Kings Of Crisis Management
If you subscribe to the theory that it’s better to fight 100 duck-sized horses than a single horse-sized duck, the SNP is knocking it out of the park today.
Because the papers just can’t make their minds up about the biggest story with which to attack John Swinney’s beleaguered party.
While the Sun leads with Sean Clerkin reigniting his police complaint over the missing fundraiser money, the Herald goes with Peter Murrell’s receipt of legal aid for his non-defence against embezzlement charges.
The Express and the Mail, on the other hand, focus on Swinney’s bombshell public admission of yesterday that the fundraiser money has in fact been spent.
In the Times, the big news is that Murrell managed to have almost £60,000 of thefts – most of them apparently for the benefit of Nicola Sturgeon – removed from his charge sheet in exchange for his early guilty plea.
Whereas the Daily Record takes some pity on the poor former CEO while also feeding its own unending obsession with “gangland” by leading on suggestions that the small, hamsterish executive might be picked on in HMP Edinburgh.
The Record is in fact remarkably charitable to the party all the way through today’s edition. Yesterday’s astonishing, unprecedented ruling of contempt of court against the Scottish Government over the Salmond inquiry is relegated to a tiny bar on the bottom of page 4 that doesn’t even mention the word “contempt”, (reporting merely that the government was “criticised” in the Court of Session) while Swinney’s admission that the fundraiser money was stolen is hidden away in a small side column on the left-hand page of its prison pity piece.
The Scotsman and Telegraph also go relatively easy, both of them putting Swinney’s fundraiser admission on the front page but in sidebars, not as the main splash.
And God bless the dear old National, a Scottish newspaper which tries to make the day all about Westminster MP Douglas Alexander, Westminster lord Peter Mandelson, NHS England and some Welsh Senedd minister nobody’s ever heard of.
Though they do reluctantly include the Swinney admission in a very thin flash at the bottom of the page, somewhat in contrast to the degree of prominence they gave their last big story about the fundraiser money.
So great work, SNP comms team. We’re sure things will calm down any day now.
Whisky and popcorn for the next few days….. 😛
What puzzles me is the Amazon account. I don’t believe for one moment the Peter Murrell was the sole person that had access to that account. I would at a guess assume there would be at least two other significant people with that access. If so why didn’t they see the spurious items that had nothing to do with the day to day running of the SNP.
If they ever did access it, they must have wondered just what the hell was being recommended based on your previous purchases, never mind being hounded by emails around order confirmation and dispatch.
Can ‘someone’ currently swanning around book festivals not be charged with reset?
It’s all a Britnat conspiracy, of course…
…things said in jest, or sarcasm, or both.
Just watch the Crime Only Pays For Some (COPFS) walk away.
If it was ever legitimate for the SNP, having collected money for a ringfenced fund specifically for indyref2, to use that fund for day-to-day expenses towards the general concept of independence, then they could have told us that at any time in response to questions about where the money had gone. Instead we got nonsense about it being woven through the accounts and it still being there for when Westminster inevitably capitulated to demands for a Section 30 order. Those evasions are evidence that they knew what they were doing was both criminal and a betrayal of trust. Shame on the lot of them.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!”
Indeed. It’s the “cover-up” that gets them. All the time.
Why oh why isn’t the MSM interested in bringing down the SNP?
After the referendum all we had for months was the MSM attacking Sturgeon with vile phrases and cartoons, what’s changed?
Here’s hoping lots more people contact the police about criminal charges towards other SNP members.
I hope Swinney is charged and needs to resign.
With the SNP in charge they can enjoy the patronage of a “national government” and feel super important. If a regional branch of Lab / Ref is in charge their status is reduced to that of LDS drones recording the dreary machinations of a local council.
Amazing how much comes to light … after the Holyrood elections.
Yes Roland – the SNP and their little helpers used outright lies and subterfuge ( late guilty plea , seriously ? ) to kick this into the long grass post election day. You can actually see the relief on the faces of Swinney and co as they think they’ve got a result .
Sturgeon won’t even give anyone in the SNP a second thought until it effects her. When is Swinney and others going to awaken up to Sturgeon she isn’t worth their loyalty.
Swinney- less hair than a snooker ball and more front than Eastbourne. I don’t think loyalty has anything to do with the current SNP approach-it’s more of a desperate last-ditch defence against the truth being revealed
New criminal case against SNP gives Swinney the perfect excuse to just say “I cannot comment whilst there is a live Police investigation” for years again.
