I fear it may also be a tough watch, and I am grateful to anyone who tries. The justified and well evidenced acquittal of Alex Salmond by a largely female jury was only the beginning of a nightmare.
Also available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8NjRSUkkWE
UPDATE I accidentally transpose in the video which of the two complainants from the original civil service process was met by John Sommers, Nicola’s Principal Private Secretary, on 20 and 21 November 2017, before Nicola wrote to Leslie Evans on 22 November 2017 telling her to include former ministers (but not civil servants) in the sexual harassment process. This was three and a half months before Nicola claims she first heard of the allegations against Alex Salmond.
The question of which of the two Sommers met makes no difference to the argument or series of events. END UPDATE
Anybody who has not already done so, should also watch this excellent speech by David Davis, who using parliamentary privilege can fill in a few of the things which I cannot.
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Superb stuff again Craig, was able to forward to others who are bored of the whole thing and read only the headlines. How easy it is to misinform a whole population, something it seems our political classes are learning from Trump et al.
I’m an engineer by trade, my brain works well when I see a case laid down with facts and results included. Conclusion’s are great, but without the evidence they are just opinions. I see very little of evidence coming from the Sturgeon camp, just opinions and accusations mocking those that don’t believe her rhetoric. With the case you present, along with others, I can’t but agree with your conclusions.
I am a subscriber and have no intention of departing! I find genuine interest in your experiences of a life well lived. Keep up the good work
PS. The shirt, tie and clean shaven look has put me to shame. Too long I’ve been slumbering about during this lockdown. Time to smarten oneself up and get out there !
You may be new to podcasting but you have made an excellent podcast.
Remember practice helps and it may be possible to recover from your writer’s block by making a podcast first and then writing a transcript from it.
One of the things that spoils speeches with lucid content are the filler sounds that speakers use when the next word is not ready in time, the “ums”, “ers” and “you knows”. I used to suffer from this defect but so did a man in father’s church congregation whom I did not admire. I was so horrified that my speech sounded like this man’s that I determined to eliminate the filler sounds by replacing them with a hopefully thoughtful sounding pause until the next word came to me. It worked, over time the pauses disappeared.
Both podcasts your’s and Davis’ are very illuminating.
The only way a smoking gun can be produced for this conspiracy is for the names of the complainants to become known and the law protecting their anonanimity is an evil law. Could we pray for a whistle blower to furnish David Davis with a table putting names to the letters for him to read in the UK parliament..
I don’t doubt Davis knows the names of the alphabet women. As he made clear when dealing with the desperate SNP intervention during his speech, he would not reveal the names and breach their anonymity so it’s no good hoping he will do so.
An inspiring talk. I disagree that leaving two political parties is anything to feel guilty or disloyal about, though. In the first place, what if the party leaves you? More important, parties are intrinsically and fundamentally inhuman, amoral entities. They are corporations, hardly different from the commercial and financial types. As has been observed many times over the years, corporations typically behave like psychopaths; indeed, they are legally obliged to do so.
Personally I would like to see all political parties not only disbanded, but legally prohibited. They are, after all, conspiracies of powerful people against everyone else. If we want to implement something like democracy, why not elect representatives on the old-fashioned principle that they are known to and trusted by their constituents? If no such candidates are available, why on earth should any constituent put their trust in strangers who are distinguished by their ambition and lack of scruple?
“Personally I would like to see all political parties not only disbanded, but legally prohibited.”
The ideal of ‘representative democracy’ has long since been usurped by ‘loyalty to the party’, with weak careerist loyalists & ever present implied threat for those going ‘off-message’. Ultimately, it’s become a conspiracy against democracy as more and more power is centralised in the ‘leader’. And therein lies the chance for unaccountable elites to control said leader, and ultimately control the parties & country. Westminster encapsulated.
