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It is three minutes after ten, and it is, I suppose, a mark of shame, perhaps, or certainly, it's a little embarrassing that we turn our attention to a Scottish politician because she finds herself in so much bother, in so much trouble.

You often tell me off for not paying a little bit more attention to matters political in Scotland and indeed in Wales and Northern Ireland.

I do my best. I do my best. But, you know, I know sometimes it feels like England gets conflated with the United Kingdom,

but it doesn't. We talk about UK issues because they involve everybody. But I do acknowledge

that it might sound a little bit. Rum, if you're north of the border, that we are turning

our attention to this story because of the continuing fallout that Nicholas Sturgeon finds

herself facing.

And I'd like, if I may, to have a completely open and frank conversation about this.

It's a little bit of me that I kind of...

I'm a tiny little bit uncomfortable, having a conversation that hinges basically on the question of whether or not you believe somebody.

And yet it occurs to me that with some political figures from the recent past, I've got no problem whatsoever casting aspersions on people's honesty or integrity.

Peter Mandelson, if you're coming from the left, Boris Johnson if you're

coming from the right, although I don't think they've got a great deal in common, except a slightly

strained relationship with the truth. And yet, I don't know whether it is a sort of innate.

Is there such a thing as benign sexism, do you think? So if you are minded to treat a woman differently

from a man, because you were raised to open doors and have a slightly higher standard of behaviour when dealing with women than you do with men, would that kick in? Would that explain it? I don't want to call a woman a liar. But then again, you know, you look at some of the female politicians who've polluted public discourse in this country in recent years.

I've never really struggled to be, God forbid, outspoken about them.

But yeah, so I'm guarding against that.

I mean, fill your boots.

Tell me why you don't believe her.

This is a story that the more you look at it,

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