You’ve been robbed
The Electoral Commission has finally published the SNP’s 2019 accounts.
As Wings has been warning for most of this year, something in the region of £700,000 in supposedly “ring-fenced” money raised by two crowdfunding campaigns has indeed vanished into the maw of the party machine, leaving just under £97,000 in the bank.
(More than £300,000 down on last year, despite a £600,000 increase in “donations”, the bulk of which in fact came from the UK government).
This has happened despite the party angrily and categorically insisting that the money would NOT be spent until there was a new independence referendum.
What all that means is that if the UK government were to unexpectedly turn round tomorrow and grant a Section 30 order for a second indyref, Wings Over Scotland would have considerably more money in the bank to fight it than the SNP does.
The SNP also has a Holyrood election to fight in six months’ time, which normally costs it somewhere in the region of £1.5m – far more than its current total net assets of £272,000. As we told you back in January, the party is simply in no financial position to fight a new referendum campaign, which is very likely part of the reason it’s been in no rush to secure one for the last few years and has no remotely credible plan to do so.
It’s a matter of debate whether obtaining such sums of money under false pretences is a criminal offence or not. We invite anyone concerned about this state of affairs to ask the SNP what happened to their donation. We wish you good luck getting an answer.
That’s pretty much an outrage but as you say don’t expect an explanation.
Terrible. Truly terrible.
The Murrells took my party and any hope of securing our independence and quite literally f**ked it.
I’m now resigned to not seeing my country becoming an independent and sovereign nation in my life time… and i’m only 49.
So tired if all the talk. Its finished… i’m finished.
I’m not an accountant, but does “debtors and prepayments” include membership dues? If so, that figure might drop this year.
Not surprised. Glad to finally see it confirmed though.
The FM is a liar, and she’s leading a party and a government, that are corrupt.
Who’s willing to try prove me wrong?
*to try to
given that the SNP trannies want to turn Scotland into a Berlin drag club, this seems appropriate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JDWJzKYfdc
Time for some redundancies methinks…
Cue lots of Covid impact waffle as excuses…utterly dreadful and glad my member fee donations now heading elsewhere doing actual good
The creditors seem pretty eye-watering likewise.
I don’t actually remember what it said on the fund raiser web site but if James Kelly said that is what it said it must be true!!
Was it a payment to the SNP therefore be part of their accounts?
Just asking
Sad it’s come to this.
Wonder if James Kelly will mention this tomorrow…
Also noted that some lucky person in the UK won £80m on the Euro Lottery (good for them). Be ironic if it is an SNP member and they tell NS to bugger off.
Mhairi Black on twitter.
“I did not leave the SNP the SNP left me”
Why is it that the party the Scottish people trust with their future always turns awry?
No money = no referendum.
Has this been the plan all along, the party brought into disrepute and its collapse.
Its time the other MSP/MP`s woke up and did something about Sturgeon and Murrell.
“Was it a payment to the SNP therefore be part of their accounts?”
The fundraiser money went directly to the SNP, yes. See the January article for more detail.
“Cue lots of Covid impact waffle as excuses”
These figures cover the year to 31 December 2019, so entirely pre-COVID.
How much money has been lost, tossed out the window trying to frame an innocent man, money that could have been in the bank and more use elsewhere?
Why on earth wear blinkers for only a referendum when other ways are open – see Breeks and the constitutional path via the courts? Folk would have freely donated to have Johanna C. head an SNP campaign to hound WM for breaking the ToU.
The “Leadership” of the SNP should be on bread an’ water, NOT big salaries and the deadwood scum thrown out.
Is it a stretch to say the donations were used to cover up the stitch-up of Salmond?
Cheers Stu..See The Dates noted..i bet it doesnt stop Covid getting thrown in an excuse.
Thats the problem with accounts.. why does it take so long to publish.. Books arent that difficult to process
“How much money has been lost, tossed out the window trying to frame an innocent man”
“Is it a stretch to say the donations were used to cover up the stitch-up of Salmond?”
Taxpayers’ money was used for that, not SNP money.
I’m actually just lost for words, what a hellish day this has been all round, what’s the point?
I see legal fees went up from £38.6k in 2018 to £156.5k in 2019. I guess 2020 will see that go up even further with the need for ever more legal advice for the ceo.
Still no specific mention of the ceo and coo salaries.
Staff costs of £1.01m and with 21 staff = £52.4k ‘average’. Either everybody at HQ are awfully well paid, or the 2-3 heid bummers are on well over £100k each.
Staff costs of £1.01m absorb half of all membership fee income of £2.2m. Seems like poor value for members cash given what they get in return, which is ?
Looking at this, I think they have lost about 20,000 members since last year.
So now we have it in writing for all to see
The naked truth, as predicted by Stu
How salmond could squander the indy tidal wave by handing over to the murrels, defies logic
& for them to repay him in that way, suggests that there’s a lot more to this saga
Filthy game, this politics malarkey
Seems Indy is deid in my lifetime, alas
Aye, £700k won’t last very long when you’re rewarding yourself and your loyal chums over-inflated salaries of £120k+. A year or two at most.
Alf Baird @11:02
A fourfold increase in legal fees between 2018 and 2019? Disgusting.
Under Sturgeon and Murrell the SNP has become a goldmine for lawyers.
The accounts are fascinating reading, even for us non bean-counters. I’d love someone to explain what the reserves actually cover as there’s a lot of movement in there.
Four-fold increase in legal fees revealed in note 15!
“Looking at this, I think they have lost about 20,000 members since last year.”
Membership income is almost unchanged, although of course they could just have been raising more money from each member.
No money either for court cases … maybe now is the time to sue them for trampling all over my human rights.
How many SNP MPs and MSPs would it take to make up the money from their salaries by the next election? Call it ‘Deep Pockets’.
If thats true???
Please please, why don’t yourself and Alex start a new party for an independent Scotland, I would sell my house tae finance the party..
You would need to find out what 20 and 21 mean exactly no?
Current assets- debtors and repayments
Liabilities – creditors and accrual ‘s
Seems over million there?
“If thats true???”
If what’s true?
So that’s it – who will now trust the SNP with money for any specified use now? I can see more memberships being cancelled because of this and a shit load less in donations now too…. That is the end of the SNP/Indyref2 for now I think.
Stuart, geeky checking the notes:
See notes to the accounts no 21 Trade Creditors, over £300,000 (massively more than previous year).
It’s money due to be paid but not yet during that financial year.
This could mean almost anything,
To take a totally, ahem, random example:
If you had a friendly legal company that you owed money to for services late in 2019 they might agree to set a payment due after the year end. This would lower your spend on legal fees (for now) and the exact nature wouldn’t come out until next year, it wouldn’t look out of step with the previous year’s spend.
These accounts look very odd.
If it is a ring fenced amount… is it possible they can claim it is subject to a separate account, not yet published?
Just trying to cover all the angles.
And to think I believed that the constant kicking of the indyref can down the road was just cowardice.
If this isn’t a crime, it should be.
Was the crowdfunded money for indref2 ever included in their accounts? You would expect it to appear in the previous years accounts but I can find nothing?
I was hoping the comments section would be jumping tonight with people wanting to apologise to Wings. Where are they? Where are all the people that said this story was crap?
Well, I certainly won’t be apologising… never doubted you for a minute, Rev. And I never doubted Salmond either.
Nailed.
The last time Peter Murrell actually wrote anything on twitter was 14th October and ironically it was to comment on the rise in support for Independence.
……………………..
McDuff says:
27 October, 2020 at 10:56 pm
No money = no referendum.
Has this been the plan all along, the party brought into disrepute and its collapse.
The people of Scotland can raise their own cash for their own Independence McDuff and we shall be free of Murrells and Wokes to boot. . So I’m actually feeling more optimistic. The clouds are gathering for the Murrells and the storm is not far away now . Scotland doesn’t need a pair of no-gooders leading the way to independence. There are plenty of people good enough and able enough to lead a surge . Wings is one of the most valuable and consistent fighters for the cause and there are plenty more nearly as good as him:-)
Been trying to work out where that specific sum of legal expenses went, if not attached to the Salmond Fiasco. Julie McAnulty defamation case….?
There’s no point in a ring-fence if the predator is already inside it.
Bear with me on this
IF all who paid into the now alleged Ponzi scheme
Write and demand their money back and then file in court,
Then they can ask the court to either wind the Unincorporated Association up, or take it over,
There is also a reasonably good chance that the NEC can be held liable for the money
Given the Yes.Scot seemed to delete all the initial pages , and/or changed the the details to an SNP account.
It would be good is copies surface
The question of whether a fraud was operated or not arises
Given also the heid bummers have signed up an expensive legal Firm and questionable financial assets to cover costs Is it a risk the firm would like to take
Just how many lawyers are employed within Bute House?
Are they all useless?
That surely questions the high cost legal firm
If all are true then another, question were all who are registered with the Law Society of Scotland in full knowledge and in turn complicit ?
Oh I guess it’s no wonder the accounts were dragged kicking and screaming from the shaking hands of the ones supposed to be in charge ,
I wonder if the former MP Natalie McGarry jailed for embezzling £ 25 k who I believe is still fighting and appearing her sentence that is was unsafe and out of proportion , I wonder if she took her lead from the Top operators in the SNP or maybe she was involved drafting these accounts,
Try pulling the same trick with your bank accounts you would soon get a wee invitation to explain what the Duck you are up to and how are you going to rectify the situation not just immediately but for the forceable future.
One thing struck me in the breakdown of these accounts was the explanation of where the money was spent by far the biggest amount was allocated to Campaigning ? By Duck that raised a harty laugh , I seem to remember one Mrs Murrell publicity stating INDY ref2 was off the table for the forceable future due to the events surrounding and coping with the Virus,
Anyone remember a recent Campaign mounted by the SNP to push the case for independence ? Nope neither can I it must have slipped my mind just like the memory loss of Civil Servants who suddenly can’t remember events surrounding Alex’s prosecution , strange how so many folk have collective Amnesia just now must be the effect of this virus that’s going the rounds or the real
Truth is they are trying to save their arses and will say anything in their defence .