You either need a truly diverse choice of parties, akin to the Netherlands : In their v. recent election, out of the 37 parties that stood, *17 parties won seats, according to the prognoses with 98.2% of the votes counted. Or , have a system where there are no parties and candidates have to put forward their own manifesto and form loose alliances having won. Either would be an improvement, reducing corruption and prevent inappropriate influence/interference by lobbyists, corporate or security services.
We look at the electoral system of 200 years ago in the UK and are horrified by the corruption, but if the MPs of those times could look at our present party system they would be equally horrified at the corruption they saw.
200 years ago, go back further…
Oliver Cromwell’s speech dismissing Rump Parliament – 20 April 1653 :
It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place,
which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice.
Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government.
Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?
Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.
Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.
I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.
Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
In the name of God, go!
—-
You could make that speech today and it’d be just as powerfully applicable.
That’s a great speech, I’d not read it in full before.
“You could make that speech today and it’d be just as powerfully applicable”.
Exactly so. Especially, I think, this:
“Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?”
Although, come to think of it, the House of Commons of 2020 did not need to be threatened by soldiers with pikes, swords and guns.
They fled to their homes at the mere rumour of a deadly plague.
After all, their salaries were still paid, and their perks were still mounting up.
Many influential people felt the same in the new-born USA. They thought political parties as dangerous and corrupting as standing armies, central banks, foreign entanglements, er…
https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion
Craig.
I visit your blog daily but I consider it disrespectful to expect you to produce new content absolutely every day. Writer’s block is not the only reason, you may have health problems or be doing research that needs time to complete before it can be used in a post.
You, Greg Palast, and Glen Greenwald are my 3 favorite journalists.
If you can’t write a detailed argument you can maybe make short posts to news or blog items elsewhere that you think valuable. You could also invite other writers whose thoughts you respect to submit articles.
Listening to your video and watching this atrocity unfold over the months and years has made me even question if I can still engage in politics. The calculated effort made to enprison an innocent man and watch as he is further castigated makes me sick. I have, like you, felt very down about it all. I feel trapped with no political home any longer. I can’t vote for a party I no longer trust to be truthful, and even legal, or to further the cause of independence.
I hope she stands down and takes her cabal with her. I’m not holding my breath. The only positive hope I have is that the newly emerging Indy party’s will hold the power in a new parliament. Hopefully you will be one of them.
Wee something on the way, we need to all keep hoping for a better country.
I watched the whole thing riveted – and appalled.
This is a very important historical document – and in the light of the threats having over him – a very brave contribution.
We who truly desire Scottish independence – and those who value truth and justice – owe Craig Murray a profound debt of gratitude.
And although things may appear bleak at the moment, I believe we are nearer the point of independence than Craig in his understandable depression thinks.
Independence on the terms on offer by the current cabal surrounding Nicola Sturgeon – even if you believe that they sincerely want it (I do not) would simply not be worth having.
Scotland would be a shrivelled husk, with a corrupt legal system and disgraceful criminal justice system, run by a right-leaning clique who mistake identity politics for genuine left of centre politics which fails to address economic and social injustice, fails to restores ownership control of the national land-mass to the people of Scotland, and fails to builds a genuine democracy where the Scottish people exercise genuine control over their lives, and who they can trust to exercise their sovereign power on their behalf.
What is offered by Sturgeon and her acolytes more resembles what Chris Hedges has described in respect of the ‘woke’ pseudo-liberals/left in the USA – where identity politics and cancel-culture rules:
“…..a witch hunt by self-appointed moral arbiters of speech, has become the boutique activism of a liberal class that lacks the courage and the organizational skills to challenge the actual centers of power — the military-industrial complex, lethal militarized police, the prison system, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the intelligence agencies that make us the most spied upon, watched, photographed and monitored population in human history, the fossil fuel industry, and a political and economic system captured by oligarchic power.”
It is no coincidence that Sturgeon adores Hilary Clinton, and poses for selfies with a war-criminal.
A propos the idea of hatching a plot to bring a criminal case while remaining legally anonymous, I was reminded of the episode of John Mortimer’s “Rumpole of the Bailey” entitled “Rumpole and the Old Boy Net” (broadcast in 1983).
