When SNP supporters who’d donated to a fund for a second independence referendum campaign began raising questions about where all the money was, their then leader Nicola Sturgeon was not happy.

Members of the party’s National Executive Committee – meeting virtually in March 2021 – were told that, contrary to damaging gossip, the party’s finances had never been stronger.

The woman who once dreamed of leading Scotland to independence and, in doing so, taking her place among the giants of political history is now a national laughing stock

The woman who once dreamed of leading Scotland to independence and, in doing so, taking her place among the giants of political history is now a national laughing stock

Sturgeon, a politician who prefers to engage from the moral high-ground, left colleagues in no doubt that, so far as she was concerned, there was nothing further to discuss. Everything was fine and anyone who suggested otherwise risked damaging the party’s relationship with donors. Footage of Sturgeon’s stony remonstration was soon leaked and it remains online to haunt her.

And haunt her it does, for even as the then-leader of the SNP was briskly insisting there was nothing to worry about, her now-estranged husband was absolutely rinsing the party’s bank accounts. 

On Monday morning, Peter Murrell – chief executive of the SNP between 2001 to 2023 – pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 between 12 August 2010 and 19 October 2022.

Money........

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