Does anyone believe Nicola Sturgeon?

[OverlyFragrant]

As per title, does anyone actually believe NS with her claims she had no idea her husband stole £400k, didn't notice the MANY luxury items just appearing around her home, and is a victim in his deceit?

I definitely believe her. Firstly the 400k was embezzled over 12 years so only about 35k a year. I think it is very easy for that kind of ‘extra’ (stolen) money to be assimilated into household finances.
Secondly, they kept their finances very separate as many married couples do. A close family member of mine does not even tell her husband her salary.
Thirdly, Nicola Sturgeon does not come across as someone who is hugely materialistic or into labels as status symbols. My DH would have no idea if a handbag was £30 from H&M or £50k Hermes. He literally has no idea about labels or prices.
Finally, why would anyone risk their political career, legacy, reputation for some coffee makers and salt grinders? She does not come across as risk taker type personality either.

Yes, but it was parked at his mother's house.

She said she did visit the house but she doesn't have any recollection of seeing it there and they have a strange driveway in which it looks like anything that's parked in it is the neighbour's anyway.

If they were a proper married couple as opposed to a sham marriage to cover up rumoured/alleged same sex relationships, then I cannot fathom how she didn't know.

Did she never visit her MIL and see the Motorhome, wonder where the ridiculously priced household goods came from? She came from very humble beginnings so surely would be horrified at the blatant waste of money some of those ridiculous items cost.

I suspect she will "believe" anything and "trust" anybody if it serves her purpose. Personally and politically.

A policy of invincible ignorance to further her own career and goals.

Arrogance is the reason people take risks. They take what are called risks because they are so arrogant that at the time, they do not perceive them to be risks at all.
They don’t believe they will ever be caught.

Nicola Sturgeon wore the jewellery he was bragging about. I feel most people might question how that was paid for , but she is saying she didn’t question any of the things he was buying.
What she is trying to do is ‘ damage limitation’ and I don’t believe her.

I think there was an incredible level of arrogance here. I bet she noticed the spending but thought she was untouchable and turned a blind eye. They had the SNP stitched up between them and their cronies and didn’t feel they’d be challenged. Having said that, I don’t think she thought it had gone as far as it had.

Concerns were raised years ago (remember the ‘emergency loan’) but she continued to sign off on accounts and never exert due diligence.

Having said that I think theirs was a ‘lavender marriage’ for their careers and not a close and loving relationship whereby they would share things. I wonder if his ridiculous spending was filling some sort of gap for him.

I agree with this 100%. Also, they lived in a relatively modest house. My parents' house, in a nondescript Scottish suburb, is worth around the same, and my dad was a council employee, and my mum a housewife, who occasionally worked part-time.

The motor home he probably hid , I can see how that might happen tbh. The rest of it , nah.
Both are lying and how anyone can continue to give the party money is beyond me, but apparently people will because they hate the English. Hopefully this money will be better spent than on pepper grinders for what it’s meant to be spent on. I loath thieves and I am glad he was caught.

I was on the fence but I watched the LK interview this morning and now, yes, I do believe her.

I think a person who lies about something as fundamental as people changing sex can lie about anything.

Or to put it in another, slightly more nuanced way, a politician who will say anything to further or protect their own interests will say anything.

Come on now, she didn’t ‘consciously’ (🤔) see it because it was parked round the side. That makes all the difference. Anyone could’ve missed that…..

Did the MIL never once say 'when are you moving that monstrosity from my driveway, or at least taking it on holiday'?? We have to believe that not only is NS completely oblivious to massive motorhomes, but the MIL was too.

Anyway, I'm sure she could profess ignorance of the seven kettles and multiple hairdryers in her own home, but how does she explain her complete lack of curiosity about the disappearing money from her party's accounts?

I don't know whether she knew or not, but I certainly don't buy the idea that she must have known. Some men manage to keep all sorts of things secret from their wives: debt, porn addiction, the existence of a second wife and family in the next town. Women often post on Mumsnet saying they are blindsided, they had no idea that their husband had remortgaged the house or had been having an affair for five years or had children from a previous relationship.

I do, yes, and I am not a NS fan.

I can understand the pen, the stapler and maybe even tbe the car if they had very separate finances. Where I struggle is the motor home. Was it brand new? How much did it cost? How did she not wonder about that?

I am open as to whether she was telling the truth or not.
I do hold her responsible for a lot of other stuff to do with the whole thing.
She was warned that her and her husband holding the two top positions in the party was not on and yet they did nothing about it.
Publicly she said she would help the police and yet she gave a no comment interview with them. She told the public a lie.

I don’t like Sturgeon, and was actually slightly gleeful when it all hit the press if I’m completely honest. But, I feel very uncomfortable at this idea of “she must have known”. His fraud took place over a number of years. They had access to high salaries and their home was not particularly expensive. I would have expected my husband to have lots of disposable income given their salary and low housing cost. Not all wives are sat at home checking their husbands bank balance and keeping a spreadsheet for respective spends. If you are married to someone like this it is entirely possible that she had no idea that the money he was spending was not his and it’s not a wife’s job to check their husband is honest. I think it is entirely plausible she has been financially abused (and is now likely to lose her home as part of the POCA) and it is deeply worrying that this sort of public vilification is determining that “she must have known”. Many women simply don’t know what their husbands are up to because they trust and love them.

As leader of SNP she has questions to answer but I don’t think that it follows she should have realised what her husband was up to. The auditors have a lot to answer for too in my view. This should have been caught much earlier.

When you're in a hole Nicola stop digging. Her whiny attempts to try to make us believe that she is the victim in all of this are insulting. From where I'm looking all i see is Imelda Marcos level of greed and corruption. Given how joyfully she threw women under the "trans" bus I'm surprised that any women have any sympathy fir her, i certainly don't.

Have you seen the video clip from an SNP committee meeting where she is warning the finance committee off asking about the state of the finances? She assures them everything is fine, the ancouns are healthy and there is nothing to see. These people were complaining Peter Murrell wouldn’t give them access to the accounts and she just shut them down in a slightly threatening way!

I agree with Bertie. They are both horrible liars and he is a common low life thief.

She is fundamentally dishonest so no, I don't believe a word she says.

She claims she never shut down people who had suspicions that something was afoot yet in 2021 she was warning people not to ask questions...

"The party has never been in a stronger financial position than it is right now and that’s a reflection of our strength and our membership. I’m not going to get into the details...but, you know, just be very careful about suggestions that there are problems with the party’s finances, because we depend on donors to donate."

I agree, I think regardless of whether she knew the finer details, there was a level of arrogance and mismanagement, which she as the party leader and co-signatory on the accounts has a certain amount of responsibility for.

It’s not good enough at that level to say ‘nothing to see here’ which she did when she completely dismissed party concerns a few years ago at where the money went.

At the very least it was negligence in her role as leader.

I do believe she didn't know as she didn't pay enough attention to what her husband was doing. She probably thought the motorhome was on the never never (lease).

The SNPs financial governance was completely at fault. I find it really difficult to understand how all these fake invoices for really strange items weren't queried and were signed off. A investigation needs to be held into that.

I believe her. Over 12 years, it was about £30k a year - it’s not like it was a £400k lump sum and all the stuff was bought at once.