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 don't know how many are based in Scotland and know the ins and outs of this case. Sturgeon was not just married to this man. She was his boss, the party leader, the First Minister and even interim Treasurer of the party. People resigned from the party as they could not get answers to financial questions because Sturgeon and her team refused to answer them and she told them menacingly to stop asking questions. She resigned mysteriously weeks before her house was raided by police but denies the resignation was in anyway linked. A decision was made not to prosecute, bearing in mind Sturgeon appointed the Lord Advocate and she sat round the cabinet table with Sturgeon. When this decision was taken not to prosecute, her husband had admitted nothing, so the question was, was money stolen?who did it? was it him, as had been alleged? Now he has admitted it, there should be further investigations as to how she didn't know. The camper van is laugable! She either knew or looked the other way despite being aware of something. Why were people resigning due to lack of financial transparency? Why was Sturgeon telling them to shut up?

This and the whole Alex Salmond debacle show her for exactly who she is. People have fallen for the image she has tried to portray of herself as a competent and plain speaking leader. No matter what you believe about Sturgeon, it is impossible to reconcile the person she has tried to pretend to be - competent, wise, good judgement etc- with the reality of her husband stealing lots of cash from the party has led, managed the finances of, bullying people into not asking questions and the stuff being stored in her house!

It wasn’t ’just £30,000 a year’ over a decade though, was it? It was 120k for a motorhome and almost 60k towards a car which he subsequently sold and pocketed the cash.

We have a family member whose wife ran up over £80k of debt in 3-4 years without his knowledge. They were both on modest salaries, so it was a significant amount of money to them and he didn’t have a clue. It is not uncommon for threads on spouses running up debt on her either. From a personal perspective, for 2 high earners, I believe it is absolutely possible for her not to dig deeper/question her spouse.

The concerns are more about the governance and oversight surrounding it within the SNP. Why any issues were not spotted sooner, who was accountable for spotting any financial issues earlier. As first minister I don’t think she had any legal power over party finances or to block investigations, but what was her influence on them?

I don’t think she knew on a personal level and don’t think she would take the risk with her reputation, I don’t think we will ever know the full truth from the party side , but what Murrell has done will certainly always hang over her now.

People are saying ‘it was over 12 years, that’s £30k a year, it’s easy to miss ..’. That’s not how this worked. He defrauded much more in some years than others. The £150,000 motor home - one year. The £80,000 jag - one year. How do you miss that? As for ‘we had good salaries’ - they were earning about £80k each, not 250k.

I don't know at what point she found out her husband was a thief, but I don't think anyone is naive enough to think she didn't know prior to the police investigation.

She was told on numerous occasions prior, by the NEC, by the auditors & by Party members. She turned a blind eye while others had the courage to bring it to her attention & had the moral fortitude to resign when she ignored them (And even praised those who launched tirades of hate towards them)

She chose to ignore all of the, huge, warnings.

She is not responsible for her husband's crimes, but she is responsible for her own actions & more especially her own inactions.

This!! It’s this. I think people are focusing on the wrong things. Even if people believe that she simply never noticed more than six thousand pounds worth of expensive coffee paraphernalia sitting in your relatively modest kitchen (despite knowing about expensive coffee machines, even wanting one as her luxury on Desert Island Discs…) and falling for the devilishly cunning plan of parking a £100k luxury motorhome round the side so as to render it virtually invisible, how can they possibly believe that she knew nothing of money going missing from the party? When four members of the audit committee resigned because Murrell wouldn’t show them the accounts, when SNP MPs were warning as far back as 2019 that there was something wrong with the accounts and when she blatantly shut down any questioning about financial concerns.
She’s more than happy to be gently prodded on national TV, and do a bit of sympathy attention crying, about how she knew nothing, nothing of his profligate spending precisely because she’s got plausible deniability on that. It’s all the other stuff that she doesn’t want anyone digging up. And it looks like it’s working because plenty of people are falling for it.

£400K minus the motor home, over 12 years works out about £22K per year. For someone with a demanding job, frequently working away from home and not interested in domestics, I can see how she wouldn't have noticed that kind of spending, so I am inclined to believe her.

