We should be taking our lead from these Yes activists
These are not the statesmen of previous years who would have without delay replied in person, via a secretariat at the very least, to engage with any aligned and sympathetic movement in fraternal solidarity.
It is not possible to imagine a John Smith – or Alex Salmond for that matter – to be so distracted by affairs of state not send a message of thanks and leadership affirmation.
The entitlement mindset of many but not all SNP grassroots members and politicians has delivered nothing thus far in terms of national liberation from the colonial 'commonsteal' and it is increasingly apparent to all passionate and dispassionate observers of the Scottish struggle for freedom that a house divided on itself cannot, simply will not, prevail.
The British elites will continue to 'divide and conquer' until the independent-minded people of Scotland 'unite and conquer' to provide a decent inheritance for their children and grandchildren.
We urgently require a regular series of highly visible national 'gatherings' of all indy groups together that will attract hitherto uncertain people and reforge old friendships in a spirit of mutual reconciliation and resolve. No 'Pollyannaism' but real, visceral attempts to express and let go of personal impasses and resentments as well as strategic and tactical disagreements.
One or two non-politically correct face-to-face encounters on Glasgow Green, Salisbury Crags or right outside Holyrood would clear the air, don't you think?
Sober, polite conventions have their place but in the words of Burns, 'The heart is aye the part that maks us right or wrang'. A 'heart felt' reunification in the movement must precede polite talking shops.
Yes Berwickshire has set a great example to all other groups and let us all look at least initially to 'liberate Scotland' to be a gathering point. Three or four big, and I mean big events need to be convened and the SNP could easily re-establish their tarnished freedom credentials by using their enormous resources hitherto squandered or frittered away, to be the midwife of a reinvigorated national vision of post-colonial life.
Tempus fugit, so let's all start writing and talking to each other Berwickshire style!
Dr Andrew Docherty
Selkirk
THE evidence on nuclear power disproves Lynn Jamieson's irresponsible jeremiad (Why nuclear power isn't the green energy solution you've been told, May 30).
For a start, nuclear requires the least mining of any electricity source, because uranium fuel is the most powerful on earth by far.
That is from the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The same commission did a lifecycle analysis of the total carbon footprint of all electricity sources, from mining through to decommissioning of facilities.
Again, it found nuclear has the lowest carbon footprint of any electricity source.
The industry matches that with an excellent safety record: it is so safe that pregnant women are able to work on top of the reactor pile caps at Torness.
To scaremonger to the contrary is an abominable disgrace.
There are many more errors of fact, including that nuclear power stations cannot turn up and down.
The French nuclear fleet just this past Sunday turned down from 38 gigawatts to 25 gigawatts, to accommodate rising solar power, and turned back up to 40 gigawatts in the evening when solar faded away.
Decisions on our energy future should be based on facts.
And the facts in Scotland are that Torness is the single largest, cleanest, most reliable electricity generator in the nation, and a vital source of good jobs for local people.
That is something we should renew for the next generation.
Lincoln Hill, director of policy and external affairs, Nuclear Industry Association
NEITHER the SNP nor any of the other nominally pro-independence parties are proposing a way to translate support into a democratic vote. They all defer to Westminster. They are diverting attention from their lack of any plan for restoring independence by promoting totally pointless arguments about 'voting strategy'. And people are falling for it! I despair!
