THE saga over a fundraising campaign for shameless LibDem MP Alistair Carmichael showed no sign of abating last night when a crowdfunding page that closed after complaints about its allegedly inaccurate content was reopened.
Sheila Ritchie, a lawyer, former LibDem councillor and friend of the self-confessed liar has re-written her pitch on the GoFundMe website and now claims what Carmichael did – leaked and lied about a memo damaging to Nicola Sturgeon – was a mistake.
She still claims the SNP is blowing the “mistake” out of all proportion and that the action against Carmichael is a party “witch hunt”.
“Not admitting he knew what his SPAD [Special Adviser] had done was a mistake that did not influence his election in Orkney and Shetland,” she wrote.
“The costs of his defense [sic] are considerable and 100 per cent of the money raised will go towards this ... not a penny is retained for me or for overheads. It all goes to help pay his costs (which I now understand are likely to be closer to £80k than £50k).”
The changes to the text were dismissed by those mounting the legal bid to have Carmichael’s election result overturned.
Tim Morrison, one of the petitioners, told The National: “She changed the headline and added a couple of paragraphs – not much at all – and there is nothing less defamatory in its tone.”
Ritchie returned to LibDem activism to run Christine Jardine’s failed General Election campaign against Alex Salmond in Gordon.
With her substantial legal and political background she should be aware that the case, which has been heard at a specially convened Election Court in Edinburgh, has nothing to do with the SNP.
The four petitioners say they are “ordinary Orkney voters” who believe they have a right to elect an MP who is not a self-confessed liar.
Although his crowdfunding plea claims Carmichael made a “mistake”, it seeks to blame his SPAD Euan Roddin for leaking the memo about a private conversation the First Minister had with the French Ambassador Sylvie Bermann.
In the memo, Sturgeon purportedly said she wanted David Cameron to remain Prime Minister.
Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood ordered an inquiry into how the note got into the public domain. His investigation concluded Carmichael “could and should have stopped the sharing of the memo” and added that the MP “accepts responsibility for what occurred”.
Carmichael said that while he had not seen the document before it was published by The Daily Telegraph, he was “aware of its content and agreed that [his] special adviser should make it public”.
“I should not have agreed this,” he said. “I have therefore informed the Cabinet Secretary that I will decline my ministerial severance payment.”
Sturgeon insisted at the time that the contents of the memo were “100 per cent untrue”.
In a letter to the First Minister, Carmichael said he took full responsibility for the publication of the document, and added it was an error of judgment. He apologised to Sturgeon and to the French ambassador.
Neither Carmichael nor Ritchie has responded to The National’s repeated requests to comment on the crowdfunding efforts.
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