Secrets Untold, Alex Salmond, leader of the Alba Party says he has information which he said could destroy SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon, should Salmond follow the advice of Miyamoto Musashi, and un- sheathed information now, dish the dirt, or is he saving the information for a special occasion, with Alba sitting around 3 to 4% in the polls, he has a bigger problem, but where is the missing 10% on the SNP Regional vote going, is there a surprise to be unveiled on Thursday 6th May?

Dear All 

Time for a quote; 

“When in a fight to the death, one wants to employ all one's weapons to the utmost. I must say that to die with one's sword still sheathed is most regrettable.” 

This isn't a quote from a local ned in Glasgow, but from one of the most famous of Japanese swordsmen to ever live, in fact you could say, Miyamoto Musashi was the most famous warrior of his time. He is considered a Kensei, a sword-saint of Japan.  He was the founder of the Niten Ichi-ryū, or Nito Ichi-ryū, style of swordsmanship, and in his final years authored The Book of Five Rings. If you have never the Book of Five Rings, you could say you have missed out. It is a book on how to better yourself, written back in the 16th Century, you might draw a parallel with a modern take of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life. At the present moment, there is an election, we are into the last couple of days of what seems like a forgone conclusion for Nicola Sturgeon. The SNP according to polling are set to win against basically a weak opposition which people don't have faith in. You might ask where the evidence for that belief is, I would say polling. Constant polling done over time shows that the pro UK parties aren't doing two things, firstly not connecting with non-voting pro UK voters, and secondly as I mentioned, they are just a weal opposition. I would also say that Prime Minister Boris Johnson couldn't and shouldn't place the future of the UK in their hands if he was to grant a Section 30 order. The pro UK "leaders" in Scotland don't inspire confidence that they could defend the Union in time of crisis or indeed form a government. During the election, they were asked who was putting themselves forward as a candidate for First Minister, none of them put their hands up. 

That tells you everything you need to know about the pro UK leadership of mainstream parties in Scotland! 

To get to the quote above, about not using all weapons, former First Minister Alex Salmond has given an interview where he has suggested he has the means to “destroy” Nicola Sturgeon. I suppose the question is, why didn't he use it during the campaign, well the Alba strategy is to piggy back off the SNP regional vote, and hopefully use those votes to get into power. He is doing this two-fold, directly and indirectly, his indirect approach is to try and secure the women's vote over the hated Gender Recognition Act. The Gender Recognition Act isn't being pushed by women, after all, women don't want men in dresses in their personal spaces. The push to change the law comes from the homosexual wing of the SNP which controls the party. The LGBT wing are also behind the sexualisation of children in schools, although this is fronted by 'enlightened' heterosexual John Swinney. Swinney is the guy who green lights the content of 'school porn' for kids as Education Minister. The direct approach of Salmond's pitch, you already know, he points out that an SNP list produces no SNP MSPs. Sturgeon's both votes SNP is all about shutting Alex Salmond out of parliament. The SNP and the Scottish Government tried to fit up Alex Salmond, the last thing they want is him in parliament. Forget indyref 2, Salmond is back for revenge, indyref 2 is just a blanket to mask his agenda. 

In comedy just as in politics, timing is everything, which is why, it is understandable that Alex Salmond hasn't fired his guns off re destroying Nicola Sturgeon. The Alba party leader dropped the hint because of the article in a New Yorker who profiled Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister, in which she said sexual misconduct claims against Alex Salmond left her “feeling physically sick”. I personally don't believe for a minute that Nicola Sturgeon felt physically sick over the false claims made against Salmond. Nicola Sturgeon knew personally many of Alex Salmond's accusers, in fact, it has been pointed out how close many of them were to her and her closest allies.  Discussing his feud with Sturgeon and the Holyrood inquiry into his legal fight with her government, Salmond told the magazine: 

“If I wanted to destroy her, that could have been done.” 

So, it seems that Salmond has kept back information for a rainy day, question is what is the information, what is the value of the information, and is it something that Sturgeon could simply ignore or brush off? Over the years, the two most repeated allegations against Nicola Sturgeon which has even made the press and been commented on by herself is that she is allegedly in a fake marriage, and she is a lesbian. The whole fake makeover of Nicola Sturgeon is that she is a married family superwoman holding down a household and career, coupled with the persona of her self-invented notion that she is Scotland's 'Chief Mammy'. Of course, there is no Sturgeon family, she has no kids, she is one of Europe's childless leaders. She isn't a woman of substance which can be observed by the make-up of her previous Cabinets of government. Salmond's objective to get to Holyrood is to turn the Yes movement against her, this is already started, but the plan must be that a viable second independence party will erode her core vote. Increasingly people have commented that the Scottish National Party is looking more like the 'Stonewall and Nonce Enablers Party', that comment has also been applied to the Scottish Greens. The Alba Party although up for independence has parked its tanks on women's rights, so it could be conferred they want to pitch themselves as a party which supports traditional family values. 

The time is short for all parties, Salmond's party needs to captures a few more % points to make their breakthrough, they will no doubt use and attacked Sturgeon for failing to advance the case for independence since 2014. In the six years since Salmond left, Sturgeon has failed to deliver a second referendum. Sturgeon knows that Scottish independence means poverty and austerity max, and she also knows she has no financial reserves to keep Scotland afloat, she needs access to a central bank such as Bank of England or European Central Bank, independence will deliver neither. 

