Nicola Sturgeon didn't know her husband stole £400,000

[Imdunfer]

Really? She lived with this guy and didn't know? She had a camper van parked on the drive and didn't know he stole the money to buy it?

I don't buy it.

AIBU

It’s the Lalique salt and pepper grinders.

Who doesn’t notice the crystal salt and pepper grinders in their own home?

It wouldn’t even occur to my husband to buy salt and pepper grinders. If it did, he would have such little interest in purchasing them, that he’d probably pick up a set from the supermarket. If he spent over £2,500 on salt and pepper grinders, I’d think he was having some kind of mental health episode. If he really wanted to buy expensive salt and pepper grinders, it would be agreed on beforehand.

She didn’t only know, if she wasn’t actively choosing items, she was at least agreeing to them being purchased.

You can't seriously be attempting to say there's nothing at all dodgy about what's been going on with the SNP finances? Really?

If anything remotely comparable to this had been happening in another UK political party, SNP supporters would be all over it.

Let's have a bit of objectivity. Incompetence, dishonesty and corruption don't become excusable just because the person/people behind them want Scottish independence.

It sounds like a tall story but there are absolutely plenty of women in the world who are clueless about their household finances. There are also women who live in ignorant bliss and simply trust that their husband can be relied upon preferring not to know where the money is coming from. I’m not necessarily saying she’s innocent but I can guarantee there will be women here who, unwittingly and happily, hand over all financial responsibilities to hubby because it’s too bothersome.

I'm really surprised that people would know. If I wanted "nice" salt and pepper grinders, I'd probably go to John Lewis and expect to pay £30 (?) . If DH came home with nice grinders, no matter how lovely they were, it wouldn't occur to me they could cost that much.

For the umpteenth time, this is not about their household finances! He stole £400k donated to the Scottish National Party, when he was CEO, and spent it on expensive stuff that ended up in their home and the homes of family members. She was the elected leader of the party and at one point acting Treasurer. He reported to her. She was supposed to be signing off on the party finances. She utterly failed to notice that there was anything wrong, even when others resigned because they were being denied access to the accounts.

This is nothing like the normal story of one spouse belatedly discovering that the other one has gambling or other debts.

Nicola Sturgeon was never responsible for the SNP accounts. That was the responsibility of the Chief Executive - Murrell and the Treasurer Colin Beattie.

The government and the party are two separate organisations. The political leaders of all parties arenot involved in running the party on a daily basis. Starmer does not run the day to day operations of the Labour Party and Badenoch is not running the Tory Party.

It seems Beattie was aware something fishy was happening but did nothing about it, but has not been charged with anything. What Sturgeon knew we will probably never know. She has certainly covered her back the moment suspicion was raised and done everything possible to distance herself from Murrell.

There is a bit of me that is desperate to know if these grinders made their way to the humble Glasgow semi or instead, they ended up in Bute House. Either is ridiculous

She's not saying she handed responsibility to him, quite the opposite. They had entirely seperate finances and his spending was his business.

Over the period concerned it amounts to an extra £700 pw. They were high earners, I'm not sure how much she should be expected to notice he had an extra £700 pw, especially if, as I suspect, most of it was being spent on an OW.

I suspect he has admitted guilt to avoid all sorts coming out at the trial.

Not only were they high earners, but we know politicians get gifted all sorts. And also get discounts on things normal folks wouldn’t.

If my DH came home with Lalique salt and pepper grinders and said they were a gift I’d ask a mountain of questions. If a political figure comes home with them I doubt their spouse would raise an eyebrow.

But she’s on video telling members of their finance committee that the books are healthy, there’s nothing to worry about and warning them against continuing to question the finances.
She also gave reassurances in a public too. If she was not responsible for SNP finances in any way why was she getting involved in these discussions AND providing reassurance things were ok? Surely you would say that’s not my area and refer queries elsewhere?

“Found these in the street. Thought you’d like them”.

Colin Beattie has many a question to answer. Got voted out as treasurer, new guy comes in with a mandate for more transparency and then quits as he’s not getting the access he needs, and then Beattie strolls back in… He was treasurer for pretty much the entire period police Scotland say Murrell was thieving for.

That he’s still one of the MSP’s is ridiculous imo.

So, let's say he did tell her the Lalique cruet set was a gift, surely she would have asked him who had given them to him and in what capacity.

