Ding Ding Ding! Round 5 Salmond and Sturgeon

[Blurberoo]

New thread...

@Happinessisawarmcervix

Do you think any of the smears have stuck in the “real world”? I’ve seen a few people having a go because she has stood by Salmond but that’s all really.

They've stuck with the #IStandwithNicola brigade certainly

I think it was one of the Craig Murray blogs that really set out what the individual charges were and it was eye opening to me to see how little there was, given the apparent trawling for info and people to come forward. I was definitely in the camp that was shocked when he was innocent but I changed my tune when I saw what the charges and evidence was.

This was published in 2014 according to the journalist posting it (without a link though)

Link to Tweet

This does sound pretty demeaning tbh, if true. People around him so whipped they jump to attend to his every whim. But it seems it was quite open & therefore the working environment would have been obvious to NS, JS, senior civil servants etc. If he'd hired & paid for a personal assistant to do this as a job, then even though it's a very elitist thing to do (have someone on hand constantly to attend to every whim) if that's the job description then I guess that's up to him. If he expected civil servants to do this? That's a shitty thing for them to have to deal with.

It's worth saying though that someone with this level of arrogance & entitlement, if he was a 'sex pest' then I'd expect there to be a lot of women to have had at best seriously unpleasant experiences at his hands. But 400 or so interviews didn't uncover the sort of behaviour that you'd expect an arrogant entitled deviant man to have indulged in. Which brings me back to the fact he's a smug arrogant man who felt entitled to be waited on hand & foot, & was indulged by many around him while they all benefited from his political achievements. But wasn't the 'sex pest' he's being painted as, & more of the 'handsy' older man who lacks self awareness for his actions & invades personal space etc.

That all sounds like a muddled way of excusing him, which I don't. I don't think he should return to public life but I just can't see how he behaved comes anywhere close to the likes of Weinstein as I think Sturgeon & the SNP have tried to claim. It was enough to shun him on what he did do but to stretch things the way NS/SNP has is an abusive of their power.

I know I’ve ended up down the rabbit hold of just not believing anything but it’s a bit odd that the exact same allegations that were written in that 2014 piece are the ones aired at the evidence session....

If Salmond was that much of an arrogant arse wouldn’t there be a whole range to choose from? Not just hand wiping and shoe-lace tying?

Text of the full article

medium.com/@chrisdeerin/after-hubris-syndrome-nemesis-cc204d7846e5

It’s a story told against Salmond by another MSP...

I think that the ‘attempted rape’ complainant perhaps didn’t expect the jury to believe the charge but cynically hoped that it would make the lesser charges more likely to stick, in a ‘no smoke without fire’ way. I very much doubt that they believed there would be this level of scrutiny, if he had been jailed for any of the offences then none of these investigations would be taking place!

@Happinessisawarmcervix

Text of the full article

medium.com/@chrisdeerin/after-hubris-syndrome-nemesis-cc204d7846e5

It’s a story told against Salmond by another MSP...

So it seems in some ways the Sturgeon apple hasn't fallen far from the the Salmond tree and all these years later there still isn't any proper answer to the questions that got him hot under the collar.

@Blurberoo

I think that the ‘attempted rape’ complainant perhaps didn’t expect the jury to believe the charge but cynically hoped that it would make the lesser charges more likely to stick, in a ‘no smoke without fire’ way. I very much doubt that they believed there would be this level of scrutiny, if he had been jailed for any of the offences then none of these investigations would be taking place!

I think they needed a decent "headline" charge to get it into court and thought that whilst there, the no smoke would kick in and some of the more minor charges would be found guilty and leave folks wondering about the others. Backfired royally.

It certainly did! ‘Your sins will find you out’ and all that!

@WaxOnFeckOff - it’s fascinating to look back at that piece with hindsight, isn’t it!

Sturgeon was seen as the answer to boost women’s support. Ironic given the number who have left the party because of GRA and the hate crime bill...

[quote Happinessisawarmcervix]@WaxOnFeckOff - it’s fascinating to look back at that piece with hindsight, isn’t it!

Sturgeon was seen as the answer to boost women’s support. Ironic given the number who have left the party because of GRA and the hate crime bill...[/quote]
Yeah but 70 billionty million new members are signing up every day! :o

@Happinessisawarmcervix

Text of the full article

medium.com/@chrisdeerin/after-hubris-syndrome-nemesis-cc204d7846e5

It’s a story told against Salmond by another MSP...

You may note an interesting sentence there

"Labour leader Johann Lamont cheekily suggested Ms Sturgeon herself was behind the briefings."

Cheekily? Or said in a joking manner but knowing exactly what was going on perhaps...Johann is no fool.

Funny that the hand sanitiser allegation has reappeared. Surely having someone else apply sanitiser to your hands is the definition of pointless!

I think you're correct @WaxOnFeckOff and @Blurberoo - not every charge needed to stick, just some (or one really) and the charges all corroborated each other which is important in these sort of cases where there are often no witnesses.

But in this case I think they did more harm than good. I actually wonder if F might have gone to guilty rather than not proven had it not been for the massive amount of doubt cast on all charges by the likes of the H attempted rape, and by the evidence of communication between the complainants.

There didn't need to be evidence they were all lying, or that they were all communication - evidence that some were probably tainted everything.

Personally I feel quite uncomfortable with being in the position of not wholly supporting/believing women who are making allegations of sexual abuse and harrassment. I'm staunchly feminist, and I really did believe this when it first came out but the more I hear and read the more I feel that something is off with some of the allegations.

