Decline and Fall

The image of Scottish nationalism irremediably tainted by the criminality of Sturgeon’s spouse

The duopoly that dominated Scottish politics for a decade

“Farthest fall the virtuous with feet of clay.”

The nationalist former First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband, SNP CEO Peter Murrell, dominated Scottish politics for a decade and arguably came close to breaking up Britain. Their project ended in ignominy yesterday as Murrell was led in handcuffs from the High Court of Justiciary in Glasgow, where he had pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 of Scottish National Party funds.

There is an especial irony in his tawdry tale of petty larceny and greed. The pair always conveyed an image of honest Scottish moderation. They lived in an ordinary new-build on a housing estate outside Glasgow. They claimed rarely to socialise or go on holiday, so busy were they serving Scottish voters.

TORY SLEAZE

As First Minister from 2014, Sturgeon excoriated the wealthy in speeches and ramped up income taxes at home while demonising Westminster as a den of corruption and “sleaze”. After the 2022 Conservative budget, she tweeted: “The super wealthy are laughing all the way to the bank … while increasing numbers of the rest are relying on food banks.” We now know who was really laughing all the way to the bank: her husband.

Court documents released this week revealed the extent of Murrell’s embezzlement. He bought a luxury RV for £125,000, which he apparently never used. He used party cash to buy an £81,000 Jaguar and another vehicle. He bought two Bremont World Timer Alt 1 watches in white and black for £4,555.25 and £4,795 respectively plus a Montblanc Starwalker World Time fountain pen coating £4,225. He blew £3,500 on hand chased wine coaster in Britannia silver, £2,600 on Lalique matching glass salt and pepper shakers and thousands more on designer fountain pens, video equipment and a bewildering array of coffee-making machines. These items were among a pile of high-end tat from top-drawer stores that would not have looked out of place in Selling Sunset.

It was kleptocracy worthy of the TV show Friends and Neighbours - only Murrell wasn’t robbing the rich. He has admitted paying for all this by plundering the donations of ordinary SNP members. Hypocrisy rarely comes as bare-faced as this, even in a country which has seen its share of political scandals in recent years.

SHE KNEW NOTHING

Nicola Sturgeon insists that she knew nothing. She claims not to have noticed the heaps of luxury household goods acquired by her now estranged husband while they lived together for 12 years. Her mind was on other things, she said in a statement this week, and she did not have a joint bank account. Ms Sturgeon “had no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever that he was using SNP funds for personal purposes”.

Her denials have met with scepticism in the Scottish Parliament, from which she voluntarily stood down as a MSP before the recent elections. The Scottish Conservative leader, Russell Findlay, condemned the former First Minister’s “preposterous protestations of ignorance about her husband’s criminal racket”.

It does rather stretch credulity so conspicuous was her husband’s consumption. Did Elena Ceaușescu not know of her husband’s fondness for gold taps? Was Ferdinand Marcos unaware of Imelda’s penchant for footwear?

Whatever, Ms Sturgeon was questioned at length by police in 2023 and has not been charged with benefiting from embezzlement. She is in the clear, at least as far as the criminal law is concerned. Public opinion may not be so easily reconciled.

TIME LINE

Sturgeon famously resigned as First Minister without warning in February 2023, apparently after the scandal of male-bodied sex offenders being placed in women’s prisons following her policy of self-ID for transgender people. But observers are now examining the timeline of the Murrell affair with acute interest.

Might she have been aware in early 2023 that both she and her husband were about to be arrested and questioned about £600,000 in party funds which appeared to have gone astray? She knew that this allegation had been made as early as 2021 by independence supporters, including the prominent nationalist activist Sean Clerkin. That was when the Scottish police launched Operation Branchform to investigate inconsistencies in the SNP accounts.

In March 2021, after the SNP national treasurer Douglas Chapman resigned, claiming he was being denied access to essential information, Ms Sturgeon insisted that there was nothing amiss. She assured her party executive that SNP finances were in “the strongest ever position” and warned members to be “very careful” not to raise questions about irregularities in case it discouraged donations to the SNP. Well, she was right about that at least.

NO INKLING

Her declaration was underpinned by Murrell, who, as chief executive, controlled the Scottish National Party with a ruthlessness that is only now becoming apparent. He used his authority to close down efforts by other party officials including the SNP MP Joanna Cherry KC, to examine anomalies in the party accounts — anomalies that we now learn arose from his own incontinent consumerism.

At the time, few in the party or in the media seriously believed that the £600,000 in funds, raised for a referendum campaign that never happened, had been misappropriated. People who knew the First Minister claim they had no inkling of the acquisitiveness of her husband. The current First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney, a lifelong friend of Peter Murrell, claims to be “devastated” that he “stole” from donors and “betrayed” the party of independence. Swinney faces an uphill struggle trying to raise party funds in future after this scandal. The SNP will also have a hard job restoring its electoral credibility.

PROGRESSIVE ICON

Nicola Sturgeon’s image is similarly irremediably tarnished. A working-class girl from Irvine, she not only made it to the top in politics but became one of the darlings of Britain’s bien-pensant media elite. In 2020, when she presided over the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Sturgeon was hailed as Britain’s answer to Jacinda Ardern, the feminist Prime Minister of New Zealand. She was the Justin Trudeau of UK politics. Deeply green and profoundly progressive, at least in rhetoric, she portrayed herself as the antidote to the “posh”, public-school-educated Tory PM Boris Johnson.

In rhe 2015 general election she probably came closest to ending the 300-year-old Union with England. The SNP, under her leadership, won 56 out of 59 Scottish MPs, a record that is unlikely ever to be broken. The Yes campaign had narrowly lost the referendum on independence the previous year. This allowed the UK government to reject her demand for negotiations on independence. But many, even on the Conservative benches in Westminster, thought it was only a matter of time before the Union was severed. That risk has now receded somewhat.

FRANKLY?

Sturgeon undoubtedly had star quality and was feted by the bureaucrats of the European Union after she declared that the 2016 Brexit referendum was a democratic abomination because most Scots had voted to remain in the EU. She was sounded out for roles in Brussels and the United Nations. She appeared to have a bright future after politics as an LGBT envoy. Not any more.

Her estranged husband will almost certainly be sent to prison for his crimes. Nicola Sturgeon’s future is less certain. She is currently receiving royalties for her autobiography, Frankly, published last year. It perhaps needs another chapter or two to fulfil that promise of candour.