I fear it may also be a tough watch, and I am grateful to anyone who tries. The justified and well evidenced acquittal of Alex Salmond by a largely female jury was only the beginning of a nightmare.
Also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8NjRSUkkWE
UPDATE I accidentally transpose in the video which of the two complainants from the original civil service process was met by John Sommers, Nicola’s Principal Private Secretary, on 20 and 21 November 2017, before Nicola wrote to Leslie Evans on 22 November 2017 telling her to include former ministers (but not civil servants) in the sexual harassment process. This was three and a half months before Nicola claims she first heard of the allegations against Alex Salmond.
The question of which of the two Sommers met makes no difference to the argument or series of events. END UPDATE
Anybody who has not already done so, should also watch this excellent speech by David Davis, who using parliamentary privilege can fill in a few of the things which I cannot.
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Tremendously incisive Craig. Could not stop listening. Glad you did it alone BBC (If only) would have edited it to bits. A record breaking film could be made of this but the sponsors would think the story line implausible. This what too much power does creates hubris that can lead anywhere. Keep it going.
I’m just catching up with the show Boardwalk Empire about the political shenanigans with politicians around prohibition in the 1920s. This entire setup would not be out of place in that abs it’s thoroughly depressing.
Sturgeon and Boris are little more than gangsters. But then the British empire was only ever industrial scale gangsterism
Thank you, Craig, for describing the background to the Alex Salmond enquiry so clearly in such a direct, accessible and honest way. I must admit that until I saw this podcast, I didn’t really understand all the finer details and nuances about this case but I do now thank to you. It is awful how these people with little in the way of any decency or integrity have wormed their way into positions of power and seek to destroy an honest man. Ever was it so. Anyway, you are doing an amazing service by shining a light on the murky goings-on. The mainstream media should be ashamed of themselves.
Fascinating watch – thank you.
Watching from Austria – different issues, different narrative, but exactly the same problem.
Wonderful to see people calling it for what it is – Corruption.
Very inspiring.
Craig, I think we should all be careful about our own take on the affair, because it can be difficult to avoid getting carried away by the apparent plausibility of our own reading of the narrative.
Take the Somers evidence, for example. You say it’s unbelievable, from your own personal knowledge of the closeness of PPSs to their ministers. But he was questioned about this at some length on oath, and was adamant that he did not tell the FM about his meetings with the complainer. He said he regarded the confidentiality as the complainer’s, and that he was not free to divulge it to anyone, except to his own line manager with the complainer’s consent, and that he had most certainly not mentioned it to anyone else, including the FM.
You regard the timing of the FM’s letter to Evans the next day as suspicious, but this was during an intensive period when the procedure was under formation, with frequent exchange of messages.
You imply that the FM’s letter was what got former minister’s brought within the ambit, but their inclusion was part of the plan from its inception, and was put in the very first draft by Hynd, another senior civil servant, at his own initiative, 2 or 3 weeks earlier, so far as his own sworn testimony went.
God knows there is misgovernment to criticize Sturgeon for, and those around her, but given the evidence which has come out, and even the hidden evidence with which we’ve been tantalized, are we entitled to hold that she was at the centre of a nefarious web spun to trap Salmond? Or might that have to remain, to quote a phrase, “not proven”?
Alan,
Yes, I watched Somers evidence live. For me what undermined it was his insistence he had very little contact with the First Minister, which is plainly nonsense. Why would you lie about something like that, if not because you were concealing something far more significant?
It remains possible though that he wasn’t in the “gang” and that the professional relationship was atypical.
It strikes me too that with so many Spads about these days the relationship between a minister and a PPS isn’t the same as it once was.
Thanks Jake, it’s worthwhile hearing another informed opinion. It is very easy to put 2 and 2 together and make 5. It is wise to generally believe that most people of honour would not grossly perjure themselves, particularly when there may be a paper or electronic trail to reveal such behaviour. Of course in this particular matter, NS’s knowledge or not of this affair at this particular time doesn’t do more than correct a small piece of an otherwise well put together argument which does indeed reek of corrupt practice and well rehearsed obstruction, including in your First Minister.
