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

So yes - I wouldn’t know if a coffee machine cost £5k or £500.

Yes, it's not that NS is more than usually unobservant and unaware, it's the poor supervision and checking of accident that's the worry here.

There still seems to be some murkinesss around what was approved and unapproved expenditure.

What happened to the claim that the motor home was to be used for campaigning?

Would it have been worse for the party if the indyef2 money were spent on a pointless ‘battle bus’?

I believed he was a millionaire and propping up the party . She had more balls than Boris she spoke and came out everyday , that year very rarely came out, sent other people and talked shit .
I thought she was great .

She might not have noticed him spending money at a personal level.

However she should have seen it from the SNPs side. And the parties accounts.

This ⬆️

The seeing it from the party side is why, imo, people need to not forget the likes of Colin Beattie (the treasurer) and the others who were leaders, deputy leaders and finance/audit committee members when Murrell was thieving.

Even if NS was turning a blind eye as a wife, others also must have been doing so from the SNP side for this to have happened

I agree, and this is why I think the party governance was wrong.

SNP were set up like a pop band. They had a lead singer (party leader - Sturgeon), band manager (chief exec - Mundell), accountant (treasurer - Beattie), and record label (national exec committee).

Other political parties are set up more like corporations, with a more linear governance structure and clear oversight.

There are reasons why you hear of so many once successful pop stars who have no money because their band manager and accountant mismanaged it. The oversight is lacking because the structure is built around personality, loyalty and informal influence rather than rigid formal governance.

Indeed. It does need to be remembered that it wasn’t just NS as party leader though. John Swinney was the leader when Murrell was first put in post as CEO, then Alex Salmond was leader for a large chunk.

And the deputy leaders - so since 2010 (if you believe that he only started thieving 9 years into his role) - have all apparently saw and heard nothing? There have been 3 other than NS.

Interestingly I’ve also just noticed that the President of the SNP from 2005 to 2020 was Ian Hudgton, the MEP that Murrell previously worked for. So many links!

I have found something rather odd in the 2021 accounts.

The balance sheet shows that having previously owned no motor vehicles, by the end of 2021 the SNP owned motor vehicle(s) with a net value of £80,632.
However, the relevant accounting note just labels vehicle expenditure as office/computer equipment. This is very odd, but does hide the full cost of the vehicle.

A mistake? Why did nobody ask any questions? Why did the accountants prepare the accounts in this way?

I have also attached the note about loans from executive management for working capital purposes.

This suggests that the company was suddenly spending money on motor vehicles at a time when 'executive management' was having to 'loan' money to the party to enable it to function, but that nobody apart from the 'awkward squad' (certainly not Beattie or Sturgeon) thought that they might have a problem.

And now we learn that the only person who knew anything about vehicles was Murrell, and that Beattie is still treasurer, but everything is totally different now.

Also worth noting that a significant part of the SNP's income over the years has come from Westminster in the form of 'Short Money' so lack of financial controls isn't just an internal issue.

link to party accounts if anyone is interested

This!

AYE PETE SAID HE WIZ SHORT

More 2021 accounts...

"Referendum Appeal
By 31 December 2021, a total of £740,822 had been raised through the independence related appeals. These donations are also included in – and have been reconciled with – the total amount for donations included in Party accounts from 2017 to 2021. Up until 31 December 2021 a total of £253,335 of expenditure had been applied against this income. The balance remains
“earmarked” for independence related campaigning. Of course, the SNP is the party of independence and, as such, every action we take – directly or
indirectly – is in support of winning independence. However, we continue to take a very strict approach to ensuring that this income supports expenditure directly related to the campaign for independence. We will ensure that an amount equivalent to the sums raised from these appeals will go directly to our work to secure a referendum and win independence."

There does seem to have been a difference in opinion on the exact meaning of "earmarked".

I think Wings thought that the balance was supposed to be kept in reserves for a specific purpose, but management seems to be arguing that it just meant "at some point we will have spent £700k more on the campaign for a referendum, and that means whatever we say it means ".

