Dirty Tricks (04/04/15)

No sooner has Nicola Sturgeon outshone her political rivals in a UK leaders' debate than a Westminster civil servant betrays their profession by deliberately engaging in what amounts to a dirty political trick.

Here's the 'scoop' from The Telegraph newspaper which claims that Nicola Sturgeon would prefer David Cameron as Prime Minister over Ed Miliband whom she regards as something of a 'dud'.

Now there are a number of problems with The Telegraph's story:

• The claim was not put to Scotland's First Minister before it was published 
• The claim has been emphatically denied by Nicola Sturgeon
• The memo was not written by Nicola Sturgeon or any of her staff 
• The memo was written by someone who was not present at the meeting
• The memo is, in fact, a third hand telephone account of what was said
• The memo itself suggests that something might have been 'lost in translation'
• The claim made in the memo has also been denied by the French Ambassador

So if you ask me this is put-up job and the civil servant responsible should be hunted down and duly sacked from their job. 

But looking on the bright side I suppose it's a backhanded compliment that the Westminster establishment feels so threatened by Nicola Sturgeon that they feel the need to resort to these shameful tactics.

Revealed: Full text of Nicola Sturgeon memo

Here is the full text of the British Government's account of the French ambassador's meetings at the Scottish Parliament, including her talks with Nicola Sturgeon.


First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during the 7-way televised leaders debate Photo: ITV/Rex

By Simon Johnson and Peter Dominiczak - The Telegraph

Discussion with the French Consul-General

6 Mar 2015

Just had a telephone conversation with Pierre-Alain Coffinier (PAC), the French CG. He was keen to fill me in on some of the conversations his Ambassador had during her visit to Scotland last week. All of this was given on a confidential basis, so please limit any onward circulation.

Main points to note

• Ambassador was quite struck by the Labour v SNP political debate in Scotland as opposed to the different Westminster dynamic (it was her first visit to Scotland as Ambassador…)

• She met SG Climate Change Minister Aileen McLeod, where they discussed COP21 (United Nations Conference on Climate Change) to be held in Paris at the end of the year. Clear from the discussion that the SG expects to be part of the UK delegation, with some suggestions that it could be the First Minister who attends. In any case, the SG wanted to be involved in all the regional / sub-state events around COP21 (main focus on the July event in Lyon?) SG has also asked if someone from the French Government COP21 team could attend and speak at the Edinburgh Science Festival next month (the SG had asked the IPCCC for a speaker, but without success.)

• PAC didn’t say if they would get a positive response. Could you perhaps feed this COP21 stuff back to DECC?

• She also met with Fiona Hyslop, who said she was planning a trip to France in July. Hopes to meet with the FR Culture Minister and with the EU Affairs Minister. PAC told me that he was aware of potential sensitivities around the proposed meeting with the latter (a previous visit request was turned down for that reason). He was aware that FCO would be informed in advance of the proposed visit and would be happy to listen to advice on how to respond to a request to meet the EU Affairs Minister this time round.

• The Ambassador also had a truncated meeting with the FM (FM running late after a busy Thursday…). Discussion appears to have focused mainly on the political situation, with the FM stating that she wouldn’t want a formal coalition with Labour; that the SNP would almost certainly have a large number of seats; that she had no idea ‘what kind of mischief’ Alex Salmond would get up to; and confessed that she’d rather see David Cameron remain as PM (and didn’t see Ed Miliband as PM material). I have to admit that I’m not sure that the FM’s tongue would be quite so loose on that kind of thing in a meeting like that, so it might well be a case of something being lost in translation.