Could it be the £700k is in Debtors/Repayments amount of over a million?
Does Note 20 give a breakdown?
Rob, you’re not reading that correctly.
Liabilities (non-current and current) are outstripped by assets (fixed and current, including cash in hand) by £271k, nothing like a million.
The simple reply to this is GET THEM ALL TO FUCK
@ Daisy Walker at 11:33 pm
the ringfenced money should be in the accounts , If it is in a separate account it would be showing as a that separate account within the balance sheet
What are the ‘investments’? could there be another account held somewhere?
As it’s ringfenced it may be in a separate entity.
A few random thoughts…
Between 2018 and 2019 Fixed Assets have reduced by about £120,000 ish.
Wonder what that got spent on.
I wonder who released this information from the Electoral Commission now, and if they were ‘authorised’ to do so, or if they were out of the loop and thought they’d stick it to the Jocks/SNP not knowing the current dynamics.
That would be ironic in the extreme. And highly unlikely.
Right just now some very, very, nervous people will be looking at the verdict SIU received from the Electoral Commission about ‘campaigning’ during the 2017 GE. The EC said that as there was no ongoing Referendum, what SIU were doing did not constitute GE Campaigning and therefore there was no need for them to declare or keep records of moneys received or spent. They will be desperate to twist that verdict to their current predicament.
Unfortunately, if you raise money for one reason, and state categorically it will not be used for another, and then do so, when in a position of trust for that money – its a crime of Embezzlement, and one that Police are responsible for investigating – not the EC.
There is absolutely no way, Nicola Sturgeon can claim she ‘didn’t know’, re this, the only way that money could be accessed was with her permission, or under her instruction.
I am expecting my elected reps – Swinney and Wishart – to set their stall out on this. And others across the country must do so also.
I’m also wondering if a criminal investigation were to be undertaken, if assets can be frozen and a claim for compensation be pursued.
Normally, in cases of Fraud – assets are often put into the spouse’s name, to prevent any claim…. Oh, oh dear.
I can hear an Alex sized smile gleaming through the night sky just about now.
A wee prediction – the British Establishment is putting pressure on NS to stay in power and ENSURE the SNP rips itself apart/ and becomes an unelectable mess – in return they will magic up a Ring Fenced fund stating its in a separate account not yet published. I bet the publishing of this account now, is a warning shot for Nicola to keep on track.
Accountancy fees trippled from 2018 to just short of £40 K.
Whit,for 10 pages of not wery involved figuring.
Jonny Martin.
Think we need to see income sheet to see what exactly is going on. This balance sheet is odd.
Join ISP.
Vote ISP
“As it’s ringfenced it may be in a separate entity.”
Go and read the January article. It was EXPRESSLY donated to the SNP. Therefore it has to be in the SNP’s accounts. You can’t just hide it in a cupboard.
A final thought about this Accounts thingy ,
Stu has pointed out these Accounts are all pre Covid and in themselves don’t look very Impressive , Christ what state are the current accounts in once all the resignations are taken into consideration plus the added costs of all these Legal parasites the party has engaged to , well that’s the question who are they protecting and Why the need ,
Anyone know if the Ring Fenced contributons are in a separate Bank Account and why are they not included with the operating accounts of the SNP .
I am getting to the stage it’s no longer a shock to discover a whole lot of unsavoury things have been withheld from members who believed their party wasn’t like the rest of the hyenas in political landscape and we had decent honest people fighting for us , how bloody easily I was taken in how Gullible and unsuspecting, And now how bloody angry for the way Deception was pulled off
“Been trying to work out where that specific sum of legal expenses went, if not attached to the Salmond Fiasco.”
Most likely the defamation of the Brexit Party by Alyn Smith.
Only when you see the income/expenditure sheets along with the balance sheet you get the full picture.
Then you may find it went on hairdressing costs! lol
“Was the crowdfunded money for indref2 ever included in their accounts? You would expect it to appear in the previous years accounts but I can find nothing?”
It would have come under the same heading, cash in hand and at bank.
“If you had a friendly legal company that you owed money to for services late in 2019 they might agree to set a payment due after the year end. This would lower your spend on legal fees (for now) and the exact nature wouldn’t come out until next year, it wouldn’t look out of step with the previous year’s spend.”
It’s funny you should say that…
Re: membership numbers. If you look at page 22 of the document, under section 7 – Miscellaneous, there’s a total for Branch Levy of £174,227
There were two Branch Levy’s in 2019 – one for the EU Election, and one for the Shetland by-election. I’m pretty sure it was a levy of £1 per member per unplanned electoral event. So that suggests there were approx 87,000 members in 2019.
“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? Goodnight!”
What you are seeing is the Balance Sheet which is not the same thing as the revenue account. I would like to see the income & expenditure account for the same year and there MIGHT also be other funds held outwith the above summary for other “purposes” which we are not seeing.
To be fair there was the snap election in 2019 which will have ate into the funds considerably.
But having less than 100k cash in the bank at the start of 2020 looks grim. Cash is king. This is 300k less cash than the previous year. The movements in creditors/debtors cancel each other out.
300k down in cash (same overall in the balance sheet), and with the missing 700k from the fundraiser, a nice round 1m to be properly explained.
2020 accounts should be interesting if it’s still a going concern.
This makes you want to stick your head out of the window and scream,,,
“YOU BASTARD STURGEON!!!”
How much does it cost to keep her husband in employment???
Are they skimming money off of donations to top his salary up???
@Stan Did you shout out of the window Stan? or did you sit back and contemplate that rather than act on your impulse and emotion you would take the time to type it on here instead to enrich us all?
Wouldn’t we expect a significant income cashflow in the 2017 accounts if it was being included? I don’t see any sign of that in the cashflow statement of the 2017 accounts (income actually seems to have declined in that year) so it’s possible it’s never been included. Still, doesn’t answer the question about where on earth the money’s gone.
“To be fair there was the snap election in 2019 which will have ate into the funds considerably.”
You’re missing the point. The SNP absolutely EXPLICITLY said the ring-fenced money WOULD NOT be spent on elections. That’s what “ring-fenced” means.
“What you are seeing is the Balance Sheet which is not the same thing as the revenue account. I would like to see the income & expenditure account for the same year and there MIGHT also be other funds held outwith the above summary for other “purposes” which we are not seeing.”
Well click on the bloody link then. SPOILER: there aren’t.
“There were two Branch Levy’s in 2019 – one for the EU Election, and one for the Shetland by-election. I’m pretty sure it was a levy of £1 per member per unplanned electoral event. So that suggests there were approx 87,000 members in 2019.”
There were indeed. Good spot. (Although presumably you mean the UK election, the EU one wasn’t “unplanned”.)
“Smoke and mirrors”, a hefty wedge of Scottish licence fee revenue is routinely transferred to a Welsh and international commercial enterprise which pervasively influences viewers through the retention and exercising of editorial control over production.
https://caltonjock.com/2020/10/28/public-exposure-of-commercial-shenanigans-and-unjustifiable-salary-deals-support-increasing-calls-for-the-bbc-to-be-dismantled/
Yep, the 700k needs to be explained, not trying to distract from this.
In the post I was more focussing on the 300k loss and the 100k opening cash position, which is an extremely precarious starting point for 2020, as I doubt it covers 1 months expenditure.
But hey, maybe they spent the 700k trying to save us from brexit 😉
“There were indeed. Good spot. (Although presumably you mean the UK election, the EU one wasn’t “unplanned”.)”
Yeah true, but HQ didn’t hit branches with a levy for the UK election last year, only for the EU & Shetland elections. So I think this does give us a rough idea how many members there were in 2019.
I think I’m finally starting to understand what they meant by post-truth politics.
The SNP is the political equivalent of one of those stalls you fell for at ‘the shows’ when you were a kid: three ping-pong balls and a sea of jars… how can you lose?
Even as you walk home, skint, with fuck all to show for your money or your valiant efforts, you can’t get that furry stuffed unicorn out of your mind.
I’m not gonna lie to you, you’ve been robbed. The whole thing was a rip off from the start. You were never getting near a stuffed unicorn. David fucking Blaine couldn’t get a ping-pong ball in one of those jars.
Tell you what, though, how about an alternative offer – a chance to redeem yourself?
I have three cards, two jokers and a queen. We call this game “Find the Lady” — I’m going to turn them over and mix them around a little and all you need to do is point to “the lady”.
Welcome to The SNP.
The SNP has 292 Accounting Units in addition to the central party that are not consolidated with the central party accounts. Therefore, it is possible that the funds raised are in a separate accounting unit. That is a simple question for a SNP member to ask.
The creditors number in the accounts related specifically to monies owed to branches. I’m at home and on my phone right now so do not remember everything from when I looked at the accounts earlier today. However, if the money is not in a separate Accounting Unit, the money donated for an independence campaign no longer exists – at least based on the information presented in the accounts.
There are a few uninformed comments above. For instance, Fixed Assets simply relates to the purchase and disposal of computers etc and does not seem to be unconscionable. In terms of understanding what has happened to the ring-fenced money, it has no relevance. There are other comments that we should not get to aerated about. Focus on the Accounting Units and a clear identification of the Accounting Unit in which the money is held. Having analyzed the accounts back to 2014 some weeks ago, it is probable that the ring-fenced money never hit the central party accounts.
Skip, you seem to be suggesting that the ringfenced money probably still exists but is in what you call a “separate Accounting Unit”.
I find that hard to believe. This isn’t Enron.
If what you’re saying is true, there needs to be mention of it in these accounts or another set of accounts for your separate accounting unit.
Good timing as my SNP Christmas raffle tickets just arrived in the post with the usual begging letter.
Hatuey, the central party accounts state clearly that there are 292 Accounting Units. Therefore, it is possible that the ring-fenced money is in one of those. A party member can, presumably ask to inspect the accounts of all Accounting Units and I strongly recommend that a party member willing to take on the task does so.
