Last week I published a previous article from this blog in 2022 titled As the Police close in. It had a big impact. Here is another from an even earlier date December 2020. I think readers will be interested in this one as well as this matter still has to be resolved properly as it surely will, given a bit more time.
THE ODD COUPLE
There is a saying in politics “always keep it credible”. It is good advice, stray from it and you open up more and more questions. Worse, even your own supporters find it increasingly difficult to support your version of events and they go quiet, leaving only the skeptical and critical audience in place.
I have to say I always thought this would be the most likely development path in the botched attempts by the Scottish Government in seeking to stitch up the Former First Minister Alex Salmond, and so it has proved.
It is enormously difficult to cover up a plot of this scale, particularly against so prominent a target, one with many friends and allies all willing to publicly support him and ask the difficult questions and expose the many areas where the contrived storyline falls apart.
As the false narrative is shredded , fewer and fewer accomplices want to stick their necks out further than they are already exposed, so a pandemic of amnesia is everywhere as witnesses rush back to change their sworn evidence as further evidence from others exposes and makes extremely vulnerable their own positions. The Inquiry, even in these early stages, and still lacking full disclosure of many of the vital papers, including the ignored legal advice, is already mired in increasing difficulty for those responsible for the plot.
Leslie Evans in particular looks increasing vulnerable, despite her best efforts to distance herself from the action, the evidence each day puts her closer and closer to the very centre of the plot. And the evidence of the most recent witnesses gives her a much more central and decisive role than her own evidence suggested. There is already no possibility that her evidence and the evidence of the more recent witnesses can both be true. That position has no prospect of improving in the weeks ahead but has every probability of becoming much more serious and critical for her future in her current role. She had already lost the battle and now she is looking more and more like the first casualty of the war.
She did not do this alone however and it is important that the others involved are equally exposed as well, no matter who they are.
The most recent witness I watched was the evidence presented by .Peter Murrell, the husband of Nicola. I am sorry but with the best will in the World his version of events was a nonsense, not scarcely believable, completely unbelievable. I can only deduce that would be the verdict of every married couple in the country. No husband and wife lives life in the same house on the basis that Peter attempted to outline to the Inquiry. Several members made public their disbelief of his version of events during his interview, many more at home would have been a lot less polite than the committee members were. It suggested they both lived in parallel universes where communication was more regulated and difficult than between planets.An odd couple indeed!
Now of course it must be difficult. The more so where the First Minister and the Chief Executive of the largest political party in the country are married and share the same house. That inevitably must throw up some real difficulties and conflicts of interest. Who knew? Well pretty much everybody, because I can’t find any other example of it, in any other country, anywhere, ever! This is something that needs the urgent attention of the Party , it cannot possibly be allowed to continue. One of the two will have to stand down.
Another huge mistake was his statement about WhatsApp messages where his answers were set in the present tense, where he stated “I am not on WhatsApp I do not use it” I don’t know if he was advised to say this but if he was he needs to get rid of that advisor. Why? Well before the sun rose the next day it was exposed by Wings that he did use WhatsApp, he had just stopped using it two weeks before. Hence the strict use of the present tense. If you wanted to send out a clear signal that you are being less than straightforward in your answers this was it…in spades. Since this was revealed his new story has now changed to yes he does have WhatsApp on his phone, he just doesn’t use it!
He followed that up by releasing a message sent to members by Nicola and confirming that the SNP had no role in the Salmond affair, it was clearly a Scottish Government matter only. Now I have no doubt he was trying to help but I am not convinced this helped his wife as it immediately greatly weakened her previous explanation of the meeting in her house not requiring a civil servant present and proper minutes of the content of the meeting as it was a “Party matter” not a Government one.
As this small section of the Guardian report highlights there were a number of other “problems” that arose from his evidence
“Murrell first told the committee he was not at home during the meeting but admitted under questioning that he arrived home while it was going on to find three people in their living room, with Sturgeon and Salmond in another room.
It has already been established that the three others were Liz Lloyd, Sturgeon’s chief of staff, Aberdein, and Duncan Hamilton QC, Salmond’s close friend and legal adviser. Murrell told Wightman he said hello and went upstairs for a shower, and did not press his wife on why they were there.
Murrell also told the committee he was aware Salmond could be facing investigations in London involving the Crown Prosecution Service at around the time Salmond first appeared in Edinburgh sheriff court on 14 charges of alleged assault and breach of the peace. Salmond was later acquitted of all the charges.
None of those charges involved alleged offences in London, and the Met police inquiry did not become public knowledge until early 2020. The Met later announced it was not taking any action on those claims.”
How Peter knew about these, indeed was advocating pressure being applied on these allegations suggests very close co-operation with those making the allegations does it not? How could he know otherwise, after all his evidence was he did not discuss this matter with his wife and it had nothing to do with the SNP?
It was a hugely unprofessional, troublesome performance and casts severe doubts on his personal integrity and therefore the rest of his answers. He did his wife no favours.
What needs to happen, now, urgently? The Scottish Government must release all the requested papers, including the legal advice. If these papers , as widely expected, reveal that the Scottish Government were advised that their moves would be rejected by the Judge, but, despite this the Scottish Government still determined to proceed in a move designed to expose Alex Salmond to public ridicule, using a great deal of public money to do so, then that should be admitted and those responsible for that decision, all of them, should be named and their identities made public.
We have not even reached the start of the main witnesses when Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon are required to give evidence. I have no worries for Alex but I am concerned that the way this is already going Nicola could end up in an even more serious and difficult position than she already is. A bit of honesty and an end to trying to block evidence and witnesses coming forward can only help the Scottish Government position because at the moment they appear to be a bunch of conniving desperadoes engaged in the futile concealment of their dealings in this matter. Worse, they are really not very good at it.
I am, as always
YOURS FOR SCOTLAND
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YOURS FOR SCOTLAND 