That tale centres on a very important person – as it transpires, a senior mandarin of the Foriegn Office – who for years has been regularly frequenting a genteel brothel run by an old school chum and his wife. Becoming nervous about the likelihood of sicovery sooner or later, he hatches a cunning plan. He denounces the brothel-keepers to the police, and accompanies them on the ensuing raid. (He does not, however, kiss his old school friend on the cheek while doing so).
The prosecution for keeping a disorderly house proceeds, with the judge most insistent on the need to keep the very important person’s name out of the public domain. He therefore imposes a strict ban on that information, arguing that until the trial is over it will not be clear whether the VIP actually did anything legally wrong; and that it would therefore be wrong to allow him to suffer loss of reputation.
Rumpole rises to suggest that, on the same reasoning, the names of his clients who are in the dock should also have been kept secret (although it is now too late anyway). This is scouted by the judge, who obviously considers them guilty, disreputable, and already as good as enjoying HM’s hospitality. Ironically they, undismayed by the old school chum’s treachery, agree that his name must be kept secret. To sneak is wrong, and the fact that he sneaked on them makes not a jot of difference. Thomas a Becket or Sir Thomas More could not be more rigidly principled than they.
Unfortunately the cunning plan unravels when an anonymous tip-off reaches the media – which in those days apparently had some residual backbone. With the game irretrievably lost despite the judge’s unconditional support, the VIP confesses all. Informing on his friends and giving evidence against them – while taking advantage of their refusal to “sneak” on him – was just a way of getting them shut down while making sure that no one could ever bring his name into it.
Sound familiar in any way?
Craig, you need to write these things. Doing a podcast is not working, as there is so much info that it is swamping the message. Can I also point out that he wasn’t found “not guilty” of the rape claim, but that it was “not proven”.
You are a superb writer, but orations are not going to get the messages across, and your subordinate clauses and asides aren’t helping.
I support you sincerely and agree with much of what you say, but this needs to be down in black and white.
Nonsense.
Mr. Salmond was aquitted on all charges.
He was found “not proven” on one charge (the rape to which I referred) and not guilty on the others. That was my point. Can you grasp that??
Freddie French
Not guilty = not proven. So your point has no meaning. Hopefully you can grasp that.
Also there was no rape charge as you say. It was attempted rape.
Freddie, get a life, it was a one off wee cuddle after having a few drinks. We’ve all had these. Anyway the situation was resolved & the person was offered a post elsewhere at same level, same pay, She decided to stay & work with Alex for years after.
To me the other false allegations were so pitiful, the women involved have made themselves look pathetic.
When did going to, but not actually pinging someones hair become a sexual assault? That’s just idiotic.
Think you’ll find that the rape claim was found ‘not guilty’, on the grounds the victim was not present on the night of the ‘event’ or rather ‘non-event.
It was attempted rape and the verdict was not proven. Leaving aside AS and the complainant there were, as I understand it, two other people there. One thought the complainant was not present. The other thought she was. That would explain the not proven verdict. It is important to be accurate.
Stephen sadly you are mixing up the not proven verdict with he wrong charge/complainer. It is important to be accurate but you failed in this instance.
Stand corrected. It was sexual assault not proven.
Freddie
“Can I also point out that he wasn’t found “not guilty” of the rape claim, but that it was “not proven”.”
If you can’t hear what he says to you in a video, will you be able to read what he writes?
Go to 27.49 and check it out. It’s where he refers to a complainer who made the “rape claim, of which Alex was found not guilty”.
Let me also put it out there that I specifically agreed with much of what he said, so can you just stop being such a silly wee crowd of twitchy neurotics and try to deal with the fact that not everyone agrees with you. Craig, I regret this, but it seems that some of your supporters on this thread have deficiencies.
Freddie,
There was a charge of attempted rape of the woman who was not there – of which he was found not guilty.
There was a charge of assault with intent to rape, relating to the one genuine incident which actually happened. That was found not proven.
Two similar charges, hence the confusion.
