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Now is the Time for All Good Men… 148
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Come on Craig, Chance would be a fine thing, but I love the letter.
Of course you won’t get a reply, no one ever does which is why a lot of members of the Party are profoundly unhappy.
I really admire your perseverance. Best of luck, I mean it.
Remember though that it was Sinn Féin that won the landslide 1918 and led Ireland out of the Empire, not the veteran Irish Parliamentary Party.
Anndra,
Indeed I am very conscious of the precedent. Let us see how things unfold the next few months. My concern is for the vast majority of the SNP membership who are good people who have been sold out, and in many cases do not see it yet.
I hope not just for them Craig but also for the large number, like myself, who got fed up holding their noses and have recently left.
I’m one of them , and Craig is now the recipient of my membership dues
Thanks for the reply.
Irish Parliamentary Party voters must have also felt sold out and frustrated, as Westminster postponed Home Rule over and over again. Their loyalty changed almost overnight.
The SNP has done an incredible job in building national awareness and confidence in an independent Scotland, it was the perfect vehicle for achieving just that. But I think another vehicle will be required to actually achieve independence, one in which the constitution of that new nation can be discussed openly and without apology to Westminster, one in which its members don’t recognise Westminster’s authority and in which it does not even cross their minds to ask for English consent to Home Rule, devolution or independence.
Let’s construct a new vehicle with these elements already in its design, rather than trying to redesign the old one. Can we really build a plane from an old fiat 500?
“But I think another vehicle will be required to actually achieve independence,”
Anndra.
Could that vehicle be through the Treaty of Union, which is entirely within Holyrood’s remit.
Says Jim Fairlie Jr in this excellent article.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18610898.straightforward-way-regain-control-future/
Is the membership number credible?
The SNP is the largest political party in Scotland in terms of both seats in the Westminster and Holyrood parliaments, and membership, reaching 125,482 members as of December 2019, 48 MPs, 61 MSPs and over 400 local councillors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_National_Party#:~:text=The%20SNP%20is%20the%20largest,and%20over%20400%20local%20councillors.
Different times in 1918. Do also remember that subsequent to 1918 Ireland had both a war of independence and a bitter civil war which influenced Irish politics up until very recently and cost Ireland dearly (Kevin O’Higgins, Michael Collins and other competent leaders killed). The Irish Parliamentary Party were being challenged prior to 1918 by the Irish Volunteers. Although tens of thousands of Irish men volunteered to fight with Britain in the first world war (and were later refused pensions by the Irish Free State) there were many who classed them as “contemptibles.” The 1916 Easter Rising was a bit of a disaster in organisational terms and quickly subdued. Initially the leaders were despised (spat at on in the streets is what is traditionally taught in school history) but the subsequent handling by British authorities in executing them led to a groundswell of public opinion culminating in Sinn Fein’s landslide. The Irish Republic wasn’t officially declared until 1949 though it was in all but name for some time prior to that.
My grandfather took part in the local volunteers and they had organised a rather haphazard expedition to reach Dublin so as to take part in the 1916 Rising. Only some of them reached Dublin. My grandfather didn’t but was later incarcerated for his participation, released sometime later and died with the 1918 Spanish flu. Some folks published a book with the individual testimonies from the the local volunteers compiled from various sources. Makes for an interesting if disjointed read.
Irish Parliamentary Party was ever only seeking Home Rule never an Independent Ireland, SF had to take the military way to get fr
Funniest thing I’ve read in a while. Fantastic.
*Breaking News from SG : “….jigsaws are no longer to be sold unless all exterior wrapping is removed to avoid identification of the completed item”.
.
Jigsaws are unclean.
Hi Craig,
Glad to see you have kept your sense of humour – despite everything!
Good luck.
Well played, sir. Well played.
Top marks for nerve Craig!
Great message, Mr Craig. In these dark and truly troubling times, it is important to find some humour and pleasure where we can. Can hardly wait for Mr Mc Cann’s reply.
Mr Murray not Mr Craig. Please excuse my error. I was smiling too hard!
Nice one Craig !! Somehow I don’t imagine that this will endear you to the SNP Politburo.
Oh, so cruel. I love it.
I think that using a .ru email address is probably not a good way to start, but I’d be interested to hear how this turns out…
“I think that using a .ru email address is probably not a good way to start…”
Why?
I gather you’ll not be holding your breath for a reply to your excellent letter!
Brilliant Craig. The Russian email address is a particularly funny touch!
