Dear All
Such is the state of the independence
campaign collapse that the Scottish Government is now breached its own Freedom
of Information (FOI) rules.
Independence has been made complex by the
sheer utter stupidity of the Scottish Government under the leadership of Alex
Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.
Instead of being ‘masterminds’ they are
rapidly turning into never minds!
The latest piece of self inflected wounds
is an official report finding the SNP Government believing they don’t have to
obey the law of Scotland.
By not releasing e-mails, opposition
parties have another open goal to shoot at, a slight tap and it’s in the net,
they say this debacle exposes attempts to “nobble” a leading expert who clashed with
ministers over the referendum.
Trust is now a major issue in the
independence debate and with Scotland’s Information commissioner ruling that
ministers “frustrated” an FOI request.
The Scottish Government’s top civil servant
is now facing fresh calls to re-open an inquiry into the row but given the
civil service is paralysed, it is doubtful an inquiry will be heard unless it
would clear the SNP Government.
Faith in due process has disappeared in the
minds of opposition parties and the public.
The ruling yet again puts fresh pressure on
the SNP over compliance with FOI. Previously, Ministers have clashed with
information commissioner Rosemary Agnew.
That episode was regarding the existence of
legal advice on Scotland’s place in Europe after independence.
It later emerged there was no such advice
exposing people in the SNP Government to the charge they were liars.
Alex Salmond was publicly branded a liar,
and despite appoint his own judge and jury to clear him, the court of public
opinion didn’t, the charge is still uttered by opposition MSPs.
The background to the Qvortrup incident was
First Minister Alex Salmond reading out a letter to MSPs at Holyrood in October
2011.
This letter was purported to be from Dr
Qvortrup, recanting his referendum criticism in a newspaper article.
One major problem for Salmond, he was
forced to apologise after it turned out the letter had been drafted by an SNP
adviser and was not endorsed by the academic.
When pressed by the Labour Party officials
withheld an exchange in which SNP adviser Kevin Pringle attempted to get the
academic to change tack and urged him to claim he had acted first without
interference from the government. It was only released under appeal.
SNP adviser Kevin Pringle is widely
regarded as smart, well maybe in the Salmond clique he is something due to the
others being so lacking but this is an incident that need not have happened.
Stupidity caused this, lack of ethics
caused and arrogance caused this, now the price has been paid, another brick
has been laid that the SNP Government cannot be trusted.
Labour’s Hugh Henry said the ruling left
further questions for Mr Salmond to answer over the affair.
He said:
“The Information Commissioner’s decision is
a damning indictment of the disgraceful manner in which the SNP government
operates and the extraordinary lengths they will go to cover up their deceit.”
Henry added:
“It was serious enough that the First
Minister read out a faked letter of retraction to parliament, but for his
adviser to then seek to persuade Dr Qvortrup to be complicit in a fraud and
then withhold the incriminating e-mails, confirms that this SNP administration
is incapable of being straight with the Scottish people. There remain big
questions as to what the First Minister knew about the attempt to nobble Dr
Qvortrup and the subsequent cover-up. If Mr Salmond is clinging to the excuse
he was misled himself, why was no disciplinary action taken against those
responsible? In light of this ruling I intend to write again to Permanent
Secretary.” A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “We have received the
Information Commissioner’s decision and are considering its terms.”
Independence support has totally collapsed.
23%!
The public aren’t stupid and each day, Alex
Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon by their actions provide reasons to vote no to
independence.
You can’t buy independence, you can’t lie
your way there either; and as we are seeing Salmond’s judgment is being called
into question, too many bad decisions and no forward thinking.
Nicola Sturgeon is a liability as
independence minister, the blame game better start early because out of that
solutions can be found, and if the Salmond Government could obey the law of
Scotland it would be so peachy!
Another bad day for Alex Salmond, have
another pudding Alex!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow
University
No comments:
Post a Comment