Some of us who questioned the conduct of the Scottish Government leading up to and following the trial of Alex Salmond nevertheless recoiled at suggestions that a grand conspiracy was afoot. Occasionally to question the competence and even the sincerity of your ministers of state is a primary function of a free press in any progressive democracy. To accuse your government though, of a conspiracy which nudged the borders of outright criminality is the stuff of a fevered imagination, isn’t it? And not just any old conspiracy.
This one would have condemned your country’s greatest political leader to a prison cell. It’s surely stretching credibility to suggest that a star chamber of current and former ministers, led by your serving Premier and aided by senior advisors and civil servants would have even attempted to carry out such a chilling plot. Isn’t it? Even as the unanswered questions and evasions began to emerge we still held fast to the position that they had all been the result of political over-reach: still a serious matter of course, but something that happens in even the most civilised and mature of democracies.
Or that the investigation into Mr Salmond had been so widespread and had involved taking statements from so many potential witnesses that of course recollections could become hazy. Or that the two-year period which covered these events involved senior figures from every realm of the state: judicial, legislative and political, meaning that a complex web o.