Peter Murrell embezzlement trial

[Sunnnyday]

Peter Murrell is in court in Edinburgh today. This is for the preliminary hearing which was postponed from before the election. It will be interesting to see how the criminal proceedings proceed.

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/peter-murrell-arrives-at-court-ahead-of-hearing-on-embezzlement-charges/ar-AA23Ybuy?ocid=msedgntp&pc

Now Blackford has waded in saying he believe Sturgeon would never have been in the kitchen because she “doesn’t have a passion for cooking”.

have to say I’m delighted they’re doubling down on this nonsense. SNP credibility being destroyed is absolutely fine with me. 😂😂

So he can’t make a cup of tea the ? He did all the cooking? Or they weren’t actually living together. It’s all so bloody bizarre

Kenny Farquharson waxing lyrically in the Times. I remember years ago Nicola Sturgeon claiming that she talked about everything with her husband, that he was the most intelligent person she knew (a bit of a worry, that), so what is it?
https://www.thetimes.com/article/df439964-ebf7-43d2-9d3e-6a119968f447?shareToken=90758ef4553d66f6ff08e29f5a736b50&ver=article

I know that there are exceptions, but yes - I'm in the central belt.

I have never in my life seen anybody supporting England over Scotland i went to a protestant non dom school in the 70s come from a predominantly "Rangers" family they would rather poke their eyes out than support England! I care not a jot about religion and football but I can say that ime unionists are very proudly Scottish first.

Christ on a bike. Is this typical for UK political parties? £250 a month handed over to a party organisation that couldn't run a lemonade stall in a heatwave?

I’ve been thinking about this and this could be tricky. Technically Murrell stole from the SNP, they are the legal victims of the crime. So if money recovered was to be returned it would surely have to be returned to the SNP, rather than individual donors?

If the 100k that he loaned to them was shown to come from his own accounts then would the 60k they haven’t paid back just be taken against the 400k?

Also if the marital home is owned jointly then presumably the proceeds of crime act will allow them to go after Murrell’s half? NS will have to legally show her ownership so unless there’s anything in place to show unequal shares his half should be taken.

Yes, that surprised me very much. What's the reason a Rangers supporter might support England over Scotland? Was it at a time when most of the Scotland players came from Celtic, Liverpool and Man Utd?

During the Gascoigne era in particular, I'd see boys in a particular Fife school steadfastly supporting England. Mind you, some of them were also in a [very bad] Orange flute band. I hear what some people have said about Rangers supporters promoting the union rather than England, but at that time there were certain groups that saw the two as being synonymous. That included involvement in sectarian matters. It's not as bad as it was, but it's still there in certain circles.

I'll not derail much more, but I recall some extremely bizarre conversations with boys who proudly told me that being a Protestant meant that you didn't go to church. They had some really very confused ideas.

I was told by some retired miners in the area that the sectarian nonsense had been imported from the west of Scotland many years previously.

I note that above, someone commented that St George flags are used to represent England. That certainly should be the case, but at that time I recall that England supporters were flying union flags rather than the St George flags currently being used. (Rugby was an entirely different matter.)

I recall my dismay when some of the bigotry was briefly imported to Cowdenbeath football ground at the point when Rangers was in danger of disappearing into the ether and there was talk of Cowdenbeath becoming Rangers lite when Donald Findlay took over.

i really wonder who is advising them because it’s just such obvious nonsense that it makes Sturgeon look guiltier as she is clearly lying.

I actually in some ways can believe that she didn’t notice his spending like Kenny Farquharson says in his article someone shared. As one half of a high earning couple I have no idea how much the packages that continually arrive for my husband cost. We have a joint account so I could look if I wanted to, but at one point we had separate accounts and I wouldn’t have had a clue.

And she would also have been perpetually busy and out of the house with her job. I imagine she stayed over in Edinburgh a lot and they lived very separate lives.

So why they need to continually make up a load of nonsense is baffling.

Thanks for sharing this, I really enjoyed reading it. I'm not sure I totally agree with the conclusion of spouse first, politician second, but it's a great soundbite and the piece really does articulate the key issues around lack of accountability and exactly why two people married to each other shouldn't have been able to hold the positions they did. Whatever Sturgeon knew, it is embarrassing for her to be seen shooing off questions about money in the party. A well-governed organisation will actively encourage questions and value the transparency they bring.

