Well, there is no denying an overwhelming SNP victory, with an increased vote, increased seats, increased percentage and double the support of the next largest party. Together with the Greens there is a substantial pro-Independence majority in the Parliament, so that matter is settled. Personally I would welcome an SNP/Green coalition with a guaranteed pro-Independence majority of at least fourteen (depending on who is presiding officer). It would remove the Tory jibe that there is not a majority government. But I suspect the SNP will prefer to go it alone again.
The dominant question is Indyref2. It remains my fear that Nicola does not want to actually move for Independence, and will merely continue to make pretend moves in that direction. In the campaign she continually hedged around with not just after Covid, but after the effects of covid, and then the final resort piece of hedging that a referendum must be “legal”.
Let me spell out my fears. I do not claim I am right, because it is impossible for me to know either Sturgeon’s mind, or the future. But it is my best prognostication based on my own assessment of the public indications, and information from sources including several SNP MPs and MSPs.
I expect no serious steps towards Indyref2 to be taken before 2023, on the excuse of Covid, except possibly some more meaningless “enabling” legislation with no dates, to keep the troops believing.
In 2023 I expect Sturgeon to ask Johnson for a S30 in the full knowledge he will refuse, and I expect an answer to be stalled until 2024. I expect that then Sturgeon will be happy to see the matter go to the courts, at the behest of one side or the other. Sturgeon knows very well that the UK Supreme Court will state that the Westminster parliament is ultimately sovereign, because within the UK it is sovereign. That is why we need to leave this union.
It is very probable that Johnson will amend the Scotland Act specifically to preclude a referendum without Westminster permission. By then we will be at the next Scottish parliamentary elections, and Sturgeon will stand in 2025 or 6 on the basis that a referendum must be legal, we must ask Johnson for a S30, and for him to refuse would be a “democratic outrage”. Which game can go on forever, with no real intention of achieving Independence.
I realise that there are many very good, decent people within the SNP who believe that I am wrong, and that Sturgeon has a genuine commitment to Independence, and has some kind of secret plan which is much more radical than I have outlined.
Well, we shall see who is right.
The worrying thing is that I have been saying this since 2016 and would think five years of inaction have proven me right already. I have a horrible feeling that if we arrive in 2026 after five more years of inaction, Nicola’s followers will still believe her. I see a continuing role for Alba for those who are actually serious about Independence, despite its frankly disastrous electoral debut (the causes of which were largely not Alba’s fault, but that is for another day).
Nicola and the SNP have of course it firmly in their power to prove me horribly wrong. They can prove me a complete fool by using this mandate to take bold and genuine steps and achieving Independence. In which case, not only shall I acknowledge I was a complete fool, I shall be delighted to do so.
I think this is a good time to utilise again one of the few decent things from the Guardian, its daily Covid graphs.
I have broadly supported lockdowns, aside the odd specific illogicality, and strongly advocate vaccination. But the facts are unanswerable – despite some people’s addiction to fear, they have to face it is just about over. Despite politicians’ addiction to the heady combination of increased personal exposure and popularity, plus increased control over the population, it is just about over. Vaccines have licked it in the UK. The risk of death to a non-geriatric healthy person is now as close to zero as makes no difference.
Oxgangs library has been turned into a Covid Testing Centre. I sat on a wall this morning and observed for half an hour as nobody went in and nobody came out, and the young man on the door tried to find ways to relieve his boredom. The time will shortly be with us when the public appetite will fade for daily briefings that say six people feel slightly unwell in Elgin.
England and Wales have enjoyed seven consecutive weeks of negative excess deaths (I can never find the Scottish figures on this). That means this spring is very possibly the least dangerous period you have ever lived through, in terms of the chance of you dying.
As the vaccine programme goes ahead, it gets ever safer. At some stage, the public are going to notice. We have had attempts to boost the fear factor by successive claims that the South African or Indian or Brazilian strain had arrived in Britain and was massively more deadly, massively more transmissible, evaded the vaccine, killed more young people. All of these arrived in the UK and none of the claimed disasters happened.
Of course, there could one day really be that super deadly variant. Equally, there could be an entirely new pandemic disease. But we cannot live our lives locked and cowering against these eventualities. For now, we should come out – vaccinated – into the sunlight again. The emphasis should be on border control and firmly restricting international travel until the rest of the world catches up. It should also be on overseas aid to help the rest of the world catch up. Biden has shamed our Tory government by his support for voiding patents on Covid vaccines, but the Tories have always seen the pandemic as personal profit opportunity.
But meantime, the strongest temporary border controls. As long term readers know, I am very strongly opposed to mass air travel anyway, only made possible because of disgraceful international complicity in not taxing fossil fuel for aircraft. Nobody actually needs a £30 ticket to Ibiza.