I’m having no trouble believing that Salmond ultimately became arrogant, hubristic, narcissistic and all the rest of it. I got that impression again when I was reading about that trip to Chicago for the Ryder Cup (a rabbit hole in trying to identify one of the complainers) where the Scottish delegation seems to have spent about as much money on booze and hotels as the SG had to pay to Salmond in legal costs following the judicial review. Not good. The hand sanitizer etc. fits with that. And yet and yet, I’m still not seeing a sex pest.

I agree that bringing together the weaker complaints with the strongest ones may have diminished all of them in the eyes of a jury.

As I’ve said before, I think different people were probably involved in this whole situation with different motivations. Some honest, some dishonest.

I maybe don't come the same base viewpoint in that I wouldn't automatically look to believe a woman making allegations. I wouldn't automatically look to disbelieve them either, but ime, I've encountered as many lying women as I have men.

Wrongly, i would tend to have leanings either way based on my views of them as a person. This is where I went wrong in this case. I don't like AS, i find him smarmy and sleekit and the charges sound like things he could have done. I think this is where they took advantage of his reputation and to have the benefit of doubt against him. No-one was really surprised at the charges. We had him guilty before the trial and when you look at the evidence and the judgement, i think that judgement was correct.

It's not that I disliked Sturgeon more (prior to this). They are two cheeks of the same arse in many ways, but I entirely believe there was collusion to stitch him up. Not something orchestrated necessarily from a standing start, but advantage and opportunity was taken to make the situation grow arms and legs and the ultimate consequence could have been to put an innocent man in jail. imo, that's not just a sacking or resigning matter, it's a criminal matter.

I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of other 2014 articles now to see if anyone else has those stories.

Here’s one from the Washington Post about how much Salmond is hated - no hint of sexual allegations though even though he’s compared to Mugabe! www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/09/12/why-scotlands-independence-leader-alex-salmond-inspires-so-much-anger/

I didn’t know he’d been thrown out of the party! If I’ve read this right he also displaced John Swinney as leader when he made his return, wonder if that put Swinney’s nose out of joint www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29219165

Prior to all this, I originally liked Salmond as a young pro Indy person, then I went off him, then I really liked Nicola Sturgeon, which I don’t at all now, and I’ve found sympathy for Salmond over what has happened, though can see that he’s got issues.

I don’t quite understand the logic that you should always believe women. I think it has to be that you should always be prepared to believe women. I know the odds of achieving justice are stacked against victims and that something has to be done to rectify that, but at the same time a blank cheque of belief seems like the wrong answer since people can lie as there’s often a lot at stake. I have no idea what the solution is. I suspect it starts with excellent policies and procedures - something very lacking in this story.

@WaxOnFeckOff why haven’t the complainers (where they have been proven to be lying about incidents) been prosecuted for wasting police time, lying under oath and whatnot- what is the outcome here? And how come they can continue with anonymity? Is this legal?? It seems so unfair, especially when they continue to make comments to the press, further smearing him without putting their names to it! Maybe there’s no precedent for a case like this?

[quote Happinessisawarmcervix]I didn’t know he’d been thrown out of the party! If I’ve read this right he also displaced John Swinney as leader when he made his return, wonder if that put Swinney’s nose out of joint www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29219165[/quote]
I don't think he did - I think Swinney resigned, Sturgeon and someone else were in the running, then Salmond came back and did a Blair/Brown with Sturgeon

Yes @Blurberoo. I think it's fairly unusual for women making false allegations to be prosecuted. I would guess part of it is to ensure that people aren't put off making genuine complaints. I think that both sides should be afforded anonymity prior to and during the case but if the name of the accused is released afterwards then I think it should be fair that the names of the spurious complainants are also revealed. The name of the person where the charge was not proven should remain unknown. Just my view.

Just realised I've maybe made myself sound more fundamentalist than I am! I'm not saying "believe women regardless" but in a case like this, 10 accusers...believing it would be my default setting IYSWIM? And it is so hard for women to bring cases and get convictions that I also don't assume that not guilty = innocent either.

I wasn't following this that closely at the time, but I remember the verdict being announced and my response was along the lines of "wtf do women have to do to be believed, all those women and they still believed him "

I know what you mean Stats, I was the same and was shocked at the verdict and was disappointed that he wasn't getting his "just deserts". However when I went through each of the charges and the evidence I'm very happy to believe that he was stitched up.

Personally I feel quite uncomfortable with being in the position of not wholly supporting/believing women who are making allegations of sexual abuse and harrassment. I'm staunchly feminist, and I really did believe this when it first came out but the more I hear and read the more I feel that something is off with some of the allegations.

I think this is a big part of it - I think I was the same, certainly thought little of Salmond when the allegations & charges came to light. I distinctly remember feeling disgusted at Salmond's fundraiser & that he had the ability to raise huge sums when the women were not in a position to defend themselves etc.

And where I am now in my thinking is that the instinct to accept a woman's words when she says she has had an uncomfortable or unpleasant or frightening experience at the hands of a powerful, connected, man, was cynically politicised & continues to be used as a political football now. I absolutely can see Evans rubbing her hands at the idea of getting a big name scalp from the #metoo 'moment' and I think those involved in that whole process got ahead of themselves & the complaints to an unbelievable extent, apparently fully supported by NS/Scotgov. But for NS to not recognise when those involved in that investigation had fucked up so badly underlines how cynical NS/SNP were with their own opportunism over Salmond.

He was so loathed I think no one gave a damn how badly things were done.