Political pressure is building for justice secretarypublished at 11:53 GMT
11:53 GMT
Phil Sim
Scotland political correspondent
You don’t have to look far for clues about what might come up
at FMQs this week, given both the Conservative and Labour leaders were
posting messages last night calling for the justice secretary to be sacked.
The question is over whether Angela Constance misrepresented
her dealings with the grooming gangs expert Prof Alexis Jay, and in doing so
misled parliament.
The answer lies somewhere in a tangled web of
correspondence, which the opposition say is cast iron evidence of wrongdoing
and the government insists shows this is a matter of interpretation.
The point is perhaps the bigger picture, given this is a
highly sensitive issue about child safeguarding – hardly the topic for
political point-scoring and squabbling.
But political pressure is building. The Conservatives have
been banging the drum on this for some time, but it’s notable that Labour have
decided to jump on board.
The party was badly burned a while back when it attempted to
oust the then-housing minister Paul McLennan, and were left hanging when others
failed to rally behind them.
That underlined that you don’t want to spend too much
political capital on a doomed attempt to dislodge a minister – indeed you could
end up strengthening their position, if you push a vote of no confidence that
fails.
John Swinney is known for being very loyal to his team, and
the first minister was stony-faced when opposition MSPs were calling for
Constance to go yesterday – he will be braced for further attacks today.