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Caught up with the Salmond doc this morning:
1. AS's contribution to the independence cause cannot be questioned, as a political leader he deserves a lot of credit for getting the movement to where it is now.
2. AS is an egoist whose narcissim now heavily outweighs any further
1. AS's contribution to the independence cause cannot be questioned, as a political leader he deserves a lot of credit for getting the movement to where it is now.
2. AS is an egoist whose narcissim now heavily outweighs any further
contribution he can make to the independence movement & any future involvement will be hugely damaging.
3. AS was cleared of all charges at trial by a jury of his peers.
4. The above does not mean, in any way, that the women involved were lying.*
5. The @BBC documentary is a
3. AS was cleared of all charges at trial by a jury of his peers.
4. The above does not mean, in any way, that the women involved were lying.*
5. The @BBC documentary is a
a terrible display of "journalism" which seems to be more about @KirstyWark playing out the fantasy of being the judge & jury herself.
All of these points are valid & can exist at the same time.
All of these points are valid & can exist at the same time.
* - On this point, I was on the jury last year at the trial of a man accused of the rape & sexual assault of multiple women, it is ingrained on my memory. Not only was it horrific, but the way the defence lawyers (deliberately) & judge (thoughtless) treated the women was utterly
disturbing. As a jury, we were regularly discussing thoughts on the trial. Nobody didn't believe the women, however many on the jury - after "beyond reasonable doubt" had been drummed in - were unable to commit to a guilty verdict without some sort of hard evidence.
Basically, we all knew the guy was guilty & many of us were prepared to say so. But a number felt they couldn't without a smoking gun. As it happens, the prosecution eventually offered a deal to the accused where they'd scrap the sexual charges in exchange for him pleading guilty
to the list of domestic assault charges, which he accepted. None of those women were lying & yet the accused, with the sexual charges, got away with it. The assumption that a woman is lying when a man is cleared or charged are dropped is the assumption of an idiot.
Interestingly enough, and I say this purely as an observation in relation to folk like McEleny constantly pointing out how many women were on the AS trial jury - despite everyone believing the women at the trial I was at, the split between guilty & "need evidence" was a split on
gender lines too. The former was majority men, the latter was majority women, despite everyone agreeing the women should be believed. So this idea that having X number of women on a jury is a sign that the women involved are liars is absolute nonsense.
Just one final thought on the trial I experienced - there was a woman on the jury who wore a particular type of perfume every day. I found the trial so disturbing that if I smell the same perfume in a shop, pub etc, I immediately get a gut punch of utter dread. And I was just a
random guy on the jury. Being one of the women in these kinds of trials must be incredibly traumatic, the idea it's some kind of jolly for a group of pals to go tell some lies laughable to me.