And so NS’s closest aides, not one or two but many including her Permanent Secretary, closest adviser, a number of civil servants and high ranking members of the SNP, all knew about the complaints but didn’t bother to tell her. And so they took her party in a seriously dishonest direction not just without her say so but without her knowledge. Not only that but the complainants themselves are from her closest associates and you maintain that it is not beyond a reasonable doubt that she knew. Get real.
Alex Salmond himself said he didn’t want the FM to stand down from her position. He named people involved in the whatsapp messages but didn’t mention her as part of this concerted effort to get him out of the way/jail him. So why are you, Mr Murray.
Isn’t it time for the bloggers to stop inflaming the situation and stand down themselves?
Did you listen to the entire video? I specifically explain that.
Craig does it not concern you that the committee parts that have been leaked imply that NS was party to cover up the complaints against AS?
The leak specifies that on evidence provided NS offered to intervene.
It then goes on to state it is implausible NS unaware of the complaints prior to 2017.
Further it states that the NS failed in her duty by delaying to inform the PPS before june and should have ceased contact with AS earlier than she did.
To me the Committee is trying to say that over the years allegations of inappropriate behaviour have been covered up.
so you’re claiming there were actual incidents that were perpetrated by as and covered up? where is the evidence of this?
Why did AS request the complaints to be dealt with privately?
That is not what I stated.
The committee accepts the evidence that NS offered to intervene on AS behalf to encourage mediation to resolve the complaints.
The Committee also accepts it is implausible NS did not know about the complaints prior to 2017.
The Committee also accepts there is questions over the delay to report the communication and meetings between AS and NS.
Given the evidence supplied by Hamilton and messages between AS and NS , to me the committee is suggesting that AS and NS were trying to cover up the complaints by keeping them private.
“AS and NS were trying to cover up the complaints by keeping them private.”
What, as opposed to having them plastered all over the press? Any reputable organisation would deal with complaints like these ones privately and in house.
Innuendo, smears and “no smoke without fire”. There will be plenty more falsehood where that came from.
tony, as lain stewart said, “innuendo, smears, and “no smoke without fire”. you seem to be focusing on the “no smoke without fire” tactic.
Smoked salmon?
I wanted to reply to Tony’s messages further down but didn’t see a button so I will do it here.
Tony, there’s a difference between asking NS to lobby for mediation and a cover up. AS made clear in his evidence why the Fairness At Work process had two routes short of formal complaint and why their use was often preferred – not just in the case of AS.
But I think you a right that certain committee members would like to foster the impression that AS is a bad ‘un, and also that AS at some point was agreeing to cover things up. AS has no friends on that committee, and none of the seem to be bent on getting to the truth.
Sorry “and that NS was agreeing at some point to cover things up”
Yes I did.
There’s a lot of “ in my experience this is what takes place between principal private secretaries” or others and their Ministers/FM but no hard evidence of what actually did take place on the occasions you refer to. You are so invested in your belief that everyone from the First Minister, the Lord Advocate, the Crown Office, the Procurator Fiscals, the Police, high ranking Civil Servants various SNP employees etc., are all in this effort to frame him, that you forget you need to provide evidence of wrong doing. Your past experience or your gut feelings or whatever is driving you is simply not enough.
Mr Salmond was found not guilty on most charges and not proven on the one charge you describe. What possible benefit is there for anyone concerned in this matter to have this case replayed incessantly by you or anyone else who had no involvement in matters and were not present at any of the meetings or events in question.
Alex Salmond appears not to believe Nicola Sturgeon was involved in this stitch up if that’s what it was but he did name people he could whom he believed were (excepting those women he can’t as it’s forbidden by Court Order).He is closer to these matters than you are. He knows better than you. Stop picking at this scab.
