{"id":139,"date":"2015-04-04T15:05:27","date_gmt":"2015-04-04T15:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/imadscotlandgroup.com\/blog\/?p=139"},"modified":"2015-04-04T15:07:47","modified_gmt":"2015-04-04T15:07:47","slug":"election-2015-nicola-sturgeon-hits-out-at-dirty-tricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/election-2015-nicola-sturgeon-hits-out-at-dirty-tricks\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2015: Nicola Sturgeon hits out at &#8216;dirty tricks&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Election 2015: Nicola Sturgeon hits out at &#8216;dirty tricks&#8217;<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-2015-32177315\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-2015-32177315<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\n(function(d, s, id) {  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&#038;version=v2.3\";  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-post\" data-width=\"500\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ScottishPoliticalNews\/posts\/873037086071467\">\n<div class=\"fb-xfbml-parse-ignore\">\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ScottishPoliticalNews\/posts\/873037086071467\"><p>Election 2015: Nicola Sturgeon hits out at &#8216;dirty tricks&#8217;http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-2015-32177315<\/p>\n<p>Posted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ScottishPoliticalNews\">Scottish Political News<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ScottishPoliticalNews\/posts\/873037086071467\">Saturday, April 4, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-8934562929349122\"; \/* IMAD Scotland Group 4 *\/ google_ad_slot = \"6196080842\"; google_ad_width = 728; google_ad_height = 90;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<div align=\"justifY\">\n<p>SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has accused Whitehall of &#8220;dirty tricks&#8221; after a report emerged claiming she told a French diplomat she would prefer David Cameron in No 10 over Ed Miliband.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Telegraph published a civil service memo claiming Scotland&#8217;s first minister privately said Labour&#8217;s leader was not &#8220;PM material&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Sturgeon said in a tweet the story was &#8220;categorically, 100% untrue&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She called for an &#8220;urgent inquiry&#8221; into the circumstances of the leak.<\/p>\n<p>French officials said she did not express a preference for PM.<\/p>\n<p>But Labour called the report &#8220;damning&#8221; and said that even if it was not true the &#8220;SNP are happy to see another Tory government&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Telegraph published on its website a transcript of what it says is an official British government memorandum which includes details of a private meeting between Ms Sturgeon and Sylvie Bermann, the French Ambassador to the UK.<\/p>\n<p>Included in a civil servant&#8217;s summary is the line that Ms Sturgeon would &#8220;rather see David Cameron remain as PM (and didn&#8217;t see Ed Miliband as PM material)&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Completely false&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Ms Sturgeon said: &#8220;The real issue is how a second hand and inaccurate account of this meeting &#8211; which was not even attended by the UK government &#8211; came to be written by a UK Government civil servant and then leaked to Tory-supporting newspapers at the start of a general election campaign.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It suggests a Whitehall system out of control &#8211; a place where political dirty tricks are manufactured and leaked. And the Foreign Office now appears to be denying the very existence of such a document.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The French consul general in Edinburgh, Pierre-Alain Coffinier, whose comments are claimed to have been the basis for the leaked memo, has told the BBC Ms Sturgeon did not express any preference for a leader.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Election 2015: Nicola Sturgeon hits out at &#8216;dirty tricks&#8217; http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-2015-32177315 Election 2015: Nicola Sturgeon hits out at &#8216;dirty tricks&#8217;http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/election-2015-32177315 Posted by Scottish Political News on Saturday, April 4, 2015 SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has accused Whitehall of &#8220;dirty tricks&#8221; after a report emerged claiming she told a French diplomat she would prefer David Cameron in No 10 over Ed Miliband. The Daily Telegraph published a civil service memo claiming Scotland&#8217;s first minister privately said Labour&#8217;s leader was not &#8220;PM material&#8221;. Ms Sturgeon said in a tweet the story was &#8220;categorically,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imadscotlandgroup.com\/media\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}