Salmond v Sturgeon round 4. What next?

[Cismyfatarse]

New thread.

This is a link to a statement from a woman (not the original complainants) who says she approached LL regarding having already been approached by HR about an experience she'd had. Claims LL didn't interfere with the investigation but was acting on her wishes.

Link to Tweet with statement

Poses more questions than gives answers.

This is LL evidence to the committee

Link to committee statement

And this is a link to the statement from an ex-civil servant who corroborated Geoff Aberdein's claim he was told the name of 1 complainant by LL.

Link to tweet with statement

All this 'but the Tories' stuff does demonstrate how this should be coming from other sources too (especially Labour) but for whatever reason that escapes me, the Tories are taking up the mantel where others are staring at the floor.

At some point the criticism needs to get louder & come from more sources. Hedging their bets is quite a bizarre take from the rest of the rabble in Holyrood.

@TheShadowyFeminist

This is a link to a statement from a woman (not the original complainants) who says she approached LL regarding having already been approached by HR about an experience she'd had. Claims LL didn't interfere with the investigation but was acting on her wishes.

Link to Tweet with statement

Poses more questions than gives answers.

This is LL evidence to the committee

Link to committee statement

And this is a link to the statement from an ex-civil servant who corroborated Geoff Aberdein's claim he was told the name of 1 complainant by LL.

Link to tweet with statement

I read this statement earlier and it didn't really make much sense to me in the context of the claimed "she's interfering" email

If LL didn't know what the complaint or investigation was about then why would they have said she was interfering? She's fishing, she's been in touch,she's advised x doesn't wish to be involved...but interfering? It doesn't really fit.

The whole thing is odd though. She trusted LL enough to ask her opinion on what she was obliged to do but didn't tell her what or who it was about, yet LL just happened to be managing to make contact with the specific people who were investigating Salmond, to the extent that they considered her interfering.

Pull the other one.

Why are Rape Crisis Scotland issuing these statements? They made a statement about some of the WhatsApp messages being shown to the Committee as well. They need to keep out of it and let the inquiries run their course.

It also begs the question - how does LL know that the email suggesting her 'interference' relates to this woman? LL was supposedly the person who contacted Aberdein to act as a 'middle man' to discuss the allegations. On whose authority? There's definitely a 'role' being played by LL but it's not entirely clear what LL was doing that warrants the complaints of 'interference' which was 'v bad' according to the emails.

None of it stacks up clearly, but given that those involved aren't likely to expand on what they meant, we're left speculating. The problem LL has on credibility is that she's denied an allegation by Aberdein & has the backing of NS. Whereas Aberdein has tried to be diplomatic & not slated anyone & has 3 separate witnesses who corroborated what he's said (albeit not direct witnesses but confirm what Aberdein said at the time).

To me LL knew well before she claims she did (I've read April, but think March is possibly more likely given that she contacted Aberdein to arrange the 29th March meeting with NS). She's not coming across are believable despite having Sturgeon back her up.

There's definitely some truth to the 'protesting too much' saying. She's flailing & doesn't look at all credible IMO.

She “took no further part in the process” but is also being described as “a complainer” i.e. one of the alleged victims? That makes no sense either

There was a third person mentioned who declined to be involved so it could be her. Or it could be one of the women who became a complainant in the criminal case perhaps?

@anon444877

Yes the supine tv media not going after this does show exactly why separation of powers, checks and balances is so important. Can't always rely on the third estate.

My Twitter is full or 'but Johnson is worse' is that the standard?

May you tell Twitter that Johnson is like every politician, here today, gone tomorrow thanks to our constitution. Could the same be said of Ms Sturgeon? I think not.

Every political career in Westminster either ends in resignation of failure.

Johnson will just be another PM who realises, may be in the next 12 months that unless he is prepared to spend more money than Labour post 1945 that the domestic problems in the UK are unlikely to change. He will then drift off to matters of foreign policy, military posturing and trade deals as this is interesting and is not fettered by public opinion as did most PMs since 1914.