Peter A Bell
via thenational.scot
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The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Mhairi Black: 'I underestimated how horrible my own side could be'
'That's been a strange thing, to learn how to relax after nearly 10 years,' she says as we sit together in the offices of The Herald. And has she? 'About two weeks ago I cracked it. I'm definitely getting there.' She certainly looks relaxed. It is late morning, July 24, and Black has come into the office to have her picture taken and to talk about her new Fringe show. Read more She is fresh-faced, accommodating (she's not in the slightest put out when The Herald's editor chases us from the room we're in because she has a meeting booked), chatty and honest. But then she's always been chatty and honest. Over the next hour she will pose uncomplainingly for photographs and talk to me about life and politics and her new Fringe show. The Fringe is the future. Politics the past. It's in our time together that she will tell me she has left the SNP (you may have read as much in [[The Herald]] the other week). How has she been spending her time since she closed the door on her career in Westminster, I ask when we sit down to talk? 'I've been enjoying the bliss of domestic life,' Black admits. 'My wife's raging because I've got more time to go on social media and see all these videos. And the algorithm clearly knows that I'm spending a lot of time in the house these days. It keeps sending me: 'Here's how to make your own bleach.' Turns out, vinegar is the basis of all cleaning products. So now my house just smells like a chippie. 'So, yeah, driving my family demented has been a massive part of trying to relax.' Black hasn't just been waiting home for her wife Katie McGarvey to come home of an evening. Last summer she spent August at the Fringe with her debut hour Politics Isn't For Me, which she then toured around Scotland and even performed for five nights in London. And then there's a new show to prepare for this year too. Maybe things have not been totally languid after all. Mhairi Black during her Fringe show (Image: STEVE ULLATHORNE) Last year's show, Politics Isn't For Me, wasn't quite stand-up. It was more of a very funny Tedtalk, or 'Nedtalk' as she put it herself. It was an exasperated, amused discourse on why, in her experience, Westminster wasn't fit for purpose. This year's show will see her range more freely over life and politics. What that means in practice is not totally nailed down, she admits. This is, as the title suggests, a work in progress after all. 'I'd never heard of a work in progress until stepping into this world,' Black admits. 'Everybody kept talking about WIPs. I thought, 'I'd just left that world.'' (The ghost of Westminster still clearly haunts her.) 'The work in progress is basically, 'I've got a half-baked idea. Come along and help me figure out the rest of it,'' she continues. 'And that's really scary. I'm looking forward to trying something new, as in there's a bit where I don't know what's going to happen and that's half the excitement, I suppose. 'This is more talking about things I've experienced since leaving politics,' she adds. 'There will definitely still be stories I didn't tell the last time. But a lot more of me telling stories about how I'm figuring life out.' Figuring life out is what she has been doing for the last 12 months. Well, that and processing everything she's gone through over the last 10 years. Come election day last summer, I say, wasn't there even a tiny frisson of regret that she wasn't still in the fight? 'Oh, Christ, no. The minute he called that election I was dancing around the living room,' she says. (He being Rishi Sunak. Remember him?) 'Because I had already made my mind up in 2019 - I just hadnae told anybody that - so it wasn't fresh news to me. If anything, I'd been waiting for this day. Mhairi Black announced this week she had left the SNP (Image: Jeff J Mitchell) 'So, when he called the election before last year's Fringe I was like, 'Oh you dancer. Right, freedom.'' That's the word you'd use? Freedom? 'Oh, aye, definitely freedom. Freedom to be more myself.' Last year's show Politics Isn't For Me was really a show about institutional failure. She was part of that institution, of course. I wonder, does she feel she wasted those 10 years in parliament? 'No, I don't. I don't. 'It was an experience,' she adds. 'But I don't miss it. I still think I was right to leave when I did.' For all her criticisms of Westminster Black made a huge impact there. Her maiden speech was watched 10 million times on YouTube and she would go on to become the deputy leader of the SNP in Westminster. Mhairi Black at Westminster (Image: unknown) What does she think she achieved in her time in politics? 'When I think of the individuals that we helped, our little constituency team, that's what I'm proudest of, definitely; being able to put faces to these cases we had and going, 'I really did change their lives for the better, or I played a part in that,' which is great. 'In terms of actually changing laws, no. Didn't get anywhere close to it. The closest I ever got was a private members bill that was shot down in its first read.' It would presumably have been different if you had been in power? Maybe a little, she says. 'But even if in some magical world we had been in the UK government, I still think we'd have been, 'Rip this up, start again, try again.' 'The hours that are wasted doing nothing in that building is criminal. If it was any company it would be the first thing somebody would point out. 'What the hell are you doing this for?' So, the fact that parliament operates like that 'just because' was never a good enough reason for me. 