Saturday 31 December 2022
The Laird Report Episode 22, 2022, a year of misery, death and hell, 2023 will be much worse
Ask yourself a question, what is the government's plan to energy shortages? What is the government's plan to food shortages? What is the government's plan for health care provision security? Why are none of their plans known, or seem to be working? 2023 will be a worse year than 2022, we stand closer to nuclear war than anytime since 1945 and the dropping of nuclear weapons on Japan. Society in the West is collapsing, our leaders have betrayed us, and many people are going to die of vaccine injury, cold, food and energy shortages. If you rule out stupidity as a cause, then the only alternative, is by design. The greatest evil that exists in the World today is the World Economic Forum, they are driving the destruction of the West. Three things people must remember and learn well, don't trust the government, public health messaging is dead, and start prepping your home for shortages.
Here is the Dr John Campbell link, please watch, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYR1wz-Cf_M&t=550s
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Operation Branchform, SNP staff, present and former to be re-interviewed by Police Scotland investigating SNP Party finances, this development in the slow moving case is said to be directed by the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, is this another false dawn for action, or is the storm about to erupt?
When former Nicola Sturgeon was cornered like a rat by the Holyrood press pack, you could see in her demeanor that she extremely uncomfortab...
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On the 31 st July 2023, I did a blog post called ‘political death looms in Rutherglen’, my contention was that the by-election on paper see... -
On the 11 th of June, SNP MSP Nicola Sturgeon was interviewed by police; she was in fact arrested, not interviewed as a witness but arreste...
I believe that your fellow blogger Stuart Campbell is recommending folk in Scotland vote for the Conservative Party. That's how bad it is. The Conservative Party who will do fuck-all for anyone, are seen as less capable of causing harm that the self-satisfied incompetents of the SNP and Labour Parties. When you think that you are beyond learning, that's when you are in for real problems and we see that just now with the GRC debate. The Labour Party think they are championing the marginalized. I've spent the past two days clearing drains with my neighbour and so I've seen and smelt a fair amount of shite, but nothing in comparison with what goes-on (or what should go-on but doesn't go-on) at Holyrood. Everyone gets paid for doing fuck-all and that's OK.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, I wish you a happy new year and all the best for 2023. Sorry to hear about your friend dying.
ReplyDeleteThis is the state of politics in 2023 Britain.....A few weeks ago, there was a story in the Telegraph about Blair and Brown. Here are some comments left in the Telegraph by Tory party members.
ReplyDelete"Blair was brilliant. He took Thatcherism and made it harsher. I don't get the haters. He was more Tory than those modern Conservatives."
and
"100%"
and
"It's terrifying stuff that Blair was more of a free marketeer than what has followed." It explains why we have been in interminable decline ever since. "I hope every Tory MP reads this article carefully and thinks about how they can take a leaf from Tony Blair's book."
If that's what the Tories think of Labour, you can imagine what the rest of us think.
No matter the state of our country. I'd still bet against labour winning in 2024. Labour will not be elected in 2024, "I wrote on this blog in 2010," perhaps not until 2028, because it will take a generation of poorer people to die off before the working class can be persuaded or their memories fade to vote Labour again.
I keep watching Wings over Scotland every three or four days to see how the Nationalist movement is doing. There has been a great drop in enthusiasm amongst them. They hate the Tories and Labour and and now they hate the SNP too. One chap, Andy Ellis, was a wind-up merchant I suppose, but he has been barred for upsetting folk too much. I really don't know what is going to happen next. There is an unexpected wish for folk to re-join the EU and I sort of get that although it is hard to see how it will alleviate any of the problems we are facing this year. As far as the UK elections are concerned, I still have confidence in Starmer. Scottish Labour though appears clueless to me and not even improving.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, in this most recent video, you mentioned Twitter. I just found you on Twitter. I've started to follow you.
ReplyDeleteI began writing for your blog sometime in 2008.
I'll tell you an interesting statistic I read recently: the only time that NHS waiting times fall is when a Labour Party government is in power at Westminster. The statistics on this are very, very clear. A steep fall follows the election of Labour government and a steep rise follows the election of a Conservative government.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year, George. I have been keeping you up to date with my disagreement with the same Professor of Law that caused you so many problems years ago. Sadly, he is dead now but he had doppelgangers - many of them. The doppelgangers aren't so bad as he was but my sympathies are with anyone who has to deal with Scottish lawyers nowadays as the majority of them are awful. It is a profession undergoing meltdown - that's my view.
ReplyDeleteWe are nearly at the end now though and your assistance has been most helpful. Really, if it wasn't for bloggers, I do not know where we would be just now. I know that I would have been defeated by now but, instead of that, it looks very much as though I will win and so I will keep in touch with you about that.
I see that you are presenting this with a woollen hat on and your hood-up. My guess is that the heating in your house is turned down low, or turned off. That is one thing that I find hard to reconcile with Scotland being so rich in oil, gas and wind. I have worked in energy rich countries before and electricity prices are extraordinarily low. I remember driving a VW Golf which I could fill with petrol for less than £5. That is something the Nationalists among us should be making more of in my view. I was in Glasgow yesterday and the roads are now full of pot-holes and I have never seen it so bad. The cost of asphalt in most oil rich countries is low and this situation should really never take place.
ReplyDeleteInstead of worrying about stupid things like receiving hospital treatment, dental care, or heating your home in winter, the SNP's fake nationalists are more concerned with allowing a man to use the women's bog.
ReplyDeleteBack to foodbanks again. It costs £18,000 a month to run a big foodbank. The cash that Michelle Mone scammed from PPE MedPro would keep such a foodbank running for 140 years.
ReplyDeleteLabour was responsible for establishing food banks as a necessary evil.
ReplyDeleteThey began right away after they were elected in 1997 with their welfare sanctions and workfare schemes.
I'd happily offer Michelle a free bowl of porridge any day if she asked for one.
Michelle spends her time on board a yacht in the Mediterranean somewhere. Porridge is grub for tramps like you and me.
ReplyDeleteI left a letter for you in your other website George and so take a look at it, please. We're at the very end now. There's been a certain David versus Goliath about this case, that's been my view anyway, and that is frustrating obviously, but it gives me a real fear that democracy in Scotland is being stripped-back by all at Holyrood. I have made a comparison between KSA and Scotland (not for the first time) and, as far as democracy and public protection are concerned, KSA are ahead by a comfortable margin. Not in all aspects of course, but certainly in some aspects and that is increasing all of the time. KSA is becoming more democratic and Scotland less democratic.
ReplyDeleteIf you cast your mind back to the early days of Holyrood. Jack McConnell was First Minister and obviously Labour were in charge. Everyone could see at the time that Holyrood wasn't perfect, but the commonly accepted view was that it would get better. But, twenty-odd years on, has it got better, or has it got worse? I remember the case of Shirley McKee who was a PC who was sacked from her job and accused of tampering with evidence at a crime scene in Irvine. That case was taken up by Mike Russell and by just about every Scottish newspaper. In the end, Shirley McKee was vindicated and Jack McConnell had to apologize to her. Can you imagine that happening now? What MSP is going to fight on behalf of a constituent? What newspaper is going to campaign for a member of the public? Is Nicola Sturgeon likely to apologize to anyone, for anything? Any way you look at it, it has become a hollowed-out institution, hasn't it. It was created to solve Scottish problems inside Scotland and it is refusing to do that. I had a problem solved recently and it was solved internationally, by folk in many countries of the world, but not by Scots. Really, really concerning the way this is going now.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the inordinate amount of time they spent on gender recognition reform and what has it all been for? How many Scots will derive any sort of benefit from that? In the meantime, a glammed-up Shona Robison answers questions half-heatedly at Holyrood re the lack of premises for the Glasgow Soup Kitchen. By the look on her face and her demeanour at the time, she would rather be answering questions on any subject rather than Soup Kitchens. When the subject reverted back to Gender Recognition, her interest was back on alert. That's what Holyrood means for ordinary Scots nowadays. It's been a great disappointment, hasn't it.
Scottish devolution has given the Scottish elite the chance to rule over us. There is nothing for us. That's about it. I can't think of anything useful the little parliament has achieved. If you live in Scotland in 2023 and are impoverished, you are living in a third-world nation.
ReplyDeleteThat is how they seem to prefer it.
Too many of them have been there for too long and they have forgotten what their mission is. "We're Scottish...we don't talk mince...we get straight to the point". They sounded good, but they cannot walk the walk, sadly. Folk like Swinney have just corrupted the place so that it's a zombie government - not in any way fit for purpose. I remember when it started, a senior Tory (I can't remember his name...it might have been McLetchie; something like that) was made to resign for falsifying taxi receipts. Now they get away with anything and no-one will ever have to resign. BBC Scotland doesn't even cover what goes on there any longer because nothing of any consequence ever happens. I wish they would just close the place down but I think they are too afraid to do that. I just heard that next week is going to start with another debate about independence. Honestly, no-one gives a fuck about independence. Folk cannot eat properly, heat their homes and others are dying on hospital trollies.
ReplyDeleteLook at the statistics. Our educational system is lagging. We have "free" tuition, which favours the wealthy. Scotland has the lowest life expectancy and the highest drug deaths in Europe, as well as the highest suicide rate in the UK and the highest prison population in Europe. The NHS is essentially nonexistent. NHS dental treatment is no longer available for some, and if you can access a dentist, there is a two-month wait for treatment. Thousands of people struggle to pay for food and heat their houses. With statistics like that, some people might believe our country has been invaded and we are under forced occupation. It is made all the worse by the fact that we have a populist nationalist leader leading a progressive civic nationalist government that has been in power since 2007.
ReplyDeleteIt's 2023, and we have never had it so terrible.
Last year we were being ruled by Boris Johnson and his supporters Jacob Reese-Mogg, Nadine Dorries and Michael Fabricant (remember that buch of spoofs?) Then we had a brief encounter with Hell when Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng took over. Now we have a more stable leadership but it is still only controlled, managed decline. My solution to halt the decline is to re-join the EU and get Starmer into Number 10. Not many will agree with me, I know that, but that's my answer to it.
ReplyDeleteIt's just as well for North Sea Oil isn't it. That brought some serious money into the UK at the time. Had it been used to re-industrialize then we would have had a different outcome. Instead, Thatcher created a banking industry that swallowed us all up during the banking crash. That cost us a Trillion and, looking at it that way, it is Thatcher and Fred Goodwin that have wrecked the economy. The only benefit we have had from Brexit is that bankers bonuses have been able to be raised above the EU limit. That gives you a clue as to why Brexit happened.
Holyrood is so totally consumed by independence that nothing else matters to them. That's all Holyrood exists to do and it is all the public expects of them. It is a living, breathing fecking disaster for us all.
