Following Robin McAlpine’s excellent article, some responded by asking where is the hard evidence of a conspiracy against Alex Salmond? Well, here is some of it, not public before.
My trial for contempt of court is now fixed for 27 January. This is an extract from my lawyers’ latest submission requesting disclosure of documents which the Crown Office is hiding, both from my trial and from the Holyrood Inquiry:
QUOTE
4. The information in question is:
(a) A series of written communications involving Peter Murrell, Chief Executive Officer
of the SNP, and Sue Ruddick, Chief Operating Officer of the SNP. They discussed
inter alia a pub lunch or similar occasion between Ian McCann, a SNP staff member
working for them, and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, one of the complainers in the HM Advocate
v Salmond trial. At the lunch, Mr Murrell and Ms Ruddick expected xxxxxxxxx to firm
up her commitment to giving evidence against Alex Salmond, and to discuss
progress on bringing in others to make complaints. They expressed dissatisfaction at
Mr McCann for his performance in achieving these objectives and expressed doubt as
to his commitment to the cause.
(b) A communication from Ms Ruddick to Mr Murrell in which she explained to
Mr Murrell that progress on the case was being delayed by Police Scotland and/or
the COPFS’s saying there was insufficient evidence, and in which communication
she expressed the sentiment that, if the police/Crown would specify the precise
evidence needed, she would get it for them.
(c) Text messages from Mr Murrell to Ms Ruddick stating that it was a good time to
pressure the police, and that the more fronts Alex Salmond had to fight on the better.
(d) Communications from Ms Ruddick about her visits to a number of locations,
including the Glenrothes area, and including in conjunction or discussion with
xxxxxxxxxxxxx. These communications detail their unsuccessful attempts to find
witnesses who would corroborate allegations of inappropriate behaviour against
Alex Salmond. They include a report of a meeting with young people who were
small children at the time of the incident they were seeking to allege, who did not
provide the corroboration sought.
(e) A message from xxxxxxxxxxxx stating that she would not attend a meeting if
xxxxxxxxxxx were also present as she felt pressured to make a complaint rather than
supported.
(f) Messages in the WhatsApp group of SNP Special Advisers, particularly one saying
that they would “destroy” Alex Salmond and one referring to Scotland’s ‘Harvey
Weinstein moment’, employing the #MeToo hashtag.
5. The respondent saw this information before he published the articles and tweets that
are the subject of these proceedings. The respondent considers that the information
in question would materially weaken the Lord Advocate‘s case and materially
strengthen his case because: (i) it materially strengthens the respondent’s case on
Article 10; and (ii) it materially weakens the Lord Advocate’s case, and materially
strengthens the respondent’s case, on the alleged breach of section 11 of the
Contempt of Court Act 1981
END QUOTE
You can see the full application from my lawyers pub2101131230 DISCLOSURE APPLICATION (1)
To which the Lord Advocate yesterday replied:
QUOTE
4. In respect of the first question, it is understood that the material referred
to in paragraphs 4a – 4f of the disclosure application are private
communications. As such they can have no bearing on the question of
the degree of likelihood of the disclosure of the complainers’ identities
by the publishing of the articles detailed in the Petition and Complaint
and Submissions for the Petitioner.
5. In respect of the second question, the Respondent asserts in his answers
and submissions that a finding of contempt would be contrary to his
Article 10 rights. The material is not relevant to the court’s consideration
of the Respondent’s Article 10 rights. Further, the disclosure of the
material may constitute a breach of the Article 8 rights of the parties to
those private communications.
Advocate
END QUOTE
You can see the Lord Advocate’s reply in full here 20210114 Answers to Disclosure Request (3). Note the Lord Advocate acknowledges the existence of these messages (which the Crown Office holds) but argues they are private, and irrelevant.
On the face of it, these messages are evidence of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. They refer to pressuring the police, to pressuring a witness, to highly improper encouragement of “evidence”. To reveal them would breach Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick’s right to private communication? If, dear reader, you ever feel the urge to conspire to commit a crime, be sure to do it by text message, then the Lord Advocate will ensure that it is all kept nice and secret.
It is important to state that the woman in para (a) to whom Ian McCann was sent to screw her courage to the sticking point, was Woman H. She was vital as her allegation was the most serious of all. She was the most active perjurer in the Salmond trial, the woman who was not even present on the occasion she claimed to have been the victim of attempted rape. This is my report of the defence evidence about Ms H at the time, not reported in any detail anywhere else but on this blog:
The first witness today was Ms Samantha Barber, a company director. She had known Alex Salmond since 1994 when she was working for the SNP as a research assistant for the Euro elections. She had thereafter been employed by the European Parliament, and in 2007 become the Chief Executive of Scottish Business in the Community, a post she still held in 2014. She is now a director of several companies.
In the seven years Alex Salmond was First Minister she had several times been a guest at Bute House for dinner. She had a positive and respectful relationship with Alex Salmond but they were not personal friends outside of business.
She had been a personal friend of Ms H, the accuser who alleged attempted rape, for some years by 2014. They remain friends. She had been invited to the evening reception of Ms H’s wedding. She testified she is also a friend of Ms H’s current husband.
Ms H had telephoned her to invite her to the dinner at Bute house with the (not to be named) actor on 13 June 2014. Ms H in inviting her had stated she (Ms H) was not able to be there. In fact Ms H had indeed not been at the dinner. Ms Barber had arrived that evening at around 7pm. She had been shown up to the drawing room. The actor was already there and they had chatted together, just the two of them, until about 7.15pm when Alex Salmond had joined them. The three of them had dinner together. It was friendly and conivivial. At first the actor’s career had been discussed and then Scottish independence. Nobody else was there. Asked if any private secretaries had been in and out during dinner, Ms Barber replied not to her recollection. Nobody interrupted them
One bottle of wine was served during dinner. She had left after dinner around 9 and the actor had stayed on as Alex Salmond offered to show him around the Cabinet Room.
Defence Counsel Shelagh McCall QC asked her if Ms H had been there? No. Did you see her at any point during the evening? No.
[Ms H had claimed she was at this dinner and the attempted rape occurred afterwards. Alex Salmond had testified Ms H was not there at all. A video police interview with the actor had tended to support the idea Ms H, or another similar woman, was there and they were four at dinner.]
Prosecution counsel Alex Prentice then cross-examined Ms Barber. He asked whether she had received a message from the police on 29 January. She replied yes she had, and called them back on 3 February. Prentice asked whether they had then told her they wanted a statement, and whether she had replied she needed to take advice first. Ms Barber agreed.
Prentice asked why she would need legal advice to give a statement to police. Ms Barber replied she had never been involved in any judicial matter and wanted to understand the process she was getting into before she did anything. She had not said she wanted legal advice first, just advice.
Prentice asked again “why would you need legal advice before talking to the police”? Ms Barber again replied she wanted to understand the process she was getting into.
Prentice asked again, twice more, “why would you need legal advice before talking to the police?”. He got the same answer each time. You will recognise from yesterday’s report of his cross-examination of Alex Salmond, that it is a rhetorical trick of Prentice, to constantly repeat the same question in order to throw an unreasoned suspicion on the veracity of the answer. On this occasion he was stopped by the judge, who had enough.
Lady Dorrian pointedly asked him “Is a citizen not entitled to take advice, Mr Prentice?”, in a Maggie Smith tone of contempt.
Prentice then asked whether Ms Barber had already been at another Bute House dinner in May. Ms Barber replied not that she could recall. Prentice then asserted that the dinner on 13 June was with the actor, Ms H, and Alex Salmond. Ms Barber replied no, she genuinely had no recollection at all of Ms H being there.
The defence counsel Shelagh McCall QC then resumed questions. She asked if the police had put to Ms Barber that Ms H was there. Ms Barber replied that they had, and she had told them exactly what she had told the defence and now told the court, that Ms H had not been there.
The next witness was Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, who swore on the Koran. She had joined the SNP in 2000 and been appointed national Women and Equalities Convenor in 2011. From 2015 to 2017 she was MP for the Ochil Hills.
Shelagh McCall QC asked if she knew Ms H. She replied for some years, and more frequently from 2012. Ms H had been involved in the Yes campaign. They had a good relationship, and in 2014 Ms H had asked her advice on standing for the SNP national executive committee.