You are entitled to your opinion, Freddie French, but I can’t agree. I thought the podcast was very clear indeed, and an expert summary of what Craig Murray has been writing about since the trial. I think it worked fine and that Craig should not be dissuaded from doing more of them.
Watched your very informative video and I am not surprised about your revelations and bring to light the corruption that exists at the top of the cabal.I noticed you never mentioned Lesley Evan’s who I am amazed has come out unscathed from all of this I can only presume that a close connection exists to Nicola as I thought she would go after her previous faux past not that long ago
I am thinking of stopping my SNP membership as a result of your pod. People like yourself should be heard more widely and particularily by yhe Nicola worshippers
Thanks Craig.
It’s the first time I’ve posted on here but have been an avid reader of your blog for years.
I have pieced together a decent picture of what has been going on from your material and that of some other stalwart bloggers such as Stuart Campbell, Iain Lawson and Gordon Dangerfield.
Your podcast is excellent in bringing the saga further to life. I imagine this is particularly the case for those that are coming new to this and/or cannot work their way through the many, many layers of this particularly rotten onion.
You shouldn’t be depressed. You have performed a brilliant public service in the face of the most appalling intimidation and abuse.
Instead you should be proud of your contribution.
Utterly gripping and totally cogent. Has all the power and directness of a one-man play by someone of the stature of, say, Beckett.
I can find nothing with which to quibble, having also watched all of the AS & NS appearances before the Holyrood committee.
I too, with a sad heart, cancelled my SNP membership two weeks ago.
A sobering podcast, Craig. Thank you for making it. It clarifies a lot that was confusing.
I share your depression about the current situation. The relentless campaign of misinformation on social media and btl comments in the press is designed to grind us down. And I do not have the stress of waiting for weeks for the verdict on a 30 minute court hearing.
What is most concerning is that NS is being protected by the media. They want to damage her to damage the independence movement, but keep her in place because she has successfully consigned independence to a distant fantasy. I notice that the media covered NS rejection of the David Davis speech but there is no mention of the statement he released with the factual evidence.
I “made it to the end“, Craig.
I listened to every word.
Never apologise for podcasting. This W as magnificent, all the more so for the minor rough edges that added to its manifest truth and authenticity.
Thank you for not glossing over the experience of Woman F. Salmond has always admitted being in the wrong and Miss F’s complaint was dealt with under the old Fairness at work procedure, to her apparent satisfaction.
Only Alex Salmond himself has suffered a greater betrayal by the Sturgeon cabal and her #MeTae coven.
Well done sir.
Clarity and honesty, not seen in the MSM.
I’ve watched your video from start to finish. I just wish some of the folk who believe Nicola can do no wrong could be persuaded to listen to what you’ve said. There must surely come a point when those who have refused to relinquish their faith in Sturgeon begin to ask, ‘Where’s our independence?’ Sooner or later, they’re going to realise they’ve been cheated.
I refuse to give up hope that justice will prevail eventually. I don’t believe the truth of this outrageous scandal can be kept under wraps indefinitely: they can only plug so many holes in the dyke. And I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to see the perpetrators jailed. I am extremely angry.
Proud to increase my subscription Craig.
You perform an essential service that benefits people well beyond the borders of binny Scotland.
Craig , I had hoped you might not depress me further but sadly I am sinking. I do not blame you for this but I do blame the gang round Ms Sturgeon.
I want a country of which to be proud , which stands for integrity , a shining enlightenment to others. I don’t want a hideous cabal who manipulate , lie and plot – and right now the party which I joined immediately after the referendum no longer follows a path which I wish for my country , for the children and grandchildren of Scotland.
it is sickeningly sad that it has come to this.
Hi Craig,
Keep up the good work.
I’ve just subscribed (It’s about time. I’ve been reading your blog for years).
Craig, thank you so much for taking the time to make this video. Much of its content I was already aware of, some of it not. Like you I am appalled at what has been and continues to be done by the Party leader and her inner circle.