Was there not a determined attempt to claim that the celebrated campervan at Sturgeons’s mother-in-laws was to be an SNP ‘battle bus’ during covid ? I can’t remember the details but I’m pretty sure it was floated for some time- by whom I can’t remember
How can it possibly be in the “public interest” for the Crown Office and Police Scotland to give Mr Murrell a plea deal by removing the items bought for Mrs Murrell from the charge sheet? It surely just brings the CO and PS into disrepute?
It’s like a bus full of nuns driven by a dog crashes into an orphanage after swerving to avoid a Pride parade and above the ensuing fire an image of Satan is seen in the smoke. A good day to be a journalist.
Omnishambles doesn’t cover this sort of thing. We need a new word for this phenomenon: Nicatastrophe? Sturjumble?
Surely there will be a at least one Edinburgh Fringe show about Murrell’s Amazon purchases. I can just about understand 10 steel chopsticks for Chinese takeaways for SNP HQ, (maybe kept in the four kitchen cupboard organisers), but what about all the gardening equipment? Who’s doing the gardening? And who’s doing all the DIY? Who has the time? Thank goodness there are the seven vacuum cleaners (I stopped counting) to clear up all that sawdust, or whatever.
Surely there will be a at least one Edinburgh Fringe show about Murrell’s Amazon purchases. I can just about understand 10 steel chopsticks for Chinese takeaways for SNP HQ, (maybe kept in one of the four kitchen cupboard organisers), but what about all the gardening equipment? Who’s doing the gardening? And who’s doing all the DIY? Who has the time? Thank goodness there are the seven vacuum cleaners (I stopped counting) to clear up all that sawdust, or whatever.
And I have just read that the SNP is to sue Murrell to try to recoup the 400k.
Im prtetty sure murrel will have it easy in prison because im sure he will go to one of thesesoft option open prisons, if at all. The SNP is now mud! It has been exposed. One of the more hopeful areas may noew be that Independance is still polling above 50% and real independance supporters may now take charge of the campaign.
I’m astonished that GMK hasn’t surface to say that they are still on target for a massive independence win … if only we trust in the Believe in Scotland campaign and punt more money towards the SNP backed enterprise.
The First Minister is continuing to push the line that none of the money stolen was taxpayers’ money.
But for this line to be credible, one has to not only believe, but believe that the First Minister believes, that Peter Murrell was scrupulously honest when it came to taxpayers’ money, except when those taxpayers were donating to either the SNP or Yes Scotland (have Yes Scotland’s accounts been examined yet? We know Murrell was charging around the place dispensing 25% pay rises to Ross Greer on a whim, what else was he able to do financially without authorisation?), at which point and only at which point Mr Murrell became a thief and an embezzler, stealing money to fill Nicola Sturgeon’s home full of things Nicola Sturgeon likes, after which he reverted to scrupulous, unimpeachable honesty.
We all pay tax and to be honest when someone needs to start putting a different spin to deflect you’ve already lost.
The SNP leadership has dug a whole but its now looking like a black whole.
whos in charge of the SNP? MI5 of course!
Anyone else remember how sturgeon and co. sailed through the ranks of the SNP? Very easily and enabled by brit state insiders in the SNP.
How the corrupted SNP must now be sweating! When truth comes, justice often follows.
With so many flawed, unimaginative, dodgy characters, massive egos and gross incompetence in the Scottish government, does anyone still believe that the SNP are not completely “owned” by the British establishment? They know who their masters are. Total reset required, I’m afraid.
I’m wondering if an as big, and separate crime, is not that of using fraudulently obtained funds to finance the party’s election campaign 2017?
And now that it has come to light and been admitted to, I would suggest the SNP have some serious answers to provide Holyrood and the Electoral Commission.
Questions that, as Deputy Leader of the party at the time, John Swinney should be well placed to answer.
I’m sure he kept all the e-mails detailing his concerns and collated all the replies showing why it was all in order.
Well done to the SUN the biggest paper in the UK for sticking with the SNP and the missing money.
Who gives a flying fuck about the national, the paper is a pile of shit, same on you if you buy it.
The National hasn’t done a single thing to further the cause of Independence, its hindered it.
When the ‘King of Crisis Management’ decides which underpants to put on in the morning, does he go for his ‘I cannot comment whilst there is a live Police investigation’ or his other favourite, ‘I’m deeply concerned’…choices, choices….
Alf Baird will have to rewrite his book.