McCall asked her if she remembered the date of the 13 June 2014 dinner. Tasmina responded yes, that was the day her father had died. She had received a message he was taken very ill that morning and had set off for London. At Carlisle they learnt he had died. (At this point the witness broke into tears.)
Before leaving Scotland with her husband she had messaged the First Minister’s office to say she would not be able to attend the Scottish women’s international football match the next day. (The point of this evidence is it contradicts Ms H’s evidence of her interaction with Ms Ahmed-Sheikh over the football.)
Given the nonsense that was Woman H’s allegation, given the context of a new policy for complaints against ex-ministers which has been shown beyond doubt to be designed from the origin to trap one single man, given the frantic attempts to boost, invent or shore up complaints, given that the complainers were all from a tight coterie at the heart of Scottish government, given that the complaints fell apart when exposed to examination in court, I have no doubt that what we have here amounts to conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
In addition to which, Peter Murrell very plainly committed perjury when appearing on oath before the parliamentary inquiry into this matter, when he denied the existence of the hoard of text messages detailed above which are the subject of my latest disclosure application. Here is the evidence of his committing, firstly desperate obfuscation, then perjury.
But this is a straight lie. There is a lot more material. There is precisely the material detailed above that I have requested disclosure of for my court case and which the Crown Office refused to release as they are “private messages”. As you can see, it is precisely what Ms Baillie was asking for. The Crown Office has withheld this material from the Holyrood Inquiry. The Crown Office have also written to Alex Salmond – three times – to tell him that he will be prosecuted if he releases this material to the committee or provides any detail of its content.
There can be no doubt whatever that the Lord Advocate is now corruptly protecting Peter Murrell from a charge of perjury by keeping this material secret. I am aware that the Crown Office has received a letter from lawyers pointing out this perjury, and in response the Crown Office have tendentiously focused purely on one single question.
The Crown Office has rejoined that all of the undisclosed text messages in the series to which Jackie Baillie was referring are purely between Sue Ruddick and Peter Murrell. No other party official was involved, so Peter Murrell was not lying in this answer, which was specifically to a question of whether there were messages to any other party official.
But taking the totality of the exchanges, it is crystal clear that Baillie was not referring solely to texts to officials other than to Sue Ruddick. This is plain throughout but crystal clear here:
That is plainly a straight lie by Murrell. There is a great deal more material, as detailed in my application above and admitted by the Crown Office in their reply that these are “private messages”. It is plainly perjury by Murrell to say there is nothing else.
The Crown Office is lying to protect Murrell from perjury charges, and it has lied to protect Murrell before. The only two texts from the voluminous Murrell/Ruddick exchanges that have been leaked and have been published, to which Jackie Baillie refers, read as follows. They are from Murrell, instructing his junior Ruddick:
“TBH the more fronts he is having to firefront on the better for all complainers. So CPS action would be a good thing.”
“Totally agree folk should be asking the police questions. Report now with the PF on charges which leaves the police twiddling their thumbs. So good time to be pressuring them. Would be good to know Met looking at events in London.”
Yet in correspondence with Kenny Macaskill MP, Lindsey Miller of the Crown Office – who were sitting on these messages – denied the existence of these specific messages before they were leaked. This is an extract from a letter to Macaskill from Ms Miller, deputy Crown Agent – who remember was in possession of the texts listed immediately above.
I defy anybody to state that they honestly believe that Murrell’s message to Ruddick instructing her: “Totally agree folk should be asking the police questions. Report now with the PF on charges which leaves the police twiddling their thumbs. So good time to be pressuring them.” can be characterised as “no evidence” that Murrell put pressure on the police, directly or indirectly. Miller was lying. You might say it is not conclusive evidence – though it is pretty damning. But you cannot say it is no evidence. It is strong, prima facie evidence.
Macaskill having next quoted the precise texts she was hiding to her, this was then Ms Miller’s response:
Yet again, the amount of sophistry involved in protecting Peter Murrell, and the care for his private messages, is in sharp contrast to the gung-ho attitude of the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office to the prosecution of anyone who exposes the conspiracy against Alex Salmond, of which the Crown Office is a part.
My friend and colleague Mark Hirst has been triumphantly acquitted last week on the ridiculous charge of threatening behaviour to which he had been subjected for saying that those who conspired against Alex Salmond would “reap the whirlwind”. The Court found, entirely sensibly, that this was plainly in a political context and there was no case to answer. The Crown Office had instituted an obviously ridiculous charge – found “no case to answer” – out of pure political malice.
Readers of this blog will recall they helped substantially, with £10,000 from my own defence fund having been transferred to Mark.
But Mark’s life has been turned upside down. He lost his employment as a journalist as a result of the charge. His life has been wrecked and he is now having to earn a living working very hard, for a lot less money, in a completely different field from that he is qualified in. I trust he will not mind my saying the whole experience hit him very hard. Remember his home was raided by five officers from the Police Scotland “Alex Salmond team” and all his electronic equipment confiscated, while his name was dragged through the mud on both social and mainstream media.
The same “Alex Salmond team” still exist, are working on my prosecution, and are currently still engaged in a painstaking investigation as to who leaked two of the Murrell messages to Kenny Macaskill. Both the Crown Office and Police Scotland effectively now operate as the private enforcement arm of the Murrells, protecting them from consequences of their wrongdoing and persecuting their perceived political enemies .
That is what Scotland has become.
It is also worth noting that the perceived political enemies are not unionists – in my own case, dozens of MSM journalists who much more plainly committed jigsaw identification than I are not being prosecuted – but Independence “fundamentalists”.
There is much more evidence that the Crown Office is hiding, apart from the Murrell/Ruddick messages and the SNP Special Advisers whatsapp group. The Crown has also refused to release for my trial, or to the Holyrood Inquiry, the following documents:
- The text exchange between two complainants containing the phrase “I have a plan and means we can be anonymous but have strong repercussions…” referred to in the trial proper proceedings.
- An e mail from SNP official and defence witness Ann Harvie alleging a “witch hunt” and the emails from Sue Ruddick to which she was replying. This was referred to in the trial proper but this evidence was not admitted before the jury after objection from the Advocate Depute.
- Scottish Government documents produced as part of the Judicial Review hearings which support Mr Ronnie Clancy QC assertion of conduct on the part of Scottish Government officials “bordering on encouragement”. This was referred to in open court in the Court of Session proceedings of January 8th 2019. This should include the relevant “One Notes” of the Scottish Government Investigating Officer.
- Documents relevant to the circumstances in which details of a Scottish Government complaint was leaked to the Daily Record newspaper in August 2018. The matter of the circumstances in which this information appeared in the public domain was referred to in the evidence of Chief Inspector Lesley Boal in the criminal trial.
- Documents relevant to the circumstances in which the Scottish Government sources briefed the Sunday Post newspaper in August 2018 that matters were referred to the police on the advice of the Lord Advocate and whether there is documentation demonstrating that such advice was also revealed to complainants by Scottish Government officials or others as a means of persuasion
All of which is still only the tip of the iceberg. The extent to which the Crown Office colludes to keep the Holyrood Inquiry in the dark is truly a disgrace to Scotland.
My own trial starts on 27 January, which is now confirmed. It s going to be “virtual” – nobody will be in a courthouse, not even the judges nor me. I shall be sending out information on how you may follow it live shortly. I plead with you to do so – a political persecution is bad enough, I certainly do not want it to operate in the dark. Put 27 and 28 January in your diary!
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I do hope your friend Mr Hirst intends seeking ‘substantial damages’ for false denigration of his professional reputation, integrity not to mention a prospective number of years of gainful employment. He already has clear evidence of diminution of earnings in the interim and I’m not sure what monetary value I would place on reputational sabotage, but those having carried it out should certainly not in future be living in more than a 2 bedroom flat….
The trouble is that fighting a government in court costs lots of money,as they use your own earnings against you.
Do you reckon if Craig and Mr. Hirst were ardent unionists their musings would ever have been brought to the authorities attention?
As someone viewing this from England, it’s the disparity of treatment between pro-independence vs pro-UK voices, that’s most concerning. The unionists seem to be able to say anything they want without fear of grave repercussions.
You are absolutely correct. In fact this has already happened.
I was able to figure out who two of the women complaints were from this article by Dani Garavelli – a Unionist ‘journalist’
https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2020/04/01/dani-garavelli-alex-salmond-verdict-scotland/
Similarly, the same deductions could be made from a BBC ‘documentary’ by Kirsty Wark – a hatchet job on an acquitted man.
