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Wings Over Scotland

A matter of class

Something very odd happened when the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal delivered its judgment – and it wasn’t just the made-up quotes and m...

A matter of class Something very odd happened when the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal delivered its judgment – and it wasn’t just the made-up quotes and mangled law. Call it institutional bias, ideological capture, or just the law doing its job, but what Employment Judge Sandy Kemp’s tribunal delivered was the most one-sided outcome since Butch and Sundance decided to come out shooting. Every single member of the NHS Fife side was accepted as a credible witness. But Peggie and her team were cut down in a hail of negative conclusions. It seems worth spending a little time with the judgment to understand how this happened. On pretty much every other point the tribunal found against her. At the heart of it all was a simple question: who, out of a middle-class doctor and a working-class nurse, was most credible? It was definitely the doctor, the thoroughly middle-class tribunal decided. As for Upton, he hadn’t perjured himself. He wasn’t lying. Yes, he’d not been accurate. But he’d been inaccurate honestly. He’d probably just forgotten. It was ages ago. This sort of forgetfulness was obviously different to Peggie’s. For some reason or other. And then there was Upton’s friend Dr Kate Searle. She’d failed to maintain the confidentiality of the investigation, not least by emailing colleagues describing what happened as a hate incident. She’d called Peggie’s actions “completely unacceptable”. The tribunal had to admit she probably wasn’t impartial, what with supporting him and representing him. But never mind. Unlike the expert witness, hers was the good sort of not impartial. They believed her.

Wings Over Scotland

Contempt Of Government

This is actually pretty serious. Because, y’know, you can call us old-fashioned purists or sticklers or whatever if you like, but government ...

This is actually pretty serious. The dogged, obsessive determination of politicians everywhere to abase themselves at the feet of creepy men in dresses is now completely out of hand. It is deeply dangerous to democracy for governments to be this unpopular with years of their term still to run and to be seemingly hellbent on making it worse on a daily basis. Because, y’know, you can call us old-fashioned purists or sticklers or whatever if you like, but government ministers probably shouldn’t openly lie in prepared statements to the High Court in order to pervert the course of justice. And this is as clear a knowing, deliberate lie as you could hope to see.

Expenses data shows SNP MSPs paid £141,000 to party ally

Senior figures including Humza Yousaf used the printing firm Saltire Graphics, prompting accusations of a ‘jobs for the boys’ culture

The SNP has been accused of overseeing a “jobs for the boys” scheme after an examination of newly published expenses revealed 22 nationalist MSPs spent more than £140,000 of taxpayers’ money on materials from a party-linked company in the past financial year. The firm is responsible for publishing the official loss-making SNP publication Independence. A total of 21 SNP MSPs, including the former first minister Humza Yousaf, cabinet secretary Jenny Gilruth and six other government ministers, paid Saltire Graphics a total of £141,000 from their Holyrood parliamentary expenses for printing annual reports or newsletters sent to constituents. John Mason, an Independent nationalist, also used the company’s services. Murdo Fraser, the Conservative MSP, said: “What an extraordinary coincidence that one third of SNP MSPs have identified the same printing firm as providing the best value for taxpayers’ money and that it just happens to be one run by diehard nationalists with close links to the party. Although MSPs are entitled to use public funds to pay for legitimate costs such as printing and advertising, they are banned from exploiting the expenses scheme for party political gain.

Scottish Daily Express

Peggie ruling is '100% wrong decision in law' says ex-HSE prosecutor

If health and safety laws dating back more than 100 years are ignored, women in Scotland today have fewer rights to single sex toilets and changing...

A former crown prosecutor for the Health and Safety Executive has said the Sandie Peggie tribunal ruling failed to take into account the proper "hierarchy in law". Roger Livermore said British health and safety law supersedes equality law and states categorically that there should be separate toilets and changing rooms for both men and women. Although the nurse won her claim of harassment against her employers, the majority of her claims were dismissed and the ruling failed to state that transgender people cannot access single sex spaces on the basis of their acquired gender. Mr Livermore said: "It's 100% the wrong decision in law. There's a hierarchy in law, number one the Health and Safety at Work act that requires separate toilets and workplace changing facilities.

Scottish Daily Express

Joanna Cherry says SNP 'bugging' scandal is NOT finished despite shutdown bid

The Nats insist that party leaders Nicola Sturgeon, Humza Yousaf and John Swinney were never told about male aides covertly recording THREE differe...

Former MP Joanna Cherry has doubled down on the SNP 'bugging' scandal at Holyrood, despite the Presiding Officer saying that "no covert devices were involved". The extraordinary story broke on Thursday, just as MSPs were rushing home for the Christmas break. It emerged that a female Nationalist MSP had asked for support after a male staffer 'bugged' her office. Ms Cherry, who is also one of the UK's leading lawyers, said this statement should not be the end of the matter. Writing on social media, she said: "Whether bugging devices or mobile phones were used by male staffers to secretly record the conversations of female MSPs this behaviour is a profound threat to our democracy & possibly also criminal. It occurred more than once so it's a systemic problem which must be investigated." The man involved in the 2023 incident wasn't fired by the SNP and was instead moved on to work for a male MP. He is still involved with the party as an office holder at a local branch. A source said: "That the party did nothing about it was disgusting. It should have been dealt with."