There is another issue where I doubt that Sturgeon genuinely believes what she says, or intends to act speedily, and that is trans rights. Here she will be under enormous pressure to deliver GRA reform very quickly, and that from her closest allies.
This is going to be interesting. Trans rights have been a very useful wedge issue for Nicola and extremely effective against her most dangerous internal rival, Joanna Cherry. Broadly similar issues, like gay marriage and abortion, were intensely controversial until carried into law, and then the matter was effectively settled as a matter of public debate. I expect trans rights might be similar and that Nicola has no real interest in settling the matter because she does not want the controversy to die down.
Personally I am extremely frustrated at the extraordinary alignment between
Never-never Independence supporters and trans rights,
versus
Independence Now supporters and trans exclusion
There seems no logical connection between the two, yet these strange alliances have become the most important dominant fact in the politics of Scottish Independence. My own opinion – which upset huge numbers of staunch Independence Now people on twitter – is that Alba’s strong identification with excluding trans women is one reason for its electoral failure.
Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist has become a pejorative term, but it seems to me a precise intellectual description of where an especially vocal section of Alba support was coming from, and voters found it rather weird and bitter.
I was considering founding a party which supports trans people, but at the same time wants Scotland to achieve Independence irrespective of any legal or political efforts at veto from London. But I fear there would only be me in it.
So the trans wedge issue has become so important to Nicola politically, I suspect she has no real interest in ending it. Besides, legislation is difficult. The current proposal is ridiculously over-simplified, as demonstrated by Gordon Dangerfield. I support self-ID and I extremely strongly uphold the principle that people should be who they want to be, and unlike Gordon I really don’t care about their genitalia and don’t see why anybody else should either. Mind your own business. But I can see that in certain rare and specific circumstances, like elite sport or people involved in criminal justice proceedings, there may be a need for some kind of arbitration of genuineness or good faith of a gender change; with good faith being the presumption that has to be overturned.
I might add that I particularly dislike the jibes at “women with beards” and the social media posts making fun of the physical appearance of trans people. There has been far too much cruelty flying around. I count Stuart Campbell and Chris Cairns as friends and allies who genuinely want Independence. But I cannot approve of this kind of cartoon, and I feel obliged to say so. How would it make you feel if you were a trans woman?
[Update I am told it is not Chris Cairns but is signed Stella. I had presumed that was part of the “joke”, but if it is not Chris I of course apologise to him].
It is of course also true that pro-trans activists are far too rude to people who disagree with them, with a small and defined group seriously nasty and out of control, including threatening violence. That group is closely connected to SNP leadership figures. This is all quite appalling. Frankly both sides of the debate need to find tolerance and empathy.
What is my prediction? I think the trans issue will be shelved, and Nicola will seek to placate Ms Blackman and her ilk by the abolition of jury trials in cases of sexual assault, as a first step, to be followed later by the abolition of jury trials in other crimes against women. Why all of that is an appalling idea I shall expand further one day, though I find it rather shocking that anybody would need that explained.
One thing I am sure of; we will see decisive action from Nicola on the abolition of juries long before we see any real movement on Independence. I would bet my life on that.
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Further to my previous comment, it looks like Craig is wrong and we’re heading for another covid wave, peaking in around eight weeks:
https://imperialcollegelondon.github.io/covid19local/LTLA_public/Bolton.html
The Indian variant this time. It’s in Scotland too.
More detail at link below. Christina Pagel of Independent Sage:
https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1391780417993334785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
– “TLDR: it’s not looking good at all”
“We have had attempts to boost the fear factor by successive claims that the South African or Indian or Brazilian strain had arrived in Britain and was massively more deadly, massively more transmissible, evaded the vaccine, killed more young people. All of these arrived in the UK and none of the claimed disasters happened.”
We have been there before. It is important to exercise caution. Remember Boris wanted people to enjoy Christmas together then very quickly had to back paddle .
The Indian wave is about a tenth as deadly as our wave was to Indians without anything remotely resembling a health care system.
You would need your head buttoned up at the back to think it could be devastating here in the middle of summer.
The Indian variant was only detected in the UK at the end of April, barely a fortnight ago. I think it too soon to dismiss it yet. Reported cases up 708 compared to last week.
That said I do wonder how sound UCL’s grand extrapolations will turn out to be.
Clark, being a cautious sort of adventurer…
My reading has been that we are spared the third/4th wave because of the elongated lockdown which the Europeans lifted around Easter. They have come out of that wave and the total infections and deaths are a lot lower than the U.K as has been the case from the beginning. Which has allowed them to have a normal summer.
I agree we are looking at a big rise in infections from now on as social mixing and travel goes manic in the next week – it will clearly show the efficacy of the partial vaccinations so far – I fear the worst.
