Why is Nicola Sturgeon fighting the ghost of Alex Salmond?
What point was served by claiming that Salmond had 'privately' admitted to the 'substance' of the allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against him nearly a decade ago? These are allegations that Salmond always strenuously denied and of which he was acquitted in March 2020 by a woman-majority jury before a female judge, Lady Dorrian, in the High Court. Does Sturgeon now expect us to believe that she knows better? It certainly seems that way.
Sturgeon writes that, in seeking to defend himself against these heinous allegations, the Salmond was perpetrating a form of psychological abuse on the complainants. 'He was prepared to traumatise, time and time again, the women at the centre of it all.' Well, what was he supposed to do? Admit to charges that he knew to be false, and which were dismissed as such in the highest court in the land?
This self-pitying demolition job, contained in an extract from her forthcoming autobiography in the Sunday Times, was presumably intended to build sales. But it only serves to remind Scottish voters that her government's investigation into the original sexual misconduct allegations against Salmond was condemned by the Court of Session in 2019 as unlawful and 'tainted with apparent bias'.
The final litigation score was Salmond 2; Sturgeon nil, but she is still crying foul.
She even claims that Salmond had himself leaked the shocking sexual allegations against him to the Daily Record in August 2018. This claim was duly rubbished by the former Record political editor who broke that very story, David Clegg. On BBC Radio this morning, he said the idea in Sturgeon's claim that Salmond had been responsible for this potentially criminal leak was 'not credible'.
And no wonder. The headline splash on the Record read: 'Alex Salmond accused of 'touching woman's breasts and bum in boozy Bute House bedroom encounter''. If this was leaked by Salmond to 'control the narrative', as Sturgeon suggests, it was a funny way to go about it.
But according to her, it was all part of his attempt to win public sympathy for his cause and bamboozle his detractors. 'At a stroke', she goes on, 'he was able to cast himself as the victim.' I doubt if the people who read the story thought this.
Salmond cannot respond to these allegations because he is deceased, but his many supporters in Scottish politics have rounded on Sturgeon's allegations as self-serving 'fabrications'. They are pledged to continue the legal action against the Scottish government for 'misfeasance' which Salmond launched shortly before he died.
Sturgeon's renewed assault on Salmond's integrity will likely also revive attempts by his many allies to expose the women who made the allegations. They were SNP politicians, party workers and Scottish government officials. The judge awarded them lifetime anonymity, even though the jury didn't believe them. Nearly everyone in Scottish politics knows their identities and their proximity to Nicola Sturgeon.
Salmond told the parliamentary inquiry into the affair that he was subjected to 'a deliberate, prolonged, malicious and concerted effort amongst a range of individuals within the Scottish government and the SNP to damage my reputation, even to the extent of having me imprisoned'. The Sturgeon memoirs will only embolden those in the independence movement who believe that to be true and consider it their duty to clear the name of the SNP's most successful leader. Over 25 years in charge, Salmond is credited with having transformed the party from a marginal force in politics to a party of government.
Sturgeon concludes that the court cases were all part of his campaign against her. 'Eventually,' she writes, 'I had to face the fact that he was determined to destroy me. I was now engaged in mortal political combat with someone I knew to be both ruthless and highly effective.'
In that, at least, she is telling it like it is. She can't move on. Sturgeon is still in mortal combat with Salmond's ghost. And he is still winning.
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