Nicola Sturgeon's Henchman; SNP Deputy FM John Swinney refused to hand over evidence after two votes in the Holyrood Parliament citing that to do so would breach the Ministerial Code, now the SNP Government confirms that legal advice will be released to Salmond Inquiry, under the Data Protection Act, a person at work doing their job can be named in documents, so can John Swinney explain why the Ministerial Code trumps Acts of Parliament, the SNP likes to claim that they are standing on the shoulders of giants who have gone before them, did the 'giants' ever think that one day 'pigs' would be on their shoulders?

Dear All 

If you watch Bond movies, you will see there is always a chief villian lurking in the background. And any chief villain worth their salt keeps their hands clean, and sends underlings to do the dirty work. The chief villain usually employees a second, or management group, to administer and direct the thuggery. In the case of the Alex Salmond scandal, the chief villian's second for the Scottish Government is John Swinney. It was Swinney who fronted the disgusting SNP sexualisation of children in schools, remember the Nutella and the banana story. When people complained about what passes for education to Swinney, people were closed down from speaking because the content was deemed 'not fit for adult conversation' to be discussed. If it wasn't fit for adults, why was it fit for children? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujePAmm5uK4 

Of course, what happened there was censorship, the attempt to suppress free speech, the attempt to stop Swinney being held to account. That little episode shows how rotten the SNP is to the core. People being denied the right to speak, and people being denied the right to hear evidence. I suppose this one minor incident should have been a warning of the signs of things to come. During the Salmond Inquiry, it has been said on at least 60 occasions, the SNP Government under John Swinney deliberately withheld evidence or obstructed the Inquiry MSPs investigating properly. 

60 occasions! 

We are long past the notion of a fudge, we are long past the notion of stupidity, we are long past the notion of incompetence, we are sitting in territory of what many people say is 'conspiracy'. If you had to give what happened to Alex Salmond a word, then 'conspiracy' seems a good 'catch all' word to use. Salmond was put through an illegal process, known to be illegal, designed for just him so it seems. He was to be found guilty, the complainers and the investigator met previously prior to the official investigator being appointed. The investigator was said to be 'encouraging' the women to complain, and the investigator wasn't acting neutral. If Salmond hadn't be able to fund his judicial review, he would have been branded a sex pest or worse by a 'rigged' Scottish Government Stasiesque 'court'. In order to cover up the rigged hearing, they escalated to a criminal trial. 

And we all know how that turned out for them. 

In the aftermath of this obscenity, certain people are busy trying to escape justice, they are busy trying to cover up what they did. They are busy trying to suppress witnesses and the truth. One thing the politicians loved to say was 'only guilty fear being investigated', well what we know already, some people are already guilty, guilty of abuse of public office, guilty of breaking their contract. The Scottish Government doesn't employ people to act illegally, well that was the assumption which we all held to be true, is it true anymore tho? 

Why hasn't anyone been sacked? 

The answer is easy, sacked people have no reason not to spill their guts or sell their story! SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon wants to keep people neutralised at present under employment contracts. You see Sturgeon is someone who doesn't generate loyalty, she has to buy loyalty. And Sturgeon cannot afford anyone running off to the BBC, especially anyone close to her. If you look at recent pictures of John Swinney, you can see sitting with his head down in Holyrood. It seems like a lunatic is the deserted dying of thirst, he has no option but to go on in the baking sunshine committing any foul deed or act before he can get shelter and drink. John Swinney's legacy is his part in the most dirty, nasty and grubby affair ever in Scottish politics. This makes dirty Derek Mackay's story pale. Mackay was the homosexual SNP Finance Secretary who sent 270 text messages to a 16 year old boy. Unfortunately for Mackay, the boy's mother found out and raised hell, people accused Mackay of 'grooming' the boy. Mackay now rakes in MSP salary and expenses while failing to carry out his role as an elected politician. So far it is said Derek Mackay has pocketed circa £90k. 

In a series of votes in parliament, the SNP Government have refused to hand over documents, they are obstructing justice. Now, it is time John Swinney to either ante up or face a vote of no confidence. All of the opposition parties have indicated they will ensure a vote of no confidence is passed in him, even the Scottish Greens are onboard. To be fair, the Scottish Greens have no choice, there is an election happening soon. And this scandal is poison to anyone who allows themselves to be tainted by it. After all who can expect to be elected from a minor party if they had any support role in a cover up to jail an innocent man? 

You might as well save your £500 and not stand, save yourself the grief. 

A motion of no confidence in John Swinney has been officially lodged at Holyrood after the SNP Government missed a deadline set by the Scottish Conservatives. Generally what the SNP do with an incompetent minister so Sturgeon doesn't have to sack them is simply move them to another brief. However, I would say that the Scottish Conservatives should continue lodging motion of no confidence in John Swinney if he is transferred elsewhere. Let's face it, John Swinney has crossed his rubicon. I think even he knows his continued existence as an SNP Minister should not continue. MSPs have twice voted for Swinney to hand over the evidence to the committee investigating the handling of complaints against Alex Salmond, but Swinney and co just couldn't give a monkeys. The nonsense used for suppression was that legal privilege prevents the documents from being made public. The bit that you should focus on is the falsehood and claim that ministers would be breaking the ministerial code by doing so without the proper permission from their legal team. 

That is nonsense! 

