UPDATE
On Friday we withdrew the award offer, which had not been taken up. To be honest I was 99.9999% sure it would not be, and we don’t have £25,000. It was a rhetorical device trying to drive home to people the crucial importance of Geoff Aberdein’s evidence, which proves that Sturgeon knew of the allegations not days but at least three weeks before she said she knew, and that she knowingly lied to parliament.
Sturgeon compounded that lie by a further lie to parliament. When knowledge of Geoff Aberdein’s meeting with her on 29 March 2018 in Holyrood became public, Sturgeon tried to cover up by a now really elaborate lie about how that meeting was spontaneous after he had just called into parliament to meet somebody else. In fact Aberdein’s testimony – with witnesses cited – shows the meeting with Sturgeon was pre-arranged weeks before, specifically to discuss the allegations against Salmond.
So what lie will Nicola now use at the committee on Wednesday? The only lie I can see available to her is that her Chief of Staff knew of the allegations for weeks without telling her, and even set up meetings for Sturgeon to discuss the allegations, without telling Sturgeon about the allegations. That would be a lie, and it seems to me so wildly improbable that I don’t see how even such despicable creatures as Alasdair Allan and Maureen Watt could possibly claim to believe it.
The Sunday Times now has the Aberdein evidence and has fairly grasped its significance. This is a classic example of mainstream media catching up with a major story which I broke, in detail, a year ago.
I should say that I am really depressed by the astonishing output of Sturgeon loyalists on twitter stating “there is no evidence” as a mantra, when plainly there is a mountain of evidence, and overwhelming evidence that still more has been deceitfully hidden by the Scottish government with the collusion of the Crown Office, and of SNP committee members.
UPDATE ENDS
This website is offering a reward of £25,000 cash to help a public spirited whistleblower to come forward and reveal a copy of Geoff Aberdein’s evidence to the Sturgeon Inquiry, which the Committee of Crooks has refused to publish, accept or consider, because it categorically proves that Sturgeon lied to Parliament.
You work in the Crown Office. Did you really do all that studying and jump through all those hoops so you could aid and abet your ultra corrupt bosses in the fundamental suppression of both justice and democracy in Scotland? Did you never have any ideals of, at least, basic honesty when you started to work for the prosecutorial service?
Or you work for the Scottish Parliament. Did you never have a spring in your step at the thought you were enabling the democratic expression of the Scottish nation? As opposed to assisting the withholding of crucial information from both Parliament and from the Scottish people? Do you really want to be a part of making your parliament the most corrupted institution in Europe?
Set the truth free. Get to sleep easy at night again. Look your grandchildren in the eye one day when you advise them to live as honest people. As a whistleblower myself, I assure you there is life after whistleblowing, and our small reward will help you mitigate the risks or ease the transition to a more honest career. Release the testimony of Geoff Aberdein. You can reach me via the contact button top right.
Having published Alex Salmond’s redacted evidence yesterday, the Holyrood Parliament then redacted heavily a key part of it – the Submission on the Ministerial Code – and republished it in this redacted form. This has caused Alex Salmond to refuse to appear before the Committee. The point is that he would not be permitted to give evidence that touches on the redacted parts, and nor would any other witness. The committee would not be allowed in its final report to include information on the redacted parts.
Why does this matter? Because the redacted parts are nothing whatsoever to do with identification of Salmond’s false accusers (the corrupt Crown Office and SNP MSP’s excuse for blocking publication), but in truth are all about showing that Sturgeon lied to Parliament about when she first knew of the allegations against Salmond.
This is very easy proven, simply by publishing this now officially redacted submission in full, with the redactions outlined in bold.
Submission by Alex Salmond – Phase 4 – Ministerial Code
Introduction
1. This is a submission to the Parliamentary Committee under Phase Four of the Inquiry. This submission is compliant with all legal obligations under the committee’s approach to evidence handling and takes full account of the Opinion of Lady Dorrian in the High Court as published on 16th February 2021.
All WhatsApp messages between myself and the First Minister referred to in this submission, have previously been provided to the Parliamentary Committee by the First Minister and published by the Committee.
The Terms of Reference
2. Mr Hamilton, the independent adviser on the Ministerial Code, wrote to me on 8th September, 29th October, 16th November, 4th and 19th December. I replied on 6th and 17th October, 23rd November and 23rd December. I finally agreed under some protest to make a written submission.
The reason for my concern was that the remit drawn up for Mr Hamilton focuses on whether the First Minister intervened in a civil service process. As I have pointed out to Mr Hamilton, I know of no provisions in the Ministerial Code which makes it improper for a First Minister to so intervene.
3. To the contrary, intervention by the First Minister in an apparently unlawful process (subsequently confirmed by the Court of Session) would not constitute a breach precisely because the First Minister is under a duty in clause 2.30 of the Ministerial Code to avoid such illegality on the part of the Government she leads.
4. Further, to suggest intervention was a breach would be to ignore and contradict the express reliance of the procedure on the position of the First Minister as the leader of the party to which the former minister was a member in order to administer some unspecified sanction.
5. It will accordingly be a significant surprise if any breach of the Ministerial Code is found when the terms of reference have been tightly drafted by the
Deputy First Minister to focus on that aspect of the First Minister’s conduct.
6. By contrast, I have information which suggests other related breaches of the Ministerial Code which should properly be examined by Mr Hamilton. I have
asked that he undertake that investigation. I have drawn his attention to the apparent parliamentary assurance from the First Minister on 29th October 2020 that there was no restriction on Mr Hamilton preventing him from doing so.
7. Mr Hamilton has failed to give me a clear response as to whether these related matters relevant to the Ministerial Code, but outwith the specific remit, are going to be considered. However, in his letter of 4th December he did indicate that he was inclined to the view that such matters could be considered and will take into account arguments for their inclusion. Since that time I understand members of the Committee have received further assurances. It is on that basis I make this submission.
8. In doing so, I would note that it does not serve the public interest if the independent process of examination of the Ministerial Code (which I introduced as First Minister) is predetermined, or seen to be predetermined, by a restrictive remit given by the Deputy First Minister.
9. A restricted investigation would not achieve its purpose of genuine independent determination and would undermine confidence in what has been a useful innovation in public accountability.
10. I would accordingly urge Mr Hamilton to embrace the independence of his role and the express assurance given to the Scottish Parliament by the First Minister that he is free to expand the original remit drafted by the Deputy First Minister and to address each of the matters contained in this submission.
Breaches of the Ministerial Code.
11. Beyond the terms of the remit set for Mr Hamilton by the Deputy First Minister, there are other aspects of the conduct of the First Minister which, in my submission, require scrutiny and determination in relation to breaches of the Ministerial Code.
12. I was contacted by phone on or around 9 March 2018 and further the following week by Geoff Aberdein, my former Chief of Staff. The purpose of the contact was to tell me about meetings he had held with the First Minister’s Chief of Staff, Liz Lloyd, at her request.
13. In the second of these meetings she had informed him that she was aware of two complaints concerning me under a new complaints process introduced to include former Ministers. She named one of the complainers to him. At that stage I did not know the identity of the other complainer.
14. On receipt of the letter from the Permanent Secretary first informing me of complaints on 7th March 2018 I had secured Levy and McRae as my solicitors and Duncan Hamilton, Advocate and Ronnie Clancy QC as my counsel.
15. Even at this early stage we had identified that there were a range of serious deficiencies in the procedure. There was no public or parliamentary record of it
ever being adopted. In addition it contained many aspects of both procedural unfairness and substantive illegality. There was an obvious and immediate question over the respect to which the Scottish Government even had jurisdiction to consider the complaints. In relation to former Ministers (in contrast to current Ministers) it offered no opportunity for mediation. The complaints procedure of which I was familiar (‘Fairness at Work’) was based on the legislative foundation of the Ministerial Code in which the First Minister was the final decision maker. I wished to bring all of these matters to the attention of the First Minister. I did not know at that stage the degree of knowledge and involvement in the policy on the part of both the First Minister and her Chief of Staff.
16. Mr Aberdein had been asked by Ms Lloyd to be her contact with me and they jointly arranged a meeting with the First Minister in the Scottish Parliament on 29th March 2018. This meeting was for the purpose of discussing the complaints and thereafter arranging a direct meeting between myself and the First Minister. There was never the slightest doubt what the meeting was about. Any suggestion by the First Minister to the Scottish Parliament (Official Report, 8th October 2020) that the meeting was ‘fleeting or opportunistic’ is simply untrue. It was agreed on the 29th March 2018 at the meeting in the Scottish Parliament attended by Mr Aberdein and the First Minister and another individual that the meeting between myself and the First Minister would take place on 2nd April at her home near Glasgow. Self-evidently only the First Minister could issue that invitation to her private home.
17. In attendance at the meeting on 2nd April 2018 were Mr Aberdein, Mr Hamilton, Ms Lloyd and myself. The First Minister and I met privately and then there was a general discussion with all five of us. My purpose was to alert the First Minister to the illegality of the process (not being aware at that time of her involvement in it) and to seek an intervention from the First Minister to secure a mediation process to resolve the complaints.
18. I was well aware that under the Ministerial Code the First Minister should notify the civil service of the discussion and believed that this would be the point at which she would make her views known. The First Minister assured us that she would make such an intervention at an appropriate stage.
19. On 23rd April 2018, I phoned the First Minister by arrangement on WhatsApp to say that a formal offer of mediation was being made via my solicitor to the Permanent Secretary that day. In the event , this offer was declined by the Permanent Secretary, even before it was put to the complainers.
20. By the end of May, it was becoming clear that the substantial arguments my legal team were making in correspondence against the legality of the procedure were not having any impact with the Permanent Secretary. My legal team advised that it was impossible properly to defend myself against the complaints under such a flawed procedure. They advised that a petition for Judicial Review would have excellent prospects of success given the Government were acting
unlawfully. However I was extremely reluctant to sue the Government I once led. I wanted to avoid the damage both to the Scottish Government and the SNP which would inevitably result. To avoid such a drastic step, I resolved to let the First Minister see the draft petition for Judicial Review. As a lawyer, and as First Minister, I assumed that she would see the legal jeopardy into which the government was drifting. I therefore sought a further meeting.
21. On 1st June 2018 the First Minister sent me a message which was the opposite of the assurance she had given on the 2nd April 2018 suggesting instead that she had always said that intervention was “not the right thing to do”. That was both untrue and disturbing. On 3rd June 2018 I sent her a message on the implications for the Government in losing a Judicial Review and pointing to her obligation (under the Ministerial Code) to ensure that her administration was acting lawfully and (under the Scotland Act) to ensure that their actions were compliant with the European Convention.
22. The First Minister and I met in Aberdeen on 7th June 2018 when I asked her to look at the draft Judicial Review Petition. She did briefly but made it clear she was now disinclined to make any intervention.
