaints. When did informal complaints become formal complaints and under what circumstances? Were the informal complaints the ones for which Alex Salmond had apologized? If so, under what circumstances did these become formal complaints that had to be dealt with under the procedure?
Are they saying that they all knew there had been informal complaints, but that at least two of these had been dealt with already through apologies from Mr Salmond, and the incidents – whatever they were – put to rest, as those involved continued to work with him in the same roles?
So, if that was the position, when did these informal complaints morph into formal complaints and under what circumstances when it would have been the case, surely, that they had been dealt with informally and would not normally have been revived as formal complaints? If these were also the two most serious complaints – already dealt with informally – what, and who, the feck revived them – and, more importantly, why?
I am 100% in favour of women being dealt with fairly and with respect in their place of work, but this appears to be going beyond fairness into a realm where fairness to anyone involved has been the very last thing to be respected, but retrospective legislation and procedures almost always give rise to unfairness on some level.
That’s the written transcript of today’s committee meeting published ,
link to parliament.scot
@ Mark
Some of us are capable of multi tasking. Feeling that a particular issue is important in your own league table of priorities doesn’t mean you don’t care about other issues, feel they are less important, or even that you individually have to be the one reporting things, even if that was seen as appropriate.
You must be a blast at parties. 🙁
Alex Salmond trial by Media not good this lady trial by media good
O/T
Vanessa Feltz gits payed nearly 3 times that o’ the First Minister o’ Scotland ! WTF ?
Nae wunner the BBC lakeys dinnae upset the apple cairt wi’ tory governments red or blue.
Ther’ 42 BBC churnalist git payed mair than even the UK PM ! WTF ? Folk sufferin’ fae 10 years o’ austerity an’ probably 20 mair years tae come !
Aye the BBC trough is wide an’ deep an’ the trougher’s snouts are gie lang !
I’ve just cancelled my DD to the SNP. More in sorry than in anger.
I’m up to the gills with their turning their backs on independence,the revolting treatment of Alex,woowoo stuff etc.etc.
I feel like I’ve been had.
So who on earth do I vote for? No unionists is a given. Looks like the Rev’s cock & balls on the ballot paper.
@Elizabeth Stanley
Many of us feel similarly homeless politically I fear. I plan to vote for ISP on the list if there’s no WoS party. In my constituency (Edinburgh Central) it depends on the candidate. I’d vote for Joanna Cherry in a heartbeat, but won’t vote for Robertson. I *might* vote for Biagi but depends on his views on particular issues. If there’s no suitable constituency candidate I’ll spoil my ballot.
Looking past HR2021 election I think we need to be looking at an alternative to the SNP…..
Re wishy pishart, on politic show jo coburn asked pishart about the shooting estates being granted exclusion to the 6 person limit, pishart waffled and mangled something about exceptionalism by bozo , coburn then asked why NS had granted the same exemption , pishart responded that he didn’t really care and tried UNSUCCESSFULLY to move the discussion on
Is this the same pishart that was photographed with John swinney alongside their friends from the huntin shootin fraternity in Perth
Ian Brotherhood @ 12.46 pm
Here’s the list of the senior civil servants salaries and it’s not been updated since March 2018 so goodnesses knows what they’re earning now ,
link to gov.scot
Scotland’s version of lock her up.
Cut her wages?
Evans is showing the disrespect to the people of Scotland we should demand she is,removed and if we don’t well it’s our fault she is still there tell NS .,to start to represent the people or we will not vote SNP next time simple as that
STV news just had a go at making Alex Salmond’s Not Guilty
turned into a guilty with the aid of yet another English Knight
Of the Realm who posed as a top Scottish Civil servant.
The Tories throw knighthoods out to their comrades like confetti.
He suggests Alex had a temper if his instructions were not followed.
What does that make him like Klunker Brown, Baroness Davidson,
Boris and Trump?
Why would an all grown up man with a knighthood and £150K a year
be troubled by a man who can’t sack him even if Alex thinks he is hopeless.
Sounds like the very job for me! I could cope with all that and sleep at night.
Absolutely Pathetic Unionist Drivel.
@Twathater 6.20: I’m pretty sure it was either Perth or Dunkeld but the venue hardly matters. Isn’t one of the Duke of Buccleuch’s lackeys now on some SG land committee too?
Remember when you canvassed for the SNP thinking our politicians were different and had principles and a burning passion for their country to be free?
Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? he Rottened.
Scotland is going to be the super duper country where we have horrible politicians who didn’t look after their own agendas just like that other country in the Democratic world I’m trying to remember it’s name. I’m sure a new political party will come along soon. Handing out bottles of hand sanitizer to prove how squeaky clean they are.
@ Willie weho suggested “Maybe we should get some Irish politicians over here to tell us how the dark state ran thing in NI”.
You got a lot of it right but the dirty tricks went much further and deeper in Northern Ireland
“The handlers would start off slow,” said Richard English, a professor of politics and the author of a history of the I.R.A. “They would say: every so often you will give us a bit of something and you will get a bit of money.”
Any minor infraction– shop-lifting, a mistress, cross-dressing – of the social and legal mores of the time could have been used as leverage.
More disturbingly, such problems may have been fashioned by the security services to facilitate an approach.
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
It’s a very long time since I was trained to tackle institutional cultural bias that supports racism and authoritarianism, but that is essentially what we are up against.
link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The Wonderful Weasel World of Doublespeak.
link to damronplanet.com
Smoke, mirrors, muzzles and duct tape.
@CameronB Brodie 6:47pm
Here we go again. Is this another night of irrelevant drivel? Who are you trying to get rid of this time?
OT – been reading up a bit on the power grab bill which passed in the HoC this week.
The end of Holyrood. The end of Devolution. The end our NHS and goodbye to our water.
Ed Milliband’s speech had more fire in it than the SNP’s.
Just viewed Alan Smiths efforts in the HoC. He’s clearly mildly perturbed by it. But only mildly.
Insipid doesn’t even come close.
If ever, there was a time for a walk out of the HoC that was it. Get it on the front page of the news in every country. Make it front page news so that every ‘non political geek’ in the country understands what is happening.
Meanwhile, we cannot wait around for a tartan messiah. If/when one does appear, the ground that needs covered, needs covered now, and we are the only people to do it.
We can do so much better than Boris. Indy is now the only option to save Scotland.
Ron Maclean
This is how the Royal Town Planning Institute trained me to comprehend British nationalism, so have a moan with them.
Off Topic
Looks like nicola has finally acknowledged that the Scottish government has been publishing misleading statistics regarding the number of covid hospitalisations: “lots of people are classified as being Covid patients, even if they have recovered and are being treated for something else.” of course she tried to add some spin on it, but overnight we have gone from 262 covid patients in hospital to 48.
link to gov.scot
Beaker: “ Have the equivalent of National Insurance but have it legally ring-fenced for specific purposes. “
Why? I can “ring-fence” it myself and use it for specific purposes…
I’ve never claimed I know it all and I’m very rusty, but surely it’s apparent I have practical insight that can help us achieve our goal? All I’m trying to do is show folk the nature of our circumstances.
link to onlinelibrary.wiley.com
MaggieC
Re pay scales first thought
Christ
I thought I was never coming to the end of the bloody list , a list with some eye watering numbers for folk who don’t make anything of use , or provide a service people rely on like nursing firefighting food production or the usual stuff society needs to survive , You know Actual workers.
