Damning conclusion Sturgeon can’t ignore

Now we know the truth: Nicola Sturgeon misled the Holyrood inquiry.

That is the conclusion of a report by the committee probing how her Government handled sexual harassment complaints against Alex Salmond. It was this process that the Court of Session eventually ruled ‘unlawful’, ‘procedurally unfair’ and ‘tainted by apparent bias’.

The committee concludes that the First Minister gave ‘an inaccurate account of what happened’ in her evidence.

The ministerial code provides that ‘ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation’.

one of the astonishing features of this long-running scandal is that, despite multiple court cases, inquiries, parliamentary statements and admissions of serious failures, no one has resigned or been sanctioned in any way.

If ministers can break either the letter or the spirit of the ministerial code and get away with it, what point is there in having a ministerial code?

If the Scottish parliament can be misled and fails to remove the minister responsible, what point is there in having a Scottish parliament?

That the minister in question is the First Minister does not afford her a greater stretch of leeway. In fact, it makes it all the more imperative that public confidence in the Scottish Government and the Scottish parliament be upheld.

After all, ‘it is essential to set and maintain the highest standards of propriety’.

Those are Miss Sturgeon’s own words, in the foreword to the ministerial code. They are accompanied by this undertaking: ‘I will lead by example in following the letter and spirit of this code, and I expect that ministers and civil servants will do likewise.’

It is now incumbent on the First Minister to live up to that vow.