“What possible benefit is there for anyone concerned in this matter to have this case replayed incessantly by you or anyone else who had no involvement in matters and were not present at any of the meetings or events in question.”
There’s just the small matter of those people who were found to have committed perjury and not only have they not been charged, but they have not even been named. Do you really want to encourage this sort of thing? There is no encouragement to wrongdoing so strong as the belief that the wrongdoer will go unpunished.
Perjury charges may still be brought. That’s up to the COPFS.
And not mentioning the fact makes that more likely does it?
You haven’t answered my question, BTW. Do you really want to encourage this sort of thing?
Sorry for the length…
ACB says :
“Perjury charges may still be brought ..”
The perjury has happened a year ago in a court and in changing statements to the police.
What exactly is your massive malfunction?
What does a lying liar lying to the police and then in a court who’s lies are disproved by their own alibi witnesses have to do, to be prosecuted and punished for their evil lies, within minutes of their perjury being exposed, never mind a whole fucking year later?
Wtf is wrong with you people, if you are just the simple voters and not goons of these you are charged to protect?
The fucking liars are not being charged.
Not by the Judge and not by the prosecutors and not by the police – all who have been humiliated by the lying liars they believed would achieve the jailing of an innocent man and the destruction of his reputation.
He personally is above being entangled in having to prove yet again, that the lying liars have lied. That has been proved in court already.
Is your diminishing hope to get him involved in that pig wrestle?
Are you ready to drop your kamikaze nuke? The scorched earth? When Nicola presents her own stained knickers with AS’s dna as the reason, the coven of sisters was gathered to LIE LIE LIE with impunity guaranteed against their heinous perjury? To be the proxies for ickle wickle NS!?
I wouldn’t put it beyond the madhatter narrative manufacturers as they have to put their ER teams out instead of long term planned playbooks. I bet Mandy and Tone are being warmed up as well as Adonis and the head office minders/assassins Mr and Mrs ‘Smiths’.
Yup the cult would gobble that down with the Beeb and Groaniad AND the whole MSM shovelling it down your throats. Hell even LauraKoftheCIA will be deployed ‘back to her roots’ with her Mission Impossible Team of ‘Postal Votes what won it, innit?’ Blag.
Talking of the Groan, (I finally see that Rowsons cartoons tend to always fall slightly short.. need a longer bow, Martin?) and their unpurged long term commentators who have a practiced bolshy stance, are doing exactly that pathfinder job, nothing more than parroting the Narrative to Come.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2021/mar/19/martin-rowson-on-maintaining-a-healthy-body-politic-cartoon#comments
Not only supping the coolaid but handing it out at the school gates btl.
Yup I’m looking at you KK, FG, TF … I know you of old and can say to them today they are BUSTED. By their own statements just as the conspirator perjurers were in court.
Bring on the new Acts I say, the battle must start for the war to finish. First it was the Unions and Orgreave, which even got transferred to beating up hippies in buses and than the whole populace. Such Mendeleev projects traditionally were test bedded on Scotland., first.
That’s all you lot are to the Westminster Mandarins. Human vivisection subjects.
That culminated in the overreach of the Poll Tax.
This is their next bite on controlling the populace cherry.
This time I suspect more than the rioters own neighbourhoods will burn. It will not be televised or reported honestly and Social Media levers will be pulled so fast you won’t even notice it.
Bring it on. There’s millions of us and only tens of thousands of you. And the moment you shoot at us the rest will see it and you will lose …again.
Sorry for the shortness
DunGroanin says:’ Bring it on. There’s millions of us and only tens of thousands of you. And the moment you shoot at us the rest will see it and you will lose …again.”
Shoot*!?
Yes Brucey baby, I hear there are psycho coppers with guns protecting various bastilles in our land some even flying foreign flags.
And when a million of us come to town with a plan to invade the various British Capitols there is almost certainty of shots fired.
Do you think that completely unlikely?
AC
Why would Nicola Sturgeon be part of the WhatsApp group when her husband was there to do the job for her. Get real.
