NOT a great way to start the week but I woke to news that Nicola Sturgeon was to be interviewed on Good Morning Scotland in advance of council elections.

As I listened, a familiar theme emerged. Basically, every respected, independent source in Scotland is wrong on every point of challenge, three of which were covered in the interview – council funding, a second referendum and ferries.

Because they are, in her judgement, all hopelessly wrong, there is no problem dismissing them – or kicking them so far into touch that she will never be held accountable. Just keep dissembling long enough and they’ll go away.

Everyone, for starters, is wrong about council funding. Audit Scotland is wrong. The Scottish Parliament’s research centre is wrong. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities is wrong. All say (as is the categoric truth) that cuts imposed by Ms Sturgeon’s administration have been hugely disproportionate. All wrong, amidst a gabble of meaningless statistics.

READ MORE:It's 25 years since Tony Blair swept to power. Where does the time go?

It is an argument that will never be won in an interview. However, voters might recall one salient fact. In the face of this year’s settlement alone, every council leader in Scotland – even Glasgow’s – signed a letter stating that a “real terms cut of £371 million” was the last straw and after a decade of “challenging budgets, there is now no room to make further savings”.

The letter continued: "Additionally, the settlement does not include any funding for pay, inflation or increased demand for services. The impact of this Settlement will be stark for our services and our staff”.

Subseqently, in a ritual “softening the blow”, the cut was reduced by £100 million which still leaves £271 million, on top of all that has gone before. In short, anyone voting SNP on Thursday is endorsing a party that has imposed crippling cuts on Scottish councils, strangling their ability to make meaningful differences in their communities.

The interview turned to a second independence referendum and Ms Sturgeon’s utterly implausible insistence it will take place next year. The interviewer, Lucy Whyte, made a credible effort to pin her down on the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ruling that the Scottish Government should publish its legal advice surrounding the issue.

Needless to say, the Scottish Information Commissioner was wrong. In Ms Sturgeon’s view, she remains bound by the Ministerial Code which “says I am not allowed to do this”. A patronising half-laugh in the direction of the interviewer for failing to understand this inviolable constitutional principle.

In fact, it is codswallop as has been made all the more clear by the Commissioner’s ruling. Section 2.40 of the Scottish Ministerial Code allows for publication of legal advice “where there are compelling reasons for disclosure”. By affecting greater knowledge, Ms Sturgeon was wilfully misleading.

It is difficult to think of a more “compelling reason” than the need to confirm or rebut the possibility that the whole IndyRef2 ploy is a publicly-funded hoax. If Ms Sturgeon wished to clarify that matter, she could do so today, without constraint from the “Ministerial Code” mumbo-jumbo she hides behind.

Instead, she said they will “respond” by 10th June, again pretending there is something to obstruct doing so now. It was pretty clear the “response” will amount to further prevarication and obfuscation, regardless of what the Scottish Information Commissioner may order. Who does this person think he is in a land where watchdogs do not have a licence to bark?

And so to ferries. Ms Whyte wondered why the advice not to proceed with the Ferguson contract had been over-ruled and, by the way, where was the missing paperwork? There followed a classic Sturgeon device which is to re-write the charge in order to deny it and then patronise the person who is silly enough to ask the question.

In the carefully-crafted script which Ms Sturgeon now deploys, this is all about a single piece of paper and while its non-existence is regrettable, it doesn’t really matter because there are lots of other documents (200 is the preferred figure) running to even more pages (1500). So, really, what’s the problem?

Maybe, Ms Sturgeon patronised, if Ms Whyte had read these 1500 pages, she would understand. In fact, said Ms Whyte, she had tried and found them very inaccessible – so in the meantime, maybe the First Minister could address the findings of the Auditor General, who identified a far wider problem than non-availability of a single page.

Of course, she was right. Ms Sturgeon’s version of the charge is not remotely in line with what the Auditor General for Scotland actually said.

On the subject of the unprecedented element of risk to taxpayers which was signed off as part of the deal, Stephen Boyle said: “There is no documentary evidence of how those risks were considered or how it was intended that they would be managed during the running of the contract.

“Transparency is hugely important; it matters that important decisions of this nature are set out and recorded. However, through our audit work, we have not been provided with any evidence that sets out how those risks would be managed”.

His Audit Scotland colleague, Gill Miller, was just as clear: “We asked Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government for all documentation relating to the minister’s decision, but we did not receive any ... so we do not know on what basis ministers decided to accept the risks and proceed with the contract award”.

A single, dismissible piece of missing paper, Ms Sturgeon? I think not. And if anyone had missed that point, Mr Boyle rammed it home: “It feels too glib to use phrases such as ‘lessons learned’.” Instead, he called for a full review.

Anyone listening to yesterday’s interview, might have concluded there are a lot of the First Minister’s assertions to which that same comment might apply. Glibness and a brass neck have served Ms Sturgeon well – but what else is there beneath that well-practised veneer?

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.