FIFTY SHADES OF GROTESQUE: FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE CATHY NEWMAN C4 INTERVIEW WITH LIZ LLOYD

WARNING: VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. This article contains some images readers may find disturbing.


John Smythe:
Below is a transcript I typed up of the Cathy Newman 'interview' with Liz Lloyd, former Chief of Staff to the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, done for Channel 4.The video runs to 8:11 and can still be found here:
https://www.channel4.com/news/behind-the-scenes-of-nicola-sturgeons-reign-as-scotlands-leader. 

If you are wondering why I did not use a more flattering picture of Liz Lloyd then I'm sorry to say but I am not a miracle worker. 

If the video is taken down, for whatever reason, then you will still have this transcript. I print it below in its entirety and will then go through it and leave comments.

CATHY NEWMAN:
On the day Humsa Yousaf was confirmed as Scotland’s First Minister following a vote here at Holyrood. But today wasn’t just Nicola Sturgeon’s last day in the job - it was also her right hand woman’s as well. 
For nearly two decades, Liz Lloyd has been at the heart of the SNP - most recently at Nicola Sturgeon’s side. A period of unprecedented electoral success for the party but of setbacks and personal tribulations too. 
She spoke to me exclusively just hours after leaving her post in her first ever TV interview.

LIZ LLOYD:
She was just quite calm I think she was quite, you know, ready to leave but walking out that door for the last time you could tell she felt the moment and her, her hand quivered a moment over the signature as she was writing to the king to resign. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
What does it mean to you the end of this era?

LIZ LLOYD:   
I came in when the party was still in opposition and I’m leaving as we move onto our third SNP First Minister mmn and as the party has a chance to renew. Mmn, to set itself up for the next election, to deliver new things. But, I think we have done a lot. I am proud of what we’ve done and to have been there has been an absolute honour.

CATHY NEWMAN:
I mean Labour are absolutely jubilant. They see it as, you know, if Kate Forbes had won they would have found her a tougher opponent. She would have represented change and Humsa represents continuity.  

LIZ LLOYD:
I think Labour shouldn’t count their chickens. Ehm, I think Labour should just watch carefully. He’s not going to be easy to beat.  

CATHY NEWMAN:
You were instrumental in developing kind of brand Nicola. She said she was a shy girl who hid under the table at her fifth birthday party. Turning her from that into a kind of political rock star.

LIZ LLOYD:
I’ve had to push her onto the stage at the Daily Show when we were in New York because she was terrified she was going to flop. But, the imposter syndrome she has spoken about, you kind of have to give her a pep talk before she would go into, you know, rooms with people she admired.  She would quite often need a bit of encouragement to realise that she had earned her place there. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
I mean who was she most nervous about meeting? 

LIZ LLOYD:
She was a bit of a fangirl for Hillary Clinton and she was quite nervous for that meeting and we had also maybe had too many of glasses of wine the night before.  

CATHY NEWMAN:
(Laughter) So she was hung over meeting Hillary Clinton? 

LIZ LLOYD:
She was hung over meeting Hillary Clinton. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
But I mean you said you pushed her into the Daily Show?

LIZ LLOYD:
Yes.

CLIP PLAYS OF DAILY SHOW

JON STEWART:
We’re delighted to have you here.

NICOLA STURGEON:
Thank you. I am delighted to be here. It’s very exciting if a little scary.

CATHY NEWMAN:
Was your role to give her the pep talk you were talking about…

LIZ LLOYD:
Yeah..

CATHY NEWMAN:
To encourage her to sort of support her or was it sometimes to go you get this done?   



LIZ LLOYD:
A bit of both. A bit of both. I think I could quite often see in her things that she didn’t see in herself so take the Daily Show. I knew she could go on the Daily Show and be funny with Jon Stewart. I knew she had a good sense of humour. She would never have thought of going on something like that herself. So, quite often it was to push her out of her comfort zone a little bit.

CATHY NEWMAN:
Well, let’s fast forward to June 2016.. 

LIZ LLOYD:
Right.

CATHY NEWMAN:
The Brexit referendum.  

LIZ LLOYD:
Yeah.

CATHY NEWMAN:
Uhm, took Scotland out of the EU against its will. And Nicola Sturgeon immediately prepared for another independence referendum. Looking back now do you think that was rash? That the seeds of her demise were there then? 

