I was thinking more of the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge

I’ve not read the thread but need to vent at the bias on R4’s Today. Gunning for Sturgeon already.

What news/current affairs have less bias? Preferably radio/podcast, I like C4 news but don’t want to have to watch telly.

I would have far more sympathy for him tho if he had not merely said ” I was acquitted” and accepted that his behaviour was wrong albeit not criminal

Choice of words likely carefully selected by his legal team. I think we should be clear about this “not criminal” stuff though – if that is true then he has a reasonable gripe that the crown pursued a prosecution. However if, it was true then his lawyers would have made a no case to answer submission before it got to the jury – I can’t recall if they did that (or even if it reportable if the did) but I seem to recall that the crown dropped a couple of charges after the evidence (the Advocat Depute will have assessed the evidence and said it doesn’t stack up) that suggests after all the evidence the crown still believed there was criminality if the jury accepted the crown evidence beyond reasonable doubt. Moreover, if the defence didn’t make a no case to answer submission then THEY also accepted that if the jury believed the evidence it was criminal. If they did make a submission then Lady Dorian must have decided that at its highest the crown case would be criminal.

We will never know what the jury’s thinking was, but they didn’t decide his actions were not criminal – they decided that the crown had failed to convince them beyond reasonable doubt that his actions were criminal. That’s a subtle but important distinction – the defence case wasn’t that most of these things didn’t happen, but rather that there was a degree of conspiracy to exaggerate them. Ordinarily juries will dismiss conspiracy theories like the rest of us – but there’s enough mess around the whole debacle to make you think – not that you believe the conspiracy but that bits of the basis for it might be true, and that should be enough to make a jury pause and acquit. It doesn’t mean they though he definitely did not break the law; it doesn’t mean they definitely thought the women were lying; just that there was a risk that they would be making a mistake to convict.

The media reporting / bias is appalling – BBC journalist called-out for blatant mistruths and has apologised on Twitter. Quite apparently an attempt by the Westminster apparatchik to undermine the SNP and influence the outcome of the Scottish Government elections. Obviously appeals to bowler-hatted, sash wearing yoons.

my view

the case against him was thin but the decision was made to prosecute ( independently from the SNP / scottish government) to avoid accusations of bias. If this had been joe bloggs from pilton it would not have been prosecuted

The prosecutors were damned if they did damned if they didn’t. Prosecute and Salmond claims malicous prosecution, do not prosecute and face accusations of cover up

I agree with TJ 👋.

I don’t really follow Scottish politics and didn’t follow the criminal case at all, but from what I’ve read the man’s arrogance is truly astounding. Rest of the parties just seem desperate to undermine Sturgeon tbh…

Sturgeons evidence will be interesting. Wednesday IIRC. I wonder how much prominence that will be given and I have no doubt she is going to show Salmond up

In terms of Salmond, I think his lawyer summed him up quite accurately during the train incident.

Scottish government handling has been questionable, but I’m swaying more towards incompetence than malice, but there does seem to be a lack of separation between politicians and bodies that should be running independently.

Sturgeon though, is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
As somebody I know who follows politics quite closely summed it up, her problem is when she unofficially found out, when she officially found out, and when she admitted to finding out.

It’s highly unlikely she didn’t know who was being investigated, and from quite an early date, but she has gone on record in parliament stating a date she found out.
All anybody needs to do now to discredit her, is to prove she knew before that date.

IIRC she has now corrected that saying she forgot about a short meeting 3 days before

She can avoid damage over this but it will take a good performance on Wednesday and some humility. Basically she needs to say ” It was a mistake, it was an honest mistake and I am sorry”

It is pretty funny the people who now believe everything Salmond says, who a few years ago would have automatically disbelieved everything he said.