I do trust Professor Spiegelhalter’s always well delivered facts and stats above all else that emanates from the foul government and the MSM whores.
https://mobile.twitter.com/d_spiegel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Eembeddedtimeline%7Ctwterm%5Eprofile%3Ad_spiegel%7Ctwgr%5EeyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.statslab.cam.ac.uk%2F~david%2F
Here is a brilliant analyses and shows what the possibilities are as restrictions are dumped to quickly.
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZWI3MWY1OGEtZWY1NS00OTNhLTk1MWQtMjFkMGRmNjkyMDg5IiwidCI6IjljNTAxMmM5LWI2MTYtNDRjMi1hOTE3LTY2ODE0ZmJlM2U4NyIsImMiOjh9
Hopefully it is the other medical interventions and Covid disease management drugs that will keep deaths lower otherwise we will be back to full lockdown in 6-8 weeks!
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Now where do I start with my campaign of FreeCM and JA that should gather thousands outside their gaols and get this to Strasbourg ASAP?
And how do the hanging judges and spiv prosecutors and devious civil servants and the whole lying joint caboodle get named , shamed and just desserts handed to them and theirs for the rest of their lives?
Justice above all else and if retribution by a raging mob against the minions of State is all that is available – it will happen fast and furiously, as the dumbdownton’d finally get a clear view of how they have been lied to by these they have been bred to trust. Or maybe not – thick as shit BrexShit heads are beyond salvation as far as I can gather as they parrot the talk radios they are constantly plugged into.
Until they try to eat that cake on the flesh spots and eat cheap jets to find they are spending days stuck in passport queues and subject to throwing away their no longer able to move items across borders especially these who enjoy their booze cruises.
It is looking like a fun summer of the early 80’s as we get the roaring 20’s of this century going.
“I agree we are looking at a big rise in infections from now on as social mixing and travel goes manic in the next week – it will clearly show the efficacy of the partial vaccinations so far – I fear the worst.”
Down here in West Wales, we were inundated with tourists last summer and, like you, everyone feared the worst, but when it came to it, the “second wave” was only noticeable by the restrictions it caused to be imposed nationwide, not the number of infections locally.
Clark, further to your Bolton link, Latest numbers showing that the low point has been reached and the u shaped increase is underway in some areas already.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Campbell_/status/1391783344598364167/photo/1
It is unarguable and Bozo and co are intent on doing with hug a friend what they did with the eat out and get free booze at TwatterSpoons last year.
God moves in mysterious ways so imperialist superpowers must also deploy 24/7 spying, 24/7 Hijacking of the MSM, 24/7 unseen agencies and think tanks and 24/7 idox forging votes .
Metadata is being collected all the time on voter interest, and that metadata tells the politburo what to spin where and why. Against the mysterious workings of metadata, political analysis is a flint axe.
However, once you know for certain that the garbage of a SNP Green majority for Indyref 2 is rigged by powerful manipulators like Integrity Initiative, and Craig disagrees with that conclusion because he doesnt believe England is devious or clever enough to do it, then you can see where the narrative is leading:
Blow the same nationalistic dog-whistles as they blew about Brexit until the narrative becomes reality
Wouldn’t it be more useful , rather than try to read Nicola Sturgeon’s mind , which contains sweet f/a, to concentrate on the minds she has adopted after she chucked her mentor Alex Salmond? Alistair Campbell.being one of many.
Personality politics, whether it is Blojo or Nicolar Caviar, is a massive team enterprise, with the adorable, blah- spoken , blonde mop or the ginger cutey dimples luring the public like syrens to a certain grave.
I have absolutely no idea what is in the minds of Integrity Initiative, but I’m certain it exists, while Blojo and Sturgeon are merely shop.models with their heads and hands facing the wrong way and dressed in suitable thestrical costumes .
Good luck tomorrow with the anxious judge . Anxious to keep her head on the right way round while the rest of her torso is modelling a blue tartan scarf and a dashing blue Tory tweed.
Poor old Craig can see right through the BS on the Skripals but honestly believes Boris Johnson’s lockdowns et al were good for UK. Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon, who broke the law and lied to get Salmond in prison, is about to put Craig in jail, but yeah, she “might” have good intentions because she lets confused teens choose their own pronouns.
F—king hell…
Perfectly encapsulated Sam. Of course we can’t agree on everything and respect for other’s positions is vital. However Craig’s naive takes on these two issues is bizarre for someone normally so mentally adept. I suppose he’s had a lot on over the last 18 months when the psychological barrage has been delivered.
