Nicola Sturgeon’s Pre-Funeral; former SNP leader Alex Salmond wins court battle with Scottish Government, after the ‘wee victory’ in Edinburgh Salmond calls on top civil servant to quit her post, but is Sturgeon’s career marked for the funeral pyre, TV interview sees downtrodden SNP leader on the backfoot

Dear All

One thing that the SNP like to do is distract people by flagging up a bit of #fakenews, yesterday, the fake news was Nicola Sturgeon is going to announce a second independence date ‘very soon’. The media and commentators would normally be all over this story but this is a deflection from what you should be looking at.

So, what should you be looking at today?

Let me assist you, Alex Salmond wins court battle with Scottish Government.

Can you imagine the heat on Nicola Sturgeon’s neck now that Salmond has won his legal battle with the Scottish Government after it admitted it mishandled sexual harassment complaints against him? Can you sniff a return of SNP membership, the marshalling of Salmond’s forces, a bloody coup behind the scenes?

Can you imagine Nicola Sturgeon and her SNP Chief Executive husband Peter Murrell quietly retiring, him out the door and her steeping away to the back benches?

In truth, I didn’t think that Alex Salmond would lose, after all how perverse would it be if the Scottish Courts had backed an unfair system put into place by the Scottish Government? I wonder how many people will stop for a moment and ask the general question, why would the Scottish Government put in place an unfair system in the first place? They must have know about human rights, they must have known about Article Six, the right to a fair trial, they are staffed by multiple lawyers!

Salmond currently sitting in the political wilderness is 64, he is also doing a show on the Russian Channel RT, although he would want to possibly return to the political scene, well it is easy money and secured, he is a man without a party.

He is a punter!

Salmond has won a battle, but he is a long way from winning the ‘war’ before he can even think about a ‘D-Day’ landing storming the SNP HQ for a membership application. 

He has been accused of sexual misconduct by two female civil servants relating to his time in office five years earlier. He has always strongly denied the allegations and any criminality but in order to get a candidacy, it rather looks like he would need to become leader.

Of course, if he does win all the way, you can imagine the sickening photo op of ‘unity’ photos with Nicola Sturgeon being played out in the press. Nicola would be doing a lot of talking saying things, like it is ‘right matters can be discussed’ etc etc. One fly in the ointment is the separate police investigation ongoing and active and digging like Yorkshire coal miners, looking for any nuggets of interests.

Today’s victory was not about the substance of the allegations against Alex Salmond but the process used, speaking after a hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh; Mr Salmond hailed an "emphatic victory". Before you get carried away, this win doesn’t rate a victory parade through the streets of the Capital like a Rome General entering Rome. After the hearing, it appears that Salmond had nothing good to say about the Scottish Government's Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans. He accused her of wasting "huge amounts of public money and to milk it added in this was an incompetent attempt to enforce an unlawful process. I wonder if Nicola Sturgeon has given Evans assurances on her future job prospects given that her own look a bit ropey these days.

Salmond added:

"Now, having incurred those costs to the public purse, she has collapsed the case prior to a full hearing. As a former First Minister, I find that conduct entirely unworthy."

In a lengthy statement, Evans apologised for how the complaints were dealt with but she left the door open for the Scottish Government to re-investigate the allegations.

Evans said:

"Lawyers for the Scottish Government and for Alex Salmond have this morning informed the Court of Session that his action has been settled and the Court has approved that settlement. As part of the settlement, I have accepted that the decision reached after the investigation of two complaints made against Mr Salmond should be set aside. This action is being taken because it has become clear that, in one respect only (albeit an important one), the investigation was procedurally flawed. However, it is important to stress that this relates to the operational application of the Procedure for Handling Complaints Involving Current or Former Ministers (‘the Procedure’)”.

This translates to FU Salmond.

Evans added:

"The Scottish Government considers the Procedure itself to be robust and it remains in place. After reassessing all the materials available, I have concluded that an impression of partiality could have been created based on one specific point - contact between the Investigating Officer and the two complainants around the time of their complaints being made in January 2018. The full picture only became evident in December 2018 as a result of the work being undertaken to produce relevant documents in advance of the hearing.

I want to apologise to all involved for the failure in the proper application of this one particular part of the Procedure. There is nothing to suggest that the Investigating Officer did not conduct their duties in an impartial way”.

Evans concluded by saying:

"Unfortunately, the interactions with the complainants in advance of the complaints being made meant that the process was flawed, however impartially and fairly the Investigating Officer conducted the investigation. All the other grounds of Mr Salmond’s challenge have been dismissed. The Scottish Government has acted in good faith at all times and will continue to do so. It was right and proper that these complaints were investigated and I stand by the decision to carry out that investigation. It is also important to note that the procedural flaw in the investigation does not have implications, one way or the other, for the substance of the complaints or the credibility of the complainers. The Judicial Review was never about the substance of the complaints, but about the process that took place to investigate those complaints. It is accordingly open to the Scottish Government to re-investigate the complaints and, subject to the views of the complainants, it would be our intention to consider this - however, this will only be once ongoing police inquiries have concluded”.

If the police investigation falls flat, then it would be interesting to see if Evans would be up for ‘Round Two’, but given that is so far down the road, she might have 'cleared her desk' and headed off into the setting Sun of retirement.

Finally, although Salmond has hailed his technical win as an "emphatic victory", victory, yes, emphatic, not really, there still the several battles and probably plenty of ‘leaking’ to the press yet to come. The SNP Cult has moved on since the Salmond era, everyone has their new chair on the Titanic captained by Nicola Sturgeon; they wouldn’t want to scrabble for a new chair. The SNP don’t even want Alex Salmond in their life raft!

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University