The biggest problem in Scotland and the UK is that our political elite are the scum of the earth. There aren't any of them worth voting for. If I do bother voting, it will be for Tory. At the end of the day, it feels better when the Tories are in power because nobody expects much from a Tory government. Nothing is worse than putting Labour and other phoney socialists and nationalists in power only to see them treat the poorest worse than the Conservatives. An example is the last labour government. They introduced benefit sanctions, work-fare "slavery," and food banks. At least under the Tories, they gave people their unemployment dole money, or giros. Labour also introduced a minimum wage that only paid single people £10 a week more than a giro, then sanctioned their benefits when people decided it was better to stay on the dole than work. Labour also flooded the country with millions of European immigrants; these immigrants thought the minimum wage was great because most were living 10 to a house. That's why the British voted to leave Europe: because the political elite were exploiting the working class. As a socialist, I would rather vote for the Tories any day, and I'm not alone. Even ex-miners dislike the Labour Party.
ReplyDeleteI see the UK Gov are seeking the return of £120m paid to PPE Medpro for the gash PPE gear they provided during the pandemic. That's fabulous news. So, glamorous granny Michelle might be eating porridge for breakfast, dinner and tea soon enough. I'm keeping an eye on this case as for me it will point the way to where the UK are going in terms of Tory sleaze. Happily, so far anyway, Michelle is coming under great pressure and I don't think she will be back in the Lords ever again. Whether or not she gets taken to Court, that another matter of course.
ReplyDeleteThe last Labour Government coincided with the banking crash and that doubled the National debt overnight. That crash cost us as much as a World War would have cost us and so harsh decisions had to be made. Gordon Brown was a decent PM and he was just handed the job at the wrong time. God help us all if the Tories were in charge during the banking crash. Rishi Sunak has his own private swimming pool in central London. I can't remember how much it costs him to heat it - it might be £120,000 per year. Get the picture? The Tories don't care about you.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, a Trillion is the number one, followed by 12 zeros. A million, millions in other words. That's what these bankers cost us and we still pander to them. If it wasn't to suit them, we wouldn't have had Brexit either.
ReplyDeleteSunak held a meeting today at Downing Street with senior NHS management and told them that waiting times would fall, no ifs or buts. Back at the Shortbread Senate, all are back on Tuesday to gossip and gitter more shite about independence. In the meantime, our waiting times will get longer.
ReplyDeleteI hear the UK Government are going to release their decision on whether the Scottish Gov's GRC law will be accepted, or not, at the end of this month.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds as though they are carrying-out a really detailed appraisal of the proposals. What it means for schools, hospitals, prisons and so on.
I hate to say this, but the only party at Holyrood who dealt with this matter responsibly was the Tory Party who allowed their MSP's to vote on the grounds of individual conscience, religious belief and so on. The other parties who railroaded it through and sacked anyone who disagreed with the Party line really failed the public.
I am neither for or against the Transgender community and I do not know anything about them. Live and let live is the way I tend to go on these matters. But, if the UK Gov are about to present the Scottish Gov with a long list of problems with this legislation, then it indicates to me that the folk we have at Holyrood don't know what they are doing and shouldn't be representing us, let alone changing existing legislation which was introduced to protect us.
We'll wait and see what happens.
27 ambulances were queuing outside the Royal Infirmary at the end of last week. This week we're all having to listen to that vainglorious bull-shitter Angus Robertson - he's on about our very last chance for constitutional change. If a Health Board declares an emergency in a hospital, it allows, for example, 20 people to be taken out of accident and emergency to be treated in less busy departments throughout the hospital. Sturgeon doesn't want to do that because it will make her look bad. Hence, the chaos continues in our hospitals.
ReplyDeleteDo not get ill in Scotland in 2023. I see that the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has put non-urgent elective care on hold. This follows NHS Arran and Ayrshire and NHS Borders. Am I ever to get a replacement hip? I've only been waiting since December 2019. Does the NHS still exist, or is it just a place where people go to die?
ReplyDeleteI see Sadiq Khan has suggested the UK re-join the EU.
ReplyDeleteI left a copy of the last letter to all at the Scottish Government on your other website, George. The fundamental problem we have in Scotland is that no-one believes a whistle-blower. They believe that you must have some other agenda and so they don't even check whether what you are saying is correct or not, they assume that you have an agenda against the Scottish Government or someone else. Now, here we are, more than 8-years later and it has been proven that what I was saying in 2014 is true. It is the Scottish Government's problem now alright. Remember what they said about Watergate: "It's not the crime, it's the cover-up that's the problem". My guess is that this is the current problem. They cannot fix it now and they cannot refuse to fix it now. What do they do? One thing is that you can trust absolutely no-one and in Scotland what you face is a birds' nest of vested interests. There must be 40-50 of them; all in great jobs and all still being paid. It's currently the third longest lasting whistleblowing case in UK history. The longest is still going-on after 10.5 years, the next is 9 years and mine is 8.5 years. By the time it is finished, it will be the longest lasting in UK history.
ReplyDeleteWe avoided a recession last year; we must have avoided it by the narrowest of margins but we avoided it and that's the main thing. Also, gas stocks are high because of the mild winter and so prices are falling and with gas prices come electricity prices. When these start to fall then inflation will start to fall too. We've seen the last of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. That's the glass half full way of looking at it.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, we have oil heating here and I used to fill the tank 6 or 7 times each year. Last year we filled in 4 times and I think everyone around here is the same. I passed a house last night and looked in the window and the chap was eating his dinner wearing a woollen hat. I remember smokeless coal was £7/bag and it is now £30/bag.
I see the "not the labour party" is already talking about benefit sanctions, workfare. They are saying there are too many people claiming disability.
ReplyDeleteI have long experience of dealing with Holyrood. There are too many vested interests in Scotland and so absolutely nothing gets done and the specific problem Holyrood has is that the only people who are able to get things done are ministers. They invariably defer everything to Sturgeon who has no life experience outside of politics. Hence, we all get what Sturgeon decrees we should be getting and nothing else. When Salmond was in charge, he used to engage with others, plus he was a respected guy who had life experience. That is the reason our country is in the doldrums and it will take a generation to fix this after Sturgeon is gone.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Wee Dafty is going to ban alcohol advertising, the same as tobacco. Alcohol promotions will also be subject to restrictions. It seems odd to do this in a nation where whisky is revered. I anticipated this happening years ago. Similar to cigarettes, alcohol bottles will soon all include pictures of the deceased. What a depressed country we have become.
ReplyDeleteThose at the forefront of GRC, Jackie Baillie, Alex Cole-Hamilton and Jamie Greene, are amongst the brightest MSP's at Holyrood. Plus, the SNP/Greens have a senior lawyer sitting around the cabinet table, there ready to offer advice. So, basic legal blunders shouldn't happen in Scotland. Wrongful convictions and all the rest of it shouldn't happen. But, they happen all the time, more so now than ever before. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteThe proposed GRC legislation has been examined by English lawyers since the New Year and if it impinges upon existing UK law then it will not be allowed to proceed into law. It makes Holyrood and Scottish law out to be in each others pockets nowadays doesn't it. What a disgrace. We will all know on Wednesday.
Did it not occur to Jackie Baillie, Alex Cole Hamilton and Jamie Greene to ask a lawyer first before they voted and before they allowed others in their party to vote?
The Alba Party had some sort of get-together in Edinburgh yesterday. I don't know what their support amounts to but I remember someone saying that it would amount to a few seats at Holyrood if the present support sustained through to the next Holyrood election. Press coverage is of course practically zero and that stops them from gaining any kind of popularity quickly. It was an amateur affair compared to the SNP productions, but Salmond is one of the great orators of Scottish politics - probably the only great orator - and so the Party has that behind them. The SNP got off to a slow start back in the 80's and it took them a long time to establish themselves. Salmond himself, for all his qualities, is of course a damaged character and many will not vote for him regardless of however good he is. For all that, I think they could grow quite quickly from now-on. Salmond would have been much better to have on your side, rather than leading the alternative and that is the situation the SNP have found themselves in. If I was any kind of blood and soil Nationalist, which I am not, then I would be voting for Salmond.
ReplyDelete"That is despite multiple reports suggesting that the advice has given Mr Sunak the legal cover he requires to apply a Section 35 order to prevent the Bill from gaining Royal Assent."
ReplyDeleteWould all at Holyrood not be better off pursuing a "Not for Profit Energy Company" or better provision for Soup Kitchens, or something like that?
I am hoping for an outcome this week, George. These feckin Emeritus Professors have been the problem. Two of them, they both know each other and each is as bent as the other. I've never heard of an Emeritus Professor before. Is it peculiarly Scottish, I wonder? It sounds as though it should be describing an honest pillar of academia, doesn't it? Well, it doesn't. If we were in the US just now, they would throw the bastards in jail.
ReplyDelete25-30 people apply for gender reassignment therapy in Scotland each year. Even if making it easier results in a ten-fold increase in that number, it is still a very, very small number. I really don't get why the SNP and Labour are so determined and fixated by this subject. Even Kier Starmer thinks it is wrong and we must believe that he understands the ramifications of overlapping legislation in different parts of the UK better than most at Holyrood. It seems to me to be an argument manufactured out of nothing. What's wrong with doing something to lessen the number of drugs deaths, doing something to improve mental health treatment, suicides etc. There's plenty that can be done relatively simply to improve the prospects of a far greater number of people and the general public will understand why Holyrood are doing it. I really don't think that anyone understands this or thinks that it is worth an argument, least of all an argument in the Supreme Court, which we are guaranteed to lose.
ReplyDeleteDominic Grieve (remember him?) he was the old Attorney General. He says the SNP/Greens GR Bill is total bull-shit. I presume he should know. Anyway, the one Holyrood Party to come out of this looking good, or all-right, are the Conservative Party. The rest look incompetent and utterly bewildered bythe simplicity and by the complexity. It has been explained to Maggie Chapman and all the rest of them a dozen times and they still don't get it.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you an update on the sinking school, George:
ReplyDeleteOver the past couple of months, I have been aware that Emails addressed to my MSP have disappeared from my account. I complained to her about that and she said that I should complain instead to my internet provider. As you know, we are coming to the end of this investigation and it looks very much as though I have won and so earlier this week, on Wednesday, my access to Emails was denied completely. When my access is restored, I am expecting that all Emails to my MSP, to and from my lawyer and to and from journalists will be removed.
We are heading for another Fergusons cover-up where all records of contracts and minutes of meetings have been lost? Fortunately, I have copied everything to Audit Scotland. That is every single items of correspondence, no matter how trivial, so that in the event of an Inquiry, it can be produced.
