In the interests of fairness we must note that we did get a response to this post.
Other than being rather more petulant and childish, it was much as expected.
Obviously he didn’t bother to provide any examples of the supposed “inaccuracies, misstatements of facts, misunderstanding of Scot’s [sic] criminal law & a twisting of what I said” to illustrate his point, nor to respond to any of the dozens of people who expressed their disappointment in the replies and urged him to clarify his comments.
One of them accurately, if rather generously, summarised his position:
(Personally we’d have put it in “ad hominem” at best, but we’re biased.)
It was another, though, that got to the heart of the matter.
Andy Wightman has something of a track record of bottling difficult political situations, and in particular with regard to the Salmond affair.
He was the key figure in ensuring that vital evidence was withheld from the Scottish Parliament inquiry, repeatedly voting with the committee’s four SNP members against the four others to suppress the submission of the evidence from Salmond’s legal team, ostensibly on the basis that it might have somehow indirectly led to the identification of some of the conspirators who made false allegations against the former First Minister.
It is manifestly plain from Wightman’s recent and historic tweets that he still considers the conspirators, whose accusations were rejected by a jury after a 14-day trial, to be “victims” and Salmond to be guilty, albeit without the courage to say so openly.
More importantly, it’s clear that that belief caused him to fail at his job of conducting the Holyrood inquiry in a professional and impartial manner, thereby allowing its convener, SNP MSP Linda Fabiani, to preside over a shameful whitewash.
Wightman is most welcome to “take advice” on those comments. Alternatively, of course, rather than whining like a sulky toddler with something to hide he could choose to rise above our “smears and rudeness” – he IS “immune” to them, after all – and just answer the short list of simple and reasonable questions we asked him yesterday.
Even if he doesn’t think WE deserve answers, the Scottish public surely does. The reputation of a nation’s entire judicial and political systems are at stake.