If a political party is going to ring-fence funds, it would make perfect sense to do so via an Accounting Unit set up for the purpose. The question that absolutely must be answered is whether the SNP did so. The question is very simple. Whether a simple answer will be forthcoming is another matter entirely.
I have spent thirty years in public accounting (on the tax side mostly) and half of that time has been in the USA. However, the basic rules of accounting have been the same for over 500 years. I looked at 2014-2018 some weeks ago and posted my thoughts on another thread. It might be worth digging that out.
Whether accounts should be consolidated is a good point. Consolidation can lead to obfuscation (which is exactly what happened with Enron) but I daresay one could make an argument for central party controlled accounts being consolidated to a degree. In other words, leave the branches and constituencies out of it, but require full reporting of central party funds. That, though, is a wide-ranging debate that would need to involve the Electoral Commission and numerous other parties and stakeholders.
Oh, and I should say I have no idea if the money still exists. I just think people should be told one way or the other. I do not know what Electoral Commission thresholds are for reporting but I should imagine that the sort of money raised would need to be reported.
.
Long before Alex Salmond had been arrested, I warned that the Miscreants who were stitching him up, might deploy an obscure legal precedent, the stated case law called the Moorov Doctrine…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorov_v_HM_Advocate
In effect the Moorov Doctrine enables the burden of proof to be lowered. It placed Alex Salmond in great peril as the justice he would receive COULD be compromised. It speaks of a great honour to Scots Law that the Sheriff and the jurors who saw right through the dubious prosecution by Police Scotland, COPFS and Penfold Murrell WhatsApp Wokerati.
The Moorov Doctrine also had the effect of that old adage…
“if you throw enough shit, some will stick”
Am not a fan of the “I told you so” club: just mentioning the above fact because that is what happened.
Yes we have all the other bad actors in this nightmare: Penfold Murrell, Sleekit Sturgeon and the Alphabet Witches, Police Scotland and COPFS. All effectively based their efforts to jail Alex Salmond on the Moorov Doctrine case law.
So for a bit of Karma, I commend another obscure law. But one that we can deploy.
But first, for the purposes of this thread, would recommend Wingers do NOT get ANGRY, but get ACTION.
Start getting some good news on these pages.
The money the SNP organisation and the “directing minds” legally responsible for, and the lawful prospectus upon which it was raised MUST NOW BE INVESTIGATED in terms of the somewhat obscure CRIME of:-
THEFT BY CLANDESTINE POSSESSION.
It removes the GET OUT OF JAIL CARD that Shepherd and Wedderburn solicitors are likely to play if the Theft Act or an equivalent Scots Law crime were to have been directed toward Peter Murrell et al.
Remember, Al Capone was never tried nor found guilty of the murders he had undoubtedly authored. He was jailed for getting his paperwork wrong.
Now is the time that Wingers may consider writing to the SNP AUDITORS and raising questions about their PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY INSURANCE.
Several folk may scratch their heads. But this is the nuclear Al Capone option that WILL get the required results.
There is a paper-wall protocol that accountants are legally obliged to observe. It is a dissonant position fraught with legal tort. They are, of course paid accountants. BUT if there is the whiff of impropriety and especially if the accounts are served with formal notice of those concerned, then those same accountants will be responsible, in part, for criminality unless they go running to the police pleading to turn Queens evidence.
I think Stuart knows al of this because he has been on the ball over this matter for months.
The SNP accountants are required by law to act as auditors as well as accountants.
So if someone WITH A RECEIPT OR AUDIT TRAIL PROVING THEY HAD DONATED TO THE SNP FOR A RINGFENCED FUNDRAISER, the SNP Auditors would be VERY unwise just to ignore or bury this matter, as by so doing the accountants place themselves in harm’s way.
IF someone gives a fucking great nudge to the SNP Accountants that they may like to dust off their Professional Indemnity Insurance, that is a SUBSTANTIAL rocket up the fundament of the SNP accountants to get this dreadful misuse of ring-fenced money and alleged fraud with which those funds were raised investigated by their internal audit breach section and likely then referred to the equivalent police forensic accounts investigators. Cue entrance stage left: SNP supporter, Martin Compston, erstwhile investigator of very dodgy people.
In other words, the SNP Accountants are very well placed to know where the financial skeletons are buried.
If the accountants are faced with being investigated by Police Scotland and having claims on their Professional Indemnity Insurance by those who had their money/donations solicited by alleged fraud and false prospectus/misrepresentation, the bean-counters are likely to turn Queens Evidence.
The 5th November doth approach, oh what a wonderful rocket would be the one that launches Murrell and Sturgeon into space and free the REAL SNP from the toxic Woke19 political virus.
For those upset by this thread, please don’t be.
I see these accounts as the SMOKING GUN, the thing we have all been waiting for. This is most likely the way we can get the Sturgeonite McWokeists in criminal court and sublject to the same custodial style of tariffs they so crack-handedly tried to jail Alex Salmond for.
TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR THE REAL SNP.
TODAY IS A GREAT DAY FOR SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE.
P.S. Is anyone able to advise the name and legal service address of the SNP officials/s who signed these accounts as a “true reflection of the financial state of the organisation”?
Well done Stuart Campbell. Well done to all those here who fought off the nasty bitter attacks from misguided people within the INFILTRATED MCWOKEIST STURGEONITE SNP.
Today is the beginning of the end of Sturgeon and Murrell’s gerrymandered tenure in charge of the SNP.
As for any SNP MPs, MSPs and SNP Councillors who fail to question these accounts, they will be called to account when the shitt hits the fan.
@ stonefree, Daisy Walker , the unicorn, Skip
Nicola Sturgeon’s APPEAL in the newspapers and on The SNP’s ref.scot website fundraising page was for an Indy ref2 APPEAL to enable financing for a referendum which she stated would be RINGFENCED for that specific purpose
————————————-
the bbc link
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-40260769
The donations page had hoped to raise £1m in 100 days – with £200,000 being handed over in the first 24 hours of the site going live – but the Herald reported it had raised about £482,000 before being taken down.
—————————————-
The ONLY way to get the SNP to respond and PROVE that the funds are in a separate account and are still there is for contributors to the appeal to ask en masse via a collective email or recorded delivery or some other form with all contributors names included
If there is NO response, or the response is no separate account then a joint class action could be taken up by some no win no fee legal outfit
Is there anyone who has the legal nous and ability to arrange a disgruntled contributor list and to set this in motion, for I firmly believe that this unedifying possible misuse of funds is illegal
Skip, I had already read your previous assessment of the accounts from a couple weeks ago. And if I said anything to imply that I doubted your acumen on these things, it was a mistake. I definitely don’t. Actually, I couldn’t as I don’t even know enough about these things to comment.
The point I was making before was political, not financial. I have hundreds of reasons to distrust them and not one reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
They’ve had more than one chance to put this baby to rest and haven’t done so. Today was another. I’m sure they’d say they don’t respond to cybernat gossip, if you pressed them.
They might also say that the money is safe and will be deployed when the time comes, when we go into an idyref2 campaign – knowing fine well that that day will never come.
This is how they roll.
There was a General Election in December 2019. Those are costly. The branches fund the MP election expenses, as they will also fund the Holyrood campaigns. My branch is in a healthy enough state. While many of the comments above are perfectly valid, the financial position of HQ wont make much of a difference to the funding of the 2021 ground campaign.
Before I got involved in all this I had started making donations towards the 2014 campaign. I dont think people should worry that the financial health of the SNP is going to inhibit a full and vibrant YES campaign. This site and others are funded by donors. Some of us have ringfenced the tellytax they no longer pay and use that to donate to things. The YES marches draw crowds of over 100,000 people. A fiver from each is your Indy fund matched and not a stamp on a lawyers letter required to squander it.
It mat be wise to ask what the party is doing with your money. It may be wise to ask whether an elected member sees a career after independence, and whether that may influence their actions. But when it is called it will not be any big ask to finance it.
Al-Stuart, very promising post. Understand that I know very little and am just speculating… but couldn’t the accountants in this case rightfully claim that they were only asked to account for this one main account? And, consequently, they would have no obligation to touch on, discuss, or take any responsibility for extraneous issues such as the ringfenced money which is a different account (based on what Skip is suggesting as a possibility).
David B, that’s all well and good but we want to know what happened to our money.
.
Hi Twathater,
I like your direction of travel in your post there. But we do not need to arrange a class action. Nor do we need to give even more vast amounts to overpaid lawyers.
The martial arts philosophy of using your opponent’s strength against them is a very useful device.
It just takes ONE SNP member who has donated to this ring-fenced fund and has some form of proof (bank statement or Paypal transaction paperwork). Then report their concern to the SNP AUDITORS.
This lot were paid £40,000 to check the books and prepare a set of accounts AND AUDIT the money along with where it went and upon what is was spent.
TwatHeart, this is a LOT easier to do than raise a public petition or crowdfunder.
Best we save our respective donations for the INDYREF2 GUARANTEED LIST PART – 2nd Vote campaign.
It would be delightfully poetic if Sturgeon had to repay all the donated funds her part allegedly embezzled from another enterprise and those refunded monies went to our lot here and from here to launch and IndyRef2 List Party.
Just had first read through the full document
1. How does a group become an affiliate? Who decides? Do affiliated groups need to meet basic governance standards; do they need to have a constitution, office bearers, annual audited accts etc? The only one listed with a reference date is YSI, ”It started in the 1980’s”, when do the others date from? After all they have access to apply for grants from SNP HQ, surely members deserve to know who they are? (see page 5)
2. Who are the, now, 21 employees? Approx £140000 more in staff costs, is that for the extra one? Not Sue Ruddick as she took up her post in 05/18 – btw from swimming coach to current Chief Operating Officer in about 15 years and who the hell knows anything about her?
