The Murdoch Press are having a lovely time over Alex Salmond’s acquittal. One doesn’t doubt for a moment that they were expecting the bastard to go down. After all, if the #MeToo generation could get Harvey Weinstein, why not one of our own? And since Salmond is a Far-Left loon, an anti-English hatemonger and a Russian stooge, not to mention a grotesque oaf to boot, I’m quite sure The Times's editorial team were rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of him, er, eating porridge for a while.
So what went wrong?
As usual, the answer is almost certainly Conspiracy. And then the real question is of course What sort?
Salmond is himself no slouch when it comes to coughing up conspiracy theories and pointed accusations. Back in 2015 he fingered both the BBC and the “metropolitan” press for their coverage of his referendum campaign to destroy the UK. (One can understand why a politician who hates Britain with every fibre of his being wouldn’t be too fond of the British Broadcasting Corporation - even though to all extents and purposes they’re really just British in name only.) This time though he’s going to go all in to get back at conspirators within his own party.
So, there’s going to be an inquiry, and he’s going to write a book. And his allies within the Party are rallying behind him. Nicola Sturgeon, who for most English people has always appeared to be little more than the Janette Tough (aka “Wee Jimmy Krankie”) to Salmond’s Ian, has declined to comment, but one can imagine that whether she wants to or not she’ll end up being cast on the side of the gruesome tartan fembots who, for reasons so far known only to themselves, have lined up (and apparently colluded with each other in doing so) to denounce Wee Eck for his wicked ways.
The internal politics of the SNP are of course impenetrable to outsiders, not to mention quite irrelevant to the vast majority of British subjects. Life’s too short to go into them in any depth. Suffice it then to refer to Sayre’s Law: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” And I suppose one should add that when the motive is primarily ideological, sectarian or nationalistic (and the SNP is all three) the struggle is only going to be even more vicious. (My own feeling is that this is indeed a battle between the Scots Nazis’ “woke” and “nationalist” wings. Basically they’re Scotland’s Strasserites and Hitlerites du jour, and if not an actual Night of the Long Knives then at least some sort of reckoning is definitely on its way.)
Not to be out done, of course, The Times have come up with their own conspiracy theory, which as ever involves none other than dear old Vladimir Putin. (Who else?) Because not content with gassing civilians in Syria, rigging the US presidential elections and threatening the peace and security of western Europe, he’s now apparently taken time out to try and destroy the Scottish National Party. ‘Analysts say that President Putin’s regime has strategic reasons to put pro-EU and pro-Nato Scottish nationalists in its sights.’ What-ever!
For what it’s worth, one can easily imagine the Far Left of the Far Left of Scots nationalism objecting to Wee Eck’s having a chat-show on Russian telly. And the objection would be essentially the same as their objection to Julian Assange after he helped get Trump elected. “Putin is nath-ty. Putin is Hitler. Putin betrayed the Revolution by being nationalistic. Orange Man Bad! Russia Evil! Alex Salmond Too Sexy!”
Well, it’s something to think about. With luck it will at least be entertaining, at least once we’re all allowed out of our hovels again and back into the so-called “real” world.