Craig has written about it here:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/who-paid-dani-garavelli/
If you are a Unionist you can do jigsaws to your heart’s content – so long as you slander and libel an innocent acquitted man.
If, however, you support this man and report truthfully on the events surrounding the conspiracy to jail him, the Yoons will throw the book at you.
The level of corruption here is staggering. It is so brazen it boggles the mind. I never ever in my lifetime thought I would see anything like this in Scotland.
Most people in Scotland are completely unaware of what is going on here as the mainstream media are fully complicit in it all but if they really knew I think the general public would be truly horrified, I know I am. The actions and inactions of the Lord Advocate are a disgrace to the judicial system in Scotland.
I feared they would nobble the trial of Salmond (they nobbled pretty much everything else along the way). I fear the same for you Craig. But like Salmond when all is said and done you ARE innocent.
I read all your posts on the AS stitch-up and I tried my best to work out who the alphabet women were. It was simply not possible. So all of this is a lot of made-up shit by the same bent judicial system in it’s umpteenth malicious political prosecution. What century and what country are we in here?
It also seem obvious to me now reading all of the above the Peter Murrell knew fine well that the Lord Advocate was going to do all this and so felt fully confident he could brazenly lie when he needed to.
They are not even really hiding it anymore. Because they don’t need to. The media are looking the other way as are the political ‘opposition’.
Giving the SNP a political monopoly in Scotland post 2014 was a huge mistake. Nicola’s regime is as bent a nine pound note and now there is no one to hold them accountable it seems. Where are the ‘good SNP MPs & MSPs in all of this? So few…
Good luck to you Craig. These bogus charges should be thrown out. The whole thing stinks.
People really need to wake up. What is happening in Scotland these days is shocking.
As appalling as this internal political chicanery is within the SNP has become, I’d imagine you still hold the opinion they’re the only realistic vehicle to achieve independence?
Look at the alternative:
Quote from Socialist Resistance article 16th January 2021:
‘On the evening of Wednesday January 13, Starmer hosted a secret online meeting to which Leonard was not invited, though private millionaire Labour donors and Ian Murray were. A deal brokered by the GMB apparently saw Leonard resign the next day with immediate effect, but guaranteed him a place at the top of one of Scottish Labour’s regional lists for the Holyrood elections in May – in apparent contradiction of the Scottish Labour policy of putting women at the head of all lists. This guarantees Leonard one of Scottish Labour’s dwindling number of seats in the Scottish Parliament and an MSP’s salary of £65k for the next four years.
While Leonard went along with the pretence that this was a personal decision taken over Xmas in his vacuous resignation statement, the shoddy ‘deal’ produced outrage from Leonard-supporting left wing MSP Neil Findlay who attacked Leonard’s opponents as “flinching cowards and sneering traitors” ( (a reference to the words of the “Red Flag”, the longstanding anthem of the Labour Party ritually sung at Labour’s conferences but completely ignored by Labour leaders other than Corbyn). ‘
Doubt anyone thinks the Scottish Labour Party and the people like the ghastly Blairites’ Ian Murray and Anas Sarwar, with Starmer, pulling the strings from London, offer anything like viable alternative?
As appalling as this internal political chicanery within the SNP has become – that should be typo
Nobody in Scotland is going back to Unionist Blairites, any more than Craig Murray is going to stop mentioning who conspired to put Alex Salmond in prison and is trying to do the same to him.
The Guardian seems to be heavily promoting Sarwar : a multi-millionaire who sends his kids to a private school and whose family business reportedly pays the minimum wage and won’t recognise trade unions.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/anas-sarwar-confirms-family-business-has-no-trade-union-recognition-1439601
This is a party that claims it represents the poorest in society.
The Tories and Labour make the SNP look good by way of contrast.
You’re giving us a red herring.
It may be whataboutery, but pointing out just how just how awful the Starmer(Sarwar)/ Davidson/Rennie possible alternative unionist coalition could be, is important. Yes, the SNP have a majority now, but lose it and another might not come about again for decades under Holyrood’s electoral system.
Win independence first. If the SNP disbands after, it won’t matter a jot. New progressive alternatives will emerge.
I already stated I hope Craig prevails in his case, a case that many believe shouldn’t have been brought in the first place.
Whether there was a wider conspiracy to nail Alex Salmond, although related, is a separate issue. Everything I read about Mr. Murrell’s behaviour leaves me pondering wtf was he thinking getting so intricately involved in such matters? Basically, why?
The worst of it is that SNP voters so disgusted with the top of the SNP stay home, a low turn out would do the tories huge favours.
Sturgeon and her husband have made a right old mess of it. It’s all quite sad
Peter Murrell is still Chief Executive Officer of the Scottish National Party, I presume?
Can she distance herself from Peter’s antics? Because If so, she should remove him from post to try to draw a line under it asap. The media may be holding back , because you can bet the messages Craig believes pertinent for his case, will mysteriously ’emerge’ if politically useful to opponents of independence. P. Murrell is a liability at this point.
What’s wrong with whataboutery again?
“Sturgeon and her husband have made a right old mess of it.”
Unless this outcome was intended.
“As appalling as this internal political chicanery is within the SNP has become, I’d imagine you still hold the opinion they’re the only realistic vehicle to achieve independence?”
A see a nice slogan leading Scotland to independence: We will get a national government with somewhat less political chicanery!
Is it Ms. Goose writing, or Mr. Red Herring?
A very impressive headline. Corruption at the top! Would it be correct to say that it runs through the Scottish/UK establishment and individuals are picked off by it one by one? That would be one hell of a description of any country.
Generally, the more educated people are about the UK system, the less patriotic they become.
For most, the idealised, romanticised view of Britain and its class system quickly fall away at a certain age. Exceptions being dimmer Tories; contrarians like David Starkey and classist snobs like Charles Moore, now Baron Moore of Etchingham.
The worst people are those who lack the imagination to envisage a better, more transparent system based on a partnership between govt and governed, such as the democratic systems found throughout Scandinavia. The top-down ‘dominator’ system i.e., based on hierarchy, secrecy and rule by fear, we live under in the UK could easily be changed and it’d be better for the vast majority.
Britain, I think, is overdue a discarded concept. The people you name are classic English ex-public school upper class characters who simply have no relevance to the Welsh, Scottish or Irish. Fantasies about Brexit have exposed the gulf between the self important image of England and the reality that it is now a very minor player in the world, and the other nations need to make their own settlement, Scandinavian style as you suggest. Let the English continue to preen but reality is about to engulf them. Let them “take it on the chin” (B. Johnson, 2020.)
But it’s annoyingly resilient, with those hoping for reform subject to many false dawns. How many decades has everyone accepted the need for proper HoL reform? Will it ever happen?
We thought we’d finally cracked it in 1997, only to be let down by a rogue. It’s 2021 and UK democratic/constitutional reform looks further away than ever. The truth is, you could produce a written constitution and a more accountable democratic system for the UK, in a single afternoon. It’s the lack of political will to do so that’s depressing.
“We thought we’d finally cracked it in 1997….” In a pig’s ear.
@Squeeth
I believed in Blair at that point, I must admit.
Read his 1996 conference speech, if you can find a transcript. Scathingly anti-Tory, much more radical than anything heard even on the left these days, and delivered with passion. He talked the language of real change.
I suppose as you see everything in ‘national’ terms that you believe that, in contrast to Welsh, Irish and Scots people, the long suffering English working class have nothing but admiration for their rulers and Public School boys.
If it is outmoded concepts that worry you, why not consider national stereotypes?
@bevin
I assume your comment is aimed at @Lydia?
I’m English and I think it is fair comment to say many in England see the upper classes and aristocrats as somehow superior and worthier, and thus they’re given far more respect than deserved. You only have to look at the clueless, incompetent , corrupt Tories and contrast their treatment to the hostility and abuse a Labour govt led by Corbyn would be facing, if his govt had presided over 100,000 covid deaths in a UK – a UK that had prior warning from Italy, France and Spain, and with all the border control advantages our island status permits us.
Indeed, England’s poor and marginalised are just as vulnerable as Scots, to the harmful effects of piss-poor government that is determined not to recognise your legal identity and corresponding legal rights. Given Scots law evolved from Roman law, it’s more than a shame that Scots law and legal practice must now conform with Westminster’s Brexit diktat. It is a crime against Treaty law and the Natural law of things.