3. Members ”totaling 125,691 at 31 December 2019” and supporters constitute 85% of their income in 2019 SO members really need to get themselves organised and call them to account, something is right rank rotten in the state of Scotia. (NB the US spelling of ‘totalling’)
4. On the revised constitution in 2018, which has allowed the expansion of the NEC, new regional steering cttees among no doubt a whole host of other stuff, was that debated at conference? Were members sent a detailed outline of the proposed changes? Was it discussed at branch level?
Wonder if any of this money went to Angus Robertson Think tank
You think there will be an Scottish election in 2021?
nope
it will be delayed due to reasons
Furious!
Forget about there being some different entity that you cannot see with all the ring fenced money in it. It does not exist and the money is gone.
Imagine people had donated a million pounds or so to fight indyref2 and that money had had been secreted into a third party entity outside the accounts of the party to which the money had been donated. Who would own that bank account… This would be far far worse than just frittering the money away. That would very much look like a fraud case.
They’ve just blown it on themselves and wasted the rest being the useless two faced rat cunts that they are.
Abalha @5.26 am
You said ,
“ 4. On the revised constitution in 2018, which has allowed the expansion of the NEC, new regional steering cttees among no doubt a whole host of other stuff, was that debated at conference? Were members sent a detailed outline of the proposed changes? Was it discussed at branch level? “
Iain Lawson covers this in his blog post yesterday ,
THE EXECUTION OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ,
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2020/10/27/the-execution-of-national-council/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
The Scottish Parliament video archive has now put up yesterday’s Harassment and Complaints Committee meeting on-line for anyone who missed it or if anyone wants to listen/watch it again ,
https://www.scottishparliament.tv/meeting/committee-on-the-scottish-government-handling-of-harassment-complaints-october-27-2020
The written report has not been published yet but I’ll keep checking for it and when it’s published I’ll post it here .
A year or two back, I signed an SNP petition. It might have been yes.scot. The website then went on to say “Join the SNP”. I didn’t, I’m in the Scottish Green Party. A few months later I got sent SNP raffle tickets, surely a breach of data protection? I sent them back, asked for my name to be removed from their list, and I haven’t heard from them since.
Ah cheers MaggieC, hadnt read that, on ‘essential’ travel to Dundee duty yesterday.
And another thought from me on SNP staff.
I’ve a feeling, will try and 100% check,the 3 following posts are new:
1/ Sue Ruddick COO SNP HQ Edinburgh appointed 05/18
(this has been confirmed by this and other blogs)
2/ The bloody mysterious Moraig Henderson, standing for selection in Stirling apptd 2017 as COO in Westminster Leadership office.
3/ Former Head of SNP Comms at Westminster Catriona Matheson, now Chief of Staff in the Westminster leadership office apptd 01/20. BTW her first job was an intern for Michael Matheson, are they related?
Can anyone actually imagine the current SNP leadership group negotiating the terms of independence successfully with the UK and then being the party of government in an independent Scotland, at least until other main parties were established? Personally I think that I have more chance of going to the moon.
Leaving aside for a moment the fact that gaining independence under the current SNP is a non-starter, and that the breadth and depth of the current SNP leadership’s political and financial subterfuge is thankfully becoming clearer and widespread by the day, the current SNP leadership’s so called plan for how to manage an independent Scotland’s economy once independent is pathetic in it’s meekness and a complete lie in terms of any intention to actually do or be able to do what they say they will.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/snp-must-rethink-its-economic-model-independent-scotland/
‘A complete clearout’ of the current SNP leadership seems to be the phrase that is increasingly capturing the mood and shows the best way forward. It’s not as if ‘there is no alternative’. The people that should be leading the SNP are widely known, respected, clearly very capable in a range of matters and no doubt raring to go. That’s a good position to be in.
We know, from Alex Salmond and Rev Stu’s experiences over the years, that dem legal fellas don’t come cheap. If SNP dosh is being used to keep Peter Murrell’s arse away from that committee then £97k might not last very long.
A simplified version of the SNP accounts for those who are less well-informed about financial and accounting matters:
“We’ve spunked all your ring-fenced referendum fighting fund on a bloated six-figure salary for that pig-faced freak Peter Murrell. Oh, and on keeping him out of jail.”
Hope that helps.
That would appear to meet a simple definition of embezzlement. If a donor were to make a complaint to the police it would have to be followed up. Perhaps Mr Macaskill will comment?
Sad and worse than expected.
No way I can see Independence now. More importantly though what have they done with the money.
Peter Murrell needs to explain.
If our mainstream media is not all over these accounts this week, it will be further proof of the amount of shite they are going to throw at the SNP during the Holyrood Election campaign next year.
I fear, the Murrells and their gang are simply digging an ever-deeper hole which will thwart the Independence campaign for eyars to come.
I am not Karen Dunbar’s “Kelvinside Lady,” but, with the present SNP high heid yins – I SMELL SHITE
No way will I be voting for this bunch of chancers come May.
Well thank duck other than my subs when i was a member, i never made any donations or sold raffle tickets.
I wonder how christine weir feels now?
These figures are only up to December 2019, Since then there has presumably been an increase in expenditure. Murrels legal fees for instance. Together with a drop in income occasioned by a drop in membership owing to leadership actions and possible involvement in illegal actions in connection with the Alex Salmond case, trans rights issues and hate crime bill concerns, all together with a feeling that we are no nearer independence than we were in 2014.
If I were a member of the SNP I would be demanding an urgent update on these figures in the form of a half year or better still a 9 month set of figures to take into account present pertaining circumstances
Ian Mc Cubbin@7.57
Yes that is the seminal point-they need to produce the paper trail explaining where it has gone. It would also help to compare with previous years accounts and see them side by side.
It doesn’t matter where they put the money, it has to show up somewhere in the accounts, they can’t just stuff it in a mattress and forget about it, unless of course it sitting collecting dust in an offshore bank account in which case they’re involved in money laundering, either way there’s something dodgy going on
Sad and worse than expected.
No way I can see Independence now. More importantly though what have they done with the money.
Peter Murrell needs to explain.
He also needs to go.
It is revealing that in a self-styled DEMOcracy freedom comes with a luxury price tag.
Not for the likes of us it seems.
No wonder the DEMOS are forced into radical smash and grab.
Perhaps those chic tartan masks will have a practical use after all.
Thanks Nic!
Vive les Tartans!
In 2018 legal fees were £38k whereas in 2019 they were £156k. That’s a 400% jump and an absolutely astounding figure to spend.
Frightening to think what the 2020 legal fees will be.
And then there’s salaries. At just over £1.08 million for salary and defined benefit pension contribution the cost for 21 staff appears high at around £50k. But quality staff don’t come cheap – and especially when around £300k of the staff bill is reported to be consumed by two people.
But in truth the members don’t have visibility on what the party is spending their money on. Take the fundraising costs of £211k which allegedly raises around only 1/3 more than it costs. What costs may be buried in here.
Or maybe the IT costs which also have big number. Now we know that IT is important. It’s where member data, member contact details are kept secret, and the mechanism whereby branch communication can be shut down or tampered with. What goes on there. I mean Chris Jones the HQ data guru has a BSc, an MSc and PHd in computer – data systems. That he was previously associated with Cambridge Analytica one wonders where his costs tumble out.
But we shall never know. The party is now a party apart from its members. It is a machine that controls everything from the centre whilst the members graze like donkeys in the field.
One thing for sure though that they now know is that there a big black hole in the accounts.
Me, I wouldn’t send a penny more contribution unless or until the members can take back control. Thanks to Rev Stu for repeatedly warning about this financial black hole. Unfortunately, too many didn’t believe the warnings, until now.
If you have a look at the figure above the one you highlighted, you’ll see debtors and prepayments 1,000,268 – my guess would be the funds are in there.The note 20 is laid out down on page 26 of the document shows that 879,488 of that is in Prepayments. That balance increased in 2017 by 300,000 then a further 500,000 in 2018 and another 79,000 in 2019(rounded figures).Prepayments do not appear in the SOFA (income and expenditure on page 19. Depending on what it is that has been prepaid (and I can’t make any reasonable guess), the SNP may still have those funds available in the future – you will note that they are recorded under Assets,Just like the cash at bank.
I read this article and felt like a few others BTL, that Indy was dead in my lifetime.
Then I read the comment by @Al-Stuart says 28 October, 2020 at 3:38 am regarding THEFT BY CLANDESTINE POSSESSION.
I’d encourage all to read it and for all donors to the ‘ring fenced’ fund action it as suggested.
Thanks @Al-Stuart, I think you are correct when you state:
“TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR THE REAL SNP.”
“TODAY IS A GREAT DAY FOR SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE.”
🙂
So the ringfenced indy funds aren’t being held deep within the SNP HQ in a oubliette guarded by deaf, mute, eunuchs, how very disappointing.
One wonders what happened to the indy funds what were they use for, topping up the Sturgeon/Murrell pension funds?
Claire.
You may be right – I dropped Accounting after 1st year of Uni. But if you are correct that the £700 000 ringfenced for IndyRef 2 is in Prepayments then that would mean the SNP made a loss last year (if you remove the ringfenced £700 000) for the Assets it leaves the Balance Sheet in the red!!
This is yet another nail in the coffin!
If Wings still has anyone who has maintained their SNP membership
could they please request an explanation of why Ring fenced Indy funds now means
cash for Excessive salaries and Legal bills.
Many, like me have cancelled our membership this year.
From projections within the accounts there appears to be
Less than 87,000 members by December 2019.
Because of the Avalanche of malpractice issues presented here over 2020,
and because of the reduced incomes caused by Covid and indeed Covid deaths
I would suggest that more than 10,000 memberships have lapsed.
It would also seem obvious to be that these accounts will drive up that number today but an
even greater desertion awaits SNP as 100,000 jobs will go at the end of Furlough and through
Brexit.
With Xmas costs and higher food costs on the horizon I predict that 40% of the 125,000 membership
peak are no longer associated with the Woke Winger’s Welfare Fund.
