Talking-up Scotland

I’ve just discovered the Electoral Commission does do something useful, with its database of donations to, amongst others, politicians. Who should I find there with his snout in the trough?

In 2018 ‘Liberal Democrat’ fibster Alistair Carmichael had a jolly to Kuwait which, according to Human Rights Watch, uses its security laws to stifle free speech and which denies migrant workers legal protections exposing them to abuse.

https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/kuwait

Alistair Carmichael MP

£3,800.00 Visit

Kuwait National Assembly

Accepted on 06/11/2018

Reported on 29/11/2018

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/financial-reporting/donations-and-loans/view-donations-and-loans/donations-and-loans-regulated-individuals

Sounds like a nice hotel.

Then in 2019, Carmichael visited Japan. See this on Japan’s brutal and dishonest death penalty arrangments:

Amnesty International argues that the Japanese justice system tends to place great reliance on confessions, even ones obtained under duress. According to a 2005 Amnesty International report: Most have been sentenced to death on the basis of confessions extracted under duress. The potential for miscarriages of justice is built into the system: confessions are typically extracted while suspects are held in daiyo kangoku, or “substitute prisons”, for interrogation before they are charged. In practice these are police cells, where detainees can be held for up to 23 days after arrest, with no state-funded legal representation. They are typically interrogated for 12 hours a day: no lawyers can be present, no recordings are made, and they are put under constant pressure to confess. Once convicted, it is very difficult to obtain a re-trial and prisoners can remain under sentence of death for many years.

Urgent Action in Focus, August 2005″. Amnesty International. Archived from the original on 24 May 2006. Retrieved 28 May 2006.

Alistair Carmichael MP

£1,985.31 Visit

2019 jolly

Open Society Foundation

Accepted on 28/02/2019

Reported on 08/04/2019 

Japan

Invited by the Japanese Federal Bar Association (JFBA) and to meet with government ministers, officials and MPs to discuss the abolition of the death penalty. Contribution towards flights, accommodation, sustenance and incidental expenses, total value £1,900.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/financial-reporting/donations-and-loans/view-donations-and-loans/donations-and-loans-regulated-individuals