Nicola Sturgeon denies Alex Salmond war is distracting her from pandemic

Nicola Sturgeon has denied her escalating public war with Alex Salmond is distracting her from the coronavirus crisis amid demands for an investigation into her conduct to be widened.

Speaking the day after she used a live TV interview to deliver an extraordinary attack on her former mentor, the First Minister insisted she was “laser-focused on dealing with this pandemic”.

She insisted she was merely answering her interviewer's questions "as fully as possible" after she claimed Mr Salmond was angry with her because she refused to "collude" with him to make sexual harassment claims "go away."

But her insistence she was focused on the pandemic came as two members of the Holyrood inquiry into the scandal backed an investigation into claims she misled parliament over when she found out about the allegations against Mr Salmond.

Last year Ms Sturgeon referred herself for investigation under the ministerial code of conduct over three meetings, including two at her home, and two phone calls she held with Mr Salmond.

She admitted no minutes were kept of their secret discussions about the Scottish Government's inquiry into the misconduct allegations against him, despite the code specifying that a record should be made if government business was significantly mentioned.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, a Liberal Democrat member of the inquiry, said the remit of this investigation should be expanded to cover Ms Sturgeon telling parliament she found out about the claims at a meeting at her home on April 2, 2018.

She has since admitted that Mr Salmond's former chief of staff informed her about the claims in a meeting on Mar 29 that year, but claimed she had "forgotten" about this earlier discussion. Jackie Baillie, a Labour inquiry member, backed Mr Cole-Hamilton's call.

Asked about the questions over conduct, Ms Sturgeon told her daily Covid-19 briefing yesterday: "It hasn’t been a distraction.

“I’m focused on dealing with the pandemic and whether you’re one of people who think I don’t get anything right, or one oof the people who think I get everything right, or the vast majority who probably think it’s somewhere in the middle, I think everybody would say that I’m pretty laser-focused on dealing with this pandemic."

Despite volunteering to read out her private messages with Mr Salmond, she said that she was "not in control of the questions I get asked in television interviews".

Mr Cole-Hamilton said James Hamilton, the independent advisor on the ministerial code, has been tasked with investigating potential breaches relating to a "series of meetings" between Ms Sturgeon and Mr Salmond.

"However, the revelations of recent weeks suggest that the First Minister may also have misled Parliament about what she knew and when," he said.

"In light of these revelations, which could represent a further breach of the ministerial code, I believe the remit of Mr Hamilton’s inquiry should be widened to include these prospective breaches."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The First Minister stands by what she has said to Parliament and by her written evidence to the committee, and looks forward to answering questions at the committee when they decide to ask her to appear. We will consider Mr Cole-Hamilton's parliamentary questions and respond to him in the normal way.”