Lessons from Roman law: EU law in England and Wales after Brexit
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03069400.2019.1585074
I think we have had enough of being dominated by your nation.
Goose don’t you see that what you say of English people can equally well be said of the Irish- consider the Republic’s political history and the persistence of deference; and the Scots- what is currently happening being an example of the problems that arise when people view their ‘leaders’ uncritically.
As to the failure of the Labour Party in the last election, you understand as well as I do the causes. Unfortunately Corbyn came ten years too late to galvanise the socialists in Scotland, who had been demoralised by Blairism (homegrown to a large extent) and sectarianism.
Bevin
inexplicable inertia and some kind of widespread delusion and promotion of myths by the deeply reactionary media keep the |English placid but if the WM system is ever broken by Scottish Independence it will unleash democracy in England. That expression is ominously similar to Leonard Cohen’s ironic lyric ‘democracy is coming to the USA’
I think you need to understand the difference between what the London mafia thinks, what the old money networks think and what a lot of ordinary English folk think.
Ordinary English folk don’t want to rebuild an Empire, they want to start with a nation that is inclusive and respectful. They want distance from both Europe AND the USA. They don’t want obsessions with the City to continue and they don’t want foreign non-dom tax avoiders owning the media. They want electoral reform they are getting about as sick of the Labour and Tory parties as the US citizens are getting with the Dems/Republicans. They want a culture which promotes entrepreneurs but doesn’t turn them into gods. They want affordable housing and they don’t want the NHS privatised. They absolutely don’t want to be gallivanting around the world fighting wars and they certainly don’t want to pay for ones that only benefit corporations. They happen to think that there’s an enormous number of nations with whom the UK has long-standing trading ties and they would far rather focus on building that up than bombing some innocent arabs or Africans to smithereens.
You really must not equate what the English WANT with what the newspapers in London say, what MPs say and what the BBC says.
What London and the SE think is vastly different to what the rest of England thinks….
Indeed the UK press are abysmal – highly controlled and increasingly discredited.
Of all things, I’d say the culture of state secrecy is the most pernicious thing here. Any system is only as good as the transparency those within it are obliged to observe. Those in power are only as bad and unaccountable as secrecy permits them to be.
The secrecy govt and officials hide behind is the great enabler, the misuse of classification allows a multitude of sins as Glenn Greenwald has highlighted in his reporting on the US. The UK is probably worse. The levels of transparency in Scandinavia would make much of the corruption and cover-ups the UK frequently endures impossible.
The public should see the harsh action and draconian punishments for whistleblowers as an attack on the public’s right to know.
No coincidence that these Nordic countries which are the leading countries in free information policies, also are rated as having the highest press and internet freedom in Europe. Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland are regularly among the top 10 best nations on earth in these categories by Freedom House.
Rhys Jaggar
Presumably The Lord Advocate was hired for his corruptability and has thus locked himself into an unavoidable expectation from his paymasters to willy nilly bend the Law whatever way they want. The rich think they’re powerful, but power is surely being able to spend government resources on what government wants. The payment doesn’t come from their own pockets and it doesn’t necessarily get paid in money form. It gets paid in Honours and titles and airs and graces from the billionaire-funded commentariat.
I’m sure the Lord Advocate doesn’t want to be embroigled in this embarrassing cover-up any more than Messrs Salmond and Craig. It remains to be seen if he has the bottle to stand up in public and hide the truth or if it is all threats and bluff.. I doubt the Murrells want to be trussed up like oven-ready turkeys either, stuffed from both ends and eaten cold for weeks. They are all following the natural course of events that flow from some decision they all made very early in life.
What is very clear is that most people in politics or police or justice are not motivated by either money or power or airs and graces, so there is a very good chance they will be completely uncorruptible and even absolutely disgusted by the shenanigans taking place. We just have to trust that having their notoriety broadcast to the wider public will shame the villains into remorse, and contributing to commonsense will galvanise the angels to hold fast against injustice.
@Rhys Jagger
Did you see Starmer’s Foreign Policy speech to the Fabian Society conference (held online)?
Forget his 10 pledges. It’s as though none of the lessons of Iraq have registered with Starmer – an elitist authoritarian if ever there was one. He stated Britain “is at is strongest” when it is “the bridge between the US and the rest of Europe”, and said Britain should once again be a “moral force for good in the world”, he accused the Tories of overseeing “a decade of global retreat”. He’s clearly another liberal interventionist. My god, who have members elected.
If what you say is true of “ordinary English folk” why do they keep voting for politicians who don’t even pretend to hold these values?
Great manifesto Rhys, I’m English and agree with it but I suspect many of our countrymen think no further than making sure they can afford to feed their families, pay their mortgage and have a nice holiday every now and then. No political party is offering the alternative you outline to engage them and until someone with the passion and eloquence of war criminal Tony Blair or indeed Gordon Brown of 30 years ago comes along, nothing will improve.
Thanks for your comment. It certainly conveys what you think, but as the rest of your fellow English citizens? Who knows, because they’ve not been given the option to choose this manifesto. It’s possible Corbyn did provide this to some extent, but in the last election, Brexit totally overwhelmed any other political debate, and the British are also overwhelmed by an appalling media, which even now is so downplaying Boris’s incompetence, that a majority of the electorate would vote Tory. And Corbyn, for all his positive points, never confronted the major problem in UK politics which is the First Past the Post system and the adversarial nature of politics in the House of Commons. Labour have never supported any form of proportional representation, and that includes Corbyn. (Please correct me if this is incorrect) Corbyn certainly wanted to reform the House of Lords, what sane person wouldn’t, but true reform would start with the House of Commons. That way , you might find some better representation in Parliament more aligned to your own humane manifesto. Starmer – he’s proving almost to be a fifth columnist in the Labour party. His recently proclaimed love for America, not Trump of course, so politically naive or inept, apparently, not to realise that Trump is just a symptoms of a deep national malaise. So a leader of a British socialist party loves a country that has seriously colluded in the past to ensure Labour never gets elected, that inflicts murderous sanctions on innocent populations, whose history during Starmer’s own life time is murder and mayhem in overseas wars, and a cannot be trusted even to look after its own citizens? And now he recruits and employs in his party an Israeli spy to spy on the Labour’s own membership.
Lydia, you generalise about the english and yet seem to be blind to the individuals that make up the devolved nations governments who seem to be in the main extracted from the same mold as the english governing classes !
Let’s just agree that nowadays most people involved in politics are in it for themselves and their career and don’t give a toss for their constituents ?
It’s a tory tactic to blame the people, let’s not play their game.
If only ‘our’ justice system was not the stunted and deformed lap-dog of the British state that it clearly is, as there might then be some hope for Scots to experience justice and open democracy.
Evidence Disclosure and Discovery in Common Law Jurisdictions
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165520
Why keep spamming dodgy links?
If they are malware-laced, booby-trapped sites that’s pretty obnoxious.
Do you really consider my attempts to share a critical insight into the law and legal practice, to be spamming? Well I simply see that as another opportunity to support cognitive democracy. Which Brexit denies Scots in a rather reactionary and exclusionary manner that is characteristic of colonial legal practice. Which is apparently fine with the supporters of genderwoowoo, who will destroy the potential for justice in and for Scotland. If we let them that is. 😉
Brexit and international family law
https://www.iflg.uk.com/blog/brexit-and-international-family-law
Sounds like the Natural Law party and their Yogic flying.
It’s either advertising, something disingenuous or malware.
Ignorance and intolerance of ethically grounded legal reason undermines democracy.
Natural Law and the Rule of Law
https://ashbrook.org/publications/onprin-v4n2-forte/
“….A judge operating under the norms of natural law is more respectful of his limitations under positive law than even a positivist is. A positivist must acknowledge that the will is the authenticator of the law. But a natural law judge knows precisely, as Hamilton said in Federalist No. 78, that he is empowered by “neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgement” in his functions. Without will as an authenticator, a judge has no authority to supersede authoritatively passed positive law.
….Positive law contains both rights deriving from natural law and rights or entitlements deriving from positive law, Aquinas argues. Most policies of any regime are neutral in terms of the natural law. Any number of choices are available before the lawgiver. Those myriad choices are emplaced in the positive law. A judge gains his authority by the lawgiver only to effectuate the written law of the lawgiver. If he does more than that, if he goes beyond the positive law as handed down to him, his judgment is “perverse.” (Summa Theologica, Pt. II-II, q. 60, art. 5, art. 6).”
