EXCLUSIVE
LABOUR last night stood accused of the very charge of turning St Andrew's House into a propaganda arm of the Government which they used to level at Michael Forsyth.
The Scottish Office Information Directorate was forced to withdraw material from the Internet after claims that a full copy of a speech by Secretary of State Donald Dewar placed by them on the world wide web included blatantly political attacks on the SNP.
St Andrew's House information director Roger Williams played down the incident, claiming that it was a simple human error that resulted in the full speech being put out on the Internet and acknowledging that his department was not allowed to issue party political material.
Two years ago his predecessor Liz Drummond and the then Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth faced intense scrutiny over putting out highly politicised speeches, and eventually the head of the Civil Service in London banned the use of the phrase Tartan Tax from official news releases.
No-one was more forthright at the time than the Shadow Scottish Secretary George Robertson, who castigated the issuing of one speech on the Tartan Tax as a ''graphic and disturbing'' example of political news management: ''The Scottish Office is there to serve Scotland, not to put out propaganda,'' he claimed at that time.
Former St Andrew's House information chief Liz Drummond has now gone, and there are three special advisers at taxpayers' expense, not the two criticised by Mr Robertson at the time, but the issue about the distinction between legitimate Government information and party political propaganda rumbles on.
Saturday's speech by Mr Dewar included a scathing passage on the SNP as potential wreckers of the Scottish Parliament and ridiculing its proposal to split its manifesto between devolved and independence policy options.
SNP chief executive Michael Russell said: ''There was justifiable outrage when Michael Forsyth used one political phrase in a Scottish Office speech. Donald Dewar has more than a page of political invective against the SNP and yet his special advisers have allowed this to be issued as a Scottish Office press release.
''I have written to the Permanent Secretary Muir Russell asking for the release to be publicly withdrawn. I have further asked him to investigate why it was issued and in particular the role of any of the Secretary of State's special advisers in that. I have also asked Mr Russell to consult with the head of the Civil Service in London given the precedent set in 1995 and what were supposed to be new guidelines.''
A Scottish Office spokesman said: ''It should not have been put out on the Internet and is being removed. We are grateful that this electronic administrative error has been pointed out. The fact that the news release we issued contained no political reference was in line with Scottish Office policy and shows that clearly there was no intention to issue the speech in this way.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article