ON January 29 2016 The National was kind enough to print a letter from Russ McLean indicating Alistair Carmichael had not yet gotten away with it – his big lie.
The official Election Court determination of December 9 2015 contained detail which led inexorably to yesterday’s decision by the court in obliging Alistair Carmichael MP to pay his own £150,000 legal costs and not succeed in his grubby effort to grab the financial souls of the Orkney Four (The £150k lie, The National, February 9).
Lady Paton and Lord Matthews were remarkably clear in their view of Alistair Carmichael. The judges labelled the right honourable MP a liar. An extraordinary indictment of Carmichael, one of the Queen’s privy counsellors.
This MP for Orkney and Shetland only got away with the case under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 because the Orkney Four needed to prove matters to a criminal standard. In essence by 95 per cent or more.
Yesterday’s remarkable award of costs – Carmichael has to find £150,000 to pay his own legal fees, means this may not be the end of justice here. It is entirely possible to proceed to civil court and issue fresh proceedings against Alistair Carmichael to recover monies he has gained as a result of his lying. The prospects of winning a civil action are hugely better than the original case. Why? Because the level of proof in a new civil court proceeding is “in the balance of probability”. In such a proceeding, the pursuers would need to prove 51 per cent or more of such a case.
If two of the highest-ranking judges in the land are convinced Carmichael lied in his pursuit of a job as an MP, then this may point to a legal way in ensuring Alistair Carmichael is brought to justice. The amounts concerned are substantial. One possible element is the remuneration as an MP that Alistair Carmichael’s lie has brought him. Between £67,060 and £74,000 a year. Plus expenses!
If Mr Carmichael were to last the full five years, that is over a third of a million pounds in salary this man is seeking to get away with. The Orkney Four and their 10,187 supporters showed huge determination to bring Alistair Carmichael to account for his lying. The strict narrative of the Representation of the People Act was a tough case to pursue because of the very high burden of proof required.
However, recent events with Carmichael having to stump up £150,000 for lying – so far – illustrate that the principle against the lying MP is not yet lost. In the 1930s the US Government had big problems indicting the gangster Al Capone for criminal behaviour so they got justice by the novel use of tax law to bring that miscreant to justice.
Not for one minute is Al Carmichael in the same category as Al Capone. But the legal elements bear striking similarities. If Alistair Carmichael cannot be proven to have breached the electoral law, then there is the avenue of civil litigation to explore.
Personally and professionally I believe that the chances to bring Alistair Carmichael to account for his lies are very strong if the civil court route is now followed. The big question is whether the Orkney Four or any of my fellow 10,187 supporters of this campaign have such an appetite?
Russ McLean
Carnoustie, Angus
THIS man has absolutely no shame.What this case proves is not that Mr Carmichael is innocent of any wrongdoing. Rather, it proves that the definitions in the Act are far too narrow, having been written by MPs for the soul purpose of protecting themselves when they commit what is by any other definition a crime.
Marc Gamble
via thenational.scot
Dugdale's 'new' Labour is same old, same old
HAVING been on tenterhooks and barely able to contain my anticipatory excitement over the selection of Labour’s Holyrood candidates, I confess to being underwhelmed by the outcome (No fresh talent for Labour lists, The National, February 8).
According to Dugdale, there was to be an influx of talent and new ideas; in short a “New Labour”.
However, among those expected to win I see Lamont, Marra, Dugdale, Lewis Macdonald and the would-be nemesis of the Nats and nonpareil of negativity herself, Jackie Baillie.
This is a list that would make an honest plodder like Iain Gray look almost credible.
The cherry on the same old, same old cake is, of course, Anas Sarwar, in his opinion a gifted, charismatic politician, possessed of almost mesmeric debating skills.
Should Labour still be in opposition after May, will this Old Guard get a grip and cease lowering the standards of the parliament?
History would suggest not but I believe ceasing to pretend, along with their Tory allies, that Westminster imposed austerity is an SNP inspired myth could be a good starting point for this new dynamic Old Brigade.
Malcolm Cordell
Broughty Ferry, Dundee
I WAS pleased to see the mention of the “Meidies” in Iain Forde’s letter (Letters, The National, February 8). If he means by the Meadows the large park area in Edinburgh, I had thought that that way of describing it was long gone.
My uncle Tommy lived in the Lawnmarket area of Edinburgh always known to him as the “Lawnie” and he played in the Meidies in the late Twenties and early Thirties.
He told me many times of the poverty he saw when visiting friends’ houses in the High Street: furniture was old drink and food boxes and the father, if there was one, had suffered during the First World War.
Many of the Scots-speaking population of the High Street were relocated to council housing on the outskirts of Edinburgh after the War and it is unlikely that there are many children in the High Street now, and few that could tell you these old place names.
Ian M Cockburn
Edinburgh
The In and Out EU adherents appear to be vying to claim the late Margaret Thatcher’s influence. That both sides of the Unionist cause see the Toxic Margaret as an ally is a strong a message to the Scottish people that the nationalist cause could not equal. That Thatcher is an envied brand, suggests our daily media is, indeed, foreign.
Peter Barjonas
Latheronwheel
HAMISH MacPherson and The National are to be congratulated for the regular history features, sorely needed against the attempt to downgrade oor wee country at every level (Massacre of Glencoe haunts place of beauty, The National, February 9). Any nation without its folk memories to keep alive is doomed to non-existence.
“Good Auld King Billy” ordered the massacre in 1692 and had plans to break the Jacobite disaffection from his planned parliamentary, as well as his regal, Union. Campbell of Glenlyon was probably chosen because of his debts, no doubt exacerbated by the McIans of Glencoe who stole the fellow Jacobite’s coos and household goods on the way back from defeating the Williamite forces at Killiecrankie in 1689.
There were only about eight Campbells involved in the massacre, plus a few MacDonalds, MacGregors and other Jacobite clansmen. One Campbell piper played the Campbell lament, another said if he were a dog he would not be out on this night. The fact so few were actually massacred and most died escaping the blizzard was testament to those Campbells and others appalled at going against the tradition of Highland hospitality. In the following inquiry the Scottish Parliament, when asked by the Crown who was responsible for the massacre, they replied: “You were”.
The point of the annual, anti-sectarian rallies at Glencoe and other historical sites, by Republican Socialists, is to unite and raise consciousness against Unionist historical and ongoing propaganda and to raise the place of ordinary people in all histories.
Donald Anderson
Glasgow
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