Mr Murrell and Miss Sturgeon

 Once again the blogger reads are not up-dating.  I see one of the few blog lists that I appear on is still showing Saturday as my most recent post.  Sunday on Andy Burnham is totally not there.  Oh well, I keep on keeping on.   So if you are just reading and it is Monday, don't forget you also have Sunday to read as well.  

Today I will write about Peter Murrell, husband of one time SNP first lady, Nicola Sturgeon.  Peter Murrell was the first man of the SNP to her first woman in that he was Chief Executive of the SNP.  Murrell is accused of, and admits, embezzling £400,000 from SNP funds which were meant for the SNP party.  This smacks of African aid getting into the hands of the chiefs who build new houses for themselves from what we are led to believe is our money going to poor little native kids to buy books and provide water.  But that's by the by.  

First lesson for the SNP is do not let a husband and wife team into sole leadership rolls.   This would not have happened in the English Parliament.  Even freebies of football tickets and dresses were soon picked up. 

In the real crime series,  of which I watch a lot,  when the accused says "no comment" it usually means that that person has something to hide and is guilty.   Nicola Sturgeon said "no comment" in answer to all the questions put to her by the police.  She commented to the press that she was fully co-operative.  Saying "no comment" does not sound to me like being "fully co-operative".  No comment is definitely not regarded by the police as "co-operating". 

A question that comes to my mind about her alleged innocence of not knowing that all the goods that were showing up at home were in any way questionable or suspicious is that is she so thick that she did not know that campervans cost a lot of money so no red flags came up?  This is possible and as the leader of the Scottish Parliament at the time and first lady of Scotland I think it is very likely that, like many other politicians, she had no idea of the value of things.  This is actually enough to make you weep.  We see this over and over again with government that the politicians have no grasp whatsoever of the everyday cost of real life and appear so far removed from it that they have no idea of what their policies do to make living from day to day very difficult rendering a coffee to a flask in a plastic bag and no latte  in a coffee shop and forget about saving anything for a rainy day and to Mr Miliband the chance of buying an electric vehicle are way out of reach of the ordinary person.   So did Miss Sturgeon just not know that this campervan cost a lot of money and she might have needed to question where the money came from?  Probably no, she didn't know her husband had spent a great deal of money on it. 

Maybe Mr Murrell said to Nicola that the campervan cost no more than a family car or an SUV and she believed him.  Maybe of the fancy pens she believedthey  were no more than something you would buy in John Lewis gift department.  It is possible. 

However, Miss Sturgeon has a history of lying to courts and tribunals.  She denied any wrongdoing on her part in the Alex Salmond sexual harrassment scandal.  It is a shame that Alex Salmond is not alive to see the current scandal surrounding Sturgeon and Murrell.  

Edit

It is interesting to see more and more coming out about this scandal and Murrell.  It appears that in 2021 Sturgeon prevented any examination of the SNP accounts when the first auditors raised concerns.  This would have disclosed the Murrell frauds much earlier but his wife was firm that no independent examination of the accounts was to take place.      

A thorough examination by the Scottish Parliament is now being demanded of exactly what was going on.  

You think you have scrupulous civil servants and ministers in charge and that they would not dream of embezzling funds and you end up with a man buying cars, campervans and luxury goods from party funds who is nothing but a common thief.   The blocking of examination of the accounts by Miss Sturgeon points more and more to at least a cover up for something she suspected or  to the fact that she knew more than she is letting on.  No comment, I told you, generally means guilty.