It’s simple: Craig is not a tin foil-hatted conspiracy theorist. He assesses all the evidence, rather than spinning highly selective cherrypicked data out of context. Hope that helps. 🙂
Craig is a born-again Scot with all the nationalistic fervour and lack of caution of an extremist. As we say down our way, there’s no Christian more devout than a converted heathen. As a converted smoker, I am hysterically anti-smoking. It’s a defence against backsliding.
Sam
Boris’s lockdown was imperfectly implemented, half hearted and only partially successful. And it is not only Boris who advocated lockdowns, all the rest of the world did that to, some with better results than others. Let us please see the wood for the trees.
They are an insatiable death cult. Covid was the kind of thing they had been dreaming of and 150,000 is nowhere near enough. They feel cheated by lockdowns and vaccines and that bitterness is going to last for years. There is nothing you can say that will console them.
But can I use pronoun “eek” if I am thoroughly confused? Or “woom”? I suspect that some fascist restrictions remain.
The Covid cases are based mainly on the PCR test which even the WHO was finally forced to admit is both unreliable and inaccurate at the Cycle Threshold been run which is giving so many false positives. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of the fatalities from Covid 19 have had one or more serious illnesses such as cancer, which kills on average every year approximately 166,000 people and because of the insane policies of lockdowns will substantially increase, and the median age of death is about 80. The average life span in the U.K. is about 80.
In regards to the whipped up hysterical hysteria ( again) from the usual suspects about India background information is as usual omitted in the bursts of Goebbelian propaganda.For example, India has a population of about 1,380,000,000 every year 9,000,000 die or roughly 27,000 per day many of whom die from diarrhoea, malnutrition, heart diseases, lack of sanitation etc.
“No variant of the virus differs by more than 0.3 per cent from the original sequence, and numerous academic immunologists have stated strongly that there is no possibility that booster/top-up/variant vaccines are required. ” Dr. Mike Yeadon.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-are-we-being-lied-to-about-covid-theres-no-good-reason/
Variants are a purely political tool, that was predicted, and is being used to further the political agenda that looks to introduce more and more restrictions and to attack personal freedoms.
EXCESS DEATHS, Booboo.
Over double that of Germany and highest per population in Europe and pretty high across the world – yup even India.
Craig refers to “Alba’s strong identification with excluding trans women”.
It seems to me Alba had a sensible manifesto solution to this complicated trans issue: to refer it to a Citizens Assembly.
It was a genuinely progressive suggestion, designed to take the heat and fury out of this controversial issue. But it got no traction, because Alba got no traction.
If Alba attracted too many ‘TERFS’, it’s hardly the party’s fault, and certainly not due to anything in their manifesto. Maybe it happened just because of assumptions wrongly made, and because (unfairly categorised) so-called TERFS felt they had no political home, and hoped for one in Alba.
Given proper airtime, and MSM space, Alba’s Citizens Assembly proposal would, eventually, have been widely accepted as a sensible way forward.
Alba had no chance in this election, as Craig makes clear. But assuming it continues, as I hope it will, and provided Salmond doesn’t repeat his post 2014 referendum disappearing act, Alba has a positive role to play going forward.
But first things first, good luck to Craig in court today ..
Breaking: Craig sentenced to 8 months in prison.
I know you are not joking vin_ot, any jail sentence for a frail bipolar person who has been treated like shit is disgusting. Throw the court a banana and you’ll be done for attempted murder. …what a bunch of mongers and twisters.
What a kangaroo court is that. I hope Dani Garavelli and Kirsty Wark are now ready to receive their slap on the wrist for naming these perjurers, still weeping from the hurt they’ve been caused
I feel sick to the teeth with moneygrabbing political slaves who care nothing about the laws they bent.
What utter buffoonery from these self important clowns. My heart goes out to Nadira and the children, what a punch to land on a man of integrity.
This is a declaration of war against those who care for truth and the law.
Never mind all the other inconsistencies and legal shenanigans that have been the hallmark of this case – how can you get a longer sentence for extremely obtuse references, needing detailed knowledge and further investigation, than the guy did who outright named them?
A nakedly political prosecution, attempting to silence a truthteller. But will our truth telling media inform the public what has happened?
Craig has been sentenced to 8 months in jail
What can we do to help? Appalled, aghast, literally feeling physically sick as well as sick at heart.
Disgusted but not at all surprised to hear this verdict. I vehemently hope the appeal is successful.
I am utterly gobsmacked on hearing this news. I am seething with anger. All those party to this, the utter scum that they are; from the media, to the politicians, to the Crown and Judiciary, the whole lot of them, are pure, f%%%ing evil. I really do hope they Burn in Hell!
The Tories before the Scottish election- ” The SNP are always talking about independence and an independence referendum. Vote Tory to stop Sturgeons referendum”
The Tories after the Scottish election – ” The SNP never said anything about the election being a vote for a referendum.”
