McLeish set to reveal all in book on Holyrood fall

Published on Tuesday 16 September 2003 01:00

FORMER First Minister Henry McLeish is to finally disclose his side of events leading up to his fall from political office in a revealing new tell-all book.

Mr McLeish is planning to release his long-awaited memoirs in the new year, offering an inside view into the weeks leading up to his resignation in 2001.

Despite prompting speculation that he was planning to write the book after he was spotted visiting an Edinburgh publisher 18 months ago, Mr McLeish has declined to offer his version of his fall from grace.

But city publishing house Mainstream let slip today that Mr McLeish was going ahead with the memoirs, although they refused to say how much he would be paid for the book.

Mr McLeish quit after infamously claiming that the expenses scandal which sank him was a "muddle not a fiddle".

For 13 years, he billed the taxpayer for the full cost of the rent of his constituency office in Glenrothes in Fife, while leasing part of it to private tenants.

Mr McLeish eventually repaid the taxpayer the 39,000 he had accrued, with the help of a 30,000 ‘golden handshake’ given to former MPs.

The new book is understood to include Mr McLeish’s thoughts on whether Holyrood needs substantial reform and is also likely to pass judgment on the record of Jack McConnell, who succeeded him in the job.