We seem to have acquired a whole load of pushers , their function in the grand scheme of things is to move words from here to there maybe quite a few times a day , it must be f/n exhausting with only a fat wad of cash to soothe their weary soul
I noticed right at the bottom a post that isn’t filled , that is for Constitution and External Affairs by Christ I could do that gig . probably has some very clever staff to go along with the fat pay packet , what’s the qualifications doing as your told and having a bad memory , I could do that it sounds like my daily routine right now , this is the job this government work what a bleedn breeze.
The opportunity cost may indeed be incalculable but the long term benefit of exposing some of the ways and means of the ‘stakeholders’ cannot be completely discounted.
Another bright side worth thinking about is that, as indyref2 becomes less and less feasible, so breaking the union – and reverting to common laws from Henry VIII era – becomes the defacto state of the nation, bringing with it the potential bonus that, in addition to words like gay, pride, plague, etc being redefined to mean what they meant, the punishment for holding a parliamentary committee in contempt back in the day (and, by definition, the most recent precedent) must have been something along the lines of 1st offence – weekend in the stocks, second offence – death by hanging, third offence – loss of hereditary entitlement, etc.
Put less diplomatically, I’m not happy to leave my future in the hands of those who lack a realistic appreciation of politics.
Cognitive underpinnings of nationalistic ideology in the
context of Brexit
link to pnas.org
@red sunset says:
15 September, 2020 at 6:01 pm
“Don’t laugh. National treasure chests can have small beginnings.
In August 1940 the UK was so desperate for funds to buy weapons from the US that the cabinet considered requisitioning all gold objects”
Slightly different circumstances then. However the Government did require all jewellers and manufacturers to declare stocks of precious metals, alloys, other metals and other specific items. Other countries had similar legislation. In Germany for example bronze was scarce.
If you think that was brutal, read up on the USA’s Gold Reserve Act 1934 and Executive Order 6102 enacted in 1933. Just don’t give our politicians any ideas…
@Tinto Chiel & Twathater
T’was on the night of the 31st January. As many Scots were still spitting feathers due to the First Minister’s capitulation earlier in the day on the small matter of oor EU membership… some look to have been quaffing posh Cava…
link to twitter.com
@Mark
You really need to get up to speed as the Judge even condemn her that one couldn’t believe a word she said so Nicola backs her. That says all you need to know that this was a conspirancy from the start.
@Daisy Walker,
watched Miliband yesterday, took him a bit to get going but once he shook of the rust he certainly had the Prime Minister squirming in his seat,
these speeches are written by nameless spads but they still have to be delivered,
wonder if that speech was the one Sir Starmer would have used if he wisnae caught up with Covid stuff,
is Miliband going to do PMQs if Sir Starmer is still out with Covid stuff.
It’s a conspiracy there’s no way man built pyramids. Does anyone know what time the 9 o’clock news on.
Public beware of the British Secret Civil Service.
@Beaker at 12:15 pm
You’re correct, I used to do spreadsheets to calculate daywork rates, using all data available,If Union Rates existed it made the job a bit easier,Quantity surveyors at one time did similar.
But in the 50 and 60s what you had was a Time and Notion Study Man (for it was always a man) who had the time to do each task, I still have Books/Pads/Sheets which have the times.If you went back to the 30s and 40s there were times for example going to the toilet
The fact that the costing can be calculated is a truth,It can.
Anyone who says different , I find questionable
@MaggieC (6.20) –
Blimey…
Who wants to be a politician, having to fight elections, listen to plebs’ problems, turn up in places where you’ll be photographed and filmed or even, heaven forfend! have to do some public speaking!?
Land one of these gigs and you’re in for as long as it takes to get that pension pot topped all the way up, then offsky!
Lovely jubbly!
If this whole stinking affair does nothing else it may help raise general awareness of these characters, and one thing’s for sure Maggie – they won’t welcome any form of attention whatsoever.
@Dan: thanks very much for ferreting that one out. I know that shop in Dunkeld but usually walk along to the Co-op 😉 .
As you say, it was the same day as the “wildcat referendum” remark, worthy of a Britnat, when I finally knew the game was a bogey.
And yet in the lead up to all that many commenters here who have since decamped elsewhere were telling honest doubters that the leadership had it all gamed, there was a secret plan, just you wait and see, with one bound we will all be free…….
And here we all are, strung up like kippers, waiting in limbo for Johnson to “grant” a Section 30.
Evans’ refusal to produce a figure is contemptuous and, as we’ve seen from this post and numerous comments above, dishonest.
It is possible to put a cost on what happened, so, the committee should call her bluff – instruct her to have some of her minions produce a number before the end of this week, even if it’s just to the nearest million.
@Mark
You are up your own backside, stay there if you wish as no one will be joining you.
Stuart Mackay @ 5.02pm
Oh they have power alright Stuart.
The control of the MSN, the biased propaganda, the censoring the First Minister’s daily briefing.
Or the trumped up charges against Alex Salmond at a cost of maybe tens of millions to the taxpayer. Who set that up. Merlin the magician?
Or the arrest and prosecution of journalists like Craig Murray or Mark Hirst. Or the jailing of Manny Singh for not starting the huge Glasgow Indy march two hours earlier than originally agreed.
Yes they have power Stuart.
To think otherwise Stuart truly ignores reality. Fighting to escape the British State, and Scotland is no different from every other country that has freed itself from the clutches of the Empire, is no easy task.
And make no mistake either physical force is part of the playbook of necessary.
So we don’t talk them up Stuart. We need to recognise where we are and react accordingly. Democracy is not something that we are experiencing. Quite the reverse, because ultimately I believe we will need international intervention.
This Stuart is a war. As real as any war. A cold war maybe, or a hidden war but a war, The state is on the offensive, it will undermine, bribe threaten, use the legal system against citizens, and even kill in its war to stop Scottish independence.
So we need to all need to focus on challenging the British State through all democratic means as it plans to subsume Scotland into a the new UK that Johnson and Cummings are fashioning before our eyes.
Ultimately we have the control. Not them! And we all need to look at all of the countries round the world who have removed British governance.
I’d rather be up my own than yours. Too many midges in the Highlands for that. I’m away to watch the news the factual bit at the end when they tell you the weather.
Wet tomorrow. done anything else
Leslie Evans should have been huckled straight out the door by security staff ( as you see films ) on the day that Alex Salmond won his civil case
Me @ 9.02 pm
( As you see * in * films )
“I’m away to watch the news the factual bit at the end when they tell you the weather.”
The Met office has been infiltrated by tories! They’ve been forecasting the opposite of reality for weeks. #liars
at the end of the day she is a nothing and her miserable corpse will decompose just like billions of others have done leaving nothing. as to the cost, even if it was quadruple it would have been worth it to them just to get rid of …
@breeks, 3.26
look at Lady Muck Evans, fucked up to the tune of a half a million, on an obscene fat salary but doing fk all to earn it,
But breeks, she is earning it. She administered a conspiracy to destroy Scotland’s statesman, she has wasted millions of pounds of Scottish taxpayers money, she is making a mockery of the Scottish Parliament and its enquiry system and has brought the Scottish Government and the Scottish Civil Service into disrepute. Her work for the UK state should be acknowledged. Is it not time for Ms Evans to be recognised by the UK civil service in its award scheme in the same way as the “impartial” UK Treasury team were recognised for its work against the Scottish referendum?
