Just as political rivals accepted the result of a jury trial of Alex Salmond almost exactly a year ago, it equally falls on MSPs to accept the conclusions of James Hamilton’s independent investigation into whether Nicola Sturgeon broke the Ministerial code.
A breach would have been a resignation matter, leading to the irony that a woman would have been the only person to fall on her sword over the Scottish government’s gross mishandling of the complaints against the First Minister’s predecessor.
So far, no one has accepted the ultimate responsibility for letting down the complainants who made the original allegations.
It may be that the cross-party committee investigating the matter will pinpoint the problem, the process and the personnel who let down these women so badly.
Regardless of what the committee does find, a leak has already revealed their conclusion that the First Minister did mislead parliament.
Holyrood today will be faced with two rival accounts of what Nicola Sturgeon is alleged to have known and done.
But the committee version is weakened by the obvious partisanship of some of its members during their investigation.
The Conservative-inspired vote of no confidence is clearly nothing other than a symbolic and futile move now, one that reeks of political opportunism.
However, it is not the end of the affair.
Some of the mud will stick to the First Minister and in a crucial and highly divisive election campaign we can expect a lot more of it to be thrown around.
Time to reflect
In the last 12 months our world has been well and truly turned upside down.
A year ago no one would have believed it possible that such a toll would be taken on all our lives
No one would have thought we could not travel to see aged parents, that sport and pubs and restaurants we took for granted would be shut and holidays abroad would become a distant memory. And that loneliness would become the only companion for so many of us.
No one would have considered that 126,000 deaths would befall the country, that care homes built to look after our elderly would become a stalking ground for a deadly infection.
Today, take a moment to mark the loss and heartache of the last year. And as the end of lockdown nears, spare a thought for the people who are not going to be here to see it.
