Salmond v Sturgeon Round 2.

[Cismyfatarse]

As the conversation is interesting and the thread is nearly full. Does it matter if Sturgeon is guilty - do you know or care? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/scotsnet/4153007-Does-it-matter-if-Sturgeon-is-guilty-do-you-know-or-care

Me too WouldBeGood. Usually make a point of not finding personal stuff out cos I think politicians are entitled to privacy but when they start weaponising it ...
One thing you could say about AS is at least he and his DW went the traditional route of one stepping aside to allow the other to step up. He has done incredibly well to keep her out of this but I do wonder how many realise he has a DW in her 80s having to see her DH's private shenanigans picked apart in public. NS certainly never gives any indication of having considered her over the last 30 years.

"sorry, just a rubbish joke."

No, I know! It's hard to convey emotion in typing text, I got the joke & thought it was well out cos that's the response from a lot of Sturgeon loyalists. James Dornan, a Glasgow MSP (himself caught up in the NEC shenanigans) posted about how his 'hero' was trashing his legacy with his testimony etc. it was a well observed joke. I'll add --> 😉😁 to convey my intent here!

I don't know if anyone else picked up on the SNP's own 'investigations' in both AS statement & the committee. They continued to try and root out anyone else they thought could have a story to tell about AS after the police had been brought in (so they should have been giving any potential leads to the police, not trying to do their own investigations) but they were also not trying to contact those who worked with AS - those who you would think were more likely to have knowledge or experience of the sort of behaviour that Evans had passed onto the police. So even this activity was 'oddly' targeted & I suspect that's why AS has referenced it specifically. It points to a politically motivated set of actions as opposed to concerns for those who would more likely to have been in close enough contact with him to have testimony that could be relevant or itself add to the complaints that were known at that point.

It's curious that the SNP aren't (yet) showing any appetite to tackle Murrell, Ruddick & McCann, the 3 SNP members who have been accused of 'plotting' to jail Salmond. There seems to be very few mechanisms that can address such an explosive accusation when the leader herself is conflicted in her ability to simply act/instruct an investigation/suspend those alleged to have acted this way. It's a curious situation & I think probably the one most damaging for Sturgeon. Cos if she's incapable of tackling or addressing such serious accusations, or the party itself is hampered because of the links between herself and the CEO, it leaves her/the party impotent to tackle bad publicity at a very basic level.

@StrawberryIceQueen

Apparently you can self identify as not guilty

Nicola? Is that you???

@StrawberryIceQueen I think you just won the thread and predicted Wednesday's grubby goings on, a few posts in!

Although in some sense it may no longer be relevant, I have been revisiting AS’s trial which I didn’t follow that closely at the time. The Alex Salmond Trial podcast from BBC is good and also, the Kirsty Wark documentary which is no longer on iPlayer is still up on a relatively prominent platform (not sure if it’s the first or second edit).

Isn't it the Kirsty Wark documentary which just skips most of the defence evidence?

I didn't follow it all that closely at the time so have been re-reading reports from the time too

all I can remember about the trial is the QC on the train being so indiscrete I wondered if that itself was a setup.

It's all a bit samey, muddled party organisation, overlapping investigations with the police's job, leaning on the lord advocate, not being able to decide if a meeting was party business or government business, rushing through policy at pace to suit their own ends. All a bit overall the end justifies any means.

Well, in the Kirsty Wark documentary it is entirely clear what Kirsty Wark believes to be true, though I wouldn’t say the defence is absent. 3 of the women are interviewed while Salmond declined to be, which I suppose accounts for some of the imbalance. It was an interesting watch.

The Salmond trial was about this time last year, just as the world was exploding with Covid 19, we were hurtling towards Lockdown 1.0 and nothing else mattered.

It was covered in an "and in other news" type way. Yes, I remember the QC too. Funny.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

Well, in the Kirsty Wark documentary it is entirely clear what Kirsty Wark believes to be true, though I wouldn’t say the defence is absent. 3 of the women are interviewed while Salmond declined to be, which I suppose accounts for some of the imbalance. It was an interesting watch.

