Wednesday 3 March 2021

She is ever fair and false

 

“There goes a true-bred Sturgeon,” wrote Walter Scott ``for they are ever fair and false.” Of course, he didn’t because Sturgeon is not really a Scottish name. Scott was writing about a Campbell, but I thought of this quote while watching Sturgeon on Television today. She wants to appear straightforward. She puts in little jokes and pieces of humanising emotion. But it’s all fake. Fair and false.

Sturgeon theoretically takes responsibility and in doing so wants to appear noble. She is inordinately proud of her role as First Minister even snapping at Margaret Mitchell when she used the term to describe Alex Salmond. “I am the First Minister” stated Sturgeon just to make sure there was no doubt about it. As First Minister Sturgeon was willing to shoulder the blame, but only insofar as she would remain blameless because she knew nothing about whatever it was that had been going on. Her taking of the blame was just another way of deflecting it.



Her testimony was helped by the four SNP members of the Committee feeding her questions that appeared as if they had been rehearsed. It made the whole process still more tedious than Salmond’s testimony on Friday. You have to sit through while the SNP member kills time while only pretending to probe. It’s all part of the façade that Sturgeon has erected about the Alex Salmond case. It’s all part of falsity while appearing to be fair. What could be fair about four SNP MSPs asking questions with an SNP convener there to umpire the match.

While being inordinately proud of being First Minister Sturgeon knows remarkably little about what goes on in her vicinity. From the Autumn of 2017 she wanders like Helen Keller through people devising new policies for investigating former ministers, but she sees and hears nothing. The only person ever investigated by the procedure was Alex Salmond, but the procedure was not discussed with Sturgeon. The answer to every difficult question was that she wasn’t there, she didn’t know, or she had forgotten.

Sturgeon likes to think of herself as politically correct and so it was necessary for Scotland to go through its #Metoo moment. But I think it is for this reason that she can never quite bring herself to accept that Alex Salmond might have been innocent.

I first started writing about Alex Salmond because I saw the potential for injustice not merely in his case but in every other case where the testimony of one woman about harassment or rape is supposed to encourage others to come forward with the cry of “Me too”. The getting on the bandwagon element of this movement always struck me as dubious both morally and legally, especially when the accusations were about events that happened in private sometimes many years ago.

Sturgeon can’t see this. She says of course that she accepts that Alex Salmond was acquitted, but she acts and speaks as if he were guilty. Her failure to accept that he might have been innocent is the root of her failure to accept mediation as a way forward when Salmond suggested it.

We now know that the women who accused Salmond were reluctant to go to the police and were compelled to do so. It is likely given this reluctance that they too might have been glad of mediation. But the chance was never offered them, because Sturgeon refused to offer it. It is this that leads one to think that Sturgeon was determined that Scotland too would have it’s prominent #Metoo celebrity humbled and perhaps jailed on the alter of her wokeness.

Her testimony about her feelings when she heard about the accusations from Mr Salmond, also suggest her falseness. If she really cared for her friend and mentor who she admired so much, why didn’t she entertain the possibility that he might have been innocent. But this is the structural fault of the #Metoo movement it never entertains the thought that a man might be innocent of sexual harassment. This after all is the purpose of gathering other victims to confess “Me Too”. With enough “Me too” victims he is bound to be convicted. Let’s gather nine. That should be enough.

The Scottish Government investigation into Salmond was tainted with bias. It was advised by its own lawyers that the case was hopeless, but Sturgeon while “taking responsibility” knew nothing about it and so it was not really her fault. There’s always someone else to blame with Sturgeon. Usually it’s England, but now it is some unknown other. To date no one has resigned for the botched investigation, no one has apologised for the cost to the taxpayer of taking the case beyond the point even the lawyers thought was wise. But no one is at fault and least of all Sturgeon.

One of the most startling points of evidence we have learned in the past days is that someone very senior leaked the name of one of Mr Salmond’s accusers to Geoff Aberdein. But in response to this all we get from Sturgeon is that Mr Salmond himself knew the accuser because he had been there when the incident occurred and had apologised for it. But this is merely an attempt to blame Mr Salmond for something a senior member of Sturgeon’s staff actually did. It is to imply that maybe it was Mr Salmond who told Mr Aberdein. But it wasn’t and she knows it. Sturgeon whole testimony was a clever attempt to avoid the implications of the recent revelations that have led people to suggest she ought to resign.

Close associates of Sturgeon not merely leaked a name to Mr Aberdein, they also conveniently leaked details to the Daily Record just when Mr Salmond’s lawyers were about to prevent a Scottish Government press release about the case. But Sturgeon knew nothing about either of these leaks. If she was using a sieve, she would no doubt not know that it leaked also.

Sturgeon is a very able politician and a very good performer. But this is the point. Hers today was performance designed to hide the truth of what has gone on in the Scottish Government over the past years.

Teflon Nicola has been excellent at dodging responsibility for her poor political record in Scotland, but now she has egg on her pan. She is intent on dodging any responsibility for a tainted, biased amateurish investigation into Mr Salmond that the police stated should never have taken place and which almost led to Mr Salmond going to jail. She is ducking responsibility because of her #Metoo dogma that men who are accused are automatically guilty.

Sturgeon’s evidence requires us to believe that she knew nothing about any allegations about Alex Salmond even though she shared Bute House with him and was a close associate of many if not all of those who accused Mr Salmond. We are to believe that she knew nothing about a procedure being drawn up that led to the investigation of Mr Salmond and knew nothing about that investigation until suddenly there was a meeting in her house on April 2nd, 2018.

We are supposed to believe that nine witnesses were found, probably all of whom had worked closely with both Salmond and Sturgeon, but that she had heard not a single whisper about any of this and she had nothing whatsoever to do with these women coming forward.

In the Design Argument for the existence of God we are to infer a guiding hand from the nature of the world. We infer a creator from creation. But likewise, we can infer Sturgeon’s guiding hand from the fact that a procedure was devised, an investigation begun, and a man put on trial. The idea that this happened accidentally without Sturgeon’s guidance, is the equivalent of seeing a watch and not inferring the existence of a watchmaker. If Sturgeon really saw nothing, heard nothing and forgot everything she would not be First Minster.

The difference between Salmond and Sturgeon is that Salmond is direct and natural and human all to human. A man with flaws. It was this that made his testimony convincing. Sturgeon is all artifice. She is incapable of error. Even without sin. She is responsible for nothing while nominally responsible for everything. She has begun to believe her own personality cult. But someone who is as perfect as Sturgeon cannot also be natural.  Her attempts at naturalness come across as staged. Her perfection and freedom from error is itself evidence that she is a fake. She would have us believe she approaches an angel, but she has fallen rather far. There goes a true Sturgeon for she is ever fair and false.