[BouncingHibees]

Way I see it if you 100% believe the FM then you somehow are buying her incredulous story about forgetting the meeting with Aberdein (Ecks staffer) and buying the laughable accounts of both her and her husband about the meetings at her home. I mean c'mon they just are not credible to anyone with the slightest bit of awareness.

Sturgeon can just deny and front this out because her government have obstructed and deceived the committee set up to investigate this at every point, and are STILL doing so. There are huge questions over who set up the March 29th meeting and what was discussed and by whom. That information is required, Aberdein's statement and the November legal advice to be able to form an accurate picture of what happened.

In short I'm not best pleased with the way she and the SG have behaved in all this and its proven highly embarrassing for Scotland. I'm not sure whether she got caught out trying to cover up for eck and had to row back, or that her and hubby saw a way to remove him from the independence debate and it spiralled out of control....Either way not an earthly do I believe her story.

Committee is a farce, there shouldn't even be a Committee for something so minor, you look at Westminster and the lies/cover ups/unlawful contracts and there is zero accountability too any of it.

On the Committee, the evidence is lacking there and the Committee members are seen in not great light in Scotland, we have Baillie who has already made her mind up spouting off on TV stations against Committee rules and we have clear smearing and false statements from certain Unionists on that Committee during it. Nicola handled it well.

'He said, she said' just doesn't cut it. 5000 members signed up to the SNP in a day and independence polls went up again after Nicola spoke so she's done something right, she acted in good faith and that's what the public like.

[hibeejim21]

She explained the Aberdein situation/meeting yesterday. You either believe it or disbelieve it and I believe it based on the way she presented her account of it and the genuine way she covered the details of it - she didn't come over as a blatant liar in any manner or form - it is as simple as that! However, that doesn't mean her version of events was always totally watertight or even (at times) plausible BUT SHE DID OK, ITEM BY ITEM, UNDER THESE DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES. I can't get inside her head to decipher her memory re a brief rapidly arranged meeting at Holyrood with Jeff Aberdein on 29 March 2019 during a busy day of lotsa meetings and neither can you. Therefore it comes down to either being speculative about it or go along with her account which was that, in fact, she could vaguely recall this brief meeting but it was a prelude to the bigger one with Ecky on 2 April which she vividly remembers due to the enormity of the issue and the political ramifications that would likely ensue. IMO this is an element of all the "he said-she said assertions" that remain from Nicola's day long interview. At the end of the eight hours in the "hot seat", she was able to look the online electorate in the eye and assert that despite all the criticism thrown its way, Scottish democracy does actually work. The committee used Scotland Act powers to demand the legal advice after the SNP's political rivals worked together to create the threat of a no confidence vote. Hence the Scot Parliament managed to check the Scot Govt. For me, the official finger of blame should be pointed at the woman who should've resigned some months ago - BouncingHibees No 1 target Leslie Evans (The Permanent Secretary). But note that contrary to ritchie's comment in thread #548 that "..... Nicola made it clear that any such fault could not be laid at her door.....", she actually commented at about 4.20pm yesterday that she ultimately bore the responsibility as she was effectively the "Head of the Dept/Govt" and the "buck stops at her door". She subsequently apologised re the failure of the judicial process etc etc plus the failure of the process to the women complainants - not quite the "it wisnae me ..." scenario (note she never condemned Evans or any other CS/CO party eg Hardie worthy of blame during her 8 hours of scrutiny!!!!) - REMEMBER WE ARE TALKING ABOUT AN EXISTENTIAL ISSUE POLITICALLY AND IT WAS A SERIOUS ONE!!! Lets be candid re this whole situation - it's been a long, horrible exhausting process and dare I say it - IT MIGHT ALMOST BE OVER AND ABOUT TIME TOO!!!!! And btw not quite the stuff of Banana Republics and for most of the general public that is enough. Also it is time for the SNP (if it has any sense!) to quickly "get its house in order" before the start of the campaign for the Scot election in May and "push on positively" off the back end of a huge positive public response to the FM following all this desperate Unionist/RW media bullshit that has dragged on since the middle of last week!!

