I didn’t watch Nicola Sturgeons interviews on tv yesterday but I saw some of the content on social media, my first thought was if Nicola Sturgeon is so sure that Alex Salmond can’t back up anything he has said why do the interviews in the first place, why not just say I will give my evidence to the enquiry and leave it at that.
At the end of the day though it comes down to:
Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment
Complaints
To consider and report on the actions of the First Minister, Scottish Government
officials and special advisers in dealing with complaints about Alex Salmond,
former First Minister, considered under the Scottish Government’s “Handling of
harassment complaints involving current or former ministers”1 and procedure and
actions in relation to the Scottish Ministerial Code.
and
James Hamilton QC is investigating if the First Minister broke the ministerial code by failing to declare a series of talks with Alex Salmond during her government probe into women’s allegations against her predecessor.
Alex Salmond was found not guilty of all charges against him in a Court of Law by a jury of his peers, Alex Salmond is not on trial here no matter what Rape Crisis Scotland, the protected accusers, Nicola Sturgeon cultists or anyone else says. The issue here is not Alex Salmond and the kind of man he is, the issues here are the handling of the harassment complaints against Alex Salmond, who did what, who knew what, who advised who and when and how did this process lead to the Government being found to having broken the law and costing the tax payer maybe as much as 2 million pounds.
The other part of this is did Nicola Sturgeon lie to parliament when she said she did not know anything about the complaints against Alex Salmond until April 2018 when he told her himself at her home. These are the issues at the end of the day, everything else won’t be looked at by the committee or James Hamilton, nothing else will be taken into account if they are sticking to their remit.
Now we know that much of the evidence has been kept from the public and the committee can’t consider that evidence as a result of Court Orders designed to protect the accusers, straight away that denies committee members the ability to consider the full facts and it denies the public the opportunity to hold their government to account. Personally I don’t agree with that at all, I think the names could be withheld but as much of the information released. We are not here to serve our Government or our Courts, they are here to serve us.
We are near the end now in some ways as Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon are set to give evidence in the next two weeks and opinions may change as a result of that. But taking a step back, from what I have read and from what I have seen at the committee sessions which have been public there appears to be more to this affair than meets the eye.
It is clear that civil servants employed by the Scottish Government and the Chief Executive of the SNP either have to be some of the worst people ever at their jobs or they have not been as forthcoming as they could have been given the number of them who have had to change their evidence because they forgot something. Most people in those type of positions keep very accurate diaries, notes and use email to back things up, that is just what people do so these people must be incredibly incompetent at best. We have been told that the First Minister did not know about any of this until April 2018 and that her husband, the Chief Executive of the SNP, knew nothing of these allegations as they never ever discussed them at home, now anyone who is married will know the likely hood of that and especially two people in the positions that they are in. We also know that the some of the accusers where in a Whattsapp group which I believe was for mutual support but also that this would go against all the guidance from the Police in these type of cases.
We know from Wings Over Scotland that when Nicola Sturgeon said that the committee looking into this would have all of the information they needed that was not true as the Government on 60 occasions tried to block evidence being handed over to the committee under the guise of jigsaw identification of the accusers. If you have watched any of the sessions it has been clear that the SNP members, and in particular, Linda Fabiani have taken an approach that to be honest would appear to have never been about getting to the truth. When the most effective person in getting answers from witnesses has been Jackie Baillie Labour MSP then you know something is not right.
Did the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon lie to parliament. We know what Geoff Aberdein said at the Alex Salmond trial about a meeting being arranged with the First Minister in her office to discuss the allegations against Alex Salmond. The committee has decided not to publish this evidence, that is interesting in and of itself, as is Nicola Sturgeon saying she forgot about this meeting as it was not important and he just popped in. Now given everything that we know of the First Minister in her years leading the SNP and the Government that is very hard to believe indeed.
Again at the end of the day can Alex Salmond prove what he has said in his submissions to the enquiry, as things stand right now probably not given we just don’t have access to all of the information. We do know that the process was illegal, we have seen that those involved have not been as forthcoming as we would have hoped and that they either forgot things or failed to record them, again do people in those positions ever do that to the extent that we have seen, I doubt it from my own employment experiences. If they did then again they are some of the most incompetent people ever.
I think the civil servants and the Scottish Government made an absolute mess of this whole process costing the tax payer vast sums of money. I think there was a lot of chat between those involved in the process all the way through and I find it very hard to accept that Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon as husband and wife did not discuss this at home, even in passing. I do wonder why the allegations took so long to be made, I know my employer has very clear policy on these type of things and where you go for confidential advice, there are also trade union shop stewards in most places of employment to talk to so the idea that these opportunities were not available is very difficult to believe. I think the Lord Advocate should not be in the cabinet and also the head of public prosecutions, I also think he came across as yet another civil servant not very good as his job as we have seen with the £20 million the tax payer has to pay out as a result of the Rangers trial, a resignation issue if there ever was one.
I think at the end of the day some people may have feared a return of Alex Salmond to front line politics, I think that the allegations made against him would allow that to be guaranteed. I think that some people feared for their positions of power if he did return, this was an opportunity. I believe the process was so badly handled it got of control and rather than accept they could not win they escalated the whole thing to try to cover up their incompetence and once you start to do that it takes a life of it’s own. Was there a conspiracy, on the face of it I can understand why so many people believe that to be the case, can it be proved beyond all doubt I am not so sure.
Where I am now though is that I no longer trust the First Minister. I don’t believe we are getting all of the facts, throw in recent policy decisions by the SNP Government, the actions of the NEC of the SNP, the selective support to MPs/MSPs/Members and everything that has been said just leaves a bad taste and I am in a place where I cannot vote for the SNP to potentially keep Nicola Sturgeon and her team in power because at the end of the day I just do not believe them and I no longer trust them.
Sorry this is such a long post, it is just my opinion.
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