The most intriguing aspect of James Hamilton’s independent report on whether Scotland’s first minister breached the ministerial code when handling complaints about her predecessor’s behaviour towards some female staff was not its core findings — no breaches uncovered — but the two-page note he insisted on publishing beside it. In that largely overlooked warning, the Irish lawyer expressed his “deep frustration” that, in order to comply with court orders in force in Scotland to protect the identities of others involved in the Alex Salmond saga, some passages of his 61-page report were redacted by the Scottish government before its publication. Sponsored“A redacted report that effectively erases the role of any such individual in the matters investigated in the report cannot be properly understood by

Source: The Times March 24, 2021 00:01 UTC