They have trawled through my internet usage over the months and years. I don't visit pornography sites or anything like that and so there is nothing immoral or remotely illegal to be found. All they could come up with was that I am a subscription holder to the Daily Telegraph and that I visit a Rangers supporters website to get news of transfers. That makes me a Rangers supporting Tory in the eyes of the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon says: 'Let's hang the bastard from a tree' and John Swinney says: ' Aye, let's hang the bastard from a tree'. That's the thought patterns of ministers at Holyrood sadly.
I recall in the early days of Holyrood, there was the case of Shirley McKee who was the police officer in Irvine who was sacked from her job for leaving a fingerprint at the murder scene. She was obviously being stitched-up by the police for whatever reason but they insisted that it was her fingerprint that was found and it couldn't have been anyone else's. Anyway, it was the early days of the internet and Shirley McKee's father (who was himself a retired policeman) send a scanned copy of the fingerprint found at the murder scene together with his daughter's fingerprint to 2no American experts. They both came back straight away and said that the two fingerprints were different and were from different people. The police case collapsed and Shirly McKee was vindicated and received a public apology from Jack McConnell. I remember thinking that wasn't good enough and a hell of a lot better than that should be expected from a government. The 4No Scottish finger-print experts all kept their jobs, believe it or not.
I don't have the support of 2No American experts, I have the support of 44No American experts, along with a Scottish expert. But, Swinney and Sturgeon insist that they are 'taking it seriously' and that they are both right and that I am wrong. They have been saying that since 2017.
Back in Jack McConnell's time we had a lively Press and diligent MSP's who were about to prove that Holyrood was the most honest Parliament in the world. Even Mike Russell fought Shirley McKee's case for her as did many newspapers. None of that would happen now and I think we all know and accept that Holyrood is close to the bottom as far as honesty among world Parliaments is concerned.
On Thursday, my Email being blocked, I contacted all of the interested parties on my wife's Email account. That was my MSP, the Institution of Civil Engineers, Scotland's Head of Building Standards, HM Chief Inspectorate of Education and the EIS to explain to them that responsibility lay with them. In the event of an accident at the school, the first question that would be asked of them is: 'When were you aware of this and what did you do to investigate'. The same thing happened and the Email vanished overnight. Like all of the others however, it was copied to Audit Scotland.
ReplyDeleteIronically, we have both been denied justice by Emeritus Professors of Law at Glasgow University. You were denied by one Professor and I was denied by that same crooked wee man and his doppelganger, who is also an Emeritus Professor of Law at Glasgow University. You had no chance as you are just a working guy - full stop. On the face of it, I am the same. But not quite. If I am correct, and everyone believes that I am correct, then 450 primary school pupils have been sitting in school class-rooms which could collapse at any time. One the parents and teachers learn that, their reaction will be entirely negative to everyone. Everyone who knew about this and who did and said nothing will be severely criticized and that includes the Law Society of Scotland and the whole Scottish Government apparatus, including the civil service.
When did they all know about and what did they do to check? That's the question, isn't it. It appears that they have all accepted the opinion of John Swinney.
It would be interesting to know if removing Emails from a private account is within the law. I suspect that it is not but we can leave that with Audit Scotland. What I will say is that I expect the worst of dishonest behaviour from all at the Scottish Government and I am hardened to it by now I suppose. But, when they start accessing my wife's Emails and deleting what they don't like, then the situation changes.
Interestingly, I have paid about 50,000GBP of my own money to be a whistleblower in Scotland. Can you believe that? Half of that money went to the doppelgangers law firm and the other half went to another law firm. Both did nothing because John Swinney told them to. That's the sad predicament that Scottish law now find itself in. Several hundred years of good honest work have built up a reputation and it has been pulled apart in the 8-years since Sturgeon and Swinney came to power.
I'm an engineer and, frankly, our profession has suffered the same malaise under the thumb of this present administration and I think that they could come out of this with their heritage seriously weakened. Would this be allowed to happen with any of the American professional institutions? Not a chance. This is a Scottish malaise, confined to these shores and what we used to be good at we are now very, very bad at.
By the way, the UK record for a whistleblowing case is 10.5 years. We are now approaching 9-years and so, by the time this is finished, it will be a new UK record and there is little doubt about that.
Your favourite expression over the years used to be: 'At the end of the day' and many paragraphs used to be preceded by that expression. So, at the end of the day, who will be blamed for this?
ReplyDeleteIf they do nothing and a collapse occurs, then a criminal inquiry will follow sooner or later and, even if it doesn't result in deaths, an Inquiry of some description will follow immediately after. That may not be a criminal trial but it will be run just like a criminal trial and folk will be compelled to attend.
The only people who have said that this school is safe is the design engineer (let's call him H) and Scottish Building Standards who have carried out an independent check. The Institution of Civil Engineers gave the impression that they had checked it and it was satisfactory a few years ago but I notice that they have back-tracked now. Frankly, they are neither on the right side or the wrong side and are beginning to look entirely dishnonst as a result of that. So, it is the design engineer and Scottish Building Standards against myself, one of Scotland's top engineers and 44 of the world's top engineers.
It's bound to be sorted-out soon you say. No, that situation can persist in Scotland year after year.
What are the EIS doing? They're an experienced Union; surely they smell a rat? Again, no.
A delicately poised situation then. At the very heart of it is our doppelganger Emeritus professor of Law who has been advising everyone to issue holding replies and that has been going-on for years. However, in a court, he may not be blamed. If we go by precedent here, it will be the engineers and Scottish Building Standards who are blamed.
If we go back to the case of Shirley McKee, she was very nearly bankrupted by the Holyrood MSP's and bent civil servants and they have been doing that to me too.
It reminds me of the old saying: 'When you find yourself in a hole, step out of the hole, stop digging and throw away the shovel'. The Institution of Civil Engineers have done that, but so far anyway, no-one else has.
If the school can be fixed it will cost a 7-figure sum to do that. If it cannot be fixed, it will be a mid-ranging 8-figure sum of I would guess 40 million GBP. If there are fatalities, it will be several times that.
I am hoping that this case brings about a root and branch reform of Holyrood and their reliance on bent lawyers and bent civil servants. If this case doesn't do it then there must be others waiting in the wings.
The great advantage this case has at the moment is that all correspondence is held by Audit Scotland.
I'm not a great man for conspiracy theories. That said, it does appear to me that H, who is one of the UK's top engineers, has been made to say what he has said by the Emeritus Professor of Law. H is therefore in the biggest trouble he has ever been in and if a collapse occurs tomorrow, he will curse the day he ever listened to him.
This Emeritus Professor, like the one that came before him, thinks he is doing a good job by protecting Sturgeon, Swinney and all the rest of them but he has gotten all of them into a very deep hole from which there appears to be no escape.
Poor H. He's been taken for a mug.
What of the present education minister Shirley-Ann Somerville?What's her role in all of this? I remember in the case of Shirley McKee, Mike Russell would stand up in Holyrood and ask Jack McConnell to explain the case and Jack McConnell would respond that he had consulted with 4No Scottish fingerprints experts and that he was personally satisfied that Shirley McKee had a case to answer. That rigmarole went on for months. Then, of course, Mike Russell was given the opinions of 2No American fingerprints experts, he gave them to all at Holyrood and suddenly Shirley McKee didn't have a case to answer, but Jack McConnell did have a case to answer and he duly apologised to Shirley McKee and to the wider public.
ReplyDeleteIn this case we do not have the opinions of 2No American experts, we have the opinions of 44No American experts. Nevertheless, these opinion have never been aired at Holyrood, by my MSP and they have never been mentioned by any civil servant or lawyer. They haven't even been referred to in the Press, by the Institution of Civil Engineers, by the EIS or by Scottish Building Standards. Why do you think that is? Audit Scotland have them, of course. They are the opinions of 44No of the very best engineers in the world from Europe to the Middle East and the far East and even from Australia. What are they all afraid of and why isn't anyone referring to them? They provide the answer, surely?
Shirley-Ann Somerville doesn't refer to them either and instead she tells my MSP that she has taken the advice of 4No Scottish engineers and that she is personally satisfied that the school is safe. So, the investigation begins and ends with her and she sees only what she wants to see. I ask my MSP: 'What about the opinions of the 44No world experts?' She never answers. However, what if the Scottish engineers are wrong, as the Scottish fingerprints experts were wrong? It does look more and more likely that that is the case, So, what then?
Then they all defer to the Emeritus Professor of Law who advises everyone not to communicate. Shut everything down and do not refer to the American experts because, once you start doing that, you will lose.
There was a time when we had serious, measured and honest folk at Holyrood. Sam Galbraith was education minister and he was the last one that anyone could probably trust. Would Sam Galbraith take any part in a cover-up? Would he engage with the whistleblower and with the American experts and with the Scottish experts, years ago, and find a solution.
Get the message? Is it perhaps a delinquent administration that we currently have running Holyrood? It is very, very difficult not to come to that conclusion just now, isn't it.
Anyway, sadly, the fall guy will be H. There's a famous precedent case and it is described in a short video by the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is called: 'Ethics Case Study 4' and I have referred everyone to it dozens of times now. What that case explains is that once an engineer says that he has checked something and it is compliant then he must have done that. If he is lying then he is pretty much fucked and no-one will support him. That is the sad position that H finds himself in today.
I just looked-up the UK Data Protection Act there, George. There is no way that accessing my Emails or deleting them is allowed under the Act. I didn't think it would be and it isn't. This is what happens when they are warned time and time again and they all agree to do nothing and wait. The problem doesn't go away, it only gets progressively worse.
ReplyDeleteAs I suggest above, the present situation cannot persist for long and it will be resolved soon. I have asked the EIS to liaise with the Press, to save me from having to do it all the time.
This is the result of 20-years of managed decline at Holyrood. What was set-up to be the most honest wee Parliament in the world are in fact in open breach of the Data Protection Act.
From 'Catch-22' by Joseph Heller: 'That's what happens when you promote incompetent people to positions of authority'. That book was published in 1960; Holyrood came along 40-years later and tuned it into frightening reality for all right thinking Scots.
ReplyDeleteI just checked-in expecting the above comments to have disappeared, but I see they are still there. Democracy and rule of law in Scotland is on life support but it is not dead yet.
ReplyDeleteJust prior to the GR Bill being voted for at Holyrood, those campaigning against it presented several hundred pages of contentions of fact and contentions of law to Shirley-Ann Somerville. She had some early involvement in the matter and the campaigners, who are very sensible people, wanted to engage with the Scottish Government prior to the vote taking place. Shirley-Ann Somerville gave all the indications that she hadn't even opened and read the submission; she hadn't even considered the cross-border implications of it and the campaigners left thinking that the Scottish Government were amateurs.
