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SNP Pay Better Together PR Team for SNP currency Review


Charlotte Street Partners Andrew Wilson, Angus Grossart and Malcolm Robertson

In yesterday's Herald Article "Sturgeon accused of currency "chaos" over independent Scotland" the article states

"The currency of an independent Scotland proved one of the biggest vulnerabilities of the Yes campaign in the 2014 independence referendum, after the UK Government rejected the SNP’s plan to continue using the pound in a formal currency union.

To refresh her party’s thinking on the issue, Ms Sturgeon last year asked corporate lobbyist Andrew Wilson to look at currency options as head of the SNP’s Growth Commission"

Contrary to what most people might think, it was not Better Together who proposed fiscal autonomy - better known as Devo Max - but former SNP finance spokesperson Andrew Wilson - saying in 2000

"It is possible to have fiscal autonomy like the Basque country and other parts of Europe where you raise and spend money in Scotland and then send some money south."

Having secured Labour and Tory and Lib Dem support on Devo Max - Better Together did the cheerleading for Alex Salmond with Andrew Wilson writing in the Scotsman in 2014 stating

"we all want currency union to work"

Who was "we all" exactly - SNP and Better Together to secure Devo Max?

As, in 2013 SNP's Andrew Wilson went into business with New Labour George Robertson's son Malcolm - setting up a PR firm together called "Charlotte Street Partners".

Wilson joined forces with Malcolm Robertson and his wife before the referendum, despite Robertson's father having stated of SNP defence force plans for an independent Scotland

"“This is not a serious plan for the defence of a separate Scottish state. It has no coherence and no relevance to what a modern Scotland would need and require.”"

Malcolm Robertson, while working for Charlotte Street Partners, then went to work for David Cameron in 2014 to advise Tory Secretary of State for Scotland, Lib Dem Alistair Carmichael - was this after Devo Max was secured? - as Malcolm Robertson's biography on the Charlotte Street Partners website reveals

" In 2014, Malcolm was one of four industry experts asked by the UK Government to review its engagement in Scotland and provide a number of recommendations to the Secretary of State for Scotland."

Another of Charlotte Street Partners "people" is Stuart Taylor, who advised New Labour MSP Cara Hilton - who took the seat from SNP after their MSP Bill Walker stood down.

Taylor also advised Scottish Lib Dem MP Joe Swinson - who served as a Minister in Cameron and Clegg's coalition government and also worked for Rupert Murdoch's Sky News.

But the links to Better Together and Rupert Murdoch don't end there.

When the company was set up SNP's Andrew Wilson invited Roland Rudd to be on the board - the brother of Teresa May's current Secretary of State, Amber Rudd.

Peter Mandelson, the architect of New Labois godfather to one of Rudd's children with another of Rudds' friends being Robert Peston - who just weeks ago

"ripped into Nicola Sturgeon over her referendum call, suggesting she was not giving Scotland enough time to make an informed decision"

Charlotte Street Partner's Rudd and Peter Mandelson are on the board of Open Britain together - along with Nick Clegg's official advisor, when he was deputy Prime Minister, and SNP's arch enemy Jim Murphy's advisor along with Jack Straws son Will.

Rudd is currently leading the campaign to get people to campaign to help Labour's only MP in Scotland, Ian Murray to keep his seat and stop SNP winning it - as well as campaigning to get Nick Clegg and a host of Labour MP's in England re-elected as they are "remain" MP's.

Roland Rudd, as well as being a fellow board member with George Robertson's son in Charlotte Street Partners, is also on the board of Centre for European Reform along with George Robertson himself.

The Centre for European Reform is funded by big corporations, and is alleged to have links to American and UK intelligence agencies and set up in the office of some of the most prominent MP's in the Tory Party.

Centre for European Reform was set up by David Milliband and Nick Butler - which also had George' Robertson's son's mother in law, Baroness Elizabeth Smith, on the board too - with a member of Demos right wing think tank involved with a host of power brokers from Europe and America.

Centre for European Reform is linked with PR firm APCO - who partnered with a company George Robertson's son worked for - caught up in a New Labour Scottish Lobbygate story in 2009.

Is Centre for European Reform the corporate money laundering arm of what appears to be a new unelected EU set up in 2007 - in time for the financial crisis and Brexit plans - called European Council on Foreign Relations

As European Council on Foreign Relations has a list of members representing the UK which includes George Robertson, David Milliband, Chuka Amunna, Tory DWP Minister Damien Green, Douglas Alexander and a host of other people we have not elected from the British Establishment representing the UK.

Former director and Trustee of Demos, Mary-Theresa Rainey, joined the board of Charlotte Street Partners in February this year - Demos think tank was said to be central to New Labour's vision for Britain.

Until September 2014 she was also on the board of the "Thirty Club of London" which the Guardian slates as a secret elite club which attracts "the media's big beasts, including Michael Grade, Lord Puttnam and Andrew Neil."

Royals attend the meetings, with Prince William and his wife attending one of their meetings attracting too much media attention, for William to give a speech to the media barons, his PR people did not want to discuss.