Having just signed up the very expensive Shepard Webberburn Legal Team to keep Murrell out
Of prison, that last £97,000 is heading to their Castle Terrace Office.
SNP are now with out funds and without credibility.
ISP, who were formed 5 minutes ago are in better shape in every way!
I cannot vote for any Unionist party and I must vote so do I vote SNP holding my nose and feeling sick or is it ISP one and two?
God Help Us, but not as mush as SNP have helped themselves!
It might be worth mentioning in this context that every SNP parliamentarian pays a levy to SNP HQ also. I believe the current sum is £250 per month.
That is about £25k per month. Put another way, £300k per annum.
Also note that staff employed at Holyrood are funded by separate MSP levies to Group Funds. I am not sure how that works at Westminster given the availability of Short money but I can well imagine that the same system exists there allowing SNP HQ to use the Short money on its priorities.
Not really O/T but I remember vividly in 2014 after weeks of hard work canvassing and leafletting being involved “on the big day” on the phones in “operation ,get out the vote”.
I was so hopeful as I spoke to people to remind and encourage them to vote YES as they had indicated in canvass when suddenly in mid afternoon we were all stood down. There were still hours to go before the polls closed and I had barely phoned half my list.
Ah,well,I thought,the campaign manager must think we are home and dry. But that decision has been like worm in my brain ever since.
Was Nicola Sturgeon not that campaign manager?
Why?
How I wish we had a Moses to lead the lost tribe to the promised land!
@Achnababan
But why would you discount the prepayments? They are real assets.
Another way of looking at this:go to the Electoral Commission Accounts page,Search for SNP and click Central Party option. The table produced will include the Asset values for the past years, the Assets increased to £1.4M in 2015 and haven’t significantly changed since then.
A 10 % levy on about 50 MPs earning £200K plus over the last five years would have seen an indyref2 fund in the order £2.5 million alone so when (if?) they do announce what’s in the kitty, it could be significantly greater than hitherto imagined – and if not could presumably be quickly recovered through civil asset forfeiture 🙂
Other questions on the subject of being robbed worth investigating might also include: who (ultimately?) is obliged to pay fees when lawyers assist with parliamentary committees, do private (&/or public) individuals get equal compensation for their contribution to same, and what opportunity (over and above asset forfeiture of complicit individuals on the public payroll) might independence offer to compensate for the theft of 2020 generally.
@Famous15
I remember that well. The reason we were stood down from GOTV was that it was turning out anyway (I didn’t get a single refusal all day and got many looks of incredulity when I asked people if they had been to vote – not something I had ever experienced before).
The other part of the instruction was to do as much Hi-Vis stuff as possible in areas of strength to try to reach Yessers who hadn’t been identified.
As I said last night. The money may be in 1 million noted in the Debtors/Prepayments.
Why would the SNP have over 1 million in Debtors/Prepayments unless this is the ring fenced money?
Was sent an unredacted version of the accts.
Have tweeted, so has all staff names, the bank and the controllers. Now of course this doesn’t include their WM staff working on that list now.
https://twitter.com/ABalharry62/status/1321381317620178945
@A lbaha I asked at a branch meeting how does a group get affiliated.
I was given some garbled response that all affiliated groups were decided in 2018 and no more were added after that and there were no plans to include any more.
I then mentioned that out4indy were affiliated in Dec 2019, was told they were reaffiliated so that was OK then?
We need a wingsoverscotland political party created immediately, im sure you will get all the finding you need from donations. lots of usual party work can be done remotely.
So anyone have any ideas as to how we take this crippled and holed (hopefully not below the water line) ship to Indy?
I left the SNP a couple of years back out of frustration.
just voted in the snp constituency candidate election.
I see Alex Salmond is asking for Nicola Sturgeon to be investigated for lying to parliament. Am I right in saying she would have to immediately step down if found guilty? The latter would depend on who was doing the investigating, I would imagine,but Salmond must still have at least some faith in the parliament and party to ask for this.
Jockanese Wind Talker says:
28 October, 2020 at 8:56 am
I read this article and felt like a few others BTL, that Indy was dead in my lifetime.
Then I read the comment by @Al-Stuart says 28 October, 2020 at 3:38 am regarding THEFT BY CLANDESTINE POSSESSION.
I’d encourage all to read it and for all donors to the ‘ring fenced’ fund action it as suggested.
Thanks @Al-Stuart, I think you are correct when you state:
“TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR THE REAL SNP.”
“TODAY IS A GREAT DAY FOR SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE.”
Aye, that’s a nice thing to read, or maybe ‘reassuring’ rather than nice, but I would add a note of caution…
If the SNP under Sturgeon is brought down by Al Capone style financial irregularities, it won’t play out like Al Capone. The enemy media will slaughter the SNP for financial incompetence, and thus, a flaw which discredits the whole economic argument for Independence. We know how the propagandists will spin this.
In my humble opinion, it would be much better for the Scottish cause for Sturgeon’s cabal to be brought down for her disgraceful capitulation before the unconstitutional colonial subjugation of Scotland through Brexit, and for the despicable false conspiracy to discredit and disgrace the giant of Independence, Alex Salmond. These accusations will find their mark, whereas Financial incompetence will be turned and used against us.
To use a Bannockburn parallel, Sturgeon needs unhorsed and brought down by the spears and pikeshafts of constitutional failures and the legal justice for Alex Salmond. These financial irregularities might be coup de grace, but they should be the dirk in the hand of the ‘prickers’ I think they were called, the ruthless wee assassins who darted out from the schiltrons ranks to finish off the armoured knights as they struggled to get to their feet.
So aye, do it. But do it quiet and without ceremony, while the focus of our defiance remains Constitutional and the rugged defence of Scottish Sovereignty.
Article from The Times ,
“Alex Salmond inquiry: Broaden Nicola Sturgeon ‘standards breach’ inquiry, urges ex-first minister”
Alex Salmond has urged an independent investigator examining claims that Nicola Sturgeon broke the ministerial code to broaden his scope in an unprecedented intervention against his former protégé.
https://archive.vn/hi0Sw
Is this where the money went?
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/EMAIL_FROM_ALEX_SALMOND.pdf
OT… I know, I know, put it in off-topic, but it’s just to give you a giggle. Stumbled across it by chance, but it just “hit the funny bone“.
https://twitter.com/TheFigen/status/1321086020335652870
It looked Monty Python or Benny Hill, but apparently it’s from Norway.
As Clare and someone else said and I said last night.Entry 20 and 21 needs explained.So full set of accounts is req’d. Income,expenditure, balance sheet.Balance sheet on it’s own wont put anyone in jail,no way hosey.
An asset of 1 million and Liability of 1 million may mean just that. It’s not spent yet .If it were it would show as minus balance in cash flow no?
Balance sheets are not going to say “oh this is our indy fund dosh, btw”
It has gone really rather quiet over btl on Wee Ginger Dug site, or the NS fan club as it recently has been.
Very, very quiet.
We need them, they are Yessers, they have been betrayed.
Someone asked – how do we get the show back on the road.
Well we are all still doing it, one way or another.
For those who are still not convinced about NS’s betrayal, that AS was stitched up and NS was deeply aware (at the very least), and to be fair to them, it has taken some very determined digging, in piecemeal fashion to get those details out.
One question that is pertinent and calm. Throughout all this, has Nicola Sturgeons decision making been competent, in view of all that has come to light – particularly the financial aspects – do you still have confidence in her abilities to lead.
I do hope someone is scouring the rules and regs of the SNP rule book. Just about the only thing NS could do now – to limit damage – is step down from the party and Parliament.
Twenty four staff.
Assuming Sturgeon takes no party income and Murrell & his Officer buddy, Beattie, take home at least £100k per year, the remaining 21 staff get a share of £901,024 which suggests an average income of £42,906 per year.
That’s 37% higher than the average salary (£31,356) in Scotland.
It’s no wonder they circle the wagons at the slightest suggestion of impropriety.
Ring fenced money?
I disagree about the “Hidden RingFenced Money”
It should be shown in both Balance Sheet and Accounts,
While it could be listed as a donation( from Yes.Scot or a n other) or is in another account It still should be listed.
It simple can not be “Off The Books”
It’s not like it was a tenner it’s the better part of Half a Million Pounds
Could it have been used used to pay AS’s cost?
I would say No because it was the Scottish Government who lost the Taxpayer’s Money and they foot that cost,not the SNP as a party
Again If it was the SNP there would be credit and debit on the balance sheet/accounts reflecting those transactions
The Accounting Unit and the Accountant?
One internal and the other external, it strikes me as odd (or not) and questionable
None of them can at least use an abacus!!!
Consider AS is an economist and was within the Royal Bank working as a bank economist as well as continuing to hold the position of oil economist.
If AS had been jailed , by the time this had come out, no doubt he would be blamed
Sturgeon believe she is a genius,
She’s a solicitor not an accountant McCall I’d suggest took the piss, and MacKay was in line for the blame for that escapade
If the money is ring fenced, is it possible that it would not/should not appear in the accounts? Ring fenced money does not belong to the SNP, arguably. Like client’s money held by solicitors.Would they appear in the lawyer’s accounts? I honestly don’t know, but it occurs to me accounts are supposed to show the financial position of the party: ie if it is solvent. Ring fenced money would not be available to creditors if the party was in financial trouble, so in one sense they would muddy the waters if included? Anyone know?
@Daisy
“Just about the only thing NS could do now – to limit damage – is step down from the party and Parliament.”
When her personal approval ratings are soaring and support is at 58%?
Realistically who is going to take her place?
The increase of support has come from the soft NO’s and there opinion is crucial and must be accommodated.
Details of the latest, lavishly funded, multi-faceted independence campaign have been leaked. Activists will be asked to;
Tier 1 – Stick ‘Yes’ signs on bus stops.
Tier 2 – Shout at the BBC from its car park
Tier 3 – Spend the next six years wondering what went wrong.