A person at work doing their job doesn't get that protection from the Data Protection Act1998. Also, the Scotland Act makes it quite clear that the committee has the legal power to compel the release of documents. Let me ask you a question, does a Ministerial 'code' trump Acts of Parliament? 

No! 

This is the nonsense that you as a member of the public is being asked to swallow. Those involved in the Salmond scandal and the Salmond cover up aren't noble people. They are quite despicable individuals, we have seen them lie, we have seen them refuse to answer questions, we have seen them obstruct the Salmond Inquiry. These are people who are ignoble in every sense of the word, ignoble is defined as: 

"low character, aims, etc.; mean; base: his ignoble purposes. of low grade or quality; inferior. not noble; of humble descent or rank." 

This is how far John Swinney has sunk, from a respected SNP Finance minister to the dregs of humanity. And for what? To save Nicola Sturgeon? To protect liars? To shield people who act illegally? Where is the honour in anything that John Swinney has done in suppressing the truth under various bullshit excuses? There is no honour, Swinney should be sacked, he should be forced out of public office, if the public had any confidence in him, that is now gone. It is such an un-usual set of circumstances that Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have now all indicated they will back the  Scottish Conservative motion. After all, we assume when we vote in a government that it isn't corrupt, well the SNP government is corrupt, and the Crown Office is corrupt. If the parliamentary bureau agrees, the vote of no confidence in John Swinney will take place on Tuesday. Leading the motion for the Scottish Cobnservatives will  be MSP Ruth Davidson. 

Nicola Sturgeon appears on Wednesday.  

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross said: 

“Women were let down and more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money was lost. The public deserves to know what happened and the legal advice is crucial to uncovering what mistakes were made. We gave John Swinney one more opportunity to respect the will of the Scottish Parliament. He has failed to do so. Opposition parties have united twice already to demand the legal advice is released. We now call on them to do so a third time. We are still willing to withdraw this motion at any point, if the government respects the will of the Scottish Parliament and publishes the legal advice.” 

I would assume that Sturgeon, her spads and a legal team has been working on her story for Wednesday. Will Swinney will be sacrificed for Sturgeon or is he willing to be? Also, can we trust the SNP Government to produce the full evidence? We are living in a failed State where the rule of law has been abandoned by the ruling class who think they are above the law. Will 'evidence' be turned over in a redacted form making it useless? The Scottish Conservatives should not remove their motion unless they can have verified the integrity of the documents from two sources. One, the government, two from the external lawyers, so they can see if it matches. When trust has gone, you don't operate on the notion that it has been restored on the basis that the person who breached it says so. 

We are too far down the road for that concept to be even entertained. 

Newly elected Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar confirmed his party will vote in favour of the motion of no confidence. 

Sarwar said: 

“John Swinney’s got an opportunity to hand over the legal advice that Parliament, by a clear majority, has demanded of him on two occasions. If he fails to do so, he is deliberately thwarting the work of a parliamentary committee, he is deliberately acting against the will of parliament and we would have no choice but to vote against him in a vote of no confidence in that circumstance.” 

A spokesperson for the Scottish Greens MSPs said: 

“The Scottish Greens have previously voted to ensure that the Government's legal advice is made available to the committee inquiry, and this remains our position.  The Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints has made it clear that it needs access to the Scottish Government’s legal advice on its investigation into Alex Salmond to fulfil their remit, and Parliament has repeatedly backed the committee. The Scottish Government now has just days left to agree the terms of the committee's access to the information requested. Reaching an agreement on this which is acceptable to the committee is clearly the only way to avoid a vote of no confidence. ” 

In a disgraceful dig, the Scottish Greens added: 

“The Conservatives have been shameless opportunists throughout this process, but the Scottish Greens will always defend the integrity of the Scottish Parliament and its ability to hold Government accountable. This inquiry should be focused on identifying what went wrong with the investigation into sexual harassment, and on the interests of the women who were failed by the process and others who will need to have confidence in the complaints process in future.” 

Tacking the second bit on at the end was unnecessary, it seems that the Scottish Greens are reluctant converts to find the truth, they probably feel they have been pushed into a corner. If this happened post an election, would the Greens be onboard? Would the SNP have bought them off in a budget deal? Would the SNP chuck them a mythical £100 million for some green projects that they were probably doing to do anyway, and let them get the full credit as a political force? For years it seems that the Scottish Greens were interested in two issues, lgbt rights and independence, this observation was also noticed by Stephen Daisley, the writer and commentator, when was the last time you saw a Scottish Green candidate hug a tree? 

Finally, the modus operandi in the SNP is to move a failed Minister elsewhere while still keeping them in the Cabinet. It seems that events have moved and that the documents will now be released to the committee as reported by Glenn Campbell from the BBC. So, this begs the question, what has changed? Was there a point which Swinney was no longer prepared to accept, was he considering his position and resigning from the duties Sturgeon gave him? With the documents now to be released, can we assume that was already factored into Sturgeon's preparation on Wednesday? Will the documents be redacted so heavily it makes the advice un-readable? Well, we will see on Tuesday, if and when they are released.  I think redacted so heavily it makes the advice un-readable is worth a bet given what we have seen so far. 

One final thing, in a Bond movie, the baddies always lose, because when their dirty little schemes get found out, the authorities are forced to act. In this case, the authorities would be the UK, James Bond, where are you?

Yours sincerely 

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University