ReplyDeleteA few days later, Nicola Sturgeon announced that the campaigners case was 'without merit'. That sounds final doesn't it. It sounds as though it is a verdict handed down by a judge after hearing a case in court. But this hadn't even been opened-up and read by the ministers and so this was a political announcement rather than a legal one? Certainly, Roddy Dunlop and Lord Sumption who do speak for the legal profession foresee problems from what they have understood to be the proposals.
This is the problem with these ministers. They just take it upon themselves to make executive decisions without consulting with anyone. In Scotland, do we have characters like Shirley-Ann Somerville making decisions which can only be made by lawyers and engineers. So, the professions don't exist in that they don't adjudicate and they don't decide. Shirley-Ann Somerville does that. Jesus wept, as they say.
Just checking-in to see if everything is still here. I hope the question asked is: 'Why has this been covered up?'
ReplyDeleteI can understand the Holyrood politicians, lawyers and civil-servants....but the rest of them?
After the first few months of the Ukrainian war, senior military guys were saying that it marked the end of the battlefield tank, as they were too easily picked-off my small rockets and even grenades could disable a tank. Then Hymars rockets were introduced and they are directed on target by satellite and so are extremely accurate. Now they are becoming less useful as the enemy can move out of range of them. The Navies were never much of an influence over anything as both sides were nervous of incurring Naval losses. Now, we seem to be back to square-one, to the battlefield tank. Ukraine wants hundreds of them supplied within the next few weeks for a Spring offensive. Without the tanks, the offensive will fail but with the tanks it will probably succeed. It just goes to show the constantly moving trajectory of warfare. I had never even heard of Leopard tanks before. But, without them, the war might be lost.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the game of holding the west to ransom over the supply of gas has petered-out and the west now has plenty of supplies to see out the rest of this winter. LPG is available all around the world and new suppliers have been awarded the contracts that formerly went to Russia. So, the undersea pipeline that they destroyed at the start of the winter will probably never again carry gas from Russia to the west and if it ever does, it will be the west that dictates how much they will take of it and how much they are willing to pay. I imagine, the public will not want it any any price.
Email is still blocked, George. I have no doubt they are being studied by a spotty nerd under instruction from Swinney and Somerville. So, in 25-years, Holyrood has descended to this.
ReplyDeleteMy sense is that we are very close to an outcome now. It all hinges on what H says. It has taken him more than 8-years to respond and I have asked him not to provide a dishonest reply but instead to take a look at what the 44No experts have said.
I think he will do that because if he doesn't, then he alone will face the consequences and no-one will help him.
Scotland produced the best lawyers and engineers in the world for hundreds of years. Now we have political midgets like Swinney and Somerville making them afraid to do their job properly. What a feckin mess we're all in.
Alastair Campbell knows a lot more about politics than anyone at Holyrood. He probably knows more than all of them at Holyrood put together. He said of a whistleblower who was threatening to expose some lies that had been told during the Iraq invasion: 'There are four steps an experienced parliamentarian should follow - the first step is you deny it, the second step is you deny it again, the third step is you find some credible gossip to discredit the whistleblower (In my case I am a Rangers supporting Tory - although it has to be said that I have never actually voted Tory) and the fourth step, when you realize that the game is up, you then say that it was all a misunderstanding.
ReplyDeleteI explained this advice to my MSP a few months ago. No response. I'm at the stage just now where I am saying: 'Hell mend the lot of them'.
I was watching Channel-4 news last night and apparently the Leopard tanks will be sent to Ukraine by Germany, Poland, Spain and others. I don't know how many they will get, initially it sounded like less than a hundred in total, but the Americans will supplement that with their own tanks. They interviewed a chap called Hamish de Bretton Gordon (which is a fabulous name). He's a retired tank commander and understands the subject. He reckons the Leopards can travel at 40mph, can go for 300-400 miles between re-fuelling stops, have great night vision, can fire accurately while travelling at full speed over rough ground and can take a hit from a Russian tank and probably two or three hits before the tank will be disabled. They will use them to break through the Russian defensive lines at night and, once they have done that, they can re-gain lost ground very quickly and it turns into a rout. That's the plan.
ReplyDeleteYou may ask: 'How long should step three take? (the third step is you find some credible gossip to discredit the whistleblower) It used to take Alastair Campbell days or weeks at the most. It has taken all at Holyrood since August 2016 - that's six and a half years. They are now studying every single Email I have written in the past 10 or so years for anything they can use to discredit me. It's not working is it? The whole Holyrood system needs reform; the MSP's and what they do, the parliamentary question system that is in operation, the lack of honesty, the lack of communication, the lack of accountability. You can see it all here, Holyrood and all the vested interests that support it and vice-versa. It doesn't work for the public at all, does it. Coincidentally, the wee woman who caused all of this is a civil-servant. She's called H too, believe it or not.
ReplyDeleteI hope you're following this, George. I'll continue:
ReplyDeleteYou've got to remember that all of this occurred during the early months of the Sturgeon/Swinney administration. If you cast your mind back, it was all about middle-aged women of moderate ability breaking through the glass ceiling and taking over all of the top jobs. Hence, civil servant H was appointed as Head of Education. She answered to no-one.
When I approached her officers in 2015 it was to say: 'This school you are building will never work - it will sink into the mud in a few years time'. I presumed that she would consult with H the engineer to ascertain whether what I was saying was correct or not. I specifically asked her to do that but she didn't. Instead, she asked the Contractor who said that I was lying. In fact, it was the Contractor who was lying. (Did anyone expect the Contractor to admit it?)
However, that doesn't explain why this case has failed to move forward in the past 8 years, does it? No civil servant, no matter how important they are, can delay a case like this for 8-years.
That's where the Emeritus Professor of Law comes in. He is the self-styled juggernaut of Scottish Law. Can he delay it for 8-years? My experience is that he can delay it for ever if he wants and that is what he has set-out to do. Has he just decided personally to delay it? Who is paying him to delay it? Has Holyrood instructed him to delay it?
So, (and I know that you know this very well from your own experience) - forget this notion that Scottish Law exists for public protection. It doesn't. It exists to protect those that protect them and nowadays that is those at Holyrood. I am being accused of being a Tory, but I have no interest in politics and I am not a Tory. What I can say is that all parties at Holyrood are culpable, including the Tories as they have known about this case since 2016.
The way it stands at the moment, and if there is an accident at the school, it is H the engineer that will be blamed. H the civil servant and the Emeritus Professor of Law will say: 'I'm not an engineer....I know nothing', and H the engineer will face calls that he should stand trial in a criminal law court.
So, there are major problems with the administration of Law in this country at the moment. That is leading on to the professional institutions being reticent, the civil service being reticent, the Press being reticent and the trade unions being reticent and when all of that conspires together at the same time, then lives are put needlessly at risk.
So, whenever John Swinney says: 'The Scottish Government are proceeding to follow legal advice' then you know that it is lies.
The depleted uranium shells that the tanks being delivered to Ukraine may be employing are being referred to by the Russians as "dirty nukes," and they have threatened to retaliate in kind.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about these tanks is that they can get into range quickly and deliver shells accurately. A battalion of tanks is 44 and they expect to get at least 2 battalions by the Spring. Whatever happens on the battlefield, let's hope this will be the last act of this needless war. The Russians have threatened a devastating response many times and it never happens. This is just turning into a war of slow attrition for them and if they had any effective weapons they would have used them by now. They are getting armed by Iraq and North Korea at the moment and so they are not seriously threatening anyone. They have a missile that is so powerful that it was designed to sink an aircraft carrier and they used it to demolish a tower block last week, killing 40-odd people. I know nothing of warfare, but it looks to me as if they are on a losing trajectory.
ReplyDeleteWho will be blamed for this school? That's all anyone really wants to know. Will it be H the engineer, H the civil servant, the Emeritus Professor, John Swinney or Shirley-Ann Somerville. Because everyone is terrified to communicate, it has been a constantly moving target these past years.
ReplyDeleteMy experience has been that it will be H the engineer, although the others will not escape criticism.
If you take a look at what Holyrood has been engaged in these past couple of months, it has been the gender recognition bill which has proven to be such a legal foul-up no-one talks about it any more. Then, a few weeks later, an amendment to the hunting foxes with dogs bill which means that you can only hunt foxes with 2-dogs, instead of 8-dogs. Is this really what the Scottish public expect from Holyrood?
It's been in the Press twice and so it's not a 'non-story'. If they had only listened to me, or the 44 world experts who gave their advice for free, or the Scottish expert, then insurance would have paid and that's what insurance is for. But no, it had to be covered-up and now everything is a mess.
Holyrood has turned everything bad. Everything we were once good at, we are now failing in and it's all down to dishonesty at Holyrood.
I understand that they are now trying to blame everything on the Contractor. It's too late for that now.
Just do what other countries do and investigate straight away because whistle-blowers are hardly ever wrong.
I think we are all due an apology by Mr Swinney.
I recall your brush with an Emeritus Professor. Life is too short and we cannot dwell in the past but I remember reading about it and getting the impression that he was used at the time in order to circumvent the proper processes of law. 'I'm a Professor and you're just a nobody and so kindly get out of my way'. That was about the size of it, wasn't it.
ReplyDeleteMy brush with an Emeritus Professor has been the same although it has to be said that he has never responded directly to me; he tends to use intermediaries who are all terrified by now and so not much actually gets done.
'Don't reply and if you have to reply make sure it's a holding reply'. 'Tell him that you are taking this seriously'. They've all been using that formula since 2016.
Both of our Emeritus Professors worked for the same law firm. There might be something in that. .
Sent 5-minutes ago, George to 'Protect', who are there to protect whistleblowers in the UK:
ReplyDelete'Yes - that would be OK.
I very much want this cleared-up now. I still cannot access my Emails or send and receive Emails. I am surprised that I have been able to send this to you as I cannot sent anything to anyone else just now, or so it seems anyway. Even this Email will disappear from my 'sent items' pretty soon, probably within the next 5-minutes.
My Emails over the course of the past 10-years do not contain anything remotely embarrassing, immoral, illegal or anything like that and so I am not concerned on that score, but it is basically illegal to do that, isn't it.
As far as the safety of the school is concerned, that appears to lie with 'engineer H' and I think that we can all leave that with him. His letter was copied to everyone and it was very clear.
I may be stating the obvious here but 'engineer H's' opinion is at variance with all of the other opinions, isn't it. Even the Scottish opinion and that is by the chap who should know better than anyone. However, that's 'engineer H's' worry.
I have missed-out on more than 8 years of income, of career and all the rest of it and it is that that I would like to address now. So, if you could both have a think about that between now and then, that would be most helpful.
I think that as far as whistle-blowing is concerned, we can say that is concluded and that it is over now.
'Sadly, in Scotland, we have an administration that seems determined to re-write laws and re-write engineering as they personally see the world and you will have seen evidence of this on the news recently. When you start doing that it inevitably goes badly, very quickly, for everyone concerned.'