Reads like pretentious gobbledygook some pseudointellectual would come out with. Basically gibberish.
You may or may not understand Cameron’s links to legal economic or political papers, but they are NOT spam. Your last few posts sound like a deliberate attempt to do him down. If you don’t like his posts, ignore them. Otherwise your posts are not so much yogic flying, but a straight zoom. Capisce?
YES, like Moses the Murrells must Not see the Promised
Land of a Free Alba! It IS My Opinion that Both
Murrells wanted to see Alex Salmond in jail!
Now Both Must leave The SNP asap!
Though I fear being banned from another platform for trying to support cognitive democracy and the rule of law, I’m not prepared to be misrepresented as a spammer. Which simply articulates an exclusionary argumentative strategy that is characteristic of both colonialist and misogynistic discourse.
A LAW PROFESSOR’S GUIDE TO NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL RIGHTS
Copyright (c) 1997 Harvard Society for Law & Public Policy, Inc.
https://www.bu.edu/rbarnett/Guide.htm
CameronB Brodie
” cognitive democracy “. The other day a pharmaceutical salesman was being interviewed on Radio 4 about these rapid covid tests that miss the virus and give false negative results. Realising that his reasoning was slipping and losing its grip, he said he was waiting for the ‘ kinetic ‘ results. ‘Oh yes says the medic he was talking with, I’m very interested in the result of the kinetics’. Err?
I didn’t know what cognitive democracy is, so I’ve searched on ebay and it came up with these:
Rebooting Democracy:
A Citizen’s Guide to Reinventing Politics.
How Power Corrupts: Cognition and Democracy in Organisations by Blaug, R.
Hyperdemocracy: 2013 by Stephen Welch
Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance by Engdahl F. William
I like Hyperdemocracy, which seems to mean, distracting the public with irrelevancies which are not important.
The Lord Advocate suggesting that somebody using Craig’s social media account to name one of the alphabet women when Craig made it absolutely clear that that was not allowed / illegal somehow makes Craig responsible for it, is the essence of Hyperdemocracy. When restricted information is referred to, some people will instantly try to guess what that restricted information is. That is human nature. How come I’m not allowed to talk about this? If he doesn’t understand human nature he ought not to be a judge.
He obviously does understand human nature, but some clever spark , like the Justice Minister, suggested to him this pathetic wheeze for getting Craig into court.
He’s a look at cognitive democracy from the perspective of the Social and Behavioral Sciences.
Concept «Human Rights» and its Cognitive, Discursive, Contextual and Historical Characteristics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815035442/pdf?md5=e55030d9fbcd14178b79e8955877c36d&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042815035442-main.pdf
If I’m a delusional spammer, then that kind of suggests post-colonial legal theory is bunkum, and one of the world’s largest collection of open access research papers, if not the largest, is a bogus source of insight into the law and legal practice.
Natural Law as Practical Methodology: A Finnisian
Analysis of City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson, Co.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/216934281.pdf
“While equality and equal treatment are fundamental principles both in terms of political theory and our Constitution, at stake in Croson is not equality of treatment at all, but the earlier question of the nature, extent, and direction of the responsibility of a political community that deliberately and grossly mistreated a specific class of its members. This is not simply an argument that blacks are entitled to some sort of “war reparations.” It is a recognition that our political community is in fact a community and that it owes the obligation of doing justice to its members.”
Cameron,
There is a longstanding rule for commenters on this website that links may not be posted unless there is a substantive comment on their content and relevance to the article under discussion.
I accept that though I thought legal theory and stuff that supports open democracy, was kind of relevant to the topic. My mistake, though hopefully that doesn’t mean I’ll need to learn how to blog in order to support cognitive democracy.
It might well be relevant. But you have to explain why, and explain how the particular article you are linking to contributes to the discussion.
Though my training to join the Royal Town Planning Institute prepared me to tackle cognitive corruption by supporting a post-colonial approach to government and law, I wouldn’t consider myself particularly competent to introduce folk to post-modern critical social theory and a relational approach to legal practice, a.k.a. the Methodology of the Oppressed and the Art of Law. I’m pretty sure I’m not selling folks a dummy though, and will do my best to justify my links in a manner that is more explanatory. Though that risks contaminating the debate with any perceptual error or cognitive bias I may be guilty of. I’ll also try to point folks towards open-access sources.
Human Rights, Legitimacy, and International Law
https://academic.oup.com/ajj/article/58/1/1/152203
“The article begins with reflections on the nature, and basis, of human rights considered as moral standards. It recommends an orthodox view of their nature, as moral rights possessed by all human beings simply in virtue of their humanity and discoverable through the workings of natural reason, that makes them strongly continuous with natural rights. It then offers some criticisms of recent attempts to depart from orthodoxy by explicating human rights by reference to the supposedly constitutive connection they bear to the matter of political legitimacy. The second half of the article turns to the legitimacy of international law, with a special focus on international human rights law. An account is sketched of the legitimacy of international law based on the service conception of legitimate authority. The article concludes by discussing three sources of potential limitations on international law’s legitimacy: pluralism, freedom (sovereignty) and exceptionalism.”
Thought you might have been familiar with Cameron from his occasional infestation of Wings commentary, pity he’s found his way here. He thinks he’s airing knowledge by cut’n’paste from the citations appendix of his sociology course books. Irritating..
Vronsky
Long after the events of the ’80s a sociology lecturer explained Thatcherism to a class I attended. Thatcher never explained anything to anybody. Just two fingers up your nose fascist compulsion. I think she thought it was more prime ministerial and upper class to annoy everybody that way.
Hence Blair, hence Boris.
The circle round the FM seem to think that political ignorance is good for the masses in the same way. It may not be illegal, but it is very de-humanising.
I just wonder why a government that cares so.much about rape, or non-rape in AS case, cares so.little about consultation and explanation to the voters. Is it because they think it’s more first ministerial?
It feels like plain criminal. Cameron’s sociology theory is interesting not irritating imho. But when he has finished explaining why the FM is being so irritating, many will approve of the FM . It is only her arrogance in not explaining her political methodology that is annoying. Good politics , like good everything, is open. Politicians shouldn’t expect others to come along behind them pooper-scooping their arrogant ways.
The details of Starmer’s interference in Scottish Labour become lurider and lurider:
“According to senior Labour sources in Scotland, Keir Starmer’s outfit also decided that it was entitled to control the Scottish party’s campaign in this year’s Holyrood parliamentary elections – and ‘imposed’ its preferred campaigns manager, over the head of Leonard when he was still party leader.
“The manager imposed is a former ‘Head of Commercial Marketing’ in Tony Blair’s Labour – whose Linkedin profile still sports a small picture of Blair.
“If Starmer was trying to kill Labour in Scotland, he could hardly go about it more effectively than imposing a series of English decisions a few months before the election of MSPs and making Scottish Labour look to the electorate like a branch of Westminster…”
https://skwawkbox.org/2021/01/17/exclusive-more-english-interference-in-scottish-labour-scottish-parliament-campaign-manager-imposed-on-leonard/#comments
They are fucking morons Starmer’s advisors are the same dicks who brought labours polling down to 25% when Harriet Harman was abstaining.
The same people that concocted the AS slurs and thought going into partnership with tories in Scotland was a winning formula.
They are not ‘red tories’ they are just tories. Just like the guardian is full of tories.
They’re thinking about “winning back Scotland” when they’ve now lost half of England. The next election will see them lose the midlands and Wales and they’ll still be blaming the left
I suggest it may be helpful if we now call a spade a spade instead of playing let’s pretend:
eg Union: British or English Empire
Unionists: Imperialists / colonialists
Scotland: Scotland colony
England: Imperial England
Scottish Govt : Scottish Colonial Administration
Scottish Parliament: Colonial Scottish Parliament
UK Govt: UK Imperial Govt
FM: CFM: ( Colonial First Minister)
Craig has said the only bright spot of hope so far is the judiciary, which does still seem independent. Despite this ray of hope I am greatly disturbed by Craig’s assertion:
The same “Alex Salmond team” still exist, are working on my prosecution, and are currently still engaged in a painstaking investigation as to who leaked two of the Murrell messages to Kenny Macaskill. Both the Crown Office and Police Scotland effectively now operate as the private enforcement arm of the Murrells, protecting them from consequences of their wrongdoing and persecuting their perceived political enemies .
