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From the National - https://archive.is/CLF5L
ReplyDeleteSpeaking in Holyrood later in the day, Swinney said:
“The first thing I did when I heard that the Prime Minister’s father had died was to express my condolences to him. So that’s the first thing I did.
And the second point is that, if the Prime Minister is determined to prove that he’s not going to be the last prime minister of the United Kingdom, maybe he should let us have a referendum and we’ll see who’s right.”
Very dignified response to an outrageous attempt at a slur.
That was me.
DeleteGood to see others defending John Swinney. He restored stability to the SNP after a difficult period. He led the party to a fifth Holyrood term as the largest group. His vision centres on public services and poverty reduction. He is super experienced which helps to ensure good media handling and no adverse instability.
ReplyDeleteThank you, ChatGPT.
DeleteNo probs. Its good to be correct.
DeleteYou missed out the bit where he deliberately ensured there would be no mandate to further the cause of Independence during the current parliamentary term. Did you forget?
Delete8.47 Why would a Daily Mail ‘reader’/donkey comment on here?
DeleteAnon at 1.43. Go ahead and tell us. Why would you?
Delete10.13 You have a lack of understanding of sarcasm but then you are a britnat fud with nothing to good to say about Scotland!
DeleteAgree 100 percent with praise for John Swinney. He took over the SNP when things were messy and made it feel steady again. He kept them the biggest party at Holyrood. His plan is simple. Honesty and down to earth appeal. Help families with bills etc. He has done the job for years so he knows how government runs. SNP played a blinder selecting him.
ReplyDeleteAnd Swinney's plan for independence is........or are you just a unionist troll
Delete9.01 Back to the Daily Mail! Did you forget to put question marks at the end of your fake questions or were you ‘educated’ in englandshire?
DeleteAye he done a grand job before and he’s doing a grand job now and I’ve no doubt that he is the person to lead this great country of Scotland to independence.
ReplyDeleteLOL.
DeleteI know some maybe won’t agree, but I thought it was a very impressive speech by Andy Burnham today.
ReplyDeleteThis is arrant nonsense. That speech by Burnham did nothing whatsoever for Scotland. It will tax Scots extra so the cash can flow south to help English cities and his own Manchester agenda. We pay they benefit. Same old story from Labour. Scotland gets lectures not investment.
DeleteWhat a ridiculous post by anon@10:22pm.
DeleteDesperate stuff from a desperate nationalist.
Dear oh dear!
It was KC at both 10.06 and 10.31
DeleteIf you thought that was an impressive speech by Burnham, then you must implicitly accept that his sneaky comment about Swinney was also impressive, i.e. well-planned and deliberate.
DeleteAnd that means you implicitly accept that Burnham's use of his father's death as a tool to attack Swinney was deliberate - and acceptable.
No. It wasn't acceptable, it was despicable.
Jam tomorrow is impressive? Is he imposing tax on the IT and Internet giants, the billionaires and the offshore assets brigade? Or hitting pensioners, those on benefits and middle earners?
DeleteBurnham will hit the easy target of pensioners, while completely avoiding the much more lucrative and much fairer target of the very rich.
ReplyDeleteHe is a gutless spineless Little Englander Nationalist just like Starmer and, just like Starmer, will treat the people of Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland as inferior subordinate second-class nonentities to be spoken down to and kept firmly in their place.
He is the very epitome of a colonial master, flinging a few scraps to the Non-English plebs while cracking the whip to make sure they don't get any ideas above their station.
Arrant nonsense.
DeleteLovely to see 'arrant' being used by Colonel Blimp there.
DeleteThe words of the First Minister of N.Ireland are absolutely true and absolutely relevant to Scotland -
ReplyDelete'The days of Unionist Domination are finished'.
The union is finished and Burnham knows it.
It is now 'when' not 'if' it is destroyed.
You’re clearly a deluded fool!
DeleteLike the union itself, unionism is really just the imagining of a Greater England ruling over the 'lesser nations' around it.
DeleteIt was set up thus and will always be thus.
It cannot and will not change that state of mind.
That is why it will die.
And the best example of that unionist mindset is surely the Scotland Office and its Sec of State, whose only job nowadays is to try to frustrate the will of the Scottish Parliament at every turn and to obey whatever edict comes out of his masters at Westminster, whether it is detrimental to Scotland or not.
DeleteA completely meaningless, useless and throwback entity, to the 'good old days' of colonial rule.
Should be binned as soon as possible and would be missed by nobody.