LIZ LLOYD:
She was hurt that night when realising that the rest of the UK had voted to leave the European Union and that Scotland was going to go with it. She was very worried for the EU citizens. Genuinely worried for the EU citizens that lived in Scotland. What came along and scuppered that plan and was a set back was Teresa May calling an election which hadn’t been, you know, wasn’t something we had foreseen and wasn’t part of the plan.   

CATHY NEWMAN:
So 2017 the general election Nicola Sturgeon, well the SNP, lost more than twenty seats including her one time mentor Alex Salmond. Were they still talking by that point?

LIZ LLOYD:
At that point they were. The sort of breakdown comes when Alex eh signs up with Russia Today. A decision that she heavily disapproved of. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
What was the reaction? Take me inside the room when she heard about that.

LIZ LLOYD:
We knew he was doing a TV show. He hadn’t been open about who with and I’m going to say there were some expletives when she found out about who that was with. She expressed her displeasure and that was pretty much the point when they stopped speaking. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
Well, the following year the first harassment allegations against him emerged. He was later acquitted. What was the personal toll of that breakdown in relations on both you and Nicola Sturgeon?

LIZ LLOYD:
It was a difficult time for her, I think, learning about this man in a different way. Umm, hearing the allegations that were being made about him. And that, her having to come to terms with someone who she had considered her mentor that other people had felt harassed them umm was difficult for her and that he…his anger about it and the way in which he responded to the situation taking her government to court. Ehm, you know that was an extreme step to take and that really put the nail in the coffin of those relations. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
By the end of her term as First Minister she’d been in charge when there were five different UK… 

LIZ LLOYD:
Yeah… 

CATHY NEWMAN:
Prime Ministers. Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon there was a weird sort of power play on the doorstep of… 

LIZ LLOYD:
Yeah..

CATHY NEWMAN:
Bute House. When the door closes take us inside the room. How did they really get on?

LIZ LLOYD:
Ehm, Nicola and Boris was a strange one. She has always with Prime Ministers had a one to one at the beginning of their relationship. Nobody else in the room. So she took him into the ehm drawing room of Bute House. They sat in the chairs, had their pictures taken and then all the staff left and his staff were. I wasn’t in the room. His staff were absolutely terrified of, I don’t know if it was what she was going to do to him or what he was going to say to when he wasn’t supervised. But they pretty much broke the door down to get him out of a room on his own with Nicola Sturgeon. And they couldn’t ehm, they definitely didn’t trust Boris to do that meeting.

CATHY NEWMAN:
So let’s move to the last few months which have been really difficult. So you’ve had an inkling during the pandemic that she might not go on and on

LIZ LLOYD:
Yeah. There were definitely days where she felt and voiced that she was done. She was at the end, she didn’t have what it took to go on. And we would pick her up. We would give her the peptalk. We would motivate her to get back out there and she would go back and go back out and do the briefing and get back into the ehm emergency rooms to manage Covid and carried on.     

CATHY NEWMAN:
But when did you get the first sense that she was going to quit?

LIZ LLOYD:
Ehm, I would say just shortly after Christmas. Uhm, I began to think that she was not responding to the kind of issues where something would come up and I would have expected her to be, you know, very quickly on it.

CATHY NEWMAN:
Because she is usually a workaholic. So..

LIZ LLOYD:
Completely. Completely. And then you know she has took up hill walking. Ehm, and myself and quite a few colleagues sort of looked at that and went what’s going on here? But on a weekend or on a Friday she would normally have been at home doing her papers or you know writing speeches or reading up on the latest policies. She was walking up hills and the fact she was choosing to spend her time doing something else, that she was putting herself first started to make me think that she was heading toward the exit. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
Do you think that at the end of the day the Gender recognition reforms allowing self ID were a bigger factor in her premature departure?

LIZ LLOYD:
The way in which politics can, politicians, those around politics conducted that debate in Scotland I think effect…slightly scunnered her. Uhm, she is one who thinks we should be able to disagree civilly. She is one who thinks we should be able to debate issues. And that became so toxic. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
Let’s talk about the future. Uh, because Nicola Sturgeon has become one of the most recognisable female leaders in the world actually. There have been those who have suggested she might take some kind of international role maybe to do with climate change. What do you think?

