You should probably watch the whole of this speech by Sir David Davis this evening, even if you saw the trailer three and a quarter years ago.
It’s both a comprehensive refresher of events surrounding the Scottish Government’s conspiracy to convict Alex Salmond on false charges, and a sharp reminder of why Scotland is, in truth, not yet a country in a fit administrative state for independence.
But one part in particular ought to be the headline news tonight.
Those 63 seconds mark the first time that anyone of standing has publicly named Liz Lloyd, formerly Nicola Sturgeon’s chief of staff (and current media pundit), as the source of the illegal leak to Davie Clegg, then editor of the Daily Record, which led to the newspaper’s publication of the allegations against Salmond.
Davis did so under Parliamentary privilege, because aspects of the Salmond case are still the subject of a live criminal inquiry, and have now been so for more than two years without any action resulting from it.
That continuing inquiry frustrates Salmond’s attempts to bring a long-awaited civil prosecution against the Scottish Government, formally initiated last November but which cannot (in practical terms) continue until the criminal inquiry is concluded.
(Operation Newbiggin, the inquiry into the actual leak itself, was closed down earlier this year because while Police Scotland established criminality, they didn’t have a sufficient degree of evidence about the culprit to be confident of conviction. However, the Crown Office inquiry into perjury continues. Also, the standard of proof in a civil case is lower, so the failure of Newbiggin does not necessarily mean that Salmond’s civil prosecution would fail.)
The illegal leak of the allegations to the press took place in August 2018, so it will soon be six years since Salmond was accused, and yet the matter remains a festering sore upon public life. The Scottish Government, and the current First Minister, have both obstructed and interfered with justice at every possible turn in an attempt to keep the truth from coming to light, as Davis painstakingly detailed.
His statement to the Commons came in the context of the King’s Speech, in which the Labour government announced some welcome steps to strengthen the Scottish Parliament – a duty of candour, the extension of Parliamentary privilege (currently only applicable to Westminster) to Holyrood, and the separation of the powers of the Lord Advocate, all matters on which Wings readers have been well informed.
All three will help make Scotland a more just and accountable country, something at which the Salmond fiasco exposed grave shortcomings. No nation in which the judicial system appears to be under the significant control/influence of the government (and is answerable to no-one), and in which the chief prosecutor also serves as a minister in government, can ever be truly said to be worthy of self-rule.
Davis revealed that there is an indisputable prima facie case to answer in terms of perjury around the Salmond inquiry. (Neither he nor this site makes any assertion of any individual’s guilt, only of a stateable case.)
Unlike in the far more complex case of Operation Branchform, whose progress is also now measured in years but which has at least resulted in one person (so far) being charged, it is hard to see what could remain to be investigated. There are very few players in the matter. Who could be left to ask?
So it’s time, as Sir David says, for the Crown Office to resolve the matter one way or the other – either by a prosecution which establishes guilt or innocence, or by officially dropping the matter and enabling Salmond’s civil claim to proceed.
The truth cannot be forever delayed. Justice must take its course and be seen to be done. Though the heavens fall.
