Salmond needs to come clean in BBC row by publishing e-mails

The Scottish Conservatives are urging the First Minister to publish all the e-mail exchanges between his office and the BBC after he was told he could not appear on the broadcaster's coverage of Saturday's Six Nations match between Scotland and England.

Alex Salmond described it as the kind of decision made by a tin-pot dictatorship populated by 'gauleiters' – which, according to the Chambers dictionary is a Nazi official.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson challenged him to apologise for the slur during First Minister's Questions on Thursday and concentrate instead on preventing jobs cuts at the BBC in Scotland - but he refused.

Alex Salmond had claimed that he was approached by the BBC to help with their coverage of the Murrayfield match.

However, it emerged that it was in fact the First Minister's office which approached the broadcaster not once, but three times about appearing as a pundit for BBC radio and TV.

The BBC said its decision not to include Alex Salmond in its coverage was based on its obligation to ensure impartiality across the UK network within the context of May's local council elections.

However, the First Minister still chose to complain about his treatment during a meeting with Lord Patten, head of the BBC Trust, which had been arranged to originally discuss job losses.

Ruth Davidson said:

"It's now time that Alex Salmond came clean and published all correspondence, including emails, between his office and the BBC so we can put an end to this petty sideshow.

"The First Minister was selective in his definition of a 'gauleiter' in the Holyrood chamber on Thursday, so let's hope he is not being selective in the emails he has so far made public to try and justify his blustering.

"Alex Salmond seems to be suffering from some kind of persecution complex and is under the misguided impression that he is the new voice of rugby.

"His bullying behaviour demeans the office of the First Minister.

"Rather than use every minute of his meeting with Lord Patten to save Scottish jobs Alex Salmond was more intent on hijacking the discussion to talk about his bruised ego.

"Alex Salmond needs to realise that Scotland's future is more important than his self-promotion and the quicker he realises this, the quicker we can have a mature debate about whether Scotland remains a part of the UK."

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