One thing I spotted, there’s a line in that Andrew Neil hatchet job that I also saw repeated in the Daily Mail, that apparently when ordered to produce copies of her official diary to the court they presented completely blank sheets of paper. Has that been picked up by any reliable source? Be amazed if the court would accept it even if they’d tried it…

The partial release of the legal advice given to the Scot Gov would appear to indicate that they were advised months before Salmond’s judicial review that there was a real chance that Salmond would win due to the procedural errors. A month before the hearing the Scot Gov’s legal advice was that the “Least worst option” was to concede the case. This was ignored and we taxpayes ended up with the bill for Salmond’s legal costs.

Sturgeon is up before the committee tomorrow so we will get her side of it then but surely someone, whether it is Sturgeon or one of her inner circle, must take the blame for ignoring this legal advice.

Anyone in Central Edinburgh tonight? I’m just wondering if the helicopter has landed outside Bute House yet.

NS did the right thing when Salmond’s victims spoke up. Lots of politicians in that position would have tried to sweep it under the carpet. It was a shit position for her to be in given how close they’d been over the years. It seems like someone screwed up and didn’t get their new complaints process right – but that doesn’t make it a conspiracy. This is all about Salmond’s ego and him getting revenge because she/the SNP didn’t close ranks to protect him. That’s my view on it, which is not as an SNP voter.

Salmond clearly wanted Sturgeon to sweep it all under the carpet and Salmonds wish that the complaints went to mediation is so clearly wrong. Sexual assault claims should never go to mediation especially when there is a situation like this where its the boss against an employee.

As for the criminal prosecutions – damned if they did and damned if they did not. A very low rate of prosecutions like this ever get to court and an even smaller % are successful. But imagine the fury from the unionist press if there had not been a prosecution

Salmonds admitted behaviour is abhorrent and the idea that because a court found him not guilty that everything was consensual is just wrong. IIRC one of the cases was found ” not proven” which is far from what he is trying to claim

The whole thing is an awful mess and clearly mistakes were made

The real tragedy is that this has clearly now split the party and the infighting within the party has reached labour in the 70s / 80s proportions and the main effect of Salmonds desire for revenge is that the independence cause has been damaged.

the idea that Sturgeon does not want independence is laughable as are the various people who claim she should have moved to independence by some unspecified mechanism earlier is just nonsense.

The idea that this is some huge conspiracy against Salmond is also nonsense. To what end? He was no longer an elected member of any parliament and his political career was over

Judge a man by the company he keeps and much of the support for him seems to me to be from the lunatic end of the party. the bitterness and bile I have seen sprayed around by his supporters says an awful lot

A lot depends on Sturgeons performance today. we will see how that pans out but I expect and hope she does well.

Its long been a belief of mine that any party in power for more than ten years infighting and tensions between parts of the party build up and that 10 years is about as long as any party should remain in power because after than this is what happens

Its long been a belief of mine that any party in power for more than ten years infighting and tensions between parts of the party build up and that 10 years is about as long as any party should remain in power because after than this is what happens

Certainly the case south of the border, though depends on a credible opposition

The whole thing is an awful mess and clearly mistakes were made

By Sturgeon…

The evidence appears to suggest that the case against Salmond was known to be weak, and that she was advised accordingly and decided to press ahead anyway.  Directly contradicting her previous statements that she had no hand in it. There are ways that it should’ve been handled that are probably only clear in hindsight, but we are where we are. I think she has the approval ratings to tough it out, but Salmond isn’t going to go away if she does. The only way to really cut him off at the knees, is to resign, and like most politicians who rely on personal popularity, I can’t see her doing that.

Ultimately I have sympathy for what’s happened, Salmond seems like a bit of creep with a massive chip on his shoulder, but she’s not played her hand well.

The evidence appears to suggest that the case against Salmond was known to be weak, and that she was advised accordingly and decided to press ahead anyway.

She had no part of the decision to prosecute and rightly so. NO one is alleging that that I can see

Its the judicial review that Salmond sought and the scottish government fought on beyond any reasonable point where one set of errors were made. who is culpable for that is not yet clear.