LIZ LLOYD:
I wouldn’t be surprised if she does. I think she will take some time. I think undoubtedly there is a book to be written uhm…

CATHY NEWMAN:
She is learning to drive. 

LIZ LLOYD:
She is learning to drive. Ehm, I have kind of been laughing at her about that. Ehm.

CATHY NEWMAN:
How’s it going?

LIZ LLOYD:
It’s very early days I think is how we describe it. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
Have you been in a car with her?

LIZ LLOYD:
With her behind the wheel? No. Not at all. 
(Laughter)
Ehm, I’m not sure I ever will. I’m not sure I see her running a international organisation. I think she’s maybe had enough of running government’s and bureaucracies but I see her campaigning quite strongly internationally on issues she cares about.

CATHY NEWMAN:
UN envoy that kind of thing?

LIZ LLOYD:
Uhm, you know I am sure she is open to offers. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
Liz Lloyd thank you very much.

LIZ LLOYD:
Pleasure.

END OF VIDEO      
 

John Smythe:
Talk about a weak interview. It seems the only one who did any heavy lifting at Channel 4 that day was the poor make-up artist. There is definitely a Rita, Sue and Bob Too: The Later Years vibe from Liz. 

Let’s go through this transcript.

LIZ LLOYD:   
I came in when the party was still in opposition and I’m leaving as we move onto our third SNP First Minister mmn and as the party has a chance to renew. Mmn, to set itself up for the next election, to deliver new things. But, I think we have done a lot. I am proud of what we’ve done and to have been there has been an absolute honour.

John Smythe:
They have done a lot. A lot of damage. What a legacy. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
I mean Labour are absolutely jubilant. They see it as, you know, if Kate Forbes had won they would have found her a tougher opponent. She would have represented change and Humsa represents continuity.  

John Smythe:
Ash Regan, who is never mentioned at all in this exchange, was the candidate who represented change not Kate Forbes. Kate Forbes should be judged by her actions in government and it does not come across well to me. In my opinion she would have changed nothing if she had won the leadership contest and the rot would have continued based on her previous history. She has never shown any courage at any time or stood up and been counted when it mattered unlike her colleague Ash Regan.

LIZ LLOYD:
I think Labour shouldn’t count their chickens. Ehm, I think Labour should just watch carefully. He’s not going to be easy to beat.  

John Smythe:
Humsa is weak. Just check the image above. Being rather rudely shushed by the former First Minister. That picture is also interesting in another way in that it shows a clear double standard. If it was a man doing that with a female colleague of course we would never have heard the end of it. It would have been seen as inappropriate behaviour. Making a woman feel small and inferior. That their input was not valued. It would have probably led to an investigation featuring the likes of false testifier Judith Mackinnon etc. That reaction of course would not happen if it was a woman doing that to a man. Saying all that I do think Humsa is just a puppet. If he had anything to him at all he would have cleaned house when he became First Minister even if it was for purely selfish reasons to try and distance himself from what went before. He has not done that and if anything seems to want to continue with Sturgeon's 'legacy'.      

CATHY NEWMAN:
You were instrumental in developing kind of brand Nicola. She said she was a shy girl who hid under the table at her fifth birthday party. Turning her from that into a kind of political rock star.

LIZ LLOYD:
I’ve had to push her onto the stage at the Daily Show when we were in New York because she was terrified she was going to flop. But, the imposter syndrome she has spoken about, you kind of have to give her a pep talk before she would go into, you know, rooms with people she admired.  She would quite often need a bit of encouragement to realise that she had earned her place there. 

John Smythe:
It is not imposter syndrome. She is an imposter. For me Nicola Sturgeon is someone who pretends to be a sincere human being and fails at it. If I ever had any doubts about that sincerity they were removed during her evidence session for the Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints. Anyone that continued to support her after that performance is either bent or as thick as mince. It was a disgrace.  

CATHY NEWMAN:
I mean who was she most nervous about meeting? 

LIZ LLOYD:
She was a bit of a fangirl for Hilary Clinton and she was quite nervous for that meeting and we had also maybe had too many of glasses of wine the night before.  

