THE Westminster Establishment is in a "panic", the SNP has claimed, as Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael confirmed that the leaked memo about Nicola Sturgeon's private meeting with the French ambassador emanated from the Scotland Office.

 

The Secretary of State denied the leak was embarrassing for his government office, stressing: "This is the middle of an election campaign; these things happen."

But the fact the memo was composed either in the Scotland Office's base in Edinburgh or London will only fuel suspicions for some that it was a politically-inspired act meant to damage the First Minister and the SNP.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has ordered an inquiry into how the note - which claims that Ms Sturgeon told ambassador Sylvie Bermann that she would prefer to see David Cameron remain in power after the General Election - got into the public domain.

The FM has described the allegation as ''100 per cent untrue'' while French officials said Ms Sturgeon did not express a preference for prime minister.

A Cabinet Office source could not say whether Sir Jeremy would produce the result of his leak inquiry before or after polling day, noting: "At the moment, we can't say anything on timeframes."

At the weekend, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, France's consul general in Edinburgh, admitted to telling a Scotland Office official about the FM's meeting with the French ambassador.

He denied it was Scotland Office Director Francesca Osowska but admitted it was "one of her colleagues", declining to say who.

Told other parts of the UK Government were blaming the Scotland Office, he replied: "I'm not going to help them to get one of my friends - because these people are my friends - to help pin it down on him or her."

Mr Carmichael confirmed the memo was written at the Scotland Office.

He admitted the buck stopped with him because he was responsible for the department but cautioned that people appeared to be making "some fairly substantial presumptions about the role of the Scotland Office in this".

He stressed: "That's why we're having a proper inquiry conducted by the Cabinet Office."

Asked if the incident was embarrassing for him and the Scotland Office, Mr Carmichael replied: "No. Look, this is the middle of an election campaign; these things happen.

"I understand that the memo in question did actually come from the Scotland Office but these things are circulated within government."

The memo was written by a British civil servant following a conversation with Mr Coffinier about Ms Sturgeon's meeting with Ambassador Bermann, who was on her first visit to Scotland in February.

The leaked memo said: ''Discussion appears to have focused mainly on the political situation with the FM stating that she wouldn't want a formal coalition with Labour; that the SNP would almost certainly have a large number of seats... that she'd rather see David Cameron remain as PM.''

The note went on to say the FM had said she did not think Labour leader Ed Miliband was ''prime minister material''.

Stewart Hosie, the Nationalists' deputy leader, said "As the Westminster Establishment kicks into panic mode, they will pull out all the stops to halt the SNP.

"Their dirty tricks and actions to promote a lie published in Tory-supporting newspapers shows the lengths they will go to in order to protect the broken political system they hold dear," he added.

Claims of dirty tricks against Whitehall are nothing new. They were raised most vociferously during the referendum campaign when Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the Treasury's Permanent Secretary, unexpectedly made public his advice against the Scottish Government's central plan for a currency union in the event of a Yes vote.

In January in a lecture, the mandarin defended his decision to breach the civil service rule on impartiality, saying that in such an "extreme" case as last September's referendum, in which people were "seeking to destroy the fabric of the state" and to "impugn its territorial integrity", the normal Civil Services rules did not apply.

In another claim of dirty tricks during the referendum, Alex Salmond, the then First Minister, responded with fury when a memo was released suggesting Royal Bank of Scotland would relocate south of the border in the event of a Yes vote. It transpired the memo was released by the Treasury to the BBC before the bank's board had fully discussed the market-sensitive issue.