Analysis: Alex Salmond's central conspiracy goes unsubstantiated

It is telling that even for a witness as loquacious as Alex Salmond, there was greater significance in what he did not say during his six hour-long session before MSPs tasked with scrutinising the Scottish Government’s unlawful internal investigation of harassment complaints against him.
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If there was a constant thread running through the former first minister’s evidence at Holyrood, it was scorn and frustration over the legal constraints he appeared under.

Mr Salmond repeatedly made reference to documentary evidence in the public domain, but which could not be considered by the parliamentary committee. It was, he said, an “intolerable situation".

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Yet it would be naive to suggest the shackles of legislative provisions somehow inhibited Mr Salmond’s most damning accusation there had been a “malicious and concerted attempt” on the part of Scotland’s political and legal establishment to damage his reputation, and excise him from public life. If anything, they aided it.

At the outset of the hearing, Mr Salmond stressed that it was not up to him to “prove a case”, insisting that had already been achieved by virtue of the judicial review into the Scottish Government’s complaints handling process, and the High Court trial in which he was acquitted on criminal charges of sexual assault against nine complainers.

Mr Salmond may have been at the centre of all those legal processes, but his conflation of their outcomes with the parliamentary inquiry insinuated a uniformity to their purpose and terms of reference which simply does not exist.

He told MSPs that he did not characterise the plot against him as a conspiracy, instead describing it as a “malicious” scheme, or plan, or campaign. Take your pick. The point, Mr Salmond said, is that it was “not a theory”.

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“It’s not a point that can’t be established,” he said. “It is a point that can be established from the documentary evidence. The only question is how much documentary evidence this committee is allowed to see.”

Former first minister Alex Salmond waves as he leaves Holyrood in Edinburgh after giving evidence to a Scottish Parliament committee that is examining the handling of harassment allegations him.Former first minister Alex Salmond waves as he leaves Holyrood in Edinburgh after giving evidence to a Scottish Parliament committee that is examining the handling of harassment allegations him.
Former first minister Alex Salmond waves as he leaves Holyrood in Edinburgh after giving evidence to a Scottish Parliament committee that is examining the handling of harassment allegations him.

Here lies the crux of Mr Salmond’s case. It is not that he cannot substantiate some of the most extraordinary allegations in modern British political history, it is that he is not allowed to. It is a scenario that has allowed him to light the fuse on a bomb, while insisting that he cannot hand over the defusal manual.

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The end result is that while Mr Salmond was able to land some heavy blows, he was unable to corroborate his sweeping central allegation that the pillars of civic Scotland had conspired to topple him. Some of his more astute supporters may consider this to be a most convenient outcome.

The fact that Mr Salmond was unable to bear the burden of proof will not sound the death knell for his extraordinary claims. Quite the opposite. A lack of evidence will be cited by his supporters as confirmation of the conspirators’ attempts to conceal their plot.

Alex Salmond gives evidence to the the Holyrood committee investigating the Scottish Government's handling of harassment complaints against him. Picture: Andy Buchanan /GettyAlex Salmond gives evidence to the the Holyrood committee investigating the Scottish Government's handling of harassment complaints against him. Picture: Andy Buchanan /Getty
Alex Salmond gives evidence to the the Holyrood committee investigating the Scottish Government's handling of harassment complaints against him. Picture: Andy Buchanan /Getty
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After all, the Scottish Government has not been exactly forthcoming throughout the inquiry, and the evidence of senior government and SNP figures could most charitably be described as flawed, given the inconsistencies, forgetfulness and evasion on show. The analytical dissection of this by Mr Salmond, particularly when cataloguing “a sequence of deliberate suppression of information inconvenient to the government”, will intensify criticism of those individuals.

None of this, it should go without saying, amounts to incontrovertible proof of the plot Mr Salmond cites, but it provides the doubt necessary to embolden his base, and fan the flames of his accusations, particularly those involving Scotland’s independent public prosecution service.

Mr Salmond may not call it a conspiracy, but plenty of others do. For them, it is not so much a plot, as a principle.

At one point, he said the inquiry represented a “chance to assert what type of Scotland we’re trying to create”.

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The use of the word ‘we’ was interesting, and in the widening hyperpartisan schisms of Scottish nationalism – with Mr Salmond on one side and his one-time protege, Nicola Sturgeon, on the other – the emotional appeal of the naked assertions underpinning such lofty ambitions should not be underestimated, even if they remain unsubstantiated.

That is not to say the former first minister did not have an impact. He spoke authoritatively and lucidly, and made a series of allegations that will make life difficult for his successor when she appears before the committee next week, particularly when he told MSPs the identity of one of the complainers was revealed to his former chief of staff while the complaints process was ongoing.

The truth is, it is hard to know what will happen next, or whether the members of the committee will be able to rule definitively over a series of increasingly contentious claims and counter claims involving the most senior public officials in Scottish life.

An inquiry designed to scrutinise issues of policy, process, procedure and governance has been subsumed by labyrinthine narratives, and even now, so near the end, the fundamental question of what happened, who knew, and when they knew it, remain fiercely contested.

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In the meantime, Scotland’s democratic institutions are being hammered, and the women who spoke out are increasingly marginalised and ignored, branded witches, liars and worse.

Come what may, the repercussions will be felt for years, if not decades.

It’s almost enough to make you forget that we are just 69 days away from the Scottish Parliament election. Perhaps that is no bad thing.

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