SNP politicians wasted little time in condemning Boris Johnson for his calculated Jimmy Savile slur on Sir Keir Starmer last week.
They were led by Nicola Sturgeon who, interviewed on Sky News yesterday, said: “If he has a single shred of decency, he will withdraw the comments that he made completely and he will fully, unreservedly, unequivocally apologise to Keir Starmer and he will join others in saying that we should hold each other to account, we should have robust debate in a democracy, but we should all draw the line at bringing the smear and the lies and the conspiracy theories of the far right and the other trolls that populate social media into the mainstream of our democracy.”
The First Minister even went as far as to suggest that Johnson “knew what he was doing” when he falsely linked Keir Starmer with the failure to prosecute Savile, a predatory paedophile.
Ms Sturgeon was probably correct in her assumption that this was no off-the-cuff line, but a remark designed to damage Mr Starmer grievously.
But it interesting that she was so quick to defend Mr Starmer when, as the leader of the SNP, there is a prominent figure within her own party who she has repeatedly refused to stand up for.
To read the rest of this analysis, sign up to The Herald's political newsletter, Unspun, for FREE and get unrivalled political analysis in your inbox every day at 6pm.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article