The SNP communications director, Kevin Pringle, who was in charge of the failed indepenence referendum communications - or is that the successful SNP Devo Max referendum result - joined Charlotte Street Partners after his new boss, former SNP MSP Andrew Wilson, got the Devo Max he craved for so long (Picture Pringle/Sturgeon from Express Newspaper left)

Pringle's Charlotte Street Partners biography reveals he is now also a columnist for Rupert Murdoch's Times in Scotland.

The online Scottish investigative journalism website, The Ferret, reveald just weeks ago Rupert Murdoch pays Charlotte Street Partners too - to be Rupert Murdoch's lobbyists.

Chairman of the Board of Charlotte Street Partners is Angus Grossart, former "vice" chair of RBS and Chairman of the Daily Record - until Alex Salmond appointed him to turn Scotland into a PFI monopoly board to dump £billions more PFI on Scotland by stealth - as Chairman of SNP's new unelected PFI quango "Scottish Futures Trust" in 2008.

Grossart was pedalling porn channels into every home with his media baron pal Rupert Murdoch's Sky - with Rupert Murdoch saying of his former RBS and Daily Record fellow media baron - Grossart is the "puppet master of Scotland".

As well as being ex "vice" chair of RBS, Merchant Banker Grossart was on the board David Murray's collapsed Murray International Holdings Empire for 25 years which owned Rangers Football Club - stepping down in 2013 just before it all officially started going wrong at Murray International and Rangers - with the death knell for MIH sounded in January 2015.

Just like RBS, where Grossart stepped down in 2005 before the collapse - with Grossart having just moved to sue RBS in February this year attempting to get his fingers in the RBS taxpayer pie before it is privatised after the election? - yet RBS faces fines estimated to be $12 billion for decades of mis-selling in America some of that time Grossart was the Vice Chair of RBS.

Grossart, a merchant banker in his own right, has funded and still works closely with David Murray, Souter, Gloag and Tom Farmer who all claimed in 2010 they were going to save and expand Airdrie Savings Bank Together - only for this to collapse too in January this year.

And despite Nicola Sturgeon insisting we must all face austerity because of RBS managment actions - it is "puppet master of Scotland" Grossart's Party that is running Scotland via SNP as ex RBS man Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon appoint former RBS people left, right and centre, to the most senior positions and control of policy in their government as well as a host of councillors and MP's and MSP's being ex RBS people - including ex MSP Andrew Wilson who set up Charlotte Street Partners with Grossart

Is this why, yesterday, with Charlotte Street Partners in charge of SNP currency policy review Nicola Sturgeon stood accused of "currency chaos" as the Herald reported

"NICOLA Sturgeon has said an independent Scotland could ditch the pound after using it as a “starting point” currency before changing to something else.

However in an interview with BBC Radio Scotland, the First Minister failed to identify what the ultimate currency would be after a Yes vote.

She said that would be fully scrutinised “if” Scotland had a second referendum.""

Notice it is IF, not WHEN, Scotland gets a second referendum!

And what will the myserious future currency be? The American Dollar, the Chinese yuan or the Euro? We don't know except (for now) Sturgeon has ruled out the Euro despite the EU preference members join the Euro.

With Sturgeon changing her tune over EU entry too - revealing we likely won't be in the EU after all - more likely to be a phased entry.

Nicola once again doing the hokey kockey as for now she claims she wants out of the UK but in the £ - then out of the £ and into some mysterious currency - in the EU but out of the Euro - Nicola not got a clue as she is using SNP members money to pay a team of Devo Max Better Together supporters to decide what SNP's mysterious currency policy should be - one that ensures Charlotte Street Partner's Better together even more devo max victory?

Questions have previously being asked of Sturgeon's associations with Charlotte Street Partners after 50 businesses got to have a private dinner with the First Minister of Scotland, hosted by Charlotte Street Partners, where the "guest speakers" were Nicola Sturgeon and James Naughtie who presents Today on BBC Radio 4 - with the Charlotte Street partners own brochure listing of the 2015 event with Nicola reading like a who's who of bankers and powerful corporate sorts who have got contracts, or seeking law changes from Nicola.

"Director of campaign group Common Weal Robin McAlpine, commenting on the release, said: "It's all very well saying that everything is fine with lobbying in Scotland but when the public hear about wealthy businessmen getting privileged access at secret dinners, that's not how it feels to them. That's why nine out of 10 Scots think that lobbying poses a real risk to democracy."

In November CommonSpace reported on Charlotte Street Partners lobbyists being hired by university bosses to help oppose higher education reform .

Other clients represented by the firm, which recently hired ex-SNP press director Kevin Pringle, include Cluff Natural Resources, First Group, the Green Investment Bank and Abellio."

With the Herald story "SNP Growth Commission Hit By Lobbying Row" report in September 2016 revealing

"NICOLA Sturgeon has been urged to replace the corporate lobbyist chairing the party's new commission on economic policy for an independent Scotland."

"However Wilson’s appointment stunned lobby industry watchers, with one saying it looked like the

“corporate capture of parts of Scotland’s democratic government”.

Especially when the report reveals of Charlotte Street Partners

"However it is not a member of the Association of Professional Political Consultants or Chartered Institute of Public Relations, both of which operate voluntary client registers.

CSP does not volunteer its clients, which means the public would not know if Wilson had conflicts of interest when developing potential government policy."

But it seems the lady is not for turning - happy with SNP and Rupert Murdoch's better together PR team.


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