Does it matter if Sturgeon is guilty - do you know or care?

[sessell]

Evidence of a conspiracy to frame Alex Salmond has been building. There are compelling reports in the Times, Herald , Sky News and across the internet. But there is less reporting in Scotland and a lot of people seem to not know or care. I'm Scottish but I don't live there. I've been hooked by this as a story of power and corruption. I'm on the fence re independence, just don't know enough so don't have an axe in that debate. I've never been an SNP member. But I do care about justice and that no-one should be above the law, especially politicians when they are seeking to imprison their potential rivals.

After reading this affadavit from Craig Murray which brings it all together and is incendiary I'm pretty convinced there has been a conspiracy and that Sturgeon and her collaborators should face justice. Although the justice department (Crown office) also seem to be mired in this. Here is the affadavit www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/01/my-sworn-evidence-on-the-sturgeon-affair/

I've shown this to a few people and have been shocked that a couple have said, yes it stinks but I like Sturgeon. I'd be interested in the views of Scotsnet. How much do you know about this? Do you care? Is it OK for our politicians to imprison their rivals, like Putin and co do, if you like their other objectives. Has Scotland become a corrupt nation? Is that OK?

@happygolurkey fair enough.

I was standing in the long queue at Iceland today and my mind wandered to this topic. (Weird I know) I was thinking if it turns out that the sexual harassment allegations were indeed a way of taking down AS, I will be livid. Sexual harassment at work is an awful thing. I know two people, both very close to me, whose careers were altered due to not being believed about sexual harassment. Men who harrass women depend on women not being believed. To think that someone has jumped on the MeToo campaign is so offensive to the thousands of women who weren't believed.

@StatisticallyChallenged

The dates issue... I think it matters because (from memory here)

1. Geoff Aberdein claims the earlier meeting wasn't a quick head round the door thing but was pre arranged a couple of week's earlier, being set up by an individual in Sturgeon's office with the specific subject of discussing this topic. So it wasn't a couple of days
2. She then claims the meeting with Salmond was party business, but I think it was attended by someone who shouldn't have been there if it was party business. If it was government business then it should have records, and it doesn't
3. She continued to lie/deny for a long time, not doing a quick mia culpa and acknowledging the error so misleading parliament
4. There's is, I think, an impartiality issue (not with Sturgeon directly but other attendee)
5. Why is this being lied about?

statistically - Thank you! That is a really helpful summary of the issues around the "dates". I was confused as to why the fact she "misremembered" the Aberdein date was so important - other than "well, it was a lie, even if she didn't realise it was a lie".

As I understand, there are (at least) two "issues" around this - 1) that NS breached the ministerial code and misled parliament around the meetings (dates/ party or government business/ lack of records etc). And 2) if AS is to be believed (and I'm not sure he is at all because it seems so unlikely) NS and her coterie had more input into the claims against him than was proper - possibly verging on criminal itself. The 2 points may well be linked - and it is difficult to tell from what is allowed to be reported, I assume.

Obviously if point 1 is found true, that is bad, and could well (and probably should) lead to NS resigning. Though I can understand the lack of public interest/ caring about it at the moment. It seems to be a bit pedantic and (other than the "if they are lying about this, what else would they lie about" angle) may not reflect on how suitable she is to be FM in the eyes of people who think she is doing a good job generally - "because she forgot a meeting and didn't take minutes at it".

But if point 2 is found to be true (and that is what I thought the question in the OP was referring to - which I may well have misunderstood) that has to be worse! If people defend that, what else would they defend her doing to further "the cause"??! Rather than conspiring to have AS imprisoned on false rape claims, would conspiring to knock him up a bit behind the Canons Gait be OK? "Because otherwise she's doing a good job and is our best chance of independence and he probably deserved it"? Where is the line drawn? I can't believe people would really think like that - but if AS' claims are true, that seems to be what people would defend.

It has been suggested that she ‘ forgot’ the Aberdein
meeting as it was brief in the middle of a busy day and the reason it didn’t stick in her mind was because she already knew the subject matter.