So Craig, 8 months in the slammer! How outrageous! No doubt, they’re using you as an example to deter others from simply reporting events that embarrass the ‘powers that be’.
And NOT a single story about it on the BBC News website.
Except this one:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57065075
Got three weeks to appeal so there is some hope.
Craig, excellent good, honest, principled, deeply-experienced and sharply-intelligent man that you are (absolutely no sark intended!)… your broad naivety-streak is showing again:
The ‘vaccines’ (that are already so busily killing and maiming people) have ‘worked’, and have brought the ‘global health emergency’ to a stand; lockdowns, masks, etc., ‘work’; and on. This, about something which is in fact just a nastier-than-usual flu, from which over 99 percent of people recover, including over 95 percent of over-70s (me being one; self-medicated with one of the PROVEN real – and genuinely proven-safe – cures; mega-dose vitamin C in my case; no doctor, healthline or hospital consulted). Really, Craig! How can you have allowed yourself to be so thoroughly bamboozled?
Despite your deep knowledge of some fields, you’re a long way behind the curve on what’s really happening in the covid scam. You make a glaring ass of yourself to proclaim publicly how fully you’ve been suckered by the propaganda.
I’ve stopped offering troo-bleevers-in-covid any of the wide, and rapidly-growing body of respectable evidence showing that these convictions which you push here are nonsense. Mere objective, real-world facts don’t seem to have any effect on the believers’ comfort-seeking, terror-driven beliefs. But you have my email. If you can find time and interest to get your head straight about the covid scam, I’ll be happy to filter out the wilder, more speculative stuff, and provide you with samples of the sound evidence. I suspect that, like me, when you’re fully convinced about a matter, you’re willing to put your life where your mouth is. I’ve done it. So can you, once you get up to speed on the covid scam.
Seriously, Craig. I think you are indeed one of the very few public figures around who, in the service of principled honesty, would publicly issue an ‘I was wrong! Mea culpa!’ declaration about anything where you felt that previously-unnoticed evidence has forced you to change your mind. Not many people can manage to be so unbendingly honest with their own egos. Deep respect to you for that self-discipline. But please, good brother: do get your head straight about the scam.
Keep sluggin’ for Scotland and for truth, anyway! Free Alba ASAP!!
Rhys,
You and your sort are responsible for the highest death rate in any European country and infact the whole world. These bloody hands will never wash clean.
The recovery rate is not 99% unless you consider that long Covid doesn’t exist or constitutes ‘recovery’. NHS figures show that 45% of Covid patients leaving hospital need long term support, nobody knows for sure yet for how long.
Megadoses of Vitamin C won’t cure or prevent ‘flu and can be harmful.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/vitamin-c/faq-20058030
can you keep your uninformed and useless “just a nastier-than-usual flu” yapping away from this site for awhile while real things are being discussed?
Well said, alas the true believers have invented a new religion it’s call Covidism requiring a suspension of critical thinking faculties a naive child like faith in whatever utterances the high priests of Covidism make !
So ‘critical thinking’ leads you to believe that it’s all some kind of hoax or scam does it? That somehow world leaders who normally hate and distrust each other have united to convince every healthcare professional in the world to get behind this scam, lay the Hypocratic Oath aside and distribute fake vaccines they know to be at best useless and at worst highly dangerous?
Craig has apparently got 48 hours to hand himself in for detention. His agent is preparing to appeal and has asked for a stay of execution of any warrant. Good luck with that. Hopefully he will be prepared for any contingency.
Apparently his defence has been given a deferral of 3 weeks to appeal. Good luck.
Absolutely shocking a travesty of justice, the Scottish judicial system, is now akin to that of a banana republic, this is what happens when you allow a Lord Advocate to sit on the cabinet of a Scottish government that’s been up to no good. Craig Murray exposed the dark under belly of the SNP government and the COPFS, and for his troubles he’s been fitted up and sent to prison.
The outside world will reverberate in shock at this from the giants of justice Noam Chomsky to John Pilger, they’ll now look upon Scotland as a small country run by a corrupt government and Crown.
So let me get this right. Scotland wants to become independent…so that it can jump into the eu where it will not be independent?
George Galloway says there won’t be any vote for independence:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/523370-galloway-scotland-independence-referendum/
The EU wont steal our oil. gas, revenues and taxes, then spend them on nuclear weapons and submarines and park them 30 miles from Scotland’s largest city. There. That enough for you?
By the time an independent Scotland joins the EU there won’t be any oil or gas.
That’s true, but if you consider how the EU institutions treated Greece, and Ireland, post-GFC, it’s hardly the warm and cuddly entity that many imagine it to be.