'It suits the people in power. I imagine that's why it's not going to change anytime soon.' What would you now tell that 20-year-old Mhairi Black who got elected in 2015? 'Oh, that's difficult. I'd probably say don't doubt yourself as much and maybe be ready for how lonely it can be at times. I think that would probably be my two pieces of advice.' Lonely? Was that the case even within your own party? 'Oh aye, aye, because it's a very cut-throat world where there's people just always out to get each other. And that's just alien to me. I thought if you were part of a team you all work together. Mhairi Black and Nicola Sturgeon (Image: PA Archive/PA Images) 'But, of course, politics doesn't always attract team players. So, yeah, it took me a wee bit of time to get my head around that. I expected other opposition to be horrible or backstabby or whatever, but I underestimated how much of an issue it would be with your own side, definitely.' It's also worth remembering that Black was subject to death threats during her time in parliament. Perhaps it's no wonder that at the end of 2017 she had to take time off because she had effectively burnt out. 'From 2014 'til, say, 2020 even, it was just election after election after referendum. It was just constant, non-stop, and you can't maintain that level of energy and that level of responsibility at that intensity without having a proper break at some point. And that's what I got the hard way eventually. It got to the point where my body was like, 'We're making you take a break whether you like it or not.'' In the BBC documentary made about her around last year's election Black's dad Alan admitted that he feared she was drinking too much. When I bring it up she agrees. 'The way that parliament is, you can't leave the building because votes could be called at any point. So you're like, 'I'm stuck in here until 10 o'clock at night, but it's six o' clock and I've finished all my work. Do you want to go and get a pint?' 'And you'd sit and have one or two. I wasn't getting steaming every night … But you start to recognise, 'Oh, wait a minute I've been for one or two pints four days this week.' 'And I could see it even in my own colleagues or folk from other parties. This is how you end up in a state, or this is how you end up with a real problem. You can see it happening around you. 'I suddenly realised if I'm seeing you in here all the time it means I'm in here all the time.' 'That definitely got nipped in the bud pretty quickly.' And then of course she was given her ADHD diagnosis in the midst of all this. At the time she said it was a real positive for her. She still feels that way today. 'I see it as a real strength. I feel like someone's given me the map to the maze in my own head. 'I'm learning more about myself as it goes on. And this is the longest stretch of time I've been home for a good few years. I'm in the process of making new habits. It's quite fun and exciting, I have to say.' In the documentary you mentioned you were also being tested for autism? 'I've not had anything back officially yet, but … Given that my family is riddled with it everybody seems to be like, 'Yeah, you probably do have it.'' As for the world today, well, she's not hopeful. 'The speech that I'm proudest of giving is the one where I talk about facism. As time rumbles on I desperately want to be proved wrong.' But she's not seeing any evidence. 'We're still in this horrible, right-wing, creeping, authoritarian style of governance. 'Even when you're seeing just how much tech companies are being allowed to run wild and how inept our governments are at understanding the problem, never mind having a grasp on 'here's what we need to do about it,' it's terrifying. It's really terrifying.' We are speaking the day before President Trump arrives in Scotland for his private visit. Why, she asks, is the Scottish Secretary going to give him a warm welcome? 'This guy is a fascist. He is literally locking up children and people are dying on his watch and we're warmly welcoming him.' 'Why are we all pretending that we're in this cosy almost 1960s comic book world where we can rely on America to look after us? The world is changing and nobody's keeping up with it.' As for the SNP, she is largely circumspect today, but in last year's Fringe show she was, if anything, harder on her own colleagues than anyone else. 'Funny that,' she says, laughing. You're still a member of the SNP though? 'No, I'm not anymore.' Ah. 'Basically for a long time I've not agreed with quite a few decisions that have been made,' she explains. 'There have just been too many times when I've thought, 'I don't agree with what you've done there,' or the decision or strategy that has been arrived at. 'To be honest, I'm looking around thinking, 'There are better organisations that I could be giving a membership to than this one that I don't feel has been making the right decisions for quite some time.' 'The capitulation on LGBT rights, trans rights in particular.' She says, instead, she is going to back organisations such as the Good Law Project who are willing to fight on these issues in court. 'That's what I want to throw my money behind. She is still, she says, fervently pro-independence, though. There's another former big beast of the Scottish National Party in Edinburgh this month. Nicola Sturgeon will be appearing at the book festival. What does Black think the party's former leader's legacy will be? 'Time will tell. Undoubtedly no one can take away that she reached levels of influence and popularity and fear that I don't think anyone else has in recent memory … I can't think of anybody who has had that kind of impact, certainly on UK politics.' When you say fear …? 