“conspiracy to destroy Scotland’s statesman”
Why didn’t they just use a gun and throw it away from the motor. Maybe that’s been tried before
Michael Himmler Gove
link to mobile.twitter.com
Gove is a very dangerous man who is part of the radical right’s takeover of the Conservative party. He has already restructured the English education system in a manner that promotes British values, which educational scholars consider intrinsically racist and in denial of our colonial history. He also disparaged experts in the populist sales pitch that brought us Brexit. Gove is almost certainly a friend of fascism, if not an out and out fascist.
Think I’m exaggerating?
British Politics volume 15, pages 271–290 (2020)
Michael Gove’s war on professional historical expertise: conservative curriculum reform, extreme whig history and the place of imperial heroes in modern multicultural Britain
link to link.springer.com
o/t
James Kelly ( Scot goes Pop ) fielding an article about Shetland becoming Independent, he needs to do some homework.
Shetland is within Scotlands’ 200 mile maritime border thus Shetland’s status would be that of an enclave with a 12 mile maritime border, same as stands for the Channel Isles who within France’s 200 mile maritime border.
These rules on maritime borders UN and Internationally ratified.
The Clair Oil Field is 47 miles off the coast of Shetland and Schiehallion and Foinaven Fields are even further out.
Shetlanders may have voted for leave in the EU referendum but the Islanders have never expressed a wish not to be part of Scotland.
James Kelly, homework could do better, a lot better !
The link to fuherer Gove above needs you to
Open on the picture of Gove.
Wants rid of the less abled and trans people and we already
Know that he doesn’t give a damn about our need of the NHS
thanks to Cummings recorded speech.
How on earth has the UK found itself isolated and hated across the planet
with a serial adulterer and pathological liar as PM, and unelected fascist
as his main influencer and a right hand man who thinks he is an SS Officer.
Like those remembered on this 80th anniversary, we must fight to remove this
fanatical immorality from our country and from our future.
meanwhile, as the lying murderous Tory regime in England cintinues to trash Scotland and break the law, or First Minister carries on pretending it isn’t really happening.
The SNP blether and blab and moan and complain, but simply refuse to actually get to grips with reality, and actually do something.
Boris might as well shut the Scottish parliament tomorrow, becasue nobody in the SNP leadership seems to care.
How on earth did we end up with such a useless ‘leader’ of the SNP, as Nicola Sturgeon? The worst tory government in history literally trashing Scotland’s consitution and democratic rights, and she does sweet f all. She really needs to go, and hopefully she will take her grossly overpaid and over -opinionated husband with her.
The SNP, the do-nothing party.
Here’s what Scotland can look forward to if we can’t find legal officers who can support the rule-of-law.
European Political Science Review, Volume 10, Issue 3, August 2018 , pp. 325-350
The impact of Populist Radical Right Parties on socio-economic policies
link to cambridge.org
O/T
Who was most transphobic:
Janet Leigh for not being willing to share her shower.
or
Angie Dickinson for not wanting to share the lift.
Well done with the analysis Stuart.
Wings seems to be the only source of credible opposition to the SNP these days.
Breeks at 504pm,
Very well said. Matters have moved on much further than the SNP leadership seem to appreciate. Yet still, NS mumbles on about focussing on covid and sometime in the future their might be some thought about mibbes preparing a bill of some sort, maybe for an independence referendum many years from now.
Have either Pete Wishart or Nicola Sturgeon no grasp of how ridiculous they now look? Are they so absorbed in a political bubble, that they cannot understand why indy supporters and SNP members are getting angrier with each passing day.
In May 2020, Gove was criticised[14] after His wife shared a bookcase picture “as a very special treat for my trolls” which featured a book by the Holocaust denier David Irving, and a copy of The Bell Curve, which controversially claims that intelligence is highly heritable and that median IQ varies among races.[15][16] Another book in the photograph was The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray, which, according to The Guardian, cites Enoch Powell and argues for protecting white Christian Europe from “outsiders”.[17] Beyond Human Rights: Defending Freedom by Alain de Benoist, leader of ethno-nationalist think tank GRECE, and Why We Fight: Manifesto of the European Resistance and Archeofuturism – European Visions of the Post-Catastrophic Age by Guillaume Faye were also featured, both published by European New Right Arktos Media, known for translating far-right material into English.[18] One other book was Leo Strauss and the American Conservative Movement by paleoconservative Paul Gottfried, who coined the term ‘Alternative Right’ (often shortened to ‘Alt-Right’) whilst working alongside Richard B. Spencer.
OT is anyone pointing out to transgender patients that without an NHS to pay for the op, and the meds, they are looking at slavery levels of debt.
Putting Indy first is the most trans friendly, supportive thing any of us can do.
But just to reiterate – we get support for Indy over 60 by years end.
This business of the who, the how and the why… is a lot less important than over 60% before years end.
And now, officially its about saving the NHS, saving Scotland, and no-one can tell us ‘better together’. We are so much better than Boris.
great idea from indonesia
nypost.com/2020/09/14/anti-maskers-forced-to-dig-graves-for-covid-19-victims-in-indonesia/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
anti maskers beware 🙂
link to mobile.twitter.com
Frankie Boyle knows how to sum up Westminster’s dilemma!
This is outrageous. The representatives of the SOVEREIGN people should tell her she has until tomorrow morning to provide the figures or receiver her P45.
Or are we NOT sovereign? Either we are or we are not.
In some medieval democracies (meaning 800 years ago, BEFORE Abroath), all officials were elected and were sacked the minute they lost public confidence. No serving out notice. It seems now, in Scotland, we have LESS democracy.
P.S. Stu, please keep an eye on people posting links on this site. The aim is to spam it up with extra text that has no bearing to the subject, which over time comes out on the big Google machine in the USA that goes through the whole web constantly and classifies everything. Your site is too valuable to be sullied as something not 100% linked to indy, civil rights issues…
Don’t take a covid test Sturgeon and Gove are using it as an excuse to put microchips up people’s noses and sturgeon’s husbands running it from a basement in a pizza shop in the east end
OT I’ve said this before, and it might be of assistance now.
Focus on the ground that needs covered, not the party, not the leader, not the method of delivery (although I grant, ultimately this is necessary).
With a leader, of a party, on board and on game – they will instruct you to cover the ground and get Indy support over 60% by years end. And only you can do it, its our responsibility.
So, how would the Brit Nats nobble this.
They would infiltrate, and policies watered down, punches would be pulled, guns spiked. THE GROUND WOULD NOT GET COVERED.
Of course the reasons given would be ‘united we stand,’ and ‘keeping powder dry’.
But at some point you have to say, its now or never, or its over.
And so we have a choice, we can ‘live as if each day is the first day of independence’ and say to ourselves – ‘this ground needs covered, I’m going to get it done’.