23. My desire to avoid damaging and expensive litigation remained. My legal team thereafter offered arbitration as an alternative to putting the matter before the Court of Session. That proposal was designed to offer a quick and relatively inexpensive means of demonstrating the illegality of the procedure in a process which guaranteed the confidentiality of the complainers. It would also have demonstrated the illegality of the process in a forum which would be much less damaging to the Scottish Government than the subsequent public declaration of illegality. I was prepared at that time to engage fully with the procedure in the event my legal advice was incorrect. In the event, of course, it was robust. I explained the advantages of such an approach to the First Minister in a Whatsapp message of 5th July 2018.
24. At the First Minister’s initiative which I was informed about on the 13th July we met once again at her home in Glasgow at her request, the following day, 14th July 2018. There was no one else at this meeting. She specifically agreed to correct the impression that had been suggested to my counsel in discussion between our legal representatives that she was opposed to arbitration. I followed this up with a WhatsApp message on the 16th July 2018.
25. On 18th July 2018 the First Minister phoned me at 13.05 to say that arbitration had been rejected and suggested that this was on the advice of the Law Officers. She urged me to submit a substantive rebuttal of the specific complaints against me, suggested that the general complaints already answered were of little consequence and would be dismissed, and then assured me that my submission would be judged fairly. She told me I would receive a letter from the Permanent Secretary offering me further time to submit such a rebuttal which duly arrived later that day. As it turned out the rebuttal once submitted was given only cursory examination by the Investigating Officer in the course of a single day and she had already submitted her final report to the Permanent Secretary. My view is now that it was believed that my submission of a rebuttal would weaken the case for Judicial Review (my involvement in rebutting the substance of the complaints being seen to cure the procedural unfairness) and that the First Ministers phone call of 18th July 2018 and the Permanent Secretary’s letter of the same date suggesting that it was in my “interests” to submit a substantive response was designed to achieve that.
26. In terms of the meetings with me, the only breaches of the Ministerial Code are the failure to inform civil servants timeously of the nature of the meetings.
27. My view is that the First Minister should have informed the Permanent Secretary of the legal risks they were running and ensured a proper examination of the legal position and satisfied herself that her Government were acting lawfully.
28. Further once the Judicial Review had commenced, and at the very latest by October 31st 2018 the Government and the First Minister knew of legal advice from external counsel (the First Minister consulted with counsel on 13th November) that on the balance of probability they would lose the Judicial Review and be found to have acted unlawfully. Despite this the legal action was continued until early January 2019 and was only conceded after both Government external counsel threatened to resign from the case which they considered to be unstateable. This, on any reading, is contrary to section 2.30 of the Ministerial Code.
29. Most seriously, Parliament has been repeatedly misled on a number of occasions about the nature of the meeting of 2nd April 2018.
30. The First Minister told Parliament (see Official Report of 8th,10th & 17th January 2019) that she first learned of the complaints against me when I visited her home on 2nd April 2018. That is untrue and is a breach of the Ministerial Code. The evidence from Mr Aberdein that he personally discussed the existence of the complaints, and summarised the substance of the complaints, with the First Minister in a pre arranged meeting in Parliament on 29th March 2018 arranged for that specific purpose cannot be reconciled with the position of the First Minister to Parliament. The fact that Mr Aberdein learned of these complaints in early March 2018 from the Chief of Staff to the First Minister who thereafter arranged for the meeting between Mr Aberdein and the First Minister on 29th March to discuss them, is supported by his sharing that information contemporaneously with myself, Kevin Pringle and Duncan Hamilton, Advocate.
31. In her written submission to the Committee, the First Minister has subsequently admitted to that meeting on 29th March 2018, claiming to have previously ‘forgotten’ about it. That is, with respect, untenable. The pre-arranged meeting in the Scottish Parliament of 29th March 2018 was “forgotten” about because acknowledging it would have rendered ridiculous the claim made by the First Minister in Parliament that it had been believed that the meeting on 2nd April was on SNP Party business (Official Report 8th & 10th January 2019) and thus held at her private residence. In reality all participants in that meeting were fully aware of what the meeting was about and why it had been arranged. The meeting took place with a shared understanding of the issues for discussion – the complaints made and the Scottish Government procedure which had been launched. The First Minister’s claim that it was ever thought to be about anything other than the complaints made against me is wholly false.
The failure to account for the meeting on 29th March 2018 when making a statement to Parliament, and thereafter failing to correct that false representation is a further breach of the Ministerial Code.
Further, the repeated representation to the Parliament of the meeting on the 2nd April 2018 as being a ‘party’ meeting because it proceeded in ignorance of the complaints is false and manifestly untrue. The meeting on 2nd April 2018 was arranged as a direct consequence of the prior meeting about the complaints held in the Scottish Parliament on 29th March 2018.
32. The First Minister additionally informed Parliament (Official Report 10th January 2019) that ‘I did not know how the Scottish Government was dealing with the complaint, I did not know how the Scottish Government intended to deal with the complaint and I did not make any effort to find out how the Scottish Government was dealing with the complaint or to intervene in how the Scottish Government was dealing with the complaint.’
I would contrast that position with the factual position at paragraphs 18 and 25 above. The First Minister’s position on this is simply untrue. She did initially offer to intervene, in the presence of all those at the First Ministers house on the 2nd April 2018. Moreover, she did engage in following the process of the complaint and indeed reported the status of that process to me personally.
33. I also believe it should be investigated further in terms of the Ministerial Code, whether the criminal leak of part of the contents of the Permanent
Secretary’s Decision report to the Daily Record was sourced from the First Minister’s Office. We now know from a statement made by the Daily Record editor that they received a document. I enclose at Appendix B the summary of the ICO review of the complaint which explains the criminal nature of the leak and the identification of 23 possible staff sources of the leak given that the ICO Prosecutor has “sympathy with the hypothesis that the leak came from an employee of the Scottish Government”. My reasoning is as follows. The leak did not come from me, or anyone representing me. In fact I sought interdict to prevent publication and damage to my reputation. The leak is very unlikely indeed to have come from either of the two complainers. The Chief Constable, correctly, refused to accept a copy of the report when it was offered to Police Scotland on August 21st 2018 by the Crown Agent. It cannot, therefore have leaked from Police Scotland. Scottish Government officials had not leaked the fact of an investigation from January when it started. The only additional group of people to have received such a document, or summary of such a document, in the week prior to publication in the Daily Record was the First Minister’s Office as indicated in paragraph 4.8 of the ICO Prosecutor’s Report. In that office, the document would be accessed by the First Minister and her Special Advisers.
I would be happy to support this submission in oral evidence.
Rt Hon Alex Salmond
17th February 2021
As you can plainly see, the entire purpose of these redactions is to obliterate Geoff Aberdein from the picture. Very plainly nothing in these redactions tends to assist the identification of one of the lying accusers in court. The document was passed by the Parliament’s own legal service in line with Lady Dorrian’s amended court order, before yesterday the corrupt Crown Office intervened in a panic to have this evidence subverted.
Geoff Aberdein’s evidence is the most crucial collection of fact in the entire Holyrood Inquiry. Why?
In early March 2018 Nicola Sturgeon’s Chief of Staff and closest confidante, Liz Lloyd, phoned Geoff Aberdein to set up a meeting with Nicola Sturgeon and told him it was about sexual allegations against Alex Salmond. That is a full month before the date on which Nicola Sturgeon lied to Parliament she first heard of allegations. Lying to Parliament is a resignation matter.
Why did Nicola lie to Parliament? Because she wanted to hide the fact she already was involved in the initiation of allegations in November 2017, when she instructed, against Whitehall advice, that an employment process was needed for complaints against ex-ministers. There is a mound of evidence for this, not least the fact that her Principal Private Secretary had already met with a complainant twice, on 20 and 21 November 2017, the day before Sturgeon’s written instruction to Lesley Evans to initiate the process.
To hide this early involvement, Sturgeon had to invent a date when she first knew about the process. She settled on 2 April when she met Alex Salmond. That was a lie by four months at least, but it is difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. That she lied by one month is proven beyond reasonable doubt by the evidence of Geoff Aberdein. That is why it is the most important document in the entire process.
Nicola has since admitted to the meeting with Aberdein on 29 March, claiming she merely “forgot it”, that she just “bumped into” Aberdein and it is only “three days” (sic) from the meeting on 2 April. But Aberdein’s testimony is entirely incompatible with even Sturgeon’s amended story. He testifies it was set up by her office, with the allegations agenda known and dictated by them, three weeks earlier.
Is there anything to support Geoff Aberdein’s story? Yes. Aberdein was so worried by this that before he met Sturgeon on 29 March in Parliament (the meeting she subsequently claimed to parliament to have forgotten) he arranged a conference call with Duncan Hamilton QC and then SNP head spin doctor Kevin Pringle to discuss the implications. Both are willing to testify, but of course the Committee does not want them to.
How do I know all this? Because Geoff Aberdein gave precisely this evidence, all of it, in Alex Salmond’s criminal trial. Openly, in public, with no reporting restrictions. The entire mainstream media were present, but as they had only come in the hope of seeing Alex Salmond hung, they gave Aberdein’s crucial evidence little weight. I was there, I heard it and I reported it at the time.
There is one extra thing in Aberdein’s suppressed evidence which is not in his trial evidence. He testifies that he was contacted subsequently by Liz Lloyd to amend a press statement to hide the knowledge of the allegations against Salmond in March 2018.
To be perfectly plain, for the sake of the Corrupt Crown Office, this website is offering a reward for Geoff Aberdein’s evidence because we will publish it. We will first take the advice of both our solicitor and counsel on any redactions necessary to comply with Lady Dorrian’s amended court order on identification.
As for our publication of the unredacted version of the Salmond submission above, you can still see the unredacted version as it appeared originally on the Parliament’s website, with its appendices, here. In publishing it highlighting the changes, we are following the Spectator, Daily Mail and Guido Fawkes among others, all of which did it first. I know that the Crown Office has a habit of pursuing genuine Independence supporters over matters for which unionist journalists are left alone, despite committing the identical alleged offence simultaneously, but in this case I don’t think even the ultra corrupt Lord Advocate and Crown Office would try that.
Two final points. This is a different part of Alex Salmond’s evidence to that I published yesterday. I was asked by a committee member, Andy Wightman MSP, to clarify that the part published yesterday had not been subject to refusal to publish by the Committee. I make that clarification.
Finally, I very much hope that Alex Salmond will eventually appear before the Committee despite the censorship – and then give a press conference afterwards to fill in the censored bits. There can never have been a more hypocritical episode in Scottish politics than Nicola Sturgeon’s hysterical round of TV interviews inviting Alex Salmond to “produce his evidence” and “bring it on”, when all the time she and her machine were acting furiously behind the scenes to ensure that the corrupt Crown office and her parliamentary minions censored the evidence specifically that damages her.
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ond
Personally, I think that Salmond has succeeded in throwing things in the air. Difficult to say he is just in error.
