NICOLA Sturgeon is tomorrow set to confront the man who allegedly cheated on her best friend in the ‘SNP love triangle’ that has convulsed Westminster.
The First Minister is due to come eyeball to eyeball with SNP deputy leader Stewart Hosie at a scheduled meeting with her MPs at the House of Commons.
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The afternoon gathering is also supposed to feature a group photograph marking a year since the SNP’s general election triumph.
However the mood is expected to tense rather than celebratory given Hosie’s alleged affair with 36-year-old former actress Serena Cowdy and his split from wife Shona Robison.
Sturgeon has described Robison, the health secretary, as “one of my closest friends and colleagues”.
The weekly MPs meeting normally takes place on a Tuesday but has been brought forward a day for Sturgeon, who will also meet the new London Mayor Sadiq Khan during her visit.
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“Nicola is feeling let down,” said an SNP source, referring to her close friendship with Robison. “They go back a long way. So she’ll be cold and distant towards Hosie, and that’s putting it mildly.”
It was reported last Tuesday that both Hosie, 53, the MP for Dundee East, and Angus Brendan MacNeil, 45, MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, had had affairs with Cowdy.
MacNeil, who separated from his wife Jane last year, was reported to have had an affair with the Oxford-educated part-time journalist during the independence referendum.
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Cowdy was then reported to have then embarked on an affair with Hosie.
He and Robison announced their separation last weekend, and a London-based tabloid splashed the story under the headline “Two SNP MPS in Commons Love Triangle” on Tuesday.
It reported Cowdy, a freelance writer on Westminster’s House magazine, viewed SNP MPs as romantic revolutionaries and called them “the Mujahideen of British politicians”.
Cowdy also described herself as a “bona fide nut magnet”, attracting those who are “in any way eccentric, unstable, drunk, on drugs, or otherwise misfiring socially”.
Other embarrassing details included Hosie’s preference for white Marks & Spencer Y-fronts. Sources close to the MP say is now a “broken man”.
Although the SNP insists the matter is private, because of the powerful people involved it threatens to destabilise the previously close relationships at the top of the SNP.
On the day the story broke, the First Minister gave Robison a public show of support by hugging her in the Holyrood chamber.
Shortly afterwards Sturgeon also refused to say if she had confidence in Hosie.
Besides being deputy party leader, Hosie is also in charge of the SNP’s high-profile “summer initiative” on independence.
Sturgeon refused to say if she had confidence in him in either role, saying it was a “private matter”, but pointed out he was “elected” as deputy leader, meaning she couldn’t sack him.
Later that day, Hosie was re-elected as deputy leader of the SNP Westminster group - though not because he was a popular choice among MPs, but because he was unopposed.
“People hate him because he’s arrogant. He’s an awful human being,” said one SNP insider.
The source said Hosie’s role leading the summer initiative on independence was now in doubt, given his loss of reputation and credibility.
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“Nicola would never have appointed him to the role if she’d known he was running around doing what he was doing. If his wife can’t trust him, why should the public or the party?”
On Friday, Hosie and Robison were forced to cross paths at their shared office in Dundee.
Robison, 50, the MSP for Dundee City East, was photographed arriving for her weekly constituency surgery at Glamis Road at noon, followed 15 minutes later by Hosie.
The pair spent around an hour inside before leaving separately.
Both said they would continue to serve their constituents as normal.
Labour MP Graham Jones and Tory MSP Jackson Carlaw last week asked Commons watchdogs to investigate the expense claims of the two MPs, after reports MacNeil had claimed thousands of pounds in expenses for hotel rooms during his affair with Cowdy, while renting out a flat he owns in London.
The SNP say all the expenses were legitimate and there was no extra cost to taxpayers.
