Sturgeon fights on ­– but at what cost?

A year ago this week Alex Salmond was acquitted on all 13 charges in his sexual assault trial. In normal times the conclusion of the most significant political trial since the Thorpe affair in 1979 would have dominated the news for weeks. Instead, the story was overshadowed by the start of the UK’s first lockdown. But the aftershocks of this trial continue to rock politics in Scotland and beyond.

A Holyrood committee this week concluded that Nicola Sturgeon had misled it regarding her conversation with Salmond at her house about the Scottish government’s inquiry into him. The committee, which has a pro-independence majority but not an SNP one, decided this by majority vote. It was also sceptical of her claim that she had no suspicions about Salmond’s behaviour before November 2017. But a separate inquiry by the former Irish director of public prosecutions James Hamilton cleared Sturgeon of breaking the Scottish ministerial code, which he is an independent adviser on.