THE Salmond-Sturgeon dispute is reaching its climax.

This week it was Nicola Sturgeon's turn to give her evidence to the Holyrood committee investigating the Scottish Government's botched handling of the allegations made against her predecessor.

The Conservatives have already pre-empted the findings of the enquiry and are pressing for a vote of no confidence in the First Minister. The Conservatives have made no secret of the fact that they want to depose Nicola Sturgeon as a vital part of their strategy to prevent Scottish independence.

They have seen that under her leadership and especially due to her calm and confident handling of the Covid epidemic, support for independence has gradually overtaken support for the continuation of Westminster rule.

They fear her ability to appeal to sections of the Scottish public that were hesitant to support independence in 2014, in particular, women. Support for independence is now greater amongst women than it is amongst men, a reversal of the position in 2014, and that is largely due to Nicola Sturgeon's leadership.

​READ MORE: RECAP: Nicola Sturgeon's evidence at Holyrood inquiry this afternoon

The Conservatives and their allies see getting rid of Nicola Sturgeon as key to preventing Scottish independence and frustrating demands for another independence referendum. It's in that light that we must view Douglas Ross's call for the First Minister to face a vote of no-confidence.

The National: Douglas Ross MP led calls for a vote of no confidence in the First MinisterDouglas Ross MP led calls for a vote of no confidence in the First Minister

Let's be honest here, the Conservatives do not care about Alex Salmond or the botched investigation into the allegations made against him. All that the Conservatives are interested in is how to create the maximum political damage for the First Minister, the SNP and the wider independence movement.

The Conservatives and their allies will do anything that they can to deepen the divisions and twist a metaphorical knife in the wounds. If they can ensure that the First Minister has to stand down just weeks away from a vital election, they will regard that as a great victory, not for improved standards of Scottish governance - the Tories don't care about that - but for their campaign to derail the cause of Scottish independence.

Their hypocrisy is exposed by their own actions, opportunistically calling for a vote of no confidence in the middle of a pandemic before the First Minister had given any evidence of her own - not much in the way of concern for due process there.

When he made his call for a vote of no confidence, Douglas Ross proclaimed that "No first minister can be allowed to mislead the Scottish people and continue in office". But when a Conservative British Prime Minister does it repeatedly and even unlawfully prorogues Parliament and evades democratic scrutiny, that's just fine and dandy with Douglas and his pals. Boris Johnson misleads the public every time he opens his mouth. Double standards much?

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon denies her government should have conceded Salmond case earlier

It's not just the Tories who have indulged themselves in double standards here. The BBC news has led with Conservative calls for Nicola Sturgeon to resign, amplifying their opinion that her position is untenable and that she has to go.

Compare and contrast the BBC headlines when the Conservative health minister was found to have broken the law and given a lucrative PPE contract to one of his neighbours, just one of a litany of examples of bad governance from this woeful Conservative administration. It was scarcely mentioned on a BBC news which was far more interested in giving us breathlessly sycophantic reports about how Prince Philip was in hospital.

Meanwhile, there is a highly vocal, although likely numerically small, section of pro-independence opinion which has convinced itself that Nicola Sturgeon doesn't really want independence and which sees her removal from office as vital to unblocking the path to independence. They can't both be right.

Nicola Sturgeon's handling of the questions put to her by the committee was typically deft and assured. Jackie Baillie's case against her collapsed into a series of assertions of the "ah but a man down the pub told me" variety. It was interesting that three members of the committee declined to ask the First Minister questions on how the complaints process came into being in the first place, which you might assume would be of interest to those who sincerely wanted to learn lessons and to understand what went wrong. Instead what we were subjected to was an exercise in political point-scoring.

READ MORE: Viewers react to Nicola Sturgeon's evidence today at Holyrood inquiry

It ought to be clear by now that the focus of this inquiry is not on getting to the truth of the matter about what really happened with the investigation into Alex Salmond. It's certainly not about improving the standards of Scottish governance. The goal of this committee inquiry is to frustrate Scottish independence by any means possible. This inquiry is as botched and partisan as its members claim the original investigation to have been.