In a well known pitch Salmond said:

 “The problem that Nicola has, and it is one entirely of her own making, is that the case for independence hasn’t advanced one iota since 2014.” 

With the pressure on Sturgeon unveiled two campaign buses and a series of party adverts that omitted any mention of independence or Indyref2. Indy and her personally are becoming toxic. The Salmond feud is now established, that is toxic, the Alba Party being established is toxic to the SNP in the long term. Sturgeon is losing people, she is losing the yes movement and she and her party desperately need money. 

In the race to get the women's vote, which appears to be a key plank in the Alba Strategy, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh is leading the charge, she is Salmond's buddy and has ditched the SNP quicker than someone changing their underwear. She is also the lead candidate for Alba in Central Scotland. It seems that she is putting herself front and centre in Alba's women's videos. In a series of videos, which have decent production values, at Govan Cross and Holyrood, she is standing up for women's rights, in fact she is standing up for Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh. She calls herself an independent woman of independent mind”, this no doubt erases her SNP drone behaviour while SNP MP! In a less than probing interview for The Scotsman’s political podcast The Steamie, Ms Ahmed-Sheikh claimed she doesn’t “work for Russia Today” when asked for her opinion of Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is true, she doesn't work for Putin, her company produces The Alex Salmond Show, and the Russians have bought the show to put on their RT Channel in the UK. During the Salmond criminal trial, the Russians didn't desert Salmond or kick him off their channel. I think that extent of good will by them will long be remembered by Salmond. 

In a putdown to the Scotsman, Shiekh said: 

“I don’t work for Russia Today. I set up a small independent production company to make programmes. I make films with my husband, I make a programme with Alex Salmond. I don’t work for Russia, I work for me.The idea that you are asking me questions about Putin just because my programme is on a channel is quite bizarre because on that basis you could ask a lot of people a lot of questions about foreign policy decisions based on where their programme is aired. I am an independent woman of independent mind.” 

So, you heard it from her own mouth, she works for me, well I never doubt it. 

Asked whether her party leader had been naive to have a show on RT given its links to the Kremlin, Ms Ahmed-Sheikh said the question was irrelevant. 

She said: 

“There is a place and time for foreign policy, it is not even something that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. I don’t have any views of any interest to anybody about any of these things. I am merely doing my work and highlighting issues on a weekly basis that matter to people with full editorial control. The only reason Alex Salmond is being asked is because he works with me, a woman of independent mind and producing this programme. Let’s ask the Tories about Russian involvement given that David Cameron was pleading for Putin’s help in the referendum of 2014. Let’s see who calls on international pals when that referendum is finally delivered.” 

If you think that The Alba Party is like RISE, the defunct socialist bandwagon, then think again, Alba is dangerous to Sturgeon, because the difficulty is killing off a dream. The BBC is ignoring Alba as best as they can, but if the party keeps going, how long can that last? The Scottish Greens could be described by someone as a Stonewall and Trans Party with an interesting in green things, but they aren't an independence party. Along time ago, I floated the idea that Salmond would have to give up a desire for a return to the SNP, now he has as I predicted gone for a new party. Alba is involved in a long game, they will start to contest all FPTP seats post Holyrood 2021, they missed the boat on the Airdrie and Shotts by-election, but if this was 3 months from now, they would have fielded a candidate. I have no doubt about that, and in a post Holyrood election world, you will see a change in the dropping of calling for votes for the SNP in constituency seats. 

Also at some point, if Alba can make their break through with this election, the BBC will be hard pressed to keep Salmond out of televised election debates. The recent stunt of projecting their party's symbol on to BBC Scotland's headquarters has been done before with the SNP keep a light for Scotland at the EU. The difference was the SNP lied this was done by the EU when they were behind it. The purpose of the stunt was a response to the BBC's decision to "ban" Alex Salmond from the television debates, ahead of tonight's final chance for leaders to go head-to-head before the polls open on May 6. 

Alba Campaign Manager, and former SNP Cllr Chris McEleny said: 

“The BBC apparatchiks may take our debating lines but they cannot take away our freedom to make a fool of their attempts at censorship. By depriving ALBA of our proper position in the debates and in their news output they have exposed themselves as unfit to be Scotland’s public service broadcaster. When Alba's community based campaign proves successful BBC bosses will spend the next five years explaining why their attempts to rig an election left them with egg on their faces and the ALBA symbol on their building. ” 

Finally, the Alba Party sits on 4% according to both panelbase and the BMG polling companies, in fact as a final check, the SKY News poll puts Alba on 3%. I don't think that anyone in the BBC will be explaining anything re their conduct anytime soon. All that being said, Opinium would did the very latest poll for Sky News, yet again flagged up that missing 10% in the SNP regional vote. Where are those SNP voters going to cast their regional vote? Although, the trend remains SNP in the big picture, which I would add highlights how bad pro UK politicians are in Scotland in the eyes of the voting public, it's that 10% which catches my eye. Post election, maybe Alex Salmond will use his un- sheathed information on Sturgeon, once the election has died away, and he has time to pick his moment, maybe if he gets to Holyrood, it might be done in the Holyrood Chamber, how juicy would that be?

Yours sincerely 

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University