Salmond v Sturgeon

[dementedma]

Well, now that Eck has lit the blue touch paper, things are going to get interesting!
Who is lying?
Who is telling the truth( or as close to it as any politician gets)
And, who will be left standing?

get your popcorn in

To add - people make a fair point about democracy. If she has misled parliament then she must go.

@museumum

Douglas Ross is saying “ Nobody ever bought Nicola Sturgeon’s tall tales to have suddenly turned forgetful, especially about the devastating moment she found out of sexual harassment allegations against her friend and mentor of 30 years.”

But I think that actually it’s probably pretty hard to pinpoint when she first heard the allegations because I think that although apparently innocent of illegal activity, AS is and was a well known sleaze and bully. It’s like the Weinstein affair, an “open secret” most women would know but most would not be able pinpoint any actual evidence.

Exactly. There was going to be a Sky documentary on accusations re AS but that was pulled.
Re 'lying to Parliament '- why would she do that? There's nothing to gain from it. It's hilarious the Tories gunning for her - their leader lies nearly every day in Parliament. He even lied to the Queen, stood by a massive lie on the side of a bus and also stood by (and got the other Tories to lie- thought some couldn't keep a straight face aka Gove) that Cummings drove with his small child in his car solely because he needed to check his eyes were working.

Behaviour of Tories in Westminster or elsewhere is utterly irrelevant to this case. The question is whether NS lied to parliament, which is looking likely, and the penalty she should face for that.

Tell me her lie then please? I'm failing to grasp the actual lie she told.

She is accused of misleading parliament about the series of meetings with Alex Salmond and his chief of staff, and of breaching the ministerial code by not recording the meetings as she should have (and coming up with a pretty implausible excuse about it being SNP business despite the Scottish government's case being discussed). The full transcript of Alex Salmond's evidence is available in various places including the Spectator and Wings over Scotland, and much as I hate the guy his version is more believable that Sturgeon's. I suggest reading it fully before making a judgement on it.

I agree with you youcannot but unless AS can get his testimony independently corroborated NS will get the benefit of the doubt from her followers.

Seen plenty of tweets about this whole thing being to discredit indyref2 - as if the question of whether NS lied to parliament or not was neither here nor there. Terrifying.

I have no idea why Alex Salmond so clearly has it "in" for Nicola Sturgeon either.

It's just all very grubby. He's obviously hugely disgruntled that he was voted out and is now largely irrelevant, and is trying everything to keep himself in the public eye. The Scot Gov probably did screw up the investigation into his "discretions" and Sturgeon probably is being less than honest with her whole "I had no idea, nothing to see here" stuff. It was apparently common knowledge that it was not a good idea to be on your own with Alex Salmond if you were female - I have heard this from both a journalist friend, and an airport employee. But Sturgeon didn't know that women were coming forward with allegations? And neither did her husband, the Chief of the SNP? And if one or the other knew, they most definitely didn't speak to each other about it?

They really do think our heads zip up the back.

Salmond must have thought all his Christmasses had come at once when his trial ended on the same day as lockdown 1 began - rather than it being headline news with lots of newspaper articles, comment and debate, it was a 2 second bit at the end of the news.

I've read Wings and The Spectator articles. Just looking to find out what the actual words were that came out of her mouth in Holyrood when she told THE LIE.

Christ it's not as simple as she said there would be fish in the canteen on Friday and it was spag bol.

No-one here can tell you any specific words that cover all the alleged deceptions and failures to disclose, you can lie by your actions or lack thereof and pretend that you can't remember when you do etc etc.

PM and NS gave different accounts of the same thing, clearly one of them isn't telling the truth., that's just part of the allegations and evidence.

We all await to see what happens from here.

I wondered how long it would take before the tories and their behaviour at Westminster would take to appear. This is not a race to the bottom and shouldn’t we Scots expect and even demand high standards of our politicians?

If the allegations surrounding misleading parliament were being levelled at say Ruth Davidson ask yourself honestly what would your response be? If it is different, ask yourself why?

I am not prepared to turn a blind eye to the misdemeanour of any politician when it comes to respecting democracy and parliament.

We already know that some were prepared to turn a blind eye to AS being quite handsy which is quite horrific given his position of power at the time - what kind of message does that give to the women of Scotland?

And this brings me back to the point, where do we as an electorate turn our blind eye to our politicians, where is our line. If it is to ignore the allegations as opposed to saying let’s get to the bottom of the matter then once again I will reiterate that it becomes a very slippery slope.

