All The Dirt From My Eyes
So, having made a statement on Monday morning which asserted that she wouldn’t make any further statements, then making another statement on Monday afternoon, Nicola Sturgeon and her solicitor issued a third statement in 36 hours last night.
And while we acknowledge that this is a very high bar to clear, it contained one of the most troubling and blatant lies she’s ever told.
The above is a claim so jaw-droppingly obviously completely false that we had to read it several times to check it really said what we thought it said. Because for a whole raft of reasons it was ABSOLUTELY Nicola Sturgeon’s role to sign off the SNP’s accounts in 2020, when the money stolen by Murrell became indisputably noticeable, and for several years thereafter.
Section 42(2)(b) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) requires a party’s accounts to be signed off “by the management committee of the party, if there is one, and otherwise by the registered leader of the party”.
In the SNP’s case that means by the “Party Officers”.
(Indeed, Sturgeon herself was the treasurer in the period in 2021 between Douglas Chapman resigning because Sturgeon’s husband and employee hadn’t let him see the books – fairly important for a treasurer, that one – and the hapless obedient stooge Colin Beattie being reappointed to replace him.)
And the SNP’s financial filings throughout Sturgeon’s reign make clear that she, as one of those three party officers, did indeed approve the accounts personally, and that throughout the period in question they clearly show hundreds of thousands of pounds missing in the shape of the “ringfenced Independence Referendum Campaign Fund”, which should have stood at around £670,000.
Sturgeon is not only morally but legally responsible for those accounts. It was her job as party leader to notice that they only had £97,000 in the bank when they’d just raised nearly £700,000 that they weren’t allowed to have spent.
But as we know, she not only failed to do so but lied threateningly to both the Scottish public and her own National Executive Committee that there was no missing money and that the finances were the healthiest they’d ever been, even at the very moment the party’s treasurer and half of its Finance Committee publicly resigned in protest to draw attention to the problem.
There’s a big difference between not knowing something, and actively and stridently insisting to everyone in sight that the exact opposite thing is definitely true. And the statement from last night then says something even more extraordinary.
Hold on a moment. If you don’t know anything, how much of a “detailed written response” can you actually give? What would that look like?
“Dear The Police,
I know nothing. Not anything. No things. Zero things. None of the things. 0% of the things. Out of all the things, I don’t know any of them. The things are unknown to me. You know those things? Not me, I totally don’t. I categorically deny all knowledge of the things. Me? Know the things? No sir! I quite simply cannot emphasize strongly enough that I don’t know the things. I wasn’t aware the things existed. Do they even exist? It’d totally be news to me, Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon, former First Minister of Scotland, if they did. Because I don’t know any of them. What things are you even talking about? If I was to hold up a finger, of which I have eight plus two thumbs, for each of the things I knew, I’d be holding up no fingers. Or thumbs. At all.”
(Carries on for 17 more pages.)
Believe the silence, readers!
We’re also fascinated by the use of the word “insisted”. Who was she insisting to? Were the police going “No, please don’t send us a detailed written response! We’re begging you!”, but she was all “No, I’m flipping well going to, whether you like it or not!”? Is that how we’re being asked to believe it went?
And if she was so insistent on answering their questions, why not just answer them in the seven hours she spent staring silently at a police station wall instead? It must have been an awfully boring day. Why wait until some unspecified later date and write them a letter? She was arrested by prior arrangement, five weeks after Murrell, so she had plenty of warning that she might be questioned and time to have the answers ready.
(We wonder what Sturgeon and Murrell discussed at dinner over those five weeks.)
There is of course a very easy way to prove that she sent that “detailed written response” – release it. There’s no possible reason not to. Murrell has already admitted his guilt and Sturgeon is no longer under investigation, so there’s no live case to prejudice. The full list of things Murrell bought with the stolen money (many of which she’s been personally pictured with) is already public, so there’s no danger of new embarrassment. And all it says is that she knows nothing anyway. What’s to fear?
She tells us she’s got nothing to hide. So show us. Show us how convincing your denials were. Show us just how fully you, as a responsible innocent citizen, member of Parliament, role model and key witness, co-operated with a police enquiry, beyond blanking all their questions for seven long hours.
The only reason we can think of is that every time Sturgeon opens her mouth about this case, she digs herself a deeper hole by telling more and more easily-provable lies. She lied about not being responsible for signing off the accounts. She lied about “co-operating fully” with the police. It looks like she lied about the campervan, the biggest single piece of Murrell’s booty.
