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Thursday 11 February 2010

Tories two hour turn around saves Sturgeon's bacon

In Holyrood today the Scottish Conservatives have performed a spectacular two hour turn around to save their regular bedfellows, the SNP.

During First Minister's Questions, Annabel Goldie called for a statement from Nicola Sturgeon because of Nicola Sturgeon's letter of support for a convicted fraudster.

Two hours later there was then an emergency meeting of the Bureau to discuss the possibility of an emergency statement, however the SNP refused to give a statement today and it was then pushed to a vote.


The Liberal Democrats and Labour voted for the statement, but Annabel Goldie's Tories bizarrely supported the SNP therefore giving them a majority and saving Nicola Sturgeon's bacon.


It is unbelievable that in the space of two hours the Conservatives have gone from demanding a parliamentary statement, to backing down and voting with the SNP to delay it until a week on Wednesday.

It is outrageous that our MSPs have been denied the opportunity to question the Deputy First Minister on this serious matter, but it appears that eventually she will be called to account on the 24th February.

It should therefore be remembered that it was the Liberal Democrats that forced a vote on this matter and it was the Conservatives’ behaviour that prevented the statement and saved Nicola Sturgeon's bacon.

2 comments:

MekQuarrie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MekQuarrie said...

I genuinely like your perspective on this Andy. It's more to do with procedure than condemning what Ms Sturgeon did as wrong. It would be fair to say that none of us yet know the detail of why the letter was composed. There may even be issues of sub judice that we are all trampling on.
So demanding a statement asap is really dancing to the news agenda and not to the reasonable pace of parliamentary procedures. After all, if the DFM could be rushed into some 'horrifying' admission this afternoon, she could be out the door by tea time. If we wait a week the impetus may be spoiled by the obvious discovery that MPs and MSPs write similar letters all the time (including some equally important Westminster faces).

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