Sturgeon has flip-flopped on key Salmond inquiry details

NICOLA STURGEON’s memoir appears to suggest that her recollection of the key event in the Alex Salmond sexual harassment investigation has changed.

- By Ben Borland

On Easter Monday in 2018, Mr Salmond visited the then First Minister at her home in Glasgow. She has always said this was the first time she learned he was being investigated by her government over historic allegations from two women.

Remarkably, given the huge repercussions from that day, she has managed to get the date wrong in her autobiography. In the new book, called Frankly, it is given as April 4, instead of the correct date of April 2.

More significant, perhaps, is the apparent change in her understanding of what Mr Salmond had asked of her. She writes: “He would later claim differently, of course, but it was evident that he wanted me to intervene and to stop the investigation in its tracks or divert it into some kind of siding.”

But in both written evidence and eight hours of oral testimony, Ms Sturgeon never said her predecessor asked her to stop the probe. Instead, she was clear that he had asked her to help set up a process of mediation between him and the two women.