The UK Government official who leaked a memo claiming Nicola Sturgeon wanted David Cameron to win the general election must be sacked, the SNP’s depute leader has said.
Stewart Hosie called for the head of the person behind making public the document which reported the First Minister “confessed that she’d rather see David Cameron remain as PM” and claimed she “didn’t see Ed Miliband as PM material”.
His call came as Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael confirmed the memo was written in the Scotland Office.
Whitehall’s most senior civil servant has ordered an investigation into the matter.
Ms Sturgeon said the suggestion was “100% untrue” and the two French diplomats who were in the room with her at the time also denied the reported version of events.
Mr Hosie said: “Whether this memo is real or whether it’s been fabricated, in either event it has then been leaked from the UK Government.
“This is quite outrageous and it is self-evident that whoever has done the leaking should be sacked. I certainly hope (the inquiry) will be swift and decisive.
“We saw, the Treasury in particular, behaving less than impartially during the referendum.
“This is the opportunity for the UK Government to put the dirty tricks to bed and to find the culprits and deal with them swiftly.”
Pierre-Alain Coffinier, France’s consul general in Edinburgh, told a Sunday newspaper he had told a “friend” at the Scotland Office about the Ms Sturgeon meeting.
The row was triggered after an account of a February meeting between Ms Sturgeon and Sylvie Bermann, France’s ambassador to the UK, was leaked.
The memo was written by an unnamed UK Government official and was based on a conversation with Mr Coffinier, who had attended the meeting.
Head of the UK civil service, Sir Jeremy Heywood, said: “I instigated a Cabinet Office-led leak inquiry to establish how extracts from this document may have got into the public domain.”
A Scotland Office spokesman said: “We don’t comment on leaked documents.”
Mr Carmichael denied the leak was embarrassing for the government department, stating “this is the middle of an election campaign, these things happen”.
Asked in an interview with Channel 4 news if the “buck stops with him when it comes to the Scotland Office”, he said: “Of course as Secretary of State for Scotland I am responsible for the Scotland Office, but you know you seem to be making some fairly substantial presumptions about the role of the Scotland Office in this.
“That’s why we’re having a proper inquiry conducted by the Cabinet Office.”