ReplyDeleteI see Celtic FC have opened a Soup Kitchen. They were so fed-up seeing folk queuing in Argyll Street in the rain and cold they have opened-up their own and it's under cover, heated and all the test of it. There you are, some folk just get-on and get the important things in life dealt with. It's not complex - just get it done.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember when Henry McLeish resigned as FM because he sub-let his office, took rental off someone and didn't declare it? Salmond too ran a pretty impressive administration and I cannot remember any complaints from Scots in general. This Sturgeon administration has though been riven from top to bottom with misfeasance and it is about time that UK authorities moved into Holyrood and started asking the right questions of the right people and demanding answers. The press are on to this now, maladministration and back-covering has been going-on for years and it has now gotten so bad that the public want it stopped.
ReplyDeleteI just left a letter for you on your other website. Take a look at it when you have the time. This subject of risk assessments fascinates me. Double rapists can be sent to a woman's prison if the risk assessment says that the risk is manageable. This school has been passed as safe for the past 4 or 5 years based solely upon Scottish Government risk assessments. Can you believe that?
ReplyDeleteThere's an increasing number of people wanting to re-join the EU. I was one of those who were happy to go along with the majority at the time and so I didn't have a strong view one way or the other, but it's clearly not working. John Curtice reckons the majority in favour of rejoining is now 57% and rising all the time. It is supposed to be costing us 100Billion per year in needless losses and that clearly cannot go-on. I remember when Ukraine was being flattened by missiles and rockets the losses there were put at 400Billion and so 100Billion a year just to be outside the EU is senseless. I will enjoy going back as I have always gotten-on well with Europeans. I get-on well with the English as well, it is just a rump of belligerent Scots that are wankers, but that's just my opinion.
ReplyDelete'The devolved government for Scotland is responsible for most of the day to day concerns of the people of Scotland.' Does anyone actually believe this has a hope in hell of working? It's more akin to a nursery school, isn't it. Only the Tories could put together a reasonably functional administration - we should forget the rest. Alex Cole Hamilton is in hiding this week. Sarwar isn't in hiding but should be.
ReplyDeleteI remember the final days of Boris Johnson's crooked reign. He was supported by Jacob Reese-Mogg, Nadine Dorries and Michael Fabricant. There may have been one or two others, but you get the picture. Is it the last days of Nicola Sturgeon's government? We see Alyn Smith, Emma Roddick and a reluctant Keith Brown. Are there any other confident defenders of Nicola around at the moment? Or, do Boris and Nicola have a lot more in common than we all thought.
ReplyDeleteLike Boris, Nicola thinks that we the public are all peasants who can be sent off to the fields to work. Once the public turn, they will never go back. Once they turn against a politician therefore, the politicians career is as good as over. Sometimes I think the American system is best. There, serious malfeasance while in office will lead to jail time. In Scotland, we follow the European model which is too forgiving.
I left a letter for you on your other website, George. I know you know this, but I'll tell you anyway, the way it works is that John Swinney instructs the law firm, in our two cases it was the same law firm, 'get rid of this nuisance'. I may be a nuisance, but I am also right and that was always going to happen, wasn't it. You've got to ask yourself if Scottish law has been completely subsumed by Holyrood? Does it actually exists any more as a profession?
ReplyDeleteRed says:
ReplyDelete1 February, 2023 at 10:23 am
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.
#NuSNP
I'm not 'Red' by the way. I copied this from WoS. Whoever Red is knows what he is talking about.
Since the banking crisis, we have all been living under austerity. We'd better all get ourselves used to that as it is not going to change. We, as a Nation, are now in considerable debt which we have to re-pay regularly. When interest rates go up as they have done, it is to curb inflation. High inflation means that the debt becomes more expensive to re-pay and the job of keeping the percentage of debt repayments as an ever shrinking proportion of GDP becomes more and more difficult. When it starts to increase, as it is doing just now, the Nations finances enter a death spiral and the situations gets worse very, very quickly. That's why borrowing money is such a bad idea in the main. Sure, borrow money to invest or to cope with emergencies, but not for day-to-day running costs as that idiot Liz Truss was proposing to do. For this reason, I reckon that the strikes will go-on and on and on and no more money will be promised to teachers and train drivers and whoever else wants to strike. I don't blame Sunak for this. He's in a corner and we need to be patient and work our way out of it. I do blame the bankers who caused it in the first place.
ReplyDeleteJust think George, if more of us had voted YES in 2014, today's utter chaos by all at Holyrood would have been unstoppable. The GR Bill would have been law and Scotland would have been a paedophile's five-star destination on a par with the Philippines.
ReplyDeleteThe tanks which are on their way to Ukraine are Leopard 2's, made in Germany. The Ukrainians expect to receive around 140No of them in time for Spring.
ReplyDeleteA Belgian arms dealer has a further 60No Leopard 1 tanks in a warehouse somewhere in Belgium. He bought them from the Belgian Gov a couple of years ago for 10,000-15,000Euros each, presumably for their scrap value.
He's now offering to sell them back to the Belgian Gov, for onward shipment to Ukraine, for 150,000-200,000Euros each.
I remember when arms dealers used to have a bad reputation and it was for stuff like this.
Might be an idea to stock on anything and everything to keep your household going for several months if there is a supply chain problem
Deletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9297015/ANDREW-NEIL-Nicola-Sturgeons-storm-troops-turned-Scotland-banana-republic.html
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you recall the above article in the Daily Mail. Read it again and the memories will come flooding back to you. I'm just thinking about what you say about Sturgeon and I can only agree. How Scotland, the land of the enlightenment, can find itself led by her and her malevolent creep of a husband 200 years later is a tragedy.
So, in Scotland we have males, females and we have rapists. It's what we do with the rapists, that's the problem. Do they go to a male prison or a female prison. Only men can commit the offence of rape, women can only commit sexual assault and so on that basis all rapists should go to a male prison. But, it's SNP/Green land here and so nothing is straightforward. If there was a hill to die on I didn't think it would be this one, but that's where they are all heading. The public have a grip on this now and it's not going away. I've dealt with SNP ministers by the way and, trust me, they are fundamentally stupid and so anything is possible now.
ReplyDeleteJohn Swinney's priorities for the forthcoming budget are:
ReplyDelete🔹eradicate child poverty
🔹provide sustainable public services
🔹deliver a just transition to net zero
You can throw away your woollen hat - everything is now going to be OK. By the way, they say that Kate Forbes isn't coming back until GRR is sorted-out. She's from a community which is dead against it and she doesn't want to risk being asked in public whether she agrees with it, or not. Judging from Jenny Gilruth's arrogant, inept and obtuse performance on last night's QT, I wouldn't expect to see her back anytime soon. Everyone at Holyrood is now outperforming each other in humiliating the Nation. In a strange sort of way, I think we all know that Holyrood has run its course and we are getting some enjoyment out of it. I know that I am. I am all for closing it down now.
Anyway, they say the The Times is presently investigating who over-ruled the judge and sent Isla Bryson to Cornton Vale instead of Barlinnie. On the face of it, it can only be Keith Brown or Sturgeon. My money's on Sturgeon.
I'll give you a summary of this week's events in the story of the sinking school:
ReplyDeleteAt the end of last year I was told by my MSP that she was that busy working on the GRR Bill and that she had no time to work on my case. I accepted that at the time, but she still hasn't contacted me and so looks like the gate has come down on my case now and she is stuck alongside all of the others at Holyrood, on the wrong side of this argument. That was always going to happen. It's something about Holyrood and no-one there appears to be able to do anything right. A delinquent administration that has lost its way.
I told you last week that my access to my emails has been disabled. This has been taken incredibly seriously by UK authorities and they are investigating now. It reminds me of the Ferguson scenario where we have been asked to believe that many crucial records have just been lost. Contracts, minutes of meetings etc have all been lost. In real life, these things don't happen, but the Scottish Government can make them happen, can't they. Sadly, there's a public cost to Holyrood's misfeasance. In Fergusons case that cost is hundreds of millions of pounds. In my case it is tens of millions of pounds and the sacrifice of public safety.
I received a call on Wednesday from a top UK lawyer. I'm no longer interested in wasting my time with Scottish lawyers as they are basically all hanging out of pockets of Holyrood parliamentarians. She was straight down the middle, no prevarication, no 'but that's the way it works here'. It is so different.
She put me in contact with another Scottish public agency. All have been bent out of shape and hollowed out by Sturgeon over the past 8-years, but some more than others.
I contacted them and sent them yet another summary of the events of the past 8-years and I did that yesterday.
Interestingly, the UK lawyer is working for free.
The summary that I sent yesterday raises the same questions. Has this been a cover-up? If so, by who? Has it all just been a mistake, a misunderstanding? By now, there are 40 to 50 people involved, almost all of them Scottish public servants or lawyers. Have they all misunderstood? It does sound less and less likely doesn't it.
As I said last week, one of the big losers here will be engineer H. One of the most respected engineers in the UK and how he has managed to box himself into this corner to appease all at Holyrood beats me. In terms of engineering, what he has done by saying that he has checked something and that it is OK when it is not OK is the number one thing that engineers are trained not to do. It can quite literally be the end of you as an engineer.
That's what happens when people blindly follow the lead of those at Holyrood, thinking that they are in charge and that it will all work out in the end......all of the problems will go away and be forgotten about. That doesn't happen, and God knows how and why engineer H fell for it.
The lawyer advised me to give it another 2-weeks for people to reply and if that doesn't happen, it's back to the Press. Hopefully, I can get an English based paper to run the story, they will be less frightened of Swinney.
Talking about Swinney, the lawyer asked: 'Who's John Swinney?'
That's the type of lawyer we need. Scottish law is non-existent now and is just a branch of the SNP hierarchy. It is sad to witness the collapse of a once great profession but that is what I have seen and it is such a relief to speak to a real lawyer who has not been got-at and told what to say.
As far as civil-servant H is concerned, this has all spiralled out of her control now. Forget about her.
As far as the Emeritus Professor of Law is concerned, engineering is hard and fast and the rules which have been in existence for decades cannot be bent to suit you. Live with it and get yourself ready to pay for it because the public will ensure that your law firm will take a smaller role in running the lives of Scots. That is as good an outcome as you can hope for at this stage, isn't it.
.
.
The way this stands now George is that the Scottish Government must pay for everything. That includes the school and whether they can fix it at this stage, or not, and my losses over the course of the past 8-plus years.
ReplyDeleteIf they continue to do nothing and an accident occurs, then engineer H will be held responsible. He is Technical Director for one of the largest engineering firms in the world. In the letters he's sent so far, he's said: 'Not me.....I know nothing'. But I've copied him in for the past few years and so that is evidently not true. Of all of the many people involved here, engineer H is in the tightest of corners and I don't know how he'll get out of it to be honest.