The Scottish Office and the Secretary of State for Scotland our colonial dictator, disappear with Independence anyway, so who cares? The toothless SNP motion to get rid of them is a squirrel, a complete waste of debating space.
DeleteAwww....a poor wee unionist on here wants a Kleenex 😂😂😂
ReplyDeleteSergei Lavrov wants to be your friend.
ReplyDeleteBetter option than Donald Trump.
ReplyDeleteBurnham seems to be the sort of person who would call a stranger 'squire'. No further comment is needed.
ReplyDeleteWe'd be better off with Nigel Gass'em than Andy Burnham.
ReplyDeleteNo.
ReplyDeleteot -I see the US has fire missiles to sink a ship off ther Hebrides. According to the BBC this will help wildlife.
ReplyDeleteTwo ships sunk in Scottish waters as practice for warfare! Who are we going to war with?
DeleteWhat a weird non-sequitur that was. "My dad died. Which reminds me, independence is bad."
ReplyDeleteIt was cynical and nasty and revealed the real Burnham, just another nasty little inglander.
DeletePathetic from the plonker@12:30pm.
DeleteAnon at 12.52. Care to explain? No? Thought not. Jog on silly billy.
DeleteWestminster is dead, which reminds me independence is good!
DeleteMore talk from Burnham of rejoining the EU. All for it, but it blows apart the "you've had your once in a generation vote" argument.
ReplyDeleteYou lot had your referendum in 2014, and the country gave a resounding NO.
ReplyDeleteFor pity’s sake, get over it and move on!
This idea that Scotland is being denied another referendum against its will is utter nonsense. It’s only against the will of nationalists, the majority of the country are sick to the back teeth of this crap. It’s absolutely pathetic.
The Scottish government should be concentrating on the day job, the things that really matter to most Scots, instead of going on endlessly about independence, something that’s clearly never going to happen.
Hideous post from the anonymous fool@9:07.
DeleteHear hear! Thank you Douglas, I pay you well to betray your country. and you do a great job.
DeleteMany posters have rightly praised John Swinney for keeping SNP steady. Scotland still aims for net zero in 2045 five years before England and already has cleaner power plus more heat pumps and home solar. He still backs a stronger LGBTQI+ and anti-hate policy than England has. Same green and equality values as Nicola Sturgeon brought in, buildinng on her policies. None of this is easy, none just happens without work, and Nicola and John both deserve one heck of a lot of credit for their strong leadership of SNP.
ReplyDeleteNo comment
DeleteSatire at it's best. We'll done.
Delete“ I don’t recall”. Remind me 9.06am what do all these letters represent. And what is the + sign all about.
Deleteis trannyism net zero though?
Deletewhat is the carbon footprint of the titty slitting and cock slicing and powerful drugs used to give you super tits like a real girly
what does lorna slater say, since she is trans herself?
Why then have so many people left the SNP ?
DeleteActually John Swinney has been slowly but surely reversing the Green monster raving loony Sturgeonism which did so much harm to Scotland, the trans community, women - and Independence. And the finances and membership of the SNP.
DeleteStop kicking John Swinney. He walked into a mess and held the SNP together when others would have bottled it. SNP still won Holyrood. He is doing the grind on carrying forward the net zero climate and LGBT agenda while the same anti-SNP voices scream. He is quietly getting on with doing the job.
DeleteYes, how wicked. Nicola said LGBTQIA+ people were not a punchline and tried to make the law treat them as such. Almost as deranged as treating a climate emergency like an emergency: net zero by 2045, a country not waiting for England to feel ready.
DeleteIf that is 'monster raving loony Sturgeonism,' the sane alternative is to delay and hope the weather and the homophobic hate behave tgemselves.
Swinney and the modern SNP have a huge debt to Nicola. He stands on Nicola's shoulders in all he does for the SNP and rightly so.
Let us not allow the unionist media or Westminster to distract us.
Anon at 2:53 PM
DeleteWhen the Gender Recognition Reform Bill was rejected by Westminster, Holyrood could have amended it and it would have been enacted and implemented within months.
The choice was between pragmatism - compromise - or using it as a political football. Compromise would have at least advanced the protection for Trans people, and made it easier for them.
As it is, Sturgeon chose to use the Trans community as a political football, with the support of unaffected extremist activists like yourself who try to pretend it is "LGBTQIA+", whereas it is in fact strictly "T" without the rest of the alphabet.
4 years later the Trans community (I know some) have nothing. Absolutely no advance at all. Just unnecessary disruption.
