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Anyone following the Sturgeon v Salmond shenanigans

Do you think Sturgeon should resign

  • No, she's nothing to resign for

    Votes: 31 58.5%
  • No, she's really popular even if she had done something we can overlook it

    Votes: 3 5.7%
  • Yes, although her breaches of the ministerial code were trivial rules are rules

    Votes: 2 3.8%
  • Yes, the manoeuvres of the first minister and her allies have brought shame on the parliament

    Votes: 17 32.1%

  • Total voters
    53
I've watched that for 2 hours (albeit multitasking as I'm working too) and I'm still none the wiser on what the potential resigning offence is. Sturgeon looked particularly uncomfortable and waffly when asked about having told a porky to Baillie and Rennie in parliament last week - is it that?
 
I've watched that for 2 hours (albeit multitasking as I'm working too) and I'm still none the wiser on what the potential resigning offence is. Sturgeon looked particularly uncomfortable and waffly when asked about having told a porky to Baillie and Rennie in parliament last week - is it that?

Me too, still have it on and have not seen where the offense had occurred?
 
Me too, still have it on and have not seen where the offense had occurred?
I've grown to quite like Sturgeon so I'm aware that I might have an unconscious bias but I just find it weird that no-one seems to be able to spell out in simple terms what she's supposedly done. Not even the anti-SNP brigade on here!
 
I've grown to quite like Sturgeon so I'm aware that I might have an unconscious bias but I just find it weird that no-one seems to be able to spell out in simple terms what she's supposedly done. Not even the anti-SNP brigade on here!
It's Unionists spinning a narrative through social media/MSM, they are desperate ahead of a election.
 
I've grown to quite like Sturgeon so I'm aware that I might have an unconscious bias but I just find it weird that no-one seems to be able to spell out in simple terms what she's supposedly done. Not even the anti-SNP brigade on here!

I am the same and she has acquitted herself well so far today too. I have to say Cole Hamilton comes over as a slimy bugger.
 
Sturgeon is the lesser of the two evils
 
It's Unionists spinning a narrative through social media/MSM, they are desperate ahead of a election.

I think it's more than 'unionists' Mandy? There is a massive schism in the SNP now.
 
I think it's more than 'unionists' Mandy? There is a massive schism in the SNP now.
Nah Unionists spun a narrative through there chums that Sturgeon was guilty before she'd even appeared in front of the committee and had her word, I don't think that's fair, they wouldn't act the same way if it was anyone else especially a man, u can't remember them doing the same with Hancock or Johnson. It's a witch hunt, I think there was failings at levels below Sturgeon that she wasn't aware of at the time, Evans and Wolfe certainly.
 
Not been watching this morning, will catch up with things later on.

What she is being accused of is breaking the ministerial code by lying to parliament about what she knew. The failure to release documents as evidence which the committee had requested in time, and only vital evidence were released yesterday when a threat of No Confidence vote was going to force John Swinney out of his job. That evidence apparently showed a different take on things to what she had previously told parliament.

I don't think she did lie to parliament personally, but that is the charge. If it is found she did lie, then she will have to resign.
 
Sturgeon looked particularly uncomfortable and waffly when asked about having told a porky to Baillie and Rennie in parliament last week - is it that?
I had to go on a call so have missed the last half hour but if I picked it up correctly she addressed the point about lying to Baillie and Rennie straight after the break with a quote from the official record?
 
I had to go on a call so have missed the last half hour but if I picked it up correctly she addressed the point about lying to Baillie and Rennie straight after the break with a quote from the official record?

Missed it as I was on a call too. I think there is more on that this afternoon?
 
Missed it as I was on a call too. I think there is more on that this afternoon?
I'm not sure if that point was the main one about lying in parliament, as Baillie seemed to be referring to something that only happened last week. I assume there's another alleged lie from somewhere further in the past? Maybe that's what will be picked up this afternoon.
 
Baillie looks and sounds like a right sleekit cow. Her hair looks like it’s no been washed since Fatboy Salmond was FM.
 
Convener tries to shut up the Deputy Convenor........ embarrassing stuff.
 
Does anyone know anything about the spiked story claim?
Never heard anything of this before other than the usual rumours on relationships that every high profile person seems to attract. There's some chatter that there is a super injunction but I've never seen anything to make me think this is true or untrue.
 