Laura Norda
March 19, 2021 at 20:28
“The fact Salmond was found to be innocent by a jury of mostly women, with a female judge residing, is surely yet more evidence of Salmond’s sexual power over women?”
———————————————————————-
What has Alex Salmond got that gives him sexual power over women Laura?
He is no Adonis is he?
He is past his Best Before Date is he not?
You are implying that his sexual aura has influenced the female jury members and the female judge. A rather silly implication.
Adonis is no adonis either.
I cannot tell you how much I empathise with how you are feeling because this is exactly the feelings I have about the whole rotten affair. I am thoroughly depressed by the whole sorry saga and the fact that I see independence slipping away. I agree with you that Nicola has absolutely zero interest in cashing in her comfortable position. I believe wholeheartedly that Alex was deliberately targeted and a conspiracy to have him imprisoned is a fact. It is also the case that the SNP have stated that another independence referendum will only happen ‘once covid is gone’. Well my belief is that covid is never going away. It’s a virus that we’re going to have to live with now and into the future, and Nicola knows this. I am extremely sad that she turned out to be the opposite of who I thought she was. It is also the case that I don’t like the way that policies are being enacted which are too right wing for my liking. Anyway I do hope that you and I both will feel less depressed soon and that Nicola will be exposed for who she truly is!
I made it through. Thank you.
You’ve a nice relaxed style.
My own take on this concerns Lloyd’s communication to Evans’ private secretary of 17th November 2017 concerning the wording of the commissioning (of the disciplinary procedure) letter.
I believe that three words provide reflected evidence of malice aforethought on Lloyd’s part.
Thank you for taking the time to present this background to the account of the circumstances surrounding the accusations about Alex Salmond. It greatly clarifies certain details of the events themselves and the sequence in which they happened.
If evidence has been suppressed, evidence that illuminates the motives of the complainants in furthering a hidden agenda, then that is definitely corruption, collusion and malice. I hope that in time this evidence is revealed and the ugly motives of those involved is exposed to the light of day. The SNP do not deserve to be re-elected based on the behaviour they have exhibited, although I find it hard to imagine what result a split in the independence movement might bring forth.
Bravo Craig. Great video. I wish you could tell us more than you legally can. Hopefully that will happen one day soon. I want to thank you for the excellent work you do. It’s thanks to good people with integrity and honour (yourself and a few others that are still feeling the wrath of the CO for reporting the truth) that have opened many peoples eyes to what is really going on.
Bravo!
Craig, for a man who has writer’s block, you deliver a rather lucid speech! And apparently without notes, too. 5K views in a day is not bad – let’s hope this gets more eyeballs over the weekend. I would like to think that given the corruption is so open – and with Davis’ speech too – there are surely +some+ folks in the corporate media who will run with it. I can’t see how they can keep a lid on this, personally.
I am remaining subscribed – and will happily watch views instead of read posts, if that format suits you better at present.
Scotland needs an option. A Scottish Republican Party that abstains from Westminster and begins drafting a constitution. The Home Rule party has led a political awakening but has now run its course.
That would be a cleaner option, avoiding MPs elected on an independence ticket getting their heads turned in the bars of Westminster.
This song was written in a toilet and perhaps explains what’s going on inside the SNP right now….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NAEppFUWLfc
The ‘Independent’ yesterday on this:
“Politics, often as not, is a game of massaging expectations, otherwise known as spin. The disclosure of damaging information by MP David Davis about the Alex Salmond affair in Westminster was certainly unexpected. It is a clever ploy. Due to some oversight or maybe excessive caution in the original Scotland Act 1998, which set up the parliament in Edinburgh, Scottish MPs were not protected by privilege, and thus could be sued for slander or libel. Maybe Tony Blair didn’t trust them not to abuse their powers. It now means they can’t pursue the Salmond affair properly, and so it falls to an English MP in an English seat to do it for them. That’s good and bad.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/voices/david-davis-nicola-sturgeon-salmond-independence-b1818567.html
I’ve asked on various sites, including this one, why is Alex Salmond, apparently, so unpopular in Scotland? I must admit I’ve never really taken to the man, I don’t know particularly why, but he just seems a bit “unreliable” and arrogant in a very vague way, and his toadying up to Trump re golf course put him beyond the pale to me. So is this one reason why the Scottish government, and Sturgeon in particular, can get away with such errant, perhaps even criminal behaviour when the man attacked is not deemed worthy of defending? So are both the big fish in the little Scottish pond reeking just a bit now?
