Just because Sturgeon is not in the dock, doesn't mean questions can be batted away - John McLellan
Murrell’s thieving could have had a direct impact on the governance of the country
Whenever politicians pledge “ring-fenced” funds for whatever pet project is in vogue, be sure they’ll find a way to play ring-a-ring-a-roses with voters when the money is needed elsewhere.
Revenue from Edinburgh’s Tourist Tax, about to go live next month, is supposed to be “ring-fenced” for tourism-related activities, but councillors have successfully argued that some of the proceeds should be spent on affordable housing because low-paid hospitality staff need somewhere to live.
There is a UK Defence Innovation fund which is supposed to have a ringfenced budget of £400 million, but what are the odds on that being honoured after this week’s resignation of defence secretary John Healey and armed forces minister Al Carns?
And so to the SNP’s ring-fenced £600,000 to fight a second independence referendum that has never been. Only the mugs who gave them the money must have believed it wasn’t just another way to raise general funds for the party, but as members of the party’s National Executive Committee discovered, questioning the Sturgeon-Murrell duumvirate ran the risk of bullying and intimidation.
Curiously, it looked like an attempt to ape the Conservative and Labour vehicles from the 2014 referendum campaign, Conservative Friends of the Union and United for Labour, which were separate to the Better Together fund-raising and contributed to party running costs. The crucial difference was, of course, that there actually was a referendum to fight, and by helping to keep the parties going, contributors were indeed helping to fight for the cause.
Only now has First Minister John Swinney fessed up, admitting the loot could just go into the pot because the SNP was always campaigning for independence, as if the rest of us hadn’t worked that out. But of course that’s not how it was sold and the dogs in the street know it was a stick-on case of mis-selling. It just goes to show that when iron discipline goes hand-in hand with the propensity to insult the intelligence of anyone with the temerity to ask questions − which journalists knew was Nicola Sturgeon’s default press conference position – bad things can happen.
It seems to me more than likely that by the time of her resignation in February 2023, Ms Sturgeon knew the police search for the missing £600,000 had turned into an embezzlement probe which would lead to her front door, but if quizzed who’d bet against her saying she can’t remember if she knew before or after she quit because there was so much going on at the time?
However, it does mean that her husband’s thieving could have had a direct impact on the governance of the country, and just because she’s not in the dock facing a five stretch in HMP Stirling doesn’t mean the public has no right to know what really went on.
Weeks on from Murrell’s guilty plea, so many questions will remain unanswered when he is sentenced in ten days’ time, and how he managed to kick the case beyond the election has nothing to do with the internal workings of the SNP, but everything to do with the way the public prosecution service is run.
It is certainly a matter of extreme public importance to know the detail of what, if any, discussions have taken place about separating the Lord Advocate’s dual role of the Scottish Government’s chief legal adviser and the head of the prosecution service. Just because the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain insisted she played no part in Murrell’s prosecution, doesn’t mean there is nothing to see here either.
The very fact that the SNP seems incapable of accepting the principle of a clear conflict of interest for the Lord Advocate when the head of government and his or her immediate family is under criminal investigation again speaks volumes about the institutional arrogance which was a major factor in creating this crisis in the first place. A rare occurrence? There have only been seven First Minsters and two have had their collars felt, and another had to resign.
And is Mr Swinney so lacking in self-awareness that he doesn’t realise the angrier his stonewalling becomes, the more he resembles Ms Sturgeon in that infamous NEC video?
Even if SNP loyalists dismiss the whole affair as one man’s criminality, the longer this goes on the less chance there is of Nationalists persuading enough people they have the integrity and credibility to win the argument for the great leap into the unknown. The only SNP figure who came anywhere near the truth about the challenges of independence, ex-MSP Andrew Wilson, was patted on the back and thanked for his services, never to be seen again.
The SNP wants all this to go away too, backing the Greens’ dead cat motion in Holyrood for an review of all parties’ finances, despite knowing they have no power to conduct one. So time and public money will be wasted on a naked attempt to deflect attention away from the real questions, in what looks very like a behind-closed-doors deal for ruinous favours we are yet to discover.
In any case, the rules governing political finances are complicated enough without adding even more bureaucracy, and I remain to be convinced that inquiry and counter inquiry will achieve much other than theatre. Nicola Sturgeon’s appetite for self-inflicted injuries at book festivals seems unabated anyway,
This week I chaired a meeting of the Scottish Public Information Forum, and it was suggested that the returning Freedom of Information (Scotland) Bill might be amended to extend FoI law to political parties because they perform a public function. The logic is clear, but which politician will vote for that? The fence ringed around private party business will be made of electrified razor wire.