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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Lots of ‘I have seen…’ but as usual no evidence provided
Good to hear from you again, Mr Murphy!
Craig, your video would not play. I received an error message, and I cannot resolve the problem. I would very much like to see the video. I wonder if you would put it on Youtube it would play?
William – I am getting the same error. I watched it yesterday, and it was very good.
I wonder if Craig needs to upload this to Vimeo too – I wonder if YT received a take-down notice.
I would strongly suspect so.
I found it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8NjRSUkkWE
Apparently no censorship or foul play in this case. The video has been hosted on YouTube from the beginning and can still be watched there. (It’s still exactly the same video — my comment from yesterday is still there.) Only the embedding on this site has been broken for some reason. Just follow Laguerre’s link.
Thanks for that, Craig (I watched both clips).
You say there is a large contingent in the SNP that are fans of Nicola – a ‘cult’, you call it. And from what I have read, this fishy conspiracy doesn’t seem to be doing very much damage to the electability of SNP candidates.
I really can’t understand that; I can’t see anything appealing about her. I would welcome an explanation from anyone, of why the corruption and misuse of public funds whirling around the First Minister hasn’t left both her and the SNP dead in the water. Is it because there’s nobody else to vote for?
What are the members of this ‘cult’ like? Can they be recognised by their commitment to identity politics? Do they wear distinctive items of clothing? Are they predominantly women? Do they mainly fall into certain age-ranges?
Is there some explanation for the apparently resilient support for Sturgeon, that doesn’t depend on her supporters being brainwashed, irrational cult followers? – I prefer it if I can see reason in my adversary’s position; then I can present an opposing argument. It’s hard to argue with a brainwashed adversary.
For what it’s worth, I gave moral support to Sturgeon up until the facts came out, and if I knew them not, I’d probably not have changed my mind. She’s the leader of the independence movement, she’s our hero who sticks it to Boris, her success is our success.
I can’t chime in on why they might continue to support her in spite of what she has done, but perhaps it’s something of an extension of the ‘default’ support she enjoys just for refusing to smile at Boris. I’ll say media blackout, smear campaign, and willful ignorance does the rest.
Craig, you might not think yourself a good podcast maker, and you do have a tendency to pause mid sentence and provide one or two things for emphasis or context which does sometimes derail and delay your progress, but in spite of the slightly slow delivery I found everything you had to say to be relevant, worthwhile, clear, evidenced, informative… it was a good podcast.
I could continue with adjectives, but to better make the point; I regularly listen to the Scottish Independence Podcast while working and have almost never heard anything as good as your video. I would plead for them to give you a daily spot rather than suffer the moaning, tedious pub chatter that makes me stop work just to turn it off and consider whether we are worthy of independence. It’s just noise to fill time. (The one good podcast I heard there hosted Kenny MacAskill.)
I and I presume others are hungry for good content concerning independence and Scottish politics. We have the blue moon literary talents of Gordon Dangerfield, the less polished but still entertaining Iain Lawson, the persistent petty bitchy bigot, and yourself. Your writing is up there with the best of them, listening to your peripheral thoughts and hearing your heart felt delivery was even better.
If it’s easier for you, you might consider doing a podcast instead (with supplementary text if you like). In particular, if you could give listeners content at least every other day if not every day, you’d grow your subscribers. People stop checking after they see the same post every time they visit.
Craig. You mentioned in your video that one of the complainants had been in touch with you, and you had a friendly email exchange, but I think I missed the import of it. Was she explaining how her complaint transmogrified into a sexual assault claim, or was she regretting being coerced into making a complaint? It seems odd that she would contact you, since she will know that your view is likely to be that awakening a past complaint in this fashion is pretty much lying under oath.
He was contrasting how different a real claim looks, compared to the various fraudulent claims, that made up the rest.
Well, I had to cancel my subscription to Craig—because I wanted to DOUBLE it, and there was no way to modify the existing amount.
So that’s what I did (canceled, and re-subscribed at a higher level), and I encourage everyone to do the same. Make it your GameStop-esque finger to the man (or, in this case, woman).
BTW, I did watch it to the end. Don’t let them get you down. You have many supporters.
Have you had to take down the video for some reason – or has it been taken down without your permission.
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[ Mod: Try the direct YouTube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8NjRSUkkWE ]
Mr Murray
I found your podcast very interesting – I don’t often watch podcasts but I watched all of yours. It is a hard topic and i can fully appreciate your perspective and motives for what you say. I wish for Scottish independence as soon as we can and i still believe the fundamental raison d’etre of the snp is to gain this. I also appreciate that you think there are other motives at work but ultimately us, as the people of Scotland, will decide and whether it is NS or another (independence favouring) first minister in charge they have to pursue the will of the people no matter their status or pay packet…I still believe that deep down NS knows this. I do not wish to appear blinkered, however, the snp are realistically the only political entity in Scotland, at this time, who can see this through. Your video was tough and the choice for Scotland is also tough but we need to step the right way and learn from this scandal, I hope.
Watched the video. Extremely well put and informative. One thing occurred to me; when Craig goes thru the exaggerated claims, that were then used in court, why didn’t those women object to their stories being used/exaggerated (to condemn)? Were they told, ‘we have some serious sexual allegations so tell us anything that could help put away this monster’?
Thankyou Craig for your honesty I totally agree with all you say ❤️???????❤️?????????Honesty will prevail..Godbless and once again Thankyou…I withdrew from SNP for the same reasons ..Corruption full of it….
Thank you Craig, as long as there are people like you there is hope.