Secret service spied on Scottish politicians

A long standing rumour that MI5 and Special Branch spooks spied on members of the Scottish National Party in the 1950s appears not to be paranoia but fact according to documents discussed in Scotland on Sunday today. Perfectly legal political parties and democratically elected representatives of the people seem to be fair game for these shadowy bastards - and we're not talking about intelligence services keeping an eye on extreme parties such as the BNP with many potential hidden links to secret agendas or links to even less savoury (and illegal) sub groups but to a party following a publicly espoused campaign to move for encouraging Scottish independence. Given the intelligence services also spied on Labour ministers and even the prime minister in the 60s and 70s it illustrates how much of a law unto themselves such groups can often be, how little real oversight there is from parliamentary committees and just why we should oppose the present government who want to use Fear to make us agree to an ever expanding range of new powers for them 'to make us safer'.

And given the SNP recently humiliated Labour in its heartland of Scotland to take control of the Scottish parliament this must be even more humiliating for the government, especially since there are still rumours of dirty tricks and spying to this day. Of course, such rumours are rubbished as paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense by Westminster government spokespersons, but since that's what they said of the 50s dirty tricks ops against the SNP who the hell believes a word that comes out of their mouths? As they used to say in the X-Files, "trust no-one"