Not many people can claim to have been bullied by a former hostage of the Taliban, so there's always that

I know I said last night that I hoped not to post any further about Alba internal politics for a while, but the situation keeps escalating and escalating, and the intimidation is getting so direct and blatant now that it's almost entering into the realms of the downright comical.

This morning I received yet another direct message on Twitter from Yvonne Ridley - I no longer see much point in protecting her identity.  She was once again gloating and taunting me at great length about the fact that she claims to have inside knowledge that a decision has been taken to expel me from the Alba Party.  Her implication is that there are trumped-up charges about a breach of confidentiality rules (an allegation that I have already addressed and shown to be without foundation).

There are only really two possibilities here.  One is that Ridley is a Walter Mitty style fantasist and that none of this is true.  I take that possibility extremely seriously given what others have told me about Ridley's past behaviour.

The second possibility is that Ridley is telling the truth, but that would by definition mean the independence of Alba's disciplinary processes are a sham, because no hearings have been held, and I have heard nothing about an expulsion except from Ridley and her own boasts.

Over to you, Alba.  I await with keen interest to discover whether Ridley is telling the truth or lying.  I'm going to work on the firm assumption that it's the latter, and that Alba's internal procedures and commitment to due process are not some sort of window dressing for a Mickey Mouse organisation in which vindictive bullies wield arbitrary power. But if by any chance she's telling the truth, there will be very serious implications, and those implications will not just be for me personally.

And one final but important point.  Here is an example of the low quality of what passes for Ridley's bullying attempts - 

"If you want to elevate your wee blog, why don't you do a story on the Aye App."

Hilarious, Yvonne, hilarious.  Who needs the Morecambe and Wise Christmas special.  

I was completely oblivious to the point she was trying to make with that "joke" for about thirty minutes, and then it suddenly hit me between the eyes.  I am currently an elected member of Alba's Disciplinary Committee, and it was her little way of indirectly telling me that she knew all the details of one of the committee's hearings from earlier this year, and that she knew how I voted in that hearing.  The Disciplinary Committee is bound by confidentiality rules, and unlike the unknown person who seems to have briefed Ridley, I abide by those rules, so I will be saying nothing about it.  But if my interpretation of her little dig is correct, and I'm 99% sure that it is, it's revealing of something downright sinister.  Something appears to be seriously amiss in the upper reaches of Alba, and if the party is to emerge blinking into the light with a bright electoral future, there will have to be radical change.

Incidentally, to the very limited extent that I know Ridley, I was previously on good terms with her and had interviewed her twice for this blog's podcast.  So she has no reason for a personal grudge against me, and I suspect the motivation for her bile is that she thinks it will please the powers-that-be.  Perhaps she's hoping to be a list MSP.  I'm not sure there's anything much worse in life than the sidekick to the school bully who is only doing it because she wants to be liked by the 'in crowd'.