'Having been in Westminster at the height of Nicola's leadership, they were terrified of her, absolutely terrified. When she was in the building it spread like wildfire. You could see they're actually quite shaken at the very fact that she's here in person. 'So, there's no taking away from that. I've always said I think she is possibly the best politician I can think of UK-wide as to competency and being able to answer a question. I've never seen her shaken. She was always unflappable and I know from experience how difficult that is to do. 'So, as a politician I thought she was shit hot. 'As the leader of a political party, I thought she could have done so much better. The same is true of Alex Salmond when he was in charge and even John Swinney now. The actual structure of the party has never grown or adapted to that influx of membership, which I think has actually played a role in why a lot of folk have turned away from the party. It's because the structure just wasn't there to give people the kind of membership they were craving. 'So, there's definite failings and as time goes on I'm sure those failings will become much clearer. But I think for all the negatives that might be associated with Nicola Sturgeon I do think there are a hell of a lot of positives and there are a lot of folk who are now gunning for Nicola Sturgeon who at the time were clinging onto her coat tails for dear life. I'm not without cynically noticing, 'Oh, you've changed your tune all of a sudden.' 'Whereas there were people who had legitimate concerns and queries that were ignored for years, but they don't take it to the front pages of newspapers.' As for Black, does she have any idea of what she's going to do with the rest of her life? 'Genuinely I don't and for me that's half the excitement at the minute. I'm in a lucky enough position where for a year now I've been able to make a living out of just having a laugh. And I'll do that for as long as it suits me and as long as I feel that I can. 'But it's not like I've decided to do stand-up all my life. It's just trying on different hats and seeing what fits.' Next year she will be writing a book. Beyond that, who knows? 'I could see myself ending up in college lecturing, so maybe that's something that will one day come along. But for the time being I'm just enjoying sleeping in my own bed and being able to have a laugh because so much of that was missing for a good chunk of time there.' Mhairi, you've been in politics for a decade and now you're at the Fringe. It does suggest you might quite like a bit of attention. 'I know,' she says, smiling. 'That's what my wife says to me all the time. 'Do you not get enough attention? Was the theatre of people applauding you not enough? You need my praise?' 'Yes, I do.' Mhairi Black: Work in Progress, Gilded Balloon at the Appleton Tower, August 10-24, Midday Mhairi Black on Nigel Farage: 'He's the British Trump. Poisonous. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about him. How far have we fallen as a society when all it takes is a millionaire in a cravat holding a pint and suddenly we're like, 'Oh, yes, you must have my interests at heart?'' Mhairi Black on Keir Starmer: 'The guy believes in nothing. I've no doubt that he goes home and convinces himself that he's a very practical, reasonable set of hands who is guiding us through a very turbulent time. I just think it's rubbish. Naw, you don't believe anything. In order to guide people you've got to have an end goal and end destination. Keir Starmer cannae even make up his mind what that end destination is, so the idea that this guy is the saviour is nonsense.'
The National
an hour ago
- The National
History will judge monsters who enabled a genocide
Keir Starmer's announcement that Britain will recognise the State of Palestine in September if Israel doesn't agree to a ceasefire and a two-state solution sums up his political project. Starmer himself is an empty vessel, a mere frontman for Labour's most reactionary and self-serving political faction: his own advisers briefed that he thinks he's driving a train, but they had placed him in front of London's driverless District Light Railway. This faction is defined by its cynicism, lacking not just a vision for our disunited kingdom, but a moral core. They saw that growing numbers of MPs were demanding Palestinian recognition, including some of the drones they parachuted into the parliamentary party, whose blind loyalty has been frayed by the realisation they're heading towards electoral apocalypse. READ MORE: Gaza detainees 'tortured and raped' by Israeli forces, United Nations hears The SNP were preparing to force a parliamentary vote on statehood, which would leave Labour exposed. And indeed other European states, like Spain, have already taken this step, with the likes of France making clear they will too. But all Starmer's aides care about is political game playing, rather than what happens to be the right thing to do. And here's the thing – they're not even good at it. They scrapped the universal Winter Fuel Payment because they thought it would win respect as a 'tough decision'. Alas, they project their lack of a heart on to the electorate, who shocked Labour goons by being averse to freezing their grans. They decided to wage war on disabled people with cuts which would drive hundreds of thousands into hardship, and were again shocked at being stopped in their tracks by the consequent revulsion, including from the malfunctioning androids who benefited from their rigged parliamentary selections. In this case, their ruse is as cackhanded as it is morally bankrupt. Any move which recognises the humanity of Palestinians is going to provoke the pro-Israel lobby, who long sank into a sewer of genocidal depravity, and so it proved. What about everyone else – that is, popular opinion, given the polling shows overwhelming public support for recognition of a Palestinian