"resignation or failure"

LL (NS’s Chief of staff) is up to her neck in this. She is also the one who is likely to have been leaking the Salmond story to the Daily Record (she was in a relationship with Davie Clegg a journalist on the paper who broke the stories). If she was a complainer on top of all the other shenanigans it honestly wouldn’t surprise me!

Yeah rape crisis should keep right out of this. No place for them in this

That rape crisis statement is super strange and raises more questions than answers.

The repeated use of rape crisis as a conduit for statements is a bit weird tbh. IMO it was borderline when it was victim impact type statements (as I recall some sailed pretty close to the "he's guilty" line) but this? It's essentially a statement defending someone's actions in the workplace. Surely there are more appropriate uses of their resources

Rape Crisis is all tangled up in the trans stuff too, isn’t it?

OK, so this woman was approached by SG HR because someone had given her name to them as someone AS may have been a bit handsy with. That sounds off to begin with... the "whistle-blower" had no right to do that, and HR had no right to contact her, surely? It's for the "victim" to come forward with any complaints of their own free will, I'd have thought. Not for them to be fished... Other than maybe sending out a generic, all-staff message to say our guidance on this has changed so you can now make a formal complaint about some things that you may have been told that you couldn't before.

She was concerned that there was an "investigation" she could "impede" if she didn't lodge a formal complaint - how did she know, and why would she care? If she didn't want to complain that's the end of the story, surely? She shouldn't be worried that her failing to disclose very personal and potentially triggering facts to her employer was somehow inconvenient for her employer.

So she went to LL to check (her line manager, or mentor or something possibly, but would seem a strange choice to pick her at random as someone she "respected") but didn't mention any names or dates or what it was about, and LL knew exactly who to go to? . And nothing went any further.

But somehow a couple of years later she's watching the telly and sees DD doing his stuff, and assumes, "oh, that must be that thing that I didn't want to take any further that LL was accused of "interfering" about. Better contact Rape Crisis and tell them what happened". Sounds very odd to me.

Exactly, it makes no sense at all. How would she even know that the contact LL supposedly made in her behalf was what was behind the email between BA and JM saying LL was interfering? It could have been anything, she could have been demanding hourly updates for all this person knows.

@WouldBeGood yep it’s all part and parcel, apparently! thecritic.co.uk/women-in-scotland-risk-having-their-rights-virtue-signalled-away/

The Spectator now having their collar felt by the crown office over their article on Salmond's statement/submission to the committee.

Link to tweet

Anyone else think we'll get to the point Salmond himself will get arrested? It's just bizarre behaviour from the crown office.

I think that’s a big mistake for the Crown Office.

The Spectator will give them a nasty fight unlike the Scottish Parliament.

And also it’s a massive joke. Good luck in getting a court to censor this now after it’s been an available for months.

How crummy they are - and how worried Woolfe must be to try. Frankly if something is not done about the FM and the Lord Advocate’s inappropriate constitutional relationship then Scotland has real problems permanently.

Right well, to be honest, that figures and I was discussing this yesterday - if you read historic articles on all this, stuff fits together. In a sense I am surprised what information remains freely available. Thanks to the internet archive though, it’s too late to really do much other than draw attention to the relevant info!

@TheShadowyFeminist

The Spectator now having their collar felt by the crown office over their article on Salmond's statement/submission to the committee.

Link to tweet

Anyone else think we'll get to the point Salmond himself will get arrested? It's just bizarre behaviour from the crown office.

If it's the bit I'm thinking of I'm surprised it hasn't happened before

@ATieLikeRichardGere

Right well, to be honest, that figures and I was discussing this yesterday - if you read historic articles on all this, stuff fits together. In a sense I am surprised what information remains freely available. Thanks to the internet archive though, it’s too late to really do much other than draw attention to the relevant info!

There's non archived stuff too. It's a farce

It is. And just like the ridiculous request for texts messages requested by the committee which were linked to specific roles excluding the people Salmond named in his statement, which then had RCS making their intervention, those desperately trying to heap more smears on anyone in opposition to Scotgov, they did that Streisand effect thing. This move just does more of the same.

It's this abuse of power that stinks & they just keep on going.

They are going total Streisand effect here. Redacting stuff people have already read is not helpful really. Same happened with the Salmond submission