No she did not. Nor did she refute anything, just said alternative explanations existed for Gov and CS actions and consequent events without ever detailing what those alternatives were. Then carried on attacking Salmond, even having the nerve to imply that he was guilty in spite of the courts verdict.

Tell you what though, she can easily get round the whole he said/she said stuff by simply releasing Aberdein’s written submission and email/diary evidence and hey presto anything about hearsay goes bye-bye. Also just as relevantly the suppressed correspondence between Aberdein and Sue Ruddick and Liz Lloyd, Sturgeon’s Chief of Staff and very probably the leaker to the papers. But no - all suppressed to the committee.

So instead look at the original and redacted versions of Salmond’s submission. Note the differences. 5 redactions, all concerning the same meeting. Find Geoff Aberdein’s evidence at Salmond’s trial and what you’ll find is that Sturgeon most definitely lied to Parliament. And we’re not talking mixing up a couple of dates either.

And if you still don't want to believe anything untoward happened and you don’t mind a bit of lying and cheating, the only other possible conclusion you’re going to reach is that Sturgeon has been treated like a complete xxxx idiot by her aides and the Civil Service.

[BouncingHibees]

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/1913...cy-theory/

[0762]

When did Sturgeon say Salmond was guilty yesterday Jim???? Was it an implicit statement or an explicit one??? I think she was inferring that his behaviour was unacceptable and massively disappointing from from her point of view and that of past colleagues who admired him and expected better. Forget the not guilty verdict. That confirmation is fine - it was all about the shock and disbelief that a man in his powerful position behaved like that for a good few years. Re the Aberdein meeting that you view as unexplained - fair enough but I'm just focused on her explanation of that meeting arrangement itself, how it was arranged and accepted she had little recollection of the meeting. On the corroboration of this serious data leak by Duncan Hamilton and Kevin Pringle, the FM said their evidence was essentially hearsay since they hadn't been present and suggested the inquiry should get the relevant govt officials and Aberdein to come and testify directly in private. I personally find this Aberdein issue to be a really conflated one that I'm sure has "flown over the heads of most MOPs" by now - dragged on for far too long ad nauseum. And btw a series of diary mistakes won't make most folk want the FM to go/resign anyway!!! Another thing to say is she didn't play for the sympathy vote during her evidence either. I think there was just one mention of her other work with COVID. IMO for many voters, who might well believe all politicians "duck and and weave", any debit items in Nicola's performance will be set against the considerable credit she has built up over the last 12 months. Also the deeper significance of minute details probably escaped all but the most disciplined legal minds, and in any case, research shows judgements are generally based on the way people conduct and present themselves, not on individual facts and figures. So the public may well be ready to call it quits, more important things to worry about at the mo. My guess is that committee members will not be rushed into a decision or another voting pact with the toxic Tories. They'll want to process what they've heard, see due process completed and both inquiry reports just as the FM originally proposed.
Lastly back to the subject of bias by Lesley Evans implied by Lord Pentland when he reckoned she acted unlawfully, I reckon (just an opinion) that this observed bias could be relative to the fact that Salmond is reckoned to have harrassed a good number of female civil service staff over a long period and certain civil servants attached to the judicial review/petition may well have been biased against Salmond and what he did. It could be, in some cases, unconscious bias. I'll wager "good money" they were prob all female officials. But that is just a speculative guess on my part.

[ritchiebaby]

Regarding my comment that Nicola said that the fault could not be laid at her door, I can only state that Nicola did say that the Daily Record story did not come from her, nor someone acting on her authority or at her instruction or on her request. On the release of one of the complainant's names allegedly by one of her officials, she said that it did not happen in the way described. Tellingly, she did not say "It did not happen".

On the two votes at Holyrood requesting release of the legal advice, which were subsequently ignored (hardly democracy at work), she said that such legal advice could not be routinely published. This committee is not routine business, it is an investigation into the Government's handling of the harassment complaints against Alex Salmond.

Nicola's admission that ultimately the overall responsibility is hers, is just a generality, in that all Government successes and failures are down to her. Given that Alex did not demand her resignation in the event of her guilt as determined by the committee, she could hardly recommend that individuals should be asked to resign.

