Dani Garavelli

In her appearance before the committee, on 3 March, Nicola Sturgeon presented her memory lapses and the discrepancies in her testimony as the result of her distress over Salmond’s behaviour; he was ‘somebody that was a really close friend of mine, that I cared about’. Murdo Fraser, a Conservative MSP, asked her whether she owed the Scottish people an apology for asking them to trust Salmond. She replied that it was unreasonable to expect her to be responsible for his behaviour. Sturgeon was right to highlight the fact that women are often held accountable for men’s bad behaviour, but there is a thin line between pointing out Salmond’s flaws, and the use of them as a shield against criticisms of her own administration’s shortcomings.