Papko there is no evidence that the departure of Sturgeon would lead to a fall in support for Independence. And given that Sturgeon is going to continue blocking moves to Independence, the point is moot anyway.
Sturgeon is not just courting the soft Nos, she is promoting ardent devolutionists as SNP candidates.
Anyway, two points. Again my latest post on the Salmond trial is being heavily suppressed on Facebook and Twitter. Grateful if anyone who can, promotes it online.
Secondly, can I urge everyone to refer to the Holyrood Inquiry as “The Sturgeon Inquiry”.
Is it the case that the missing money has been spent by the Murrells on creating jobs for their cronies, like Shirley Anne Somerville?
Covid 19 restrictions have assisted Sturgeon, Murrell & their wee cleek & hangers-on, from facing justifiably outraged members.
They should all be voted out of their offices by the members.
As Wings says, ‘We have been robbed’.
They might be lynched at the next ‘normal’ conference or certainly met by loud boos. They can’t survive this.
Fiona@ 10:17am:
The money does belong to the SNP.
The issue would be that they collected it for a very specific purpose and told people that it was for that very specific purpose, and the people giving it intended for it to be spent on that very specific purpose.
They could have included a line saying what that money was, in some sort of note to the accounts.
But they hold (held?) the money so it should appear in their accounts.
If (somehow) it was ultimately being paid to some other entity (i.e. the donators money was going to some other company set up for the purpose) I think they’d have needed to be very bloody clear about that – otherwise most donators would have assumed that they were giving money to the SNP and expecting them to hold it.
@Derick Tulloch at 12:20am
No.
No.
Collette Walker needs to get her facts straight before making comment.
Hatuey, as it happens, I think we think the same thing. I just don’t want to discount the possibility that the money is in another Accounting Unit. We’d all look pretty stupid if it’s been sitting there all along. Hence why that should be the first question a party member needs to ask.
If and when they say there is no other Accounting Unit, we move on to the other issues raised in this thread. I’d love to be a fly on the wall if it’s in Debtors and Prepayments. In fact I think someone from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland would love to be a fly on the wall. It would be awfully strange for the money to be sitting there. Debtors are people who owe you money and prepayments are monies paid that will turn into expenses or assets in due course, eg you pay a year’s rent up front. As someone else has noted, if you take the ring-fenced money out of there, you need something on the other side of the books. That would be an increase in a liability or a decrease in an asset, such as, just to pluck an example out of the air, Cash in Hand and at Bank. You don’t need a calculator to see the problem.
The bottom line is that the ring-fenced money is absolutely not sitting in Central Party accounts.
You asked Al_Stuart if the auditors could do an audit that excludes the ring-fenced money. Here in the USA that would certainly be true. I know nothing about financial reporting requirements for political parties, though. I would be very surprised if there were not a reporting requirement for an Accounting Unit that raised so much money.
I wonder what extra work the auditors had to do in respect of the 2019 accounts to justify a heavy increase in fee.
With more details of the malign criminal plotting to stich up Alex Salmond it isn’t difficult to see why the members money is ever increasingly being spent on expensive lawyers to try to protect people like Peter Murrell from civil and or criminal proceedings.
The COPS may be corrupt, may together with the police have been willing accomplices to pursue Salmond, but the conspirator instigators are exposed – and Murrell et al know it.
The £156,000 spent on legal fees in 2019 could well be but a thimble full of legal costs for 2020.
That members hard donated subscriptions and donations are being used to pay hundreds of thousands of legal fees is an outrage. Not a penny more. Let Murrell et al defend there own personal positions.
@Johnny Martin 10:27 am
Thanks for that.
I certainly did not think it was their money: they administer it but being ring fenced it is not their in the sense they can use it for anything else. But I agree it should show up somewhere. Just didn’t know how these things are dealt with in, for example, lawyers accounts when they hold house purchase money on behalf of clients
O/t
CYprus has asked Boris to help with dispute with Turkey. Look out for war!
Another article from The Times ,
“Nicola Sturgeon’s private secretary twice met a female civil servant who went on to make a sexual misconduct complaint against Alex Salmond. John Somers met the woman in November 2017, which was before any complaints were made and while a new complaints system was being set up to investigate former ministers.”
https://archive.vn/iqCKE
So it wasn’t only Judith MacKinnon that met the complainers in the case , How many more people were meeting with the complainers in the case ? .
I see nothing, so far, in the pages of the print media regarding the facts on this site. I find that incredibly suspect.
I said it previously and I’ll say it once more; the SNP are now so badly tainted by more than a few iffy areas of dubiety that they can never again be fully trusted. Scotland needs a new independence Party.
I’m sorely crestfallen and more than furious that the SNP have left such a trail of lies, smear, cronyism and secrecy – any one of which would bring down a Scottish Party standing to leave the union – that they’ve become liability to the cause.
I don’t care a tuppeny-damn who takes over the leadership – even Cherry herself would be pissing against the wind from the deeply destructive and lasting fallout – we cannot proceed with this Party. The bastards aren’t even doing the honourable thing – resign and leave our* Party with a morsel of dignity – their collective hubris, embroilment and fatted salaries won’t have them lower themselves, those selfish shits.
*We, the People, the members, the electorate have financed this Party. If not for us there would be no SNP.
I will now not be giving this corrupt cabal my first vote – any vote – come next May. Why would I do that?
Scotland needs a new, clean Party of Independence to lead us out of this mess. Independence in my lifetime? Christ, after all the incredible work Salmond – and many others – undertook, taking Scotland so very close to our goal, and working against the might of the Establishment and msm, I’m doubting that. Who would’ve thought the real threat came from within?
From all the fine comments from smart individuals on this page, my favourite, and the one I most align myself with, is the contribution from Brian MacFarlane:
GET THEM ALL TO FUCK
Daisy @ 10:06
Yep All deaf dumb and Blind, it’s not happening,it’s not true, everyone on that Brit Nat site Wings over Scotland are all working for the British State , they are spoiling our chances of Independence ,
So everyone it’s all their fault Eyes shut and fingers in the ears loudly chanting La ,La ,La ,
We all admire Loyalty ,but Blind Stupidity is kinda pointless and just is encouraging further questionable behaviour by the people we all trusted,
A second Independence referendum looks like a distant unattainable mirage now because the Party we trusted have other things or their mind and not what we were led to believe , not what they were actually formed and for not what we were sold , I want my money back because they never delivered their end of the deal and by the looks of it never intended to do .
Achnababan @ 9.01
The ringfenced money appears to have been wiped out by the ongoing and worsening operating deficit position.
An expected significant fall in membership income in 2020 (e.g. say 25%) will mean this income stream can barely cover even staff and office/admin costs.
Plus additional legal fees, this could mean the 2020 accounts may show a loss approaching, if not exceeding £1m – if operating costs are not radically stripped out.
The party clearly has no financial resource with which to fight either a national election or a referendum.
Clare,
The “Statement of Cash Flows” on page 17 would show the movement of that cash going from at bank to prepayments, whilst it is possible that happened in the years previous.
The ~200k increase in prepayments are also not reflected in the cash movements.
The donations that were made were all in cash, so should appear on that “Statement of Cash Flows”
The ~200k movement in prepayments does not come from cash, else it would show in that statement on page 17.
Unfortunately working, just now or I’d try & dig out the last 5 years statements to be able to try & source the movements of Cash & prepayments.
I wonder did the AlphaBetties in the SNP have their legal fees paid by the SNP?
Who is giving the sh*t advice that is costing so much money?
How does a party investigate itself for mismanagement? You would hope there are lots of squeaky bums at SNP HQ.
It shows far NS has strayed from her roots when Kenny Farq is now in her corner? All that courting and propping up the repulsive Scottish media is being called in by NS it seems.
I wonder if a few private jets are being organised for people who will be unable to face the British Public come January and maybe a few Scots will be testing their eyesight on the way to Heathrow.
It is not in prepayments.
A prepayment is created when you spend money on an expense that has not been incurred yet. Say you pay for your gas bill in advance. Cash is reduced and you create an asset on the balance sheet. Once that gas is used the prepayment gets ‘released’ into the profit & loss account and shows up as an expense. So you can think of a prepayment as a deferred cost. As long as the gas has not actually been used the prepayment is an asset to you.
However what we are taking about is 700k or so coming in not going out. If this money did not get recognized in the profit and loss in 2019 as income then they could have treated it as the opposite of a prepayment / deferred cost, i.e. deferred income. This time cash goes up and you create a credit balance on the balance sheet. When this gets released to the P&L it shows up as income.
But I see no evidence for this deferred income on the balance sheet. So I think the 700k could well be in the P&L as part of the income somewhere.
However searching the notes for ‘crowdfund’ or similar words yields no hits. There is no mention of this 700k or where it is.
So it looks to me like they have probably scattered it into different income descriptions and done their best to bury the fact that it ever happened.
If that is correct that is a very deliberate and conscious decision to try to hide something in plain site.
Crowdfunding? What Crowdfunding? I see no Crowdfunding.
In reply to SilverDarling, Kenny Farq has always been in Sturgeon’s corner. He’s gye pally with the odious Kate Higgins who having been tipped in the late ’80’s early ’90’s as a rising star, sunk without a trace, relying on her bloody Burdz Eye View blog and fucking Women for Indy to get noticed in 2014. THEN with Salmond gone she lands a plum SPAD job.
And I should have added. If it is in the P&L as income then yes the money is now gone, spent, pissed away.
Keith fae Leith
I had a quick look over the last three years(I also have some real work to do!) and the biggest transfer is 2018 – I think it is treated as cash from operating activities on the cashflow statement then increase in debtors in the breakdown inn note 26.
Does it cost her yearly to keep the superinjunction going?
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/EMAIL_FROM_ALEX_SALMOND.pdf
In reply to Liz at 0939
”I was given some garbled response that all affiliated groups were decided in 2018 and no more were added after that and there were no plans to include any more.