Sturgeon's opening statement this morning was excellent, just the right amount of humility, anger and a couple of well placed shots at Salmond's integrity
Notice she had her opening statement in big print so she didnt have to wear her glasses.

That way you could see the tears
 
Isn't it funny though we have some of the most corrupt politicians on BBC shouting resign while they keep there jobs for even more corrupt practices, true face of Unionism
 
Baillie made her mind up before the committee even begun, she's far from impartial and I'd compare her to a fat orange Lodge member. She's repeating conspiracy theories with no substance.
This is something that I wonder if I'm really naive.

The snp members are throwing up easy dollies, whereas the the non snp members are really going for her personally.

I'm not sure that is the best scrutiny for the two women that were failed in this process.
 
SNP oooot
 
Notice she had her opening statement in big print so she didnt have to wear her glasses.

That way you could see the tears
Professional speaker ,B.
I'm no great fan of NS, or any politician for that matter, but some of them MAKE people listen and pay attention.
Presence.
Even the Baroness is a decent speaker.
Then look at Rennie, Baillie, Ross. The PM.
Amateurs.
 
Must be a election soon, Dross has gone full coup mode, Unionist propaganda to derail the inevitable independence, divide and conquer. The Tories covid response kills thousands , boris illegally prorogues parliament , the tories threaten to break international law , hancock breaks the law and ministerial code , patel breaks ministerial code ...but nicola mis remembers a date 😱
absofukingloutley.
We are surrounded by corruption, yet some relatively small misdemeanour , is made out to be high treason.
Tony Bliar took us to war on false allegations. Thousands upoun thousands of lives were lost. Untold damage which still costs lives every day, affecting millions upoun millions of people. And will do , for a very long time. He stood up in parliament and told everyone that he has seen the evidence of WMD, that we were in iminent danger.
All utter lies, of the most despicable , disastarous variety. He was never put under the same scrutiny as what is going on now. Why cant people see this? Do we all just see what we want to?
People are happy to take the word of AS, who stood up in court and admitted he cheated on his wife. He was found not guilty by the court, and of course that is where we move on, but do we really think numerous women were prepared to stand up in court and tell lies under oath?
The enemy is hiding in plain sight, in fact he is screaming at us, tongue oot, willy oot , fingers in the lugs , and half of Scotland cant see it.
 
absofukingloutley.
We are surrounded by corruption, yet some relatively small misdemeanour , is made out to be high treason.
Tony Bliar took us to war on false allegations. Thousands upoun thousands of lives were lost. Untold damage which still costs lives every day, affecting millions upoun millions of people. And will do , for a very long time. He stood up in parliament and told everyone that he has seen the evidence of WMD, that we were in iminent danger.
All utter lies, of the most despicable , disastarous variety. He was never put under the same scrutiny as what is going on now. Why cant people see this? Do we all just see what we want to?
People are happy to take the word of AS, who stood up in court and admitted he cheated on his wife. He was found not guilty by the court, and of course that is where we move on, but do we really think numerous women were prepared to stand up in court and tell lies under oath?
The enemy is hiding in plain sight, in fact he is screaming at us, tongue oot, willy oot , fingers in the lugs , and half of Scotland cant see it.
Yup having to defend herself against doing the right thing and not abusing her power getting a friend out of crap. Don't care what dodgy grounds the committee think they got but Nicola is right. You don't use your status to make things go away when you're accused of breaking the law. If you want that go join the tory party.
 
I am not a big fan of hers either, some thick fux think that makes you a Boris fan or a Tory, my experience of COVID is what taints my view of her , I think she has politicised the pandemic and come across as anti-English throughout, major faux paus in my view are:

  • Not pitching up to the early pandemic meetings
  • not telling us about the Nike conference outbreak, I contracted COVID after being exposed to 2 attendees, may just be coincidence
  • letting untested patients into care homes, my auld man contracted a lower tract respiratory illness and died in one such care home
  • unable to see my dad before he passed, bullet point 2 sticks in my throat re this
  • Hugely supportive of eat out to help out, a blind man could see the future impact
  • continual point scoring over the number of deaths in England compared to Scotland
  • no obvious strategy to live with COVID in a post pandemic world
  • the point scoring pro-rated £500 to NHS staff then blaming Westminster for taxing, Holyrood collect the levies on this
there are many more and I am sure this pales into insignificance if compared to the FTB but to say she has done well is akin to saying Doidge is great compared to Vine, both woeful

Sorry to hear of your loss Kevin and family. I had no idea. Scotgovs intervention has been as scandalously bad as the other three nations. Better watch what I say as I will be branded as you say, as a Unionist, Boris lover or Tory. Some folk cannae help themselves.
I knew Oweny over many years. Lifelong Hibernian, Comrade and pure gentleman. RIP.

