Tuning In The Shine
For any of you who haven’t caught it yet, my interview from Monday’s BBC Scotcast (which is also available on Spotify).
Sadly due to a summer scheduling quirk the video version won’t go out on the telly, and seemingly not on the BBC YouTube page either, so you’ll just have to listen to the audio and somehow live without seeing my gorgeous face.
(But it looked like this. Auld man needs some beard dye.)
You may notice the occasional abrupt cut. That’s because 10 minutes were snipped from the recording to fit the show’s timeslot, and they were pretty much the same 10 minutes I’d have cut if I’d been editing it myself, including the bit where I accidentally called Jeffrey Epstein “Brian Epstein”.
(While making the point that Epstein had been jailed but none of his clients had. I hope Peter Murrell doesn’t also commit “suicide” in HMP Dumfries.)
If you’re interested, the other stuff that didn’t make the broadcast discussed:
– Colin Beattie, and how he manifestly obviously wasn’t allowed to see the books any more than Douglas Chapman was, but was a compliant stooge who could be trusted by Murrell and Sturgeon not to ask any awkward questions. (Relating to Martin Geissler’s question about who the Crown Office could actually prosecute.)
– the SNP’s non-existent track record of actively pursuing a meaningful indy strategy, and what I’d have done instead. (Which is detailed here and here.)
– the fact that Alba failed (relating to the question about why I didn’t get involved in politics myself) because almost the only thing Nicola Sturgeon’s government did competently and effectively during its near-decade in power was trash Alex Salmond’s reputation.
– the mystery of why even now no proper newspapers support independence, even as a purely cynical economic move, despite it being backed by half the population.
– the parallels, in terms of online media doing the job the mainstream press failed to, between Wings coverage of the SNP fundraiser scandal and that of the Rangers tax case, possibly because I made a plucky but ill-advised attempt at pronouncing Phil Mac Giolla Bháin’s name.
(I note in passing that he seems to be the most recent Twitter user to lose his account to a scummy crypto scammer.)
I don’t think any of it got “censored”, I think they just decided that what was left in was better material, and I agree. So there you go.
Cheers Rev!
Interesting your remarks abut Colin Beattie. He has done a fantastic job of staying completely under the radar so far. I don’t know if a single media outlet has tried to interview him.
I was actually planning to post a comment on your X urging you to keep the decision not to prosecute Beattie in your sights as one of your targets.
If Murrell had been Treasurer, pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes while he looted the accounts, it might be understandable. But Beattie was supposed to be there scrutinising the accounts. That was his job. And yet he managed to notice nothing for years. “Compliant stooge” is right on the nail.
The decision not to prosecute Beattie would be a puzzler, were it not for the simple fact that it would have been almost impossible to prosecute Beattie without prosecuting Sturgeon as well. That’s an avenue of enquiry that deserves to be pursued.
” ..Fru fru knickknacks for his kitchen..” My favorite.