If you stick to its austerian, ordo- and neo-liberal, top- down, treaty-imposed economic strictures, keeping public spending low, maintaining free-market “flexibility” and market-based “reforms”, and minimising state interventions, and expected to adopt a currency that you can’t issue yourself, with all the unnecessary constraint that that entails, then you will escape the worst of its wrath – but if you’re comfortable with all of that, why would you need to leave the U.K.?
Good luck on appeal to Craig.
All your oil, gas, fisheries etc will belong to the eu. All other eu members will be able to fish in the former Scottish waters, tax revenue will go to the eu for it to give back what it thinks you need, based on THEIR ‘kindness’, & not what Scotland needs/wants (like how London treats the north of England compared to the south). Think ‘ever closer union’.
Shocking, absolutely bloody shocking. A travesty of justice and the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory.
A Green/SNP coalition would be a disaster. The net zero agenda is far more sinister for individuals’ liberties, opportunities and standard of living than direct rule from Westminster.
A deranged misanthropic agenda based on voodoo modelling of a planet that is damn near identical to the one I was born in over 50 years ago.
OK, if that 8 month prison sentence is indeed unsuspended, that’s utterly bizarre and a complete outrage.
Fortunately it looks like that 48 hour period to surrender himself in any event comes with a 3 week period to appeal. I assume that’s a no brainer.
For comparison, yesterday the Supreme Court gave a £5,000 fine and no jail sentence to the guy who announced the result of the Heathrow/Friends of the Earth litigation while the judgment was still under embargo. Tommy Robinson got 9 months for his contempt, but compared to Craig he’s of course much more of an unrepentant loon and repeat offender. I haven’t followed Craig’s case closely, but anything that involves an unsuspended jail sentence seems completely disproportionate.
Thank you Martinned for your logical comment, I know sometimes we don’t see eye to eye, but on this occasion I think we do, or at least I hope we do.
The guy who deliberately published the full names of the Alphabet Women on Twitter only received 6 months. I would think that was the most comparable precedent.
James Doleman covered the hearing:
https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1392048215520862208
– “Fortunately it looks like that 48 hour period to surrender himself in any event comes with a 3 week period to appeal. I assume that’s a no brainer.”
They originally gave Craig 48 hours to surrender himself at St Leonards police station, Edinburgh. The defence negotiated the three weeks to lodge appeal. Lady Dorian (Sturgeon’s appointee) tried to reduce that to the 19th of May so that Craig would not be responsible for not appearing as a witness in Spain regarding surveillance of Julian Assange, but I think it was agreed that if Craig surrendered his passport that would suffice, so the sentence remains deferred for three weeks.
Scotland desperately needs reform. There is zero separation of powers between government, prosecution, judiciary and police. It’s just a tinpot dictatorship.
Craig and TR are very much of a muchness with the way their cases were treated. Both had similar delays, contortions and similar tactics to keeping them gagged and haemorrhaging cash to make the process as much a punishment, legal escalation, precedents turned on their heads for vindictive judgements and sentencing. One had history as a thug while the other was a whistle blower but you cannot excuse one without the other.
Disgusting sentence for CM – Scotland has just exposed itself as full of corrupt institutions who conduct political prosecutions. Shameful. I hope he can appeal.
The whole Salmond persecution/trial has been a national disgrace and Craig Murray’s court case and sentence has just added to it. The timing of the case is also very suspicious. Dragged out for an eternity only for the sentence to be applied after the election is over with the added bonus of not allowing Murray to travel to Spain for the trial re illegal spying on Assange.
Sturgeon’s Scotland.
At least the persecution of the wrong type of journalist has not got as far as Saudi style retribution.
The judiciary in Scotland are by and large unionists. Nicola Sturgeon is not responsible for this
seemingly political injustice. You would all need to speak to the very powerful folks in high office in the British state to get answers about the sentencing.
A sad day for UK justice and for democracy.
This guy knows a thing or two about the machinations of the judiciary and S&G.
https://twitter.com/PeterCherbi
http://petercherbi.blogspot.com/
I’m sure Dani Garavelli who now works for Sturgeon will be doing cartwheels of joy.
Perhaps not. If Craig’s result is allowed to stand on appeal, then that establishes a precedent meaning that, by extension, Dani Garavelli will be liable to around 800 years in the slammer.
Truly alarming. So the judge Lady Dorian and the Lord Advocate are Sturgeon appointees? Anyone see a major problem here, serious conflicts of interest especially as Craig has been defending Alex Salmond much to the fury of Sturgeon? Something really not right here; it’s not fit for purpose let alone trust in the system. Where is the transparency and separation of powers? Reform is urgently needed.
A truly disgraceful process, verdict and sentence.
You sure about that? Better check your facts first. Certainly civil servants in Scotland are installed by the English government.
Unbelievable!