Sturgeon's ill conceived and badly executed attempt at bettering the lives of trans people actually made things worse for them by unlocking a completely predictable wave of negativity.
DeleteScotland is a small c conservative country with a reactionary media.
She threw trans people to the wolves with GRR in her obsession with being front and centre of anything with a rainbow on it, when a much slower, quieter approach was needed.
Thanks to Sturgeon, Scotland's most famous trans person is a double rapist.
Well said James
ReplyDeleteDo nationalists never stop girning?
ReplyDeleteDo unionist never stop grifting?
DeleteYes, but be fair, Unionists are entitled to an opinion in a democracy.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is yesindyref2 the union is a sham and there is no democracy for Scotland. There is no “fairness” in the fake union in which Scotland is England’s possession.
DeleteOh for pity’s sake Ifs, change the record!
DeleteIFS - yes, but that was a "humorous" reply to some comment about "nationalists" which Jame deleted.
DeleteI agree about Westminster not wanting democracy for Scotland.
OT, the total paid out so far is £4,831 in legal aid for Murrell.
ReplyDeleteThe problem it seems to me, is that if all his assets were frozen which is fair enough, how could he afford to pay for his defence? The answer is simple - legal aid - which was therefore granted.
What seems to be missing is an automatic recovery for the legal aid from those assets, once they are unfrozen. Perhaps there is one already, and it's just the media making mischief.
Peter Murrell does deserve all the rights and protections afforded to any other citizen. He is paying the price of his actions now (which have been overplayed in a hostile London media) and should be allowed to do so in dignity.
Delete“Overplayed” says the apologist for a criminal. Funny how I don’t remember you saying the same about Natalie McGarry.
DeleteWho
DeleteWill people please stop swearing. There's no point ignoring me every time I say that, your comments will simply be deleted.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Donaldson, ex DUP Leader, faces sentencing for multiple counts of sexual abuse of children in next few weeks.
ReplyDeleteNO 'blue tents' at his home address when arrested, NO large Police presence and NO battalions of our 'impartial press' outside his front door when investigations started.
Compared to the Murrell Case - involving NO physical abuse of any person, let alone children and which centred on a NON- Politician - it was very low-key indeed.
Amazing difference between the handling of those two cases, isn't it.
I have no doubt the same approach will be taken after his sentencing as well.
Of course, the DUP are absolutely desperate to deflect attention from their former leader's horrendous crimes and his up and coming sentencing ( and the inevitable questions about who knew what and when about Donaldson's sordid activities and if they were deliberately hidden and covered up for years by the DUP hierarcy ), hence their showcasing of the racist, bigoted O.O. March through a Catholic area of Drumcree - which has never been allowed in almost 30 years due to very legitimate fears of massive community tensions in that Catholic area and the massive risk of that discontent spreading elsewhere.
Those 'Scottish' unionists, who continuously bleat about their precious union, which always includes N.I., remain almost silent about Donaldson and his rampant child sexual abuses, but howl about Murrell's theft of monies.
They are more than willing to excuse child-abuse by one of their own, but become apoplectic about the embezzlement of ( mostly) SNP members' dosh.
What a sickening perverted bunch of throwback misfits they really are
All the contents of the Sturgeon / Murrell house had to be catalogued and investigated, since it was a financial investigation which ended in an embezzlement conviction. Hence the blue tent. Clearly there were a lot of contents! For a larger, cluttered, house they'd have needed more than one blue tent, and a fleet of 18 wheelers.
DeleteYou are correct about what you say about the DUP. But please stop going on about blue tents. The tents were there for a reason and if you don’t know that by now then you know nothing.
DeleteYou seem to be an apologist for crimes because it is only money and it is the SNP money. Says a lot about your values.
Garbage.
DeleteThere have been numerous high value embezzlement cases in Scotland and the wider UK in my lifetime and I do not recall a single one using such tents.
“SNP members dosh” says 4.45 - a lot of the SNP income is from
Deletetaxpayers through payments made for having MPS.
Want to point to any other high value embezzlement case in Scotland where a blue forensic tent has been deployed in lthe same way?
ReplyDeleteI will wait...........
A meaningless question by 5.45pm. Yesindyref2 explained the reason which should be obvious now to anyone paying attention.
DeleteIt is embarrassing the victim hood of these people. The Murrells are crooks. What is it with the colour of the tent. Why is that important - idiots.
DeleteScotland is oppressed in so many ways but these people are upset about blue tents.