To be fair to her and her supporters, I had given up long before 4.20pm, so anything said after lunchtime is all new to me other than reading this thread and news reports.

[0762]

It's all ultimately down to interpretation ritchie and people can believe what they wanna believe. I'm more interested in seeing the FM move on from this difficult period where there are no real winners. Also as Jim said before, Ecky is not guilty but lots n lots of folk regard him as being guilty and the cause of all this shit but he couldn't be "brought to book" because of a lack of evidence, something I actually said in a thread at the very beginning of this fiasco well before this scandal finally hit a court of law - evidence from years gone by very difficult to come by. So proof of guilt almost impossible to verify. The disappointment was always why the case was ever brought to a law court in the first place. My wife regards him as guilty of unsatisfactory sexual behaviour in the workplace and I'd say most female members of my family and friends generally share the same view that the female complainants were badly let down. Is there a strong gender disparity re that perception of Ecky being a sleazy sex offender??? I don't know! My only response to that is it appeared to be possibly a minor offences case if it was ever pursued in a law court but I was never gonna argue with that female viewpoint - life's too short ha ha ha! I will also add that in many similar instances, a company or business that experienced such a scandal would try to discreetly remove the individual and possibly "pay him off" to avoid the huge negative publicity! I've witnessed this type of action twice and I can vividly recall one instance when a paedophile, a married man with kids, was discovered by IT checkers from a well known Edinburgh company and guess what - the company opted to sack him immediately, pay him off with a generous sum of money but the HR instruction was not to report him to the Police (what a great moral stance eh!! NOT!!!) in order to avoid any damaging publicity suffered by the company. In Ecky's case it was slightly different in the fact that he was accused of historical sexual misbehaviour but I'll bet the Scot govt would've similarly loved to have kept this whole scandal discreetly "under wraps" and dealt with internally for obvious reasons incl avoidance of all the shit that we are discussing - it's a f##### minefield of unsubstantiated speculative shit!!! They couldn't do it because they are committed to due process and transparency and exposed to public and media scrutiny unlike previously mentioned unnamed businesses who were not so closely scrutinised and handled it differently.

[0762]

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/1913...cy-theory/

One really must "take a step back" and seriously ask why the SNP govt would ever conspire against Alex Salmond in the way that he, certain media "suspects" and the usual conspiracy theorists all over SM were insinuating!! The whole idea of this actually happening was absolutely absurd. A conspiracy against someone who was gone from the front line of Scottish politics and the SNP govt in a secure enough position and never compelled to go there at all for any reason!!! It didn't make any sense and good to see that these legal files finally debunk some of the ridiculous inferences that really dragged on for far too long!!

[hibeejim21]

That proves absolutely nothing and 'debunks' nothing.

The key questions STILL remain and do not encourage trust in the SG.

Some facts:

Legislation was made retroactively to include Salmond ( and has only ever been used once against one person and then quietly shelved)
The investigator discussed the case with complainers.
The complainers, civil servants and Sturgeon's own staff discussed the case.
Murrell's "We''ve lost the battle, we'll win the war" WhatsApp messages.
Judgement in the civil case... and I quote "tainted by apparent bias".
Government counsel saying the civil case was insupportable.
Government counsel complaining about government withholding evidence.
Government withholding evidence from the Committee, releasing only selected and heavily redacted documents.
Over 20 requests for information - refused. Warrants ignored.
Nicola's highly 'selective' memory and ludicrous claims throughout.


All of that is true, and all of it points to something rotten in the state of Holyrood.