Just now, the Scottish Government are frantically trying to delete all correspondence, certainly from my records. That has worked for them in the past, as I say above, it worked at Fergusons in Port Glasgow. Will it work here though? I'm not so sure; there's just too much of it.
The Emeritus Professor of Law has always reminded me of Tom Hagan, who was Vito Corleone's 'Consigliere' in the Godfather. John Swinney reminds me of Vito Corleone. A depressing analogy to have to make, but it can be made and that is a problem for the general public. Tom Hagan worked around the law and, as you know, Scottish lawyers tend to do the same whenever the Scottish Government is involved.
Everything else is whataboutery.
Deleting Emails is against the Data Protection Act, by the way. The Emeritus Professor of Law doesn't give a fuck about that. Thankfully, there are other lawyers that do.
I know I have said this before, but thank you for your support over the years. Now that UK authorities are looking at this, we may be able to sweep all of these Scottish vested interests aside at last.
Let me say one final thing about Holyrood. It illustrates for me just what a putrid administration we have there: My MSP is a Labour Party MSP and I last spoke to her almost 7 years ago. For the past several years she has been telling me: 'I cannot do any more for you, this is between you and your lawyer now'.
ReplyDeleteThe lawyer I spoke to on Wednesday is an expert on this subject and she told me: 'Your lawyer has made a mess of this and it needs to be sorted-out by the Scottish Government now. We'll give them 2-weeks'.
So, what do you think has been going-on here? I reckon that MSP's and Scottish lawyers have made the conscious decision: 'Let's just bury this'. I know that you have experience of this law firm and their methods. As I say, seems entirely putrid.
Is this not a criminal matter already? Involving all of them?
'The presence of shallow and potentially upwelling groundwater on the land reduces the available bearing capacity to less than 75kN/m2 and with this present it will not be a suitable founding strata'. Fairhurst and Partners Soil Investigation Report
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, this IS the founding strata. So, when the teachers look out of the classroom window and see water everywhere which is unable to drain away properly, it means that the building could collapse at any time.
The actual available bearing capacity required by the design is 150kN/m2. So, as you can see, the Factor of Safety which is known only to engineer H, but which I would expect to be in the range 2.5-3.5, is gone.
There you have it George. It could hardly be simpler, could it?
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward would have worked this out instantly. They would have been on the phone and they would have gone to meet people and warn them and they would have written about it in the Washington Post.
In Scotland, we have John Swinney and Shirley-Anne Somerville in charge and so nothing happens. Everything's a secret and whistle-blowers can be threatened to ensure their silence.
As I've said twenty times already, more than 40No of the world's most respected experts have come to the same conclusion that I have come to. Are we still all waiting on engineer H? Surely not.
It's just not going to work, is it?
Where is this school located exactly?
ReplyDeleteYou claim that it is constructed on inappropriate land.
When was it built?
The school's in Aberdeen and it was built in 2014-2015.
ReplyDeleteThe land contains naturally occurring artesian layers which you must keep intact during construction because, if you cut through them, you simply cannot repair them. The extra land drainage should work in conjunction with these artesian layers to improve the drainage of the land and keep the moisture content of the soil stable and relatively low. When the moisture content starts to increase, the strength of the soil falls exponentially and that is the problem.
A mistake which was made during construction cut through not only the extra drains, but all of the artesian layers too, down to a depth of 5m. Hence, the building is what is deemed 'non-compliant' which means 'unsafe'. Will there be a warning before a collapse occurs? Not necessarily. Look, for example, at Champlain Towers in Florida which collapsed about 2-years ago. The land there was sinking too, by a few millimetres per year, but collapse occurred suddenly and without warning.
This is a very unusual problem and many of the international experts that have looked at it said that they have never seen it before, but the land surrounding this school is sinking by a lot more than the land surrounding Champlain Towers was sinking.
There are two modes of failure in these cases. The first is geotechnical failure and that is followed by structural failure. Geotechnical failure has already occurred and that occurred for the first time in late 2015, just before the school was officially opened. A structural failure is not necessarily a collapse; it can be a deformation of the structure. But, at that stage the building is dangerous. It cannot be occupied and whether is can be repaired or not is the vexed question. What I will say is that it may be possible to repair and re-open the school, but the circumstances leading up to its failure may make the public less likely to trust those who are telling them it can be made safe and re-opened.
By the way, the geotechnical failure that I am describing is a hydraulic failure. Look it up in Eurocode EC7 and that will describe to you what a hydraulic failure is and what should be done immediately it is noticed. Everyone has managed to keep this hidden since 2015 and that takes a bit of doing, doesn't it.
In all other respects, the school is probably fine. But, it contains a latent defect which will cause a structural failure and I have explained that to Scotland's last two Heads of Building Standards. Have a look at EC7 yourself and there is further guidance from the Institution of Civil Engineers on the subject of hydraulic failure.
If you care to pass me an Email address, I will send you the opinions and advice of the 40-odd expert members of the American Society of Civil Engineers which I describe above. Their opinions were very consistent and essentially they were saying that when you have this degree of flooding, stop immediately and get the land checked by a geotechnical expert. Engineer H is a geotechnical expert but, if he is refusing, just consult with someone else. Fairhurst of Aberdeen carried out the Soil Investigation Report and so I would suggest asking their geotechnical team for an opinion.
The school which originally occupied the land, Newhills Primary, was built in approximately 1960. It was demolished in 2014 to make way for the present school.
ReplyDeleteThat school was a lightweight, single storey timber framed and timber clad building. It was nevertheless built upon a deep raft foundation. That indicates that the strength of the soil was understood to be marginal even back then, in 1960.
150kN/m2 is not a high bearing capacity, it is on the low side of average but that is the best that can be achieved from that soil and, to do that, you must keep it dry. Once the strength drops to less than 75kN/m2, it can be described as 'collapsing' and that will inevitably lead to structural failure. Only one crucial area needs to soften for the building to fail and several areas are softening each winter and we can all see that. It is fortunate therefore that the building has not collapsed already.
The present building is not a lightweight building and 150kN/m2 is required to make the design work.
The reason I am telling you this is to make the point that it is not only my opinion that is land is marginal and has to be treated correctly, it is the opinion shared equally by all engineers who have investigated this land.
What I believe led to me being terminated was when I said that once the artesian layers become blocked, even piling may not be enough to provide a stable footing for the building. It might be enough, but it might not and we would have to investigate that with engineer H and with piling contractors.
There was one mitigation measure which I suggested and which was discussed at the time. It may not have eliminated the problem entirely but it would have improved the prognosis and given everyone a chance to fix it properly at a later date, but it was never done.
George - we appear to be closing-in on an outcome now. You must have read all of this stuff twenty-times by now. It's been on constant repeat for 4-years now.
ReplyDeleteMy intention now is to get myself paid and get myself back to work. Into the bargain, there are three others to be paid for their efforts and that includes you, of course.
I have followed ASCE Ethics Case Studies from day-one. In case study 4, it is a US Professor of Law who explains how engineers ought to conduct themselves ethically so that the public can continue to have confidence in the output of their work. In Scotland, it is engineers who have to explain, or try to explain, to our Professors of Law how to behave ethically.
Sadly, what is clear to me is that our lawyers, and our parliamentarians, would prefer to do and say nothing and just wait it out. When an accident occurs, and it inevitably will occur, they will say: 'Not me.....I'm not an engineer'.
On the face of it, engineer H has a different way of looking at it, but maybe there is no different way of looking at it and the lawyers and parliamentarians have just arsed this up from day-one? That explains everything doesn't it.
Not that far removed from Watergate then.
So they built a school over a naturally replenishing or continuously circulating well of water.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, what you are arguing is that the school was built directly on top of an artesian well because the ground where it was situated had an aquifer bottom and permeable rock above, or "bog land."
I'm hoping the plugging goes well!! You should have kept your mouth shut. These people don't care if the school survives for 30 years. Look at Glasgow. Social housing has a life span of around 30 years.
if they are able to construct a school on land that was formerly used to dump industrial waste, which included lead and arsenic.
ReplyDeleteThey won't be bothered by a little moisture, in my opinion.
There was no industrial waste dumped there. There was a small amount of oil contamination, presumably from an old heating oil tank that was leaking or that was overfilled, but that's nothing unusual and it was cleaned-up. So, you can relax about that.
ReplyDeleteA confined artesian layer is when water flows under the land in a gravel bed which is confined by impermeable clay or rock on the top, bottom and sides and there were many of these under this school.
The water is flowing at pressure, like water in a tap and so you cannot stop it. If you block the confined artesian layers, the water just rises to the surface and floods the land. That causes what is called internal erosion and the land sinks. That is what happened at Champlain Towers and it is happening here too. The land surrounding Champlain Towers was sinking by 2mm per year, the land surrounding this school is sinking at a much faster rate than that.
You can build on top of this land and that happens often. Just be aware though that the layers exist and build on top of them, don't try and cut through and block them as they have done here because you cannot fix them again. I would emphasise again though that this was a mistake; it's just a mistake that has been covered-up.
I share your concern about plugging the water at this stage.
There was a possible solution drawn-up and it was reviewed quite extensively by many world experts back in 2017. It was sent to John Swinney at the time but he ignored it and said that he was listening only to engineer H.
Engineer H's advice, presumably, was to do nothing but that is not working and maybe it's now too late.
It's not up to engineer H to be bothered by moisture and it's not his personal opinion that matters. He follows the rules just like all the rest of us have to do and the rules say that you should be bothered because if you are not then the building will inevitable deform, or collapse. Engineer H is in an office in London and he will not be affected by that, but several hundred school kids and teachers in Aberdeen will be affected.
If you just keep your mouth shut then you will inevitably be blamed for it in the end. The one commonality that I have noticed over the years is that they are all liars and they will all agree to blame someone. That someone will not be one of their legal or political gang. Get the picture?
So, we may be talking about a Watergate style cover-up here where President Nixon is John Swinney. Does that sound like an exaggeration? Remember, at Watergate they were only bugging a rival political party's meetings and so no-one was going to be killed. On that basis, is this example not even more serious.
Don't forget that in Scotland we are all beginning to get used to political and legal cover-ups, but this example shows the damage they cause.
So, what is the solution?
ReplyDeleteI have received two letters so far from engineer H. In both letters, he gives the impression that the design has been checked and is stable. There is the original design of course and there is the as-built design and engineer H doesn't clarify which he is describing. Presumably though, it is the original design and if that is so, then I and many others would agree with him - that design is stable.
Perhaps if engineer H made it very, very clear that he has checked all aspects of the AS-BUILT design, including the stopping-up of the land drains and the artesian layers and he finds that to be compliant, stable and safe, or he finds it not to be so? That's all that we require, isn't it?