Laguerre
Just in error. Salmond has refrained from denigrating Sturgeon’ s mental health, while she has not refrained from doing the same. As a man who was once called sick, just for being mentally in good health, I think Sturgeon has been, to put it politely , programmed.
The British State ruled India for 250 years simply by divide and rule. Empire2 is doing exactly the same today with modern British Indians, enticing the vulnerable into a lure of false security and prosperity , instructing them who to hate and blame.
I’m not at all clear how that is achieved and I wouldn’t want to know anyway. In the South Asian community there is a sense that those who were previously victims of divide and rule class divisions, can now become the winners. Sturgeon has been promised something like that. Even though she sees that women have in the past been victims, she has been lured into the error of becoming the victimiser,
This kind of re-programming is the speciality of the British rogue colonial deep state. Imho she’s very unlikely to snap out of her programming.
Salmond has been incredibly patient, and understood perhaps that she isn’t to blame personally for having been ‘ turned ‘. It is however necessary for the cause of Scottish Independence that the infiltratration by the British fruitcake factory is neutralized. It is a job unfortunately that has to be done.
Good summary, Giyane. Something has to break… before the colony can break free.
JOML
There was a good example of divide and rule recently. Last year we had climate hype which turned out to be sponsored by big business; this year we had Fatuous Tory Mps saying that post Brexit we should now make our food GM..
Sturgeon has been led up the garden path of Trans rites very deliberately.. Somebody inside the British rogue state has been seeding vaccine phobia in the black and Asian communities.
All this, cynically to distract from the property and land feast the Tories are about to enjoy after they have changed the planning laws.
Both Labour and Tories play this exciting game of exciting division. That is the truth about how we are turned into steeple by provocateurs and the MSM.
Sheeple
JOML
in the same way that after the Iraq War in Iraq every single citizen , young or old, had to fully understand that US General Betrayus was igniting sectarian conflict by blowing people up.in market and mosque false flag bombs, so we sheeple in Britain have to.learn how we are manipulated by the MSM into social conflict.
Nobody else is going to de-fuse the false flag conflicts for us . We have to learn to do it on our own, to put Integrity Initiatve in the dustbin. Homo Sapiens.
In that constrained setting AS gave as motive for those 4 gang members to resign that they wanted to botch one legal process by hastening another another on him, to finish him off.
I don’t get why nobody asked AS the motive for them to start their political elimination set up much earlier with their new weird retrospective law?
Antonym. AS did explain, that it was curious the new retrospective law only applied to past Ministers and not past civil servants. He also alluded to the timing of its introduction.
They are clinging to a theory that there was no conspiracy against Salmond because there was no motive for one. The last thing they were going to do yesterday was to provide him with any opportunity to lucidly spell out the motive for the fit up.
I think NS use of National Covid briefing to slander AS was typical of a desperate floundering person out of her depth.
Motivation for initiating the original, illegal investigative process was touched on fairly late on by Tory MSP, Margaret Mitchell. Alex’s response was … (paraphrase) “given the documentary evidence available to me” … “Leslie Evans was in the vanguard of that effort”. Also, from earlier (paraphrase) “I have no documentary evidence that Nicola was responsible”.
This seems reasonable as Alex only made statements that he could prove rather than make allegations without backup. If however you refer to Gordon Dangerfield’s forensic analysis it’s clear that Evans can’t have been in control of the process and can only have been acting on orders from above.
He was asked. Several times. Offering him a trap to say it is to usurp the will for independence . He stuck to the line they had from day One. The one about them trying to cover up their dodgy legal defence in the Judicial Review with a hope of a criminal case.
The whole fishing behaviour by the Committee, Wightman with his on/off earphones. Others with their live phone messaging. That toffee mouthed mannequin wondering in and out every few minutes; all seemed to be designed to elicit some misspoke words that would be used to construct Nicola’s last ditch defence.
Alex, like Frankenstein or Dr Jekyll, knows he was fooled and created a monster, that he must destroy, for there ever to be a chance of a genuine Independence. It is a great Tragedy of Greek proportions. We are lucky there are such giants amongst us fighting the Beast. Our host included.
It is amazing that two legal processes have exonerated someone but yet, a top politician can still stand and assert that his ‘victims’ which the law does not recognise as ‘victims’ are let down and therefore by implication undermining the legal process. The implication here is that two legal cornerstones have been reversed, you are now guilty unless proven innocent if certain allegations are made, and that by accusing someone of a certain crime, the accuser has a complete right not only of anonymity but of continuing the accusations without repercussions.
I say the above not because I believe one party to be right and the other wrong, I am not taking sides, but because it seems that there is a total legal mess left in the wake of this case.
That’s why these contemptible practices are part of the law on sexual crime allegations. Juxtapose the abolition of the presumption of innocence and denial of due process with the (rightly) emotive crime of rape and “hey presto!” anyone who demurs can be smeared as a rape apologist. The same applies to fraudulent antisemitism allegations made by zionist antisemites when they are purging black men and black female Jews from the Liarbour Partei….
Squeeth
That’s just a ridiculous conspiracy theory.
( which also happens to be correct, but why the British State thinks that an utterly contradictory system will allow this country to prosper, while other nations far exceed our manufacturing productivity, I don’t know. It seems to stem from some weird idea that fucking up the Brits will keep us busy so they can use our weaponry and seat at the UN to trash the Middle East for Israel.
Ergo => anybody who behaves like Nicola Sturgeon is behaving is a supporter of Israel.
Trashing the Christian ethics of our society by promoting trans rights => doing people’s heads in => helps the colonial expansion of Israel.
That is the full, un-redacted conspiracy theory to which the FM refers. It also happens to be the truth. Anti-Semitism and LGBT issues are one and the same political tool.
No, it’s a description of the political practice of establishing guilt by allegation and guilt by association. Ask Julian Assange.
I watched it for 6 hours yesterday. One of the key things to come out was that anything in the Public Domain could be discussed whether or not it had been previously submitted to the Committee.
The next step (after the Sunday Papers) will be the NS appearance on Wednesday.
The only question will be whether any more information will enter into Public Domain which may contradict her representations, and if so, will it occur before or after her final testimony?
The other interesting thing, after watching the unredacted public part of the hearing, is that you are able to compare it with the subsequent reporting of it in the press, rather like comparing the unredacted and subsequently redacted submissions when they have both been published into the Public Domain to see what’s been left out.
The only problem then is that the General Public have neither the time nor the patience and instead rely upon the expurgated, post-digested version served up to them on a plate by the media.
What else has the General Public got to do with their time currently whilst not in lockdown?
Yeah … I know.
I was intrigued at what happened after the hearing was ‘closed to the public’. Why isn’t the full committee proceedings open to the public? What is it with all the interminable secrecy? And I was even more intrigued when Alex said towards the end that the evidence that he wasn’t allowed to produce under pain of prosecution was “beyond imagination”. I really hope that this whole sorry affair is openly aired in public soon and that the guilty ones are made to walk the plank. At least the Yanks for all their faults are more open. For example, no hiding behind anonymity for Harvey Weinstein’s accusers. Scotland is a thoroughly corrupt backward banana republic of a country being run by criminals.
“What is now proved was once, only imagin’d.”
William Blake, the Proverbs of Hell, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Banana republic? If only!
Banana Monarchy more like it.
I watched it from beginning to end too and learned absolutely nothing new. It maybe has something to do with being an avid reader of this blog.
Two things:
(a) Murdo Fraser on record saying `Yes we have it’ in response to Salmond asking him about the testimony of Geoff Aberdein.
(b) It wouldn’t surprise me if the Sturgeon-loving faction of the SNP now decides to abandon Sturgeon and turn to Salmond now that they see that the Sturgeon ship is sinking.
Rowson’ s view
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2021/feb/25/martin-rowson-feud-alex-salmond-nicola-sturgeon-cartoon
The tactic of calling political criminal corruption a ‘feud’ started at the BBC.
Didn’t the tactic of calling a criminal act a ‘feud’ start with Israel?
And the tactic of calling a violent assault a ‘rammy’ started with the Evening Times 😉
‘Happy birthday Steve’ at the bottom. Bell will love it as he hates the idea of Scottish independence. A true yoon.
Mary – thanks for this. I kind of agree with Deb O’Nair.
Note how initially the Guardian decided that Salmond was guilty of sex crimes – and Nicola Sturgeon (according to them) was the great hero standing up for the victims of such crimes against fiends such as Salmond.
Now that it is pretty much established that the whole thing was a fit-up and that Salmond was innocent – in the sense that he didn’t do it – they shrug their shoulders, change tack and take the line that the sort of fit-up that Nicola Sturgeon was engaged in is all a legitimate part of the game for political opponents.
Yes. The Guardian and the editors are like the wind and take whichever line is more expedient. Pathetic. A shadow of what the paper used to be but it was always Zionist Israel supporting..
i think you are too generous in your viewpoint on the guardian and its editors… they are much more malignant then you are letting on!! it is just a tool of empire and the intel agencies at this point..
The Guardian and in particular Monbiot are wringing their hands in despair at the feebleness of Starmer and his lack of socialist, or any policy. They forget that they did their best to wreck any chances of socialism in Britain by their relentless attack on Corbyn.
It was Alex Salmond who corrected Murdo Fraser by saying: “But you already have the testimony of Geoff Aberdein on record”. The committee chairwoman then confirms it. Murdo Fraser looks really flustered and embarrassed and says “I think it is best that I move on” It reminded me of when Richard Leonard asked Sturgeon: “When is the First Minister going to press the Prime Minister to extend the furlough scheme?” said as if he was launching a torpedo and was about to blow her out of the water. You are like thinking, she does it every single day. Sturgeon quickly reminded him that if he had been awake he would know that she brings this up every single day. Unbelievable! How did this get past his special advisors or at least his carers? Anyway, going off topic. Leonard just looked an idiot like Fraser did. Another thing I couldn’t help but notice was how nervous the panel members were especially when questioning Alex. Alex positively exuded confidence. But he did appear to get somewhat emotional and appeared on the verge of becoming tearful towards the end which is understandable from a man who as he himself stated if he had been found guilty on any of the charges he wouldn’t be sitting in front of the committee – he would be sitting in a prison cell.
Just lost everything I wrote as my battery went from 49% to a dramatic zero, for the second time during the last few weeks, wiping everthing. I will try and regurgitate whence it is fully charged.
You need a new battery or it will just happen again. Laptop batteries, like almost all others, do not reach anything like their claimed service lives. Especially unless you nurse them like new-born babies, following all the advice about discharging and recharging.
thanks Tom, this is my mobile battery which seems to rapidly run out, just when I am typing something…:( I might have to invest in another.
Your battery has had it, depending on the phone you can get a kit with instructions from eBay – I did it and followed the linked video and it was a lot easier than I though it would be, but the screws are very small!
