Warning - Danger - MASSIVE BLACK HOLE APPROACHING and Stew wants to chuck YOUR life savings straight into it - Please learn the lessons of the Dugdale debacle and ca' canny this time

Probably because I grew up during the period in which the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six were released, I've always been deeply troubled by the persistent recurrence of severe miscarriages of justice and the utter failure of the criminal justice system to learn lessons from past catastrophic mistakes. As long-term readers may know, I'm inclined to the view that Lucy Letby is probably innocent, and my guess is that she will eventually be exonerated and released, but only after a ridiculously long delay of many years, by which time the psychological damage to her will be beyond imagining.  It is inexplicable that the UK system almost always compounds its errors by doubling down on them when it knows from past experience that it will eventually be forced to confront them anyway, by which time the reputational damage to itself will also be that much greater.

When so many people have been wrongly banged up (or even wrongly executed if you go back far enough), the mindset of someone who is consumed with anger at the criminal justice system because not enough people have been jailed for alleged non-violent offences is alien to me.  But that is precisely where Stuart Campbell stands.  If you asked him what his two political priorities are, and if you managed to get an honest answer out of him, he would undoubtedly say the eradication of trans ideology and getting Nicola Sturgeon jailed.  Not independence for Scotland.  Not the elimination of nuclear weapons to secure a future of humanity.  Not the tackling of the climate emergency to ensure humanity has a habitable planet to live on.  Not ending the genocide and offering justice to the people of Gaza.  Not the alleviation of poverty in Scotland.  No, what motivates Stew, what is literally his heart's desire (and everyone reading this knows deep down that this is true) is pointless revenge against a woman he obsessively hates.

There is nothing that can be done about hatred being Stew's political lodestar, or about the grotesque manifestations of that, but I hope it is obvious to most sensible independence supporters, or indeed to anyone who has any form of constructive political aspiration for this country, just how harmful and foolhardy it would be to follow him down that rabbit hole.  His newly-published threats to the police to take legal action unless they prosecute people in the SNP over the 'ring-fenced fund' episode means beyond doubt that he will soon be once again seeking eye-watering amounts of money from his followers (in the ballpark of what would be required to fund a referendum campaign, ironically) to futilely throw away on yet another revenge-driven court case that he simply cannot win.  I hope the Kezia Dugdale debacle at least gives his disciples pause for thought about whether on this occasion the money might be better spent on something more worthwhile, such as, y'know, actually campaigning for Scottish independence.

I'm not even going to 'pick a side' here and say that I either believe or disbelieve Nicola Sturgeon when she says she knew nothing about Murrell's activities.  The question just doesn't interest me because Ms Sturgeon is no longer SNP leader, she is no longer an MSP, she is no longer in frontline politics in any form.  I do personally think she was foolish to recently attack the current SNP leadership after they expended so much political capital defending her to the hilt, and it also grated on me slightly when she tried a fresh variation of the "it's another example of a woman suffering for the actions of a man" soundbite, which I felt was a cheap way of playing to a certain gallery by generically demonising men.  But what she says and does as a private citizen is a matter for her.  The rest of us should get on with living in the political present where the independence cause is firmly in the hands of John Swinney and cannot be affected much by the actions of past leaders.

We are presently standing at a junction where the two possible routes are signposted as "independence" and "other stuff".  Somewhat ironically in view of a cartoon he once published, Stew is gagging to visit the "other stuff" location and wants you to join him there.  Don't be tempted this time.  

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