ALEX Salmond and others seem keen to accuse Nicola Sturgeon of breaching the Scottish ministerial code. The Scottish Tories seem keen to press the point home. Evidently the latter are oblivious to the fact that if such a code was enforced in Westminster, their boss Boris Johnson would be long out of office by now, on account of a whole bookful of breaches, according to an article on Peter Oborne’s new book (Unionist journalist says Johnson’s lying is a threat to politics, February 28).

READ MORE: Unionist journalist says Boris Johnson’s lying is a threat to politics

Nicola is apparently accused of failing to remember the difference, maybe, between two meetings three days apart, a year earlier, when her whole world-view must have been turned upside down by the emotionally devastating revelations. Boris by contrast could be – but has not been – accused of a long string of statements which were carelessly, or deliberately, or both, statements of “the thing which is not”.

Douglas Ross, if nothing else, must at least be intelligent enough to see the ironic contrast there, and to be shamed by it.

Derek Ball
Bearsden