Salmond-Sturgeon: Scotland is better than this wretched saga. Aren’t we?

PASS the clothes pegs, for there will be plenty in Scotland whose noses are in need of such items today. Having watched both Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament inquiry that unofficially bears his name, there is certainly a whiff of something in the air, and it is not roses.

“I would like some clarity,” said the committee convener at one point during another marathon session. Join a very long line, Ms Fabiani.

This event was not as advertised. The First Minister’s appearance was meant to be the point in this saga when everything became clear, when all talk of conspiracy would be silenced. Yes, she acknowledged, a mistake had been made in investigating the initial allegations against Mr Salmond, and she said sorry to the two women who came forward, and to the wider Scottish public.

But after that, going by the First Minister’s testimony, there was nothing else to see or note, so please move on.

READ MORE: Recap of First Minister's evidence

The first she heard about the complaints was the April 2 meeting because it was a moment in her life she would never forget (as opposed to the March meeting she forgot).

There was no plot to “get” Mr Salmond; no promise to intervene in the process; no intervention; one of her officials did not identify a complainer; she did not know who leaked the story to the Daily Record; and she took the advice of her law officers on whether the Scottish Government’s case was solid. As soon as they said it was not, the Government conceded.

So with all that taken care of, the whole matter would appear to boil down to one angry old man and a woman who was simply trying her best to do the right thing. Just a woman, appearing before a committee, asking them to believe her.

If she could be held responsible for anything it would have been being too nice, or not blunt enough, with Mr Salmond.

“Did I deal with all of this perfectly?” she asked. “Maybe not, but I dealt with it the best I could.”

At first, the picture of Ms Sturgeon on the screen looked odd, then I realised why. She was sitting down. This is a woman more used to standing at a podium, where she is in control. Here she was on the same level as everyone else present.

Not that this in any way humbled her. Why should it? Compared to some members of the committee she was the smartest person in the room. Fluent, confident, defending herself against any perceived slight, she was as impressive in stating her case as her predecessor had been.

READ MORE: Complaint lodged over alleged leak of name

Those hours and days in preparation had been well spent. The soundbites were there, from her refusal “to follow the age-old pattern of allowing a powerful man to use his status and connections to do what he wants”, to several declarations of how hurt she had been by this whole matter. There was even a wee touch of the colloquial. “To be blunt my head was spinning,” she said of her mood after learning the detail of the complaints against Mr Salmond.

Yesterday’s proceedings involved long periods of boredom punctuated by the odd pertinent question. In the long stretches while her mostly SNP questioners tried to make their points, Ms Sturgeon could have been forgiven for letting her mind drift away. There will come a time, she knows, when all of this will be in the past. All political careers end in failure, said that old bag of wind Enoch Powell, but some failures are better than others.

There is the type of failure, for instance, in which the failed one leaves front-line politics for an extremely lucrative career on the international rubber chicken circuit, sets up their own foundation, or otherwise takes a high profile, very well-paying job. Think Tony Blair. Think Nick Clegg. David Miliband. George Osborne. Ms Sturgeon has an international profile. Remember that summer lecture tour to America?

Always on the right side of any dispute, willing to speak truth to (foreign) powers, be it Trump in the White House or Johnson in Downing Street, what organisation would not want her on the payroll?

In this life after politics, much depends on protecting the brand. On the face of it, this entire saga does not look good for her. Except hold on, just look at the optics. All those men, and one in particular, taking Ms Sturgeon on all because she wanted to stand up for women. What a narrative.

But back to the here and now. Two years on, after vast expense and much effort, and the clock running on to the Scottish Parliament going into recess on 25 March, this entire saga comes down to a simple question: who do you believe? Both Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon cannot be right, so who is in the wrong?

This is no philosophical exercise, the outcome of which does not matter very much. Had a jury not decided as it did, a man would have gone to jail. Besides the obscene waste of public money – which must by now be £1 million and counting – a long shadow has been cast over Scottish democracy.

Scotland, the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government, was not supposed to be like this. Powerful cliques running a government as if it was their own private fiefdom. Bills run up on the public’s account without fear of sanction. Mistakes, dreadful ones, being made but no-one resigns, no one is sacked. What are we trying to emulate here – Westminster?

As a certain lawyer said, there is a smell here that is not going away. Maybe not of conspiracy but definitely of incompetence. Not of plotting but of people allowing personal feelings to interfere with their judgment. And supposed to be at the heart of it all, but forgotten by most, are the two women whose complaints started this saga.

Ms Sturgeon might have cause to believe she acquitted herself well yesterday, but in coming across as just another politician, appearing to put party above other considerations, she will have disappointed many.

A reasonable day for her maybe, not so for Scotland. We are better than this grubby saga. Aren’t we?