"This should be about ensuring that the workplace can be safe for women in Scotland.." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56028750
Surely criminal cases should be about ensuring justice? The courts and public inquiries should not serve political ends. It is a measure of the depth of unconscious corruption in society that neutral and impartial processes can be politicised in this way and few seem aware of it. If the allegations against Mr Salmond are shown to have been ill-founded, then those involved must be held to account and lessons should be learned by the police to ensure it does not happen again. If it is found that people were motivated by self-gain or other interests to malign Mr Salmond, again those individuals must be held to account.
Making workplaces 'safe for women' sounds like an ideological goal to me. The clue is in the way language is being twisted. To the extent that it can be reasonably achieved, surely the goal should be that workplaces are to be safe for all, both men and women? Unwanted touching of colleagues, if done with sexual intent, is not a 'safety' issue, rather it is a criminal offence that can be prosecuted and it is also a matter of employment law. If a woman is being treated unfairly in the workplace in this way or any other way, then she has recourse in law. Men may avail themselves of the same. This has been the case for a very long time. If the courts, having considered all the facts, decide against the complainant, then this will be because the evidence is insufficient to prove the allegation to whatever burden of proof must be met, or the case otherwise cannot be tried fairly. This is all normal. What is the issue?
As an aside, I have never been a fan of devolution in the way it was carried out after 1997. I mention this because I think parochial Scottish governmental competence has been an undertone throughout this whole unfortunate saga. The Scottish Parliament is an ugly place, both architecturally and culturally. The politics that goes on there is quite low brow and petty. I believe this is partly down to a political culture that has always existed in Scotland, but it is mostly down to the post-1997 method of devolution, which was a mistake because it re-created the Westminster system in Edinburgh and Cardiff respectively. A low key approach involving local government would have been preferable, with the opportunity to evolve the arrangements into something more concrete later; and perhaps a measure of autonomy could have been achieved over a lengthy period of time as competence was demonstrated.
I would suggest that the Edinburgh elite are every bit as out-of-touch from ordinary Scots as Westminster ever was - especially for Scots in the north and the island communities. We must remember that while Scotland is a great, noble and ancient nation worthy of deep respect, the Scots are not, and never have been, one single ethnic group. Like most nations, the Scots are a hybrid of inter-related groups and interests - including lowland Scots in the south, east and north-east of the country, Anglo-Scots in the Borders and around Edinburgh, Irish-Scots in the western Central Belt, Highlanders in the north and west, and then among the Highlanders you have various island peoples who are almost like ethnic groups unto themselves - and so on and so forth. I do wonder if a more informal, complex and organic approach that built on existing arrangements and took account of the social and ethnical nuances of Scotland would have been much better.