I then mentioned that out4indy were affiliated in Dec 2019, was told they were reaffiliated so that was OK then?”
———————————————————–
Thanks Liz, that’s shocking, I am trying to pull together info as well on all the other affiliates, BTW note you have reps for BAME/Asian/LBGTQIWEPXXYYZZ/ BUT nae women. Aye how very current SNP.
And the alternative to the SNP is?
Even if it did not go through the P&L as income in 2019 the money is still gone as the cash is simply not there.
You can treat the 700k in different ways but the cash would still be there no matter which accounting treatment they used. But it is not.
Unless 700k never technically went to the SNP and instead is being held in some sort of escrow account facility by a third party. It is possible but I don’t think it likely. I expect you would still have to disclose that in the accounts somewhere at least as a note.
Occam’s razor says they have simply received it and spent it.
In reply to Mac. I’m NO accountant so we know the Fundraiser was done in 2017, wouldn’t it be good to get hold of the 2017 accts for comaparison? Or is that just a daft notion?
In reply to Mike D on Christine Weir. Basically when Sturgeon took over people like the Weirs and publisher Kat Heathcoate stopped giving the SNP cash, they’d been very generous donors.
.
This man, the finest First Minister Scotland has ever had, took us to the edge of becoming and Independent Country.
The fact that Alex Salmond has had to write this email is a disgrace.
Alex Salmond gave politics a good name and gave many politicians a decent career.
SOME have stood by Alec. Others have disgraced themselves and are no longer fit for political office, nor the financial gravy train they now ride…
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/EMAIL_FROM_ALEX_SALMOND.pdf
It is tempting to see a new party as a relief from current problems of corruption and nepotism within the SNP. It seems possible that the same problems would transfer immediately to any believable independence party along with dropouts and dross from the SNP. For that reason I think it is essential to try and reform the SNP. To avoid any recurrence this should not be done gently. A root and branch clear out is required along with appropriate punishment for wrongdoers and those close to them. Lessons must be learned to ensure there is no repetition of the behaviour of the last six years and there must be no reward for those who stayed silent. That means most if not all of the upper levels of the party. Suitable controls must be installed. For example procedures for the immediate removal of a leader who does not meet the needs of the membership or the party constitution along with a mandatory leadership election every three years.
“So it looks to me like they have probably scattered it into different income descriptions…”
Maybe, if we were to be a little more diplomatic, we could say it was simply “resting” in those “different income descriptions”?
Mac
As Alhalba says it was raised in 2017 and significant increases in donation levels can be seen in the income and expenditure in that year. The prepayment was largely created on the 2017 balance sheet and increased in 2018 and 2019.
Alec Lomax says:
28 October, 2020 at 11:06 am
And the alternative to the SNP is?
Are you so dismissive of the people of Scotland?
An alternative is sitting here on this site, is resting in the body of Joanna Cherry and can be worked up very quickly by Mr Salmond.
Faint hearts never won fair lady and certainly don’t have a chance of gaining independence. Get some back-bone sir, and begin to think positively of an Independent Scotland without the trash that’s running us at the moment. It is a thought worth turning into reality for generations to come.
Abalha,
Yeah, if it goes back that far you could review the previous years and that might show it coming in at least and then we could say for sure it is not ‘off the books’ and being held by a third party.
However seeing it come in during 2017 or whenever would not alter the fact that (by year end 2019) the money had all gone.
If it had been ring fenced as promised there would be a 700k lump of cash on the balance sheet somewhere, under some description.
It does not exist from what I can see. The money has gone. Spent.
@Alhaba
Jeez what it is with NS constantly rewarding ineptitude and mediocrity? All these awful ‘feminists’ who can only talk the talk.
I suppose if you surround yourself with useless people it can make you look good until they all mess up – and boy have they all messed up now.
Mac, I accept I might be missing something here, but why are you so sure it’s not in Prepayments?
Robbing
Peterpeople to pay Paul never works for long.What was it the Witch in the Wardrobe said about running out of other people’s money?
Alec Lomax @ 11:06am:
Oh FUCK off.
Without being certain what has happened (as I am no accountant), can you please tell me whether YOU think it would be acceptable if they have used money collected for one purpose (and given in good faith for that purpose and that purpose alone) on other things without even asking?
If that is acceptable to you, can you tell me the point at which (for you) it would become unpalatable to let them away with something? Just what would they need to do? This ‘but the others are shit, who’s the alternative?’ whataboutery crap doesn’t wash. We are supposed to be aspiring for better, not going ‘well the others are worse, so it’ll need to do’.
IF, and I do mean IF, this has occurred then we should be aware that First Ministers have had to go for an awful lot less, see H McLeish. Kenny (above) remarks that it is interesting that the MSM has not leaped on it and it is….there’s a story here, either way.
If it’s not chased down and determined one way or the other, then I’ll be surprised to find myself thinking that the journalists *are* even more hopeless and less inquisitive than previously (I have always been sceptical of this being some sort of new development).
On the SP enquiry, am I alone in thinking that Maureen Watt is very good at hiding her intelligence?
in fact almost as good as Margaret Mitchell….
Me too wondering about pre-payments – see Note 20: “Pre-payments and accrued income £879,480”. It’s the right sort of amount in the right sort of place.
I’m a retired CA but not an SNP member. I would expect the accounts to be discussed at an AGM or Conference. Questions i would ask include –
What is the prepayments & accrued income for ? (seems very high)
What was legal fees for?
Why has auditor fees doubled?
What is the new leasing for -approx £146k?
Why are Trade Creditors so high?
Notes 26, 27 and the Cashflow statement on p17 indicates changes in cashflow (doesnt look good)
Stu is right. You’ve been robbed or at least misled, taken for mugs etc.
In some ways it doesnt matter how the SNP have allocated the ‘ringfenced’ indyref money in the accounts as accounts can be manipulated easily and legally (ie to put amounts in accruals or prepayments) but what matters is cash in the bank and as its only £96k then the £700k has been spent elsewhere. I guess the SNP hope that if there ever is an Indyref2 some day they will have replaced the money somehow.
There is little point in members complaining about this if they are going to keep voting SNP and being ignored. What i find shocking is that Kenny Macaskill is the only elected representative who is asking questions (but being ignored) which either means all other MPs, MSPs and Councillors are okay with the lies and corruption or they are too scared to say anything which means they are cowards and almost as guilty for the SNP failures.
One reason i have gone off Holyrood is that there is no true accountability. With only 129 MSPs and the majority SNP/Green complicit in the shitshow with most of the opposition all talk and no action. The Inquiries are a joke and there is no second chamber to review legislation. There is much at fault with Westminster but at least they have the House of Lords with lots of independent members plus even many tory MPs will criticise the Government when they dont agree. There has always been back bench MPs either Labour or Conservative who put their constituents before party. The same cant be said for the SNP at Westminster or Holyrood who take the salary, expenses and pensions and go along with whatever SNP Scot Gov says, even if they know its crap, like with education, health, Covid etc. In the past i voted SNP but never again. Ever. If someone wants Indy so badly while 90% of the SNP politicians are spineless and useless then i feel sorry for you. Are you really going to risk your health, pension, finances, kids education, economy, currency on a pipe dream just to get one over the Tories & the English. We need a strong Labour party to represent Scotland in Westminster and Holyrood , win next General Election and we need to reform Holyrood to have independent Inquiries, a Second elected Chamber and ability to remove MSPs who don’t have the confidence of their constituents, rather than every 5 years.
Mac at 11;22 says:
“A prepayment is created when you spend money on an expense that has not been incurred yet. Say you pay for your gas bill in advance. Cash is reduced and you create an asset on the balance sheet. Once that gas is used the prepayment gets ‘released’ into the profit & loss account and shows up as an expense. So you can think of a prepayment as a deferred cost. As long as the gas has not actually been used the prepayment is an asset to you.”
Could that maybe fit what’s happening here? The anticipated expense (corresponding to the gas bill) is a referendum campaign, and payments have been made into a ring-fenced account in anticipation of the campaign. The ringfenced account doesn’t show as cash, as it’s ringfenced.
@Robert and others
Its more Accrued Income than prepayments i would suggest. An example of prepayments is Insurance or Rent, paid in advance ie £12,000 for 12 months paid on 1st September. If accounts y/e is 31 Dec then £4000 is included in P & L and £8000 is included in Prepayments.
Accruals works in a similar way but is a liability eg if the Auditor is working on the 2019 accounts in 2020 and the estimated fee is £40,000 then £40k is put in theP& L and £40k is put to Accruals because it will be paid after y/e
Clare,
I’ll no doubt get a row from a CA soon buuuuut….
If you prepay something it means you have paid out cash in advance. What we are talking about here is income, cash coming in. So this cannot result in a prepayment on the balance sheet. This 700k is not a payment of any description so equally it cannot be a prepayment of any description.
Either the 700k cash income was recognized immediately as income in the P&L or it could have been deferred to a later year (when indyref2 is happening). This deferred income then becomes a credit balance on your balance sheet offsetting the big lump of cash in the bank which is ring fenced and which is waiting to be recognized as income when indyref happens.
Prepayments create debit (or asset) balances on a balance sheet. So you see them listed under the asset side of the balance sheet. Deferring income does the opposite it creates credit or liability balances on the balance sheet. So you would see it listed under the liability side of the balance sheet.
The only liability balance big enough to contain it is Creditors and Accruals. If you look at note 21 they break that number down and there is no deferred income in it.
It is academic anyway as the cash is simply gone by the end of 2019. It did not disappear into the ether, it was spent somehow irrespective of how they accounted for it coming in.
Could be worth reminding the current leadership about a) under “The aims of the Party”???
The aims of the Party are:
a) Independence for Scotland; that is the restoration of Scottish national sovereignty by restoration of full powers to the Scottish Parliament, so that its authority is limited only by the sovereign power of the people of Scotland to bind it with a written constitution and by such agreements as it may freely enter into with other nations or states or international organisations for the purpose of furthering international cooperation, world peace and the protection of the environment.
b) the furtherance of all Scottish interests.