I do find it hard to believe...However, I also know people who had 0 idea of the debt that their husbands were in. Not like a few k, like tens and hundreds of thousands.

If someone wants to hide something they can. If you don't have joint finances then you have very little oversight. A campervan can easily be explained away - change the price, its on HP, PCP, loan agreement etc.

The things he bought are not unusual to people in that earnings bracket. Hell my boss earns way less and he had things like that. He clearly managed to hide it well.

400k over 12 years is 33k a year.

It also is weird what he bought. It looks a lot like items that you would buy as gifts for people.

Yes people were covering it up, but that must include her, esp when those accountants walked out.

Her biggest problem is that she was obstructive to those who needed full access to the party's accounts for relevant sign off. She obstructed this process and there were a series of resignations due to professional standards not being able to be met by those responsible for signing off accounts.

This is the KEY thing. Why was she obstructive? If she had allowed full access to the accounts then presumably all of this fraud undertaken by her husband would have been uncovered sooner.

Individually some of the items don't amount to all that much, but collectively over a period of time the higher value items do. But the accounts were showing severe shortfalls of monies. She was top dog at this time with her husband.

Therefore, this story has much much more to run.

200k of the 400 covers the motorhome and two cars. So the rest of it works out at just under £1400 a month for the 12 years. With their kind of income and lifestyle that could be easily hid

(I don’t think it was - I think many of the reactions show they knew, but it would be possible imo)

I absolutely think she shouldn’t be forgotten, but I think the immediate bigger focus should be on the people still involved in the SNP and in politics.

Colin Beattie still appears to be the treasurer. Even if he was oblivious/conned/blackmailed/bullied/incompetent that’s a ridiculous state of affairs.

There has also been lots of talk about those on the finance and audit committee who walked out, but who were the ones who didn’t? Who were the ones who signed off finances in the previous years? Are they still involved and have access to funds?

They are a bigger current issue for people in Scotland as they are still in seats, still have power and are still taking salaries from Scottish taxpayers.

On the face of it she was being obstructive because there was genuine anger within the party about the way the indyref2 money had been spent. Remember that the original investigation was to find evidence of electoral fraud.

I think I'm right in thinking that this still hasn't been fully explained?

If it was obvious that nobody had done anything wrong (and that the SNP could spend the money however they wanted), why were the police investigating?

😅

Sorry, fraud, not electoral fraud.

Thats what I kind of mean it could potentially be hidden, not noticed at a personal level.

But from the business side the accounts should have picked it up.
And they probably did, except others were wanting it covered up.

Those who were asking about private living arrangements: Sturgeon mentions the claims in her book and says that it was all just slander. However, I first heard the stories some years ago, but thought it load of nonsense, since I originally heard it from Scottish Labour members and thought that it was all just misogyny. (The 'Oh, she's a strong woman with short hair so she must be a lesbian trope' that you still get from some men.)

I'm no longer on X, but I recall that the Balmoral Hotel story was all over if for a while, and much of it came from apparently pro-Indy accounts. However, the only people that would know for certain would be hotel staff.

For a good while, Scottish X/Twitter was awash with Ferrero Rocher/Ambassador jokes.

The focus will now have to shift to the accounts and the checks and balances and how the fraud was undetected for so long. Mainly in part to those responsible for access and sign off to the accounts not having full access to said accounts.

There were enough resignations along the way of people who were uneasy about the financial affairs of the party.

I think the people who covered it up were likely on the fiddle as well. There would be no real reason to cover for it unless it benefitted you as well.

Natalie McGarry was only caught with her hand in the cash drawer because Women for Independence were on the ball. The SNP either hadn’t noticed her pilfering, or because she was just using party funds for personal spends nobody batted an eyelid.

I wonder if at some point using party/business cards for personal expenses just became so common place that people basically forgot it wasn’t actually allowed. What started as turning a blind eye to the odd purchase that wasn’t quite right, the occasional lunch that wasn’t really expenses worthy, and one or two things that would have been ok if they’d bought a reasonable one but not really the flashy version turned into people just using party money as their own turned into greed.

Then the likes of McGarry and Murrell got greedy with it, hence their downfalls.