Let me remind the “Alex Salmond team,” the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Laird Advocat, Rt Hon. James Wolffe, QC. of the guarantee of continued judicial independence provided by the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008 which clearly states:
The following persons must uphold the continued independence of the judiciary—
(a) the First Minister,
(b) the Lord Advocate,
(c) the Scottish Ministers,
(d) members of the Scottish Parliament, and
(e) all other persons with responsibility for matters relating to—
(i) the judiciary, or
(ii) the administration of justice,
where that responsibility is to be discharged only in or as regards Scotland.
(2) In particular, the First Minister, the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Ministers—
(a) must not seek to influence particular judicial decisions through any special access to the judiciary, and
(b) must have regard to the need for the judiciary to have the support necessary to enable them to carry out their functions.
(3) In this section “the judiciary” means the judiciary of—
(a) the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom,
(b) any other court established under the law of Scotland, and
(c) any international court.
(4) In subsection (3)(c) “international court” means the International Court of Justice or any other court or tribunal which exercises jurisdiction, or performs functions of a judicial nature, in pursuance of—
(a) an agreement to which the United Kingdom or Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom is a party, or
(b) a resolution of the Security Council or General Assembly of the United Nations.
Mark Golding
imho you cannot say that ‘ the Alex Salmond team ‘ is autonomous. Police are told what to investigate by politicians . They are not allowed or interested in investigating or doing a witch hunt out of their own curiousity or agendas. Similarly they are not allowed not to investigate any complaint of rape. It isn’t the police suppressing the text messages or emails, it’s the Scottish government. All politicians , lawyers, electricians are here today, gone tomorrow, scum of the earth subbies.They are all well known primarily to be serving their own interests. The police have nothing to gain from corrupt government , but nor do they have the power to disobey corrupt government requests.
It’s up to their political opponents to analyse the corruption. hire lawyers and fight their case in whatever way they can find to do it. I really don’t think it is the role of the police to analyse the corruption in the Scottish Government until somebody in authority tells them to. Unfortunately that sometimes doesn’t happen until long after the events.
Giyane
“Police are told what to investigate by politicians”
Perhaps, but which politicians do you mean?
Successive FOI’s by Wings suggests Scottish Ministers hold no authority over COPFS or Police Scotland. This would imply that responsibility for COPFS and Police Scotland rests somewhere in Whitehall and hence in the UK Government. These two bodies are the legal embodiment of the British State in Scotland, after all; there is no Scottish State. Senior Scottish Government officials are also under the authority of Whitehall. Collectively this more or less reflects a colonial form of governance in Scotland, which is also reflected in the creation of a devolved non-sovereign ‘parliament’. This would suggest the FM and her ‘cabinet’ of Scottish Ministers to be mere figureheads of what still seems to be a colonial administration, which also reflects their lack of action on independence, the latter policy vehemently opposed by the colonial power which ultimately controls Scotland and its key institutions.
“Successive FOI’s by Wings suggests Scottish Ministers hold no authority over COPFS or Police Scotland. This would imply that responsibility for COPFS and Police Scotland rests somewhere in Whitehall and hence in the UK Government.”
I’m not sure that’s true. I’m not sure that ANYONE has meaningful oversight over COPFS. I’ve been trying for many months now to get anyone to tell me where you go if you think the Crown Office is committing crimes, and no answer has been forthcoming. I am rather forced to the conclusion that their only constitutional superior is HM herself.
Thanks for clarifying that, Stuart.
COPFS organisation structure indicates accountability primarily for its financing to the Scottish Parliament via the ‘Crown Agent’ (the ‘Accountable Officer’).
However, the ‘Law Officers’ are shown separately, above the Crown Agent, but having no direct link to any higher authority.
There are, as is stated, “clear lines of accountability from the Law Officers downwards”. But not, it seems, upwards?
https://www.copfs.gov.uk/images/Documents/About%20us/Who%20we%20are/COPFS%20Governance.pdf
A defence of ‘we were only following orders’ has been used many times in the past and doesn’t really stack up – ask those Nazis hung at Nuremberg about it !
The police have their own agendas and they aren’t always driven by politicians, sometimes religious bigotry or masonic membership plays a part – still.
If the police followed political pressure then that was a conscious choice.
Mark Golding
Does it follow therefore that where the Crown Office/Lord Advocate are refusing to release evidence to Craig’s defence team on the basis they consider it private and not relevant to the trial, they are in breach of the judicial independence required under the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008?
Clearly the evidence presented here implies collusion at senior levels of the Scottish government attempting to conceal scandalous information; a whitewash to protect the integrity of the SNP. It follows therefore the judiciary are lacking the support required by the Act to carry out their functions and influence has been applied that may affect judicial decisions or in this case total subjugation of the Scottish legal system..
Alf Baird
I think you have described the arrangements of devolution accurately. In which case the Scottish devolved ministers are acting well beyond their remit in obstructing the release of information to the inquiry into the AS trial and bossing about the police.
They have no power to do that and they are obstructing the course of justice. Just bringing in a local big wig as if he somehow did have the power to go beyond his devolved remit, with his tenuous arguments about social media, doesn’t mean that he has any more power than the Murrell circle to obstruct the inquiry and annoy the police.
This is all getting very Roman. Regional governors getting too big for their boots. Rome doesn’t like regional administrations interfering with national.or international law, as the Lord Advocate is doing about rules for social.medis. In fact Rome is pretty fed up with mind-boggling petty disputes about morally matters like Jesus pbuh and the rabbis, at all at all at all.
Jesus pbuh prophecied that the entire Zionist establishment would be destroyed within a generation, which occurred in 73 AD. That’s what happens when regional governors overstep the mark. Our Boris knows a thing or two about the Romans, even if his grasp on other matters is weak.
Thanks again for all the dedication which you’ve met this complex affair with, so as to shine a bright light on a truly crooked conspiracy.
I read Robin McAlpine’s article a couple of days ago.
In amidst a sea of toxic misinformation through the propagandist media machine, both of you have clarified the deceitfulness of this, at the most senior levels.
Wishing you well as your own case comes to court and praying that justice prevails.
An alternative heading to the article.
Murrells the name and my wife owns Scotland and has the Lord Advocate in her pocket na na na
…. and when the Lord Advocate is no longer useful for her, she’ll have him banged up and out of the way on some trumped up sex charge.
James B
A trumped up sex charge called Nicolodium, a toxin which can end life on earth by preventing pollination by bees, or the free dissemination of truth.
James B
Does it really boil down to what dirt Nicola has on Peter against what dirt Peter has on Nicola? There has to be equilibrium.
Political people like to bring politics into every corner of their existence, like a virus mutating for optimisation.. . The meaning of “turning the other cheek ” is that politics will always twist the argument.
Like the Lord Advocate twisting the Law on Twitter. Leave them . Concentrate on other people who seek truth, like Corbyn launching his new online conference.
The stereotype used to be “as thrifty as a Scot”. Thanks to Nicola Sturgeon, it will be, “as corrupt as a Scot”. Way to go, brand Nicola!
Ha – as thrifty with the truth, perhaps?
Good one!
If an independence election is held and the verdict is no – Sturgeon has to resign.
If an independence election is held and the verdict is yes people stop voting SNP at future elections and Sturgeon loses.
An independence referendum is a lose lose scenario for someone like Sturgeon and her cronies for whom retaining their positions of power is their main objective.
Is there any example of a country winning independence, either politically or militarily, where the clear leader of the independence movement did not then seize power or win the initial election?
I cannot believe Sturgeon could lead a successful referendum campaign, then be beaten by a rival. I doubt she would want more than one term, there would be greater positions offering money, status, and less controversy available internationally than trying sort out the mess of extracting and creating institutions free from the UK.
You’re living in cloud Cuckoo land if you think that Sturgeon wants to mess with the status quo – she until very recently had everything she wanted. Everyone thought she was sticking it to Boris. (An act conceived by both of them)
But with the Kissinger patronage followed by hanging out with Alistair Campbell and now the Salmond trial her and her husband have over played their hand, now people are waking up to their phoney nationalism.
I don’t think Sturgeon is Loyal to the British state because she is a unionist. I think she’s loyal to the State because she is utterly corrupt.
Telling lies to save your own skin is not in the same thing as telling lies to have an innocent man imprisoned for the rest of his life.
