Sturgeon: ‘Witch-hunt' MSPs investigating me were being directed by Salmond

Independent

2 days ago

Nicola Sturgeon has said she believes some MSPs who investigated the Scottish Government's handling of sexual harassment allegations against Alex Salmond were 'taking direction' from him.
The former Scotland first minister wrote in her autobiography, Frankly, that she thought either Mr Salmond or his allies were guiding some opposition MSPs on what to ask her.
She accused her opponents in the special Holyrood committee of a 'witch-hunt' against her.
The committee ultimately found Ms Sturgeon misled the Scottish Parliament over the Salmond inquiry.
However, she said the probe that 'really mattered' was the independent investigation by senior Irish lawyer James Hamilton which cleared her of breaking the ministerial code.
The former SNP leader said that while she was 'certain' she had not breached the code, 'I had been obviously deeply anxious that James Hamilton might take a different view', admitting that 'had he done so, I would have had to resign'.
She said that she felt 'on trial' as part of a wider phenomenon that when men were accused of impropriety, 'some people's first instinct is to find a woman to blame'.
Ms Sturgeon did admit to 'misplaced trust and poor judgment' in her autobiography, which was published early by Waterstones on Monday, having been slated for release this Thursday.
She wrote: 'This feeling of being on trial was most intense when it came to the work of the Scottish Parliament committee set up to investigate the Scottish government's handling of the original complaints against Alex.
'From day one, it seemed clear that some of the opposition members of the committee were much less interested in establishing facts, or making sure lessons were learned, than they were in finding some way to blame it all on me.
'If it sometimes felt to me like a 'witch-hunt', it is probably because for some of them that is exactly what it was.
'I was told, and I believe it to be true, that some of the opposition MSPs were taking direction from Alex himself – though possibly through an intermediary – on the points to pursue and the questions to ask.'
Ms Sturgeon described the inquiry, to which she gave eight hours of sworn evidence, as 'gruelling' but also 'cathartic'.
MSPs voted five to four that she misled them.
The politicians began their inquiry after a judicial review in 2019 found the Scottish Government's investigation into Mr Salmond's alleged misconduct was unlawful, unfair and tainted by apparent bias.
Mr Salmond, who died last year, was awarded £500,000 in legal expenses.
Ms Sturgeon wrote of the inquiry: 'It also gave the significant number of people who tuned in to watch the chance to see for themselves just how partisan some of the committee members were being.
'Not surprisingly, the opposition majority on the committee managed to find some way of asserting in their report that I had breached the ministerial code.
'However, it was the verdict of the independent Hamilton report that mattered.'
She said her infamous falling out with her predecessor was a 'bruising episode' of her life as she accused Mr Salmond of creating a 'conspiracy theory' to defend himself from reckoning with misconduct allegations, of which he was cleared in court.
Ms Sturgeon said her former mentor was 'never able to produce a shred of hard evidence that he was' the victim of a conspiracy.
She went on: 'All of which begs the question: how did he manage to persuade some people that he was the wronged party, and lead others to at least entertain the possibility?
'In short, he used all of his considerable political and media skills to divert attention from what was, for him, the inconvenient fact of the whole business.
'He sought to establish his conspiracy narrative by weaving together a number of incidents and developments, all of which had rational explanations, into something that, with his powers of persuasion, he was able to cast as sinister.'
Ms Sturgeon speaks about Mr Salmond several times in her autobiography, which also has a dedicated chapter to him, simply titled 'Alex Salmond'.
In it, she speaks of an 'overwhelming sense of sadness and loss' when she found out about his death, which she said hit her harder than she had anticipated.
Ms Sturgeon says the breakdown in their relationship happened long before Mr Salmond's misconduct allegations.
She said it had begun to deteriorate when she became first minister in 2014 following his resignation in light of the independence referendum defeat.
Ms Sturgeon claims her former boss still wanted to 'call the shots' outside of Bute House and appeared unhappy that she was no longer his inferior.
She also accuses him of trying to 'distort' and 'weaponise' his alleged victims' 'trauma' through his allegations of conspiracy.
Ms Sturgeon claims that Mr Salmond, who later quit the SNP to form the Alba Party, would rather have seen the SNP destroyed than be successful without him.
Despite her myriad claims against her predecessor, though, Ms Sturgeon said: 'Part of me still misses him, or at least the man I thought he was and the relationship we once had.
'I know I will never quite escape the shadow he casts, even in death.'