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?

She doesn't believe that women can have dicks! That's just another lie.
She's a liar. She's a fraud.
But weirdly still has loyal followers who I can only assume ARE naïve enough to believe that men can become women. M

Tbh, I take the view if you didn’t like NS before then you will likely disbelieve her. And the opposite view is true too. I had no clue what my ex spent his money on and was busy and trusted him so didn’t even consider he would do anything dodgy (what I discovered when we broke up was a devastating breach of trust). And I wasn’t running the fkn country.

As far as I know they are separated, not divorced.

Please can we dump this myth that the Scots hate the English in our extensive experience this is not true.

My ex wouldn't say "English" without putting "the fucking" in front of it.

I think this is a double edged sword. Believe her and she’s innocent, but is so poor a judge of character, so unaware of what is going on in her own home, so little grasp of finances and she is in no way capable of having any form of professional responsibility. Or don’t beleive her ans she’s a criminal

I guess she’s picked incompetent to avoid jail.

Your ex doesn’t represent Scotland.

They would also both claim expenses in their roles. A quick look at the expenses of current MSPs suggest individual expenses can be in the region of £50k a year. Sturgeon’s would be much higher as First Minister. I can imagine it’s a huge admin nightmare keeping all the receipts etc. Without casting any aspersions on individual politicians, I can imagine those without very competent personal staff and who maybe have ADHD or other ND/ problems with executive functioning could get themselves in a muddle.

I don’t think anyone cares about him bulk buying “bog roll” and it just trivialises the serious offenses he did commit and also whether she was complicit or not (which I strongly suspect she was).
The interesting thing is that despite all of this SNP did well in our elections this month, no one else seems able to put up any credible opposition (I didn’t vote SNP) and I very much doubt it will effect people’s appetites for independence in fact independence supporting MSPs are now the highest number ever. I think she knew exactly what was coming down the track and thus resigned in 2023, and we’ve has two first ministers since then, Swinney the current incumbent is very obviously keeping his distance from Nicola and shrewdly she’s kept her distance from him.

This. The auditors resigned. Alex Salmond moved him on. He wasn’t working in a completely different industry, he was literally stealing from the party funds which at the time NS was pushing another independence referendum for which the same party would have needed the funds for their political campaign. Join the dots people and stop falling for the PR crocodile tears campaign.

No.

to get her to her career level she is a very clever woman. I don’t believe she didn’t have any idea of what her husband was doing.

No, I don't believe her. It's stretching credibility too far. The investigation into SNP finances began in 2021. Peter Murrell's salary around that time was £80k a year which isn't exactly a king's ransom in this day and age. He had already bought a motorhome for £125,000 and a swanky Jaguar car for £57,000 amongst many other luxury items including watches. If my political party (or school or company or whatever) was being investigated for dodgy dealings and my husband was coming home with a flurry of luxury items, I'd smell a barrel full of rats.

This. £400k sounds massive, but take away the motor home and it’s less than £10k/year. Easily not noticed when both are high earners.

I believe she’s guilty of incompetence but not criminal.

If she didn’t steal the money or spend it, then no it’s not criminal- but it’s a heck of a lot more than just incompetence.
Probably very frustrating for those who’ve been investigating.

She knew that something was going on because people were repeatedly telling her there was - and she refused to allow a full investigation at any point. Add to that all the purchases which appeared over the years, and you don't have incompetence - you have someone who was actively choosing wilful ignorance whose background in law and politics would make her well attuned to lies.

Exactly I didn’t even know anyone in their right mind would spend 2.5k on salt and pepper pots but 3 luxury coffee machines, high-end watches, fountain pens, luxury coffee machines, leather items, Dyson hair dryers (when you are bald) Jewell which I’m assuming he didn’t wear and loads of other high stuff and 2 cars and a motor home (they can’t all have been on his mothers driveway). Come on this is really stretches our credulity, we’re told they had separate bank accounts this is why she didn’t know so as he wasn’t spending her larger salary on all this stuff it was coming out his 80k a year. Sorry the numbers just don’t stack up.

I believe her. I think she's been terribly naïve and I don't get the impression she had a particularly close relationship with her husband. I just don't think it occurred to her that he was a thief. I'd like to think if my own DH rocked up with luxury items and told me he'd made a few good investments, I'd choose to believe him rather than think he was stealing money. No-one wants to believe they have hitched their wagon to a greedy thieving criminal.

I think it is a believable scenario that a wife with separate finances wouldn’t know. If I was betting my money I’d say she did.

But she signed off on the dodgy accounts that he was stealing the money from while other people resigned over them.

But didn't put the two together?

This isn't just a 'she didn't notice the huge accumulation of luxury items'.

The smaller items, yes. The caravan and the car, not at all.

The other thing which makes me not believe her is the shutting down of questioning.

Only joking but I’m now really concerned my DH is going to think I’m up to something nefarious. At least 3 or 4 online shopping parcels arrive daily. I have over 5000 items of clothing and three large cupboards of skincare. All of this is paid for by my own money!! Surely people have to spend their money on something? All these people saying it’s unbelievable that on his £80k salary he could afford to purchase any of these items. Do most people just save their entire salary?

I was very firmly in the no camp but less sure more 50/50.

I heard her say they had good jobs no kids and she was working long hours and DH says he could see how she'd assume they could afford a higher standard of living than they could especially as their house doesn't look particularly grand.

DH says seen that with others though they tend to moan or go into debt but they expect the long hours and the wages they get to go further than they do. I see it on here with moaning threads with incomes way larger than we've ever had and fewer dependents in household.

If I accept that I don't think it says much for her as a leader not knowing the price of her lifestyle or the people she was representing.

I think it's more damming that questions seem to have been raised and she and other seem to have blocked them.

Accountants who resigned because of lack of access to the accounts. At one point the SNP were scrabbling to find someone to audit the books. That one thing should have given rise to forensic accountants being brought in.

Either she was an abused woman whose husband controlled her at home and in her workplace, or she was deeply incompetent as party leader.

His income was only £100 for one year, after that it dropped to between £70 and £80k

She knew Murrell earned under £80k (apart from one year a decade ago). There is affording a higher standard of living and there is buying cars worth more than your annual salary…

She either looked the other way and didn’t ask questions
She lied
Or she is naive
Or incompetent.

None of these are good for someone who wants to run a country.
I would say she never struck me as naive. Quite the opposite. She always presented herself as fairly savvy.