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ALEX SALMOND believes that Nicola Sturgeon and her allies have been ‘stitching him up’, according to an SNP friend of the former Scottish first minister.
The intervention by MSP Alex Neil comes amid a bitter row over an inquiry into the handling of harassment complaints against Mr Salmond.
Mr Neil (pictured) told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘He believes that there was a conspiracy to get him.
‘Initially he thought it was an attempt to keep him out of public life and not allow him back into the Scottish parliament after he lost his Westminster seat.
‘But I think since then this has grown and he believes a number of people have been involved in conspiring against him and stitching him up.’
Asked if Mr Salmond believes this involved first minister Ms Sturgeon and her circle, Mr Neil replied: ‘Basically, I think he does, yes.’
The MSP also told the programme: ‘I think there’s a real problem now because this is starting to dominate the airwaves at a time when we’re still dealing with the pandemic and also, in four weeks’ time, we go into the initial start of the election campaign. I think the SNP leadership has got to try and put a lid on this.’
Ms Sturgeon has asserted that there is not ‘a shred of evidence’ to support her former mentor’s claim there was a ‘malicious and con
certed’ attempt to remove him from public life. She also strongly denied that the Crown Office’s intervention earlier in the week – which led to a Holyrood committee partially redacting written evidence it had received from Mr Salmond – was politically motivated.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson told MSPs yesterday: ‘This sorry affair isn’t just tarnishing the first minister’s reputation, it is damaging the institutions that it is her responsibility to uphold.’ But Ms Sturgeon hit back: ‘What is poisoning our democratic institutions, in my view, is politicians standing up and hurling assertions and accusations without a shred of evidence to back them up.’
POLICE forces still cannot explain why stop and search powers or force is used disproportionately on black, Asian and minority ethnic people, over white people, a watchdog finds.
Members of ethnic minority groups were more than four times more likely to be stopped in 2019/20, with black people nearly nine times more, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services reports. It said: ‘Over 35 years on from the introduction of stop and search legislation, no force fully understands the impact of the use of these powers.
‘Disproportionality persists and no force can satisfactorily explain why.’ Black people were 5.7 times more likely to have force used on them, and more than nine times as likely to have Tasers drawn on them.
They were also eight times more likely to be handcuffed while compliant and three times more likely to have a spit and bite guard used on them.
Following the Black Lives Matter protests, inspector of constabulary Wendy Williams said: ‘Unfair use of powers can be counterproductive if it leads people to think it is acceptable to not comply with the law.’