Practically the only thing she’s told the truth about in the whole sordid business is that “Peter does most of the shopping in our family”.
Over the coming weeks and months Sturgeon is going to have to face some very awkward questions, particularly around the serious crime of reset.
So she may as well get ahead of the game and tell us now.
Or as the investigating officer might put it:
“And you say way too much
But still I need an answer, love
Still I need an answer, loveKindly be kind, wipe all the dirt from my eyes
I need an answer
I need an answer.”
I think you are being to cruel.
As far as I can tell, her wedding night was her first encounter with being in the arms of a real man.
The dizzying ecstasy of that moment clearly turned her head for as long as it was convenient.
That is why she was adamant that it is fine for male weirdos to invade female spaces.
Hopefully, lessons will be learned.
.
Hi Stuart,
It is a huge comfort knowing all of those hours and all of the corrupt efforts to intimidate you, then steal your equipment under trumped up charges and the rest of the gerrymandered efforts to close you down have failed and are CONTINUING to fail, as those whose grip on the levers controlling power are booted out of office, then made politically impotent as their friend in high places scuttle off/duck for cover. Sturgeon has as impotent as Peter Murrell.
Whether or not Anwar brings the legal system into disrepute is a different matter, but he too has questions to answer, albeit on issues unrelated to the current celebrity warning letters/emails with which he has embarrassingly littered the offices of national newspaper editors.
As for Saint Nicola, her reputation is set in concrete. She is a political pariah. Whether she is interviewed for malfeasance in respect of the dissonance between her public protestations of how she states she “cooperated fully” with the police when she gave a dubious “no-comment” interview is another matter. It has been omitted that she WILL have been cautioned by the police:-
The standard UK police caution, required by law under Code C of PACE 1984, is:
“You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence”.
No spin by the publicity hungry creepy wee lawyer can alter that fact. Just wait until Sturgeon gets his celebrity bill.
Whatever happens now, the birds of a feather are all getting looked at more closely by the police. This ain’t over by a long way.
The Canal Boat Borgen has-been would be wise to follow her dubious conduct on earlier arrest… shut the fluck up and take your inflated pension as the worst FM in Scotland’s history, buy yourself a remote cottage up by the A82 at Glen Coe because all the Isla Bryson and Andrew Millar/Amy George, along with Beth, Picklebee Douglas are about to become Branchform Mark 2.
My instinct is that Sturgeon will get her weird fan-girl wish. Birgitte Nyborg, played by actress Sidse Babett Knudsen will see Sidse, the actress play the part of Sturgeon. I am looking forward to the tv drama where actress Sidse Babett Knudsen is under arrest and turns her chair to face the wall for 7 hours.
No Stuart, you have done the right thing at great personal cost. This set of Murrell Custodial Dominoes has a long way to go yet.
Whilst Ms Sturgeon will have been formally cautioned, I doubt that it will have been under the provisions of Pace, which doesn’t as far as I’m aware apply under Scots law.
Get tore into her.
Burn her whole world down.
Don’t stop until she is behind bars.
As has been said elsewhere, all this illustrates Sturgeon’s ambivalence to Independence. Large amounts of money that could have been used in intelligent ways to promote Independence were squandered, both via criminal embezzlement in kitting out the Sturgeon household but also on what is essentially legal embezzlement – vanity-based transport, venues etc. Unnecessary stuff.
And all this was accepted as normal, signed off, and defended both to the public and the party.
They were pigs in troughs – donated and taxpayers income was treated as disposable, benefitting only a couple of people. They saw it as their right to spend Independence funds on whatever the hell they liked. Their pockets came first, Independence second. And the scorn that was poured on anyone who might suggest there was a lack of fiscal propriety! It makes me so angry, the contempt that was shown to SNP members and the public. Not to mention the harm done to careers of otherwise potentially great SNP contributors.
All this while stage-managing their appearance to be holier than thou.
Scotland, and any thoughts of Independence, can not progress until these putrid, swollen boils are lanced. Bring on the court cases.
replace ambivalence with hostility and I’ll go right along
“it was not the role of the First Minister to sign off accounts that was for the party treasurer.”
Classic piece of lawyerly lying without lying – it is technically correct, as it isn’t the FM’s job. It is the party leader’s job, they just happen to be the same person.
If the police wanted her to talk they should have put a TV cameraman behind the camera
Mr Anwar should try some stand up if he thinks his claim that she insisted she would provide a written statement to the police AFTER she had been questioned and had time to think of some answers whilst in control of this process, is meant to impress us. You are a funny guy Mr Anwar.