Salmond's Subterfuge
by Keith Gilmour
This site was supposed to be temporary!
Once Alex Salmond and his nationalist comrades had lost the 2014 referendum, why would it still be necessary to plug 100 Questions Alex Salmond Will Never Answer?
Well, the 38% of the Scottish electorate who voted to break-up Britain in 2014 turned into the 35% of the Scottish electorate who voted SNP in 2015, our 'FPTP' electoral system turned that into 95% of Scotland's Westminster seats, and so now, as one of the #56, The Rt Hon Alex Salmond MP sits smugly preening in our House of Commons -- chuckling, chortling, heckling, pontificating, and (of course) plotting a re-run of his contemptible break-up Britain campaign.
Below are the 100 Questions I sent to Mr Salmond in June of 2014.
This site also features the 'Twenty Extra' posted to the former first minister after the first referendum debate, some 'Yes Tips' for the United Kingdom Independence Party, and also some Post-Referendum Questions.
These questions exist solely to expose this egomaniacal, bloviating huckster -- possibly now the most dishonourable "honourable member" in our UK parliament!
100 Questions Alex Salmond Will Never Answer
Why label your 'wish list without a price list' manifesto as a "white paper" when it is clearly no such thing?
Why did you originally try to offer us a leading question?
Is it true you wanted 16-year-olds to be given a referendum vote because you thought their 'dodgy frontal lobes' would make them easier to manipulate?
Why don't you want all 'Over 18' laws converted to 'Over 16'?
Why did you say that "the people of Scotland" would decide, in a referendum, whether or not to leave the UK -- whilst planning to restrict your vote to 'the people in Scotland'?
Isn't your £1.3 million taxpayer-funded Scotland's Future book just an 'Everything will be better' fantasy prospectus?
Is it by accident or design that you keep repeating the same key words in so many of your speeches and interviews (fairness, future, forward, healthier, wealthier, greener, etc)?
Why describe quitting the UK as "historic", "exciting" and "transformational" when these are the same terms you used for your 'Join the Euro' campaign?
Why do you misleadingly conflate individual freedom with nationalism?
Why do you routinely use the words 'could' and 'should' as if they meant exactly the same thing (as in 'Scotland could make it on its own')?
Why were London-based reporters, from Channel 4 and ITV, issued with "International media" press passes at your 'Scotland's Future' launch?
Why do you keep blaming Westminster for every unpopular decision and anything that goes wrong, whilst taking credit for anything that happens to go right?
Why bring over millionaire tax exile celebrities to tell us how to vote?
Is it true you delayed the referendum until 2014 in order to exploit the Commonwealth Games, the Homecoming and the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn?
Why the hijacking of St Andrew's Day, Burns Night, etc for specifically nationalist announcements?
Was September 18th chosen because it was the closest you could get to the European elections -- or to invoke the Ireland of 1914?
Would you have dug out and waved that saltire if Andy Murray had lost?
Would you say that you and your supporters hijack the saltire more often, or less often, than the BNP used to hijack the union flag?
Why do you align yourself with people who denounce Better Together supporters as "unpatriotic" and "anti-Scottish"?
Why do you pander to a parochial, insular and self-obsessed minority?
Do you condemn the poisonous cyber-nats?
Was your toe-curling February 2014 "Yes we can" intended to invoke Barack Obama?
Why do you consistently interpret criticisms of yourself and your policies as attacks on Scotland?
Why did you compare yourself to God/Moses?
Since when have we been 'your people'?
Why do you sometimes refer to the SNP as "I"?
Why did you mislead us over legal advice on EU membership?
Why did you mislead us over a currency union with what would be left of the United Kingdom?
Why were you so clueless about RBS and HBOS ("global leaders today, tomorrow and for the long term") and why did you support Fred Goodwin on the ABN Amro bid that broke RBS?
Why did you attack bankers in public then treat them to a hugely-expensive, taxpayer-funded Bute House dinner in private?
Why the kamikaze threat to default on debt?
What happened to the "arc of prosperity"?
Why make reference to not being able to "wish away global competition"? -- Why would anyone want to!
Why do you and your supporters insultingly speak of Scotland in the same breath as Panama, French-speaking Quebec, the Isle of Man, and the Basque and Catalan regions of Spain?
Why did you describe Scotland as 'occupied territory' and a "surly lodger"?
Why did you compare Scots to teenagers, toddlers and slaves?
Why did you refer to Scots as "the natives" and a "nation of drunks"?
Where did you get the idea we want to pay for Gallic translations for so many things?
How can someone who is relentlessly negative about Great Britain -- and relentlessly negative about the United Kingdom Independence Party's campaign for an EU referendum -- have the nerve to accuse Better Together of negativity?
Why did you dismiss the Better Together campaign as "a bunch of talking heads" and suggest that there may be no such thing as a "fervent No voter in Scotland"?
Why do you keep attacking the family backgrounds of your political opponents?
You tell us Scotland will have "malice towards nobody." Does that include jihadists and genocidal despots?
Why did you support the release of mass murderer Abdel Basset al-Megrahi?
Why has your government released so many violent and sexual offenders?
You constantly refer to "illegal wars." Which wars is it you imagine to have been "illegal"? And do you imagine "illegal" and 'immoral' to be synonymous?