May also be the temperature. I had a similar problem with an iPhone 5, if I carried it in the wrong pocket on a cold day, or even in the car it would just shut down, is it a bit fresh over there just now?
I do not know the details and rights and wrongs of the Alex Salmond saga.
Watching Alex Salmond explain what has happened reminds one of how Americans struggled under Trump to resist attempts to subvert the institutions, checks and balances of the US. The US has long established institutions and constitutional protections and yet from time they come under serious attack. The UK has a flexible and unusual set of checks and balances without the formality of the US system. Yes – many criticisms might be made about both the UK and the US systems, and Trump supporters see Trump the other way round, that its institutions were long ago undermined, but I am about to digress [into quasi hippy / political ramblings] so I will avoid further digression on the US and the UK.
I don’t know about checks and balances in Scotland but I know that Scottish devolution is new and that many on here want independence. Whether you are content with devolution or you want independence it is obviously fundamental that AS’s fight is a fight about the constitutional arrangement of Scotland. Does it work or not?
I previously commented that I was puzzled over the motivation of an alleged conspiracy v AS, but it is obvious that there is a much bigger issue than motivation. The fight for the soul of Scotland. The fight for proper Scottish checks and balances.
Some equate a soul with spirit and believe that we all have one. Who knows, it is all conjecture but some suspect that we are born with spirit, but we have to make our soul – forging it with a lot of hard work and struggle. That is why in every religion you will find the metaphor of riding the donkey, the horse or the bull. It could be the same with a state. Or at least it is potentially valuable to think about it like this. A group of people may have a spirit. but for them to have a soul they need to work at it and guard it (less the weaker tendencies become dominant). The national personality or soul is not the same as the national spirit. The spirit is there (or not if you prefer to think of it that way). We make our personality / soul.
We have ideals yet we are prone to temptations to abuse a situation when we think we can get away with it. The law tries to guard against others misbehaving, but the law is bugger all compared to the efforts we have to make to check our own behaviour. No one succeeds really, but some disguise it better than others. To succeed a bit we have to have psychological checks and balances. If one looks at something like Sufism then this might be what it aspires to – working to establish an individual set of checks and balances. (You could say the same of freemasonry – an institution or craft which is all about that personal struggle, but which carries within it the trap and temptation of being able to operate in secrecy. There is a temptation when operating in secrecy to up-end the struggle and put the donkey in charge / same with the intelligence and security services). Without the checks and balances in place and without the effort to make them work the the donkey rides the man.
I suggest we think of it as being the same with a state. It’s bloody hard work to collectively set up an arrangement to keep the donkey in check. The history of the world is that of repeated failure. Some cynically say that only the most devious monkeys win – those who smile whilst they skilfully cheat and game the system – gaming the social contract.
Posters on this blog regularly criticise Israel. There is a lot I don’t know about Israel and I have never been there. It seems to me that Israel has a very strong spirit and it is a new state. It has a core philosophy and strong checks and balances. In the 60’s we thought it was a wonderful idealist state, but as the country has grown stronger its foreign policy and activities mean that we no longer notice how domestically it still really struggles with its temptations, but it does and the domestic checks and balances are still there. By struggles with I mean it tries to confront them – it’s domestic press, courts and politics are still vigilant, vocal, vibrant and argumentative I suspect the county (like the UK and the US) has one principle for behaviour indoors and another outdoors.
Some might think that this AS episode undermines the independence movement. They worry that unionists are the only ones to benefit. There might be something in that, but I can see that this is an absolutely basic fight. Who would want independence without checks and balances. and without confidence that Scotland at least started off with a core philosophical belief in itself and with institutions to protect those beliefs and safeguard institutions from leadership and from the temptations of leadership.
I support the Scottish spirit and its struggles to find expression. I hope it works to develop and protect its checks and balances and self-corrects. But – stay part of the UK.
I wish both CM and AS well with their struggles (as much as I disagree with both eg Craig’s offering of a financial reward for a civil servant whistleblower is not the right thing to do). They both carry a torch. Finally, I hope journalists remember that they are one of the checks and balances.
Israel’s ideal from the start was to remove or marginalize the native people who had been living there for two millennia. It is still pursuing that ideal with the passionate support of the US and UK.
In return for services rendered; the zionist antisemite occupiers of Palestine have to give their pound of flesh to American Caesar.
Come off it, Trump is continuity not change; look at Barry the Bloody Bastard’s record.
Israel was a supposedly idealistic state until 1967, never after (the reality of ethnic cleansing was hidden until then). Now it has descended into a mafia-run corrupt state whose identity is ethnic, not idealistic.
Really? Before 1967, the zionist antisemites kidnapped Yemeni babies and experimented on some leading to their deaths and gave the rest to childless ashke-nazi families – lebensborn a-go-go. Is it any wonder that anyone who compares zionist antisemite crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes, with nazi crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and war crimes is called an antisemite?
My comment was about what it takes to avoid going down the wrong road and how difficult it is even with checks and balances. Scotland stands at a fork in the road: should it stay or should it go. Paraphrasing Mr Strummer if it goes the fork will double: the second fork is the choice to either strengthen and work within checks and balances or to ride roughshod and undermine them.
Mixing my metaphors there.
fwl
“But – stay part of the UK.
You see that is the problem. Scotland is supposed to be an equal partner in the UK but is treated as a PART of the UK so much so that people like you do not even realise that is the problem. Treaty of Union 1707. It’s supposed to be a Union. Scotland is not supposed to be a region. It’s not supposed to be treated like a colony.
Perhaps you may want to consider why you think that way.
Cubby I hope that Scotland remains because I think this is one island and we are best served by holding together as one. Scotland is obviously not an equal partner and Wales even less so, which is inequitable and wrong. We have much in common and we have differences. The imperialist mindset was as much Scottish as English – quite a few Welsh pirates too. I think it fair to say that the inhabitants of the US have greater differences than in the UK but they somehow rattle along. It is also to fair to say that the US derived a far more equitable arrangement between its States than the UK has between Scotland, Wales, NI and England. I admire the way in which each US state has its own constitution, laws and political set up which reflect some very different origins. Curiously those who seek to preserve the distinctive powers of each individual state tend to he more right wing or at least libertarian, whereas those who seek to centralise tend to be more left wing or at least statist and authoritarian. I like difference, variety, libertarianism, freedom, differing groups muddling along, but also the umbrella state and the fact that they all feel part of the whole. The Habsburg and Ottoman Empires were umbrellas, which provided a degree of freedom for very differing cultures.
Of course in America there is no denying the terrible back story of the taking of so much land from Native Americans. The surface narrative is liberty, but sits on top of theft. The speed with which the colonialists (especially those from the Scottish Borders and Ulster) moved across the Appalachians and took over the mid West is astonishing.
There is a fascinating and funny review of a book called Albion’s Seed on a blog called slatestarcodex.com. America has far more diverse groups than diverse Brits, but even the Brits in the US are diverse. The review of Albion’s Seed looks at four distinct of British migrants to the US: the intellectual Puritans of Norfolk to Massachusetts, the idealist Quakers of Pennsylvania, the haughty aristocratic planters of Virginia, and the street fighting Border Reivers from the Scottish Borders and Ulster, toughened by hundreds of years of border strife, who having been sent South to the least desirable spot – the Appalachian Mountains (the then Western border) embraced crossing those mountains and raiding the Native lands to the West.
There is some evidence that many of the descendants of these original settlers are still living in situ and can even be spotted by their voting patterns (Puritans and Quakers descendants tend to vote democrat whereas Virginians and the Reivers vote GOP). They have ways of behaviour, of thinking and organising and approaches to life which are very different (even though they all derive from Britain) but they all think of themselves as American.
Diversity in unity.
fwl,
That’s quite an epic scope you are attempting to consider. Religion and politics , 2 subjects my dear old dad told me not to get into with strangers, knowing my outspokenness as a child.
But are we mere strangers here? Stop me if it gets out of hand… I also am not a Scot and am not fully cognisant of its history and culture and language.
1. Scottish institutions are NOT new.
It has as long a tradition as at least the English ones and unlike Wales retained them through history. Eire too was hollowed out over centuries but did achieve its Independence against the English yoke (more on US emigrants who became powerful and rich enough to back it than any local uprising alone, which were easily ‘put-down’ by brutal force against civilians. I have believed for a while)
2. Scotland has often been used as a test bed for many a legislation first before being imposed on the rest of the U.K. it has been raped and pillaged by the English for many centuries. Yet as the Empire built by the commercial vehicles set up by the bankers centuries ago in Europe as a precursor to ‘nation states’ that could Marshall its local populace into war, slavery and handing over their collective ‘national assets’ by the supposedly infallible ‘legal contracts’ these nations are then made to sign up to by their ‘executives’ call them ministers or kings, mostly secretly, by passing any of the fig leaf transparent institutions.
The land grabs of Scotland, Ireland and Wales over centuries, facilitated by, terror, massacre, clearances, factionalism, mercenaries … all under a Star Chamber and the relic of secret power untouched by democracy, of the Privy Council.
2. You raise Israel.
You can not consider the abomination of that state turned into what it was set up supposedly in reaction to – Exploitative, Apartheid, Supremacist, Mercenary, Religious… wholly an extension of the same structures that I refer to as the driving force of nation states above – you cannot consider without the murky and hidden fact of the Balfour Declaration. Which was simply a very short Contract, signed by the English Secret Powers, guaranteeing the creation of that proto next-gen Empire, in exchange for English dominance over its cousins for a bit longer. That history is informed by the history of their imposition of an Executive which first created the Federal Reserve (NOT a public bank, as weren’t any other Central Banks across the intervening centuries since the BoE). That President, the profit earning man munching WW1, until they got their PM in, and the Declaration which was instantly published worldwide in all newspapers – as legal notices are supposed to be. Which than put US boots on European ground for the first time, to come to the ‘rescue’ and ‘win’ the war for the ‘allies’.
All that is relevant and there is plenty to learn. But not here, right now. I suggest a thorough understanding of the Balfour Declarations emergence mid war, its authors, its Cabinet minutes and the its immediate necessity and results- Decades before modern Israel was ‘born’, to understand the true nature of that geopolitical Game.
Which brings us to,
3. Religion
Well you can look at the various allegorical stories through the ages, from the Abrahamic, to Buddhist etc.
Mostly religion is just another means of Narrative control of the population in the pre Mass Media Age, the main means between the end of the Roman Empire and pretty much until that new age. It is less relied on now as there are direct channels skewered into peoples eyeballs with ‘modernity’.
I am suggesting that religion has NOTHING more to do with peoples other than as just another means of controlling them as Nation States were. As such it had actually very little to do with re-genesis of Israel contracted a 100 years ago with the largest 2 Empires a hundred years ago.
So back to Scotland.
It was cheated of Independence 6 years ago by the mechanism of a ‘referendum’ which was the first such blatant attempt at mass illusion as vote fixing was instituted using postal votes.
