It's Outrageous

by Rab Bruce’s Spider

 

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I must admit that I always thought it wrong that the two most senior people in the SNP should be married. Many financial institutions have a policy under which one of a married couple would be moved to a different office to avoid any chance of collusion in financial misconduct. I know the SNP is a political party rather than a financial institution, but they clearly had access to a lot of money, and it would have been prudent to ensure that no married couple had control of the Party’s funds. Even if both were scrupulously honest – and Peter Murrell clearly wasn’t – allowing them to work together in such senior positions placed both of them in an invidious situation.

 

As for Nicola Sturgeon’s claims that she knew nothing about her estranged husband’s embezzlement, I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. Many married couples keep their finances strictly separate, and if one partner turns up with an unexpected and expensive purchase, the first thought would not be, “Did you steal money to pay for that?”. Even the purchase of an expensive car is not out of the question, especially for someone on a very large salary. Private purchases of cars are often funded through finance deals, so the mere presence of an expensive car is not an alarm bell at all. Quite whether you can say the same about a very large camper van is up for debate, but the same principle should apply.

 

I’m not Nicola Sturgeon’s biggest fan, and I retain some doubts over her role in this affair, along with her role in the Alex Salmond affair. But my biggest gripe is that she failed to progress the cause of independence at all, despite the UK providing opportunities to do just that. As for the current situation, I know many people find her explanations less than credible, and there are certainly questions over her role in signing off the Accounts when other Party members were expressing concerns. However, if a hugely lengthy Police investigation hasn’t turned up any criminal behaviour, then I’m not sure that another investigation would help do anything except create a huge amount of negative publicity for the SNP.

 

Which is, of course, why Westminster politicians are demanding a Parliamentary enquiry, calls which the Unionist media are amplifying as much as they can. The hypocrisy here is incredible. As usual, the media have been turning blind eyes to the questionable financial affairs of Reform Ltd politicians, while screaming about Zack Polanski’s unpaid Council Tax. The former seem to be deliberate acts of pushing the boundaries of what is legal, while the latter was a genuine mistake. This, of course, does not prevent the media pushing their agenda, and, like Angela Rayner before her, Nicola Sturgeon is viewed as a prime target. The fact that she was SNP Party leader adds to their vitriol because of the Party’s wish to break up the media’s precious Union.

 

As for the Westminster politicians who are demanding an enquiry, it is notable that they seem more vexed about this than about the millions of public money given to tory donors for providing dodgy PPE. Of course, peter Murrell’s admission of guilt has provided UK Labour with a convenient distraction from their own problems, even from some who have themselves been found to have been engaged in using public money for purposes which many in the public could find questionable. Do you seriously think that Westminster is more agitated about SNP members’ money being pilfered on a grand scale than it is about actual public money being misused by Westminster politicians? No, I don’t think so either. All they are doing is pouncing on a vulnerability in the SNP because it suits their narrative to paint the entire Independence movement in a bad light.

 

The question is whether this will work. And I mean in Scotland because most English voters seem to swallow the media headlines about Scotland unquestioningly. Initial signs from a recent poll suggest that the media outrage is actually having the opposite effect, with support for the SNP increasing slightly. Is it a case that more Scots have woken up to the media bias and view every negative story as just another Better Together lie? Time will tell. The main issue, though, is that people should not view the venality and criminality of one SNP member as evidence that the whole Yes movement is like that. If that logic were to apply, then there is more than enough evidence to paint the whole UK political system as inherently corrupt. Not that you’ll hear that from the UK media, naturally.