I’m ashamed to be British with this and Julian’s ongoing imprisonment.
But if the UK Supreme Court allows the appeal (on the grounds of precedents), will that not strengthen the case for the Union and British justice generally?
The SHEER FUCKING SHAME of the judiciary.
Disgusting!
Any ruling on Craig’s blog? Are they trying to close it down?
Why would they? The offending posts have already been taken down.
8 months, the bastards.
Thoughts go back that bloke who took his shoes off and threw them at George Bush. Not something our Craig would do to the Lady Judge, but his pen will.
Sorry, Not what our Craig would do
I oppose self ID as a profoundly reactionary and backward step imposing gender stereotypes with the most severe discipline. Of course males and females should be free to express and present as they wish without harrasment, if a male likes wearing a skirt and make up that’s fine, indeed it’s liberating because it widens the possibilities for both genders, but the second that same man insists he is a woman, just because he likes wearing skirts it limits possibiity and conforms to stereotypes. It says “only women can wear skirts, I wear a skirt therefore I am a woman, anyone who wants to wear skirts must also be a woman” it does not say “anyone from either gender can wear what they like and it changes nothing”.
I’m not a radical feminist, I have deep disagreements with radfems, the most relevent in this context is that I don’t reject femininity (passivity) as a subordinate status forced on women by patriarchy, but I am gender critical, I think gender is a set of signs, attitudes and associations constructed by culture. More widely, I believe our identities are constructs, if I had been born in a different place with a different culture I would be a completely different person with different views, I am a product of my circumstance, as such I reject the very popular liberal assumption there is such a thing as an “authentic self” which we must discover, hence a transwoman’s identity is no more authentic than their previous identity. But I also think passivity and activeness (femininity and masculinity) are attitudes and desires that exist within all our psychies. Our egos (our sense of self) all construct themselves against the passive helplessness of infancy, our ego functions to act on and in the world and reject passivity, but passivity had it’s pleasures and so remains tempting, thus bringing about an internal conflict between our egotistic desires to do things to get what we want, and the temptation to enjoy what others do to us (basically sadism and masochism, is another way to frame it). Various other factors (including body design, females are smaller, slower, weaker and designed to be penetrated to reproduce) lead to a later association of females with passivity (material facts do influence discourse). That association with passivity is at the root of women’s lower status and misogyny, our egos tend to see activeness as superior and want to fight against the temptations of passivity, and that leads to very real social consequences.
What the trans rights movement does is insist that gender really does exist, that it is innate and determined by some sort of essence, either in the brain or soul of some sort, and is evidenced by behaviours and tastes (anyone who doesn’t exhibit behaviours stereotypical of men cannot be a man). This is in effect is no different from forcing conforminity according to gentals (“females ought to be feminine”), it’s worse, because it calls on us to punish our bodies for not conforming to our ideas with expensive and risky medication and interventions and cosmetics (which is going to make a tidy profit for some). It denies that passivity and it’s temptations and desires exist in both males and females and instead defines passivity as inherantly the attribute of women, thus you have to become a woman to enjoy passivity, thus this is a re-enforment of gender stereotypes.
I agree that this debate ought to have nothing to do with Indy, but Sturgeon has made it so. I don’t think the general public in Scotland has comprehended the implications of the issue, they think it’s just a matter of being mean to men who wear skirts, subsequently I don’t think Alba should have highlighted this quiet so strongly until that comes, but I think a backlash is going to come (and like all backlashes it might be very stupid and through the baby out with the bath water). In otherwords I don’t think it’s works as a wedge issue solidly to Sturgeon’s advantage, it can turn round and bite her I’m sure she realises this, so I’m not so sure she’s being disingenuous. Like most shitlib idpol it serves to give the impression of “progress” (doing something) to distract from not changing anything economically or constitutionally.
I’m just waiting for the rights of people who feel they should have been born without limbs to be the next shitlib idpol wedge topic. They’ve already wedged things down to 0.5% of the populace who identify as trans. I’m sure it can be narrowed down further so that even transpeople can be oppressors against apotemnophiliacs. No need to ever fight for the rights of the majority ever again!
This is all a big round of the rescue game. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-04-14/american-narratives-the-rescue-game/. Next to nothing to do with the victims, all about “victim advocates.”
I’ve actually brought up Body Integrity Dysphoria in a debate with a Wokie, I explained sufferers become obsessed that one or more of their limbs do not belong to them, construct fabulations to explain how they ended up with somebody else’s arm attached to them and want it amputated. I argued we should not just accept what they say and amputate these people’s limbs just because they request it, the wokist then denounced me for dictating what other people can do with their bodies, they are already there!
In Roman times what men and women wore was reversed. It was the men who wore the skirts. Women firmly wore the trousers.
