Labour attacks SNP over links to News International

THE Scottish National Party's links with News International were criticised by Labour yesterday as the Sun newspaper published an exclusive interview with John Swinney and his wife Elizabeth Quigley.

The feature about the Finance Secretary's family told of their joy when they had a baby boy named Matthew last October and highlighted Quigley's battle with multiple sclerosis.

But Labour suggested the article was another example of links between SNP ministers and News International. The News International-owned Sun came out in support of the SNP at the Scottish election earlier this year.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "There are clearly countless examples of the cosy relationship that exists between SNP ministers and News International. Scottish Labour will continue to ask the uncomfortable questions over the SNP's links with News International. It is clear the special relationship between the SNP and News International is still alive and well."

But a spokesman for Swinney branded Labour's criticisms "tasteless" and said that, although the article had been published yesterday, the interview was conducted in April.

"Labour's remarks are tasteless and hypocritical in the extreme - what exactly are they objecting to?" Swinney's spokesman said. "The Sun interview about John Swinney and Elizabeth Quigley living with MS and having a new baby was conducted in April - or some two months before Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Douglas Alexander were quaffing champagne and oysters with Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks at the News International summer party in London."

But Labour stepped up its attacks on the SNP by publishing a list of questions for Alex Salmond's party to answer, including asking when First Minister Alex Salmond last met News International chairman James Murdoch, as well as how much the SNP has spent on advertising with the company in the past four years. Labour's business manager Paul Martin said: "There are a lot of unanswered questions over the SNP's links with News International. Throughout the entire phone hacking scandal Alex Salmond has ditched his usual megaphone diplomacy and has been uncharacteristically silent."

An SNP spokesman said: "The First Minister was on record at a press conference last week calling on Rebekah Brooks to step down, and also gave numerous broadcast interviews supporting the Commons motion - of which the SNP was a co-sponsor - calling on News Corp's BSkyB bid to be withdrawn. Instead of engaging in smear, the key question Paul Martin has to answer is why the last Labour government did precisely nothing about the Operation Motorman report published by the Information Commissioner in 2006, revealing over 3,000 cases of a range of newspapers breaking data protection laws."