It was tested there first to achieve the ‘result’ so that the BrexShit referendum could then be equally fixed immediately afterwards, whilst guaranteeing that Scotland wouldn’t have the moral right to choose EU membership as no amount of vote fixing could hide the clear majority for that in Scotland. Because they had ‘just voted to remain in the Union’.
————
The rules of ‘fight club’ apply on secret governance, with murder and worse, being the thuggish means of control and compliance of these who are appointed or elected to high offices.
They abide by ‘laws’ and ‘contracts’ because these are the weapons created by the original slave owners and bankers centuries, eons, ago to verify their ‘god-given’ rights to such control over the planet.
Alex Salmond said it a couple times yesterday, I paraphrase, ‘I’m not a lawyer, but I know how to make the laws you are misusing’.
There was SO MUCH in what he carefully and legally didn’t say, which should make everyone see the fight-club rules he is ‘not talking about’.
I believe that is in Britain can not finally escape the centuries of minion hood from our ancient masters if we do not let their ancient Empire release the closest imperial conquest.
The English MUST support independence for Scotland to be able to gain its own Temporal and Spiritual independence.
Dun Groanin, you make some fair points. I should not have referenced religion. Your Dad was right.
I accept that Scottish institutions have long standing independence from English – its the Assembly which is new. I was trying to say that our personalities tend to be subject to the influence of others and our emotional whims – unless and until we examine our consciences. That is so difficult that we need checks and balances, or our worse tendencies (subject to greed and fear) take control. Some checks are external but the more important ones are internal.
Those in leadership have to examine their own consciences, but a state also needs external checks and balances (which again at the end of the day rely on the conscience of journalists, judges, jurists, elected politicians and voters who check leadership. I was reflecting that this is what makes the Alex Salmond issue so interesting and important. It is a call to the Scottish elite to reflect. To listen to AS and CM.
I agree that organised religion has long operated as an elite power tool, but did it not basically lose much of its efficacy with the printing press (I concede that it has still far too much power). The elite then required a new tool and they found it in Nationalism. There is an Israeli historian, Prof Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv university who in his very controversial book The Invention of Israel gives a clear concise overview of how Nationalism replaced Religion. Every power tool needs its myths whether they are religious myths or national myths – because people emotionally relate to pictures and stories. Britain has been quite a good story teller. There was also a great left wing Welsh historian whose wrote When Was Wales? It is good to be proud of one’s language, culture, people, laws, government and ways of doing things, but nationalism is no different than religion. A tool of control. An emotional drum.
I’d better shut up now. Rugby soon. Anyway I suspect we are both going to enjoy seeing Alex Salmond fight his corner.
I too am looking forward to a competitive match. Unlike the Cricket earlier this week.
Both sports which are weapons of nationalism, patriotism and most importantly structured authority habitualising , as you know.
But even these we can try and wrestle away from these who used them as part of their armoury of control, and rip away from their traditional CEO’s and Institutions.
Just as the African American slaves did with Christianity imposed upon them as controlled, turned it into an effective liberation platform.
Swing low indeed.
The printing press by the way led to a greater control by religion and, Christianity saving the savages from themselves ( a great lie to make the minions believe they were themselves the giant imperial lords, they served and died for).
The King James Bible in English was the first major use of the printing tech for the Old Masters. Eventually reaching a high point with the yanks having a bible in every hotel room! Which then transmuted with TeeVee, into all the fundamentalist christianity groups and TV Evangelism. Once the TV /Movies/ MSM was fully controlled (a recently achieved goal) the need for fake religionism is no longer needed. No we are in their next phase of fucking with our minds. This things don’t get planned and implemented over a few years or a generation , but dynastically. The ones who do the dirty work don’t necessarily do it for a reward in their lifetime, but are encouraged to establish such dynasties to gather their rewards for evermore. Like the Godfather – do us this favour now & we will be contracted to repay you through generations!
Nice chatting. I see that Biden is readying to turn a portion of Iraq into a permanent state… the Grand Contract demands it! That latest plant,
imposter won’t need a hundred days to have us marching, marching, marching singing Onward Christian Soldiers.
Have a fine day.
“All that is relevant and there is plenty to learn. But not here, right now. I suggest a thorough understanding of the Balfour Declarations emergence mid war, its authors, its Cabinet minutes and the its immediate necessity and results- Decades before modern Israel was ‘born’, to understand the true nature of that geopolitical Game. “
May I suggest a book written by J.M.N. Jeffries, first published in 1939 and titled “Palestine The Reality” – The Inside Story Of The Balfour Declaration 1917-1938 to assist in that understanding.
Thanks Tez, I have not read that great reporters book. Yet. But I have seen it referenced by others. He reminds me a bit of CM/Pilger but with Imperial sensibilities, he was the Mails foreign correspondent, he had access to all the high and mighty, and from all accounts was very good at his work.
I have looked at other papers over the recent years including from the Arab perspective and the Anglo/French perfidy against the Palestinian State. Which really did exist and still does, regardless of the original Balfour Declarations ‘gaslighting’ phraseology.
From a surprising angle I also arrived at the precursor decades (< 1917) involvement in the contract, by my personal interest in trying to understand Money, wtf it is?, after decades of being an entrepreneur and running businesses to ‘make’ it.
Hence I have been forced back ever further in chronology to make progress. I have been dragged back centuries now…. such are the connecting dots.
Like the old joke goes about a lost traveller asking a local how to get to somewhere, the answer was ‘I know where it is but, I wouldn’t start from here ‘!
Thanks Tez – that does look an interesting book – I’ll give it a go.
Dun Groanin – 40-24 / 1st two tries = colonial kama?
So Anas Sarwar it is – a dull as ditchwater, multi-millionaire New Labourite like his boss in London. It was reported Sarwar’s family business made record revenue of £234 million in 2016, it apparently pays the minimum wage and doesn’t recognise trade unions.
Isn’t the Labour party wonderful.
Humza Yousaf concentrating on the fact Sarwar is “the first Muslim & Person of Colour leading a political party”. As if his ethnicity is a virtue in and of itself. Everyone knows that had Sarwar been seen as remotely left-wing he wouldn’t have been in contention due to Starmer and Evans.
We are completely dominated by the political right in the UK. When you look at the people at the top of :Army, Navy, intel agencies; Judiciary ,Politics & media.
They all boast about diversity policies( LGBT) and the fact they are equal opportunity employers, but are they diverse politically? Like hell they are.
That’s not idle conjecture, at the last election we had army chiefs and former intel heads writing columns opposing the election of Corbyn-led Labour, claiming he was a security risk – a gross interference in domestic politics. I don’t know whether being left-wing would result in instant rejection for those agencies, but I’d assume so, are there any studies on political beliefs/affiliation?
How many genuinely liberal, progressive judges does the UK have? Our media is demonstrably ,overwhelmingly right-wing and political choice now amounts to the Tory A or B team with Starmer purging the left. You can add Religious leaders to the list after the Archbishop Justin Welby’s anti-Corbyn ‘antisemitism’ frontpage intervention in the election campaign.
They dominate it all, the whole show , and still they aren’t happy, trying to crush what little dissent there is.
“opposing the election of Corbyn-led Labour, claiming he was a security risk”
Not to mention Lyin’ Mike Pompeo telling us that Corbyn was not allowed. Thanks to a few postal ballots he was right.
Diversity and equal opportunity are about to be used as a smokescreen for imperial war by Creepy Joe’s puppet masters.
I see you’re trying to assert (without evidence!) that the Democrats stole the election.
Are you just a dupe who’s been taken in with Trump’s Big Lie, or are you actually trying to promote it?
Goose
” as if his ethnicity and colour were a virtue in itself ”
You’re kinda missing the point Humza Yousaf is making. If Sarwar was indeed a knowledgeable Muslim, instead of a knowledgeable businessman, then he would indeed bring innumerable benefits from the wisdom of Islam to this society.
Yousaf is implying that just being a Muslim automatically brings those benefits. Even if you are a Muslim for example that goes through red traffic lights, uses bank interest, sells alcohol and supports the destruction of Muslim states.
A claim which is completely perverse. Typical South Asian blag imho. Lies may be the way of the West, but no need to follow the West down every Lizard’s hole of moral bankruptcy.
Precisely.
The assumption that minorities and female politicians hold more progressive views and their promotion is somehow a sign society is becoming more liberal and more tolerant is an illusory distraction to persuade the masses societal change is occurring. Most politicians of Asian heritage in the UK are pushing the same regressive, right-wing policies we’ve had over the last 40 years, whether those policies are now presented by few brown faces matters not one jot.
It was cigarettes that supposedly burned down his father’s warehouse 😀
Seeing the latest poll looks like Labour might get their anases handed to them.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1365635677652742145
It doesn’t take much searching of the name ‘Sarwar’ to come up with a mountain of dirt. The first I recall of the Sarwars is the suspected ‘insurance job’ on Old Man Sarwar’s warehouse A warehouse full of fags would you believe 😀 Is this really the best that Scotland can offer.
Goose
Sturgeon is also trying to claim that her gender is a virtue in and of itself. That appears to be her justification to push her male mentor to the brink, force him to answer fabricated charges of rape, without the right to use evidence, and insult him from her broadcasting platform.
She is well out of order. Feminism, like all.other Equal Opprtunities is the levelling of the playing field so that women , or Muslims or disabled people have an equal chance to prove their worth.
Feminism is not an arrogant assumption of female superiority which licenses a woman to break the law, terrorise a man or demean him in public. She is bang out of order. Nobody is unexpendable. Even with 2 months to go before May 1st, she should be jettisoned by the SNP for this arrogant defiance.
After that the Murrells can go and join the Alistair Campbell on the rent a gob media circuit
Hmmm what kind of businesses and can one follow the money?. I remember him, Or his father, trooping up at Jack Straws re election in Blackburn 2010, extolling Jacks virtue to the assembled, and fed, Muslim elders and voters, it was breaking election law but overlooked, like so many other violations.
Not in favor of rich dynasty politicians at all.
Cash and carry. And according to reports they either paid employees below the ‘minimum’ wage, or ‘minimum living wage’ the latter being higher obviously.
Related. His colleague Lisa Nandy had to have corporation tax explained (private and public limited companies’ profits) vs Sole traders – who make up the bulk (62%) of UK businesses. She appears to have believed they all pay corporation tax. And these are meant to be the ‘grown ups’ .
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Deep State actors seem to be jumping on the get-Sturgeon wagon but in the media they also try to smear Salmond with ” botched lawsuits and prosecutions which let down the complainants” & “at last the “SNP double act of Sturgeon and Salmond may crumble”.
I imagine the rationale is they smell blood and wish to discredit the SNP while it is down but the last thing they need is a stronger Salmond to rise from the ashes.