And there are kilts, lavalavas and fustanellas worn by men to this day, but that just show my point about gender being a matter of what is culturally associated.
What happens now with this blog is that after the appeal police thugs turn up at Craig’s house to remove the blog infrastructure. All.of this charade has been created by wonks way above Nicola Sturgeon’s pay grade in MI5/6. His crime, questioning the Libyan, Iraqi and Syrian illegal proxy wars by Empire2 Tories and Red Tories.
In other words his crime was using his brain, thought crime. Thought crime is something this fascist merrygoround of Empire2 , algorithm- selected governments will do anything to obliterate.
And because whatever medication they gave him last time has obviously worn off, Craig will be plied with the same psycho-drugs they used in torture rendition in Syria , Libya and Iraq , in Uzbekistan, in Poland , in Afghanistan.
Then he will be turned into yet another gatekeeper for the crazies who run the West. Approving of moderately mad proxies being used to do essential maintenance regime change, and saying that Bojo and Sturgeon have independent minds of their own.
Dr Mengeles returns. It is not a dark day for democracy. It is just another ordinary dark day that plods forward the vision of absolute control that was initiated under Hitler to turn us into human clones.
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth…
AmyB
Wikipedia on the persecution of the Huguenots:
” The lack of universal adhesion to his religion.did not sit well with Louis Doc’s vision of perfected autocracy. “
A variant of fascism in Planet Earth’s long history that resulted in revolution and secularisation in France.
Oh Whoops! I just committed a Hamza Yousaf Hate Crime, which he will.pass to his chief executioner Lord Wolffe to obliterate the culprit for using his / her brain.
Planet Earth is full of these crazy megalomaniacs. They pop up from.time to time. Followed by what happened in 1789.
How does it get Louis Doc from Louis XIV?
Indeed. To quote no other than the bard:
♫ Welcome back to solid ground, my friend
I heard all your controls were jammed
Well it’s just nice to have you back again ♫
Disgraceful sentence. At worst they could have given a suspended sentence, but this is a miscarriage
of justice yet again imo.
#FreeCraigMurray is trending on Twitter now.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/FreeCraigMurray?src=hashtag_click&f=live
‘Few sentences have been quoted more often than the aphorism: “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”. This dictum was laid down by Lord Hewart, the then Lord Chief Justice of England in the case of Rex v. Sussex Justices, [1924] 1 KB 256.’
— Arvind Datar
Bar and Bench Published on : 18 Apr, 2020 , 2:30 am
In the Salmond trial, Craig Murray’s reporting was, as far as I was concerned, the only source which gave a balanced record of the proceedings. To penalise a man so harshly for a public service that was not offered by any of the MSM seems perverse.
In this whole affair it has turned out that the only person who has been ruthlessly pursued by the judiciary is the very person who tried to maintain its principles (quote above).
Ruth and I will send a donation to help the fund.
Dafydd:
“In the Salmond trial, Craig Murray’s reporting was, as far as I was concerned, the only source which gave a balanced record of the proceedings. To penalise a man so harshly for a public service that was not offered by any of the MSM seems perverse.”
Sad to say this misses the point, Dafydd. Craig is being jailed BECAUSE he was the only source which gave a balanced record of the proceedings. THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN IN A SHOW TRIAL.
And this is why the very judge who jailed Craig has recommended to Ms Sturgeon that juries in such cases should be abolished: The ordinary people are just so unreliable!
8 months! It’s just incredible!
The person who openly typed their names got 6, and Mr. Murray gets 8 for some “hints”!
This British “highly likely” approach of yours is just a mockery of human intelligence. Under the paranoid Ivan the Terrible, it was exactly the same in Russia.
I bet you have an old paranoid asshole at the very top, who makes decisions based on his/her sick suspicions.
—
Now to the actual questions.
1. Mr. Murray, what is the status of the defence fund?
2. How to financially support Mrs. Murray and your young children if you end up in prison?
“Under the paranoid Ivan the Terrible, it was exactly the same in Russia. I bet you have an old paranoid asshole at the very top, who makes decisions based on his/her sick suspicions.”
That is not fair to Putin. He’s not 70 yet. 🙂
M.J.
Putin has defended the International Rules Based legacy of 150 years standing, which defends the borders of sovereign nations against illegal invasion. And obviously he won.
USUKIS lost because of Russia’s military and defensive superiority.. Craig’s incarceration is to punish him for providing a platform where it is possible to celebrate Putin’s military victory over USUKIS ‘ breaking of international Law.
They think they can do what they like and get away with it, and gag people who report their crimes? Not going to happen. Please save your cheap jibes for Xmas crackers next time.
oh, my, do you mean that Putin governs YOUR country too?
???
May I say I appreciate your great sense of humour.