state, an arms embargo on Israel, as well as the arrest of its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes and crimes against humanity? Starmer's team are essentially arguing that if Israel tones down its genocide, then it will withdraw support for Palestinian statehood. The inalienable right of a people to be free is reduced to a crude bargaining chip, a chess piece on a board to be discarded for a greater strategic cause. So who is this supposed to please, exactly? Here's the gruesome truth. Obviously, Britain should have supported Palestinian national self-determination many moons ago. But there won't be any Palestine left to recognise at this rate. Here is the most symbolic gesture on offer, and even that is reduced to a cynical ploy. There is growing pressure on the Government, because they are facilitating what the former UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, calls the 'worst crime of the 21st century'. Here is an attempt to deflect from action they could be taking, like ending all arms sales to Israel, including crucial components for F-35 jets that are exterminating Palestinians, or imposing sweeping sanctions on Israel. Indeed, earlier this year, Britain joined other Western states in imposing sanctions on two particularly extreme Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. They are both genocidal maniacs who belong in jail, sure, but it is easy to make them the bogeymen in order to absolve the wider guilt of the Israeli state. Notably, the sanctions were justified on the grounds of their incendiary comments, rather than their actions, because the latter implicates the British government. Nothing our government has done remotely meets the scale of the crime. A consensus of genocide scholars – including Israeli scholars – long ago concluded this is genocide. B'Tselem was one of two Israeli human rights organisations to reach the same conclusion this week, alongside Israeli author David Grossman, who won Israel's top literary prize in 2018. Gaza has been plunged into deliberate famine by an Israeli state which repeatedly broadcast to the world that it was intentionally starving the strip. More hungry Palestinians have been massacred at aid points alone since late May than the total number of Israeli civilians and soldiers killed on October 7. And even the BBC is now having to report that Palestinian children are being systematically shot in the head or chest – evidence which points in only one direction: that the Israeli army is deliberately shooting kids. The depravity is so extreme, documented and confessed to, that it is difficult to know either where to begin or end. The British government had a choice when confronted with an incontrovertible criminal reality: to make itself complicit in this historic abomination, or to abide by the most rudimentary building blocks of international law. It chose the former, and now it seeks to wash away its guilt by publicly agonising over Israel's crimes while making tokenistic gestures about a Palestinian nation it has literally helped to massacre. You would have to be either terminally gullible, or a dupe, to be beguiled by this. Throughout history, monsters didn't realise that that is what they are, but they were still monsters. The same applies to Westminster's rulers – and that will be the definitive conclusion of history and, we can hope, the courts, too.
The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Operation Broadcroft: Police Scotland refuse to reveal costs
He said the investigation was looking into claims that a 'very, very senior civil servant - Mr James Hynd - gave a false statement on oath at the inquiry'. When the former First Minister and Alba Party leader died suddenly, aged 69, in North Macedonia in October last year it was not clear if and for how long the police investigation into the matter would continue. But The Herald revealed in June that the investigation was still ongoing. READ MORE: Following our report, this newspaper asked the force under freedom of information legislation details on the cost of the inquiry, how many officers were involved and the date the inquiry began. However, our request for the cost and the number of officers working on the inquiry was refused by Police Scotland on the grounds the force does not have the information "In response to your request, I can advise you that the information sought is not held by Police Scotland and section 17 of the Act therefore applies," Police Scotland told The Herald. "By way of explanation, the total costs relating to any investigation, both relating to the investigation itself and the number of hours involved, are difficult to quantify as the nature of policing means that officers are deployed to wherever their services are most required. "Furthermore, the number of officers required throughout an investigation will fluctuate and officers involved in a particular investigation, or multiple investigations, can be redeployed to other duties at any time, dependant on their skillsets." It continued: "Police Scotland may keep limited records for investigations, which record overtime costs and non-pay costs. These costs do not provide an accurate reflection of the total number of hours spent on an investigation nor do they provide, for the reasons stated above, an accurate cost for an investigation. "The costs do not include, for example, officer hours where that officer would have been on duty anyway and as such are not recorded as a specific expense to a particular investigation." Alex Salmond giving evidence to the Holyrood inquiry into how the Scottish Government handled complaints against him. (Image: PA) The force also refused to release the date the inquiry started on the basis this information could "prejudice" the probe. Outlining its