BIG G
 
Sorry to hear of your loss Kevin and family. I had no idea. Scotgovs intervention has been as scandalously bad as the other three nations. Better watch what I say as I will be branded as you say, as a Unionist, Boris lover or Tory. Some folk cannae help themselves.
I knew Oweny over many years. Lifelong Hibernian, Comrade and pure gentleman. RIP.

BIG G
I genuinely thought you were in favour of the union? Am I not correct that you didnt want independance from it?
 
Ideologically I'm pro-Indy, I think the SNP are one of few political parties in the UK engaging seriously with the importance of trans rights in an era where they're being widely scapegoated in an ongoing culture war, and I can't be doing with the tartan tories within the SNP. Ideologically I want Sturgeon to be the first PM of an independent Scotland.

But I think she's at it here. Amazing how she's not read or hasn't seen or can't remember anything relevant. Not quite any explicit denials though, because if she was telling porkies that'd be lying under oath.

I think she and her husband and her chief of staff and her private secretary and the lord advocate should be in the dole queue by the time the pubs reopen. Independence is bigger than Salmond and its bigger than Sturgeon and it'll survive their mutual disgrace.
 
Apparently Baillie as been found to have mispresented one of her questions early on.
 
Notice she had her opening statement in big print so she didnt have to wear her glasses.

That way you could see the tears
That would be the standard font for [preparing] speeches for Scottish Government ministers.
 
I think she and her husband and her chief of staff and her private secretary and the lord advocate should be in the dole queue by the time the pubs reopen. Independence is bigger than Salmond and its bigger than Sturgeon and it'll survive their mutual disgrace.
That seems quite a strong view so I assume you're au fait with what she's done - are you able to enlighten me? I'm still struggling to find any clarity on it.
 
I’ll never vote SNP but let’s be honest...

There’s nothing to see here. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Let’s just try to do better and get this virus pish over with
 
I’ll never vote SNP but let’s be honest...

There’s nothing to see here. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Let’s just try to do better and get this virus pish over with
Yup still 'She said, he said', pretty pointless committee
 
Even the tv doesn't care and has switched aff
 
This is gettign embarrassing

Fuck sake Murdo. Who I quite like.
 
This is gettign embarrassing

Fuck sake Murdo. Who I quite like.
FB_IMG_1614787386049.jpg
 
That seems quite a strong view so I assume you're au fait with what she's done - are you able to enlighten me? I'm still struggling to find any clarity on it.
I think she has aware of - not personally responsible, but conscious of and happy to allow - efforts by a loose group of senior SNP and SG figures to 'get' Salmond.

'Getting' him, in this case, was not about manufacturing complaints, but attempting firstly to decide the results of the investigation in advance (investigating him using a policy that hadn't been enacted and that he wasn't allowed to read, as well as rewriting the policy on the fly to ensure that the overseeing and investigating officers were agreeable to this aim), and then secondly attempting to cover up this improper behaviour by refusing to submit documents to either their own lawyers or to a court armed with a warrant during the judicial review, and then thirdly attempting to cover up this second round of improper behaviour by privately pressuring the crown office and police scotland into pursuing a criminal case (and so delaying the judicial review) based on additional complaints that they went on an internal fishing trip for via email, at least one of which appears to have been false.

The Murrell messages appear to back this up.

I think the start of this process was conducted largely in good faith - I don't think anyone disputes that the initial complainants were telling the truth, and I think the policy was being drafted (initially, at least) for noble ends.

What I think Nicola did in all this was initially take an awkward meeting with an old friend, realise it was political kryptonite, and then wave through her senior cabal to make sure she was distanced from this and that he was buried. I think she's lied to Holyrood and to this committee about what she knew, when, and who she spoke to about what.

I think documents have been withheld from the judicial review and from this committee to prevent exposure of a) her knowledge of the process, b) the decision-making process for the policy and the judicial review, c) the basis for extending the challenge to the judicial review, and d) who was leaking to the papers to get Salmond in trouble ahead of time.