John Smythe:
Ah yes Hilary ‘Warmonger’ Clinton. What a great role model she is. Who can ever forget the video where she laughed and cackled like a witch about the killing of Muammar Gaddafi? “We came, we saw, he died!” When you have someone like that as a role model it speaks volumes as to the kind of person Nicola Sturgeon really is.

CATHY NEWMAN:
(Laughter) So she was hung over meeting Hilary Clinton? 

LIZ LLOYD:
She was hung over meeting Hilary Clinton.

John Smythe: 
I wonder if there were any other members of staff involved in this drinking session? After all a rather big deal was made about the other former First Minister drinking with staff and how it was inappropriate behaviour. That there was a power inbalance at play. Unless the FM was drinking with other leaders how could there not be an imbalance though? That would be true of all First Ministers/leaders who drink with staff. 

LIZ LLOYD:
A bit of both. A bit of both. I think I could quite often see in her things that she didn’t see in herself so take the Daily Show. I knew she could go on the Daily Show and be funny with Jon Stewart. I knew she had a good sense of humour. She would never have thought of going on something like that herself. So, quite often it was to push her out of her comfort zone a little bit.

John Smythe:
A good sense of humour. I would suggest a rather sick sense of humour if you look at some of the absolute nuggets that she had in her government, many of which are still there under the new FM. People you wouldn’t trust to make a Pot Noodle without help. Then again it was all about people that would show unquestioning loyal to Nicola and her inner circle and nothing at all to do with competency or talent which of course none of them had. If they turned up to volunteer at a charity shop for free they would be sent home after half an hour and told never to come back for being utterly useless.
 

LIZ LLOYD:
She was hurt that night when realising that the rest of the UK had voted to leave the European Union and that Scotland was going to go with it. She was very worried for the EU citizens. Genuinely worried for the EU citizens that lived in Scotland. What came along and scuppered that plan and was a set back was Teresa May calling an election which hadn’t been, you know, wasn’t something we had foreseen and wasn’t part of the plan.   

John Smythe:
The only person Nicola Sturgeon has ever cared about is Nicola Sturgeon. There never was any plan other than to line their pockets. Lining their own pockets and ruining just about everything they touched in the process. Damage that could take many many years to fix.

CATHY NEWMAN:
So, 2017 the general election Nicola Sturgeon, well the SNP, lost more than twenty seats including her one time mentor Alex Salmond. Were they still talking by that point?

LIZ LLOYD:
At that point they were. The sort of breakdown comes when Alex eh signs up with Russia Today. A decision that she heavily disapproved of. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
What was the reaction? Take me inside the room when she heard about that.

LIZ LLOYD:
We knew he was doing a TV show. He hadn’t been open about who with and I’m going to say there were some expletives when she found out about who that was with. She expressed her displeasure and that was pretty much the point when they stopped speaking. 

John Smythe:
More inappropriate behaviour with the bad language huh? If the relationship had totally broken down due to his TV show and they stopped speaking then why did she keep meeting with him during the complaints investigation? Officially she had nothing to do with that Procedure. So why keep meeting/phoning him if there was no working relationship with him either? That the FM was out of the loop on the complaints process is of course nonsense. You cannot claim to be ignorant of the process on the one hand whilst being able to provide updates, current legal positions and information such as the Permanent Secretary was going to write to Mr Salmond on the same day etc without having some knowledge of what was going on. It is absurd. You are either out of the loop and therefore can provide no information or you have knowledge about it and can provide information. It is another one of Nicola Sturgeon's false claims. That there was no malicious plot against Alex Salmond is another one. The secret meeting of 16 January 2018 between Ms A, Nicola Richards and Judith Mackinnon (that all three of them tried to conceal) is proof of a malicious plot. There are many more examples of this malicious plot provided in the SG's own documentation.

CATHY NEWMAN:
Well, the following year the first harassment allegations against him emerged. He was later acquitted. What was the personal toll of that breakdown in relations on both you and Nicola Sturgeon?

LIZ LLOYD:
It was a difficult time for her, I think, learning about this man in a different way. Umm, hearing the allegations that were being made about him. And that, her having to come to terms with someone who she had considered her mentor that other people had felt harassed them umm was difficult for her and that he…his anger about it and the way in which he responded to the situation taking her government to court. Ehm, you know that was an extreme step to take and that really put the nail in the coffin of those relations. 