How many people are that generous and why an obscure, ostentatious cruet set?! Wouldn't he have to declare gifts to the SNP if it was connected with work?

I loathe Nicola Sturgeon but I do find it credible that she may not have known....for many reasons. They may have kept seperate finances. He earned well, she may have thought he had saved for it or bought things on credit. They may simply have been living parallel lives with little interaction and she was so consumed with her own life and priorities that she merely never thought very deeply about him or what he was doing. It doesnt point to a particulalrly happy or close marriage or even a semblance of friendship or partnership, but it is pretty likely that they just didint know much about each others lives beyond the superficial, or in fact maybe even care to know.

The auditors who resigned in September 2022 were professional accountants - Johnston Carmichael.

The new accountants then produced qualified accounts because of missing information.

The auditors can only audit information provided to them, and it is up to the organisation to implement financial controls and keep the books.

Members of the SNP finance and audit committee also resigned in March 2021, and then the treasurer in May 2021, because they weren’t being given the information they required to do this job.

Meanwhile ‘loans’ were being made by Murrell because there wasn’t enough money in the bank.

It has been clear that something wasn’t adding up since 2020/2021.

Several years ago he 'loaned' the SNP something like £108k. This is public knowledge. It wasn't declared to the Electoral Commission for more than a year after it should have been. All the people saying 'married couples often have separate finances, nothing to see here' - if you found out that your partner had lent a six figure sum to his employer, an organisation which he was supposed to be running, and you were the figurehead of this organisation - wouldn't you want to know where that money had come from, and why this loan was required?

Does it look particularly ostentatious?

I am very much in charge of our finances, but if DH developed a taste for high end everyday items (paid for with someone else's money) I'm not sure I'd notice. Why would it cross my mind that he'd spend so much on them? I'd probably just think it was a nice thing (or not, if it's ostentatious.)

I think as far as the party finances are concerned she's guilty of tremendous naievty, issuing assurances without full facts, and the party should never have let those two posts be so closely connected, but I do think it's possible she didn't know.

Yes. Her stubbornness, pettiness, and refusal to acknowledge any shortcomings. You ought to see her own constituency, ffs. Govanhill's a Third World ghetto now with eastern European criminals, gangs, rubbish and raw sewage strewn across the streets, tenements, and back courts, yet she won't answer any criticism or take any blame for anything.

She was a signatory the SNP party bank account….says it all, doesn’t it?
plus weren’t they also, a few years ago, trying to convince the powers that be that the luxury motorhome was a SNP party campaign bus 😂😂😂?

Different parties work in different ways, but If people were resigning from the Labour Party audit committee left right and centre because they weren’t being given information and Victoria Starmer were in charge of Labour Party finances and Starmer was insisting ‘nothing to see here’ and resisting any investigation people would be asking questions.

(regardless if whether VS had gone on a spending spree in Me and Em)

I hadn’t realised that she had only just stood down as an MSP. When did she move to London?

If a politician, or their spouse, is gifted something of value then they’re supposed to declare the gift. Not doing so, if later caught out, causes the politician problems. At the very least a ticking off by the relevant standards committee.

Sturgeon should, and I suspect would have been, all over any gifts coming in from third parties. She couldn’t afford the perception of grift / undeclared favours making her look like she was on the take.

Ironically.

It is interesting that he spent so much money on things that wouldn’t have made that much difference to most people’s happiness.

I also wonder how much of the money he wasted buying things and then selling them and trying to find ways to cover up the stealing.

I don't think there's any suggestion that he's tried to pass anything off as gifts. That's posters making things up, as PP points out receiving undeclared gifts is a problem in itself.

They are supposed to, but we know they don’t always.

I don’t think NS was unaware of everything because I think the lack of genuine surprise in them all when Murrell was arrested says a lot. Also the fact nobody said anything at all until after Wings started asking questions, then people started protecting themselves by asking public questions is telling.

However, I don’t think the odd expensive items are the gotcha against NS people think they are. With their income and their lifestyles they’re easily explained.

I think it’s far more likely that there was a common habit within the SNP of using party funds for themselves. The fact that Murrell seemingly went unnoticed for at least 12 years, and the fact that Natalie McGarry’s pilfering went unnoticed by the SNP until WFI flagged her, suggests that the overseeing of finances was either non-existent or extremely poor.