Salmond scandal explained: Nicola Sturgeon will be lucky to survive

As a young advocate Walter Scott once successfully defended a notorious scoundrel charged with poaching. Leaving the court he told his client that he was fortunate to have been acquitted. The man replied that he was of the same opinion himself, and if young Scott gave him his address he would see that he got a fish from the Duke’s Pool for his dinner.

There’s no reason to suppose that there was any such exchange between the former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, and his Counsel Gordon Jackson QC, then the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, after Salmond was acquitted in his criminal trial last year, though Jackson’s defence was skilful. All this is in the past. Salmond left the Court an innocent man.

What has happened since is concerned not with the criminal case, but with the Scottish government’s investigation of the complaints of sexual impropriety brought against the former First Minister. The manner in which this was done provoked Salmond to demand a Judicial Review, in effect bringing a civil case against the Scottish government. He won that case, it being determined that the government had acted unlawfully. Salmond was awarded costs, more than half a million.

A committee of the Scottish Parliament was set up to investigate the circumstances which led to this. It is fair to say that the Committee has encountered obstacles wilfully put in place by the Scottish government. It is equally fair to say that the performance of senior civil servants, notably the Permanent Secretary, Leslie Evans, and also of the First Minister’s husband Peter Murrell, who is Chief Executive of the SNP, has been unimpressive, both apparently suffering strange lapses of memory. Moreover, documents the Committee asked to see have been denied them. Now thanks to a decision by the Parliament’s ruling body, Salmond’s own submission has been published, with some redactions.

This submission, presumably written after consultation with his lawyers and approved by them, reads persuasively. Among the more damning assertions is the claim that an attempt was made by the Scottish Government to arrange that the judicial review sought by Salmond from the Court of Session should be held over until after any criminal case was held. The government’s own lawyers had already warned that the judicial review would find the procedure of the investigation to be unlawful. At this point Salmond had not been charged, and indeed the police were not yet involved.

In his submission Salmond claims that “the evidence supports a deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort amongst a range of individuals within the Scottish government and the SNP to damage my reputation, even to the extent of having me imprisoned. This includes, for the avoidance of doubt, Peter Murrell, Chief Executive, Ian McCann (Compliance Officer), Sue Ruddick (Chief Operating Officer) of the SNP, together with Liz Lloyd, the First Minister’s Chief of Staff. There are others who for legal reasons, I am not allowed to name”.

This was incendiary. Peter Murrell, as is now generally known, is married to Nicola Sturgeon. If he and Lloyd were indeed engaged in such an effort, is it conceivable, is it even possible, that Sturgeon did not know about it? Is it credible that they should go about it without her approval?

Of course there may have been no such effort on the part of those named. Sturgeon gave an interview to STV on Monday in which she said “there is not a shred of evidence” of any conspiracy against Salmond; his claims were completely baseless and “I’m making the point that the burden of proof lies with him. This is his opportunity to replace assertion with evidence and that has to be this week.”

She continued: “The people he is accusing of this aren’t just women who brought forward complaints, first and foremost, but also people who have given years and sometimes decades of loyal service to Alex Salmond. It’s not fair to make these claims unless he has the hard evidence to back them up.”

This was a strangely feeble rejoinder and was indeed itself unfair, for Salmond in his submission was very careful to make no accusations against the women who had complained of his behaviour. All his accusations were directed at party officials and civil servants. Much that he outlines seems unanswerable. The question is to what extent those he named were malicious; to what extent merely incompetent.

I confess that when the idea of a “conspiracy” against Salmond was first mooted – and this was before the criminal trial – the idea seemed improbable.

He was already yesterday’s man. Having resigned as First Minister and party leader after losing the independence referendum in 2014,he returned to the House of Commons in 2015 but lost his seat in Theresa May’s snap election two years later. Out of office and with no seat at either Holyrood or Westminster, he remained in the public eye only by hosting a chat-show on the Russian Propaganda TV channel RT. So why would anyone bother to conspire against him?

But now I wonder. Such is the effect of the evidence of obstruction, failures of memory, apparent dishonesty and, indeed, equally apparent malice, that has been presented to the committee. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

We may yet learn more. Salmond pulled out of his appearance in front of the Committee on Wednesday and will instead attend on Friday. Sturgeon is scheduled to do so next week. But of course we may end still confused, especially if the First Minister’s memory remains in poor working order.

Two things are however clear.

First, the SNP is no longer a happy band of brothers and sisters, but engaged in fighting like the two cats of Kilkenny. (Each thought there was one cat too many.) If you doubt this, log on to the Wings Over Scotland site and read what Salmond’s supporters have to say about Nicola Sturgeon.

Second, a large part of the public is seemingly uninterested. Opinion polls still indicate that Sturgeon and the SNP will win the Scottish Parliament election in May, even being returned with an overall majority.

This is bizarre.

One thing however is clear and undeniable. The pretence that the Scottish government is more admirable than the British one has been blown sky high. There’s a nasty stink around Holyrood and around the Sturgeon government.

If Nicola Sturgeon survives the fine mess she has got herself into, she’ll be as lucky as Walter Scott’s poaching client.