Nicely done. I’d be surprised if you receive a response, but, you never know
Brilliant
“I am sure if you simply tell the truth you will be fine”
You bad bad man Craig but I love it.
There is an Everest size mountain of lies that the truth will have to climb to bring this whole tawdry affair to a conclusion.
Beginning to appear that my money is being well spent.
Sounds like the voice of reason to me Criag
Take care.
Love it! Cannot wait to see the response, no doubt all the smart arses will be in a flutter as to how to word the response!
Hehe. Judging by the characters who do make it through their vetting process, I’d love to know what they are looking for in a candidate.
Dear Mr Murray, we are in receipt of your letter expressing an interest in our vetting scheme, however due to Covid we are practising social distancing and so a response to you may take some considerable time.
Yours Sincerely, Anonymous
As I see, you folks are having fun, but it seems this fun will pass me by, unless you kindly explain
Why was it cruel?
Why is Mr. Murray a bad bad man?
Why is there little hope for an answer?
What’s wrong with having Russian e-mail?
Rather to everybody’s surprise, Tatyana, Scotland suddenly has become a country where to give an honest answer to your reasonable questions might well result in the state trying to send the person giving the answers to prison.
Craig, imho you’d make a brilliant politician, as you’re conscientious , honest and inquisitive, three characteristics sorely lacking in the careerist hordes filling our parliaments these days.
But,…and this is not meant as a criticism, I don’t understand why you gave them any opening, however slight, allegedly trumped-up. Did you seek any advice regarding potential legal problems before putting up the stuff, they’re citing, going after you over?
Oh My God!!! Take care of yourself, Mr. Murray, you seem to be stirring up a hornets’ nest.
In the Soviet Union, the state did not like honest answers, too. But nonetheless people enjoyed comic shows and composed jokes.
I hope that in Scotland at least they left the opportunity to pose questions without the danger of getting into the Gulag. I hope to know more, especially since you are so good at the satire genre.
I suppose there’s still no answer from the Journalist Union either?
I too was/still am rather in the dark about this business, but some light is provided by MSM reporting such as at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/10/alex-salmond-trial-snp-official-said-would-sit-claims-alex-salmond/
Thank you, Coldish, but they want me to subscribe before reading it. I’m afraid my Russian e-mail is preventing me from signing in 🙂
Anyway, the initial phrase is available for reading, but I’m at a loss, because obviously “sit on” is used figuratively. I wonder what it might mean, my guessings are indecent for the most part, because “sitting” implies someone’s ass, and the end of the phrase says “hopefully never have to deploy” ???
Here:
A Scottish National Party official said he would “sit on” claims that Alex Salmond sexually assaulted a Government official and “hopefully never have to deploy” the allegations, a court heard on Tuesday.
A series of text message exchanges between a woman who claims the former SNP leader tried to rape her and a member of staff responsible for “compliance” at the party’s headquarters were shown to the High Court.
The woman, named as Woman H, said the SNP official would be able to “guess who” her claims of “sexual misconduct” related to.
She told the jury she had texted the SNP’s Ian McCann, “who had been dealing with these issues” in 2017, shortly after the #MeToo movement had come to prominence.
In her first message, written while on holiday on November 5, she said: “Hi Ian, sorry to bother you on a Sunday. Just wondered if you know who the contact in the party is to, with 100 per cent confidentially, discuss sexual misconduct?”
She told the jury she was “confused and very scared” and wanted to know “if there was a process to report” her claims.
The SNP compliance official replied and asked whether her allegations related to a “parliamentarian”. She responded that it was “an ex-parliamentarian”, adding: “You can guess who… Happy to speak next week. I really don’t want it to be public. Just on internal records.”
Mr McCann then wrote: “Happy to meet, speak on the phone, text or email. Or would you prefer to talk to the solicitor on the first instance if it’s for internal knowledge rather than action? The solicitor would report details of allegations to me but can withhold your name if you prefer.”
Nine minutes, later she wrote: “I obviously trust you and happy to speak to you rather than use a lawyer. I’m not in England – so a call next week.”
Alex Salmond arrives at the High Court in Edinburgh for the second day of his trial
On November 6 2017, the SNP official sent a text to Woman H which read: “I appreciate how difficult that must have been. I will sit on that and hopefully never have to deploy it.”