Why do they hate independence? A part of their game is to dismantle the concept of sovereignty at all opportunities; Voting, Govt. by consent, too much sense of National identity gets in the way of their policy of control by hypnotism via media, useful idiot politicians etc.
They are scared of losing that control over all the UK, which is fast approaching US levels. Salmond has tried not to damage the SNP in this affair but he was forced into it by Sturgeon’s mad zealotry. Can he avoid being tarnished? He seems smart enough to make a good effort.
IMHO, Faslane is a keystone within the anti-SNP hatred. or do I mean touchstone? It’s a very hot button for them and one that I believe the SNP would do well to not threaten too loudly to push. The realpolitik would dictate it would be essential to give a non-Scottish UK, flexibility in this matter. I know this blogger would love to stick it to his old employers and I would personally be glad to see Trident gone from any of these Isles but is it realistic? It is too close to their black hearts and they are aligned on this. Better to make them pay through the nose for it and aim for a 50 year schedule of exclusion by attrition.
It’s interesting that this entire operation was started by a member of the British civil service isn’t it? I rather think it’s been a case of “give ‘em enough rope” the snp really have walked into a Troy trap. They’ve made themselves look antidemocratic corrupt and incompetent. Alex has had to defend himself which can only cause more disarray. Now the British papers can present it as incompetent SNP couples with that bogus yougov poll that put Indy voters at a low.
Boris has often given the hint that he wants to central power and claw back devolved powers and the opportunity has just been handed to him.
It’s a sorry state of affairs.
Hi Craig sorry if this is a little off topic but I’ve just read in today’s The Scotsman’s editorial which includes the paragraph
“ Given what we know about Salmond’s admitted behaviour, his reputation will be forever tarnished and so he should not be regarded the most upstanding of citizens.”
Can you or anyone direct me to where I can find what his so called “admitted behaviour” was? I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Thanks.
Did you see the newspapers’ review on Sky last night?
Journalist Susie Boniface claimed the important thing was the complainants hadn’t had justice.
What is it with some females believing other females are incapable of conspiring and/or lying?
Like when Madeleine Albright said there’s ‘special place in hell’ for women who don’t support Hillary Clinton. As if if every decision is reduced to gender wars and identity politics.
What “The Papers Say”… doesn’t matter. What spin they put on it doesn’t matter. Who reads the papers anyway ? Alex Salmond will proceed inexorably through the waves until he sees those who he has named resign. He said he wants to move on, intimating to me that he doesn’t want to damage the SNP. I do however hope that he forces an apology from Kirsty Wark and the BBC. NS will go of her own accord when her lieutenants start to fall foul of the law as the documentary evidence seeps out.
Salmond doesn’t want Sturgeon to resign.
The BBC has had to retract a story it ran earlier saying Salmond DID want her to resign .. running FAKE NEWS BBC!!!!! oh my.
Sturgeon should announce she’ll finish the work Salmond started by fully de-policising the Lord Advocate’s dual, seemingly conflicting roles.
Obvious to all and as Professors Hans Köchler and Robert Black said :
It is inappropriate that the Chief Legal Adviser to the Government is also head of all criminal prosecutions.
“Did you see the newspapers’ review on Sky last night?”
No, because I never watch it.
I’m also trying to avoid shopping where ‘newspapers’ are sold, but they seem to be everywhere despite nobody buying them. I wonder why that is.
I didn’t make any special effort to watch it, it was just on as I fed the cat and washed up.
Fair to say ,Susie Boniface really doesn’t like Alex Salmond much. lol
Johny, one plausible reason that you see the newspapers on newstands, is that late last March, the Government made a deal with the NMA, the News Media Association, which I understand to be a representative Umbrella organisation for the newsprint industry. In return for financial compensation for the loss of advertising revenue due to the forced house arrest, the Press would act as the “Fourth Emergency Service”, ensuring the Government’s Pandemic narrative was unquestioned, and spread far & wide. Part of that deal specifically mentioned that the Supermarket chains (some of whom also received payouts) would still stock their usual range of news titles.
Yes, did see the review. I was very disappointed that Boniface’s comments were , I presume, repeated every hour without redaction or apology.
She seemed really badly informed for a journalist, especially about how flimsy some of the claims were, and how some of the complainants were allegedly encouraged, to bolster what was otherwise a much weaker case.
Lots of ‘no smoke without fire’ type insinuations, from Boniface, and the whole wronged ‘sisterhood’ thing that is often just barely hidden misandry, was nauseating.
NS has got daily access to the BBC and the wider MSM and is busy trouncing AS’s session yesterday to change the narrative.
It is to be seen on Wed. whether the questioning will include the evidence the Crown office refused to submit to the committee,
We will also see whether an extended session is required and what form the questioners will couch their words to.
If there are no papers served on AS’s lawyers to produce the missing emails, messages and whatsapp chats and none are forthcoming from the Crown court, it will be hard to see what else the Inquiry will not find out, it will be compromised and effectively inconsequential, whatever their combined musing’s may be at the end of it all.
Should the FM stray from the issue and mention AS’s trial, again, after so many times she did it before, I expect that Mrs. Fabiani, or whoever will chair the inquiry on the day, equally slap her down, as she did AS.
Should the SNP lose seats at the next Holyrood election and then tries to blame it on AS trying to get his name cleared, not on the mistakes made or the far too close a relationship between Lord Wolffe and this particular Government, their lack of transparency, then I fear that a split is inevitable. That does not mean Independence should be postponed, merely that it will need a new vehicle and massive support, I always liked the AUOB movement. Whether it can be revived and has the brevity to run a campaign, Indyref.2 or UDI is something I can’t judge as I have not been part of it.
Whichever Indy party accepts the AUOB movement, should be supported, as the SNP, after 6 years of doing not very much at all, can’t be trusted to come up with policies for a Scottish economy, vital infrastructure and or the offices of state, which are clearly desperate to be reformed, going by what we heard.
As an outsider one would expect those who perjured themselves to come before the courts, and those who have maligned to pursue their own personal agenda be held responsible with all that it requires.
Never mind
Thanks so.much for re-writing your thoughts.
Yes, Sturgeon is behaving like a spoilt brat.
Up to the Scots to decide what to do about that.
As an Englishman who wants Scotland to remain part of the UK but who also happens to believe in justice and democracy, I just have to say this episode shows just how evil the London elite is when its interests are threatened. Its clear that a concerted campaign is now underway in the media, not just to dismantle Scottish devolution but also to destroy the SNP. I am aware of how badly Salmond has been treated by corrupt elements within that party but unfortunately its now being used against the entire movement.
Some of the things being said are quite amusing if they weren’t so tragic. A commentator in the Daily Mail declared that Scotland is now a one party state with a meek media and failed institutions. I don’t know about Scotland but that would be a fairly precise description of England since before the 2016 EU referendum!
Yes, and Salmond was acquitted on all charges nearly a year ago (Mar 2020), up until now the UK’s media have paid next to no interest.
I’d like to think people will see through the UK media feeding frenzy for what it is – the propaganda arm of the govt, but after how effective relentless negativity was in demolishing Corbyn’s chances, not so sure.
“I am aware of how badly Salmond has been treated by corrupt elements within that party”
‘Corrupt Elements’? is somewhat an underestimation. Salmond faced the full power from the head of the snake.
Watching the pair of them publicly devour themselves is a rare privilege for people with little faith in politics. I hope this all gets much uglier..
😉
From an article by Colin Kidd in the current London Review of Books:
“….As late as 1982, Alex Salmond and other members of the Maxwellite 79 Group were expelled from the SNP – briefly, as it turned out – for socialist deviation from nationalist purity. Some of the party’s old guard held that the cause of independence was unideological in itself, neither of the right nor of the left. Maxwell’s radical kindergarten of Marxisant republican hipsters was as welcome to the party elders – who formed another internal group, the Campaign for Nationalism in Scotland, to fight against the left – as it would have been in the Tunbridge Wells Conservative Association. Over the next two decades the party’s programme was utterly transformed. Salmond was, of course, responsible for implementing these changes, but the initial plan was laid out by Maxwell, whose influential pamphlet from 1981, The Case for Left-Wing Nationalism, put forward their position. Maxwell recognised the awkward truth that relations between the British state and its Scottish satellite had rarely descended to direct oppression, which meant that the obvious route to independence – via anti-colonial outrage brought about by brutal coercion – was closed. Maxwell’s alternative strategy was to woo the Scottish working class with the promise of an independent socialist state.
“Before its overhaul by Maxwell and the 79-ers, as Jackson shows, the SNP was the preserve of an atypical but conventional enough minority of the Presbyterian bourgeoisie. There was a smattering of poets and poseurs, but the party was drawn largely from the professions and small businessmen, who shared the general outlook of their peers. ..”
It goes on:
“….The SNP won 50 per cent of the vote in Scotland in the 2015 general election and 56 of 59 parliamentary seats.
“But unionism hadn’t died. It lived on in the most unlikely place: the unionist-nationalist SNP. In the early stages of the referendum campaign in 2013, Salmond made a speech calling for the end of the ‘political and economic union’ with England that had frustrated Scotland’s hopes. ‘But this union,’ he added, ‘is one of six unions that govern our lives today in Scotland. My contention is that we can choose to keep five of these six unions, with some differences certainly, but still basically intact.’ He called on Scots to use independence to ‘renew and improve’ these unions in a ‘spirit of interdependence’.
“The five unions were the EU, a defence union in the form of Nato, a currency union sharing the pound sterling, the Union of the Crowns, and a ‘social union’ among the peoples of the UK. Torrance notes the seeming paradox: as the SNP ‘grew electorally, so too did its unionism’. It was a rhetorical ploy, of course, to win over those opposed to independence, but it was also integral to a MacCormick-inflected gradualism. Just as MacCormick, who died in 2009, had described independence as the exchange of ‘new unions for old’, so Salmond – his intellectual protégé – presented himself, until recently at least, as a ‘post-nationalist’.
“Despite the coherence of Salmond’s post-sovereign worldview, as Torrance notes, his unionist-nationalism exhibited a perversity at certain points. Why was the 1707 Union in particular so constricting that Scotland needed to escape it? Why did the SNP in 2014 wish to retain the currency of the union it was seeking to leave, while rejecting the currency of the EU, in which it wanted to remain? Why, when the nationalist-unionist politicians of the UK all supported enhanced devolution, in some instances to the point of federalism or devo-max, did the SNP want to remain in an EU committed to ‘ever closer union’?…”
Sillars’ position, reported today by Sputnik News, is interesting.
Bevin
NATO has now come to symbolise illegal aggression and destruction because of Left-wing war crimes in Iraq continued by Right wing David Cameron.
The pound is very likely to be devalued , especially if the Tories continue to threaten China in spite of their own cri.inal record of torture rendition and proxy warfare.
The concept of England and Scotland being equals is dead. England will soon drown in its own vomit of sponsored Al Qaida violence. Syria is 3 hours away by plane. To make matters worse Sturgeon has wooed London with her libertarian ideas, to which the economic powerhouse of China is extremely adverse.
