Alex Salmond therefore is looking somewhat exposed given his staunch defence of Nicola a fortnight ago and stating that Nicola had "a duty" to act. This was picked up on by many MSPs in the Q&A session but nothing more can be expected to come of it.
Nicola's humility and grace has surely avoided any risk that she will have to resign her position as Deputy First Minister and/or Cabinet Minister. I daresay she has also well and truly confirmed her position as the next leader of the Scottish National Party.
Key to the debate was Sturgeon's insistence that her apology was not "politically and tactically convenient" but genuine, this seemed to be accepted by most MSPs around the Chamber.
Tavish Scott asked a worthy, if wordy, question that I thought was the best of the bunch. It boiled down quite simply to "Why did you write it? What difference did you think the letter would make?"
Nicola mentioned that she was not unique in having written such representation, including reference to Gordon Brown's letter, but she never really answered the question. And this for me sums up the whole affair.
Anyone: 'Why did you do it Nicola?'
NS: (effectively) 'I don't know'
(the LiveBlog, aborted due to Starbucks' dodgy internet connection)
2:39pm (Slight connection issues. Onto questions now)
2:36pm Nicola explaining history of her representations on behalf of Abdul Rauf. First met at MSP's surgery where he said he wanted to pay back money that he had wrongly received. All subsequent meetings were at surgeries or constituency offices.
All pretty standard fare so far. I reckon the fireworks will begin at Q&As.
2:34pm Mike Rumbles raises a point of order. The convention that detail of the Ministerial Statement was not available one hour before the statement was made. Didn't really follow it but we're off now....
2:31pm Time for reflection at Scottish Parliament from Rev Alex Noble of Saltcoats:
'It's important to lift your head when you speak to people'. Hopefully Sturgeon will take that into account when delivering her statement.
'Look upwards from ourselves and look outwards to others'. I hope the opposition consider that too!
2:23pm STV's Jamie Livingstone is reporting that Nicola Sturgeon will say 'sorry' which may make matters worse for the SNP. You can't say an MSP has a duty one week and then apologise for acting on that duty the next.
I'm beginning to think those resignation call may crop up in the Q&A after all...
2:14pm: I don't for one second think that Nicola will resign today or even face further calls to but the Caledonian Mercury has dug out a vaguely similar, if significantly different, situation in Ireland that resulted in the resignation of the Green Party's Food Minister Trevor Sargent.
Praised for his honour in doing so, I don't think anyone in the SNP would thank a Minister for seeking the same praise unnecessarily.
Fancy that, I didn't know the Greens had Ministers in Ireland. Patrick Harvie, Scottish Food Minister? That doesn't sound too bad at all actually. Hmm....
2:00pm: Due to an unexpected day off I have been afforded the pleasure of getting to watch Nicola Sturgeon's Statement to Parliament titled 'Representing Constituents' and, any excuse for a liveblog, I'll update this particular post with news, views and reviews as and when I happen across them. Needless to say, feel free to comment and I can build those in too.I'm not too sure what to expect from the 2.35pm statement to be honest, probably a forensic explanation of the whys and wherefores of her actions regarding the support she gave to Abdul Rauf who faces fraud charges and a defence of why those actions do not merit objections, let alone calls for resignation.
The format will be 10 minutes of statement and 20 minutes of questions and answers.
22 comments:
i really wasn't expecting her statement to take the tone it did, or for her to say she was wrong.
Personally, I'm really glad she did though. It's not often enough we hear politicians admit to mistakes, and I think she did make a mistake in this case.
Well done Nicola.
I agree Lisa, a very mature, considered statement.
(Incidcentally, liveblogging and watching Holyrood.tv are not a good mix so I'll leave it for now. Error of judgement from me, I need to check the bloggers' code of conduct!)
I don't have much truck with politicians' "saying sorry", which always strikes as medieval confessions... humility is always to be welcomed, though.
>> Nicola explaining history of her representations on behalf of Abdul Rauf. First met at MSP's surgery where he said he wanted to pay back money that he had wrongly received.
I think you mean "money he had fraudulently claimed, and offered to pay back only when caught".
>> You can't say an MSP has a duty one week and then apologise for acting on that duty the next.
No-one has claimed she didn't have a duty to listen to him. She, however, made the independent decision to act in the way she did.
That said, no matter what the problems with Holyrood politics are, they are not a scratch on the Irish system (which Salmond thinks is to be emulated)... maybe local government, not least GCC/SPT, are closer to these.
D
I thought she handled that absolutely correctly. Very impressive and I believed her.
Wouldn't want to go to Johann Lamont's surgeries - does she hand out disclousre forms at the door and use her staff as private detectives to check people out?
One point of accuracy, Lib Dem questions came from Robert Brown and Mike Rumbles, not Tavish.
Caron, Sturgeon has admitted she knew about Rauf’s 1996 conviction, so the one about disclosure forms is moot. And, to reiterate, she was duty-bound only to listen to Rauf’s concerns… if anyone in a position of authority and trust intercedes in an ongoing legal process, I would hope they *did* have accurate details of whoever they were arguing for.
