Hard to swallow

If a politician is doing something regarded as less than scrupulous in terms of probity, the best course of action is to come clean and publish every fact available. Failure to do this will inevitably lead to embarrassing information coming out in dribs and drabs, with each new revelation further denting the politician's reputation.

So Alex Salmond was wise yesterday to do a "full disclosure" on the cash-for-access story that is now shaping up to be the biggest political headache of his time in government. The SNP press release that included all the details yesterday afternoon was headed "Salmond draws line under lunch issue". That may well turn out to be wishful thinking.

If the highest bidder for the privilege of lunching with Mr Salmond had been an enthusiastic SNP supporter who simply wanted to bask in the First Minister's aura for an hour or so, then yesterday's full disclosure might indeed have taken some of the sting out of the story. But the details released yesterday revealed that the highest bidder for one of the lunches was one of Scotland's most high-profile and controversial lawyers, Aamer Anwar. By bidding 1,000, Mr Anwar bought himself access to the most powerful man in the Scottish Government. Mr Anwar is in the honourable tradition of lawyers who take pride in representing people accused of crimes in the most politically contentious of circumstances. One of his recent successes was in the case of Alva student Mohammed Atif Siddique – last month judges quashed Siddique's terrorism conviction, saying he had been a victim of a miscarriage of justice. Mr Anwar is a talented lawyer with passionate views on a number of criminal justice issues, not least those connected to anti-terrorist operations. It is entirely possible that he would have used his time with the First Minister to talk about the new management team at Hearts, or the new series of Rab C Nesbitt. Or it is possible he may have preferred more contentious matters. We will never know.

No-one is suggesting any impropriety on the part of Mr Anwar – he simply entered an auction and won a prize. Mr Salmond, on the other hand, will find it hard to refute the charge that he was offering access to himself as First Minister on parliamentary property in exchange for a donation to party funds. If that is not "cash for access", what is? Mr Salmond may now find that the parliamentary authorities are the least of his worries. It seems likely that the opposition will also want to know if he breached the ministerial code, which is far stricter than the constraints on a mere MSP.

One aspect of Mr Salmond's statement yesterday leaves a sour taste in the mouth. The First Minister suggests that "it would be unwise to proceed with charity lunches or indeed a range of other lunch uses of the restaurant" in the immediate future, until the parliament's corporate body has ruled. Mr Salmond even mentions one such event by name: the Northsound "Cash for Kids" appeal. This is nothing more than a smokescreen. And it reflects poorly on the SNP that it would stoop to such a tactic. Mr Salmond and his advisers know very well that the issue at the heart of this saga is that the money donated was going straight into SNP coffers. The lunch in question was a party fundraising stunt, not a charity event for cancer sufferers or children's homes. To bracket SNP fundraising with good works such as these in an attempt to deflect criticism away from the First Minister is unsavoury, to say the least.

"Full disclosure" is the correct thing to do, but it carries risks. Just ask Henry McLeish, who had to step down as First Minister after his own "full disclosure" on an office subletting story turned out to be not as full as it should have been. Once further details came to light, Mr McLeish felt he had no option but to resign. If the details released yesterday are – even inadvertently – less than the full truth, then Mr Salmond will be in even hotter water than he is this weekend. In the meantime, he still has some questions to answer.