Asked by by Shelagh McCall QC, for Mr Salmond, what she made of his message, the woman said that when she first lodged her “concerns about what had happened” she believed it would be a useful “vetting issue” to see whether Mr Salmond was “fit for office” if he ever wanted to stand for the party.
She said: “If that record was there he could be asked about it and [it could be] taken into serious consideration about being fit for office.”
Asked by Alex Prentice QC, for the prosecution, what she had hoped to achieve by contacting the SNP, she said: “I still hadn’t come to terms with what had happened. I knew I was driven by the fact I didn’t want anyone else who worked with him to have what happened to me happen to them.
“That was my desire – still is. I wanted to have it on his file. I just wanted some trusted people in the party to know what happened so it wouldn’t happen to others.”
SNP official said he would ‘sit on’ claims Alex Salmond sexually assaulted woman, court hears (Daily Telegraph, 10/03/2020)
It’s tongue in cheek, satirical.
He’s exposing the SNP’s hypocrisy and alleged deceit over this whole AS mess. Then putting himself forward for candidate selection.
Tatyana
Like you I am an outsider to Scottish politics but surely you know that having a Russian email address is the worst thing you can have in U.K. given the official Russophobia.
Great stuff & good luck with the application.
Pls bear in mind however that the apparent bias against you and Mark Hirst in the matter of contempt suggests that the acts admitted to in court would most certainly have returned a very different result had corroboration, the right to a jury, and the not proven verdict all been scrapped in accordance with the Salmond government’s own plans as recently as April 2014.
https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Justice/policies/law-reform/corroboration
Accordingly, although he was found innocent on all accounts save that which the CPS failed to prove, the opportunity to clear his name arguably arose only because the SNP failed to deliver independence first time around and, since it is demonstrably the case that the more ridiculous claims helped undermine the not proven one, the so called fabricators of evidence (and possibly Mr McCann) must be, ipso facto, almost as loyal to the SNPs innocent former leader as your good self.
Stuart mctavish
He was acquitted on all charges. Not proven = not guilty. But I think you know that don’t you. Your last paragraph is a lot of mince.
Remind yourself what happened with the narrow Brexit victory and consider the implications of the not proven charge being successfully brought (at a time of its protagonists choosing) following a narrow victory for yes – then compare and contrast with the current situation.
Stuart McTavish
The moderators like people to be polite but you are stretching my patience. Everybody in Scotland knows – not proven = not guilty and not guilty = not proven. So who are you and where are you? This trial may have been a political trial but it will have no bearing on people’s desire for independence or the validity of any yes vote. Britnats clutching at straws.
Fair enough. I thought it meant that an offence had been committed but the procurator fiscal was unable, for whatever reason, to prove the guilt of the accused. Since collusion with the accused would be preposterous, my thinking was simply that the reason the offence could not be proven must have had something to do with there being a requirement for corroboration and a jury.
Had the not proven verdict applied to the existence of an offence (as your interpretation implies), and not the case against the accused, then the problem with bias may be greater than I imagined (because at that point it should not have been prosecutable) and as such would tend to reinforce, rather than detract from, the original observation.
Stuart McTavish
Just a jumble of words that make no sense. Bye bye.
Cubby
Not proven=not guilty
When sitting on a jury that is certainly not how it was explained.
It is more like ” we don’t believe you to be entirely innocent of the charge but the prosecution has not done enough to prove guilt”
If it meant not guilty,we wouldn’t need not proven as a third option,would we?
Not proven means not guilty but don’t do it again.
I love you Craig! Excellent!
I’m sure there must be good people within the party that would like to see you as a candidate and elected to Holyrood, I’m also confident many in here would enjoy listening to you speak in the chamber on various matters as well.
Good luck Craig if anyone deserves it you do.
Maybe post independence, when the SNP isn’t so fearful of the UK MSM.
In the current political environment, no way. Craig would be presented as the ‘Crank in the SNP’s ranks’ by the usual journo suspects. We here know that it’d be a travesty, but to the SNP he isn’t worth the time and effort defending; as every time the FM popped up she’d be quizzed on Craig’s views, it’s unfair but he’d be a liability.
What UK MSM? Most English tabloids have a separate Scottish edition, typically with an editorial stance more sympathetic to the views of Scottish voters/newspaper readers. Why would the SNP care about what is written in England?
Look how everywhere Corbyn went he was quizzed about non-existent antisemitism. The media pack are relentless wolves in pursuit of their prey, especially when they sense they are doing harm. They’d misrepresent and distort Craig’s views and lay them at Sturgeon and the SNP’s door. Were you her or any other senior SNP minister would you invite that upon yourself?