On the last point you mention, about people saying,
“So what, if Nicola is responsible for the attempt to jail Alec Salmond. Remember The Bruce and John Comyn,” there’s an important point beyond the obvious fact that she has no commitment to independence as The Bruce had. That point is this, The Bruce never denied killing John Comyn, He confessed and sought forgiveness. Nicola Sturgeon, not so much..
Very sorry that you are so depressed and blocked at a time when you should be enjoying family life. I agree completely with your assessment of the SNP, just surprised if took you so long to get there! The Commons speech by Davis needs to be shared as widely as possible because she will never resign and so she needs to have that choice removed!
We watched the whole thing, Craig. We’re depressed too but not by your video! We thought it was important to tell you there are good people out there/here who are listening and know the truth. We hope that through AFI you find some solidarity and strength to keep fighting and writing!
Take Care
Audrey and Davie Simpson
Hi Craig,
That was a good podcast, you can do them well, and I still subscribe and bung you money for hotels near Jules’ prison. This was a great example of linking (without identifying) the ‘inner circle’. @49mins you refer to some SNP supporters as being in a cult and I agree with that, but only to an extent and I think this is boiling down into two unlikely groups – early twenties and over seventies. The youngsters in my family are all pro Nicola because they don’t remember Alex (My then niece voted no because she was woried her favoutite bands wouldn’t play in Scotland). There’s also folks who have come to the idea of independence, particularly elderly people, who see and love the way Nicola has guided them through the pandemic. My mother is one – 77 years old, staunch Labour, voted NO, hates Alex, now overwhelmingly YES, and a heap of her mates are the same. But you know one thing I never thought would happen? My 77 year old mother sees attacks against Nicola as attacks on Scotland and our Parliament.
This is a double edge sword. We all know what went on, but how can we progress?
“My 77 year old mother sees attacks against Nicola as attacks on Scotland and our Parliament.”
It’s the politics of champions, which is always pressed on us by the MSM – “Are you voting for Boris or are you voting for Jeremy? (or Nicola, north of the border)” at the last election. Useless to reply, “neither, because I’m not in the constituency of either of them”. The MSM want us to identify with the person, not the party, and certainly don’t want us thinking about the policies, presumably because persons can be built up or destroyed, much more easily than parties.
It is because sadly politics has become a sort of celebrity worship exercise. See how Labour has now become transformed into a wishy washy party with no policies and no direction under Starmer. Those who tried to increase party democracy, like Corbyn, are deliberately undermined.
brilliant listen craig…..totally agree with your thoughts on nicola and independence,
we have no chance of a referendum with her and slimey pete at the helm.they are as you say,raking in 300grand a year between them.
they like alot of snp mps and msps love the comfy lifestyle,they don’t wznt independence spoiling it.
I can appreciate it was tough to make, and thank you for bearing that.
It is not a ‘tough watch’, at all – it is compelling, cogent, and gripping.
Who but the “cultists” you describe would not watch to the end?
All those who do watch to the end will find what you say convincing.
You are a brave, decent person, a brilliant thinker, and a talented communicator.
You are too modest about your video skills.
I am not especially interested in Scottish Independence. I would prefer it didn’t happen, I love Scotland very much, but I am an Englishman who lives in Wales and it is none of my business. So I might be thought to be of the party of Ms Sturgeon. But what does matter to me very much is the corruption of British government and indeed other so called democratic governments around the world, and the corruption of constitutional arrangements which as your fellow journalist Peter Oborne has pointed out in a series of books proceeds apace.
For that reason I am extremely grateful for your support of Alex Salmond and dedicated exposure of the truth of this matter. You are one of the shreds of hope I hold onto for a better world and your bank account will benefit from my support!
Thanks again and God bless you.
Excellent, cool, composed analysis of the whole mankit stushie Craig. Like many others, I too believe that independence is nearer than people think. The ongoing events are a reflection of the extent to which our colonial oppressors will stoop.
