“Politician in lying shame.” It’s not a headline which is likely to make many people pick up a newspaper, or indeed click a link on a news website.
We are constantly being told that our MPs and MSPs cannot be trusted, are only in it for the money/power/glory/expenses anyway, aren’t we?
And, despite the fact most of our representatives are actually decent people, it’s not like no other politician has ever spat lies through gritted teeth. Some aren’t even that remorseful.
So why does it matter so much that Alistair Carmichael told, as ruled by a special election court, a “blatant lie” after being complicit in leaking a briefing note about Nicola Sturgeon?
It turned out the memo about the First Minister was inaccurate but the former Scottish Secretary did not write it. It was a civil servant who had no axe to grind, unlike the Lib Dem MP and his ex-special adviser who passed it to the press.
Crucial to all this is the fact that Carmichael hung on to his seat despite the SNP’s landslide in May’s general election. Apparently a democratic vote should be overturned if it turns out the winning candidate fibbed.
Shall we prepare our courts for the rest of them now? I don’t recall foamy-mouthed calls for Alex Salmond to quit after he claimed to have sought legal advice on an independent Scotland’s membership of the EU, which was subsequently found not to exist.
The former First Minister was cleared of breaching the ministerial code. Just as Carmichael was cleared by the Edinburgh court.
There will be electoral repercussions from this. Life will now be mighty tough for Lib Dem MSPs Tavish Scott and Liam McArthur ahead of next year’s Holyrood election.
But that’s fair game. That’s politics. Not chasing people vindictively through the courts.
Except in the most serious of criminal cases, we hold our politicians to account at the ballot box. That’s quite rightly how it should continue.