Btw, It’s not how I want things to be, but it’s the reality of how things are, at least until independence.
Leaving to one side this “non-existent”, Corbyn was an English politician running in English elections. The SNP has never stood candidates south of the border, and has no intention of ever doing so as far as I am aware.
Sky, BBC , ITV , Ch.4 ?
Press conferences in a referendum campaign?
The media isn’t just a few wavering tabloids like the Scottish Sun.
Those guys all take the “opinions differ about the shape of the earth” approach. Why would the SNP worry about them?
There’s not the clear rUK-Scot media delineation you suggest.
The BBC’s pro-union propaganda and reporting was a huge source of irritation to inde supporters in 2014, as I’m sure you know,.
Martinned
” a separate Scottish edition”
If you put an Audi badge on a Skoda it is still a Skoda.
I wouldn’t knock a Skoda, they’re pretty good cars…
Anyway, what I meant is stuff like this: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/29/media/murdoch-sun-brexit-gbr-intl/index.html
Martinned
I wasn’t knocking a Skoda. You miss my point.
None of the papers are Scottish – how’s that – clear enough now. A bit like the English TV is not Scottish despite their attempts at a fake Scottish version run by Ragmans roll signatories.
Maybe post independence, when the SNP isn’t so fearful of the UK MSM…
Goose, people like you don’t seem to understand that “independence” doesn’t actually mean “one party rule under the SNP, forever and ever amen…”
Right now in my view the SNP are looking at a post-independence number around 12. No, that’s not the number of seats. It’s the number of votes. I just don’t see their “WOTAFUC!” manifesto (Wokist Obsessive Transgender Agenda Feminazi Unionist Careerists) attracting all that much popular support.
You’re right, post-independence it’s unlikely Scottish political life will revolve around the SNP i.e., it won’t be a one party state. Swap ‘SNP’ for ‘Scottish politicians’ then; they’d no longer be fearful of the media barons and the UK establishment, they’d be more confident and comfortable without the intimidating UK.
Will post-independence Scotland have a security service and what will its relationship be to the CIA?
“Maybe post independence, when the SNP isn’t so fearful of the UK MSM.”
I don’t believe the MSM has anything to do with Craig’s selection or not, its all down to what the SNP hierarchy want, if they want Craig selected as a candidate he will, if not he won’t be.
I wasn’t supporting their rejection of Craig’s application, merely pointing out that defending someone who is being unfairly smeared (as Craig would in all likelihood be) can be exhausting.
Look how they wore Corbyn down physically and mentally with endless allegations in the press. In December 2019’s election he looked friendless among the PLP and press, and completely knackered from defending himself from the false claims he was a racist leading a racist party, his supporters felt exhausted too. I doubt the SNP, or even Craig & his family would want to on the receiving end of Corbyn’s press treatment,no one would it was brutal.
Westminster was certainly more entertaining when George Galloway was still an MP, but whether the country benefited otherwise from having him around is a different question.
Martinned.
Galloway has said he’ll stand side by side with the Tories in Scotland to thwart independence. Galloway, if I recall correctly, also said in the past if you see me standing under the Union Jack agreeing with the Tories shoot me.
I have some admiration for Galloway on his Palestinian stance and his excellent takedown of the US in his Iraq related session. However I cannot understand his intransigence on Scotland running its own affairs like the rest of the world.
I find his [Galloway’s] views on independence bizarre and inconsistent with his other positions, as if driven by some vendetta against the SNP? He slates Westminster and calls the Tory and Labour, ‘two cheeks of the same arse’ etc , yet doesn’t want independence?
Has anyone ever put to Galloway, why he thinks the Scottish people are uniquely unsuited to running their own affairs?
Yes there’s something deeply strange, or psychologically not right about trying to hold your own country back, because the party in charge of governing it, is one you loathe with every fibre of your being.
Galloway like a few people who post on this site hold the indefensible position that the UK is a disgraceful entity guilty of terrible crimes but Scotland MUST remain chained to it for all eternity because ………….?
Debate early this year between Craig and George on Scottish independence…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elavIgziBjE
Look at the Quisling state in Ireland and you’ll have an idea of what Snat independence will be like, the union in a sporran.
Squeeth
As you obviously can see in the future. When is the pandemic going to end?
Who will win next years golf Open?
Many thanks.
The Union in a sporran. What ?