To not listen to advice/warnings regarding her husband staying on as CEO of the party once she was FM, the auditing questioning etc etc, was naive at best.

From the recent Scottish elections it's clear there is still strong support for independence (the proportion of votes for SNP/Green candidates), and I imagine that support would be much, much higher had all these shenanigans not gone on. I think the majority of those supporting independence don't necessarily support the SNP - they are a means to an end, and once independence was achieved, Scotland would see in a Labour government, and the SNP would cease to exist.

Therefore PMs greed, NSs naivety/arrogance/whatever has meant Scotland has lost it's chance of independence for at least another generation. And for that, I find her impossible to forgive.

She's a narcissist so doesn't believe the rules apply to her. In short she didn't think she'd get called out and if she was she'd go DARVO (deny attack reverse victim and offender). You're being DARVO'd

The First Minister’s salary is over £190k currently so I’m pretty sure she was earning more than £80k. Isn’t that just the usual MSP salary?

Yes it’s possible. I know a man who’s wife threw him out for someone one else and it turned out she ran up debts buying designer clothes for herself and her new man as well as jewellery, meals out , and beauty treatments .

She was signing off on the accounts that he was stealing from.

Did she not read any of it? Surely you’d have a quick glance at purchases over £1k at least, wouldn’t you?

And think, oh Peter’s got one of those —motor homes— salt and pepper sets at home, just exactly the same type, and he bought me some jewellery from that tiny, independent jeweller in Shetland too. What a small world!

I want to believe her, but at the same time I cannot imagine that you would not be at all curious about a massive campervan parked on the driveway of an elderly relative.

I don’t feel it’s working really. People are pretty suspicious about politicians anyway , look how the Labour Party were vilified over footie tickets and glasses and so on. A few people may believe she didn’t know much, but evidence and her actions scream otherwise. People resigned over it , yet he carried on with the spending and I bet she did know something was off , but wanted to bury it all away.
I wish Andrew Neil was still a political interviewer. He’d have her tied up in knots over this

I wondered if it was a marriage of convenience for political purposes. The salt/p shakers she might not have noticed as they didnt stand out. The handbag, I wouldn't know a real one from a fake one and it was all over 9 years. I think he might of had a spending problem as was buying things just because he could, like 2 hairdryers

Yes I do believe her. The theft was spread out I over many years so it's not impossible. I still don't really understand why he did it.

I can’t decide whether I believe her or not but she does show a worrying lack of natural curiosity for someone who was in her position
Having said that I have seen how people have chosen to believe some bizarre things that they have been told by their partners, for example. It’s amazing what you can persuade yourself to believe when you have the will to do so

She only went round once and said she didn't notice because it was mixed in with other cars of the neighbours

Salmond also thinks Murrell stole from him in the 90s so he obviously is just one of those people who gets a thrill from stealing. Maybe he was stealing from her too, tbf.

So they didn’t go away in it ? I hadn’t read it was at his mother’s house.

Yep agree with this too.

I believe that she knew. There were multiple complaints before the police report and multiple people stepped down because of misappropriation of funds. She is the leader of the party and didn’t look into the resignations nor accusations?! She thought she was being clever by distancing herself from the actual purchases, but enjoyed them too! I’m interested in whether they plan to separate or stay together? As that would be very telling.

She's a politician, lying is in her Job Description.
Although I hasten to add I'm not calling her a liar in case there are any solicitors on here looking for work.

We all know she is a liar. She says that men can become women. That is a huge lie. She supports men who are sexual offenders being placed in women's prisons.

At best, she is grossly incompetent for not being aware that a massive fraud was being perpetrated on the accounts of the Scottish National Party, which she was leader of at the time and for many years. She was also, seemingly, blind to the fact that her husband, whose salary was presumably known to her, had much more money to spend than he should've done and was spending it freely and very visibly on large items that were then parked outside her house. At worst, she is an accessory to fraud.

I don’t know. But unlike some, I think it’s entirely credible she didn’t know.

No. She might have turned a blind eye but she knew.