[0762]

It debunks some of Ecky's insinuations re sisting the judicial process and sure, there are lotsa questions/theories in what was predicted to be a "can of worms" - everybody to their own opinion and their "conspiracy theory" insinuations without 100% proof either but admittedly lotsa suspicion. I've commented previously that there could well have been an individualistic issue re a bias towards Salmond because of his crass behaviour but I don't think it was an all-embracing govt conspiracy - absolute rubbish IMO with no logical reason to follow that route whatsoever plus too much to lose! I call it possible self-preservation/protectionism in a situation within a government that has been consistently described as a potential "political minefield with lotsa trip wires". I must say, as previously commented, I wanna just move on from this shit in which the original perpetrator (not the Scot govt!) who was found not guilty would've likely been sacked if he'd been exposed during his period in office just like anybody else behaving in this way in any business/company. And what about the women/complainants who were let down by the whole judicial process??? A lotta people forgetting the biggest failure that these women have been let down badly. Remember that originally many "conspiracy theorists" presented an argument (another conspiracy theory!) that these eleven(?) women had formed some kinda conspiracy pact to bring down Ecky years and years later, well after the events of such inappropriate sexual advances by a sitting FM. It transpired that these women are random, unrelated people who eventually came forward after the initial complaint made by two women within their unrelated group. That initial complaint was one of more interest to me (re being a wee bit suspicious of the poss motives to raise such an issue at that time) than the eventual bigger number of random offended parties who came forward and confirmed there was a historical problem attached to Ecky, the significance of which we don't really know but we have a fair idea re what was going on. Of course that led to my previous initial remarks that solid evidence and proof of guilt was likely gonna be difficult to present in a legal sense. By gum, how prophetic was that comment!! Of course that leads on to questions re the robustness of the processes available to govt and how to deploy proper human resources to good effect in ensuring trust in said processes to progress govt instructions/actions as effectively as possible.

[0762]

Way I see it if you 100% believe the FM then you somehow are buying her incredulous story about forgetting the meeting with Aberdein (Ecks staffer) and buying the laughable accounts of both her and her husband about the meetings at her home. I mean c'mon they just are not credible to anyone with the slightest bit of awareness.

Sturgeon can just deny and front this out because her government have obstructed and deceived the committee set up to investigate this at every point, and are STILL doing so. There are huge questions over who set up the March 29th meeting and what was discussed and by whom. That information is required, Aberdein's statement and the November legal advice to be able to form an accurate picture of what happened.

In short I'm not best pleased with the way she and the SG have behaved in all this and its proven highly embarrassing for Scotland. I'm not sure whether she got caught out trying to cover up for eck and had to row back, or that her and hubby saw a way to remove him from the independence debate and it spiralled out of control....Either way not an earthly do I believe her story.

Committee is a farce, there shouldn't even be a Committee for something so minor, you look at Westminster and the lies/cover ups/unlawful contracts and there is zero accountability too any of it.

On the Committee, the evidence is lacking there and the Committee members are seen in not great light in Scotland, we have Baillie who has already made her mind up spouting off on TV stations against Committee rules and we have clear smearing and false statements from certain Unionists on that Committee during it. Nicola handled it well.

'He said, she said' just doesn't cut it. 5000 members signed up to the SNP in a day and independence polls went up again after Nicola spoke so she's done something right, she acted in good faith and that's what the public like.

I'm repeating myself as I said this a long time - Nicola Sturgeon is highly regarded at home and abroad for a lotta reasons but one of the main ones in Scotland is that many people still regard her as "the girl next door who made it to the top in government"! It is obviously not the only reason but it is one of the main ones at grassroots level. I've personally met her a couple of times in Leith community circles and she comes over as a really genuine person, contrary to some of the scurrilous stuff that is bandied about in SM circles. Lets move to a hypothetical worst case scenario where by some chance the FM was removed from office by these conspiring Unionist c#### due to a breach of whatever Ministerial Code one wants to pick out from a "minefield" of poss breaches that a senior govt official could possibly incur while a whole group of sneering toxic Tories mocked Scotland and the Scottish population in their lofty Brit govt position where far worse unlawful practises and breaches are being committed by them with impunity and they remain place no matter what!!! That situation would be unforgiveable and that negative book title, "The Tragedy of Scotland", would be so fitting and deserving! However, I doubt that will happen - only a hypothesis but the impact on the country, plus the repercussions, would be horrendous and that is why these Tory bastards, the RW media and complicit Unionist allies like Baillie (who should've been forcibly removed from that committee for code of conduct breaches together with the partial Murdo Fraser!!!) wanna bring her down.