NICOLA Sturgeon has failed to back her party deputy Stewart Hosie who has become embroiled in a sex scandal that has seen him separate from his wife.
The First Minster was asked three times whether she had confidence in Mr Hosie following revelations about an affair with a former actress but replied only that it was a “private matter”.
However, during her reappointment as First Minister in the Holyrood chamber, she publicly embraced Mr Hosie’s estranged wife, Health Secretary Shona Robison, in an apparent display of support.
The two politicians – who are understood to be close friends – sat next to each other as Ms Sturgeon was re-elected as First Minister by MSPs and hugged shortly after.
Later, during an impromptu press briefing in a lift, Ms Sturgeon was repeatedly asked if Mr Hosie retained her full support both as deputy leader of the SNP and as director of the party’s planned independence push this summer.
She replied each time that the issue was a “private matter”.
On his deputy leadership, however, she added: “He’s elected as deputy leader of the party.”
Eventually she retreated after pleas from aides.
With her parents and family watching from the gallery at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon’s reappointment as First Minister with her own mandate should have been one of the proudest moments of her career.
Read more: Herald View - Fallout from SNP sex scandal could be damaging
But she awoke to damaging headlines accusing two of the SNP’s most senior members of having affairs with the same woman.
A former actress turned journalist, Serena Cowdy, 36, was alleged to have been in a relationship with Mr Hosie for several months but had previously been involved with SNP MP Angus MacNeil during the Scottish independence referendum. Mr MacNeil separated from his wife last summer.
On Ms Cowdy’s political blog she predicted that Scottish independence would inevitably occur and jokingly described herself as a “nut magnet”.
In a separate post, she wrote: “If there’s someone who is in any way eccentric, unstable, drunk, on drugs, or otherwise misfiring socially, you can absolutely guarantee they will gravitate towards me.”
It has been alleged that during their affair Mr MacNeil invited Ms Cowdy to the Park Plaza hotel in London’s Waterloo, prompting opposition parties to demand answers over whether the MP’s hotel bills were picked up by the taxpayer.
Mr MacNeil was forced to pay back £900 in expenses earlier this year after claiming more than £250-a-night for hotel rooms.
Read more: Stewart Hosie's independence role questioned
Last night the SNP said that his accommodation had nothing to do with allegations of an affair, adding: “To suggest any financial impropriety is totally wrong.”
Mr MacNeil’s wife, Jane, had previously stood by him a decade ago after it emerged he had spent a night with two teenage girls in a hotel room while she was pregnant.
Both Mr MacNeil and Mr Hosie have denied claims they clashed in a Commons bar in recent months.
As SNP MPs arrived for their AGM at Westminster last night, Mr MacNeil said: “I don’t like to comment on my personal life or related tabloid stories but my marriage ended for very different reasons to what was suggested in lurid newspaper stories.
“For the record, as if I even need to say, I have never had so much as a cross word with Stewart Hosie.”
The SNP block of MPs then showed their support for Mr Hosie by unanimously re-appointing him the Westminster group deputy leader.
Angus Robertson MP, SNP’s Parliamentary Group Leader at Westminster, said the party would "continue to be a strong and effective, united opposition at Westminster".
But one SNP MP earlier questioned whether Mr Hosie could survive as deputy leader of the party if the controversy persisted.
“It might be difficult for Stewart, if the headlines carry on,” he said.
Party sources said that overnight guests staying in MPs’ hotel rooms did not incur any extra cost to the taxpayer.
MPs are not required to register guests with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body set up to scrutinise MPs expenses after the 2009 scandal.
A Labour source said: “There are serious questions to answer here about any potential misuse of taxpayer funds by two of the most senior figures in the SNP.
“The SNP told us they would be stronger for Scotland in the House of Commons, but it turns out they have simply be an embarrassment to Scotland. People will be losing count of the number of SNP MPs who have caused a headache for Nicola Sturgeon.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: “Any potential misuse of taxpayers’ cash has to be investigated.
“It would appear this SNP MP has at least got some questions to answer on this matter.”
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