Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister of Scotland who led the country through the worst of the Covid pandemic, says she has just endured “probably the worst” week of her life. She refers to the fallout from her estranged husband’s conviction for embezzling some £400,000 from SNP funds, spent on a car, a motorhome and home luxuries, such as top-end coffee machines. Peter Murrell was chief executive of the party while she was leader of it and head of the government. At a literary conference in Ireland – she is promoting her memoir, Frankly – she went so far as to say she’d “probably need to sit with a therapist”. It’s fair to say her pleas have not been met with universal sympathy.
What is the problem?
Sturgeon’s critics say she must have known about Murrell’s crimes – a serious accusation. First, she was married to him, and so it is difficult to understand how she could have failed to notice the appearance or acquisition of various highly expensive items, not least the giant £125,000 mobile home parked at her mother-in-law’s home in Fife, or the £57,000 Jaguar on her own drive. She might, it is said, have been a bit more curious about the collection of fine watches, the Montblanc pens, and the state-of-the-art coffee machine Murrell installed in the marital home. Second, she was leader of the SNP, and well aware of the questions being raised about the state of the party’s finances – and the fate of special independence campaign monies, which it now turns out Murrell had plundered over a period of years. What conversations might they have had, given their prominence in the party’s affairs? At any rate, when the criminal allegations emerged in 2021, Sturgeon was clear there was nothing wrong. “There are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party’s finances,” she told a meeting of the SNP’s ruling committee – and in a media interview a few months later, she maintained that “money hasn’t gone missing”.
What does Sturgeon say?
“No comment” was her repeated response during her seven hours of questioning by Police Scotland in 2023, not long after she’d unexpectedly resigned as first minister due to “burnout”. (Sturgeon has repeatedly said that the police investigation, known as Operation Branchform, was not a factor in her decision to stand down.) Her solicitor added that this stonewalling was merely down to standard legal advice, and that Sturgeon had later provided a “detailed written response” to Police Scotland’s questions.
And now?
She regards herself as a victim of her husband’s actions, which are yet to be explained after he pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial. “Just as other people have been, I have been deceived,” she said. “I have been misled, I have been lied to and I have been betrayed, and I won’t be the last woman who has been betrayed by her husband.” As to the avalanche of pricey tat chez Sturgeon, she’s suggested that because the couple were both earning high salaries – approaching £250,000 a year between them – it wasn’t so strange to think that they’d be living a comfortable lifestyle. She says they did not have a joint bank account, she didn’t peruse his bank statements, and she didn’t know about some of the items he’d been buying. One overarching fact is that Sturgeon was never charged with any crime, even after an extensive investigation by Police Scotland, who passed their findings to prosecutors. There is no evidence that she colluded with Murrell or covered anything up. In her words: “I had no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever that he was using SNP funds for personal purposes. I am utterly appalled that he did so, and cannot begin to understand why. That I was fully cleared after a thorough investigation underlines that these were not my crimes. I was misled, just as others were.”
Where does it leave the SNP?
Out of pocket, and severely embarrassed, as the present first minister, John Swinney, was also a senior party figure at the time. He is having to answer questions about what he and Sturgeon knew, and why they were not more vigorous in their early internal investigations. Had Murrell’s confession taken place just a few weeks ago, before the 7 May elections for the Scottish parliament, the party might well have won fewer seats (it is currently the largest party in the parliament). And where does it leave independence? Just that little bit further away. The question is whether a party that has been so prone to scandal and incompetence can be trusted to govern Scotland as an independent nation, especially since two successive first ministers, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, have been so caught up in the various personal and policy disasters.