Are you under the impression Russia and China get to decide what's legal and what isn't?
Why did you dismiss NATO efforts to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide as "unpardonable folly"?
Why are you happy for us to disappear from the G8 and UN Security Council?
Why say "in public hands" when what you really mean is "in government hands"?
What makes you think government is good at running things -- or can spend our money better than we can?
Why do you label taxpayer-funded services as "free"?
To what level do you want to "reduce inequality"?
Which UK cabinet ministers told us "the ten plagues of Egypt would descend" upon us?
What evidence do you have that UKIP "dislike everybody"?
Which countries aren't "blessed with talent, resources and creativity"?
What made you think Scotland was ever "for sale"?
Is something "progressive" just because you label it as such?
As it is not a tax and many of the rooms targeted do not contain beds, why do you continue to use the deliberately misleading term "bedroom tax" to describe the Under-occupancy Penalty?
You've stated that Scotland "didn't mind the economic side of Thatcherism." Did Brian Cox's Yes launch rant make you cringe?
You claim that David Cameron (who doesn't have a vote in the referendum and isn't leading the Better Together campaign) "must" debate with you. Following that same logic, 'must' José Manuel Barroso debate with Nigel Farage?
You consistently chuckle and chortle at journalists and political opponents who ask you awkward questions. Are all criticisms of nationalism laughable?
Why were you against us being in NATO and why are you now in favour of us being in NATO?
Why did you want Scotland to join the Euro and why do you no longer want us to join the Euro?
Why did you describe the pound as "a millstone around Scotland's neck" and why is it you now want us to have the "millstone" (even if it means ceding sovereignty)?
Why did you emphatically rule out running for the SNP leadership prior to running for the SNP leadership?
When did you stop being a republican and decide you no longer wanted a referendum on getting rid of the Queen?
Would you be happy for us to have no nuclear deterrent whilst Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin and psychotic Islamists have nuclear weapons?
Why claim that quitting the UK will be the "end of Trident" when, in reality, it would simply be moved a few hundred miles south?
When asked about a "nuclear-based" NATO, you opined that you "can't wish away American nuclear weapons." Why the reference to "American" -- rather than Chinese, Russian, Pakistani or North Korean -- nuclear weapons?
Why did you encourage Pete Wishart's unofficial anti-Olympics campaign?
In the run-up to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, you pointedly told reporters you would attend to support "the Scottish athletes" (or, as you dubbed them, "the Scolympians"). Which other political leader wasn't supporting Mo Farah, Nicola Adams and Jessica Ennis?
Why all the threats that "things will get worse", that we'll be stuck into a "filing cabinet", that we'll face "dislocation" and "disintegration" and a "dismal" future (or "no future at all") if your Yes campaign isn't successful? And doesn't this drivel make you the real 'Project Fear'?
Why did your deputy threaten us with a medieval torture device?
In what sense is the "door of opportunity" locked in front of us?
Why aren't you telling voters how much of our beautiful scenery you plan to cover in ugly and undependable wind turbines?
Why aren't you telling voters by how much you might have to cut public spending and by how much you plan to increase taxes and immigration?
Why do you keep emphasising how very small Scotland's population is at present?
What makes you think the people of England would be "our best pals in the world" if we divorced ourselves away from them?
Why do you refer to the UK national debt as something "they’ve accumulated"? Who's they ?
Why imagine all post-secession negotiations will go your way?
Doesn't your inability to guarantee or detail -- or even outline -- terms turn the referendum into a 'pig in a poke'?
Why keep pretending you would be able to rule out border controls?
You've made clear that you're happy for England to have a choice to leave the EU. Why aren't you happy for Scotland to be given the same choice?
Does it make sense to denounce Eurosceptics as "a bunch of little Englanders" whilst hoping to turn us all into a bunch of little Scotlanders?
If you want "independence" from the rest of the UK, why don't you also want "independence" from the EU (which currently hands us about 70% of our laws)?
Why claim you want all the important decisions made in Scotland when you clearly don't?
Following your logic, shouldn't Orkney and Shetland consider breaking away from Scotland?
Why did you opt not to condemn the nasty, boorish, foul-mouthed, anti-English, anti-democratic yobs who mobbed Nigel Farage and hounded him out of Edinburgh?
Why did you double-cross Donald Trump?
Why the attempts to silence pro-union critics in business, academia, the media, and etc?
Why did you compare a BBC chief political advisor to a Nazi?
Why did you snub the Dalai Lama?
Why did you give the presiding officer post to one of your own MSPs?
What is it you find so 'admirable' about Vladimir Putin and "Sir Rupert" Murdoch?
Why was it a "delight" to have anti-American, Kremlin-backed propaganda machine 'RT' filming in Scotland?
Do you consider antigay bus tycoon Brian Souter an ally?
What sorts of points would you be making -- ad infinitum -- if two lottery winners were massively bankrolling the Better Together campaign?
Why have you refused to come clean about expenses claims and why the fight against FOI requests?
How is it taxpayers have ended up paying for some of your propaganda?
Why did your 'Celtic Lion' speech disappear?
Queries/criticisms/supportive messages/predictable cyber-nat abuse can be sent to: whatdotheytakeusfor@outlook.com