Whoever is advising Nicola sturgeon is making an absolute arse if it.

If she’d come out and said “I didn’t know. I was super busy with work. I wasn’t really focussed on being a wife and we spent a lot of time apart. I’m really sorry that I didn’t notice and when the SNP have an investigation I’ll help as much as I can to make sure this kind of thing can never happen again” then people would still think she probably knew, but at least she wouldn’t sound like she was actively taking the piss and trying to make herself the victim.

I find it (albeit very very slightly) plausible, if negligent, that she didn't question the spending at the time if she was just letting him crack on with the more domestic stuff, whilst she cosplayed being Mother Scotland or whatever she was peddling.. I'll draw the line at the motorhome though...

What is most serious in my view, is the shutting down of any questioning of party accounts and the way those raising concerns were manoeuvred out of the way.

Once there was any query she, and the others responsible for signing off these figures should have been by the book. This clearly wasn't the case and they need to be held to account for that.

Absolutely. As part of our controls we have to evidence that questions have been asked before signing off any accounts or other financial figures. These controls are then audited.

And if anything goes wrong there will be an internal investigation into how and why it happened and how it can be prevented in the future.

the SNP need to have an internal enquiry and the fact they’re trying to face down calls for one show they haven’t learnt anything.

Thanks for this link and share token.

Marriages run on trust. Politics runs on accountability. The SNP leader afforded the party chief executive the same degree of trust as she did at home, as his wife. When questions were raised about Murrell’s stewardship of the SNP finances she instinctively defended him.

These were the actions of a good partner but a hopelessly misguided politician. Because the job of a politician is to be sceptical, to ask the tough questions. Sturgeon was capable of this as first minister but ill-equipped to do so as a spouse. That was not the kind of relationship she had with her husband.

I'm still not buying it. The luxury motorhome is too much. And certainly not with the luxury motorhome on the MiL's drive being explained away as a 'campaigning bus'.

No me neither. If she would have had full trust in how the finances where dealt with she wouldn't have blocked people questioning it. She'd have offered people to check for themselves. She knew something was wrong.

The fact that Douglas Chapman resigned in 2021 is quite damning.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/operation-branchform-former-snp-treasurer-30830315

People complicit in the cover-up are currently in power. I'm appalled that the court case was somehow delayed until after the election.

Yes this is what I’d like focused on too, it’s vote rigging plain and simple!
But no one is looking into this It could have cost them the election but somehow it was moved we should be told who moved it and why?

Indeed , Douglas Chapman might say more now, but I doubt it. It’s Aldi interesting that the SNP could not find auditors in Scotland, they had to get an English firm as the original ones resigned

I think the focus on Sturgeon as Murrell's partner is missing the point. As the party leader, she had a fiduciary duty as well as moral responsibility to make sure the finances were managed properly, the safeguards were in place, and importantly, donations were put to the use as intended. She failed spectacularly to do that. It was her job. "It wisnae me" does not cut it.

I listened to the Ponsonby & Massey Podcast today - they provided a good summary of what's happened and how badly this is being managed by both Sturgeon and Swinney. (Actually the Holyrood Sources pod gives a good summary of the timing. Interestingly (IIRC), both say the delay in the trial would not have changed the outcome ie SNP would still have come top, but with a reduced majority. (although that would have let the Greens in 😦)

Peter M has not said anything yet.

It’s almost like he has made an agreement to be the fall guy. If he starts talking we all need to listen. NS is lying through her teeth and no-one believes her.

It’s quite staggering that he was voted in as treasurer - so people clearly wanted a change from Colin Beattie - and then after stating that he couldn’t do the job because of a lack of transparency Beattie was parachuted back in!

I’d also like to know what made the finance and audit committee members quit that year when they hadn’t in any other year. Was it simply the Wings comments about the finances or was there issues in previous years that we just weren’t told about.

I think as well as that it shouldn’t be missed that John Swinney was leader when Murrell was made CEO and Alex Salmond was leader for several years of Murrell’s thieving.

Murrell shouldn’t have been able get things through fraudulently with his wife as the party leader, but he also shouldn’t have been able to get them through with other leaders.

So clearly the basic set up of the SNP finances were screwed even before NS became party leader. The focus on NS may very well be allowing others who are equally culpable in professional terms to go under the radar.

Absolutely rotten to the core!