The insidious input of UK Government officials in the conspiracy to destroy Alex Salmond -part 2 – the rise of Sturgeon and Leslie Evans

Autumn of 2014

Announcing the 2014 independence referendum result a clearly relieved Prime Minister David Cameron, confirmed the “Vow” published in the DailY Record, would be fully implemented by the UK Government.

He then went on to announce that a consequence of increasing the powers of the devolved Scottish Government generated a need to resolve the “West Lothian” question and to facilitate this an urgent “Bill” would be introduced at Westminster barring Scottish MP’s from any involvement in legislation impacting on England and Wales.

For many Scots the off-handed manner of his surprise pronouncement of momentous change was an ominous portent of events to come.

Although the referendum had been lost the close run outcome promised a bright future for the SNP which contrary to expectations was polling very highly.

But a despondent Alex Salmond took stock and judged it was time for him to give up his role as leader of the SNP and Scottish Government. It would be for a new leadership team to take the cause of independence forward.

Sturgeon Coronated SNP leader

The Party membership on 14 November 2014 at the Autumn Conference in Perth, formally inducted Sturgeon, as Party leader.

Her first ill judged decision, against the advice of Alex Salmond, and other senior Party officials was to confirm her husband Peter Murrell would continue in his role as Chief Executive of the Party.

In acting as she did she exposed a style of leadership closely resembling that of her political hero the consumate control freak, Margaret Thatcher. But would the two headed monster consume the Party? Early indicators were not promising.

She got a dream start. The SNP’s main rival, Labour, was in turmoil. In contrast the SNP had experienced a massive surge of support for independence. Party membership had grown from 25,000 before the referendum to more than 90,000 and rising, making it the UK’s third-largest party, indicating independence had only been briefly delayed.

Sturgeon went on to complete a week long tour of Scotland meeting these many new members, culminating in her triuphant address to the Party faithful at a fully booked 13,000 capacity SSE Hydro in Glasgow.

But there were concerns that the expectations of the vast bulk of the new members who wanted independence to remain central to the SNP political agenda would be ignored when she said that the rumoured watered down proposals for increased powers were sufficient to continue to negotiate in good faith with Lord Smith, who was heading the multi-political team tasked with to drawing up a package of new tax and welfare powers for Scotland by early January 2015.

Addressing independence she said she still believed Scotland would become independent: “at some stage in the future”. But a decision to include another referendum in the Party’s next manifesto would be determined by circumstances, including the impact of a delivery of more powers and the possibility of an EU referendum.

Sturgeon Gains Power

On 20 November 2014, Sturgeon was officially sworn into the office of First Minister of Scotland. The next day she unveiled her Cabinet with a 50/50 gender balance.

Sturgeon’s bold move demonstrated one significant difference between herself and Thatcher. The latter was dismissive of feminism, while she made promoting gender equality her top priority, regardless of ability. When questioned about style and substance she said:

“Thatcher didn’t do anything to open opportunity for women coming up behind her. I want to make sure I use whatever time I get to be First Minister to make sure that it’s not another 20 years before we have another woman leader in Scotland.”

And her fervent advocacy of the cause of feminism was not confined to Cabinet appointments. Her first “programme for government”, included proposals to force larger Scottish companies to introduce gender-balanced boards by 2020.

At a conference for women members of the Party she promised her personal intervention for any woman seeking official roles. And when When a female SNP councillor complained that a male party colleague had criticised her for wearing white linen trousers at work, she empathasised with her saying: “If it wasn’t for the fact that I know you are perfectly capable of dealing with that yourself I would suggest that the next time he makes a comment like that you send him to me for further discussion.”

In a follow up interview she said that political commentators’ obsessive focus on appearance was just one of a multitude of obstacles to women’s progress. Adding: “It’s probably not a single day goes by when I don’t read some derogatory comment about myself, about how I look or what I’m wearing. I’m used to it but what angers me is the thought that there might be some young woman out there just now who would really like to get into politics but picks up a newspaper and reads some awful commentary about my hair, or how I look, and thinks: “I don’t think I could put myself through that.”

And Sturgeon was quick to dismiss Unionist claims that a constitutional referendum would be a “once-in-a-generation” event with a counter that another vote could be held as soon as public opinion permitted it.

Citing Neil MacCormick, the Scottish legal philosopher, as distinguishing between existentialist and utilitarian nationalists, the latter wanting independence mainly for the power claiming it would provide politicians with the ability to build a better country. She offered: “There’s probably a mix of both of those things in most modern nationalists but I’m more of the utilitarian type than the existential type.”

Mid-January 2015 The new broom begins her sweep

Sir Peter Howsden, Scotland most senior Civil Servant, whose tenure as Permanent Secretary was dogged by opposition allegations that he had gone “native” in his relationship with Alex Salmond’s nationalist administration announced his retirement from office saying he would leave his job well before the May 2015 UK General Election.

Alex Salmond said Sir Peter had handled the referendum process and talks with the UK government “particularly well”, as an “outstanding public servant”.

But Sir Peter was called to Westminster to face a charge that he had breached the Civil Service Code over an internal briefing in which he had advised those in attendance that the referendum debate had left “the status quo lost in the mists of time”.

He was found not guilty. But many Unionist politicians continued to question his impartiality, including Sir Bernard Jenkin, Conservative convener of Westminster’s Public Administration Committee, who asked whether he could impartially serve another administration in the event the SNP was voted out in 2016.

Sir Peter denied acting as a “cheerleader” for independence and told the Commons committee he had raised no concerns with SNP ministers that the white paper on independence could have compromised civil service neutrality.

Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott suggested Sir Peter had presided over a politicised civil service and the promotion of SNP policy with the launch of the white paper in late 2013, saying : “The Scottish civil service needs a shake-up. If they are to be impartial and above reproach, we cannot see repeats of the infamous independence white paper which was an SNP political manifesto and contrary to the values of an independent civil service. Change at the top is needed and Scotland will look for a new approach from a new permanent secretary.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, welcoming Sir Peter’s departure, said: “We need to draw a line underneath that period and given that, Sir Peter’s decision to leave before a potential change of government is the right one.”

UK Cabinet Secretary regains control of Scotland

Sir Peter’s departure provided the UK Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, Sir Jeremy Heywood, with the opportunity to re-establish his authority over Civil Servants employed in Scotland and he did so with great speed ushering in to power a team of hardline feminist and Stonewall activist Civil Servants led by a newly appointed Permanent Secretary, Leslie Evans.

The change brought with it a reintroduction of the Permanent Secretary’s weekly meetings with UK Cabinet colleagues in London requiring Leslie Evans to rise at 0455 hours so that she could catch a first class early bird flight from Turnhouse.

Expensive but reinforced Heywood’s control of herself and the 5000 Civil Servants in Scotland.

The stage was set for Stonewall to deploy its considerable LGBTI resources to Scotland.

Which it did with Sturgeon’s enthusiastic support and £400,000 of Scottish taxpayers hard earned cash.