Cherchez La Femme

The more the sorry Salmond affair drags on, the more Calton becomes convinced that the former First Minister was right - there was a conspiracy against him instigated by his successor. You don't have to look far in this whodunnit to find the femme fatale. Nicola Sturgeon had both the means (his admittedly poor behaviour) and the motive (his declared intention to return to Scottish politics) to stick the knife into Alex Salmond and #metoo gave her the ideal opportunity. She has rubbished any suggestion of conspiracy, saying that she has nothing to hide and would cooperate fully with the current inquiry however court action has been raised to prevent publication of part of a conversation between Sturgeon and a senior civil servant about Salmond. The Scottish Government has also failed to meet a deadline to provide its legal advice to the inquiry and is treating a parliamentary vote on the same with contempt.

What really stinks about this whole thing is the way in which senior women in the SNP and the Scottish Government seem to have been happy to put up with Salmond's behaviour when it suited them, in the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum for example, but then cynically used the #metoo movement as a vehicle to prevent Salmond making a come-back. That is not the action of committed feminists. Women suffer daily from the actions of sleazy guys in positions of power and are entitled to have their complaints treated with respect and investigated properly, not used in some internecine party war, which, in Calton's opinion, seems to have happened in this case.

Alex Salmond won a court case against the Scottish Government over their handling of the complaints against him and he was aquitted of all criminal wrongdoing at his trial. He is now out for revenge against his successor. Nicola Sturgeon has said that perhaps he is angry with her because she refused to collude with him in covering up his behaviour. Calton wonders if perhaps Alex had good reason to expect collusion from Nicola based on her previous attitude to his actions and was disappointed to find that her attitude had changed. Or perhaps his anger stems from being put through months of hell and a court case. Hopefully we will find out when the man himself appears in front of the Holyrood committee. Calton doesn't hold out much hope of the committee getting anything out of the First Minister, except a plea for our sympathy as a wronged woman.