DOWNING Street has failed to clarify whether or not David Cameron was aware of the Scotland Office plan to leak the Sturgeon/Bermann memo to the Press with the aim of smearing the SNP leader during the General Election campaign.
It also declined to comment on the decision by Alistair Carmichael, the former Scottish Secretary, to approve the leak.
The distancing by No 10 from the row came as Nationalist supporters continued to pile pressure on the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland by beginning a campaign to mount a legal challenge to try to end his parliamentary tenure in the courts.
The crowd-funding campaign by Kirkwall-based Nationalist supporter Fiona MacInnes has reportedly raised £10,000 already towards a £60,000 total.
In a separate development, Police Scotland confirmed it had begun inquiries "to establish whether there is any criminality" following a formal complaint lodged by an unknown person against Mr Carmichael.
The memo claimed Nicola Sturgeon told Sylvie Bermann, the French Ambassador to the UK, that she would prefer the Conservative leader to stay as Prime Minister and that Ed Miliband was not up to the job of replacing him.
The assertion in the memo, forcefully denied by the First Minister and then by the French Ambassador, was later accepted as false by Mr Carmichael, who approved the leak to the Press to smear the SNP leader as a hypocrite given, in public, she had said the total opposite.
Thus far, the former Cabinet Minister, having accepted full responsibility for the leak, has sought to tough it out, saying all he wanted to do now was to "get on" representing the people who voted for him.
Today, the SNP at Westminster is expected to refer the matter to Kathryn Hudson, the Standards Commissioner, for investigation.
Under the Recall of MPs Act, introduced just before the election campaign and championed by the Lib Dems, if an MP were suspended for more than 21 sitting days, then only 10 per cent of the local electorate - around 3400 people - would be needed to sign a petition to declare the seat vacant and spark a by-election.
Mr Carmichael was the only one of 11 Lib Dem candidates in Scottish seats previously held by the party to survive the SNP surge on May 7; his 9928 majority was reduced to just 817.
Asked if Mr Cameron had been aware of the Sturgeon/Bermann memo before it was leaked, his spokesman said: "I would not have anything further to add to what the Cabinet Secretary has said to this."
In a statement following his inquiry, Sir Jeremy Heywood said those who "had access to the memo" were asked to fill out a questionnaire and then interviewed. He also stated that, beyond Mr Carmichael and his special advisor, no one else had "any involvement in the leaking of the memo".
Asked if the PM would comment on Mr Carmichael's decision to approve the leak, he replied: "I would not add to what Mr Carmichael himself has said."
Earlier, the backbencher's colleague, Sir Malcolm Bruce, staunchly defended him, telling the BBC that the SNP's efforts to oust Mr Carmichael was "an ugly sight".
The former Lib Dem deputy leader added: "Alistair has recognised he has made a mistake and people are entitled to make mistakes, learn from them and move on."
Sir Malcolm, who stepped down as the MP for Gordon at the election, then suggested if any MP or Minister had to resign because they had told a lie, "we'd clear out the House of Commons very fast, I would suggest".
Asked if he was saying lying in public life was widespread, Sir Malcolm replied: "No. Well, yes. The answer is lots of people have told lies and you know that to be perfectly true."
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