John Smythe:
The total nerve of this woman. Alex Salmond took the Scottish Government to court as a last resort having exhausted every possible avenue to avoid doing that very thing. I have been through the published evidence I know it as well as anyone and have demonstrated this time and time again. Mr Salmond via his lawyers tried to engage with the SG at every opportunity not as some online trolls would like you to believe in order to make the complaints go away but to establish that the SG Complaints Procedure was lawful as he had been given legal advice that it was not. His lawyers of course turned out to be correct. His meeting with the FM was about getting her to intervene as he believed it was an unlawful process. If it had been found to be lawful, which arbitration would have established by the way, he would have submitted 100% to the SG Complaints Procedure. It is there in the SG’s own documentation in black and white. The SG for some reason rejected the offer of arbitration even though it was in the interests of everyone to establish that the Procedure was lawful not just for those complaints but if the Procedure was to be used again in future. It was of course a one and done Procedure. A Get Alex Salmond Procedure you might say. It has now been changed. It is worth remembering that the Procedure used against Alex Salmond was found in court to be unlawful. His lawyers were correct and the Scottish Government lawyers were wrong. I wonder if the SG lawyers have ever actually gotten anything right? 

Don't just take my word for all this of course dear reader. Check the official documentation from the Scottish Government below in regards to Mr Salmond's reluctance to take the SG government to court and arbitration: 

The above is from PHASE 2 (COMPLAINTS HANDLING) FN33 a 49 page document on Page 38.

The above is from the same PHASE 2 FN33 document. This time pages 20 & 21. 

The above is from the same document in PHASE 2 FN33. This time pages 22 & 23.

As you consider your response to that request, we have instructions to make clear the willingness of our client to engage in the totality of the process and to answer in detail each of the specific complaints made, should the Scottish Government position on the legality of that process be upheld by the arbitrator. This remains our client's strong preference, but not in circumstance where the clear advice of Senior Counsel is that engagement with an unlawful process cannot be advised. 

The above is also from PHASE 2 FN33 and is found on page 49.

We have never suggested that arbitration should include "the substance of the causes for concern." Our proposal, set out in our letter of 26 June, is that "the dispute between us on competency and illegality" should go to arbitration. In our letter of 11 July we said "...we have instructions to make clear the willingness of our client to engage in the totality of the process and to answer in detail each of the complaints made, should the Scottish Government position on the legality of that process be upheld by the arbitrator."

With respect, it is not correct to say that arbitration is inconsistent with the purpose of the 2017 Procedure. Arbitration would resolve the dispute between us about the important questions raised by us on the competency and fairness of the Procedure. If an Arbitrator ruled against on these issues then the Procedure would run its course to a decision by you on the merits of the complaints.

The above is from PHASE 4 MINISTERIAL CODE which is a 36 page document listed as: WRITTEN SUBMISSION BY ALEX SALMOND.
 
20. By the end of May, it was becoming clear that the substantial arguments my 
legal team were making in correspondence against the legality of the procedure 
were not having any impact with the Permanent Secretary. My legal team 
advised that it was impossible properly to defend myself against the complaints 
under such a flawed procedure. They advised that a petition for Judicial Review 
would have excellent prospects of success given the Government were acting unlawfully. However I was extremely reluctant to sue the Government I once led. 
I wanted to avoid the damage both to the Scottish Government and the SNP 
which would inevitably result. To avoid such a drastic step, I resolved to let the 
First Minister see the draft petition for Judicial Review. As a lawyer, and as First 
Minister, I assumed that she would see the legal jeopardy into which the 
government was drifting. I therefore sought a further meeting.
21. On 1st June 2018 the First Minister sent me a message which was the 
opposite of the assurance she had given on the 2nd April 2018 suggesting 
instead that she had always said that intervention was “not the right thing to do”. 
That was both untrue and disturbing. On 3rd June 2018 I sent her a message on 
the implications for the Government in losing a Judicial Review and pointing to 
her obligation (under the Ministerial Code) to ensure that her administration 
was acting lawfully and (under the Scotland Act) to ensure that their actions 
were compliant with the European Convention.
22. The First Minister and I met in Aberdeen on 7th June 2018 when I asked 
her to look at the draft Judicial Review Petition. She did briefly but made it clear 
she was now disinclined to make any intervention.
23. My desire to avoid damaging and expensive litigation remained. My legal 
team thereafter offered arbitration as an alternative to putting the matter before 
the Court of Session. That proposal was designed to offer a quick and relatively 
inexpensive means of demonstrating the illegality of the procedure in a process 
which guaranteed the confidentiality of the complainers. It would also have 
demonstrated the illegality of the process in a forum which would be much less 
damaging to the Scottish Government than the subsequent public declaration of 
illegality. I was prepared at that time to engage fully with the procedure in the 
event my legal advice was incorrect. In the event, of course, it was robust. I 
explained the advantages of such an approach to the First Minister in 
a Whatsapp message of 5th July 2018.