decision, the force's freedom of information officer told The Herald: "The information sought is held by Police Scotland, but I am refusing to provide it in terms of section 16(1) of the Act on the basis that the section 34(1)(b) – Investigations, exemption applies. "Information is considered exempt from disclosure if it has at any time been held by Police Scotland for the purposes of an investigation which may lead to a decision to make a report to the Procurator Fiscal to enable it to be determined whether criminal proceedings should be instituted. The matter you are enquiring about is subject to a live police enquiry. "This exemption is non-absolute and requires the application of the public interest test. I do appreciate that there is a degree of interest in the release of the information you have requested and that to do so would help inform public debate on policing in Scotland. "However, it is essential that any release of information does not interfere or prejudice enquiries or risk such enquiries in the future. To do so would put the enquiries at risk and to do so would be vastly against the public interest. The balance lies in withholding the information requested at this time." The Herald is seeking a review of the decision. READ MORE: [[Alba]] leader Kenny MacAskill, a former [[Scottish Government]] justice secretary, criticised Police Scotland for withholding the information from [[The Herald]]. "Utterly ridiculous and deeply disturbing," he said before making reference to other inquiries around how complaints against Mr Salmond were handled. Last year the Information Commissioner criticised the [[Scottish Government]] relating to a legal battle around freedom of information requests about Irish lawyer James Hamilton's report into Nicola Sturgeon. Mr Hamilton's inquiry was into whether Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code when her predecessor Mr Salmond was being investigated for sexual harassment by the Scottish Government. She was not found to have breached the code. "The investigations relating to the Holyrood inquiry and Alex Salmond grow murkier by the hour. "We've a government which was found to have been acting illegally by the court and which has had to be brought to heel by the information commissioner. "Whether it's the redaction of documents or the denial of legitimate information the tale of obfuscation and what appears a cover up continues unabated. "Police Scotland is though independent and separate from government abd openness and transparency are required in this of all cases." Police Scotland has previously given details about the cost of Operation Branchform, the inquiry into the SNP's finances, including when the investigation was ongoing. Operation Branchform ended in March with the inquiry costing the force £2.2million. The police investigation was launched in July 2021 following a number of complaints and concluded in March this year. During that 44 month period [[Nicola Sturgeon]] resigned as First Minister and [[SNP]] leader in February 2023 and was succeeded by Humza Yousaf. In April that year, Ms Sturgeon's husband and former [[SNP]] Chief Executive Peter Murrell was arrested. He was later charged by Police Scotland and appeared in court in March this year on one charge of embezzlement where he made no plea and was granted bail. No date has yet been given for his second court appearance. During Operation Branchform Ms Sturgeon was also arrested and questioned, as was Colin Beattie, the former SNP treasurer. However the police investigations against both ended in March with no charges or further action against either. Operation Broadcroft is into evidence given by Mr Hynd, who was the Scottish Government's head of cabinet, parliament and governance at the time, into the Holyrood inquiry in 2020 which probed how the Scottish Government handled complaints of sexual harassment made against Mr Salmond. The former First Minister was later cleared of all of the charges against him in a separate criminal trial. The Court of Session was told in August 2024 that detectives were probing evidence given to the Scottish Parliament inquiry by Mr Hynd, The probe by a committee of MSPs - formally called the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints - concluded in March 2021 that the government investigation into Mr Salmond was 'seriously flawed". During his evidence to the parliamentary inquiry Mr Salmond alleged that there was a conspiracy among senior SNP figures, including Ms Sturgeon to imprison him. Ms Sturgeon has strongly denied the claim. The Court of Session action was launched by Mr Salmond in November 2023 to seek "significant damages" and compensation for loss of earnings reportedly worth £3 million. The sum would be in addition to the £500,000 that Mr Salmond was awarded in legal costs after a judge said in 2019 that the government investigation into the allegations against him had been 'unlawful in respect that they were procedurally unfair" and also "tainted with apparent bias". Mr Salmond's lawyer Gordon Dangerfield told the Court of Session last August that the Police Scotland investigation into Mr Hynd was called Operation Broadcroft and was being headed by a senior detective. Mr Dangerfield told the court hearing at the time: 'I can advise that the ongoing Police Scotland investigation is named Operation Broadcroft. It is led by senior investigating officer Detective Superintendent Graham Lannigan." Mr Hynd was responsible for drawing up the government's policy on the handling of complaints involving former and current ministers - the policy under which Mr Salmond was investigated. The Scottish Government has previously said would not comment on a live police investigation or on individual staffing matters. Police Scotland was approached for comment.
