Sturgeon lost her balance under scrutiny but was never likely to fall thanks to Government obstruction

‘This committee didn’t look to be the best vehicle to sit in judgment on the failed inquiry into Alex Salmond’s behaviour’

‘It was never likely that the First Minister would collapse in response to a litany of allegations against her’

Claims that Nicola Sturgeon had offered to personally intervene in an official inquiry into claims of sexual misconduct by Alex Salmond knocked her completely off her stride in a near eight-hour evidence session yesterday.

After confidently dealing with claims that she’d breached the ministerial code and at times looking completely relaxed – smiling and joking with her interrogators – she was contradicted by evidence that painted a completely different picture of the events surrounding the allegations against her predecessor.

Having repeatedly told the Holyrood committee that she had rejected appeals from Mr Salmond that she should help him to “mediate” in a complaint of sexual harassment against him by a civil servant, the MSPS heard an opposite account of what happened.

Duncan Hamilton, a former nationalist MSP who is now an advocate and Mr Salmond’s legal adviser, said he had been present at a meeting in Ms Sturgeon’s home when she told his client that she would help him, adding “If it comes to it, I will intervene.”

This assertion was instantly rebutted by the First Minister who said that she thought that she had made it clear to Mr Salmond that she wouldn’t interfere, adding: “If he left with that impression it is not the impression that I intended.”

And she made it plain that in any event, she did not intervene in any way in the botched inquiry into Mr Salmond’s behaviour which eventually ended in humiliation for the Scottish Government and saw him awarded £500,000 in legal costs.

Nevertheless, Mr Hamilton’s version of events contrasted sharply with the First Minister’s attitude to getting involved on Mr Salmond’s behalf. She said: “I think it would have been highly inappropriate for me to intervene on Mr Salmond’s behalf. I would have been intervening on behalf of a friend and a colleague and an associate.”

It was never likely that the First Minister would collapse in her response to Alex Salmond’s litany of allegations against her last week; after all she was trained and mentored by the man with whom she’s now at loggerheads.

But the reality is that this committee didn’t look to be the best vehicle to sit in judgment on the circumstances that led to the failed government inquiry into Mr Salmond behaviour. It was thanks to a combination of the First Minister’s ability to bat away badly constructed questions, of which there were far too many from MSPS, but perhaps, above all, an appalling level of obstruction and obfuscation from the Scottish Government.

Labour’s Jackie Baillie, one of the committee’s few stars, angrily explained their frustration at the fact that official information they had demanded was often late, partial, or missing. Important information, demanded as a matter of urgency, about key government meetings had not been provided.

It was a sentiment endorsed by Lindia Fabiani, the SNP convener.

It didn’t get very far, either, with another serious charge levelled against the First Minister – that the identity of a woman who had made a complaint of sexual harassment against Mr Salmond had been revealed to Geoff Aberdein, the former First Minister’s chief of staff, by a senior government official.

The complainant’s anonymity is supposed to be preserved at all times and Ms Sturgeon denied that such information had been passed to Mr Aberdein, who had in turn passed it on to Mr Hamilton and Kevin Pringle, his former press secretary.

The Tories’ Murdo Fraser said that these men could corroborate Mr Aberdein’s version of events, but Ms Sturgeon said neither man had been present at the discussion with the government official.

And she asked why, if the committee wished to examine this matter further, it hadn’t invited Mr Aberdein and the unnamed government official to give evidence.

To which an onlooker can only add: Why not, indeed?