{"id":491,"date":"2015-04-09T16:05:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T16:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/?p=491"},"modified":"2015-04-09T16:05:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T16:05:16","slug":"the-leaked-memo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/?p=491","title":{"rendered":"The Leaked Memo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"french_flag\"<\/a>There is a bit missing in this tale set up to smear Nicola Sturgeon. Let me summarise: Nicola and the French Ambassador had a private meeting at which no UK civil servants were present.\u00a0 A memorandum of what was said went out from the Scotland Office (the Westminster bit) which included some derogatory remarks about Ed Miliband, and complimentary remarks about David Cameron.\u00a0 The writer of the memorandum said, in it<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 I have to admit that I\u2019m not sure that the FM\u2019s tongue would be so loose on that kind of thing in a meeting like that so it might well be a case of something being lost in the translation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both Nicola Sturgeon and the French Ambassador are adamant that no such comments were made.\u00a0 The French Consul General admitted he told an official at the Scotland Office about the meeting at which he had been present but has categorically denied any comments about other party leaders.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interesting sidelights \u2013 the Foreign Office denied any knowledge of the memo, even its very existence, and it is not clear to whom the memo was addressed.\u00a0 What is clear is that it was sent to the Daily Telegraph, who took no steps to verify it but devoted their front page to it. The meeting took place in February but we do not know when and to whom it was sent, but we do know it was made\u00a0 public\u00a0 after the Leaders\u2019 Debate on Thursday which resulted in Nicola winning that debate, impressing the English audience and dominating even the metropolitan media \u2013 who had been trying to ignore her existence!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alistair Carmichael, Secretary of State for Scotland until the Westminster dissolution (emotive word that) said it had come from his department (he was head of the Scotland Office when this meeting occurred) but that he knew nothing about it!\u00a0 A spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats said<\/p>\n

\u201cAlistair did not know anything about the memo until it was brought to his attention by the Daily Telegraph\u201d.<\/p>\n

We think the spokesman was Willie Rennie.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What Alistair Carmichael said was<\/p>\n

\u201cin the middle of an election campaign, these things happen\u201d<\/p>\n

whether he meant this justified the leak, or the smear or perhaps both.\u00a0 Certainly the Sunday Herald said Labour have no access to restricted memos, and it\u00a0 would be perverse for the Tories to leak something helpful to Labour.\u00a0 That leaves the Liberal Democrats, whose fiefdom was the Scotland Office.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ergo.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a bit missing in this tale set up to smear Nicola Sturgeon. Let me summarise: Nicola and the French Ambassador had a private meeting at which no UK civil servants were present.\u00a0 A memorandum of what was said went out from the Scotland Office (the Westminster bit) which included some derogatory remarks about Ed Miliband, and complimentary remarks about David Cameron.\u00a0 The writer of the memorandum said, in it \u201c\u2026 I have to admit that I\u2019m not sure that the FM\u2019s tongue would be so loose on that kind of thing in a meeting like that so it might well be a caseRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}