The main Error Sturgeon seems to have made is to muddle her role in the SNP and the government and to meet with Salmond while the investigation was ongoing. she should have known better

the other main error is the appointment of someone who had already had contact with the complainants as the investigating officer. who made that decision is not clear to me.

If only the defence witnesses, Roddy Dunlop, Geoff Aberdein and Douglas Hamilton would stop coming up with inconvenient truths, all of this would have been done and dusted by now.

Still, it was refreshing to hear the Lord Advocate argue that resisting a Search Warrant could be justified on “motive”. That’ll give heart to criminals throughout Scotland.

Inconvenient allegations Scotroutes? also defense witnesses to what? to the orinal allegations or to the mess over the judicial review? If the latter they are not defense witnesses

Regardless of what’s happened/happening up to this point with Salmon/Sturgeon/The SNP, the media bias against Sturgeon is absolutely disgusting. But then again, Scotland is used to getting shafted one way or another by the Tories and their “we need to keep the savages in line” mentality.

getting rid of sleazy Salmond by any means, will fly with the voters its the lying that will dent her rep, Im sure she can tough it out.

Is it enough to deny SNP a majority in May?

will be weaponsied extensively then by Andrew Neil etc (who seems to be running the tories No campaign)

the media bias against Sturgeon is absolutely disgusting.

Agreed.

Thing is I’m not sure how much of an effect it has. People are so used to all the usual suspects bleating “SNP Baaad” that I doubt it will change anyone’s mind.

Regardless of what’s happened/happening up to this point with Salmon/Sturgeon/The SNP, the media bias against Sturgeon is absolutely disgusting

100% this. It’s getting ridiculous now. Has slippery Salmond made a deal with the Tories/media or something? It absolutely stinks!

Is it enough to deny SNP a majority in May?

If labour in Scotland had anything coherent to say then probably. However labour in Scotland are in such a state that its unlikely they will gain any traction. Tories are at around their maximum potential vote anyway and are badly damaged by Brexit and fishing so I expect their vote to fall. I expect the SNP to get around 50% of the vote.

I think much less of Sturgeon for this. the meetings with Salmond no matter what was said are clearly wrong and she did know better given she is a lawyer

She had no part of the decision to prosecute and rightly so

If you believe that, and at the same time, believe this:

The main Error Sturgeon seems to have made is to muddle her role in the SNP and the government and to meet with Salmond while the investigation was ongoing

Then you have some pretty strong cognitive dissonance going on there. I don’t doubt that Sturgeon acted “legally” and made sure that appearances gave that impression, I’ve also no doubt that she took it as the opportunity to sink a PITA ex-politician who was getting on (the executive of the SNP’s) nerves and generally making a nuisance of himself. It backfired. I think she’ll survive, but if she does, Salmond isn’t just going to disappear of into the sunset.

Regardless of what’s happened/happening up to this point with Salmon/Sturgeon/The SNP, the media bias against Sturgeon is absolutely disgusting

100% this. It’s getting ridiculous now. Has slippery Salmond made a deal with the Tories/media or something? It absolutely stinks!

Yup, it has always smelt like a hatchet job,a bit like the the Labour Anti Semitism fiasco.

Thank goodness we have a strong reliable UK goverment to fall back on,no corruption or dodgy dealings down there.

What I find really distressing about all this is the polarisation of the debate. On one hand we have Salmond the poor victim of a huge conspiracy and on the other we have the sainted Sturgeon who can do no wrong.

There are also all sorts of unsavoury types getting tore in to do damage to further their own causes

The truth as always in this sort of mess will be a messy muddle of conflicting opinions. mistakes made all round and a lot of she said / he said nonsense.

One thing that is good about it is that Holyrood is examining this in public. That would not happen in westminster. Holyrood as an institution will come out stronger

Nickc – I have no doubt at all that Sturgeon made a huge blunder in meeting Salmond at all once the allegations were made. She should and did know better but for whatever reason ( and I can only guess) she met with him and more than once.