Sturgeon doesn’t seem to be the right person to steer round the coming economic icebergs. A socialist-friendly Scotland would benefit from good relations with Russia , China. and South America, instead of just being England’s Zimmer frame when Western Capitalism goes ga ga.
The SNP are mocking Labour’s newly stated position on Trident. https://www.snp.org/trident-whatyouneedtoknow/
Sturgeon and the SNP are clearly against nuclear weapons, but yet wildly pro-NATO? NATO is a nuclear alliance, so how is that contradiction going to play out when the US leans on them?
On NATO , isn’t amazing how the further we get from the Cold War the more politicians seem to feel obligated to show their love for this Cold War relic. Europe(EU) will never escape subservience to the US and its foreign policy while this US protection racket is in place. And if describing NATO as a ‘protection racket’ seems unfair, well, it is the US that seems to be generating the threats to Europe with its aggressive foreign policies in the ME and on Russia’s border. I wish the US would close its bases and go home.
While NATO are busy destroying poor countries and ever expanding eastwards, their Operation Barbarossa mark 2, is running out of fuel with over-extended supply lines and hubris.
Russia is mad supplying gas to the EU.
What left wing war crimes?
No wonder Yes lost in 2014 if that was Salmond’s pitch. If union is as important as he made out why would people have opted for a lite version? At least Starmer actually believes in his Tory Lte vision.
That’s very well observed. If you remember Cameron gave Alex Salmond a referendum knowing that the people weren’t ready for it, Alex himself thought that too, and Cameron’s gambit was that ultimately Scots would vote to remain party of the UK, he presumed by 70/30 majority.
What he wasn’t counting on was an almost 50% split.
This same arrogance lead him to announce an EU referendum which he lost.
Cameron was the beginning of the bourgeois coup that has now taken us here. Divided and miserable.
i think it goes without saying that today the media is just a tool of the empire… anyone who thinks they are going to get a proper overview on anything are sorely misguided… in fact, it will be just the opposite… those doing good work will get tarred and feathered and those who are corrupt and working for empire will be given a clean bill of health… that is where we are at in 2021 with the msm… no need to ask questions of why some are taken down and others pushed up.. it is the empires agenda and they do it with ownership and control of the msm..
I have definitely parted ways with the current indy movement and certainly the SNP. But Scotland is still my home. So id like to say – when people start hero worshipping a politician before they have finished the work they say they will do, you set up a situation ready for absolute disaster. Political leaders should be judged in hindsight only.
We have the current Scottish government, with all its awfulness, because too many indy supporters were prepared to look the other way, to make excuses, to act as if our crap doesn’t stink and steadfastly refuse to face the ugly realities. Not only that but the cult would go after anybody who actually did think critically.
You can have all the courts in the land, the most concrete and idiot-proof constitution but if ordinary voters don’t put in the effort to actually THINK then its all for nothing. Alex Salmond had to suffer in order to show Scots what we were handing power and our unflinching support to. Those who only now have allowed themselves to see the truth about the cabal we continually elected and backed should hang their heads in shame.
Can you imagine if Scotland were an independent country under such a clique of malignant and incompetent criminals? That would have been the situation if the majority of indy supporting Scots had had their way. Time for a bit of personal soul searching to be done by many.
Om ye Go Joe
This Break my Fucking Heart..
Hey Hamish why you vote tory ” Cos I hate Scotland,,,,, I want the Beautiful White beaches To turn into Mud…. The turquoise waters to Turn to Mud..The Snow top mountains to Crumble in an Earth Quake The FUCKING WIND STOPS .. The WAVES Stop The FKN OCEANS >>> Lets Bomb ,, BIDEN .
Sorry rant over..
It’d still be better than being tied to Westminster. Do you think those parties would survive the scrutiny Sturgeon and the SNP are currently under? Matty ‘Gambino’ Hancock’s contracts and the Tory outfit?
And besides the SNP would fragment upon achieving independence. Probably get a new party led by the likes of Joanna Cherry.
I strongly suspect that if Scotland had become independent under this group (difficult to imagine given that they worked hard to avoid it) Westminster would do what it has been doing – allowing them to undermine the rule of law and to behave as little dictators which would make rUK look better in comparison. The one difference is that if Scotland were independent then this cabal would have also been able to economically destroy us while shackling us to globalist corporate power.
There is absolutely 1 thing ‘worse than Westminster’ and that is Scots putting up with criminal hostile entities running our country in our name. If we crash under Westminster rule this gives us fuel. If we crash under Scottish rule it plays purely into the hands of a British state who would wish to later reabsorb Scotland and its resources.
People have to be a lot smarter than this
The cabal lite in Scotland
Is nowhere near the Westminster version
We need indy
And we need to escape the reminants of colonial power
Our own civil service
An end to crown agents meddling in our government
If we stay in chains to London
We will see poverty on an even greater scale
And instead of hope over fear
We will live in total despair
It was started by a member of the British civil service, on the instructions of Sturgeon.
The buck stops with Sturgeon.
The Smart One,
So – when does the evidence come out?
How soon to be revealed?
Where did this ‘corporate body’ of the Scottish Parliament come from that Nicola Sturgeon appears to hide behind come from? I had never heard of it until a couple of days ago and now hear mention of it all the time. And if the Scottish Parliament does indeed have a ‘corporate body’ would that not make the Scottish Parliament a corporation or would that be ‘a wild conspiracy theory without a shred of evidence to back it up’?
‘Where did this ‘corporate body’ of the Scottish Parliament come from that Nicola Sturgeon appears to hide behind?
England (so I am told)
@Geoffrey writes: “It is an intriguing thought: to imagine Nicola Sturgeon as an instrument of the British state, which she has been so effective in undermining, particularly during this Covid crisis. Is she a double agent ?“
When we learn from the Torygraph that the Scottish Tories are urging Boris Johnson to back a Unionist boycott of an illegal Partei-run referendum, another question that comes to mind is this:
how strong is the Russian state both in Boris Johnson’s circles and in Scottish Tory circles (and for that matter probably also in MI6, which surely hasn’t had a bust-up with the Torygraph)?
Why that question should be asked is because the line that Scottish Tories are supposedly urging Boris Johnson to take HELPS THE SNP. It is totally insane on its face, and since these guys are not totally insane, there must be another reason for it. It is taught in Electoral Politics 101 that you should NOT make a big deal of what you’re going to advise people to do if your opponents win. On the contrary, you should say things like “When we win this election” and so on. You should say that a win for your opponents would be a disaster. You shouldn’t say let’s hunker down for it. I am not saying Unionists shouldn’t boycott a Partei referendum. I’m saying Unionists should support a LEGAL referendum if there is clearly majority support for one. Seriously how hard can that to be understand? Don’t hand your opponents a mandate for wrecking the country even more than they’ve wrecked it already. So assuming the Torygraph report is correct, I hope Boris Johnson tells the Scottish Tories to f*** off.
Alternatively, of course, it’s possible that a British-level Tory “pivot” is imminent, and that this is all “background” for it to emphasise it.
The sensible line, whether you’re Labour, LibDem, or Tory, is this:
* the SNP are a big danger to Scotland
* if the SNP plus their Green lackeys win a majority of seats and votes in May, there should be a referendum
* if they don’t, there shouldn’t
(There is a grey area if they win a majority of seats but not votes. Putin would love that. I’m not covering that scenario here.)
And please, please, everyone should keep an eye out for those Green scumbags. In 2016 their regional vote was ELEVEN TIMES their constituency vote. The regional vote is where ALL SIX of their seats came from. If the only voters who’d backed them in the regionals were the same tossers and halfwits who supported them in the constituencies then the SNP wouldn’t be in office now.
A big green “issue” between now and May would be “good news” for the SNP indeed.
N
I think MI6 tends to use the Guardian nowadays. They saw that the natives in the BTL comments wouldn’t swallow the claptrap any longer, so they got the new neocon owners at the Guardian to let them loose there instead. Seems to be far more credulous readers there…
Marxist scumbag turns up and showers the green movement, trying to get elected to effect change, doing their best to play an unfair disproportional election game, without the cheating of the main parties and some forlorn Marxist who has done SFA for his marxist ideals apart from dreaming comes along peeing on their efforts.
Scottish Greens are dour and Wightman is a chameleon in a green coat, but what have you done to change the ever burdening climate equation, _N? Does that N mean Nowt or nothing at all, or does it represent your first name? maybe Norbert.
Here is what the line of each of the three Unionist parties should be in the May election:
***
This election is NOT another “once in a generation” referendum. It is to elect a government to run the devolved administration, which the SNP has done so hellishly badly since 2007. If you want to see an effective devolved government, vote for us. Whatever you do, don’t vote SNP or Green.
The only reason the SNP are suggesting another referendum is to to distract from what a rubbish government they’ve been. They rant and rave as if they represent a majority of the people, whereas in fact they have never during the entire existence of the Scottish parliament won a majority of votes. They have nothing to offer other than chauvinistic nationalism. “Independence” is their main policy and if they had any decency they would have left office when they lost the referendum in 2014. It is not the Union that has made them the shower that they are: it is they themselves. But in what we believe would be the very unlikely event that they win a majority of seats and votes in this election, we will recognise that the people of Scotland wish there to be another referendum. That referendum would NOT belong to the SNP. Political parties do not own referendums in Scotland. We believe that the people of Scotland would show the same good sense in a second referendum as they did in the first one.
***
Didn’t you go off in a huff not a month or so back, promising never to darken this blog’s door again, after predicting how we were all going to starve to death at some point last year?
Oh – sorry for asking. You never respond to posts, I forgot. We’re only supposed to gratefully receive your wisdom, not question it.
Glenn_uk
Were your ancestors not deported from.the UK over a century ago?
The last politician to tell people to shut up was Gavin Williamson. ‘ Put up ‘ in this case lands you directly in jail.
She may lose the battle , win the war , and then lose her constituency. Devolution itself could easily be savaged into chewed string by pit bull Pritti Patel.
That might put an end to this dick waving competition. Patel might bite it off . Like Britain abolishing the Islamic Caliphacy in 1918.
Yesterday the Mosque spies scrambled the Fire Brigade to.my house saying there was a fire.
When I saw the blue lights I had a look outside. ” Do you have a log burner sir? ” Yes . ” A fire has been reported at your house. Smoke is coming out your chimney, but that’s what chimneys are for. ”
I assume if they cry “Wolffe'” too many times, like Sturgeon, she will be charged a penalty for malicious waste of time and energy.
Giyane. You should ask which of your neighbours called the fire brigade. You are allowed to start the fire with wood kindling to light the smokeless coal, which is allowed in urban areas. I hope you established a rapuor with the brigade. My stove has been a godsend every winter, bring a comforting atmosphere to my boat and ceremonial routine of preparation. Your neighbours could do with the same spirt and joy.
