“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.