I may be misremembering. There was a fair bit of commentary about it focusing on the prosecution case, not giving much coverage of the defence and so on. I'll try ti watch it to see.

@RaspberryCoulis

The Salmond trial was about this time last year, just as the world was exploding with Covid 19, we were hurtling towards Lockdown 1.0 and nothing else mattered.

It was covered in an "and in other news" type way. Yes, I remember the QC too. Funny.

Yeah I think that's true, I recall his speech outside court but the actual case seemed unimportant

Er, yes of course it matters if Sturgeon is guilty, and yes of course i care even though I'm not Scottish. I'm surprised someone could even ask these questions!

I’m not Scottish either and I care.

I truly believe the slippery slope of a single issue party and one party with no effective opposition spells danger to everyone.

It shows how good intentions of devolution can be muddied for the benefit of one party. Not for the benefit of the country. It shows how desperate people change the dynamics of good governance into covert integration of state, party and the civil service that should remain separate. It also shows a government committee system running on party lines which cannot be effective. Good leadership appears absent in the Crown and the civil service to resist the SNP’s overtures.

This matters to us all and especially helps give insight into any attempts to do this in London. Journalists at Westminster might be more astute and shout louder. The independence issue seems to cloud good judgement in Scotland to the shame of everyone involved.

"I truly believe the slippery slope of a single issue party and one party with no effective opposition spells danger to everyone."

I agree with this. My recollection of the SNP since they were elected into government in the earlier days was that their minority administrations were kept in check by (at that point) effective opposition & a lot of their work was based in having to achieve consensus through negotiations. Since the collapse of Labour in Scotland, that's changed, and not for the better. Having no effective opposition is rarely a good thing & I think a lot of the current focus of SNP policies is the outcome - HCB, GRA etc.

A lot of the 'goodwill' & support that built into the SNP becoming the main & 'in control' party (albeit I know they're a minority administration in coalition with the greens just now) was based upon what looked like the ability to discuss, negotiate & compromise. But once the shackles came off, it's like they just stuck 2 fingers up to that.

"The independence issue seems to cloud good judgement in Scotland to the shame of everyone involved."

I agree with this too. There's definitely a strong 'Wheesht for Indy' vibe in all of this. When people are too busy either focusing on AS behaviour to look at clear failings in governance and/or too busy focusing on NS failings to see AS in all his flaws & realise he's not the messiah for the Indy 'cause', Scotland itself gets poorly served by those elected to serve.

Just to be clear, you're saying it's the SNP's fault that the Conservatives and Labour are terrible parties?

@StarryEyeSurprise

Just to be clear, you're saying it's the SNP's fault that the Conservatives and Labour are terrible parties?

Who is that you are answering as I can't see?

Nope Starry that's not what I read, Exact opposite in fact. Saying SNP in coalition with Labour or Conservative (they have done both in Holyrood) sort of worked. Left to their own devices it doesn't.

The nature of the voting system means there will never be just one Opposition Party. When Labour and the Conservatives spend more time taking pot shots at each other than at the Govt in power this is a problem. It is also a valid criticism, I agree with you.

On that very topic Anas Sarwar has made a statement reaching out to the Labour Councillors who were suspended for going into coalition withe the Conservatives. I see that as a positive step in terms of signalling a willingness to work constructively across Parties.

Perhaps if the Remain MPs at WM had managed to hold their noses and agree on a Leader they would have had more success in their endeavours to bring down Boris. I don't remember Ian Blackford and co acting particularly constructively under instruction from Nicola.

Oh good @WaxOnFeckOff it isn't just me!

I think the indy issue clouds everything and lets SNP in particular get away with being otherwise inadequate. There is a sizeable group of people for whom indy is the number one issue which dictates who they will vote for/not vote for. Snp have no competition in that space for constituency votes so they know there are a number of people who will vote for them irrespective.

There are probably a similar number who won't vote for them due to indy but those votes are then split between the other parties depending on other political views.

