The Labour leader, Ed Milliband, has attacked First Minister, Alex Salmond's relationship with newspapers boss, Rupert Murdoch.
Milliband was speaking at the Scottish Labour conference yesterday. And he referred to revelations this week at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, which saw the head of a police investigation into illegal payments to public officials say: “There appears to have been a culture at [the Murdoch-owned] The Sun of illegal payments, and systems have been created to facilitate such payments whilst hiding the identity of the officials receiving the money.”
Said Milliband: “This week’s revelations represent a new low – corporate corruption on an unprecedented scale. For all those, like me, who believe in a free press, the revelations have done profound damage to the reputation of British journalism.
“And what was Alex Salmond doing? Was he making a speech calling for change? Was he saying that News International needed to clean up its act? Was he supporting the Leveson inquiry? No.
“He said nothing about these issues.”
The comments are prominently reported in today's Herald. They are given side panel treatment in a double-page, conference spread in the Daily Record. Also this week, Salmond and Murdoch met.
And, continued Milliband: “If you want to make Scotland a progressive beacon, if you want to be a progressive beacon you have to speak truth to power. And Alex Salmond: You have comprehensively failed that test.”