Wrong.
DeleteMurrell was guilty as sin and Sturgeon had no case to answer so is innocent of any crime.
But the theatrics around their home were unprecedented and probably will never be repeated in any other embezzlement case
5.59 perhaps no other person will feel they have so much impunity that they fill their home with goods purchased with embezzled funds. Instead of going on about blue tents you should be questioning why he felt he could do this for about 12 years and not be worried about being caught. Most embezzlers do not fill their homes full of evidence of their crime
DeleteSturgeon is a crook. What do you think the police put in the file they sent to COPFS - did they say that Nicola is a great FM pity she resigned.
7.06
DeleteWhat utter nonsense you spout.
I would hazard a guess that just about every single embezzler would have purchased numerous goods, cars, holidays clothes etc...with their ill gotten gains.
I would also hazard a guess that virtually none of their spouses were ever convicted alongside them, even if that spouse was being driven in those cars or wearing those clothes or going on those holidays.
What else do you think they would do with the stolen monies?
And whether you like it/accept it or not, Sturgeon was neither charged with or convicted of any crime or offence.
And whether a demented Sturgeon-hater like you is satisfied with that or not, doesn't concern me in the least.
7.45 no answer to the question - what do you think the Police put in their report to COPFS?
DeleteWas it - Nicola is a wee daft wifey and is completely innocent. She has poor eyesight. - and it took COPFS about 6 months to review this great example of Police work.
People protected by the British state are always protected.
Deluded. N S failed the SNP and she failed Scotland. She failed as F M to investigate the irregularities in the SNP finances shown to her by a number of senior members of the party, at least two of whom resigned in protest. Why did she do that?
Delete"... would have purchased numerous goods, cars, holidays clothes etc...with their ill gotten gains."
DeleteThe key word perhaps is "with" - money being the ill-gotten gains. Indirect. In this case the GOODS were the ill-gotten gains including being bought IIRC, with a card. Direct.
8.46
DeleteIt is you who is the deluded fool.
COPFS has always made and will always make the decision on whether a person is prosecuted for a crime or offence, not Police Scotland.
They deal with many thousands of cases every year which are forwarded to them by the Police.
COPS and only COPFS make the final decision on all those cases, just as they did with Murrell and Sturgeon.
They decided to prosecute Murrell because the evidence warranted it and also decided that there was no criminal case for Sturgeon to answer.
As I said previously, whether that satisfies blatant Sturgeon-haters like you, or that turncoated moron in Bath and his conspiracy-laden camp followers, matters not a lot to me or most rational Scots.
Still, it gives idiots like you something to do, doesn't it.
Yesindyref2
DeleteYou don't think many other embezzlers have 'directly" used company credit/debit cards to purchase goods and services they have no right to purchase?
There was nothing unique about the Murrell case in that respect.
I think you will find abuse of power by a high ranking individual and failures in governance and accountability are very common to most cases of this type.
"Having considered all of the material, Crown Counsel instructed that Peter Murrell should be prosecuted for embezzlement. Crown Counsel also agreed that Nicola Sturgeon and Colin Beattie should not be charged, and that no further enquiries were required in respect of them.
DeleteAs an additional safeguard, those conclusions were considered independently and separately by another KC, who reached the same view."
https://www.copfs.gov.uk/publications/peter-murrell-prosecution-briefing/html/
As for the blue tent:
https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,sir-iain-livingstone
Livingstone says: “The tent was there, as were all the other measures, to protect the interests of justice and to protect the individuals involved, so it was a proportionate and necessary step.”
The privacy, for instance, from long lenses trying to get THAT photograph of Murrell looking like a startled rabbit but preferably in his living room. And not forgetting that, unlike other high profile potential embezzlements, an individual who was part of the investigation was the First Minister of Scotland.
Blue tent paranoia conspiracy is exactly that - paranoid conspiracy theory.
The blue tent was an operational decision. The correct decision.
Who told the press?
DeleteI cannot agree.
DeleteThe blue tent and the large police presence ( at one time I believe around 20 officers were in attendance at that house ) was completely OTT.
And Sturgeon was no longer FM at that time.
No 'paranoia' necessary when the whole theatrical shebang was a complete one-off which had never been done before and probably never will be again.
Another comparison could well be made with the subdued and relatively low-key arrest of ex British Ambassador to America, Mandelson, who I would venture to suggest had a higher national/international public profile than either Murrell or Sturgeon.