I have my own opinions on how, exactly, this all started. I mean before it grew arms and legs and even those who thought they were in control, lost control. But, I am left wondering why the Unionist Press, especially based in England and, of course, the Tories in Westminster have failed to make much use of this. Surely this is a win/win for them? Salmond IS out and this is VERY damaging for the leadership of the SNP and, they’d hope, the cause of independence.
The ‘inquiry’ is lacklustre although I tend to think this has more to do with the lack of skills/expertise of Jackie Baillie and others than from any designed need to cover up wrongdoing on behalf of SNP leadership.
But this is truly a gift for unionism. They could be reporting on it daily. So why aren’t they? This really bothers me, something’s not right.
The ‘inquiry’ is lacklustre although I tend to think this has more to do with the lack of skills/expertise of Jackie Baillie and others than from any designed need to cover up wrongdoing on behalf of SNP leadership.
You must be joking, my friend?
https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-duty-of-candour/
“They could be reporting on it daily. So why aren’t they? This really bothers me, something’s not right.”
Maybe they don’t have to, they probably own Sturgeon, perhaps she’s there to give separatists the illusion of choice, Westminster’s controlled opposition.
The unfortunate reality is that even if AS wins and clears his name and Sturgeon and her coven are prosecuted and run out of town, sh*t sticks. It is unlikely he could make a comeback, in his own right.
‘Something’s not right’
Indeed. At least part of the ‘something’ is that none of the interviewees has been questioned on any knowledge of the leak to the Daily Record. This is despite/because of its criminality.
Can’t we just get all the hidden info from Salmond and yourself published on a website outwith the UK’s jurisdiction, so that we can all see all the evidence for ourselves, and we’ll all know exactly what’s going on, it may even hasten the demise of Sturgeon, Murrell and the Lord Advocate and the odious clique that aides them.
That worked for ‘Spycatcher’ in Australia.
Wonder if Sturgeon will cut Murrell adrift? The political optics are terrible.
She has to surely extricate herself from this slow motion trainwreck somehow if she plans on sticking around and fighting that ‘early’ referendum she recommitted to. She nor the SNP can afford this to dominate every press conference and media briefing.
PS Sturgeon is married to Murrell.
‘Sturgeon lives in Glasgow with her husband, Peter Murrell, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the SNP. The couple have been in a relationship since 2003.’
I know.
And it’s why many think he was acting very much as her proxy, it’s hard to believe he was was operating entirely on his own initiative.
But he can see how this looks and should therefore take responsibility and step down, or be fired.
Perhaps he’s beginning to think, “I am in blood Stepped in so far that should I wade no more. Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
does Peter Murell and or his wife speak any french? Just asking as I heard something about a french connection.
My french is bad, more like mountain franglaise. But I do know a few standard returns, like bon soir, honi soit qui mal ypense. and menage a troit.
As I understand it, Craig has 2 lines of defence, (1) that he did not enable jigsaw identification, (2) that this is a malicious prosecution. The Crown is refusing to release documents on ground (1) but they are very relevant to ground (2).
Echoes of Katharine Gun’s defence team trying to force the govt to disclose Lord Goldsmith’s initial legal advice. In that case they really were hiding the fact the advice had changed and dropped all charges rather than have it made public.
Yes, entirely possible all charges will be dropped rather than release the documents.
How Craig the hunted, is now his hunters hunter. Sleep tight Craig, I am confident each and every one those, oh so little Cretins rue the day they messed with you. Not much good sleep for them.
Craig, what’s the point in suffering so much pain for supporting Alex Salmond? Is he your friend? Any personal interest? Otherwise it is a nonsense
Celine
Craig has been vaccinated against political pain by Mr Pain in bum himself , Jack Straw. He’s not afraid of this new Dumbfrieshire variant of the English colonial virus. Once bitten, immune for life.
Sure, reporting the truth about a frame up of this importance is just a nonsens … Why so crudely reveal what you are?
Celine – you are clearly an `invented’ character. Pretty much everybody is aware of the principles here – the probity and independence of the judiciary, that the police are not a tool of politicians for corrupt political ends, that lies, slander and character assassination and bringing false charges against your political opponents so you can get them out of the way by banging them up in jail are not appropriate methods in a civilised society …… The fact that Alex Salmond is the victim of this is almost irrelevant here. Celine – you live in a very sick world if you imagine that it is appropriate to turn a blind eye to all of this.
Well said James B
You may not support Scottish independence but at least you have an understanding of the matter at hand.
You mean having to console a child awakened by a bad dream in the middle of a passionate embrace? Is that the ‘pain’ you picture in your apathetic mind?
Forgive me if I’m being thick, but I don’t actually see how those documents Craig wants disclosing relate to his own contempt of court charges.
The documents might well show Salmond’s trial was malicious.
But I don’t see you could argue that because Salmond’s trial was malicious, then any contempt of court by Craig relating to that trial would be justified. Especially concerning protected witnesses.
Isn’t it Craig’s argument that he didn’t in fact enable identification of any of the witnesses? Which from my reading of his reporting at that time is certainly true. I know there was speculation elsewhere but I thought Craig was particularly diligent in that regard. Again, I don’t see what those communications surrounding the origins of Salmond’s prosecution have to do with Craig’s defence. Explosive though they might be for any counter suit by Salmond.
I think his lawyers are going to argue that Craig’s trial is driven by malice and corruption not by the interests of justice.
David H I am charged with:
1) Publications that could influence the jury
2) Jigsaw identification
3) Reporting the exclusion of a juror
What you state is part of my defence on 2).
Oh God (Charge 1) – they’re not still bringing you before the beak on account of the `Yes Minister’ piece that you wrote? If it wasn’t for the threat of a prison sentence, this would be very funny.
Yes, they are indeed.
Are you quietly confident or looking forward to your appeals?
1. is particularly obnoxious given all the salacious, one-sided tabloid coverage of the allegations pre-trial. There was little truly objective reporting.
Hence why the verdict came as such a shock to many who’d not followed the case.
The other two seem tenuous. Shades of ‘If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.’ – Cardinal Richelieu
‘1) Publications that could influence the jury’.
No word but Gobsmacked!
Indeed.
And consider the relatively small viewership and reach of this blog to all those tabloids which were presenting Salmond as some kind of monster pre-trial.
How is any of this fair?
The language used by Lindsay Miller is striking for its evasion and duplicity. It is clear that she is seeking out a twisted path in order to protect the organisation she works for and conform to the power dynamics of a deeply flawed process that must not give any ground in its resolute defence of the uneven status quo. It has all the hallmarks of moral relativism that such people must adopt in their professional life. I can see what she means about texts not amounting to evidence and even have some sympathy for that. People make unguarded utterances often, which they would find difficult to justify. Texting and social media provide an opportunity to inflate poorly considered thoughts into a greater significance. In one respect dismissing casual commentary as evidence is correct. If we adopt a more stringent attitude to casual and private communiction we can end up in a situation reminiscent of the STASI dominated world of East Germany , the paranoid insanity of Stalinism or even the inane pettiness and constant bicker of the playground, parroting ‘he said, she said’.I think it is interesting that the Mark Hirst is an example of the authoritarianism and stupidity of the police, unable to summon up the higher order thinking that would have avoided the damage of a hasty or reactionary judgement, or the convenience of making a superficial and tendentious interptretation of the expression ‘reap the whirlwind’.My experience of the police is that the hierarchical structure creates people incapable of thinking rationally. All judgement is internally referenced. I dont’ think police are any more stupid than any others, but the organisational values and constraints are hostile to thinking independently, and preventing a poor judgement picking up momentum and becoming dangerous.
In the same way that Alex Salmond was found not guilty of criminality perhaps we must accept that Peter Murrell may well have lied but in the ‘real’ world his errors ore those of a fool.Not exactly however. I would argue that his position as chief executive of a significant political party requires a far higher standard of behaviour and analytic capacity and the texts reveal some serious shortcomings.This affair is also revealing the failures of Nicola Sturgeon in not closing down, or even possibly promoting, a corrosive process that had acquired malice. I sense that she, along with some others like Evans has tried to make a career mark in a more general societal, global scale problem of sex inequality. At the root of this problem is the fundamental disadvantage of women in their life chances because the burden of childbearing and childcare falls on them and men commonly have the option to evade this burden and drag on their acquisition of money, status and the opportunity to express themselves. Associated withi this fundamental problem of inequity, is that of the predatory and aggressive quality of sexuality(both male and female).