Or we could entertain ourselves and say, ‘I wonder if’… I wonder if NS is nobbled, or Pete, or John, or KitKat Mharie, or, or, or?
And if so, how, were they bribed, were they compromised – sex, drugs, underage rabbits?
Or did some very capable, very scary people point out how easy it would be for fatal accidents to occur to their loved ones.
The Brit Nat Establishment has form.
And none of that matters. Actually that’s not true, and I’m sorry for being flippant. More accurately, ALL of the above is designed to be a distraction, to demoralise, and most importantly, to prevent you and me from campaigning and getting support for Indy over 60% by years end.
What matters is giving every single voter, resident of Scotland the information about what is going on, and the chance to vote to SAVE SCOTLAND at the next election.
And that means in the first instance getting support for indy over 60% by years end.
So, are you going to let them distract you, demoralise you, destroy Scotland. Or are you going to focus on the ground that needs covered.
We can do so much better than Boris.
Another great set of observations but it must be tedious getting it right and not being able to do much about it. I hope that there are enough of you and yours around to get through this. There are lots of folk to back you , but frankly people as good as you, at research, are few and far between. I hope Mr Salmond’s patience over Covid isn’t abused by those who should know better. I consider Evans and Sturgeon every bit as disgusting as Johnson, Cummings and Gove and despise them even more because they have sought to destroy someone just because they thought they could and out of some sort of petty spite. Small minds attempting the destruction of great people will use the time to obfuscate and lie everywhere. I do have the awful feeling that they’re all so corrupt that they’re prepared to destroy Scotland to save their skanky skins.
@jfngw says:
15 September, 2020 at 10:28 pm
“O/T
Who was most transphobic:
Janet Leigh for not being willing to share her shower.
or
Angie Dickinson for not wanting to share the lift.”
Or FBI Agent Starling not allowing Buffalo Bill to wear his “suit”
Daisy Walker …
“OT is anyone pointing out to transgender patients that without an NHS to pay for the op, and the meds, they are looking at slavery levels of debt.”
I wouldn’t point out to them anything of the sort!
You’ll just encourage the gender woo-woo brigade to start lobbying their biology denying buddies in the SG to prioritise such Ops and ensure they’re free for any/all who want.
Oops … That’ll be me straying into the “hate speech” category again.
You ain’t seen me – right!
You know it’s 2020 when Thatcher is trending on Twitter!
People quoting her phrase “The first duty of government is to uphold the law…”
We’ve still go over 3 months to go. What the fuck will happen next?
@robertknight says:
15 September, 2020 at 11:19 pm
“Oops … That’ll be me straying into the “hate speech” category again.
You ain’t seen me – right!”
Look out of your window 🙂
Kenny
Perhaps I’m just paranoid but I get the impression your comment was directed at myself. Apologies If I’m wrong, but I’m trying to give WOS readers an holistic view of what is happening.
Palgrave Communications volume 4, Article number: 99 (2018)
Individual liberty and the importance of the concept of the people
link to nature.com
o/t
And a bit repetitive
That’s three nights in a row listening to LBC London based , caller after caller obviously English speaking about being able to access Scottish test centres without any difficulty , apart from the travel distance involved
I only tune in when I am clearing up and locking up for the night , I would tune into a Scottish station but for some reason it’s either rubbish or the reception is crap
On the other hand we have the First Minister voicing concern about our testing service being overwhelmed , now it doesn’t need a University Degree to figure out there might just be a little link between the two , if our NHS in Scotland is so under-utilised why the f/n backup in processing tests ,and Why are tests being offered to people who don’t have a Scottish post code,
I would complain to my MP but it seems you have to through this little process , firstly you have to go through the checks that you are actually a constituent , then you get conformation that you are then you submit your question then the wait while a stock prepared answer is received nine times out of ten it’s either not the answer you expect or it’s a totally different subject , then the merry go round starts again, the quickest way is to contact a local Tory that gets things moving unfortunately
CBB
Question what does holistic mean ?
Just asking because I have always wondered how I could incorporate that in a Sentence
Thanks
Robert Graham
Here you go, 😉
link to sumananthromaterials.blogspot.com
holymacmoses “I do have the awful feeling that they’re all so corrupt that they’re prepared to destroy Scotland to save their skanky skins.”
The only thing you got wrong was the tense.
I’ve read a lot of criticism of Sturgeon on here lately but nobody comes close to really expressing it adequately. She’s pure Machiavellian.
The only thing we have in our favour is that her powers are severely limited and if we have anything to thank the British State for, that’s it.
The Hate Crime legislation is up with Hitler’s Enabling Act. Can you imagine those powers in the wrong hands? All those indy marchers and the Yes movement itself could easily be defined as criminal using those powers.
Who are they going to target next? Kenny? If you don’t see the pattern in all this, you are blind.
The effects of all this, GRA, Hate Crime Legislation, taking leading Indy thinkers to court, etc., is to engender fear.
How long before they go after Wings? How long before you are scared to type a thing on platforms like this? How long before they go after you?
There’s a definite pattern to all this. It’s dark and it stinks like hell.
@cam Perhaps I’m just paranoid……
noooo
holistic? you might as well ask what a dead cat, a computer whiz-kid, an Electric Monk, quantum mechanics, a Chronologist and pizza have in common
love yer links cam 🙂
Robert Graham @ 7.16 pm
Just in case you don’t get the job that you mentioned in your post , you could always go for one in these vacancies . Only thing is god knows what you’re meant to do in some of them going by the ridiculous job titles . Possibly it’s a new way of describing pen pushers sitting on their backsides all day . LOL
link to applications.work-for-scotland.org
re cams links
“THUMPING GOOD DETECTIVE GHOST HORROR WHO DUNNIT TIME TRAVEL ROMANTIC MUSICAL COMEDY EPIC” links
signed Cameron B Brodie
leither
Is that you cat? Good to see you like my links. 😉
link to scienpress.com
O/t but if transgenderism isn’t an illness it shouldn’t be allowed to get ops and meds on the NHS. Simple.
James Barr Gardner
That’s not quite the full picture, James, If Orkney were an independent state of its own it would have full maritime rights. It would only be an enclave if it remained part of the UK.
As for being its own independent state, that’s a different part of UN law. There is really nothing in modern history I can see that would justify the claim that Orkney islanders are a people with the right to self determination. It’s Scotland.
Cameron @ 12.34
Do you have any idea just how much it hurts us to see you played like this Cameron?
Can ye no take a bit of direction from those who will meet with ye!!
And speak with ye!!
”Tis admirable ” that ye deal (actually very admirably) with yer detractors but that’s no where we are now.
Yer being used Cameron…and the balance of yer usage is not in yer favour.
You’ve always known and been willing to be the “whipping boy for the actual law” there’s not A one of us who will deny that..
But oh, my friend…… don’t, please don’t , give us Wingers the bad name of turning on their own..
We are no like that…and fine we’ll ye know it……..stop just stop ….they are playing ye….
We’ll Speak soon xxx
@Robert Graham says:
15 September, 2020 at 11:59 pm
CBB
“Question what does holistic mean ?