Did the SNP really pay out because Alyn Smith libelled the Brexit Party?
If so, why? Aren’t MPs, MSPs and party employees responsible for their own offences? Or shouldn’t they at least set up their own crowd fund so their supporters can choose to contribute?
What other offenses and legal fees do the party leadership fork out for if it’s for a favoured, loyal crony? Speeding fines? Driving without insurance? Embezzlement? Perjury?
Clare,
Many thanks for that, wasn’t a jibe about working.
Just explaining why I was asking a question rather than digging myself.
The prepayments would still have to have “bought” something, unless it’s just a book entry saying in plain English.
“We are due ~700k from Yes.Scot shown in Current Asset: Debtors & Prepayments. We are also due to spend the same amount, so are reflecting it as Current Liabilities: Creditors & Accruals.”
Is that how you see it?
“Did the SNP really pay out because Alyn Smith libelled the Brexit Party?
If so, why? Aren’t MPs, MSPs and party employees responsible for their own offences? Or shouldn’t they at least set up their own crowd fund so their supporters can choose to contribute?”
You’d think, wouldn’t you?
“And the alternative to the SNP is?”
The alternative to the SNP is a better SNP that isn’t as bent as a fucking nine-bob note. Jesus fucking Christ, how many times do we have to explain it? Do we need to dumb it down to grunting noises?
Hi Mac, thanks for the reply. I think you can only get the picture by tracing it through for several years. The income was raised in 2017 (see the high levels of Donations and the Surplus) and two prepayments were created, in 2017 and 2018. So it does appear in an income and expenditure account and it is still on the balance sheet as an asset (if I’m right). It’s just not possible to be sure without seeing the original records or a detailed explanation.I still think this is the simplest and most likely explanation but I would like to know why it has been done this way, what the Prepayment means. After all The SNP have Prepaid SOMEBODY (or Somebodies) over £800k, building up over 3 years, why and what for?
Hi Keith fae Leith, it’s OK I wasn’t grumpy about work, sorry if it came over that way. In all honesty, I can’t think what the Prepayment is ( and given that £800k has left the SNPs bank account over 3 years it must have secured something) I can’t think why they presented it that way, my position is: it seems the most likely explanation but it should lead us to ask: Prepaid what, to whom, and why?
I think we also need to note that the Auditor is happy with the presentation so some of the wilder theories I see here can be dismissed.
I take my hat off to you Stu, for months even the last few years, you have been going on about this. You have been called names, called a unionist plant, slagged off as figure of ridicule. You must be feeling pretty smug right now, I told you so comes to mind, respect mate for sticking to your guns, its all coming out now.
@ Alec Lomax
28 October, 2020 at 11:06 am
The Tories. Let’s at least have our money stolen by seasoned professionals, rather than earnest amateurs, however keen to learn…
I would be extremely careful of trusting the electoral commission.Are they controlled by those in Westminster.??They make rules according to the wishes of the Tory Party.2014 Peter Lilley and perhaps Phillip May,paid the tunes,and that their demands were met. Trust in the present climate,dealing with criminals.
Well having looked at 2016,2017,2018 and 2019 there is a spike in income in 2017 of about a million pounds.
Income
2016 – 4.87m
2017 – 5.80m
2018 – 4.75m
2019 – 5.29m
That said if this was the year they did the crowdfunding then the money has never been ring fenced. Because the SNP only had 7,906 quid in the bank at the end of 2017!
So even in the year they got this money to be ring fenced they had spent it all. lol. Looks like a large chunk of it went on repaying a loan in 2017 500k+.
They were so low on cash at the end of 2017 it looks like the absolutely slashed their campaigning costs during 2018. Doing that is what put them back into a more healthy cash balance by end of 2018.
getting 49 mps elected and increasing the % from 38 to 45% seems like a good use of funds.
if the % and number mps had decreased in 2019, there would be no yes movement left
tartandiaspora
There is not much point in electing successive majorities of nationalist MP’s if they continue to support colonialism, is there?
.
Hi Jockanese Wind Talker.
Thank you for that thoughtful and constructive post.
————————
Hi Breeks,
You make a very good point about the media spinning this in bad way. I suspect the media ARE giving Nicola Sturgeon a FAR EASIER TIME than any other leader because she is either up to her oxters in Unionist friends or a useful idiot, albeit a very good performer. She had all of us fooled.
This WILL be a messy fight.
Nobody said Scottish Independence would be easy.
Top marks to the British Establishment for a game very well played. But there are still some decent people IN the SNP and methinks once the disinfectant of daylight is shone on the Sturgeon McWokist fifth column…. well, Scots aren’t daft. The SNP membership and crucially the Scottish electorate will get the message pretty damned quickly. I simply reference the fact that my thrawn fellow Scots joined the SNP in vast numbers after IndyRef1. So much so, that many jaws dropped in amazement back then.
As was said in the lead-up to IndyRef1, Scotland has one of the most sophisticated electorates in the world. It still does.
YES Breeks, you have a very good point. I fear this WILL get messy. But rather that AND some honesty, than many of us here being torn on whether to vote SNP in 2021 when that would in effect be voting for Humza’s humming, “I smell shite” Orwellian Hate Reform Bill. I will never vote for a party that is giving government the power to close down free speech. On that road is a lot of slippy brown stuff. At the bottom you get a choice of Gaddaffi, Saddam Hussain, Hitler, Ceaucescu, Stalin Sturgeon, or Rhiannon Spears as First Minister.
One last point before it eludes me as it has been a long day speaking with my own solicitors about this Bromdignagian Bourach…
Are there any card carrying members of the SNP who might write a missive to SNP HQ please? I ripped my SNP membership card up in front of a Sturgeonite careerist MSP at our local branch meeting a while back. The question that one or more SNP members might like to ask is this…
Dear National Treasurer,
On reading the accounts the SNP produced this week, please can you answer the following two questions?
(i). These accounts were signed as approved on 26th June 2020. Please itemise the reasons why it has taken FOUR months to post them to the Electoral Commission?
(ii). I am aghast at the amount of money spent upon legal fees and require a clarification please?
We work hard fundraising every penny. I understand that legal advice is, by its nature subject to privacy caveats and contains all sorts of confidentiality clauses. However, I am concerned that my membership fees and all the hard work fundraising has been squandered on simply the best legal advice available to keep certain individuals from having to appear before certain investigating committees.
Therefore, in order to respect the confidentiality caveats, I am REQUIRING that ALL invoices submitted to my party, the SNP for the financial period you have been responsible for are TAXED.
As National Treasurer you will understand the optics I am deploying in requiring the fee notes from every lawyer we paid being TAXED.
For ease of reference as we have many lay people whose time is valuable and I would wish to save them reaching for weighty legal books, the term “TAXED” in this setting means an INDEPENDENT AUDIT BY A NEUTRAL PROFESSIONAL ASSESSOR of the fee notes rendered to us by the very well paid lawyers.
The amounts the lawyers chosen by whoever in the SNP leadership enjoys use of the association cheque book and legal largesse appears excessive. It is entirely reasonable for me and other fully paid-up members and fundraisers to ask what our money is being spent on, why and by whom?
An independent audit of the legal fee notes gives a professional view as to whether the amounts invoiced are correct (or excessive for the work done).
Once we have the legal fees TAXED (audited) by an independent professional, it will be possible to establish whether to recall the accounts in terms of the statutory requirements and accounting policies that accountancy conventions require.
This can and will be expedited in a manner that PREVENTS future excessive largesse of the SNP cheque book by certain individuals who have become accustomed to a lifestyle which is dissonant to what the full membership might wish to vote upon if we ever get around to having the appropriate AGM.
I look forward to studying the legal auditor’s report. For the avoidance of doubt, I require that report to be REDACTED rather than blocked from publication to me and others who are the members of the organisation.
Yours faithfully,
A Non-Wokerati Member Who Wants His/Her SNP Back.
MISSIVE ENDS.
—————————
Personally, I really wish what is about to happen could be avoided.
But in comparison to the 2 years of Hell on Earth that those barstewrds put Alex Salmond through, the least we can do here is get the Sturgeonite McWoke infestation along with its cousins the Wishart Wishy Washy Wokeists plus the creepy “Big Daddy” pseudo sexual dynamo and toy boy fan escorted off of the premises and sent to the most appropriate institution.
Most importantly that the REAL SNP is brought back under the control of its REAL MEMBERS.
I’m not sure the SNP couldn’t hold a referendum because they had used up the funds. I think they used up the funds because they had no intention of holding a referendum. And although I agree almost entirely with Daisy (at 12:09 am), I’m not convinced that the accounts were published as a subtle warning for NS to ‘keep on track’. NS has towed the line from day one and shown herself to be a loyal subject of the British establishment. Due to her inadequacy and inability, she cannot help but clutch tightly to the (butchers) apron strings.
Alf Baird says:
There is not much point in electing successive majorities of nationalist MP’s if they continue to support colonialism, is there?
if thats what you think then feel free to give up, vote tory or whatever.
me, i believe we are on the verge of winning our indy. this next election is it. if you can no longer be bothered, move over, take yer whining elsewhere and make room for those who do
Until you get full explanation of entry 20 and 21 it is all shite. So ,who can we get to answer the question? Theres a million sloshing around here with no explanation.
Maybe D Trump would ken as he apparently owes 400 million dollars and no one knows who too. Well it’s certainly not the SNP.
The Revenue account shows membership income as almost identical. So it’s not likely to have gone from 120k to 80k.
Sorting out where and when monies moved arond is very tricky as there are many pots and these pots have different purposes. Without a detialed audit or accompanying narrative from an insider I fear we may expend a lot of energy. Better just ask the straight question – where is the £700 000 and keep asking
I heard it was used by NS on thank you letters??????
Has Nicola done a Natalie and thats the real reason she went after Salmond ? To keep him from asking where the £££ went ?