The above is from PHASE 5 WRITTEN CORRESPONDENCE a 21 Page document titled: WRITTEN SUBMISSION ON JUDICIAL REVIEW FROM ALEX SALMOND

No substantive reply being received to our legal arguments, my lawyers advised that I
should move to judicially review the government and that the prospects of success
were excellent. I had asked them to draw up a draft petition for Judicial Review but I
was extremely reluctant to sue the government I had previously led. I was also deeply
concerned about such an action given what it might mean for both the First Minister
and the SNP. I therefore asked to meet the First Minister to show her the draft Judicial
Review petition. This meeting took place on 7th June. In contrast to our first meeting,
the First Minister was now against making any intervention although I had previously
spelt out in a WhatsApp message to her of June 3rd what I considered to be her duty
to do so under the Ministerial Code. That too has been provided to the Committee.
8. On 26th June 2018, still seeking to avoid damaging court proceedings, we (my legal
team and I) put forward a new proposal for arbitration drawing on Scottish ]
legislation passed in 2010. The offer was that I would abide by the decision of the
arbiter if it went against me. We were confident that many of our criticisms would be
accepted in any arbitration and agreed to submit to the full Scottish Government
process if my legal advice was wrong. Arbitration had multiple advantages. First, it
was confidential and thus protected those who had made complaints. Secondly, it
would provide legal clarity and resolve whether the clear advice on the unlawfulness
of the procedure was correct. Thirdly, it would have resolved these matters in a forum
which maximised the potential for avoiding expense to the public purse, to me and
minimised the damaging fallout for the complainers, Scottish Government and the
SNP in the event I was successful. I explained the benefits of arbitration to the First
Minister in a WhatsApp message of 5 July. At the First Minister’s invitation
(delivered via a senior official on 13 July) I met her for a third time at her home in
Glasgow the following day to ask her to make it clear that she was not personally
against such arbitration. That request arose in case any such perception was the basis
for the otherwise inexplicable decision on the part of the Permanent Secretary to
refuse any form of alternative dispute resolution and instead force this matter into an
expensive judicial review in the Court of Session. I updated my lawyers about this 
meeting. 
9. On 18th July I was written to by the Permanent Secretary and phoned by the First
Minister at 13.05 urging me to submit evidence on the specific complaints. This I did
after a formal consultation with my legal team to whom I divulged the First Minister’s
phone call and advice. I refer to my submission made to Mr James Hamilton, the
independent adviser to the Ministerial Code, which covers this passage of my
evidence.

The above is from the same document from page 4:

I have tried everything, including offers of conciliation, mediation and legal arbitration to resolve 
these matters both properly and amicably. This would have been in everybody’s interests, 
particularly those of the two complainants. All of these efforts have been rejected. 
It is therefore with great reluctance that I have today (Thursday 23rd August) launched a Judicial 
Review in the Court of Session which will decide the issue of the lawfulness of the procedure 
which has been used against me. If I lose then I will have to answer to the complaints both 
comprehensively and publicly.

The above is from the same document in PHASE 5 from pages 5 & 9.

SUMMARY 
The procedure adopted “at pace” in late 2017 was not just “tainted by apparent bias” in the 
actions of the Investigating Officer but “procedurally unfair” in itself. 
Only my reluctance to sue the Government as a Former First Minister prevented me from 
exercising that right earlier. Instead I offered conciliation, mediation and then arbitration 
which I was prepared to accept as binding. All such attempts at swift and confidential 
resolution of the legal issues without the expense and confrontation of court proceedings 
were rejected without consulting the complainers, in case of mediation without initially 
consulting the complainers and in the case of arbitration without consulting the complainers 
at all.