Just asking because I have always wondered how I could incorporate that in a Sentence”
I think it’s a medical term, meaning you have an urge to sing about a male relative who is lightweight…
I’ll get me coat…
Lizg
So leither isn’t the cat? Man it’s hard to keep track of all these pseudo-identities btl, when you’ve got your head stuck in a link-machine.
don’t give us Wingers the bad name of turning on their own..
We are no like that…and fine we’ll ye know it…
horse door closed bolted
re arrange at yer leasure lizg
in 2000 Michael Gove wrote a 58 page pamphlet criticising the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement .
Like the DUP, who voted against it in the 1998 Referendum, he would like to see it cancelled and a hard border reinstated to recreate the Orange Citadel State
link to finfacts.ie
I thought this might be of interest and timely.
THE COMMON LAW AND THE RULE OF LAW:
AN “UNCOMFORTABLE RELATIONSHIP”
link to stetson.edu
re. defending the “democratic principle”.
link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Thought this might be of interest, while I’m at it. Night, night. 🙂
JURISPRUDENCE AND JUSTICE
link to ckadvocates.co.ke
Cameron B Brodie @ 1.32
You don’t have tae keep track with us man…ye know that surely ???
We’ll meet with ye.
We’ll socialise with ye…..Cameron, we’ll all put the world tae rights with ye…..but we can’t stand by and watch ye so badly used.
It bloody hurts!!
Please take a bit of direction from yer friends….you ken who we are 🙂 xxx
Lizg
Sorry Liz, I have no idea what you are on about, can you please explain how I’m being plaid?
Cameron B Brodie @ 4.39
Oh hunni..
Every time you go over board with yer links…. Some bugger turns up and tells/asks/intimates ye tae keep going.
They engage ye and pretend tae need mair information!
Only from the the outside lookin in is it obvious….. yer away looking fur the answer…while.they are being assholes ….
I know you take the position that it doesn’t matter because it gives ye the chance to put yer message out …it’s gone well beyond that now….
We are in a very different place now….and it hurts to see a friend being used to keep the conversation stymied……please don’t buy what their selling…
Oh and Cameron
It matters not who is or isn’t a cat,thee cat,or our cat……they all RISE fast and impressively but never stay the course
Lizg
Remember Liz, tolerance of difference.
I think you might be a bit out of line Liz. I thought I’ve not done a too bad a job of linking folk to ethically robust sources of relevant knowledge, that could be helpful to others in the support and defense of the rule of law. So what’s the problem?
Lizg
We might be friends but my principle commitment is to the principle of the democratic principle. I hope that doesn’t offend.
Cameron
You’ve done a terrible job.
You have turned the subject into how it’s presented being the debate …
While it should be the subject it’s self..
Lizg
I’m still not getting where you’re coming from Liz, but lets not derail the thread with interpersonal stuff. Night, night.
Ach…too much interpersonal anyway. 😉
Value, what’s that?
Just to clear the air, and so that folk might not reject my outlook and practice as being inappropriate and irrational. I specialised to work in overseas development, so my approach is geared towards ensure folk gain access to due process in law and access to justice, in some pretty fucked-up states (see Brexitania). I ain’t a diddy, though that might just be a personal belief. 🙂
@ Craig Murray at 1am (really, you should be getting a decent nights sleep when you have all those stairs to climb in the morning, your reports on the case are excellent, and astonishing, btw)
You say “As for being its own independent state, that’s a different part of UN law. There is really nothing in modern history I can see that would justify the claim that Orkney islanders are a people with the right to self determination. It’s Scotland”
John recently hosted an article about Shetlands and Orkney – I blethered on about Shetland – but realised I didn’t know much about Orkney – thinking it was just part of Scotland, so thank you for the confirmation. It wasn’t just my ignorance!
Anybody in any doubt as to the craven conspiracy to damage Alex Salmond, need only look at this article in the National.
It is abundantly clear that the Scottish government are prepared to do anything and everything possible to attack Salmond, yet do nothing to save Scotland from England’s fascist Tyranny.
If Mr Salmond needs a crowdfunder to take the lying charlatan to court, he’ll get the money in a few hours. Their is deep, deep resentment at what NS and her bestie Leslie Evans have done and still are doing. They are as corrupt and twisted as Boris Johnson.
link to thenational.scot
Cam B,,,,Re, this pest Liz g.
Tell that patronising, Buckfast sookin, irrelevant wee pain in the arse to mind her own fuckin business and to get her arse back to The Wee Ginger Dug site, along with the rest of the non entities who support the SNP and their leader.
If this Liz g was a guy she would be the wee wanker who tagged along at the back, trying to be heard and nobody was listening to.
The little drunken unimportant squirt loves nothing better than to play to the crowd.
Tell her to Fuck Off.
Leslie Evans is a nasty backstabbing piece of work and I’m just glad I don’t work anywhere near her – from the committee investigation I find the interaction between Jackie Baillie and her the most fascinating – Baillie seems to wind her up, Evans certainly loses her cool under questioning, and I would say there’s no love lost between them for sure.
After watching the 2nd Only Game in Town a while ago, I found the mention of Leslie Evans (as an aside) interesting – though there was no evidence she was directly involved in the PFI/PPP scandal. I started looking into it – government should be transparent after all (hahaHAHAhaha) – but there are just a lot of dead ends. It was taking ages to try and put things together so my gathering of info petered out. The period of time in question is between 2002 and 2008 (2005 is the key year for this) approximately & Leslie Evans got shifted about to various posts – which happens with civil servants. She was instrumental in developing policy to give councils more powers – obviously to allow them freedom to make shit PFI deals – and had a very high position, but then gained obscurity. [2002 – 2003 Leslie Evans, head of the local government constitution and governance division,] [2005: For item 1, I welcome Patricia Ferguson, the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport, and her officials Leslie Evans, who is head of the tourism, culture and sport group at the Scottish Executive][2005 Head of Public Services, Leslie Evans]. It gets very vague after 2005.
It’s very difficult to get information – and I went down a rabbit hole trying to find out about the FPU (Financial Partnership Unit), what department it belonged to, and the UK’s PUK, what they were, who was involved etc – those bodies were instrumental in PFI stuff. It’s a bit like the Internet has been scoured clean of any in-depth info on these bodies. Sandy Rosie was head of FPU – Scotland’s ‘interface’ for the PFI deals – up to 2008 at least. was he a civil servant or a private contractor? No idea – there is zero information on that. Being a Director would imply civil servant – but I don’t know if that’s true. In 2008 he was mentioned as director but the meeting was taken in private (that was the last mention of his name I could find,,, which is not normal because I could follow an outline career path of one Richard Dennis that was witness at the same time but different dept).
The FPU still, I think, seems to be in existence somewhere. The information I could find are just mentions by politicians, or headers for committee meetings etc – I have a mess of links if anyone wants. From the pages ‘they work for you’ you can get snippets like this from 5 May 2004: ““Andy Kerr Labour: The Private Finance and Capital Unit in the Scottish Executive Health Department deals with all public capital and PPP issues within the NHS in Scotland. There are six full-time equivalent staff working in the Unit. The Financial Partnerships Unit in the Scottish Executive Finance and Central Services Department deals with all non-health PPP projects and Executive PPP wider policy issues. There are 6.5 full-time equivalent staff currently within the unit.”” You won’t get anything that detailed recently though, and Wiki gives more information than the scotgov website.