@annabelindajane

It has been suggested that she ‘ forgot’ the Aberdein meeting as it was brief in the middle of a busy day and the reason it didn’t stick in her mind was because she already knew the subject matter.

When asked to provide her diary for the day the meeting was missing, and a blank page was provided for someone else. Same story for the second April.

TBH, that she forgot about Aberdein because she had known for fecking ages makes sense. I don't believe for a minute that you would forget where you heard about your former boss and mentor being accused, when you heard it, and from whom. Nah, sorry. That you forgot when you were supposed to have found out is somewhat more sensible.

That you forgot when you were supposed to have found out is somewhat more sensible.

Aaaahhhh. Yes, that does sound reasonable. And would tie the forgetfulness in with AS's wider complaint. Murkier and murkier.

Westminster journalists are picking this up now - hope you’ve all got some popcorn left

Yeah, there's definitely some wider coverage. Some which seems to skate rather close to the "he's a guilty man who got off" line.

In a way it's a shame that the judicial inquiry was conceded as it prevented many other elements being discussed. I'd need to dig back but I'm fairly sure that the original case actually didn't include the bit that caused it to collapse - Mackinnon having previously discussed the complaints with the victims. That killed the govt case stone dead.

Thank you @StatisticallyChallenged and @NotAnActualSheep . I have been trying to understand the ins and outs of the dates issue. It's so hard to follow all this but this thread and your explanation/analysis has clarified some points for me . So worrying that lots might just get brushed under the carpet with seemingly no-one noticing or caring

I've really gone off Sturgeon. If she's guilty of anything I hope they throw the book at her.

Agree @Viviennemary. I just hope they can get to the truth.

Just to add to the discussion re exactly what the evidence is re NS's guilt. Alongside the dates issue (when and what sturgeon knew), there is also the issue of the legal advice in late 2019. This was about whether to go ahead to fight the judicial review taken by Salmond against the SG complaints procedure . The word on the street is that the legal advice was NOT to go ahead as there was clear evidence of bias in the procedure. But NS pushed on anyway, at a cost of over £1 million to the tax payer. Going against legal advice would be another violation of the ministerial code and also a sign of real loss of judgement on this issue. But we don't know for sure because the SG refuse to release the legal advice! I mean it's not an issue of national security so that just stinks to high heavens. If she's genuinely eager to refute the claims she needs to release this advice.

This is a really great piece from Mandy Rhodes in Holyrood magazine about the depressing state of affairs in the SNP at the moment.

www.holyrood.com/editors-column/view,something-rotten

@misseliza re weaponising #metoo there's another excellent article on that also by Mandy Rhodes in Holyrood mag. Here is an excerpt:

"And what of the women?

They are shockingly absent in this. Two women let down by a complaints process that was meant to support them and the only time they get a mention is when it is politically convenient for the First Minister or her spokespeople to deflect criticism from her and back onto Salmond.

I am heartily sick of hearing Sturgeon repeat the poor woman playbook that she is being punished for the behaviour of a man.

I am offended by her batting off attempts at scrutiny over whether she lied or not with a reminder that this is about Salmond and not her.

I am appalled by the claim that her chief of staff allegedly revealed the name of one of the complainants to someone who used to work for Salmond but at the time was no longer in government, never mind politics.

I am flabbergasted by a permanent secretary who didn’t consult the women complainants about mediation, took their case to the Crown over their heads and presided over a ridiculously cursory investigation into who, among a very tight circle of names, could possibly have leaked the details of the complaints against Salmond to a tabloid newspaper, potentially opening the women up to exposure."

Link to the full article: www.holyrood.com/editors-column/view,what-about-the-women

The more I read, the murkier and messier it gets.

I still don't know about the whole "it's a giant conspiracy set up from the start" thing but at the very least there seems to be some covering up/smearing going on. ScotGov/SNP seem to have been regularly leaking stuff they shouldn't, whilst simultaneously refusing to release stuff they should. I'm also fairly sure that through sheer ineptitude and by playing silly buggers they've made it fairly obvious who at least two of the accusers are. No intention of saying who before anyone yells at me!