Thats a huge error tho probably not illegal and that is purely down to her

The idea Sturgeon played any part in the decision to prosecute is absurd in my view and not one that I have seen alleged by any credible source

anyway – I’m off to read her evidence. It will take a good performance to come out of this without serious damage

Yup, it has always smelt like a hatchet job,a bit like the the Labour Anti Semitism fiasco.

If anything it makes the likes of the SNP and Labour rank amateurs when it comes to political hatchet jobs* The similarities and the reason that these plots are somewhat success is that they hold a kernel of truth. I don’t think any-one thinks that Sturgeon didn’t see this as an opportunity to finally get shot of Salmond…A court case, bought on by his own wandering hands…But to mis-quote Sate Wars, “This isn’t the political assassination you’re looking for”

As soon as Sturgeon realised that the evidence was weak, she should have done everything she could to have stopped it, to act otherwise casts her in the spotlight she now finds herself caught in. A vindictive witch hunt of her previous mentor and colleague. Successful Political Assassinations shot to kill, and then go over and kick the body to make sure, this one did neither of those things…

* whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on your view of politics as a blood sport I guess….

Has slippery Salmond made a deal with the Tories/media or something? It absolutely stinks!

I think he feels badly wronged as he simply does not understand how allegations of this nature are dealt with in the 21st century and he cannot understand that his behaviour was abhorrent.

So from his point of view he is the wronged party here. I think he holds that point of view quite sincerely,

It is also clear that there have been seious errors made and those need to be dealt with. as ever in this sort of thing those errors are multiple and go back a long way. Not just Sturgeon meeting with him and the botched investigation and botched judicial review but also allegations about improper behaviour by Salmond in the past not being dealt with correctly

Has slippery Salmond made a deal with the Tories/media or something?

Indeed. As a v distant spectator the bit that puzzles me is what’s in it for Salmond? All issues of principle aside for a moment, he’s giving further airing to his bad behaviour whilst damaging the cause of independence and I can’t really see why. Unless it’s just spectacular pig-headed bloody mindedness?

I don’t think any-one thinks that Sturgeon didn’t see this as an opportunity to finally get shot of Salmond

I certainly do not think that indeed I see this as a very minority view

Were there those who were gleeful at the prospects of Salmonds downfall? – certainly but very few would include Sturgeon in that group

Salmond had been her friend and mentor for a long time. Why would she want to stick the knife in? What is her motivation?

As a v distant spectator the bit that puzzles me is what’s in it for Salmond? All issues of principle aside for a moment, he’s giving further airing to his bad behaviour whilst damaging the cause of independence and I can’t really see why.

You do realise that he is appearing as a witness at an inquiry into the process? He didn’t call the inquiry, he has been asked questions and then answered them. Did you expect him to lie to save the blushes of the Scottish Government?  He has said nothing until now.

He has said nothing until now

Indeed, it’s the media whipping it up.

He has said nothing until now.

Like I say I’ve not followed this, but did notice that Sturgeon has accused Salmond of making “wild, untrue and baseless claims” about a conspiracy against him, which go beyond a witness making a statement?

Salmond could easily have made far more noise in the press over the last couple of years than he has done

Sturgeon has accused Salmond of making “wild, untrue and baseless claims” about a conspiracy against him,

He has done so. However that quote from Stureon is another error from her where it appears she lost her patience under hostile questioning at the covid briefing ( I think it was a covid briefing?)

She should not have made that statement even tho its basically true IMO

He’s a sleazy disgrace – period. Deeply disappointing he’s not seeing the inside of a jail cell for his disgusting conduct.

He needs deplatforming ASAP, the amount of public money getting sunk into this is wild.

Ah. The jury got it wrong too. I forgot to add that earlier.

And the judge looking at the ScotGov procedure.