Anyway – it was leading me nowhere – I don’t know why Leslie Evans would be involved in any way in any transactions with PPP deals, because she ‘appears’ to have no connection to the FPU in 2005. The lack of info implies the whole thing stinks, but apart from Leslie Evans being instrumental in the ‘plausible’* great idea of ensuring councils have more powers to make the deals, there appears to be no direct link.
* all Leslie Evans ideas are ‘plausible’ as she states them : like ‘we identified a gap,,,’ – no, Leslie, there wasn’t a gap, there was no, and is no, plausible reason an employer would haul an ex-employee in for harassment, it’s either a police matter or finished with.
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” I say!
For anyone that wants to watch the second part of Martin Campbell’s expose,,,
Exposing PFI deals, North Ayrshire schools PPP (the only game in town 2):
link to m.youtube.com
Nothing has a value without freedom of association.
link to thenational.scot
The creep, creep, creep of police statism….
@ Daisy Walker
Hi Daisy…good to see you posting on here again.
@ LizG
Hi Liz, hope you are well…….we have not had a wee chat for a while….so much happening just now it’s hard to keep up.No sooner do we start talking about something…another thing happens…..Take care.
Have a nice day both of you
Ottomanboi
The National lying again – there was no legal basis other than existing powers for house gatherings in excess of 15 people.
NS said in her brief ‘media reports said…..’ and went on to give part of her rationale for decision making.
The media is actively influencing the agencies we task with dealing with the ‘crisis’.
fucking right we’re headed for a stasi state – media led.
and the irony is any criticism of anything they are selling is quickly labelled ‘Right Wing’.
@Robert Louis
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We have already replied to Levy & McRae to say we have no evidence of any leak of their client’s data or correspondence on this matter from the Scottish Government.
Source: The National
That’ll be it fixed then.
There is no doubt that (a significant proportion of) Civil Service Scotland and the Daily Record(sic) are acting against Scotland.
I can’t do that archive stuff? But the daily redcoat covering the GMB
presenters ganging up on Nicola with lies about what an economic
Reports actually states.
Brillo heid refuses to apologise for lying blatantly about the reading levels
Of Scottish school children.
Robert Louis says:
16 September, 2020 at 6:58 am
Anybody in any doubt as to the craven conspiracy to damage Alex Salmond, need only look at this article in the National…
Agreed.
Sooner or later, it must be recognised that Sturgeons coterie of conspirators and shit stirring sleaze merchants is simply untenable and heads have got to roll.
Perhaps the only surprising thing is the SNP membership’s conspicuous lack of survival instinct. Where are the demand’s that Sturgeon steps aside to clear up the mess she’s made, and lets somebody competent take over as First Minister, who is at the very minimum, committed to Scottish Independence, professional diligence and probity, and has the confidence of the Movement?
Nicola Sturgeon, Leslie Evans, Peter Murrell, James Wolffe.
Four people doing different senior jobs in Scottish public life. One thing, above all, in common.
They don’t carry out their tasks with even the slightest care about what is good for Scotland.
A quartet whose control and influence must be swept away by patriotic Scots, as a prelude to us taking on and defeating London’s malign power.
Oneliner says:
16 September, 2020 at 8:43 am
@Robert Louis
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We have already replied to Levy & McRae to say we have no evidence of any leak of their client’s data or correspondence on this matter from the Scottish Government.
Source: The National
That can’t be true either. The “evidence” of the leak is the confidential information appearing in the Press FFS, and straight away there should be a shortlist of people who had access to the confidential information, and the person responsible for the leak would be on the shortlist.
@Breeks
And I imagine that most, if not all, of the people on the shortlist were employed by SG when the Daily Record(sic) broke the story originally.
This is a great article and you’ve constructed a beautiful argument against the premise of what Evans tries to claim. Alex Massie’s article you link to is a beautifully written one. I had hopes for him at one time, or his father, reluctantly supporting independence because of brexit. Hopes dashed obviously, especially in the father’s case with some of the things heard recently. But the younger Massie still writes well in cases like this where he is in the right.
@ holymacmoses
‘It is quite apparent that Mr Salmond was innocent of all criminal charges against him and that it took hours of discussion and coaching and wording and re-wording to trump up the charges for the police to bring. Eventually the women had to go to court because if they hadn’t, Mr Salmond could have sued the daylights out of all of them. By going to court and sticking to a pretence of having followed (but not quite to the letter) a government procedure the women who made the accusations and the SNP Government have legally protected themselves and achieved the right of anonymity’
Yes, spot on I think.
The BBC in Scotland’s Morning Moanin
Call Kaye: Is it time to discuss the delicate balance between keeping people safe in carehomes with their quality of life.
Aye OK Kaye lets do that as long as you and your colleagues promise not to label the resulting deaths in these carehomes due to Covid-19 as “The Crisis in Scottish Carehomes”
The BBC in Scotland’s Morning Moanin
Call Kaye: Is it time to discuss the delicate balance between keeping people safe in carehomes with their quality of life.
Aye Kaye lets do that as long as you and your colleagues promise not to label the resulting deaths in these carehomes due to Covid-19 as “The Crisis in Scottish Carehomes”
There’s a good read on the Arc of Prosperity blog….
link to arcofprosperity.org
I liked this in particular, (speaking about Sturgeon)….
“… . It’s almost as if she doesn’t know how to negotiate with somebody who doesn’t deep down agree with her – for instance with people who don’t agree that Scotland is a country or that the Scottish people are sovereign. In effect, she seems to be saying this: “I know you don’t want a referendum, but you have to agree to one. By the way, I won’t pursue any other possibilities until you give in.”
As you learn in the first lesson of Negotiation Skills 101, you have to put yourself in your opponent’s shoes and figure out what they want and don’t want. In lesson two, you learn not to put all your cards on the table from the outset, but to keep the opponent guessing.”
I’ve said the same thing myself… For example when Theresa May was shopping for a Brexit deal, Sturgeon’s position was that she wouldn’t commit to doing anything until she knew the details of Brexit. She thus telegraphed to May that May was free to negotiate whatever odious Brexit deal she liked, without any fear of a Scottish referendum announcement, because Sturgeon had committed herself to doing nothing until the Brexit deal was agreed.
Theresa May was thus empowered to forestall a Scottish referendum by keeping Sturgeon at arms length and in the dark about Brexit negotiations, while Sturgeon has simultaneously immobilised any meaningful resistance to Brexit by declaring Scotland wouldn’t act until the negotiations were over.. What genius….
She showed the same ineptitude over the Brexit vote. Notwithstanding the Constitutional sellout, (we’ll put that catastrophic incompetence to one side), but by declaring Scotland would be satisfied with merely access to the Single Market, Sturgeon again telegraphed to Westminster that Scotland was not going challenge Brexit on Constitutional merits. Unforced by anyone, she had forfeited Scotland’s “Sovereign” strength and pulled the rug out from under a Constitutional dispute, even before Westminster was alert to the possibility of there being one.
