Tom Gordon: No victory in Salmond’s total war with Sturgeon

There may be little guising this Halloween, but you can still get a fright if you know where to look.

The first thing to say is that the inquiry has already achieved one of its key goals. The second is that that’s almost incidental. It is only one front in an ever-expanding war between the former first minister and his successor.

Sir Keir Starmer versus Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t even come close in terms of personal animosity. Although, as the UK Labour may yet find out, these things take time to stew nicely.

The Holyrood inquiry, you will recall, was set up early 2019 after Mr Salmond won a civil legal action against the Scottish Government.

It had botched an in-house investigation into sexual misconduct allegations made against him by two civil servants the previous year.

When the fact of the investigation became public in August 2018, he resigned from the SNP and started a crowd-funded judicial review.

He won in January 2019 after the Government conceded the whole thing had been unlawful and “tainted by apparent bias”. Ministers also promised the court not to release the fruits of the investigation, given it was defective.

After delays for Mr Salmond’s separate criminal trial and Covid, a cross-party committee started hearing testimony in August, beginning with Ms Sturgeon’s top official, the Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans.

In her evidence, Ms Evans lamented there had been a “procedural failure”.

What the inquiry has revealed is that there was a tad more to it than that. It was staggering incompetence.

The newly-minted harassment policy used against Mr Salmond as a former minister contained a very clear safeguard to avoid potential bias.

It said any formal complaint would be examined by a senior civil servant appointed as the Investigating Officer.

That person, tasked with “an impartial collection of facts”, was to have had “no prior involvement with any aspect of the matter being raised”. No prior involvement. Any aspect. Pretty unambiguous, you might think.

However the Investigating Officer, Judith MacKinnon, had been in a great deal of prior contact with Mr Salmond’s accusers, and not casually but about turning their embryonic complaints into formal ones.

She even told one she was “likely” to be the investigating officer if the complaint became formal, triggering the complaints procedure.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, Ms MacKinnon said this prior contact was well known to her superiors, up to and including Ms Evans, before she was appointed, yet no one thought anything amiss.

“I did not have any doubts about taking on the role of investigating officer,” she said. “I was always up-front about prior contact. I thought that my involvement was appropriate throughout the prior contact and appointment as investigating officer.”

She was “shocked” when it later looked so bad in court it collapsed the Government’s defence. “It was open to another interpretation from the one that we had taken,” she said.

For good measure, she confirmed the procedure had not been changed, so in theory the same mess could happen again. The MSPs were unimpressed. Truth be told, they looked like they’d been hit with a plank.

So that part of their investigation is much clearer.

What has also emerged is that Mr Salmond’s attitude is total war with Ms Sturgeon and her government.

Everything that can be used will be used, including the Unionist enemy. He has had the opposition dancing to his tune for weeks by piping them the sweetest music they can hear - follow me and watch Ms Sturgeon suffer.

So the inquiry’s Labour, Tory and LibDem members have been eagerly amplifying his points. He has also tried to steer the parallel investigation into whether Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code his way, urging it to look beyond its original remit to see if she also lied to parliament and other potentially career-ending sins.

An old pro at escaping unscathed from such inquiries himself, he was quick to identify how this one might be being stitched up, and dared the investigator to ignore his entreaties.

Within 48 hours, assisted by the Tories, Mr Salmond got a result when Ms Sturgeon conceded the probe could look at “any issues” it liked.

He has also been butting heads with the Crown Office, trying to get juicy SNP material which was disclosed to his trial defence made public.

While Ms Sturgeon has been handling the pandemic, Mr Salmond has been methodically arranging his chess pieces around her, and now they are attacking from all directions.

For him, it is plainly a match to the end. This is no longer just about vindication, it is about checkmate.

The Government, meanwhile, appears intent on hurting its own cause. The inquiry is about a waste of public money on a legal action.

Yet it is now planning to go back to court to see if material it admits is discredited can be shared with MSPs.

This is ostensibly to provide a full picture. But as ministers have denied the inquiry plenty of other evidence, this doesn’t ring remotely true.

It looks far more like a spiteful attempt to air the gist of the claims against Mr Salmond, reversing the effect of his judicial review win.

The Government also appears to be trying the old trick of beggaring one’s opponent, dumping thousands of pages on Mr Salmond’s lawyers and asking them to sift them for release.

Those objected to will go into a court application by ministers, to see what can be disclosed regardless.

It stands to generate a lot of work, delay and expense, but not necessarily much light. Large amounts of taxpayers’ cash are again at stake.

Mr Salmond is whining about costs, but I doubt he’ll oblige Ms Sturgeon by running out of funds and going away. Those who bankrolled him last time would do so again if asked.

By the time Mr Salmond and the FM give evidence in December, this ugly, bitter brawl can only have got worse. Don’t expect a neat victory.

Two of Scotland’s political giants appear intent on slugging it out until they reach a demented, bloody draw.

Only the Unionists will be smiling.