Finally, engineer H is a Technical Director and I would expect his response, on this occasion, to very clear and free from sophistry. That has not been the case in either of his previous two letters and I am sure he would accept that.
I said some time ago that whistle-blowing cases usually end when the government says: 'there's been a misunderstanding'. After eight and a half years, I don't think that excuse will work and so I will leave my MSP and Mr Swinney to think of another excuse.
I only want out of this now, to be paid and to return to work.
You have to wonder at why all at Holyrood are finding this so complex?
ReplyDeleteIf you cast your mind back to 2015, when the decision was taken to close 17No Edinburgh schools because they were non-compliant and therefore unsafe. That decision was taken in 6-days.
We have much more extensive information showing this school is non-compliant and unsafe. You have to ask why this has taken more than 8-years and we are still at a standstill?
I've now spelled it out for them. Ask engineer H and, contractually, he must answer. They will find that I have been right all-along and that is why whistle-blowers ought to be protected in this country.
I think we all know the answer already and it should embarrass all Scots that our parliament and our legal profession have become as dishonest as this.
The following points were raised today:
ReplyDelete1. 'What makes this school different from the Edinburgh schools that were fixed back in 2015?' The Edinburgh schools could be fixed and everyone was agreed on that. Just close the schools down for a few months, fix them and re-open them again when they were ready. According to the experts, fixing the Aberdeen school is not nearly so straightforward. Most said that it could be fixed, but not everyone said that and the suggested method of fixing the school is expensive and it will take a lot longer than a few months to complete. Hence, if they close this school it will be many months before they can re-open it again and it is possible that it may never re-open. That's the difference.
2. The law firm responsible for this is now being advised by a spin-doctor. My guess is that they know the game is up.
3. Just ask engineer H: 'Is this school, with all of the artesian layers cut-through, compliant and is it safe?' No lawyers, no parliamentarians and no spin-doctors; it couldn't be simpler.
4. My Emails over the past 12-years have been taken-over, presumably under instruction from the Scottish Government and I cannot access them. I am presently using my wife's Email account but I notice that I cannot send or receive Emails from either the Scottish Government, or Audit Scotland, or Protect. I am expecting that, when I am again allowed access to these Emails, some relating to this school will have been deleted. The whistle-blowing organization 'Protect' have heard of this happening before and they take it very, very seriously, presumably because it is against the law.
5. There are many losers at the end of this, aren't there? Sadly though, the only winners are the contractor who built a faulty school, was paid for it and who is now refusing to go back and fix it unless he is able to negotiate a price first. So, he wants to be paid to fix his own mistake. Sadly, he will probably right and will have to be paid.
6. If only they had checked in 2014, when I first asked them to check, the problem would have been identified and insurance would have paid to rectify it. That's what professional indemnity insurance is for. They didn't check; they just accepted it and now it's too late.
7. There are plenty of systemic failures on show here, aren't there. Can anyone say that the procurement of public buildings is in safe hands and what is anyone at Holyrood doing about this?
8. I am expecting to hear from Protect later next week.
9. As I mentioned a few days ago, the Shirley McKie case was finally solved when 2No American experts intervened. 44No American experts have intervened here. Should we not be paying a lot more attention to the value of their input just now? It is of course possible that engineer H will disagree with the American experts, but I do not expect him to do that.
9. Contracts and minutes of meetings have all vanished from the Ferguson archive, the CMAL archive and the Scottish Government archive prior to that investigation getting underway. Could the same thing be happening here?
You're wasting your time whining.
ReplyDeleteThe individuals in power lack both morals and ethics.
They truly are the slime of the earth, as "Karl Marx" claimed in the 1840s.
There's a value in being patient. It took Shirley McKie 11-years, but if she hadn't put up a fight, she would have ended-up hanging herself from a tree.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Shirley McKie's case was fought for her at Holyrood by Mike Russell. Can you imagine Mike Russell putting-up any kind of fight for a constituent nowadays?
Could that be the problem?
In the end, it all depends upon the strength of your evidence and my evidence is exceptionally strong.
ReplyDeleteEngineer H has nothing and so we should see some movement by the end of next week.
We should give credit to bloggers like George Laird as they are on a good run of form just now. You have to say that without them, this would have continued to be covered-up and many people put in danger, all for political expediency.
I wish you well in your struggle, but remember that you are up against a culture of corruption; these people are evil, and the facts will not mean much to them. All eyewitnesses and any other evidence that might be unfavourable will be disregarded. Moreover, they often band together. Your evidence will be ignored, and they'll all join together to fight you. In Scotland in 2023, it is very difficult to obtain justice, I assure you. As I was abused as a child in care, I'm trying to obtain justice, but I'm getting nowhere.
ReplyDeleteThe names of the employees who worked at Calder House Remand Home in Blantyre in 1970 are being withheld from the police by South Lanarkshire Council. They directed the police to the Michael Library so they could retrieve the files, but the Michael Library was also lacking the names. Other abusers from the boys' school run by Dr. Guthries in Edinburgh are either long deceased or, "according to them," don't even exist.
There are many others who have suffered similar abuse in the same institutions, and I've been fighting for four years with two different lawyers, but I don't know how many others have reported it because everything is kept secret. It's so bad, I feel as if I'm sitting at the bottom of a Fred Dibnah brick chimney. If you want justice in Scotland, you might as well piss into the wind.
'All of the vested interests double down and do nothing'.
ReplyDeleteCorruption starts from the very top.
ReplyDeleteOrder is derived from the top down.
The only explanation I can come up with for South Lanarkshire Council's refusal to provide the names of the employees at the Calder House Remand Home in Blantyre is that.
The names can't even be found by the police.
Any sane person would suppose that this could only happen in a country that is totally rotten and corrupt, but it is happening in Scotland in 2023.
In this age of insanity, I am one of many. Since 2010, I have voted for the Tories despite being a socialist.
ReplyDeleteAgreed - the way it works is that if the Labour Party is at any risk of being implicated in any of this, then they will stand in your way and impede you.
DeleteI am expecting this to be finished this week, George. I'll give you a run-down on where we are just now:
ReplyDeleteMy case has been taken-up by Protect's Chief Lawyer. She is greatly concerned that data, including minutes of meetings and letters to and from the Scottish Government have been removed from the records and nothing is being done by my MSP about that. It would appear to be in breach of Data Protection Law.
A few things give me optimism about this turn of events:
1. She knows more about whistleblowing law than any other lawyer in the UK.
2. She doesn't know who John Swinney is and has never heard of him.
3. She is working free of charge and she is expecting my MSP to work to a timeline.
4. Her advice is that this is entirely the responsibility of the Scottish Government.
5. She understands the value of Press involvement should Holyrood continue to delay.
6. I am immensely relieved to be able at last to take this away from the hands of the Scottish vested interests.
7. She's seen all of this before and nothing that is happening now surprises her.
Fundamentally, if the school collapses next week, then it will be the Scottish Government alone who stand to be criminally accused as they now have 'design liability' for the school.
I think I went over this before, but essentially design liability should lie between the Contractor and engineer H. But because the Scottish Government have said that they have checked the design and approved the design, they now have liability for it. Not a good position to find yourself in, is it.
So, essentially, that's why no-one is communicating. The Contractor, engineer H and the Scottish Government are all silent. But, as I say, if and when an accident occurs, it will be John Swinney that will in all likelihood be held responsible for it.
I have tried to tell them numerous times over the years that this would be the inevitable outcome, but they weren't having it.
The chap who unwittingly transferred liability to the Government was Jonathan Moore. I believe that he got himself into an equal mess with liabilities on the Aberdeen City Bypass a few years later. He's one of these arrogant Scottish Government guys who listens to no-one and he must have cost us all tens of millions by now.
We all have the honest experts from the American Society of Civil Engineers to thank for giving us a frank assessment of the lack of safety of this building. We would never have achieved that from anyone in Scotland and I think we all know that.
Had it not been for their efforts and my determination, then it is inevitable that a collapse would have occurred. Before someone says: 'It might not have occurred' - if the design standard says that it will occur then it will occur and the design standard says that.
As I say above, I am expecting to be paid for my losses and returned to work and that will be the Scottish Government's responsibility. The school will be fixed, if it can be fixed and, unless I have missed something, that too will have to be paid for by the Scottish Government.
This is where all of their secrecy gets them George. They are only fortunate that an accident and deaths have not already occurred.
Interestingly, Jonathan Moore has been moved from one senior job to another over the past 8-years, while I have been unemployed for much of that time.
I have offered to contribute to an independent Inquiry into what went wrong here. That offer was made to Protect.
I may have said before, but I have worked with two world governments and the Scottish government. Believe me, the Scottish government is indescribably poor. They are so dishonest and unaccountable they are going to end-up killing people.
If the school had an issue now, it would be the tin lid for Sturgeon's failing career
DeleteAgreed. It's the cover-up that will prove to be the problem.
DeleteTake a look at this if you think tens of millions is a problem for them:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferry_fiasco
Bury it deep, refuse to talk about it and it will all go away.
Eventually, like a depth charged sub, it will hit the surface
Delete'This company is too small, their yard is too small and they cannot provide a performance bond.' Perhaps Mr Swinney and all the rest of them should have listened at the time.
DeleteDo not be concerned. A renowned lawyer will look into whether the Scottish ferries contract was "rigged."
ReplyDeleteThe way it works in Scotland is that a preventable disaster occurs. Many people knew that it was going to occur but were too frightened to say anything. After it occurs, there is a predictable gnashing of teeth at Holyrood: 'how and why did this happen'. Sturgeon and Swinney select a renowned Scottish lawyer, agree to pay him well for a long time to find that: 'Sturgeon and Swinney knew nothing....it wasn't them'. All of the crucial records have somehow vanished at Fergusons and so there is no evidence that that is not the case.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need a Scottish lawyer; it's all on Wikipedia now and that's closer to fact than anything a Scottish lawyer will provide you with.
A chap writes in here occasionally about the Smith Inquiry into Child Abuse at Scottish Children's Homes. That's the way it works there. Scottish lawyers aren't helping him are they? Lady Smith and the lawyers get paid every month and they leave the Child Abuse victims with nothing and that fandango has gone-on for something like 6-years now.
Don't forget that I have experience of dealing with an Emeritus Professor of Law and so does George Laird. If you can remember the character, Tom Hagen from the Godfather, then that's as good an analogy as I can think of. Read through Wikipedia - that's all anyone needs to do. Don't anyone waste their time with Scottish lawyers.
Why is this case moving so quickly now, all of a sudden, when it has hardly moved for the past 8-years?