This happens again, and again. She telegraphs her intentions, Westminster compromises those intentions, and she has no backup plan or workaround devised. She is too linear in her thinking, too pedestrian, predictable, inflexible and inept to be a negotiator. She simply lacks the acumen. She is a loser, I mean that literally, she loses when all the components are there for the win.
I might hazard a guess these limited abilities are a big factor in the wider mess she’s embroiled in.
She has to go. Whether you love her or hate her, she isn’t up to the job.
A simple question Breeks.
Did Sturgeon not realise that an exit from the EU guaranteed the destruction of the Scottish Parliament and the incarceration of five million Scots into a unitary U.K.
@ Robert Graham
Replying to o/t
I don’t listen to LBC so thanks for that info. It’s worrying if they’re prioritising testing English patients in Scottish centres if it leaves Scottish centres with fewer resources to test Scots. My unionist relatives would be incensed if they realised this, for in many ways they’re more ‘blood and soil’ nationalists than I am when it has come to closing the border and keeping things for Scots only. They’re even annoyed about threats by BBC to stop showing Sturgeon covid briefings. I feel those staunch unionists, and possible brexiter Scots, have more similarity to English nationalists than they do to we nationalists.
@ leither
‘you might as well ask what a dead cat, a computer whiz-kid, an Electric Monk, quantum mechanics, a Chronologist and pizza have in common’
Talking about dead cats… the thing with them is they stink up the place.
Throwing smoke bombs again I see, deliberately disrupting threads is what you like doing since folk are criticising your beloved SNP. As I said to you soon after you first appeared leither, why don’t you go dip your big toe in verucca salt, since you’re so fond of talking about that sanitary remedy, and suck it.
I have no doubt that a significant proportion of the Civil Service in Scotland is working against independence and the majority of Scottish people.
Who is Leslie Evans married to?
I am fed up with people eg Lords, married women writing under one name without stating who their partner is eg Sarah Vine writing today about falling out with Cameron – how many know she is Gove’s wife? The Lords take on a new name in the hope we will forget their past deeds – hiding in plain sight?
Breeks – Correct.
In December 2019 Sturgeon said before asking for a Section 30 :” I am expecting a no”. Then when the no came she said” We anticipated this”.
Well why the F*ck did you ask? Because clearly it wasn’t a strategy , where you had a plan to counter the no response. Your response was nothing.
I’m sure many of you will have seen this. For those that haven’t, it’s a wee window into Lesley Evans mindset. From her time at Edinburgh City Council.
Her total lack of empathy and humanity. The immoral decisions she’s prepared to take to quash anyone who challenges her viewpoint should have alarm bells ringing. She shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a judicial role. Quite prepared to break the law to send a Scottish independence iconic hero to jail for the rest of his life.
Borderline Narcissistic Sociopathy at the very least.
link to kidsnotsuits.com
@ winifred mccartney
‘I am fed up with people eg Lords, married women writing under one name without stating who their partner is eg Sarah Vine writing today about falling out with Cameron – how many know she is Gove’s wife? The Lords take on a new name in the hope we will forget their past deeds – hiding in plain sight?’
I entirely agree, many don’t know who Vine – or other people they read – are, so everyone should always read carefully and check anything anyone says for facts. I had thought Stuart’s dictums about that would have filtered through to more people here by now, yet on the mention of Blackford talking about Magna Carta lots of folk leapt on it, complained about it, repeated it and didn’t check. We can’t always know who everyone is but we can check out what they say surely.
I haven’t managed to read all the comments so perhaps my question has been answered already.
Am I correct in thinking that Alex Salmond will appear at the Holyrood committee next week but it will all be done in private?
Breeks @8:51am
> heads have got to roll
Once the axes start to fall there’s no telling when they will stop. As a result, I’d expect any change in the upper layers to be resisted vigorously for as long as possible. With the cult of personality still seemingly working well it’s going to take quite a lot to enact any change.
Unfortunately for the SNP leadership there’s a whole fleet of events heading with full speed in their direction. Brexit is clearly the most serious and the one the leadership does not have the nous to deal with. Desperately hanging on just means the damage is going to all the greater to the party and the country.
I think it suits Sturgeon to do nothing. She is watching the Yes vote go up and the SNP vote.
She sees that as success. She doesn’t understand that success and failure often go hand in hand. The failure is just down the road. When devolution is destroyed, when Brexit takes away our futures, when the power grab happens.
She will be sitting with a 55% yes vote and 53% SNP vote , but utterly impotent. What good is being ahead , when you can’t get to the finish line that no longer exists.
As a senior bureaucrat, it is literally Leslie Evans job to know how much this cost. Her position is untenable and she should have been out years ago.
Why doesn’t Sturgeon sack her? I have no idea what the answer is. Can someone enlighten me ?
Here’s info about Leslie Evans’ husband
Down, Tinfoil! Down!
link to twitter.com
Breeks @9:36
“Whether you love her or hate her, she isn’t up to the job.”
Oh, I don’t know.
It very much depends on the “Job Description” which, other than “Keeper of the Great Seal”, is probably open to a great degree of latitude – particularly at the behest of Westminster.
Damn! Now I’ve got Sandie Shaw in my head for the rest of the day…
“I wonder if one day that
You’ll say that you care…”
worth repeating I think+ thanks to CBB for the insight.
CameronB Brodie says:
15 September, 2020 at 9:42 pm
Gove is a very dangerous man who is part of the radical right’s takeover of the Conservative party. He has already restructured the English education system in a manner that promotes British values, which educational scholars consider intrinsically racist and in denial of our colonial history. He also disparaged experts in the populist sales pitch that brought us Brexit. Gove is almost certainly a friend of fascism, if not an out and out fascist.
I realise this may seem like a trivial observation, but I briefly taught at his school(Robert Gordon’s college),Aberdeen.I thought I had stepped into the world of Billy Bunter and Greyfriars school. On going to the staffroom I sat unwisely in the first available seat only to be greeted with a hushed but palpable air of reproach silently saying ‘You can’t sit there’-that’s Bonzer’s(or some other such ludicrous nickname) place.
The atmosphere was of an educational relic of the 30’s.Possibly even older, Victorian?, redolant of an imperialist enabling past and culture.Previously the buildng was known as Fort Cumberland,(yes the butcher ) and still trying to instill that spirit of fascism into the boys(not co-educational then). I left feeling slightly shell shocked and queasy that such archaic institutions persisted.One cannot be surprised that their pedagogic speciality in taking the easily influenced male children of local business people and moulding this base, low calibre material into opinionated, reactionary entitlement.
This memory is from the eighties.I imagine Gove was a product of the sixties or seventies.How much more ante-deluvian was it then, steeped in its phoney antiquity and strict adherence to regressive social values as a kind of assertion of superiority.How surprising is it that such limited mad creatures as Gove prosper in our land.
All the figures that Nicola Sturgeon uses in any briefing come from? You guessed it. The Civil Service. They know the cost of everything, but perhaps the value of nothing.
For Leslie Evans to state she has no idea how much the Alex Salmond affair has cost in entirety is a downright evasion of the facts. She will know to the nsarest pound now much it has cost the taxpayer. So will Nicola.
Bad news buried.
