Ah, policing by questionnaire, at least in England anyway. 😂
Printable View
There is discretion though, I’ve been caught speeding, and was very humble and I got a telling off to slow down and was on my way.
Similarly I’ve been caught by a GATSO, no discretion, 3 points and £60 fine.
In this instance discretion is correct, Alexander Johnson’s multiple parties, there’s a theme, he has to be fined. And multiple times.
J
https://twitter.com/BBCandrewkerr/st...oO5os7DHw&s=19
How can paper work for something so fundamental be missing? £240M contract and no emails, no minutes etc. nothing at all. It can't "be located" so it must have existed but seems to have disappeared. All very odd that any kind of documents cannot be found.
https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/sites/defau...Report%203.pdf
One of a number of reports around the enforcement in Scotland and the Police use of the 4Es. Not strictly relevant to the thread but good context.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Bit of a read, however my point was, in England and Wales, around 2005/6 after many complaints about favouritism the power of discretion was removed by senior officers, this all tied in with complaints about masons etc not being prosecuted and people of colour were, for similar offences. Police stopped deciding on who got charged it was passed to the CPS for them to make decisions.
It is concerning/important and not the first time either that records and minutes have not been traceable. Derek McKay looks likely to be questioned over what happened. He's already suggested Keith Brown, Swinney and Sturgeon were all ahead of him in approving this contract.
Sounds as if there may simply have been no paperwork in the first place. Maybe easier to claim it's 'gone missing' than admit no records exist.
McConnell is calling for the police to get involved:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/call-in-the-police-says-lord-mcconnell-as-row-over-scottish-ferry-contract-worsens-fvt0w0bqp
https://twitter.com/conor_matchett/s...ztBVSgf2w&s=19
Legal advice on IndyRef2 to be published in June after a 13 month battle to release it under FOI laws. Scottish Government ministers found to have breached the FOI legislation.
I would imagine the legal advice will say ‘it depends’. That’s how they make their money.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It's legal advice from the Lord Advocate I suspect, rather than a commerical legal firm. It will be related to does Holyrood have the legal competency to hold a legally binding referendum without a S30 order. I suspect the answer is no, hence the desire to not publish.
I'm glad this is coming out.
It might say "crack on" or "not allowed". Latter isn't end of the world. Scottish government having a mandate to pursue it, but getting told "no" by the UK government is a potential vote winner.
If it's somewhere on the fence that would be annoying but it wouldn't mean that Scottish Government was reckless should it go ahead.
It wouldn't be legally binding. If the SG can hold a ref it'll be advisory like brexit and they'll assume that the UKG can't ignore "the will of the people". Unionists can counter that by boycotting and then as long as the turnout is below 50%, which you'd expect, they will think they're golden.
Whatever happens next, this has a long way to run I suspect. Constitutional paralysis, gotta love it. :rolleyes:
The Scotland Act is fairly clear, matters of the constitution are reserved.
An advisory referendum would be a mistake in my humble opinion (if you are on the Yes side) as it would likely be boycotted by potentially half the country and Yes wins with 99% of the vote on a turnout of say 40%. Can't say with a serious face that's the will of the Scottish people. Also would all the councils take part, would the electoral commission endorse it etc. Minefield.
I just don't see how on a turnout of half or less than the last referendum any result can be taken as a serious indication of the will of the people of Scotland, even more so if Yes wins with 90%+ of the vote.
But if that's the road the SNP want to go down then so be it. Just don't see it happening as Nicola Sturgeon has said in the past she wants a repeat of the process of the 2014 referendum.
I read that there is some academic debate about whether the Scotland Act is the be all and end all on the point, but let's assume the advice is a clear "incompetent". The Scottish Government has a mandate to pursue a referendum but the UK Government wants to discount it. That'll just help build pro-referendum/ independence support.
Not sure it will, hasn't that been the case the last 5 years or so? Remember Sturgeon telling us she has a mandate after various other elections and we would have a referendum in 2018 or 2019 and so on. Nothing happened and support has pretty much fallen back to mid 40s again. Who knows though, maybe that's the SNP game plan, I would suggest its not a great plan to rely on though, but who knows what their strategy is.
There is no doubt the SG can't enact a binding referendum without another section 30 order. There is some doubt about whether an advisory ref would be ok (as in not struck down by the Supreme Court under the current law). Enacting change to the constitution is reserved, testing the opinion of the population about constitutional matters might not be.
A non-agreed ref wouldn't bring indy on its own anway, imo, because it wouldn't be recognised by the EU as a legit process. Could be another useful stepping stone along the way though.