The massively reported public spectacle around Murrell and Sturgeon was very deliberately staged for a very definite reason.
9.08pm
DeleteYou still have failed to answer the question - what did the Police put in their report to COPFS
about Sturgeon? Your rant about COPFS making the decision is just a straw man. I know COPFS make the final decision. Did the Police need to submit a report - no. They could have just not submitted a report as they did with Colin Beattie the treasurer.
Sadly people like you just start dishing out abuse when you have lost the argument. Nothing rational about you. Nothing pleasant about you either.
DeleteWrong again.
It is folk like you who cannot or will not accept that the Scottish prosecution authorities, using exactly the same system and methadology as in every other case, found that Nicola Sturgeon had 'no case to answer'.
You can repeatedly refuse to acknowledge that fact in law and you can keep bleating about a police report which you have not seen but COPFS has and has fully assessed , until you are blue in the face but it will not change a thing in this case.
Unless, of course, you are one of the genuine morons who follows that waster in Bath and his lunatic theories about the entire Scottish legal system being involved in a massive conspiracy against Salmond and a massive coverup of Sturgeon's 'crimes', allied by the British State?
If you are that far gone, you are beyond saving, beyond credibility and I really do pity you.
9.08pm you also failed to answer the question put to you by anon at 8.47pm.
DeleteThe reason is Sturgeon was covering up for crooked husband when she was his boss because she knew they had been buying their groceries using SNP money for years and helping Amazon’s profits grow.
That would be your opinion and nothing more than your opinion.
DeleteAnd my opinion is that you are wrong..
Anon at 10:52 PM
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&hs=YMjq&sca_esv=f3de7034d550a016&sxsrf=APpeQnvxeh2mVJJi8VWiRYIxm6sXWjTfdg:1790811226392&udm=2&fbs=ABfTbFVyMZGZf1hfvX9uKjN_-G8cqCQj_06QnZs315LoFmPf5bBLHMJ0vMQmTbuI72DM7jmGsLLhV9MC9EWyWlfU-dFSaPFLJh1uvA1YJHXOcaWY4rtNToiNMt1__dnUvVImP7f_f3umjmwBiY-CMqDrIqWMT5Sk405fby8uRRtHmJ8drNOIxkeWPeJwR7kMMtgcXO-Omqxo2dH_qeD8vjOL0TEJFDYhzQ&q=blue+tent+at+sturgeon+house&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjk34jYu5eXAxUO-AIHHWigDn4QtKgLegQIFhAB&biw=916&bih=502&dpr=1.76
In how many of these photos, including aerial shots, can you see any personal possession, evidence, police rummaging through drawers, packing bulky items into vans backed into the opening in the tent, or any other media invasions of the personal privacy of Sturgeon or Murrell?
Apart from the car - none. So the blue tent worked.
I'd hope if I'd been in the position of the officer in charge I'd have had the cop on (pardon the pun) to make the same sensible decision.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Yesindyref2 in that case.
Anon at 4 45pm
ReplyDeleteYou are correct in everything you say.
'Special arrangements' for the Murrell case and sickening evidence of unionists' obsession with SNP money over sexual abuse of kids.
Pathetic.
DeleteAlso very instructive to look at the Reform/Restore scumbags who repeatedly threaten, intimidate and even attack those true heroes/heroines of the RNLI who risk their own lives to save others in peril on the seas.
ReplyDeleteUnionists almost to a man.
Whether in Scotland, N Ireland or England, Unionism really does seem to attract some of the scummiest dregs of society, doesn't it.
..... just one word ..... CORRECT !!!
ReplyDeleteIt is reported this evening that Labour's Monica Lennon is the subject of bullying complaints from four of her staffers.
ReplyDeleteShe is accused of creating a toxic and chaotic work environment for her staff.
Shame, as she seemed a half-decent unionist politician, among the other Labour dross.
Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteAnother unionist bad news story tonight -
'A Labour MP has accused former party deputy leader Tom Watson of making an 'implicit threat' after he sent him a letter detailing his repeated criticism of controversial tech firm Palantir'.
Nasty folk, unionists.
Some nationalists are just saddos.
DeleteI hate Nicola Sturgeon person is really a bore. The rest of us move on.
ReplyDeleteBoring.
Delete10.31pm so you move on where exactly having learned nothing. Perhaps that is why we are still in this phoney union.
DeleteAnybody seen Kevin Bridge's sketch about a wanker using his dead granny to get likes on Facebook? Sounds like Burnham.
Delete