However nothing in Salmond’s past should excuse a corrupt attempt by his political rivals to get him put in prison, just as Julian Assange’s casual sexual liaisons should not have played such an important part in having him extradited to the USA. Craig, your presentation was excellent, and I impressed how cogently you put your arguments and information together over nearly an hour of testimony.
I was also impressed by Davis’s speech in Westminster, though hardly anyone was there to hear him, and it’s very doubtful it will be heard by anyone outside except on such sites as this one. When the media are also corrupt and mouthpiece these powerful players, the public will for the most part just get on with the harder lives and find it very hard to pay any attention whatsoever.
You have given quite a few reasons why you might be a bit depressed, but for me my greater depression is how ignorantly and unconcernedly complicit the citizenry are in their own manipulation. You aren’t just fighting corruption in high places, you’re fighting a citizenry who apparently couldn’t care less, and don’t the politicians and media know it. .
The public know what’s going on, after all we live in the world that rich bastards create. Salmond is an innocent party in this but he’s still the politician who crept up Trump’s arse and had no real answer to the bleeding obvious questions of Nato membership, US nuclear bombs in Scotland and keeping the pound. Scotch independence on those terms would have been Irish independence, a local comprador elite to administer a neo-colony, not a neo-Cuba.
What is so depressing about all this is that blatant manipulations and even corruption in government when exposed no longer lead to resignations as long as you have a majority. Party leaders seem no longer accountable. Even worse, weak opposition and compliant press and electorate disinterest all conspire to lead to. As rather bleak future for real democracy. I can see Mr. Murray’s gloom about the future of politics and that of a possible independent Scotland. Will it be worth the trouble?
Take heart Craig. You have a very loyal readership. We need you. Those who have stopped subscribing will still no doubt keep reading you and commenting, repeating themselves endlessly. I will increase my subscription and am sure others will to make up their short fall. Sleep tight.
Very well done. I share your sadness that a government of high ideals has descended to a threat to liberties and all due to the narcissistic ambitions of a cabal of thugs. Very sad. I trust the election will evict these gangsters.
Something odd is going on. When I viewed this on my phone, I got 2 unrelated videos (assange protest and ian?? talking about being a bot on sky news). I open it on a desktop to write this, and magically it has the right videos in both places.
to:- Wikikettle @06:00 on 20March. Increase subscription… ME TOO… if that’s not inappropriate behaviour!
Congratulations Craig & Nadira on the birth of Oscar. ScotGov shenanigans would be keeping you awake at night, so his arrival is well timed.
Wiki, it’s a pleasure to correspond with another early riser. I’m off to put MY kettle on for a 2nd cuppa.
Really informative video, Craig. Thanks
And how do we compare and contrast the treatment meted out to Alex Salmond with that delivered in the Derek Mackay case?
An SNP spokesperson; “As was widely reported last year, Mr Mackay was receiving mental health support, and as a result disciplinary action was paused.”
“We wish him well for his recovery.”
Would be pederast Mackay receives the full support of the party machine but then again, he was one of Sturgeon’s loyal wee boys.
Did you ever post your account of the final day of the Julian Assange trial?
If not I would go back and force it out no matter how hard as that is where you first seemed to talk about being blocked.
Get that passed and see if it helps get you moving again.
This is all very depressing but the fact that there are people who still care is, I guess, an indication that there is still some some hope.