ReplyDeleteOnce the Scottish Government start deleting records, minutes of meetings, letters, photographs etc, that alerts authorities out-with Holyrood's control that something unlawful is going-on. Questions start being asked: 'How long have you known about this and what have you done about it?'
Remember, I'm a whistle-blower and so what I say should be respected and investigated straight away. You never know, I might be right and if I am then the public reaction to that will be hostile and who could blame the public for that?
The way it looks at the moment, I am right and this looks set to be one of Holyrood's biggest foul-ups since the Shirley McKie case, which was about 20-years ago.
Shirley McKie's case was solved by American experts and my case has also been solved by American experts. In the Shirley McKie case it was the honesty of Scottish police that was called into question and in this case it is the honesty of Scottish lawyers that is called into question. In both cases though, the honesty of the First Minister has been questioned.
As is often the case, it is best to leave things to take their course and for me to say as little as possible. There can be no doubting my patience after all of this time, but I will have to be patient a while longer.
I remember Jack McConnell had to apologize at the conclusion of the Shirley McKie case. He apologized to McKie herself and to the public for having treated McKie and her father so badly.
I wonder what type of apology I'll get off Mr Swinney and Ms Sturgeon?
I've learned that in the rotten to the bone dishonest Scotland of 2023, nothing will be revealed and no one in authority will be supportive if it has anything to do with the government or any former or present public employees.
ReplyDeleteAnd any evidence—no matter how mild—will be disregarded.
Regarding the ferries, there won't be any genuine investigation.
ReplyDeleteIntegrity and honesty are essential.
They do not possess any.
The Scottish elites has superhuman abilities, such as the ability to casually escape with £250 million in theft and the power to walk on water.
Sadly, I think there is something in what you say. A few points however:
ReplyDelete1. If there's going to be an Inquiry, then evidence must be provided.
2. Are we going to see the return of the Scottish Government's redactor pen on the basis that the information is commercially sensitive?
3. In this digital age, nothing tends to be lost or mislaid and so everything will be found.
4. Who are Scotland's elite? Don't say Sturgeon, Swinney and their lawyers, FFS. We are up shit creek without a paddle if that is the new elite.
5. Some people have made themselves a hell of a lot of money.
A few points occur to me after hearing the news that Nicola Sturgeon is resigning:
ReplyDelete1. King Rat always leaves the sinking ship first and there is no doubt that she was King Rat.
2. The chronic problem affecting Scotland now is that our parliamentarians and lawyers are as bent as a nine-bob note and so Sturgeon had to go. Who replaces her? Someone who can restore the honesty, the functionality and the separation of both. That can only be Joanna Cherry, in my opinion.
3. George Laird and the resurgent Stuart Campbell have led the way in the past few months with stories that could be damaging to Nicola Sturgeon. Who knows if they have had any effect? The next few days and weeks will give us all some clarity on that, but both deserve appreciation for their determination.
Angus Robertson and Joanna Cherry are both too politically woke to be FM, in my opinion. A leader who will reject that foolishness is what we need. I want the lassie Forbes, but she just had a baby, so she might say no. I sincerely hope that our upcoming FM will focus on important issues. Scotland has the shortest life expectancy, the highest rate of suicide, the most drug-related fatalities, and the biggest jail population. The first priority should be to sort that out. With those numbers, after 15 years of a supposedly nationalist SNP administration, they need to hang their heads in shame.
ReplyDeleteForbes is the worst kind of career politician. She has no life experience and she knows nothing. She's a history graduate for fuck sake. We don't even know why Sturgeon has gone yet. Whatever it is, it is sudden and that suggests that it might be some sort of scandal. I notice she kept referring to 'I'm only human' as if she's getting her excuses in early. Sarwar, Cole Hamilton, Swinney and Harvie all spoke on the BBC earlier and it made me wonder if Holyrood is worth saving? Would we not all be a hell of a lot better off without it? I would be happy never to clap eyes on either of these four arseholes ever again and I'll bet there are many like me.
ReplyDeleteForbes is quite attractive and at least has some morals.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't use the rest as lobster bait.
Forbes is the safe pair of hands, Yousaf and Robertson stink to high heaven, and Regan is a wildcard.
DeleteI have a white German Shepherd whose name is 'Snow' and she is attractive too and has better morals. Anyway, it probably doesn't matter what you or I think as the following is from Craig Murray:
ReplyDelete'The bad news is that Sturgeon intends to remain in power throughout the process of choosing her successor.
Which will be decided through the SNP's electronic voting process that is absolutely non transparent to candidates, and will be controlled by Peter Murrell'.
So, my guess is it won't be Joanna Cherry or Kate Forbes; it will probably be Angus Robertson. I'm hoping that Angus Robertson is implicated somehow in the upcoming scandal, by that might be just wishful thinking. The Murrells have brought the Corleone family to life right here in Scotland then. Who would have believed that?
According to statistics, Wee Nicoliar has successfully purged the most vulnerable and marginalised people from Scotland. She is without a doubt worthy of praise. Will she now have the opportunity to serve in the House of Lords as a ladyship? Here comes Lady Nicoliar of Irvine.
ReplyDeleteDing dong, the witch is gone!
ReplyDeleteAgreed - 2023 is turning out OK so far, isn't it. I just wonder if the Murrells try and manoeuvre Robertson or Swinney into Bute House, which they can do, would the membership wear that?
Delete
ReplyDeleteI was reading that the final push may have come from the Faculty of Advocates. They have had enough of their profession being humiliated and there are just enough honest lawyers in Scotland to say enough is enough. I remain hopeful that George Laird and Stuart Campbell will emerge from this looking as if they foresaw it all happening ages ago. I hope so anyway.
Back to the sinking school again - we should be just about finished. The lawyer who was looking at this for me a fortnight ago was only going to give them a fortnight to respond and the fortnight is up today.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Scottish Government start deleting records, then that is a possible criminal act and so people who are participants, but who see themselves as innocent of any crime, start to get more involved. I expect that much the same thing precipitated Sturgeon's removal yesterday.
The Council who now own this school and who made all the decisions are a Labour Party hegemony and have been so for years. My MSP, Jackie Baillie, is a Labour Party MSP and so can you see the conflict there? If I win, then the Council loses and the Labour Party look bad. This is not the way politics in Scotland should work but sadly, and I think we all know this, that's the way it does work.
So, if I had any sort of assistance over the years from Jackie Baillie, then this would have been solved very, very quickly. Because she has had her strings pulled by the erstwhile Leader of Aberdeen City Council, it will never be solved if Jackie has anything to do with it.
That said, I think that the Professor of Law has allowed the name of his law firm to be used to add a veneer of respectability to what has happened here. What has happened is that a series of senior public figures have made a mistake which has put public safety at risk and will cost many millions of pounds to correct, if indeed it can be corrected. The lawyers keep the plates spinning for years by refusing to communicate and issuing holding replies. Without wishing to exaggerate, I reckon the Professor of Law would be spending his twilight years inside a prison cell in many jurisdictions in the world. I seem to remember you having a similar problem with the same lawyers.
The 'pressure-point' though is engineer H. All of the other experts who provided their opinions on this school were very specific about what the problem was and what had to be done, very quickly, to rectify it. The response from engineer H is not specific and it is designed to leave the reader with the impression that he is just not aware of anything that can be wrong. 'Not me....I know nothing'.
Is that good enough? I don't think it is and it falls very far short of what would be expected from any kind of engineer of his seniority. He knows what the problem is and he has been provided with the opinions of the other experts and so it is now his opinion that we are asking for. Frankly, if engineer H has been misleading the public on a matter as crucial as this then perhaps he too should be spending his twilight years in a jail cell.
Finally, I understand that this case is being run to a conclusion not by John Swinney but by Shirley-Anne Somerville. I presume that has something to do with the succession within the SNP and the safety of 450No school kids will always take second place to that.
I'll keep you updated as and when I hear something. By the way, I have asked to spend my twilight years in any country in the world except Scotland. Africa, Far East, Middle East - anywhere except here.
Jack McConnell was in the Press this morning saying that the Labour Party was ready to take over at Holyrood. Really, Jack?
I know the Sheriff who nearly jailed Jack McConnell's sister, not well, but just talking terms
DeleteAfter we get our new FM, the Tories should get rid of Ross. He's a weak idiot. Forget about li@bour ,libs and greens. The Tories are the only party worth voting for.
ReplyDeleteYou have been saying this for months and years and you have been proven correct. After this outcome and with even more scandals waiting to come, who could argue with this opinion?
DeleteGeorge - an update on the sinking school: I was expecting to hear an outcome at the end of this week but that hasn't happened. What I was promised was that the lawyer's letter would be responded to and that, after thinking about it, might not be the end of the process, more the beginning of the short process of agreeing an outcome.
ReplyDeleteThe three protagonists here are engineer H, civil-servant H and the Professor of Law and I understand that all have come under great pressure in the past week. I was advised to go to Police Scotland several months ago by someone who understands this case pretty well and I should probably have done that at the time.
Again, years ago, someone else who was advising me at the time said that in the end, the contractor and the lawyer will be accused of working in collaboration to make sure that your case failed and that your warnings were ignored. It looks to me as if that's the way it will end and the contractor and the lawyer will be blamed.
In the days before Holyrood, when things were done properly in Scotland, that would have resulted in the contractor and the lawyer being deemed 'delinquents' and being barred from further public work contracts for a period of time. That period may be, for example, five years.
Sturgeon would then have said: 'We're lucky to have them', but Sturgeon's gone now.
That leaves engineer H. What should we do with that arsehole now?
I read half an hour ago that Labour are only 2 or 3 points behind the SNP in Scotland now. That's astonishing and it shows just how quickly it can happen and it makes you wonder at when this collapse in support will end.
ReplyDeleteThe Labour Party of old were a deviant bunch, led by crooked councillors and I fear that hasn't changed much in the last decade. Kezia Dugdale threw several of them out of the party and it was one of the last things she did before throwing-in the towel herself. It runs so deep in the party that it cannot be changed by anyone.
Old habits die hard and if my experience is anything to go by, Labour are still the same party they always were and it would be a mistake to let them take over. It would be letting one bunch if comfortable liars take over from another bunch of comfortable liars.
The Labour Party isn't doing any campaigning because they have burnt their bridges, they are relying on the SNP vote falling to allow them to skate in with their core vote. Working class people don't want to vote Labour, they left in droves, so why would they go back?
DeleteThere was a banner unfurled at one of yesterday's Scottish Premiership football matches which read: "Nicola Sturgeon - brought down by Lies and Corruption".
ReplyDeleteWe have all read opinions in the past few days but this is the explanation that resonates most with me.
Football supporters come from all walks of life and they are seldom entirely wrong.
Sturgeon doesn't a lack brass-neck and so whatever it is is going to come-out soon and that's why she went so quickly.
saw that, very funny
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