The sleaze row is now kicking off north of the border, with Scottish Labour accusing Nicola Sturgeon of cronyism for hosting a book launch event with Val McDermid at Bute House back in June 2019. Speaking this morning, Scottish Labour’s Deputy Spokesperson on Parliamentary Business
Neil Bibby claimed:

“[This] poses very serious questions for the First Minister, [and] raises the spectre of cronyism at the heart of the Scottish political establishment. We urgently need the First Minister to come clean and provide answers over this serious matter. We need to know if the First Minister adhered to the Ministerial Code, whether it is common practice to use Bute House in this manner and where the cost for this event fell.”

The Scottish Ministerial Code states that events hosted in the First Minister’s official residence “should be at [the minister’s] or at party expense, with no cost falling on the public purse“. Both McDermid and Sturgeon immediately pushed back, with McDermid insisting that the event “was paid for in its entirety – room hire, staff costs, drinks and canapes – by my publisher, Little, Brown and Company,” and she “imagine[s] the Scottish Government made a profit on the night.” Sturgeon’s spokesperson added that Bibby’s comments were “utterly pathetic“. Oddly enough, the Scottish Government have been less talkative about the fraud probe into Sturgeon’s own book publisher…