Sturgeon snubs ‘last chance to quit’
NICOLA Sturgeon was clinging to her job last night despite the deepening crisis over her handling of sexual harassment claims against Alex Salmond.
The Holyrood committee into the affair concluded it was “hard to believe” the First Minister did not know earlier of concerns about her mentor’s alleged behaviour towards women.
Further damaging leaks from the probe’s report due to be published on Tuesday found that “if she did have such knowledge, she has misled the committee”.
It heaped further pressure on the embattled SNP leader to quit, just weeks before elections for the Scottish Parliament.
As she battled to save her career, Ms Sturgeon’s office accused the inquiry of smearing her and claimed MSPs had “deliberately ignored and suppressed evidence”.
But Ruth Davidson, leader of the Tories at Holyrood, offered her “a last chance” to quit, or face a vote of no confidence on Wednesday.
Condemning the First Minister’s “erratic outburst”, Ms Davidson said: “If Nicola Sturgeon has a shred of integrity, she should be considering her position. She has every opportunity to do the right thing and resign.
“No First Minister is above the fundamental principles of honesty and trust. There is no question that Nicola Sturgeon has misled Parliament and broken the promises she made to tell the truth.”
Ms Sturgeon claimed the first concerns she heard about Mr Salmond’s conduct came in November 2017 following a inquiry from Sky News into allegations about his behaviour towards female staff at Edinburgh airport.
He has previously said he was “no saint” but insisted that he had never “sexually harassed anyone”.
He was cleared of all criminal charges of sexual misconduct, alleged to have taken place between 2008 and 2014, at his trial last year.
The inquiry examined the botched handling by the Scottish Government of two harassment complaints against Mr Salmond in 2018.
A judicial review found the investigation had been unlawful and “tainted by apparent bias”.
Mr Salmond was awarded more than £500,000 in legal costs.
The committee voted by a five-tofour majority that Ms Sturgeon gave an “inaccurate” account of a meeting with Mr Salmond at her home and therefore misled Parliament.
Ms Sturgeon has described the news as a “very partisan leak” from the inquiry and said it was “not that surprising”.
She alleged some opposition members of the committee had made up their minds even before she gave evidence.
A separate inquiry by James Hamilton QC into whether she broke the ministerial code – usually a resignation matter – is also expected to report shortly.
If that finds she broke the code, Ms Sturgeon has signalled that she will refuse to step down and let voters decide in next month’s election.
In her eight-hour evidence session, Ms Sturgeon told the committee she had asked Mr Salmond about the Edinburgh airport claims at the time but he denied it and no further action was taken as Sky TV did not run the story.
However, she said the episode left her with “a lingering concern that allegations about Mr Salmond could materialise at some stage”.
Mr Salmond told the committee: “It wouldn’t have been front-page news in any newspaper if it had ever been published at the time, given what I know about it. That was, in all my years in public life, the first indication of anything of that nature, in November 2017, and it came from a report 10 years ago.
“The Sky News story was never broadcast of course, and there’s a good reason for it never being broadcast.” Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon held a meeting at her home on April 2, 2018, to discuss the Scottish Government’s investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him. She has repeatedly insisted she did not offer to intervene but this was contradicted by Mr Salmond and Duncan Hamilton, a former SNP MSP who was also present.
In written evidence to the committee, Mr Hamilton said: “We discussed mediation. My clear recollection is that her words were, ‘If it comes to it, I will intervene’.”
The four SNP MSPs on the committee voted to back Ms
‘If she has a shred of integrity, she should be considering her position’
Sturgeon’s account. But the five opposition members, including independent Andy Wightman, thought on the balance of probabilities Mr Salmond and Mr Hamilton were telling the truth.
Their report is also believed to criticise Ms Sturgeon for holding two phone calls and three meetings with Mr Salmond, while he faced investigation. A spokesman for the First Minister insisted the latest leak is “not supported by a single shred of evidence”.
The spokesman added: “Sadly, she is not the first woman let down by a man she once trusted to face that charge, and regrettably she is unlikely to be the last.
“On this, the committee appears to have resorted to baseless assertion, supposition and smear – that is not how serious parliamentary committees are supposed to work. In behaving this way, they are simply exposing their base political motives.
“And on the suggestion that the First Minister was not clear to Mr Salmond that she would not intervene on his behalf, the committee appear to have deliberately ignored and suppressed evidence submitted to them which corroborates the First Minister’s evidence on that issue.”
Green MSP Patrick Harvie, whose party will likely determine the fate of the First Minister, said: “I’ve never seen a committee process more compromised by leaks, MSPs pre-judging the evidence and party politics overriding the public interest.
“What should have been an examination of how women were failed and how we could prevent that from happening again has turned into a complete farce.”