But so far as I can see, so far it is fairly certain that:

• They created a complaints process which applied to former ministers after they knew about a couple of complaints against Salmond;
• They then gave the lead on investigating these complaints to someone who had already "counselled" the complainants, breaching the newly written policy;
• There seems to have been numerous issues with the handling of the complaints process, including refusing arbitration which is available for current ministers, and leaking/releasing the findings to the Record after saying they wouldn't, when it was too late for publication to be stopped legally. This is basically what led to the judicial review being started ;
• It looks like the SG knew that the judicial review was unlikely to go well for them for months before it collapsed and played silly sods right up to the point where there counsel threatened to withdraw. Why? Worth noting that the police investigation was ongoing at the same time - stalling in the hope the police investigation would kind of make the judicial review irrelevant?;
• multiple people have described the police pushing really hard on witnesses;
• despite the judge in the judicial review reducing the original investigation report to be reduced the SG tried to pass it to the committee, knowing Salmond would object - which then made it to the press;
• The SG (and the committee) have taken a very extreme ("absurd") interpretation of the anonymity order and used it to limit the evidence the committee has. They won't release the legal advice this is based on.

In addition;

• enough separate sources who would know the accuser names are saying all/most are a group close to Sturgeon to make it likely that this is true;
• for some inexplicable reason Sturgeon can't remember when she supposedly first heard about the complaints;
• Murrell was sending messages about pressurising the police;
• several of the accusers were in whatsapp groups together specifically discussing the case (which I'm fairly sure they would have been told not to do and which screwed the case);
• Some of the accusations had pretty major holes in them and didn't hold up in court;
• but, Salmond it appears is very much a sleazy shite who certainly doesn't seem to be a fabulously faithful husband.

What a fucking mess. And I have no doubt missed a lot and I've tried to keep to stuff which is fairly certain at this point.

@sessell just as I was reading your comment I had BBC news in the background - they're carrying an interview with one of the women saying the current process is more traumatic than the trial and that "it is utterly absurd to suggest that 9 women would lie and perjure themselves"...can't help thinking that Salmond will be talking to his lawyers about it!

@sessell it's so depressing.It minimises what a horrible thing sexual harassment is. I had a friend who lost hair as a result of the stress of going through it. She had to change jobs and her career didn't really recover.

@statistically @misseliza the BBC interview is upping the stakes in weaponising. It just looks blatant. Twitter seems to know who the woman is, so much for her anonymity . Close colleague of NS. And her agenda is glaring. Last week's stunt similarly glaring - where the spin was that the committee had requested the texts between the women, and then we had all the press about how traumatising it was for them. When it was clear the committee had requested texts between officials and never asked for the women's texts. Spin spin spin. It is shameless and depressing. I've no doubt the original two complaints were genuine, but they did not see it as a criminal case and the SG pushed it to a criminal case without their consent - used them. Woman H, who this seems to be, is the one who was found to be blatantly lying in the trial. And then the BBC lets her repeat accusations, which a majority female jury threw out, with no right of reply. This is also an absolute trashing of #metoo. Those people don't give a stuff about women.

The bbc report did seem to be on thin ice to me - they do say early on that he was found not guilty but then the way they presented it did come across very much as "this is what happened"

Re the texts - this is what I was mentioning earlier about it being extremely hard to defend when the women are very much embedded and are not being allowed to be mentioned; witnesses can't give evidence because they have to literally miss out chunks of their story, and the committee can't request evidence because it ends up being from accusers because of who they are, which then gets used as evidence of the committee being bastards. Again - not saying that makes the conspiracy accusations true but that it's incredibly hard to get to the bottom of whether they might be because of the roles they have

Then we have this a Scottish government minister saying this. Bonkers

They are thick as well as corrupt

Thick, corrupt, dirty as hell

this blog is interesting

Well lying because this is not the law.

A Scottish government minister lying on Twitter

Do we care ?

I care @littlbrowndog I’m just not sure if they’re stupid rather than lying 🤷🏻‍♀️

In this instance, I should say