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A SCOTLAND Office civil servant was behind the leaked memo that claimed Nicola Sturgeon wants David Cameron to remain as Prime Minister.

Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael has fingered an official in his own department for writing the note.

But the Lib Dem refused to name the individual now at the centre of a Whitehall inquiry and a furious political row.

Carmichael, who remains in charge of the Scotland Office during the general election campaign, said yesterday: “I know the person involved but I’m not going to go beyond that.

“This is not somebody in public life, it’s a civil servant – so he’s entitled to the inquiry being done properly.”

The leaked memo claimed that First Minister Sturgeon privately told French ambassador Sylvie Bermann the SNP would rather see a Tory government – and that she didn’t see Labour leader Ed Miliband as “prime minister material”.

Sturgeon immediately dismissed the report as “100 per cent untrue” and called for a high-level probe into the leak.

And responding to Mr Carmichael's comments, the First Minister said: "I think Alistair Carmichael really needs to question his whole approach to politics if he thinks dirty tricks and smear campaigns are just how things are done in elections.

"I take a very different view. I think elections should be a battle of positive ideas and that's how I'll continue to campaign."

The UK’s top civil servant, Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood, has since launched an inquiry.

Sturgeon has accused Whitehall of “dirty tricks” over the leaked memo.

And yesterday, SNP depute leader Stewart Hosie said Carmichael’s admission that he knows who the culprit is had to be reported to the investigation.

Hosie said: “Alistair Carmichael is a UK Cabinet Minister and so must be in no doubt about the seriousness of the probe now ordered by the UK’s top civil servant.

“If Mr Carmichael has information about who produced a document containing this false account or indeed about who then leaked it – whether it is from within his own civil service department or elsewhere – then he must provide that information to Sir Jeremy Heywood as a matter of urgency.”

Carmichael said it was “absolutely right” that Heywood had launched an inquiry into the leak – but he flatly refused to identify the civil servant who drafted the document.

The Scottish Secretary acknowledged that the inquiry may take some time to report but said: “I see no reason it shouldn’t be done fairly quickly."

He added: “These conversations take place between government officials and diplomats all the time and it’s important people can have confidence in the confidentiality of them.

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“The Cabinet Secretary is the person to hold an inquiry and it’s important that he gets on to do his job now.

“This is routine procedure within government when these things happen.

“It’s absolutely not my job to tell him how to do his.

“I can’t second-guess what he’s going to want to ask or do.

“I don’t think the inquiry should be conducted through the pages of news-papers or television screens.”

Carmichael said he was first made aware of the leaked memo on Friday afternoon when he was contacted by a journalist from the Daily Telegraph.

He added: “The first time I saw the memo was in the pages of the Telegraph.”

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Asked if the memo was an example of “dirty tricks” during the election campaign, Carmichael said: “These things happen from time to time. I think it’s regrettable.”

He added: “I have no idea what Nicola Sturgeon said. We had a third-hand account of it.

“But we know Nicola Sturgeon would like to have the Conservatives in Government on their own at Westminister.

“The one thing that matters more than anything else to the Nationalists is getting independence and they would see that as an opportunity to create a wedge between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.”

Scottish Labour deputy leader Kezia Dugdale said last night: “The last 24 hours have been dominated by suggestions that Nicola Sturgeon wants David Cameron to remain Prime Minister.

“The real question is, what does David Cameron want?

“And it’s pretty obvious what the answer to that one is.

“It’s not really a surprise that David Cameron wants the SNP to do well.

“It would be strange if he didn’t because he knows his best chance of clinging on to power is Scotland voting SNP on May 7.”

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