{"id":626415,"date":"2025-12-11T14:24:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T14:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626415\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T14:24:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T14:24:25","slug":"swinney-faces-call-for-justice-secretary-to-be-sacked-over-grooming-gangs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/626415\/","title":{"rendered":"Swinney faces call for justice secretary to be sacked over grooming gangs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/analysis.77b314ef10.svg\" alt=\"Analysis\" draggable=\"false\" class=\"ssrcss-to2z4d-ContributorImageComponent e2hr5uu0\"\/>Political pressure is building for justice secretarypublished at 11:53 GMT<\/p>\n<p>11:53 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/03d99cb6-a5de-4492-993c-b613bbf2581f.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><strong>Phil Sim<\/strong><br \/>Scotland political correspondent<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">You don\u2019t have to look far for clues about what might come up<br \/>\nat FMQs this week, given both the Conservative and Labour leaders were<br \/>\nposting messages last night calling for the justice secretary to be sacked.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The question is over whether Angela Constance misrepresented<br \/>\nher dealings with the grooming gangs expert Prof Alexis Jay, and in doing so<br \/>\nmisled parliament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The answer lies somewhere in a tangled web of<br \/>\ncorrespondence, which the opposition say is cast iron evidence of wrongdoing<br \/>\nand the government insists shows this is a matter of interpretation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The point is perhaps the bigger picture, given this is a<br \/>\nhighly sensitive issue about child safeguarding \u2013 hardly the topic for<br \/>\npolitical point-scoring and squabbling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But political pressure is building. The Conservatives have<br \/>\nbeen banging the drum on this for some time, but it\u2019s notable that Labour have<br \/>\ndecided to jump on board.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The party was badly burned a while back when it attempted to<br \/>\noust the then-housing minister Paul McLennan, and were left hanging when others<br \/>\nfailed to rally behind them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That underlined that you don\u2019t want to spend too much<br \/>\npolitical capital on a doomed attempt to dislodge a minister \u2013 indeed you could<br \/>\nend up strengthening their position, if you push a vote of no confidence that<br \/>\nfails.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">John Swinney is known for being very loyal to his team, and<br \/>\nthe first minister was stony-faced when opposition MSPs were calling for<br \/>\nConstance to go yesterday \u2013 he will be braced for further attacks today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Political pressure is building for justice secretarypublished at 11:53 GMT 11:53 GMT Phil SimScotland political correspondent You don\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-626415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115701395530809114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}