In my experience, the response to disagreement by the SNP is either vituperation or lies. In response to furious objection to his “impromptu” visit to the Primary 6 at closure threatened Bramble Braes Primary Six in Aberdeen Donside during the recent by-election needed to retain his super-majority at the Scottish Parliament, the oleaginous Alex Salmond appears to have gone for both.
Despite insisting the decision to visit was made entirely on the hoof following an invitation from a member of the parents’ council (I am unclear if this was the chair/convenor able to make such offers or one member acting on their own volition), Salmond and his press office had previously made an open invitiation to local reporters to a speech outside the school with himself, Education Secretary Mike Russell and by-election candidate, Mark Macdonald.
Salmond’s immediate response suggests a genuine intellectual inhability to consider that criticism of his actions to, even if not justified, then arising from sincere disagreement rather than mendacity:
“Both Labour and the Tories should remember they are the administration of Aberdeen City Council, albeit a pretty poor one – they do not own the city, as their ridiculous motion suggests. The visit to primary six pupils at Bramble Brae, as has previously been pointed out, followed an impromptu invitation and was a totally private event with no media in attendance.
“What is beyond any doubt is that the threat by the Tory-Labour administration to close Bramble Brae and Middelton Park schools was very much part of the by-election campaign, and it is entirely legitimate that parents and campaigners fighting to keep them open should voice their views.
“The fact Labour and the Tories would rather silence them is reprehensible and undemocratic – and shows they have learned nothing from their by-election defeat.”
So, unrelated to entering school premises without the headteacher’s knowledge or restrictions on using public building/services during an election campaign or senior Government ministers involving themselves directly in a local authority affair instead of sending a flunky or disdainful attitude towards municipal authorities from a centrally-obsessed Government which insists it is returning power to the people, any and all disagreement is based on a desire to push Salmond below the pelagic zone.
In my further experience, purveyors of falsehoods can be divided into two groups: common garden liars and bullshitters. The former, at least, have a passing acquaintance with the truth as there are seeking to deny it, so will attempt to follow an internally coherent line of argument… no matter how implausible.
Bullshitters, on the other hand, do not care and will pile-on patent lie after immediately refutable claim. As seen with the following juxtaposition:
Fish-heid McMoonface makes much of his willingness to refer himself for investigation over violations of code of conduct, but the terms of these massaged processes invariably are so tight that a conclusion other than a pre-determined one can confidentially predicted in adavance. Or, if an arguable case exists, SNP-controlled committees of the unicameral Scottish Parliament simply will block investigations based on pure sophistry; as occurred with the political equivalent of a fart in a space-suit Mike Russell’s defenestration of a significant opponent in his move to create super colleges.
There has come – or, rather, came a long time ago – when judicial reviews should be ordered.
EDIT: I spliced this piece to transfer the discussion of Andy Wightman’s protest against Edinburgh City Council and council tax shortfalls to a new thread. This piece had become dominated by SNP-bashing. As enjoyable as I find that – and as reprehensible as I consider Fish-heid McMoonface’s circumventing both the spirit of electoral law and school security – I also am interested in the issues arising from the new piece.