It all goes to show how women’s issues have been so completely taken over by the state, and weaponised against truth and ethics. While I used to be an avid reader of all kinds of feminists, I find it increasingly difficult to stomach this writing, feeling how one-sided, unthoughtful, corrupt, and divisive it has become. I have no doubt that if Corbyn hadn’t been the peace warrior that he is, trying to build dialogue on Irish and Palestinian issues, some kind of sex crime would have been pinned on him.
Your podcast moved me, your articulation of how you presented your video. I could find myself thinking
At last someone finally feels the same train of thought as Myself.
Kind regards and Respect
William
‘The fallout from the leaked finding of the Alex Salmond committee continues to dominate the Scottish papers. The Scotsman reports comments from Nicola Sturgeon accusing committee members of “baseless assertion, supposition and smear”. The paper also reports that the Scottish Conservatives are planning a vote of no confidence in the first minister at Holyrood.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56465539
I have watched your video that you post above, although in two sittings, and am glad that you made it. If you are blocked from writing then please don’t feel reluctant to make a video instead. It allowed you to cover a lot of ground in detail. I watch the unfolding of the Salmond Sturgeon affair, and am glad that more light is being shed on the behaviour of politicians. Feeling low and depressed can be reinforced by a feeling of not being able to influence things, but your action in making your blog over the last few years have been encouraging to many of us, and a source of information and viewpoint that we don’t see much of in the main stream media. Please keep it up. Small individual actions and collective actions will make a difference. I hope that when your newborn is ten years old, then we will be living with a more aware public, and not a society where any dissent is quietly silenced. Take care.
That speech of David Davis MP rather reminds me of Geoffrey Howe’s post-resignation speech, in terms of its effect on a political leader’s future in the medium term, if not near term.
Of course,it was delivered to an empty house, it concerned not Boris Johnson but the First Minister of Scotland.
But it documented with rigour, precision, conciseness and calm authority the reality of the political shenanigans which have been going on.
I must say that I do hope that at some stage a similar speech will be made in the HOC about Covid19 policy and have similar effects on the careers of Boris Johnson, Matthew Hancock, Chris Whitty, Patrick Vallance, Neil Ferguson, Professor Van Tam and quite a few others.
I suspect that the major flaws in the Scotland Act which David Davis proposes to have repaired were quite deliberate. Perhaps nobody noticed at the time in the general euphoria?
Wrong it was bitterly complained about at the time but Donald Dewar wasn’t interested.
You mean, massive protests in Princes Street broken up by riot police, or just the usual fusionless grumbling?
Aye, maybe the latter Iain. That said a common labourer like myself was aware of the obvious hazard of the prosecution service being in government. I was alerted to it in the period prior to the Iraq invasion (is it legal or is it no legal?!). Colin Boyd was the prosecutor at the Hague/Lockerbie and was later Lord Advocate under the labour administration in Holyrood. It was a source of frustration for me that this wasn’t seen as abnormal and corrupt. There were scandals there too. The treatment of Shirley McKie and the practices and cover ups around the Scottish Criminal Records Office. Getting the head of prosecutions out of government was an urgent thing to do in our poetics. For me anyway.
Salmond himself (although Colin Boyd stepped down before the SNP Gov of 2007 took over) wanted to do this and removed the LA from government business but not completely from government. It looks to me on reading anyway that the Scotland Act 1988 states that there must be a first minister and the two top lawyers from COPFS in government.
(1) There shall be a [F1 Scottish Government], whose members shall be —
(a) the First Minister,
(b) such Ministers as the First Minister may appoint under section 47, and
(c) the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor General for Scotland.
Surely to Christ we can have the prosecution service (supposed to be in charge of all criminal cases in Scotland including cases involving politicians) out of government and the Scottish government just pay for its own advice?
Why was did the Scotland Act build the Crown office into the governing structure of the Scottish Government in the first place?
Because it is based on well tried colonial government models?