Like many other ex SNP members I have joined AFI. I see the AFI fundraiser is making progress, and I especially like this, which will deservedly be getting a lot more interest in the weeks ahead:
“AFI shall also campaign for a simple majority of the popular vote for pro-indy parties across both the constituencies and the regional lists, at the “Independence” election, and for such a majority to be understood to be a mandate for independence itself.”
https://afi.scot/route-map-to-scottish-independence/
You are just the man to help present that national majority in favour of Scottish independence to the UN, if it transpires, together with Dave Thomson, Tommy Sheridan, Mark Hirst, John Wilson and other AFI members and supporters. Hopefully Alex Salmond may join the AFI team.
You and they are potentially Scotland’s Gandhi, Mandela, Kenyatta, and Collins, which is why several of you have been persecuted.
Dear Ambassador Murray,
Thank God we still have honest and decent people in Scottish civil society such as your good self.
Craig, I am unsure whether your were being self-effacing and diplomatic in your video, but with respect you ARE very good at these. Honesty shines through. I am not a diplomat, but as a former law officer I was trained to interview, often with the person on the other side of the table under caution. Your body language is clear. You are being truthful and heartfelt. This along with the veracity of facts and audit trail, upon which Mr Ian Livingstone is at grave risk of being investigated for neglect of duty, make your whole video very difficult to watch. My friend, the truth will out. All things pass. On that note I would ask if you could add a “one off” donation button in clear view for we computer dinosaurs please. Your “regular” subs button is excellent and clear, but I am actually one of the 30% who managed to bu66er that up whilst sorting out my electronic banking and refocusing some of the regular monthly subscriptions. I am sure Private Eye can live without a lockdown reader for a few months, but sounds like all hands on deck with your good self. Having the Sword of Damocles above your neck is invidious to writers block. Also Craig, PLEASE keep safe. I saw you coming to the aid of. The 92 year old gentleman being manhandled by the current tranche of pub bouncers that Ms Cressida Dick has seen fit to employ and dress up in Met police uniforms. My point? You and I are both of the same vintage. I’m told it was a very good year. But alas the Covid is harsh if you catch it at a “certain age”. The thought of you traveling from Edinburgh to London and risking catching that horrendous lottery of a lethal disease is upsetting. Craig, Scotland really does need men and women of integrity and honesty to rebuild the independence movement once the current sitting tenant at Bute House is evicted. Please stay safe sir. Very best wishes (and please install a “one off” PayPal button for your subscribers who cannae find their way round a website).
I just send it to his bank account it’s not hard.
Hi DunGroanin,
As soon as I read your words, Homer Simpson jumped into my head. D’Oh.
You are absolutely correct. Craig DOES of course end every article with a polite mention about subs. But I was aiming to transfer a decent sized one-off honourarium.
In mitigation it’s been an incredibly busy and productive time (outside of politics) and frankly our wee group is exhausted. So simply missed the bank detail. Will have another go at that when my brain reboots.
Otherwise “General Craig Murray” who works for a legal office in Nigeria repatriatiating £10,000,000 in inheritance and gold bullion will accidentally receive Ambassador Craig Murrays funds by mistake. Brain melt here!
Alastair,
The thing that I find particularly scary about all this is that you say the truth will out, but the truth has already outed! In Uk Parliament no less, the fact that the entirety of public opinion is choosing to ignore it and even to say ‘who cares’ is deeply disturbing.
There is a deep corruption in these isles and I think it goes beyond the body politic. It seems to me that the the majority of middle class – that is, the liberal broadsheet reading ‘serious’ part of Britain is utterly corrupt, and prepared to look at the floor and ignore everything. And I believe it’s because the way things are – the corruption the poring of money into the stock market and property market has made the comfortable middle class too comfortable they benefit from the corruption of public life and are therefore corrupt because of it.
We, Great Britain, are in trouble and I don’t think it’s going to be solved from a few reforms, what comes next scares me.
Hi Shatnersrug,
You have a very, very good point. The truth is definitely out there already.
