FIRST MINISTER FORCED TO DEFEND GOVT CREDIBILITY OVER SALMOND CLAIMS

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was left fuming after she was forced to defend the Scottish Government's credibility on Covid messages as a result of repeated "conspiracy" claims made by Alex Salmond.

Ms Sturgeon's coronavirus briefing was interrupted on Wednesday by Peter Smith from ITV, who took the liberty to loosely tie his questions about Salmond's latest claims in with Covid briefings in order to validate him straying into a public health briefing.

Smith demanded that the First Minister answer on whether the "serious allegations" from Salmond, a former First Minister, was "undermining trust" in the government's coronavirus message.

Salmond was due to appear before a Holyrood committee yesterday investigating the government's handling of harassment complaints made against him, but opted to once again refuse to appear because he said he'd prefer the committee to question him on certain aspects of the hearing, the contents of which had been produced by Salmond himself.

In doing so, he opted to be asked questions that could possibly lead to prosecution proceedings by the crown office and so a small part of the newly chosen evidence was redacted. The parliamentary committee said they had bent over backwards to accommodate Salmond to get him in a seat infront of them, but he had once again opted to fail to appear, citing some new facet of conspiracy against him.

Ms Sturgeon robustly defended her position and once again asserted that she is eager to get herself infront of the committee so she can "directly refute the outlandish claims made about her and the government". You can view the video here. >>