Nicola Sturgeon should resign if she misled parliament, says MSP
Herald political reporter Tom Gordon is reporting today that Liberal Democrat Alex Cole-Hamilton, who sits on the Holyrood inquiry into the scandal, said the First Minister “may not have been entirely straight with her answers to parliament”.
The Edinburgh Western MSP said a separate investigation into whether Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code should be expanded to look at whether she misled MSPs.
“If she has, then that’s a resignation matter,” he said.
Mr Cole-Hamilton and other MSPs, including Jackie Baillie, the MSP for West Dunbartonshire, pictured left, on a special Holyrood committee are investigating how the Scottish Government bungled a probe into claims of sexual misconduct made against Mr Salmond in 2018.
The former First Minister had the exercise set aside in court by showing it was “tainted by apparent bias”, a Government error that left taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for his costs.
After the Government’s case collapsed in January 2019, Ms Sturgeon told parliament she had had three meetings and two calls with Mr Salmond while he was under investigation.
She said the first of these was on 2 April 2018 at her home in Glasgow, and that Mr Salmond informed her he was being investigated by her officials.
However it later emerged at Mr Salmond’s separate criminal trial, at which he was acquitted of sexual assault, that Ms Sturgeon was alerted to the probe four days earlier.
Mr Salmond’s former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, testified that he has spoken to Ms Sturgeon about it in her Holyrood office on 29 March 2018.
The Scottish Government did not formally confirm this meeting until August this year.
In her written evidence to the Holyrood inquiry, Ms Sturgeon said she had “forgotten” about her meeting with Mr Aberdein, despite the explosive content, as it had been “in the midst of a busy day” after FMQs.
She said: “I had forgotten that this encounter had taken place until I was reminded of it in, I think, late January/early February 2019.”
Sturgeon will not I predict lead the SNP into the next election. She may not even be an MSP at the next election.
We should thank her for the job that she has done. Scotland has a big challenge in front of it. The economy slumps at levels nor seen in a century. The wrench out of Europe and it’s effect remains to come. The Scottish Parliament, if the Conservatives have their way is set to be replaced by direct rule from Westminster and already 3,000 civil servants have been displaced from London to the new U.K. Government in Scotland hub in Edinburgh.
Plans are also, in accordance with the UK Internal Market Bill being prepared to privatise Scottish Water and open the NHS up to corporate competition, which corporate involvement will almost certainly involve US private health companies.
The devolved Scottish Parliament stripped of its powers in such matter will be legally unable to resist or stop any such privatisation. Unfinished business, as one right wing Westminster Tory recently put it, privatisation of the water in Scotland and of the National Health Service are two biggies that can now proceed.
So big, big challenges for Scotland as it tries to resist the onslaught. No wonder polls are now indicating that 75% of voters would now vote for independence. But who will be best placed to lead us there.
This is a contest we must win. We are all in this together. As one Scotland we can win. So let’s do it.