The above is from the same document in PHASE 5 on page 10.
In short, it remains a matter of deep regret that I had no option but to take the Scottish Government to the Court of Session. I did so very reluctantly and only after every other avenue had been exhausted.

John Smythe:
Cathy Newman it would seem was totally ignorant to all of the above during her 'interview'. She seems to have done very little preparation for it.

LIZ LLOYD:
Yeah. There were definitely days where she felt and voiced that she was done. She was at the end, she didn’t have what it took to go on. And we would pick her up. We would give her the peptalk. We would motivate her to get back out there and she would go back and go back out and do the briefing and get back into the ehm emergency rooms to manage Covid and carried on.     

John Smythe:
She was certainly fired up for the Covid briefing where she questioned the findings of a jury and had a go at Alex Salmond.

CATHY NEWMAN:
Do you think that at the end of the day the Gender recognition reforms allowing self ID were a bigger factor in her premature departure?

LIZ LLOYD:
The way in which politics can, politicians, those around politics conducted that debate in Scotland I think effect…slightly scunnered her. Uhm, she is one who thinks we should be able to disagree civilly. She is one who thinks we should be able to debate issues. And that became so toxic. 

John Smythe:
Read the above comments and try not to laugh. Nicola Sturgeon thinks we should be able to disagree civilly? Nicola Sturgeon thinks we should be able to debate issues? Absolute garbage that flies in the face of observed reality. Anyone that dared to take a different view on that was attacked. There was no civil debate as it wasn’t allowed. There was no exchange of ideas or differing of views allowed. If you were not with the SG on this you were a bigot or a transphobe. They were only interested in hearing from those who supported their views and ignored, tried to ridicule or attacked those who didn’t. Those in the SG made the debate toxic. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
Let’s talk about the future. Uh, because Nicola Sturgeon has become one of the most recognisable female leaders in the world actually. There have been those who have suggested she might take some kind of international role maybe to do with climate change. What do you think?

John Smythe:
One of the most recognisable female leaders in the world. Really? Does anyone outside the UK even know who she is? I doubt Hilary Clinton even remembers meeting her.  

LIZ LLOYD:
I wouldn’t be surprised if she does. I think she will take some time. I think undoubtedly there is a book to be written uhm…

John Smythe:
With Nicola’s terrible memory she will certainly need help with writing it. It was remarkable to me how on the one hand she could remember very little and plead total ignorance on so many important matters and on the other she could state with certainty that things were ok and nothing was done maliciously. You can't have it both ways.

CATHY NEWMAN:
She is learning to drive. 

LIZ LLOYD:
She is learning to drive. Ehm, I have kind of been laughing at her about that. Ehm.

CATHY NEWMAN:
How’s it going?

LIZ LLOYD:
It’s very early days I think is how we describe it. 

John Smythe:
Who exactly is we?

CATHY NEWMAN:
Have you been in a car with her?


LIZ LLOYD:
With her behind the wheel? No. Not at all. 
(Laughter)

John Smythe:
Probably just as well as with the size of her Nicola would probably need a crowbar, or a really strong shoehorn (either of which would be claimed on expenses), in order to get Liz in and out of the car.

LIZ LLOYD:
With her behind the wheel? No. Not at all. 
(Laughter)
Ehm, I’m not sure I ever will. I’m not sure I see her running a international organisation. I think she’s maybe had enough of running government’s and bureaucracies but I see her campaigning quite strongly internationally on issues she cares about.

John Smythe:
Running government’s and bureaucracies very badly. Campaigning internationally on the issues she cares about? So, Nicola Sturgeon will be campaigning quite strongly internationally about Nicola Sturgeon then. 

CATHY NEWMAN:
UN envoy that kind of thing?

LIZ LLOYD:
Uhm, you know I am sure she is open to offers. 

John Smythe:
I’ll bet she is. Don’t call us we will call you.

CATHY NEWMAN:
Liz Lloyd thank you very much.

LIZ LLOYD:
Pleasure.

END OF VIDEO      

John Smythe:
I am not a fan of Liz Lloyd but there are those who are. Big fans of her in fact. I will provide two examples below for you as I come to the end of this particular blog post.