Sturgeon’s letter was a spectacular misjudgement (not least with her own statements regarding fraudsters), but not a resigning-offense. If only she and Salmond had just shown some contrition, the wind could have been taken out of Labour’s sails.
This reflects badly on both the SNP and Scottish Labour. Whilst all were crying in their alarm that Sturgeon was a liar, the referendum bill was quietly being sunk… who noticed?
A very interesting statement, Ian Gray couldn't help himself of course.
Nicola did raise interesting arguements about an MSP and there relationship with there constituents.
Still imagine the usual suspects in the press will do the usual black = white.
It's like Mandelson pretending to not know about the dark spinning at No.10.
Seems there continues to be a lot of nonsense being talked about this.
Firstly, 'spectacular misjudgement' is the kind of language I would only expect from a desperate Labour politician, especially in the context of the statement.
Secondly, I don't see how this exposes Salmond at all. Nicola's statement backs up his assertion that she had a duty to act - what she did say was that she possibly did so over-zealously.
Representing this constituent (as opposed to listening to him) was neither contrary to Nicola's political beliefs, nor did it create any conflict of interest, nor was it inappropriate to provide representation.
I think everyone agrees the style of the representation might have been slightly misguided but to withhold representation would have been quite wrong and quite clearly in breach of the MSPs code of conduct.
>> Firstly, 'spectacular misjudgement' is the kind of language I would only expect from a desperate Labour politician, especially in the context of the statement.
I assume you'd expect Labour politicians to eat ground-up-baby in their porage. I am not and never have been a member of the Labour Party... how many more times?
No Alec Labour politicans never ever have ever eaten any infants.
As that type of behaviour is condoned by Downing Street.
Downing Street has a zero tolerance policy of infant eating and no amount of press knowledge to the opposite of that is accurate!
Damn it, Tormod, now I'm wondering if there's truth to it after all.
Goldie says it well:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8531189.stm
Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie praised Ms Sturgeon for admitting that she had made mistakes.
"I thank her for her candour, and her humility and her courageous recognition that she didn't get everything right."
Ms Goldie said this contrasted sharply with the way First Minister Alex Salmond had reacted in the immediate aftermath of initial criticism of Ms Sturgeon's intervention.
"We got the usual Alex Salmond decibel delivery of rhetoric and arrogance," she said.
"Where there should have been humility and reflection all we got was bluster. Where there should have been an apology, all we got was defiance."
Truth to what? Infant eating Lbour politicans?
A very poor Scottish press?
Well, this is strange. Far from damaging her reputation, this affair has now improved and enhanced it.
She's the darling of Scotland. No doubt about it.
I'm now experiencing a vision, that Scotland will make the transition to independence not with Alec Salmond at the helm but with Nicola Sturgeon.
What a pleasant thought.
Indeed, I've always felt apprehensive about the prospect of Salmond stepping down as SNP leader (again) but not anymore.
I actually think Sturgeon could have an even greater appeal than the highly appealing Alec Salmond. Perhaps that goes without saying.
On sure thing is that she transcends the bitterness and duplicitous nature of politcs.
Scottish people like that.
Lara
Still time for Brown to learn to say sorry and also admit he makes mistakes.
Luckily his ego does not allow it.
Off topic, make sure the kiddies are in bed before you watch Underbelly, it is high class drama but lots of sex and violence, based on real life.
Alec,
You seem to be over-sensitive.
I was expressing my surprise that someone other than a Labour politician would use that phrase.
I think Nicola Sturgeon handled herself impeccably today, and can come out of this whole thing with her head held high. She did a very rare thing for a politician and apologise, and one thing can be sure from how she delivered her speech and the questions afterwards, she did mean it. I think Christine Grahame and Tricia Marwick summed up the frustration felt by many SNP supporters over the past 2 weeks, but it's good the party as a whole haven't gone down to Labour's level of depths in how they conduct themselves. It'll be interesting to see how the newspapers report this tomorrow morning, or which SNP cabinet minister they will try to pick on next.
Hopefully this means everybody now moves on to the issues surrounding the election, and not the tittle tattle of the 2 non-news stories in Holyrood the past couple of weeks (the "Lunchgate" saga should now also be over with the Standards Commissioner throwing out the complaints).
It looks like at least the Lib Dems and Tories have now moved on from the situation, although Labour are still clutching at straws and Paul Martin was on TV earlier, still demanding the Deputy First Minister's resignation.
Help me.
You married him - you are on your own
Very mature. Certainly doing a good job of refuting his arguments with those childish insults...
Sturgeon for First Minister 2015?
You ask why she wrote the letter.Having been sometimes in a similar position (though not as an elected representative)I think it was because she felt sorry for him, though his troubles were of his own making. Rather a sad irony that two of the biggest rows to burst over the heads of Scottish Ministers in recent months have been because of their display of compassion to individuals who rather too many people regard as entitled to none.
I think anonymous just above me summed it up very well.
"Rather a sad irony that two of the biggest rows to burst over the heads of Scottish Ministers in recent months have been because of their display of compassion to individuals who rather too many people regard as entitled to none."
Well said you anonymous person you!
I'd rather have a politician making a mistake in that direction than the opposite.
When can we expect a statement(or even an apology) from Jack McConnell?
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