Re Leslie Evans’ husband:
I am reminded of a story told by the late Mr Abie
He and Hector Nicol were returning to the former’s house and were met at the door by Abie’s mother.
‘Come in quick, your father’s had a bad turn’
To which Hector Nicol responded
‘Imagine that – two bad turns in the wan hoose!’
She is technically quite correct. For a variety of reasons it cannot be *calculated* – it can be estimated though…
At this stage I would have thought it might be a good idea after being soundly beaten on both vendetta led failed attempts to sideline Alex the first attempt spectacularly failed , and the second attempt despite the warnings of the failed first attempt , Whoever was pushing the doomed second attack that would have seen Alex spend a good part of his life locked up ,
Aye you can’t beat persistence eh ,
I read some of the antics Evans got up to in a previous position not a great reflection on her honesty or even her judgment how she managed to climb the greasy pole of the Civil Service is pretty spectacular , to get to the position she now holds inside the Scottish government can’t be because of her charismatic charms or superior intellect , so who paved the way and what returns are expected for this assistance , HM Government ? More than likely.
Anyway back to the point and both leaks to the same paper denied by ? That’s the Question who exactly denied this , I would assume the First Minister is or was aware of both events , just as she must have been either directly involved or again aware of Alex being denied entry to Holyrood by the FMs office , and the removal from SNP history of references to Alex , this has since been partly restored but the obvious damage has been done ,
Any leeway or sympathy I had for the First Minister has gone now the overwhelming evidence is there for all to see even the most trusting and loyal supporters can’t answer or deny something that’s right in front of them , the silence from the Office of the First Minister tells me everything
For the first time ever, I’m thinking that I don’t care if Holyrood shuts down.
It would get rid of all those bench warmers and staffers who are quite useless in protecting Scotland.
We the people will have to do it, we can no longer rely on the current SNP.
I would only vote for Joanna Cherry, Joan McAlpine and a few others.
Why did Alex Salmond stand down?
If only he had stayed on to fight.
And if memory serves me right, the Rev also through in the towel after indyRef1, (thank God that didn’t last long).
And as for Sturgeon, she is a terrible leader of a Political Party.
She would make a good government department manager, but as far as leading Scotland to Independence, she is way out of her depth.
She is what is known as “winging it” on a daily basis and should resign with immediate effect.
I had meant to add in my previous post more or less when in a hole stop digging ,
or even attempt to quieten down the obvious ructions caused by not just the first case , and compounded by pursuing a Criminal Conviction ,
This latest provable government instigated publishing of a private letter doesn’t just escalate the problem it throws Petrol on a already burning inferno ,
The abject stupidity doesn’t just continue it’s intentionally being pushed to a whole different level , a level that people can’t now forgive or forget it’s way beyond retrieval now , bridges not only burned but bloody destroyed beyond any kind of repair
@Ananurhing 10:09am
Thanks for the link, a compelling read, most illuminating and devastatingly damning.
I’m tending towards agreeing with you Liz.
@ Oneliner
‘the late Mr Abie. He and Hector Nicol’
I didn’t get your reference and had to search the names and came across the album Lady and the Champ. Also another album called The Peg Legged Kiltie Coalman From Castlemilk. Scotland really seemed a different place back then, but I doubt we’re as funny now. Thanks for the reference that led me to something new.
Sturgeon is no Fidel Castro.
And Ian Blackford is certainly no Che Guevara.
They are more like Simmit n Drawers,
“a perra warrmurrs”
Ruby @10:15
If that is the plan he should refuse to attend – or demand Craig Murray be in attendance to guarantee an accurate yet appropriately redacted transcript..
..unless and to extent they are trying to protect his reputation from a repeat of yesterdays performance when the star witness refused to answer Jackie Bailey’s questions for fear of jigsaw identification of MINISTERS – which is either a sign of the pressure ACH line of questioning had been putting him under earlier (before the convener’s intervention on Sir Peter Housden’s behalf) or one hell of a smoking gun!
Liz 11.14am
The strange thing about Holyrood is that there IS NOT ONE TRUE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE PARTY within it’s walls.
Sturgeon has turned Holyrood into a glorified Council Chamber.
@Polly
Glad to be of assistance. I agree, it is difficult to find any humour in much of what constitutes ‘current affairs’.
Leslie Evans is married to Derek G McVay, an officer of SNP Edinburgh Central branch. Edinburgh Central eh?
Derek also runs a music business called Del Boy International Ltd, and he has in the past worked with the band Jamiroquai.
Jamiroquai are perhaps best known for their hit song Virtual Insanity.
Virtual Insanity nicely describes the atmosphere created by the Sturgeon/Evans/Murrell power clique, responsible for Scotland being defenceless against the evil Johnson and his army of nasties.
“The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever becoming one.”
W.Connolly
The Sun suggesting only 2 areas of England’s many Covid Hot Spots
Have testing kits and if they had kits the backlog for results is horrific.
World leading done ever do well?
BOLLOCKS
Nicola can’t sack that lying piece of **** because the BritNazi Establishment has so much unspeakable dirt on the First Minister or someone close to her (ahem…) that she’s being blackmailed.
One more reason to flush the current “leadership” out.
Politicians are like diapers: they should be replaced often, for the same reason.
Donald Raymond @ 10.43am
“Why doesn’t Sturgeon sack her? I’ve no idea what the answer is. can someone enlighten me?”
I think it’s more likely that when the time comes, and she’s outlived her usefulness, it’ll be Evans task to sack Sturgeon or at least have a quiet word in her “shell-like” on behalf of the string pullers upstairs.
I see there is another tory found guilty of sexual assault, apparently its that Mark francios who was charged months ago?
MI5 must be so busy working on anti independence that these Tory creeps are
Getting caught.
After losing the 114 paedo files relating to Westminster it might look
Suspicious to add these new creeps into the pile.
I have every faith the English electorate will put in a replacement Tory creep
to take away their human rights, unemployment, zero hours contracts, privatised NHS
And a pension age of 75.
@ Oneliner
You’re correct it’s hard to laugh these days given the dire situation. But I appreciated your joke just the same once I got the reference.
iz says:
16 September, 2020 at 11:14 am
For the first time ever, I’m thinking that I don’t care if Holyrood shuts down.
It would get rid of all those bench warmers and staffers who are quite useless in protecting Scotland….
I’d impeach it to help it on it’s way… Then reaffirm Scotland’s Sovereign Constitution as sacrosanct.
surely the people who voted for that bag o wind can demand that she be removed, I voted for a bag o wind in Inverclyde and that bag o wind will not be getting my vote again,
The good news is that another SNP candidate is standing against the bag o wind who is as useful as a man with no legs, but he is of course a low down bum lol
Thanks for that answer Kappelmeister – that explains a lot and might be the answer to why Joanna Cherry was locked out of standing in Edinburgh Central. We do not need to look very far to find plants in this government.
As far as I’ve been led to believe, the best way of avoiding a crisis becoming a disaster, is to stick to principles of legal process and the law. That’s law, not arbitrary legal practice. So why has the Scottish government be ignoring Westminster’s abuse of international law, for so long now? Or is it only breaches against the Good Friday Agreement that count in the eyes of the Scottish government and Brexitanian justice?
link to digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca