25/10/2012 Newsnight Scotland

is not much governments can do about it. Good evening.

He refers himself to an investigation as to whether he

broke the ministerial code if conduct, and still the insults fly,

but will there be any lasting damage to brand SNP?

And more revelations of what the company that ran Rangers' in

administration knew about the controversial deal but financed

Craig Whyte's takeover of the Ibrox club. First, they lost their anti-

Nato policy. Then they lost two backbench MSPs. And after two days

of truly awful headlines, the SNP must have wondered if they were

also about to lose the trust of the voters. The row over whether Alex

Salmond had obtained legal advice about EU membership exposed the

First Minister to unrelenting personal attacks - he is a bare-

faced liar, as straight as a corkscrew, as honest as Richard

Nixon. So what damage, if any, have such attacks done to brand SNP?

Arriving at Holyrood, I appeared unfazed by the week's events and

ready to ride out any further turbulence. Having lost two MSPs

over an independent Scotland's stance on NATO, he knew a storm was

brewing over whether his government had sought legal advice about

Scotland's future in Europe. I would like to ask the First

Minister a familiar question about whether a separate Scotland would

be a member of the EU. It is a question Andrew Neil asked him on

4th March. Have you sought advice from your own Scottish law officers

in this matter? Starting his answer with the words "we have, yes", but

the First Minister please get to "no, we haven't" in 27 words?

First Minister was ready and waiting with the answer. He had it

sorted. An independent panel is to investigate if he broke the

ministerial code of conduct. finding of the independent advisers

will be made public. I will accept, and I hope members of the chamber

will do the same. I would observe that there have been five

references since I have been First Minister. Each one has found in

favour that the ministerial code has been abided by. I hope on this

6th occasion, given that I have said I will accept the findings,

that the opposition parties will find themselves able to do the same.

We in minutes, the insults were being hurled across the debating

chamber. I suppose you can't expect a straight answer from a First

Minister who is as straight as a corkscrew. After five years in

office, was our First Minister no more trustworthy than the nation's

best-loved wide-boy? Or do. We have had more Beckingham diving and Del

Boy from this man. -- more ducking and diving than Del Boy from this

man. Every fair-minded person has reached the conclusion that he

misled his country into believing his case that Scotland's case for

Europe was based on proper legal advice. Alex Salmond has always

punched above his weight in media terms for. Named politician of the

year last year by both the Spectator magazine and the Herald.

A former MSP strategist says this storm will soon pass. We are seeing

an extremely into private debate, with a lot of abuse being thrown

around -- it is an intemperate debate with a lot of noise going on.

But if you look at surveys consistently over the years, for

example, the Social attitudes survey, they showed a great deal of

trust in the Scottish government. These are deep-seated feelings, so

the fact that it has been a difficult week and the fact that

Alex Salmond has been abused roundly by his opponents, I would

not have thought that that will suddenly negate the build-up of

trust that was evident in the last Scottish Parliament elections. The

pair is has revelled in an opportunity to give the First

Minister a doing. So have the headline writers got a point? Is

the Sam and brand tarnished irreparably, or will the sheen soon

be back? The SNP brand has been very much shaped around the cult of

Alex Salmond. He has done a fantastic job, but now he needs to

accept that he should delegate responsibility and some of the

front of house responsibility. When it becomes so closely defined by a

single individual, you will suffer if that person has a bad week in

the office. Look at the Republicans in the States. When Romney had a

bad week in the office, his whole party suffers and the media turns

against him. There is no doubt it has not been his easiest week, but

Alex Salmond would probably say being called a corkscrew is not the

worst blow he has had to fend off. Will it proved to be a watershed

moment, or did no one emerged from today's about having landed a

killer blow? I am joined now by David Torrance,

Alex Salmond's biographer, who is in London tonight, and from

Edinburgh by Iain MacWhirter of the Herald. Iain MacWhirter, you get

the award for instant cliche. He described it as a Norman Ebor. It

was certainly shaping up that way. This is the best opportunity the

opposition has had, I would say, since Alex Salmond has been in

office. We had this very potentially dangerous coincidence

of episodes this week of resignations and the disclosure of

the results of the consultation on the referendum question. And then

of course we had this omnishambles over the unit advice. But you have

to hand it to Alex Salmond. He slipped away very effectively. He

deployed the oldest device in the book, an independent panel, which

will inevitably conclude that he has not broken the ministerial code.

That was not the issue. He was not disclosing anything, because there

was nothing to disclose. The whole scandal was the way they had taken

the information commissioner to court to prevent the disclosure of

the fact that the Government knew nothing. The David Torrance, do you

agree that he will inevitably be acquitted by the three eminent

personages who look into this? the ministerial code inquiry is a

red herring. I don't remember anyone having a go at him for

breaking the ministerial code. It is a device he has deployed before,

and he will come up trumps. The problem Alex Salmond and the SNP

have his and the longer term. Labour have an obvious strategy of

depicting Alex Salmond as a liar, a word that even his political

opponents don't use lightly. They are hoping to cement this

impression in the minds of voters. But that only works if it is

fuelled by other examples over the weeks and months ahead, where it

looks like I is being less than straightforward. At the moment, I

don't see it holding. We had lots of phoney away from Labour and the

Conservatives today, but for that to resonate with voters, it has to

reflect what they are thinking. This is not an easy to understand

row, crucially. Andrew Mitchell having a go at police officers on

Downing Street was something everyone could understand and

everyone understood it was wrong, and thus he resigned. This is about

legal advice and the European Union. I'd barely keep track of it.

that a good point, Iain MacWhirter? The Scotsman and the Herald are not

leading on this tomorrow. There is a side bar at the top of the

Scotsman. I presume if you are I, you actually want to see nothing

about yourself on the front page? Absolutely. That is an indication

that they have killed the story. It is interesting to see the way they

did it. Alex Salmond is very good at batting away criticism. Labour

made the fatal mistake by saying he was a bare-faced liar, when they

can't really justify that. Then he had this device of the panel.

Nicola Sturgeon worked effectively here as well by effectively

apologising on his behalf this morning on the radio. She said it

was unfortunate that this impression had got out but they had

legal advice when they didn't. She managed to deflect that criticism.

I do not think the branch is at issue. Curiously, there has always

been a slight cancer element in Alex Salmond's brand, and that is

partly why people like him -- he has a Chancellor element. There is

an edgy way to the manner in which he can do its political affairs. It

De you agree with that, David Torrance? Is his slipperiness and

asset? And not necessarily that but it is expected of him and I think

that a lot of Scots quite like it. Look at his approval ratings.

Astonishingly high especially when set against the UK party leaders in

Scotland, it has been slightly slipping of late but it is still

strong. And when politicians are popular - and let's face it, not

many are genuinely popular - voters are inclined to give them the

benefit of the doubt so even if it looks like Alex Salmond has not

been entirely straight forward on this matter, and especially when

voters cannot follow what is going on, it is complicated, they will

give him the benefit of the doubt and moved on quickly. I remember a

similar period towards the end of 2010 when the Scottish Parliament

have lost its tax-raising powers and other things and it was written

off as the SNP's worst week and it was forgotten within a few weeks.

And a few months later, they won an overall majority. And Iain

Macwhirter, do you think we have seen a template for what feels see

in the next two years? Absolutely. -- for what we will see in the next

two years. He is always basically, what he is saying about

independence does not stand up and that he is vulnerable on that but I

think this is an interesting moment in the history of this are very

successful SNP administration. This week we are beginning to see the

SNP becoming vulnerable to the kinds of mid- term pressures that

affect all governments which have been in power long time and that is

an important moment. The BBC has obtained evidence that Craig Whyte

misled HMRC. The recording of a conversation between David Greir

and that Mr Whyte shows Mr David Greir to release a misleading

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 71 seconds

statement by a Craig Whyte. This is Mark Daly is the BBC's

investigation team member who got the recording. They had been

recording, what happened next? next day, this e-mail arrived in to

Craig Whyte's in box from a hot my account purporting to belong to a

Ted Smith. This statement is unsurprising my supportive of the

job that Duff and Phelps were doing as administrators but nobody had

knowledge of the fall arrangements at the time of the acquisition of

the club but we now know that not to be true and Whyte never did

agree to make this statement and the e-mail were hidden away for a

rainy day at. So that press release was never issued? But was never

made. Is this not a rather odd situation in a legal case?

might remember that Duff and Phelps had already instituted legal

proceedings against the London legal firm, Collyer Bristow. Team

at Duff and Phelps on the left there, Paul Clark, David White

House alongside David David Greir, they want �25 million from Collyer

Bristow and they say that the deal was being quietly funded by ticket

money and that that deal effectively blocked any

consideration of a rival bid which might have netted the club's

creditors �25 million. That is where it gets interesting because

now, Collyer Bristow are preparing an action which means that if

successful, David Greir, the man we heard on the tape will be

transferred to the other side and become a defendant alongside

Collyer Bristow because they believe that he was just as

culpable for the catastrophic deal to buy ranges in as much as that he

knew that cricketers were funding the takeover. If successful, it

would result in a preposterous an area -- knew that ticket holders

were funding. Duff and Phelps brought the action in the first

place, but would be being bought out. Duff and Phelps taking action

for money against a lawyer on with dependent on the other side who

would be one of the senior partners of the company taking senior action.

They would like to bring David Greir as a co-defendant in this

action and if successful, David Greir or Duff and Phelps would end

up paying out in the end. What do Duff and Phelps say? The release a

short statement almost identical to the statement they released last

night saying that Duff and Phelps pertains that our conduct was

carried out to the highest professional standards. They do not

respond to information taken out of context and we believe that is the

case in the BBC stories. As we have said previously, were built, the --

as was said previously we welcome a look at these comments. Starting

with The Scotsman on the front pages, that a boy, 14, punched

other people to death in class. The Herald, foreign killers on the

loose and police demand action and the Financial Times leads with the