NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of “lashing out” in a bid to distract from her Government’s secrecy and failings over the Alex Salmond affair.

Holyrood Tory leader Ruth Davidson claimed the First Minister had only made herself look weaker by reacting angrily to “serious questions of substance”.

The row blew up after the two leaders clashed at FMQs the day after Ms Sturgeon’s marathon evidence session before the Holyrood inquiry into the Salmond affair.

Ms Sturgeon said the Tories wanted to put “desperate political games” ahead of everything else, while she just wanted to get back to dealing with the pandemic.

Ms Davidson accused the First Minister of breaking the Scottish Ministerial Code, adding “the argument is only about how badly she broke it”.

The inquiry is looking into how the Scottish Government botched a probe into sexual misconduct claims made against Mr Salmond in 2018, an exercised "tainted by appparent bias" which he had overturned in court.

On Tuesday, after months of demands from the inquiry and two votes of parliament, the Government finally released some of the legal advice behind its doomed defence of Mr Salmond’s successful judicial review.

It showed external lawyers warned of serious problems in the case two months before the Government conceded it in January 2019, and their “extreme professional embarrassment” at the late disclosure of documents by the Government.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon promises not to delay report on whether she lied to Holyrood

This led counsel, through no fault of their own, making untrue statements to the court and hastening the collapse of the Government’s case.

At FMQ, Ms Davidson said the First Minister had “dug her heels in” and refused to concede in spite of the warnings.

“Will she tell us why the Government tried for so long to defend what her own legal counsel called ‘the indefensible’?” she asked.

Ms Sturgeon said that was “simply not true” and that the Government’s own law officers had been saying there was “no question” of dropping the case as late as December 11, 2018.

She said: “Things started to go seriously wrong in the case in the days that followed. 

“Due process was followed and that led to a decision by the Government to concede the case. That is there for anyone with an open mind to look at.

“I answered questions on this for eight hours yesterday.

"I answered every question that was put to me.

"I intend to rest on that now and to allow both the committee and the inquiry on the ministerial code to conclude their work.

“In the meantime, I will get on with the job that I suspect most people watching now at home want me to get on with, which is leading the country through and out of a pandemic. 

“I will leave Ruth Davidson and the Conservatives to play the political games that they seem to prioritise over everything else.”

READ MORE: John Swinney suggests blocking Alex Salmond inquiry information is helping MSPs

Ms Davdison said: “The First Minister characterises this as ‘political games, but I have never forgotten the women at the heart of the inquiry, who were failed. 

“The First Minister cannot get away from the fact that it was her Government that failed them and that questions still require to be answered.”

Reading out extracts of the legal advice in which external counsel complained about the Government’s “inexplicable” failure to hand over documents, she asked: “Will she confirm that the withheld documents were precisely the ones that made the case unstatable?”

The First Minister hit back: “I will agree with something that Ruth Davidson said.

“I agree that she has not forgotten the women at the heart of this, because I do not think that Ruth Davidson ever remembered the women at the heart of this.

“The legal advice is there for everyone to see. People with open minds, which does not include Ruth Davidson, can look at that. 

“I gave eight hours of evidence at the committee and it is time to allow the committee and the independent inquiry into the ministerial code to do their jobs. In the meantime, I am going to get on with my job of leading the country through Covid and out of lockdown.”

Ms Davidson pressed on: “We have every right to question a First Minister, who is the head of a Government and who failed those two women.

"I want everyone to understand how incompetent and secretive the Government is.

“Why was the crucial evidence withheld for months from the Government’s own legal team?”

Ms Sturgeon replied: “The case ultimately collapsed because information came to light. 

“I set that out in the committee yesterday, and people can judge by looking at the advice that was published themselves. 

“However, I gently point out to Ruth Davidson that this democratic institution that she extols the virtues of is the same democratic institution that she is about to leave to take up a seat in the unelected House of Lords. 

“People across this country are becoming heartily sick of the soon-to-be Baroness Davidson lecturing anybody else on democracy.”

READ MORE: Tom Gordon - The Salmond rollercoaster may be coming to a halt

Ms Davidson said: “There is no argument that the First Minister was at fault for losing more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money; the argument is only about how much she is to blame for it. There is no argument that Nicola Sturgeon broke the ministerial code; the argument is only about how badly she broke it. 

“We believe that the sanction is for her to go—why doesn’t she?”

Ms Sturgeon again brought up Ms Davidson’s plan to quit Holyrood at the election.

She said: “She has just prejudged the outcome of the independent inquiry into the ministerial code. This is just about desperate political games for the Conservatives.

“I will get on with my job. I will let the inquiries do their jobs.

“In a few weeks, I will also subject myself to the ultimate scrutiny: the scrutiny and the verdict of the people of Scotland, which is the verdict that matters most. 

“As I do so, Ruth Davidson will be slinking off to the House of Lords.”

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar told FMQs the exchanges between the two other leaders “represent the worst of our politics”, and contrasted them with the words inscribed on the mace in the Holyrood chamber, wisdom, compassion, justice and integrity.

Ms Davidson said later: “The mask slipped today. The more Nicola Sturgeon lashes out wildly at serious questions of substance, the weaker her arguments look.

“The First Minister gave no answers, not a single one, to explain why the government continued to defend the indefensible for so long.

“The secrecy and incompetence from Nicola Sturgeon’s government is astounding. 

“Government lawyers wouldn’t have been forced to threaten their resignations, just to get the government to finally concede the doomed case, after months of wasted time and a fortune of public money down the drain.

“The only credible sanction for such a reckless and avoidable waste of taxpayers’ money is losing her job.”