A top spin doctor to the First Minister was still in a job last night – despite an admission that he breached its governing regulations.
Campbell Gunn was forced to apologise after he sent an e-mail to a journalist making false claims about Clare Lally who spoke out against independence at a Better Together rally.
Mr Gunn said the mother of seven-year-old twins – one of whom has cerebral palsy and requires constant care – was not a “regular mum” as she had claimed, but a Labour activist and daughter-in-law of Pat Lally, a former Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow.
In fact, Ms Lally, a former holder of the mother-of-the-year title, is an adviser on carers to the Scottish Labour shadow cabinet – but is not related to Mr Lally.
Alex Salmond stood by Mr Gunn yesterday as opposition leaders demanded he pay for the mistake.
The special advisers code of conduct states that anyone found preparing or disseminating “inappropriate material or personal attacks” will be “automatically dismissed” by the appointing minister, which in this case is Mr Salmond.
A spokesman for Mr Salmond described Mr Gunn’s e-mail as “nothing more or less than an aside, a written rather than a verbal aside”, adding: “It could be inferred that Campbell was implying that the views of Ms Lally were in some way not to be taken into account.”
Asked if Mr Gunn’s e-mail was appropriate, he said: “Clearly not.”
However, when Mr Salmond was pressed on the issue he said Mr Gunn was “guilty of a mistake and a misjudgement” for which he had apologised.
“He was not guilty of disseminating inappropriate material in terms of the special adviser code,” he said.
He told opposition leaders the code was introduced after the resignation of Gordon Brown’s special adviser Damian McBride, who resigned after being caught spreading information on the internet and making up stories about opposition politicians.
He said Mr Gunn’s e-mail pointed out that Ms Lally was in the Labour shadow cabinet and “wrongly” suggested she was the daughter-in-law of Pat Lally.
“Is anyone seriously saying that that e-mail is equivalent to the activities of Damian McBride? It is nonsense to suggest so,” he said.