However, Sturgeon has her levers on the control of government plus the Bully Pulpit of Bute House and FM, for five more days.
That dynamic WILL change very soon.
I suspect that the majority of non-anorak folk who ain’t into politics find the whole thing either a wee bit confusing or if they do read about it, the idea that a first-world government can behave so absolutely disgustingly is unbelievable.
I am fairly sure there are some secret squirrel types in the corridors of power have gamed this out and within the next seven weeks, Sturgeon will be politically at the end of her career in and high political office.
Tony Blair was incredibly popular. So was Donald Dewar. Yet Blair was gone from the political scene wi a suddenness that shocked (and aged) him. Blair’s legacy is almost as toxic as that of Margaret Thatcher.
Thanks Craig I enjoyed that but very sad very shocking stuff.
Well spoken , Craig.
It is very curious to see Tories stirring up the SNP complacency, but not depressing. Democracy appears to have functioned on the instance of a Crown and an executive having clocked down all transparency .
Politicians in democracies have to remember the ballot box. Sturgeon and Wolffe now appear like Bill Clinton, speechless from fear of incriminating themselves. Whatever they say now will tip the balance of the bus into the crevasse.
I witnessed a curious thing today. I recently complained that the imam of the mosque was reading from extremely severe verses and it was disturbing my peace of mind. Today the imam turned that round and said that people were so full.of hate that they stayed away from the mosque. Politics is the art of taking the truth and twisting it into reverse.
Beware the leaven of the Pharisees. There is something deeply disgusting and shocking about bearing false witness against an innocent man like Salmond. If I was Craig, I would be deeply shocked at what has taken place. Sexuality is intensely private, and it is deeply shocking for it to be brought into the public domain to backbite and slander others. Deeply disturbing that people can group-think themselves into doing this.
However Craig is a man of great courage to even begin to address the collective madness with his podcast. His courage increased as he went on. This is a time to be courageous. The spin-doctors of colonial violence are well funded and highly manipulative. The script-writers of slander and injustice occupy the seats of power and justice.
Jusrt as the US is in civil war between endless war Democrats and America First Trumpites, so.british politics are in civil war between integrity Initiative Ww3 and Corbynian decency. Everybody has to choose a side. ” The forward youth that would appear, Must now forget his Muses dear. ”
Courage is needed to stand up for decency and civilisation, when the rabble riser Tory intellectuals are pumping out war rhetoric about the Indo Pacific.
All Salmond and Corbyn and David Davis wanted from.politics was good governance. Look how the Tories and SNP trample good governance into trenches mud. Victorian Imperialism is back.
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Giyane
I wish I shared your positivity about it but from where I’m sitting Sturgeon has handed Scotland to Boris it’s deeply concerning.
That is as powerful as Peter Finches, Howard Beal speeches; obviously CM won’t be going the way of poor Howard.
A third ? Really? That seems a bit suspect. Almost every long term reader knows his opinions. (The short term ones can just spend happy days looking through the archive on any number of subjects written about, just so they can check before subscribing surely? Go on caveat emptor and all that).
I guess there is always that old method of giving an income stream just to be able to threaten to stop it as a means of blackmail. Or in-fact pulling it, en masse to achieve exactly the detrimental effect it seems
Right – I’ll sign up to a regular donation as well as my not so frequent pony for defence funds.
Fuck these fair weather friends , you ain’t going down without my effort to help you fight. And never mind worrying about the written output , it will come back with the muse. I really want to hear your opinion on Cummings performance the other day and other stuff but I ain’t going to cry about not getting ‘value’ if I don’t. And no I will never ask for it back under any circumstances.
I suspect given the amount of uncertainty and unemployment since the covid lockdowns many feel they can’t afford to pay for Craig’s work. But it’s imperative we do.
I’d just like to say as well that I get annoyed at independent writers being referred to as just bloggers.
What Craig does is not a weblog to give it its full term. It’s a journal and he is therefore a journalist. His independence should give him more credibility than the hacks that work for the guardian et al not less.