What is it with separatist health secretaries claiming from the public purse for the footie? First there was the £11,000 iPad scandal, which caused a headache for hapless Humza Yousaf and pushed former SNP health secretary Michael Matheson out of his government job. Now his successor Neil Gray is in the spotlight after the Sunday Mail revealed that the nationalist minister had been using ministerial cars to take him to sports matches. Alright for some!
It transpired that Aberdeen FC-fan Gray had been chauffeured to three cup games at the national stadium, as well as a Pittodrie league match. The newest SNP health secretary declared his excursions in line with official guidance, logging two of the games as meetings with the Scottish Football Association on the ‘social impact’ of sports investment while the other two were simply listed under ‘sport’. Yet while Gray’s fellow MSP and net zero secretary Gillian Martin was quick to defend her colleague – telling BBC Radio Scotland the trips were ‘in line with his government duties’ – not everyone is convinced…
The Scottish Tories are calling for a Holyrood statement from Gray himself over the revelations, with deputy party leader Rachael Hamilton demanding that the Nat ‘must explain the full facts of what he’s done to the Scottish parliament and let the public judge for themselves’. She went on:
The SNP’s shoddy excuses are making Neil Gray’s chauffeur scandal look a lot like the Michael Matheson affair. The thing that really bothers the public is the SNP’s secrecy and hypocrisy – nationalist politicians are the first to cry foul but the last to accept they’ve done anything wrong. The SNP hammered Labour politicians for accepting donations for high-end clothes and all sorts of gifts, yet they don’t say much when it’s one of their own.
It’s not like the bastion of openness and transparency that is the SNP to be hypocritical, surely? After he dipped into the public purse to pay for his iPad roaming bill, Michael Matheson took over six months to address Holyrood about the matter – and was tripped up spectacularly by the media in the meantime. Perhaps giving in to the Tories’ demands and nipping this matter in the bud sharpish would be a smart move by Gray. Watch this space…
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