Another of our stories is missing

  

The extraordinary civil war in the SNP between supporters of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon is proving gripping if nothing else, and now has the potential to bring down the previously all-conquering Scottish First Minister. 

As my favourite commenter on Scottish politics, Effie Deans, notes today though:

If the Salmond Scandal had happened in England it would be headline news on the BBC every day.

So far this year, it's made BBC news bulletins just twice - once on 8 January (when it got less than 2 minutes) and once last night (where it got 25 seconds) and - Newsnight hasn't covered it at all. 

Indeed, Lewis Goodall, who hyperactively tweets about every possible hint of scandal involving the Westminster government, remains resolutely uninterested in the story. He's tweeted nothing specifically about Mr Salmond since 24 Jan 2019: 

Wow. 14 counts against Alex Salmond. 9 sexual assaults. 2 attempted rapes. 1 breach of the peace. 2 indecent assaults. If these prove to be true, there are huge questions about how much, if anything, was to known to his SNP colleagues and those in the wider Scottish govt.

If those questions were "huge" then, now they're surely even bigger, given that "how much, if anything, was known" to Nicola Sturgeon is only the starting point. An even bigger question is: What there a conspiracy against Mr Salmond? And: Has there been a cover-up? Given that Lewis regularly travels up to the Scotland to report for Newsnight, why isn't he reporting on them now?

(Just to add to my point, he's retweeting stuff today about the Welsh Tory leader resigning after a Covid-busting booze-up). 

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UPDATE: Blimey, even Nick Robinson seems to see there's an issue here: 

Was there a cover up of what was known about sexual harassment allegations ? This is an extraordinary story about a war between the two leading figures in the drive for Scottish independence. Imagine how big it would be if it was about, say, Johnson & May. 

The top-rated reply reads:

This is a much bigger story about government corruption on an unprecedented scale Nick. Scottish media outlets silenced, pro indy quangos all over the place, misuse of data, grant based organisations government criticism bought off, Covid politicised. You guys have gone AWOL.  

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P.S. More from Effie Deans: 

We pay top BBC journalists hundreds of thousands of pounds to find out things. Not one of them has contributed to the revelations about Salmond and Sturgeon.