Sir Peter Housden and the SNP’s desperate hypocrisy

The SNP have dismissed the growing row over Sir Peter Housden as an "absurd gripe" and accused the opposition parties of engaging in "silly stunts".

A Scottish Conservative Spokesperson said:

"Maybe the SNP should have checked what they parroted in opposition before resorting to desperate hypocrisy."

Below are extracts from three Herald/Sunday Herald articles in the early years of devolution.

1) January 1999

THE Scottish Office last night denied civil servants were effectively drawing up Labour's election manifesto ahead of the Holyrood elections, writes Annette McCann.

It followed a scathing attack by the SNP which is to make a formal protest to the Cabinet Office and the head of the Scottish Office, Mr Muir Russell, over the issue.

The SNP's chief executive, Mr Mike Russell, had accused the Labour Party of abusing the independence of the Civil Service by using its huge machinery to promote a raft of policies on health, education and law and order ahead of the elections in May.

He added: "The Scottish Office has a series of announcements planned on Government initiatives which are basically Labour's offering to the Scottish Parliament elections. The entire might of the Civil Service is being used here and it poses a huge question of democracy."

The controversy was sparked by the Scottish Office's decision to go ahead with the detailed proposals on land reform unveiled last week.

A Scottish Office spokesman said last night : "The Civil Service is not in any way involved in the drawing-up of the Labour manifesto." He said the land reform announcement was a statement of Government policy and the final report of the land reform policy group.

2) March 2001:

As pressure on Miss Alexander grew, the Scottish National Party accused her of breaking the ministerial code of conduct, which states that "civil servants should not be asked to engage in activities likely to call into question their political impartiality".

Kenny MacAskill, SNP enterprise spokesman, said: "This is an extremely serious issue which must be subject to a full and thorough investigation. There can be no whitewash. These allegations of misconduct are in clear breach of the Scottish Executive's ministerial code, which require high standards of personal conduct and upholding the impartiality of the civil service."

3) June 2002:

SNP leader John Swinney last week pledged to cut the size of Scottish government, as Tory leader David McLetchie has already done. Fiona Hyslop, the SNP business manager, put the blame for this latest Executive spat on the First Minister: "This is the last desperate excuse of a man who has been caught red-handed. He is blaming his officials, who can't defend themselves publicly, to try to avoid blame for Labour's politicisation of the civil service."

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