If this set of beliefs is correct - and I recognise this is a multiplying set of ifs and maybes - a bunch of people have done dreadful things, some of which are illegal. What's potentially provable is documents being intentionally withheld and whether she's lied to Holyrood about the meetings with Aberdein and Salmond. The latter is the equivalent of Al Capone being done on tax evasion - it doesn't prove all or even most of what you think has happened and it's nowhere near the scale of those acts, but it's connected, and it's the smoking gun.
 
ps I think Murdo Fraser's come across as a total moron in both sets of testimony. Jackie Baillie and Andy Wightman have been pretty sharp but that's really it.
 
I think she has aware of - not personally responsible, but conscious of and happy to allow - efforts by a loose group of senior SNP and SG figures to 'get' Salmond.

'Getting' him, in this case, was not about manufacturing complaints, but attempting firstly to decide the results of the investigation in advance (investigating him using a policy that hadn't been enacted and that he wasn't allowed to read, as well as rewriting the policy on the fly to ensure that the overseeing and investigating officers were agreeable to this aim), and then secondly attempting to cover up this improper behaviour by refusing to submit documents to either their own lawyers or to a court armed with a warrant during the judicial review, and then thirdly attempting to cover up this second round of improper behaviour by privately pressuring the crown office and police scotland into pursuing a criminal case (and so delaying the judicial review) based on additional complaints that they went on an internal fishing trip for via email, at least one of which appears to have been false.

The Murrell messages appear to back this up.

I think the start of this process was conducted largely in good faith - I don't think anyone disputes that the initial complainants were telling the truth, and I think the policy was being drafted (initially, at least) for noble ends.

What I think Nicola did in all this was initially take an awkward meeting with an old friend, realise it was political kryptonite, and then wave through her senior cabal to make sure she was distanced from this and that he was buried. I think she's lied to Holyrood and to this committee about what she knew, when, and who she spoke to about what.

I think documents have been withheld from the judicial review and from this committee to prevent exposure of a) her knowledge of the process, b) the decision-making process for the policy and the judicial review, c) the basis for extending the challenge to the judicial review, and d) who was leaking to the papers to get Salmond in trouble ahead of time.

If this set of beliefs is correct - and I recognise this is a multiplying set of ifs and maybes - a bunch of people have done dreadful things, some of which are illegal. What's potentially provable is documents being intentionally withheld and whether she's lied to Holyrood about the meetings with Aberdein and Salmond. The latter is the equivalent of Al Capone being done on tax evasion - it doesn't prove all or even most of what you think has happened and it's nowhere near the scale of those acts, but it's connected, and it's the smoking gun.
Thanks for that, it seems quite a comprehensive hypothesis. Has anything come out of today that supports your version of events do you know?
 
That would be the standard font for [preparing] speeches for Scottish Government ministers.
No concern for the trees. Disgraceful.
 
Dafuq is Margaret Mitchell trying to say?? Reminds me of that balloon that was defending Trump at the impeachment trial, complete word salad.
 
Interesting. My view, and I’m not a supporter of the SNP, is that there is very little here of substance. I don’t think there is any evidence at all that anyone was out to ‘get Salmond’. I also don’t see what the motivation would be given he was very much a spent force. It also has to be born in mind that much of the early criticism of Sturgeon made accusations that she’d tried to protect Salmond. Both accusations I think lack evidence and today does nothing to change that.

I think Sturgeons perspective on why the complaint process changed actually makes a lot of sense. The climate of the time, the MeToo movement and the ongoing ability of powerful men to try to avoid responsibility for sexual misconduct (and remember Salmond has admitted he was ‘inappropriate’) sets a lot of the context for me, not the ‘get Salmond’. I also think Sturgeon's point about Salmond showing no care or remorse for this behaviour is bang on.

The stuff about legal advice I have a problem with, but it’s a pretty well worn argument, that releasing this advice would change the nature of future advice. I have problems with that, as I did when Westminster governments have used it, but it doesn’t automatically means there has been duplicity here.

I think she was ill advised to meet with him after the allegations had been made, but this isn’t a smoking gun. The issue here I think is a real issue of a merging of government and party operations, and this really is an issue. But that, it seems to me, is about it, unless of course the QC inquiry finds something very different.
 
Well there’s 8 hours anyone watching that winnae get back. What a loadi Tam Kite. What happens now? Does the committee find the FM guilty and stick her in Cornton Vale?
 

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