Keep the flame alive.
Wikikettle
Live and let live. They burn plastic and tyres in the gardens. I burn oak. The power station burns cardboard and the scrap yards burn everything.
What will annoy me is when the PTB weaponise particulates to justify mini nuclear power plants in city centres.
Maybe you could buy a retired submarine from Faslane,?
I can’t be bothered to look up this section 162 on ‘disclosure’ that Alex Salmond states the Crown Office is using as a pretext to disbar him leading evidence in front of the inquiry. According to Salmond he introduced this legislation in 2010 because if I recall his evidence correctly ‘witness statements were being found on skips and ending up in the hands of drug dealers and used to blackmail witnesses. Maybe solicitors offices filing cabinets were full’. It appears then that this legislation is intended to prevent accused solicitors receiving copies of witness statements. That is itself is outrageous. Has he never heard of a shredder? Does he not realise that solicitors offices use such devices for the safe destruction of statements? Witness statements being found on skips?! Who told him that nonsense? The Crown Office? Police Scotland? This is even worse situation pre-2010. I thought it was outrageous back then that defence solicitors had to beg a Sheriff to obtain copies of the prosecutions statements “because I simply find it impossible to prepare a defence M’Lud”. Furthermore, the accused by law isn’t even permitted to read the prosecutions statements. Of course solicitors routinely ignore this law by giving their clients a copy of the statement. Was this the intent of Salmond’s law? But then again Salmond himself was suggesting that solicitors were throwing witness statements in the skip ‘because maybe their office filing cabinets were full’. So it was obviously intended to prevent defence solicitors obtaining copies of prosecution witness statements. But the point is: how can an accused person defend themselves properly when they don’t even know what is being said about them? It is outrageous. And if Salmonds defence agents are playing ‘by the book’ even Salmond himself will not know to this day what written statements were made against him. And just to add, I am not sure that it is still the case, and maybe depending on the case, but the Police come round to attempt obtain a statement from defence witnesses. Of course no-one is obliged to do so or even answer the door to them. Defence statements are taken by ‘private detectives’, no doubt ex-police officers. Prosecution witnesses are threatened with 21 days imprisonment if they fail to attend court; there is no corresponding threat made to defence witnesses, in fact, none at all.
Scottish Labour’s choice of new leader lends further credence to the theory Unionists are determined to prop up Nicola and keep her in place. Sarwar is someone who will make the days of Jim Murphy and John McTernan seem like a time of Camelot.
New Labour 2.0. The branch office is back.
His boss in London , Sir Keir Starmer, has all the charisma of a Cyberman and the voice of a Dalek.
Michael Chessum produced an opinion piece for the guardian.
It was titled: Keir Starmer showed great promise, but Labour won’t win without some policies.
Criticised, Chessum stated on Twitter that he didn’t give it that title – the Guardian did. Now the title’s been changed to: Keir Starmer is betraying his promises and losing voters as a result
Quite a different message. And a microcosm of of how the guardian is shielding Starmer.
We need him to see him quizzed the way Corbyn was: his ’10 pledges’ does he stand by them; what’s his time frame for Lords’ abolition? His controversial record as DPP incl. Assange , torture. His Trilateral Commission membership. Corbyn wasn’t shielded from difficult questions about his past and present policies.
We need to see him quizzed the way Corbyn was #that should be
Goose, it really is not good for you to read The Guardian and watch Sky News.
I know, it’s a hangover from when the guardian was anti-establishment.
I keep returning in the increasingly forlorn hope Viner may have quit and Rusbridger will have been let out of the basement of guardian HQ, replete with angle grinders, drill and hdds.
A detailed check of the Wikipedia pages relating to Anas Sarwar and his father Mohammed Sarwar should illuminate rather sinister, unscrupulous and opportunistic mindsets shared by both.
In a case similar in a way to that of Alex Salmond, Davie McLachlan was falsely accused by Anas Sarwar and eventually cleared following an inquiry.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=glasgow+councillor+accused+by+anas+sarwar+of+islamaphobia&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=glasgow+councillor+accused+by+anas+sarwar+of+islamaphobi&sc=0-56&sk=&cvid=CBC6D6E9E7B0453DB925C7A819754863
The ‘Scottish’ thing for Humza Yousaf to do was say “Hey Anas how come it took you six months to become offended? Ya f***ing chancer”.
Instead we got the usual litany “We must stand against all forms of Islamaphobia” etc etc.
Just for the record, I don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, multi-coloured, orange, green or candy-striped. I just hate bullies and those that ‘dive to win a penalty’.
As a mere Englishman albeit with forbears from Arran, I watched all Alex Salmond’s testimony to the committee. In spite of a respiratory problem in the latter stages, his evidence was well delivered. He is an excellent communicator who was on top of his brief. I thought the committee with two exceptions are “no marks”, Sturgeon apparatchiks. The convenor was better than I had been anticipating. As for the reporting of the proceedings on Twitter and MSM. On balance the genuinely objective are favourable to Mr Salmond. Unfortunately there are many intellectually challenged who are parsimonious with the truth.
I look forward to hearing what Miss Sturgeon has to say on Wednesday.
Dinna get yer hopes up.
A political arena is not the venu for this type of inquiry. Expect a political outcome.
Three of the four SNP members are blatantly partisan with no interest in establishing the truth. Chair, Linda Fabiani seems to take a more open stance, but “seems” may be short for “has more sense than to appear partisan”. Fabiani retires in the upcoming Holyrood election, so there remains a slim chance that she is amenable to uncovering the truth.
Independent and former Green, Andy Whyteman may hold the key to a majority “guilty” verdict, but Whyteman is hard to read.
The personalities under the spotlight fall into two categories. Those where their downfall would come through resignation or sacking and those under potential legal jeopardy.
The roadmap to any individual facing sanction has obstacles to clear. Firstly, in all cases, the Committee has to produce a majority report that produces serious criticism. As outlined above this is not a given.
For those facing potential legal jeopardy (Murrel & Ruddick attempting to pervert the course of justice by “canvassing” complainants after the Polis Scotland investigation had opened / Lloyd for leaking to the Daily Record and therefore attempting to pervert the course of justice) the additional obstacle of the utterly corrupt COPFS lies in the way. James Wollfe (and perhaps others beside) would need to be removed (and that’s a difficult ask).
Some would say that Leslie Laird would make an ideal scapegoat. Salmond states on oath that Cabinet Ministers thought that Laird should have been sacked after the Court of Session fiasco. But, rather than sack Laird, Sturgeon extended her contract (a necessity in executing the coverup). If Laird goes, Sturgeon is damaged and that’s intolerable for the cult members that currently pollute the SNP benches.
In summary, dinna get yer hopes up.
CM, you are an educated man and know fine well what ,”Sour Grapes,” means.
From the fable the Fox can’t reach the bunch of grapes which are then pinched by a bird. Foxy then states ” I didn’t want them anyway, those grapes are sour.”
Complaining about being cheated by a referee is not and can never be a case of “Sour Grapes”. Saying how little you care about losing would be sour grapes. Which is the exact opposite.
Wales are up their own arses more than england when it comes to the Rugby Football. Add oirland and their confirmed strategy of just cheating for 80 minutes every match and I wish they would all lose every game.
Anyway, as expected we have a poll showing support for Independence at or below 50% and every paid murrellite is blaming Alex Salmond for defending himself against being sent to die in prison. He should have just TOFTT and accepted being #metooed out of existence.
Seems to be similar targeting of Cuomo in NYC right now.
I have zero knowledge about whether he has done anything wrong or not, but one of the ‘complainants’ apparently agrees that she was NOT physically abused but that Cuomo’s alleged crimes include ‘asking her if she dated older men’ and ‘kissing her without permission’.
Whilst the latter is extremely inadvisable from a senior official, it is hardly a criminal offence.
As for ‘asking if she dated older men’, only if he asked 3 times after she answered ‘No!’ could that possibly be regarded as ‘harassment’.
Maybe there is much, much more to come out, but the way this is coming out currently is ludicrous…..
Dont worry, he’ll be alright. Corporate Democrats like him, Clinton, and Biden can do whatever they want when it comes to women, even children. It’s one of the firmest principles of the MeToo movement and people like Nicola.
The meetoo mob went very quiet when a woman accused Ronaldo (just before we heard about the Biden fingerfucking).
meetoo is only active against certain types of men.
The US is the home of vexatious and frivolous litigation. A result of simply having too many lawyers. In the US, the ratio of engineers to lawyers is 2.5 to 1, in Japan it’s 20 to 1.
The UK eventually mirrors everything that’s happening in the US.
In the film ‘The Devil’s Advocate’, Jack Nicolson asks the Devil how he is going to take over the world. “Lawyers” *evil grin*
Both decisions at the rugby were correct and I’m a England supporter. The ball is only forward if it hits the ground from the attacking player. If he had kicked it (like he did in a previous match to score). That is the rule.
The stoppage to tell the players likewise clock had been stopped, the Welsh were ready to resume. The English players who noticed the ref clearly signalling the clock to be started and the Welsh in formation to restart made some effort.
The errors were England’s and they continued, they could have won in the last 20.
Blaming the ref. Is typical bollocks. Just how much concussion has Johnno suffered in his career to still come out with knee jerk ‘snottfair, Ref’?
Lol. Learn the lesson, Eddie said it. Itoje did adjust as he should. Others didn’t and gave away the penalties.
This isn’t the World Cup year, yet.
Better make sure the lessons are learned.
I really hope Scotland/France can get their game in asap, I made my bet a while back and have said this is Frances tournament to lose. They are looking good as did the back to form Wales yesterday.
Scots aren’t just bridesmaids anymore either.
If anyone is confused – I am responding to one of Craig’s tweets this morning, but don’t do that platform.
Used to be said that if you blew up the west stand at Twickers you’d erase fascism in Britain for three generations.
Arnold Toynbee?
Wise man. Very wise man. Time for Scotland to lead the world again and call time on the goddess Soshul Meeja.
Not that long ago, Rangers played Celtic twice a year.
Then thanks to Sky etc it was upped to four or five times a year.
Now thanks to Twitter, it’s 24/7
Madness
The ball is only forward if it hits the ground from the attacking player.
not strictly true. if it hits an opposition player, who then knocks it on the ref awards knock on both ways and the original is the offence
Here’s hoping, and a few others to boot as well.
“SNP sources predict Leslie Evans, the head of Scotland’s civil service, will be ousted over her role in the affair.”
https://twitter.com/WingsScotParty/status/1365975628932141056
What do the sources predict for Peter Murrell and indeed for Nicola Sturgeon herself? “SNP sources” may mean “Bute House”. Perhaps Sturgeon believes (wrongly) that she’ll stop feeling so much heat if she sacrifices a bureaucrat or two.
I expect her to use the same pretence as Salmond did in 2007/2008.
The response was as government representative but the meeting was not government business.