The unfortunate situation we have now is from all sides there has always been overt and covert intent to decapitate Scottish devolution entirely, BBC Scotland is more corrosive than London based BBC but most msm never stop subverting reality. Because of the ever malign attitude of the Establishment the current SNP is secretive even to members and does nothing inclusive at grassroots, it is far too top down and alienated supporters before this fiasco to block Alex Salmond from returning to politics. Now the dogs have a feeding frenzy to isolate Scotland in the minds of the rest ofnthe UK electorate and want see the end of the SNP and most of all the push for independence. The mistake that the media, Establishment and current ScotGov make is that independence comes from the people and not complacent politicians. We have a constant echo of woke bullshit circling too, it really has become like America, ignorance repeated often enough becomes fact. A reality check is needed and other voices. Alex Salmond was popular and still is because of frankness political ascerbic wit and stood in is own two feet but projected inclusiveness, he didn’t need spin doctors , look at Johnson he can barely string a sentence together, his whole bumbling toddlers act is always a lame excuse for being so utterly lazy that he doesn’t know what day it is without being briefed. The interrogation the media should be making is in the billions given away to cronies in an utterly cynical move by Johnson and co, fiddling whilst Rome burns, or in this case whilst a quarter of a million people die from Covid, as without testing far more deaths than official figures are nearer the truth. The middle class media who haven’t lost jobs and haven’t been fighting for their lives healthwise since last March from lack of medical support are now discussing the “anniversary” of this time last year. Many people are still trying to get treatement from contracting the virus when hospitals were turning people away, there was no testing and no treatment. I think the Scottish elections should be postponed until September when it is safer, or we face a debacle over postal votes as well as any other worries. The slow down in vaccinating the most at risk has been caused by India needing to curb their massive surge in infected. Yet that was reported for a week as Scotland’s failure. I’m scunnered that the pandemic has promoted the most inane shite on social media, instead of people looking for solutions. I am depressed, because I have lost my health and know I will not live out the life I was still fighting to achieve. That people with integrity have been replaced by babbling narcissists talking about haircuts or when they will get to have a coffee. I returned to Scotland from Europe and wish I’d never bothered now because I see the country’s jobs constantly go to people up from London. Even the fast track programme to work for the Scottish Govt is only based in London and it is Whitehall that choses them. How absurd is that? As absurd as oil tankers parked opposite the same building in Leith, doing manky polluting ship to ship tranfers in the Forth under the noses if this Gov in order that tax is not paid to land the oil that should have been part of an oil fund for the last 50 years. That this Gov has let huge wind turbines be buikt on the main flight path of all North Sea resident birds and ALL the migrating birds from Siberia. That Edinburgh has been decimated by vulture capitalists so that communities and even daylight obliterated. We have exploitation that will see lochs and land poisoned by arsenic and more as it was in Sardinia and gave rise to airborn poisons killing livestock long after the South African gold miners left a contaminated wasteland. Yet a farmer and a cafe and a gift shop get to decide the same fate for central Perthshire our main water catchment. The cult of personality is not my Scotland the constant lack of housing and poverty is not my Scotland, the treatment of our ecology as if it is a ramraid on a shop is not my Scotland. Independence is nothing if we still see our land exploited by colonialistic attitudes and greed. Pity the time gone into dragging Alex Salmond through the muck had not been used to scrutinise our land ownership issues, how Westminster has undermined renewabke technology that is more benign and benefits all communities, that there isnt a national strategy where everybody gets a say in projects in our small country and not back door vested interests of 6 people. Have the guts to say that the Gov doesnt serve Scots nor Scotland. Outlaw short assured tenancies and short term contracts that have made vagrants of a generation and caused the precarious health of half the country before covid arrived. I think the video was very thoughtful , though I find it hard to believe that David Davies’s contribution was not for some more EVOL manouevering…Democracy is broken it’s time the population was listened to again before they go back to the ballot box…scunnered.
Paragraphs!
Well said, scunnered.