Author Topic: Sturgeon's exit from the legal profession  (Read 751 times)

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Offline Steve_uk

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Re: Sturgeon's exit from the legal profession
« Reply #45 on: January 26, 2025, 04:59:PM »
Steve, any woman or man who suffers sexual harrasment or sexual vialation has my deepest sympathy, but i'm sorry i smell a rat.....................THE DIRTIEST BLOW Alex Salmond showed me compelling evidence that accusations were a political set up, says ex-SNP chief Jim Sillars




MY friendship with Alex Salmond, which was formed in 1980, started to erode in 1991 and finally evaporated after 1992.

Since then, and until he was charged with serious sexual offences I had minimal contact with him – a call at 1am during the referendum to tell me off, about 30 minutes at a PR event in Leith, and a welcome visit he made to see my wife as she was dying.

But whatever criticism I had made of his leadership, when he was charged with serious sexual offences from 2008 to 2014, I did not believe he was guilty, and I phoned to tell him that.

I went further and asked to meet him, and did so. He shared with me the evidence he had showing he was being deliberately set up; a clear political conspiracy at the highest levels of the party to bring him down, and stop him re-entering the political front-line. It was compelling evidence.

It was the dirtiest blow I have ever witnessed in 60 years of political life, and delivered to a man who, for all my criticism, had done more for independence than any other person alive or dead.

He deserved better. I am delighted he was cleared.

One of the reasons I believed him was that my late wife, Margo MacDonald, would have got wind of the kind of behaviour he was accused of. Margo knew everything that was going on in the Parliament.

Never once was there a hint of Alex being sexually abusive to women.

In case you think I am a fan, let me disabuse you, by explaining why I have been critical, and why I take nothing back from what I have said in opposition to Alex over many years.

There is a lesson for SNP members, and many others.

One reason Alex Salmond was in the dock, was the cult of personality. He shoulders blame for that, but so do others: the careerist acolytes who rose within the party as his ‘cheerleaders’ as he described one of his main accusers; the senior ones who hadn’t the guts to tell him he was wrong; and last but by no means least the party members who poured adulation upon him.

The reason I stood for deputy leader in 1991, was that I had been aware for some time, even before he became leader, of Alex’s ego, and authoritarian tendencies. With that post I could restrain him.
It's interesting that she didn't know, but then again she had been expelled from the SNP in 2003. It suggests she wasn't privy to information damaging to the party. She had an illness, which is also a reason for keeping her out of the loop. She also could have known, just not told her husband.

All the hallmarks were there: a man past his prime, vain, conceited, a control freak, who invited women on their own to work overtime at Bute House. A cradle-snatcher wife, who was probably not intimate and like Hillary Clinton did nothing actively to investigate the allegations against her husband. Salmond was a busted flush after the 2014 referendum and chose to take a seat at Westminster, further alienating him from his pro-Scottish independence base.
« Last Edit: January 26, 2025, 11:04:PM by Steve_uk »