I for one think the people of Scotland deserve better than this and I for one think the allegations must be pursued and this is nothing to do with who it in relation to as I would feel the same about any politician.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us please don't take wings or the spectator as serious sources for this. But AS did sign up to Russian TV so hardly surprising they are backing him.
NS is not accused of misleading parliament, except by political opponents. They are aligning themselves with AS in a very foolish way- he is a tarnished character and any short term political games they are playing will eventually backfire. Nothing is being hidden by NS- this is Alex putting his ego before party or national interest in a hideous Trumpian manner.
AS was named as abusive in an internal civil service HR matter
He took the government to court on a technical point claiming the process was invalid. During this case NS was unable to make comment in parliament for complicated legal reasons. Also during this case some of the activities he quoted in his own defence were extremely sleazy
He won on a technical point leaving the women who had stepped forward completely abandoned.
The government has set up a committee of enquiry and both AS and NS must make statements to this committee which has finally called them after months of delay. She actually asked to appear on a number of occasions!
AS is now pursuing NS in a witch hunt believing that she is plotting against him. The "meeting" with his lawyer which he has put forward as evidence is highly questionable
His arrogance is astonishing ... the way that he says he will swear on oath that he's is telling the truth... who cares? The implication here is that he lies all the rest of the time!

As for the idea that NS must have know Alex was like this, it's often the case that no one does know. So many examples of this, where people hide in plain sight. I'm also not wanting to derail the thread with discussion of gender recognition but it's all part of the same culture. We really have a long way to go in terms of the way we deal with gender and sexuality in Scotland.

@PapsofJura I'm going to say one thing about Ruth Davidson - dark money.
Linked to Steve Bannon, Nigel Farage etc.
This has never been fully addressed. And it's one hell of a big lie if it's true.

I am not a supporter of Ruth either but using her name as an example of whether individuals would overlook if she was alleged to have misled parliament.

@PapsofJura have a look at page 54 and 55 of this electoral committee report https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/pdffile/130018Resonseeredacted.pdf

As I will reiterate I used Ruth Davidson as an example!!! And this is about NS who is alleged to have lied/misled parliament!

Yes but @PapsofJura you said what would happen if Ruth Davidson was accused of lying.
She was. Nothing was done, the evidence was taken to the met police and they didn't take it forward. £319,000 is still unaccounted for.
Ruth Davidson went on mat leave and withdrew from politics for a while.
Then Ruth Davidson was given a place in the lords and is in holyrood again.
My point is that Ruth was accused and nothing was done.

For the last time, I plucked Ruth Davidson’s name out of the air as an example. This thread is about NS. If you want people to comment on Ruth Davidson start another thread about her and stop trying to derail this one!

So it's alright then because you can sling mud at other politicians in scot parliament, there's no case to answer for NS?

Thanks Ikswobel. What a hypocrite RD is - going after the FM in Parliament when she has done much, much worse herself. Tories lie all the time in Parliament and nothing happens. Still, no one's been able to tell me the words of the lie that NS said and just repeat 'mis led Parliament '.
Douglas Ross , the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Ruth Davidson were lying this week saying new funds were given to the devolved governments and blaming those Governments for not passing them on. The Welsh and Scottish Governments have confirmed this is a lie and there has been no new allocation of funds.
Also I don't think someone should have to start a new thread when they respond to a comment with information that the poster doesn't like or agree with. Ikswobel is literally answering a question that was posed with evidence.

I'm not slinging mud at anyone... or derailing.
I didn't bring Ruth Davidson into this thread. She was used as an example of " How would you feel about someone else in parliament being accused?"
It's unfortunately true that she has been accused of improper conduct and nothing has been done.
So for everyone who is lining up against Nicola Sturgeon, please be aware that Ruth Davidson still has a case to answer about her own conduct. Pots and kettles, you don't like folk defending Nicola but you can't imagine Ruth in the wrong!!!

Also Anon, Ikswobel has been discussing the AS/NS scenario and has in fact been the only one to provide any decent information on what's going on there.

And for the record I supported AS when he was first minister, despite some dodgy dealings as at the time I felt he was able to lead during the referendum. Things change however and now I am disgusted by his behaviour. It's ok to change your mind when evidence changes!
I do support Nicola at the moment and there are plenty of people who are aligning themselves with Salmond who really need to have a think to themselves. It's pretty likely that a massive load of scandal will be laid at his door very shortly after Trump loses office and I would imagine that will come for a few other politicians across the UK. It will make current concerns look very petty.

For clarity, if Ruth Davidson has misled parliament or committed any other kind of misconduct, she should face the consequences of that.

Likewise, if Nicola Sturgeon has misled parliament or otherwise behaved improperly, she should face the consequences of that.

Absolutely @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us there are questions to be answered about the standards we hold our politicians to.
NS is so careful to try and do everything correctly that her opponents will try to trip her up for the smallest things.
However, rampant misogyny, financial impropriety and many many other horrid behaviours seem to be overlooked in those who are less conscientious.

I can imagine any politician being in the wrong and expect them all to be treated similarly.

NS is being accused of misleading parliament and those allegations given her position as FM must be investigated. She may be entirely innocent and AS is purely trying to bring down his enemies but if they are proven to be true she must face the consequences of her actions. That’s all I’m saying. In this instance, for me it’s nothing to do with which side/party I support (none actually), it’s about respecting our democratic process.