The art of making appointments

It is not true that the First Minister, when considering the appointment of the chair of the new prisons commission, said:

"We need someone who is capable of original thought, someone who will not be intimidated by either the legal profession or the prison officers' trade union, someone who will not simply do what the civil service recommends.

But we will never find anyone like that, so we'll just have to settle for Henry McLeish. At the very least, it will wind up the Scottish Labour Party something rotten."

But the First Minister might have said something similar.