Salmond denies sexual misconduct allegations

[Roses]

It will be interesting to see how all this pans out.

[Nearly Sane]

Well that took a lot of popcorn. Some dreadful performances, some good ones.

[Nearly Sane]

View from Mandy Rhodes


https://www.holyrood.com/editors-column/view,burning-down-the-house

[Nearly Sane]

Tweet that I find very apposite from Duncan Hothersall, Scottish Labour activist:

'I've said for a long time that the SNP's fundamental political strategy is to supplant Labour in Scotland, leaving them - and therefore independence - as the only alternative to the Tories. Looks like they've finally perfected the public infighting bit.'

[Nearly Sane]

Dani Garavelli on the inquiry


https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/insight-the-alex-salmond-inquiry-and-unpicking-a-tangle-of-disinformation-3149409

[Nearly Sane]

Andrew Tickell on some of the legal complexity

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19123699.andrew-tickell-understanding-legalities-behind-holyrood-committee/

[Nearly Sane]

Motion of no confidence to be raised in Sturgeon. Could be very tight. Suspect the Greens might abstain in which case Sturgeon will survive.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56259056

[Nearly Sane]

Sturgeon before the committee

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-56251990

[Nearly Sane]

Salmond lodges formal complaint. Very interesting timing


https://www.thenational.scot/news/19132179.alex-salmond-lodges-formal-complaint-claims-accusers-name-leaked/

[Nearly Sane]

I think there is a real issue. I think this overshoots

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/david-davis-scotland-a-deficit-of-power-and-accountability

[Nearly Sane]

Sturgeon being found to have misled parliament. Once this would have meant resignation but we are not in Kansas anymore.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56451170

[ProfessorDavey]

Sturgeon being found to have misled parliament. Once this would have meant resignation but we are not in Kansas anymore.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56451170

The committee split entirely on party lines, which suggests to me that the voting is more political than evidential. It may ever have been thus in these kinds of committee, but I guess in many cases if a PM (or FM) has an absolute majority in their parliament then they will have a majority in the committees. So were this to be Boris Johnson to be under the same scrutiny but with a Westminster committee then he'd probably be OK if there was a split absolutely along party lines.

Reminds me a bit of the impeachment of Trump - where the evidence seemed pretty irrelevant it was all decided on the political make-up of the House and the Senate.

So all in all - given the huge publicity of the inquiry a deeply unsatisfactory outcome as far as I'm concerned. Not on whether she did or did not mislead etc (hard for me to judge given that I've not seen all the evidence), but that the outcome looks to me to be one you could have anticipated before a word of evidence had been taken - SNP MSPs voting for Sturgeon, non-SNP MSPs voting against.

I think the other inquiry (or are the two more ongoing - I've lost track) may be more interesting as that is being considered in a manner independent of party political factionalism.

[Roses]

The SNP needs to get its act together before the election in May.

[Nearly Sane]

The committee split entirely on party lines, which suggests to me that the voting is more political than evidential. It may ever have been thus in these kinds of committee, but I guess in many cases if a PM (or FM) has an absolute majority in their parliament then they will have a majority in the committees. So were this to be Boris Johnson to be under the same scrutiny but with a Westminster committee then he'd probably be OK if there was a split absolutely along party lines.

Reminds me a bit of the impeachment of Trump - where the evidence seemed pretty irrelevant it was all decided on the political make-up of the House and the Senate.

So all in all - given the huge publicity of the inquiry a deeply unsatisfactory outcome as far as I'm concerned. Not on whether she did or did not mislead etc (hard for me to judge given that I've not seen all the evidence), but that the outcome looks to me to be one you could have anticipated before a word of evidence had been taken - SNP MSPs voting for Sturgeon, non-SNP MSPs voting against.

I think the other inquiry (or are the two more ongoing - I've lost track) may be more interesting as that is being considered in a manner independent of party political factionalism.

I think that's unfair on Andy Wightman. It was always likely to split 4/4 leaving Wightman aside politically but he's as a now Independent, once Green, who is generally seen as being an honest person. He voted with the SNP members pretty cibsistejtly on the questiond of evidence to the extent that he was receiving a lot of abuse for being biased for the SNP.

[ProfessorDavey]

I think that's unfair on Andy Wightman. It was always likely to split 4/4 leaving Wightman aside politically but he's as a now Independent, once Green, who is generally seen as being an honest person. He voted with the SNP members pretty cibsistejtly on the questiond of evidence to the extent that he was receiving a lot of abuse for being biased for the SNP.

The fact remains that all the SNP MSPs voted in her favour, all the non-SNP MSPs voted against. So it is very hard to unpick the influence of the evidence from the influence of the politics. Perhaps Wightman was the only one really looking at the evidence - who knows. But in order for the outcome to be freed of the taint of just going along political lines, we'd have needed at least one SNP MSP voting against Sturgeon or at least one non-SNP MSPs voting in her favour. That did not happen.

[Udayana]

Was there any actual evidence? Admittedly I only heard the main extracts, but it was all political or statements about what people felt or intended. Not factual details about what happened, or who said what when?

Fail to see how an 8 hour interview can be about anything than further muddying the waters.
 

[Nearly Sane]

Yet another big week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56478884

[Nearly Sane]

And this from Craig Murray about one of the side issues, Craig Murray

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/03/the-world-darkens-a-little-more-i-may-have-to-spend-some-time-as-a-political-prisoner/

[Nearly Sane]

James Hamilton's report due to be released in a minute

[Nearly Sane]

James Hamilton's report due to be released in a minute

Still waiting

[Nearly Sane]

Can I sue the Scottish Government for Hamilton report-related RSI?

[Roses]

Sturgeon has been cleared of breaking the ministerial code.

[Nearly Sane]

Sturgeon has been cleared of breaking the ministerial code.

By the Hamiton report. The leaked committee report which comes out later in the week will say she misled parliament but as Prof D covered earlier that will be seen as political even though that is unfair on Andy Wightman.


It does mean that if the Tories call for her to resign then they are managing to be even more hypocritical than up to now in being happy with Hancock and Johnson and Patel to to remain despite having been found in breach of the ministerial code with those findings for Hancock and Johnson to be court findings.

[ProfessorDavey]

By the Hamiton report. The leaked committee report which comes out later in the week will say she misled parliament but as Prof D covered earlier that will be seen as political even though that is unfair on Andy Wightman.


It does mean that if the Tories call for her to resign then they are managing to be even more hypocritical than up to now in being happy with Hancock and Johnson and Patel to to remain despite having been found in breach of the ministerial code with those findings for Hancock and Johnson to be court findings.

I think this report will be seen as more credible than the committee report as it isn't tainted by political bias (regardless of your views on Wightman the fact remains that all the SNP MSPs voted for Sturgeon and all the non-SNP MSPs voted against).

But even were it the case that both approaches carried equal weight I think that a one-all draw is enough for her to rebut calls for her to resign.

And there will of course be further calls for her to resign but I think they will have been rather deflated by the fact that an independent (and non political) inquiry has found that she didn't break the code.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Says the person who in one of the more bizarre posts on this thread stated that she was biased in favour of Salmond.

When you are biased, as you have admitted you are, it is easy to see someone else's neutrality as biased.

PD - you're back on here. In which case you can address this post you wrote about me where you claimed I admitted I was biased in favour of Salmond. Which post number are you referring to? Or were you lying?