That's a very encouraging start by Anas Sanwar. I always thought it was a bit childish to refuse to work with people just because they're 'Tories'. Even the SNP managed to find plenty of common ground with them when they were a minority administration. The SG was set up to accommodate coalitions and I agree that everything has gone to shit because we now have effectively a one-party state without the necessary checks and balances. The recent revelations about the SG/Crown office and the blurring of the lines have shown up some very serious structural weaknesses and these desperately need to be addressed.

@StatisticallyChallenged

Oh good *@WaxOnFeckOff* it isn't just me!

I think the indy issue clouds everything and lets SNP in particular get away with being otherwise inadequate. There is a sizeable group of people for whom indy is the number one issue which dictates who they will vote for/not vote for. Snp have no competition in that space for constituency votes so they know there are a number of people who will vote for them irrespective.

There are probably a similar number who won't vote for them due to indy but those votes are then split between the other parties depending on other political views.

Another deflection tactic. The SNP aren't a "terrible" party, they are abysmal.

Ruth Wishart calling for people to bite their tongue before slinging mud at their own (paraphrasing). The replies are funny and mostly along the lines of - wish you'd told Nicola that.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

That's a very encouraging start by Anas Sanwar. I always thought it was a bit childish to refuse to work with people just because they're 'Tories'. Even the SNP managed to find plenty of common ground with them when they were a minority administration. The SG was set up to accommodate coalitions and I agree that everything has gone to shit because we now have effectively a one-party state without the necessary checks and balances. The recent revelations about the SG/Crown office and the blurring of the lines have shown up some very serious structural weaknesses and these desperately need to be addressed.

Scotland isn't a one party state though, is it? A one party state is when it is illegal for other parties to exist.

@StarryEyeSurprise I said effectively a one party state, because the electorate is split along indy lines and there is one party on one side and three on the other to split the vote. This is the main reason why the SNP continues to govern despite people on all sides pretty much agreeing they're a bit shit, and why there's very little hope that this will change. They have a level of power that the SG was never designed to give, which leads directly to the situation we're now in where the governing administration can essentially do whatever they like, seemingly without any consequence whatsoever. If evidence of corruption is inconvenient it's just redacted by the not at all independent crown office; if legislation is poorly written it's pushed through anyway because there's nothing to stop it. I honestly don't know how we get out of this hole without a complete overhaul of the system.

Just read this on Twitter, interesting...

Paul Hutcheon
@paulhutcheon
·
20m
I am hearing the Scottish Greens will back the motion of no confidence in John Swinney unless the Government provides the Salmond Inquiry with the evidence it needs

@paulhutcheon
to be blunt: John Swinney's job is on the line unless they hand over the legal advice

Daily Record reporting Greens going to support VoNC in Swinney if Govt doesn't back down on redactions - would have been difficult for them not to given previous 2 votes in favour of release.

So perhaps the system isn't so broken after all even if the wheels are turning extremely slowly - again parallels with WM from 2017-2019.

Can I say something that might not be very popular but is worth saying. This is not applicable to the UK. At all. This failure to separate is a distinctively Scottish issue. There is no overlap legally or culturally or politically on these points. None.

Ironically it will be for the Scottish to deal with it. Professionally the links between the Scottish civil service and their Westminster equivalents are gone in practicality. You cannot have a situation of voting in a separatist party in a small country consistently and imagine that the civil service and legal systems are not affected. In the end if there is no change then these institutions will cleave to the SNP or whatever party has power. They cannot say no because they need to get on.

The UK can barely do anything about it because Westminster isn't like Scotland in any way. The UK system is adverserial, fact based, nit picking, legal protections and a robust aggressive press, with professional institutions who have independent power bases away from the party who runs the Government.

Scotland has very little of that. Lawyers and civil servants are just now serving a very small dominant class in Scotland. If Scots don't make their politicians lives uncomfortable then they will take the piss out of you and abuse their power. And it is within Scottish hands to fix it.