Sexuality is a essential part of being human, and elevates our lives in ways that are not accessible in any other way, and is accessible to the great majority of people. The ability to take part in the acts of formation of new life are for most people a way of accessing higher values and expanded experience beyond anything achievable in their
It is my contention that the last 70 years have been associated with the breakdown of the social and religious controls over sexuality and has ushered in a period of licentiousness which has been shaped by associated economic, philosophical and moral developments. One of the effects of this greater sexual freedom has been the promotion of more aggressive and predatory male sexual behaviour. I am sure this is not confined to men but there is an undoubted asymmetry which has complex causes and foundations in our evolutionary history.
but it is highly probable that If I have a problem with this process, it is that Nicola Sturgeon and her supporters have made such an utter fist of this challenging the huge problems of sexual relations and has shown that she does not have the intellectual heft or moral stature that would be required to change this fundamental inequality and the associated manifestations, such as dissolute behaviour. In effect she has failed, and no amount of front facing covid related ‘leadering’ (administrative) activity will compensate for her shortcomings in the bigger matter.
Going back to the letter from Ms Miller It must be galling for someone to have their life’s work reduced to sophistry -to fiddling with words, that evade the heart of the matter, which is the administration of justice,
FFS, I’m beginning to get really pissed off with this party.
Its rejected a motion calling for the party to set up an advanced working group to achieve independence
The NEC’s even rejected the motion for a Plan B, by Chris McEleney and Angus B. MacNeil.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19018288.snp-nec-votes-motion-indy-strategy-working-group/
ROS
On Iain Lawson’s blog he is reporting that some people voted off the NEC are back on the NEC as they have been nominated by the minority interest groups as their representatives.
What a mess the SNP is in and it’s down to the complacent/lazy attitude of members who accepted “I’m with Nicola ” approach rather than independence. Populism – shades of Trump. It’s all about Sturgeon or the party not independence.
Just how many times does Sturgeon have to promise a referendum and it does not happen before some independence supporters waken up.
Jesus Christ, it’s the Blairite party al over again, I suppose it’s not new, this is how you rule a party if you are using it as a vehicle for your own enrichment and power. I do not know what goes on behind closed doors in elite circles but it’s clear that Sturgeon sees herself as part of the global elite and intends on using the SNP as her vessel much the way Blair did with Labour.
This is all very depressing indeed.
Over 60 times that should have been.
Here it is. The indefatiguable poster.
Now it is on the side of the Indy main page here:
“UK calls for Navalny’s immediate release after ‘appalling’ arrest”
Novichok: a brief history. (please copy this for future reference, they want us silenced, we will overcome them).
Sergei Skripal survived although no one has ever seen him again even though his daughter Yulia told her cousin in April 2019 from hospital that Dad was alright he was just sleeping and when they wake him up she will discharge herself from hospital and return home to Moscow, Yulia herself survived with the assistance of a prosthetic tracheotomy scar, DS Bailey survived yet has had to leave the Police force (without prosthetic tracheotomy scar), and the medic passer by who with her daughter administered first aid to the Skripals and DS Bailey (when he was originally poisoned at the park bench rather than the later claim at the Skripal house) and who turned out to be Colonel Alison McCourt the British Armys Chief Nursing Officer and her daughter who even though giving mouth to mouth were not infected, or registered heroin addict Charlie Rowley who survived after finding the cellophane sealed perfume box in a bin and bringing it home four months after the Skripal allegation, his partner fellow registered heroin addict died!
Now weve had the virtually unknown in Russia (with 4% of the vote in Moscow) CIA asset Alexei Navalny claiming to have been poisoned by the worlds most deadly chemical weapon which once again failed to kill him. It was at first administered at the airport but when that was debunked by video camera evidence he was poisoned back at the hotel in a water bottle until the creator of novichok stated if he had digested it he would be dead on the spot, so it was changed that they poisoned his underpants, he too went on not only to survive but within three months arrives back in Russia from where he had broken his jail suspension bail conditions by not returning from Germany (where Russia allowed him to travel to for alleged medical treatment) immediately on being discharged from hospital several weeks ago. And he also managed to have his hair died blonde or perhaps his version of invented novichok died his hair!
Note: in the photo of the now blonde Navalny everyone is wearing a mask expect sick boy Alexei, why is he not wearing a mask? Photo opportunity, no doubt his CIA handler told him not to.
And his court appearance will be an opportunity for Navalny and his lawyers to dispute the Omsk toxicology reports..and German reports published in Lancet..which indicated a large cocktail of drugs in his bloodstream and urine…including metformin for diabetes, lithium to treat his bi-polar condition, diazepam, fentanyl, many others…plus a 0.2 blood alcohol level from a party the night before. There will be evidence of doctors and prescriptions to be examined by prosecutors and defence.
The officers and non commissioned officers of the UK British Armys 77th Brigade are working their little socks off these past 24 hours! This is orchestrated by the British regime (as regimes work in this way of silencing anything that does not follow the regimes line). Keep copying and pasting folks, the 77th Brigade need to earn their wages paid for by us the tax payers. They must have removed over 1800 comments now.
Keep posting folks dont let the British fascists in the British Armys 77th Brigade get the upper hand, they know what they are and we know what they are. They are blatant with it now their guard down no need to pretend its not the British Stasi.
Yeah, that’s happened to me three times this morning. Only pro-Navalny comments are being allowed to stand.
The hypocrisy is almost laughable. The UK, USA and their fan club up in arms because Russia arrested someone who broke their bail conditions but totally silent over Assange and others in similar positions and the MSM, as always, along for the ride.
When is Julian Assange’s legal team going to lodge the High Court Bail Application?
Craig was confident it would be within a fortnight – that’s now and there’s no sign of it.
He’ll never be released on bail if his lawyers don’t actually exercise his automatic right to ask the High Court to grant it.
FFS – I’m getting extremely sick of having to ask this….
It will be lodged soon, I expect. The timing of it is being dictated by Julian himself. I do know his thinking but am not at liberty to tell you at the moment.
In Scotland, as far as I know, contempt of court is not a criminal offence, but there is a trial involved like a criminal trial:
“Guide on Article 6 of the Convention–Right to a fair trial (criminal limb)European Court of Human Rights34/118Last update: 31.08.2020 ”
“29.Measures ordered by a court under rules concerning disorderly conduct in proceedings before it (contempt of court) are normally considered to fall outside the ambit of Article 6, because they are akin to the exercise of disciplinary powers (Ravnsborg v.Sweden,§34; Putz v.Austria,§§33-37). However, the nature and severity of the penalty can make Article6 applicable to a conviction for contempt of court(Mariusz Lewandowski v.Poland,§§29-31, concerning the sentence of solitary confinement against a prisoner), particulary when classified in domestic law as a criminal offence (Kyprianou v.Cyprus[GC],§§61-64, concerning a penalty of five days’ imprisonment).”
“An accused may be expected to give specific reasons for his request to access a particular document in the file (Matanović v.Croatia,§177). 158. Non-disclosure of evidence to the defence may breach equality of arms as well as the right to an adversarial hearing (Kuopila v.Finland,§38, where the defence was not given an opportunity to comment on a supplementary police report).b.Adversarial hearing(disclosure of evidence) 159. As a rule, Article6§1 requires that the prosecution authorities disclose to the defence all material evidence in their possession for or against the accused (Rowe and Davis v.the United Kingdom[GC],§60). In this context, the relevant considerations can also be drawn from Article 6§3 (b), which guarantees to the applicant “adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence” (Leas v.Estonia,§80).4160.
An issue with regard to access to evidence may arise under Article 6 insofar as the evidence at issue is relevant for the applicant’s case, specifically if it had an important bearing on the charges held against the applicant. This is the case if the evidence was used and relied upon for the determination of the applicant’s guilt or it contained such particulars which could have enabled the applicant to exonerate oneself or have the sentence reduced. The relevant evidence in this context is not only evidence directly relevant to the facts of the case,but also other evidence that might relate to the admissibility, reliability and completeness of the former (Rowe and Davis v.the United Kingdom[GC],§66;Mirilashvili v.Russia,§200; Leas v.Estonia,§81; Matanović v.Croatia,§161).” *
* https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/guide_art_6_criminal_eng.pdf
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/49/section/15