First is John Somers. You remember John Somers don’t you readers? John Somers who is deputy director of Police Division in the SG. He is Liz Lloyd’s friend and someone who also gave false testimony under oath more than once and has never bothered to correct it. It was also recently revealed he attended the meeting between Chief Constable Iain Livingstone, Deputy Chief Constable Malcolm Graham and Keith Brown on 09 February 2023 as Annex A to FOI/202300353229 makes clear. See below:

John Smythe:
Below is from his LinkedIn page:

John Smythe: 
Channelling his inner Nicola Sturgeon looking slightly off to the distance look there. He still needs to work on his a bit more before he can be compared with the master of bad taste photos though. Who could ever forget the following: 

John Smythe:
What kind of human being would not only take pictures there but somehow manage to make it all about them in the process as well? You know what is worse than someone who doesn't care about other people? Someone who pretends that they care about other people.   

John Somers is no doubt a big fan of Nicola Sturgeon as well as Big Liz. She gave him his made up role in the SG after all. Imagine having someone who provided false testimony under oath, more than once, being given a job in the Scottish Government as a deputy director of Police Division? You couldn't make it up, although clearly that job title was. That's enough about Creepy Somers for now. Let's check out another big Ugly Betty fan.  

John Smythe:
Another big admirer of Liz Lloyd is Catriona Matheson pictured above. A former special adviser to Nicola Sturgeon no less. According to her LinkedIn, this parasite is now a director at a new company called LINCO Consultancy Ltd. I suggest people should keep an eye on this company and everything people like this and other special advisers or those connected to Nicola Sturgeon's government etc do for the rest of their lives. Everything they come into contact with will be the worse for it. 

John Smythe:
Her LinkedIn profile picture above shows her speaking at an event, doing her best Bruce Forsyth impression by the looks of it, from earlier this year which was held by the University of Stirling. It was called the SCOTTISH FESTIVAL OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION. I could do a whole article about that and probably will. Interestingly, even though Catriona Matheson was at this event and gave a speech I could not find any reference to her listed in any of the promotional material for it. She gave some kind of dinner speech on 30 March 2023 as the tweet below highlights. 

    

John Smythe:
No recordings or transcripts exist of any of the speeches from this. If you go online and watch the Youtube video about this event you can catch glimpses of Catriona seated next to Rodger Evans, senior clerk at the Scottish Parliament. I wonder if they are good friends? 

The tweets below have Catriona praising her friend Liz: 

John Smythe:
There are also some other tweets from Catriona Matheson I found interesting.

John Smythe:
The above has Catriona retweeting a post from Liz that the Not Proven verdict should be looked at in Scottish courts.

And below is Catriona Matheson retweeting a post about Craig Murray who was subject to selective prosecution by COPFS despite having named nobody in his reporting. Something that some mainstream journalists were actually guilty of and yet absolutely nothing was done about that by those in COPFS. If the law only applies to certain people then it is worthless. It is those in COPFS who should be held in contempt.  

John Smythe:
Below is Catriona Mathieson retweeting David Clegg, of all people, mocking Alex Salmond and the Alba party.

John Smythe:
How times change. Below is pictures of Catriona with the former First Minister taken in the latter half of 2014. 

John Smythe:
Check out the following tweet below:

John Smythe:
There you have Catriona Matheson retweeting a tweet from the odious midget Libby Brooks regarding an article by Annie Brown of the Daily Record. You remember this article don't you dear reader? I did a blog post myself on it called Scraping the Barrel with Annie Brown some time ago. Libby Brooks refers to it as a pretty horrific account. It is Horrific. Horrific in the sense that anyone would ever be stupid enough to believe that what was written in the article actually happened. 
In this report it was revealed that the braindead/or lying husband of one of the false accusers, what an example they must set for their kids if they have any that is, told a group of total strangers that his wife was one of the complainers against Alex Salmond. As you do. Why would anyone support a story that was so obviously total nonsense? 

 

        

Summing up:
Liz Lloyd will struggle to have an easier ride than the one given to her by Cathy Newman for that interview. She may as well have just spoken straight to the camera and not bothered with an 'interviewer' at all. 

The Scottish Government sadly seems be infested with the likes of Lloyd, Somers and Matheson. Parasites of low virtue and value to others. You want the best and the brightest in government or failing that at the very least people who are competent and honest. Those three would meet neither of those two most basic of requirements.