I just mentioned George Galloway as a similar “devil may care”, “rules are for others”, “no need to play nice with others” type of representative as I imagined Craig to be. Such representatives make a lot of noise, but aren’t typically very effective, because in any parliament, regardless of how it is elected or constituted, you need allegiances to get things done.*
* The rare exception is Nigel Farage. He acted as a blowhard for all of the decades that he was in the European Parliament, never got a single bill passed, but won the one vote he really cared about. But I wouldn’t count on other politicians being able to pull that off. Most populist politicians who only use their elected office as a bully pulpit to speak to their supporters end up replaced by even noisier blowhards sooner or later.
“Most populist politicians who only use their elected office as a bully pulpit to speak to their supporters end up replaced by even noisier blowhards sooner or later”
Martinned.
I hope you weren’t referring to Craig on the populist thingy, has it been twisted to populism in a grotesque manner, if one stands up or on a ticket of telling the truth nowdays.
I think there’s plenty of folk now like Craig, who’d definitely tell the emperor he had no clothes on, if they could just get to the front of kowtowing crowds to do so.
We can long for a day when fully 100% of parliamentarians are neoliberal careerists, rather than just 99%.
Imagine the possibilities ….
Farage had to bow to the Tories after issuing his weedy threats.
Johnson took him on and he lost.
The Red Wallers voted Tory not UKIP.
The gormless idiots ( I’m being kind )
UKIP got no MPs as usual – the Tories got a majority of 80 because all the smart money wouldn’t vote for Corbyn.
That’s a Guardian education for you.
So smart that they must bathe nightly in Germoline.
But- at least Brexit was ‘ Done ‘
Or is it?
Galloway sounds like a British patriot these days and like the Academy of Bad Ideas he/they have lost the plot due to trying to be different.
I imagine, Craig, that you may now be suffering from some severe internal bruising to your cheek given the severe lashing it has received from your tongue.
You can’t even send her off to Spain or Greece.
‘I wouldn’t go on a foreign holiday right now’, says Nicola Sturgeon.
The first minister has cautioned against non-essential foreign travel in light of the increase in cases of Covid-19 in popular holiday destinations and elsewhere.
Spain and its islands were removed from the UK’s list of “air bridge” destinations on Saturday.
Ms Sturgeon was speaking during a Scottish government briefing on coronavirus.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-53572412/nicola-sturgeon-i-wouldn-t-go-on-a-foreign-holiday-right-now
The BBC Scotland page is basically Covid 19 prop, including a piece on deaths in Scottish care homes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-53502590
Mary.
I read today granted I cannot find the link for Spain, that two people died in Spain today from the virus and 119 people died from the virus in the UK today. Still I suppose if the rates of infection are climbing due to the relaxing of lockdown, and it looks like they are, then its best to stay at home and don’t travel abroad.
Brilliantly done, Craig! One might hope it would occasion at least a tiny blush of well-deserved shame on the part of its recipient. Doubt it though.
Why should Scotland not just declare independence now? The high heidins don’t give shit about the will of the people, any more now than they did in 1707, as Burns lamented. It’s all about power: who holds it, who wants it, what they’ll do to wrest it away.
Pasha you might like this article by Jim Fairlie.
There’s a straightforward way to regain control of our future (The National, 28/07/2020)
I’ve read it and several pieces like it. But I still don’t agree that there’s any “legal” way forward, the Unglush have got it nailed down. The only way to do it is simply to vote it in the Scottish parliament and then proceed accordingly. If the bastards try force to crush it, as Spain did to Catalonia, it will simply confirm that there’s no way back.
I appreciate that the poke at McCann is good fun but one must wonder how difficult a target he is, bearing in mind the idiocy of his comment re deploying the accusation at a time likely to have maximum impact. The fact that they could not get their story straight beggars belief. I lose a breath or two every time I think of it. Are such dipsticks really in positions of influence?
How do McCann and the accuser feel about this?They can’t have much credibility even in their most favoured circles.I expect the accuser’s granny thinks she has been treated badly by having her testimony ridiculed for getting the day of the assault wrong.
Is it possible to stand as a candidate against the person most likely to be discomfited by the absurdities raised by the case.I realise the Holyrood elections are not purely FPTP but it is essential to get these issues and the SNP’s performance as an independence party brought to some kind of debate and reckoning.Personally, I think this could all get quite rough.
How long before you expect a reply?
??
The Greek Kalends?