Stop it, John Crace! I officially only read the Guardian to mock it. It’s confusing when I read a piece from the Guardian’s political sketch-writer mocking Nicola Sturgeon and find myself laughing out loud:
Nicola’s only crime was to love too much. And to not notice the Jaguar on the drive
You know how it is. You wake up and look out the bedroom window. You see a brand new Jaguar worth £81,000 parked in the driveway. You smile to yourself. That’s what you love about your husband. Always nipping out to the shops to buy himself treats. And where’s the harm in that? No one can say he isn’t worth it. And a new car is only a trifle compared with a motor home. That’s just Pete being Pete.
You get dressed and go downstairs. Your husband is already in the kitchen making you breakfast. “Fancy a coffee?” he asks. You nod. You’re busy not reading the SNP accounts. “Which machine would you like me to make it from?” he asks. “The basic Jura? The Jura Z8? Or the Miele? I always think the Z8 makes the best flat white. And what milk would you like?”
You open the back door and look at the Galloway and friesian cows he bought the previous week. Both are grazing on the lawn. You reckon you will try the Galloway today. You smile. You count yourself lucky that you are married to such an amazing man. Someone who can still surprise you after all these years you’ve lived together. Never change, darling man. Never change.
For those who ken not the tale of the Fall of the House of Sturgeon, Mr Crace explains in the next few paragraphs:
On Sunday morning, Nicola Sturgeon gave her first broadcast interview since her former husband, Peter Murrell, pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from money donated to the SNP by supporters.
This was Nicola as a woman who had been badly wronged. Yet if you had looked behind the lights of the makeshift studio, you might just have been able to see the outline of a man in the shadows. That man was her lawyer, Aamer Anwar. Because who among us doesn’t need their brief on hand when doing a sit-down chat with Laura Kuenssberg? Probably just a precaution to make sure Laura didn’t nick one of the Montblanc fountain pens.
The interview basically consisted of just one question. How could you possibly not have known that your husband had been on the take? Your house was basically a multimillionaire’s remake of the Generation Game. A non-stop conveyor belt of high-value goodies. The garage alone was full of salt and pepper grinders worth more than £2,000 a shot. And even if it had never occurred to you Pete had basically stolen the lot, surely you must have thought his compulsive shopping habit had got badly out of hand?
Meanwhile, the writers at The National are making the best of things. One of yesterday’s headlines says, “‘Fundamental flaw’ in Sturgeon and Murrell having top SNP roles, says FM”. A Scottish friend gives rare praise to First Minister John Swinney and says, “He’s right. There was a fundamental flaw in Sturgeon and Murrell having top SNP roles. The flaw was that they were Sturgeon and Murrell.”
If you want to keep up with Scotland’s “ultimate power couple”, check out the brands listed in this article from the BBC: “Coffee machines, fountain pens and Grand Theft Auto: How Murrell spent the money”.
& the legacy media tiptoe around the subject, carefully avoiding the mention of “corruption”
Because thats what it was, Nippie. Corruption. Wilful mis-use of funds stolen from the public purse,by her,
& she should be reminded of this, every time she sets foot outside her agreeable London pied a terre……
The garage alone was full of salt and pepper grinders worth more than £2,000 a shot.
One is reminded of all those lottery winners who are back on welfare five years on.
Am I the only one who thinks that £400,000 is a piffling sum and, anyway the “victims” are SNP supporters who are hardly deserving of sympathy and should have known better?
The seediest part of this is Sturgeon’s decision to divorce her husband in his hour of need. Did she really think it was going to rescue her political career?
I suppose we are expected to believe Jimmy Krankie’s evil twin was not aware that her darling husband, ‘who loved to pop out to the shops’ had bought a reported 108 toilet rolls (according to the Daily Mail). Really, though, it was probably just as well that he did, as the dreaded Covid Plandemic was rearing it’s ugly rehearsed head, and just before she reassured the morons who voted for her not to panic buy, as the SNP would see them right. Perhaps that’s why he bought the campervan? He had to store the toilet rolls somewhere.
There are some phrases that immediately trigger my suspicion (whether warranted or not). “Ultimate power couple” is one of them.
There are plenty of examples from America… but less obvious in the UK. Is it because our ‘free’ press is more obsequious?
DJM
Hmmm… this is a really interesting point. It was not public funds – this was SNP money from SNP supporters, not the general taxpayer. It was willingly given, not extracted by force of law.
That said, if your CEO is going to do this to your own hard raised funds _and the rest of the leadership then punishes anyone who asks awkward questions about what is going on, both internally (other SNP leaders) and externally (the press)_ then the rest of us can – must – ask legitimate questions about whether any of this shower are fit to govern.
“It was not public funds – this was SNP money from SNP supporters, not the general taxpayer.”
No, the SNP receives taxpayer money too, in the form of grants for ‘policy development’. About £175k/yr for the SNP over the period Murrell had his hands in the till apparently. Given money is fully fungible, its impossible to say whether Murrell stole private donors money or taxpayers money.
In fact given that his pilfering largely took place after the ‘ringfenced’ £600k referendum fund had vanished from the accounts (its widely accepted this money was largely used to repay a loan that the Weir family EuroMillions winners had made to the SNP, that was fully repaid in 2017) you could argue that the taxpayer was a major victim of his crimes. The purchases of the Jaguar car and motorhome (which accounted for about half of his haul) took place in 2019 and 2020, long after the referendum money had already vanished from the accounts.
And anyone writing about the Murrell/Sturgeon affair without giving full credit to the Rev Stuart Campbell of the Wings over Scotland blog is being duplicitous by omission. Without the Rev’s forensic examination of the SNP and its affairs over the last goodness knows how many years, none of this would have ever come to light, something that the MSM should be rightly excoriated for. Its even more to his credit that he is an avid Scottish Independence supporter and the utter moral collapse of the SNP has set back that cause for a very long time, maybe forever. He could have been excused from shining a light on their misdeeds, yet he did anyway.
From here – read the whole thing. It makes Elton John look like a Scrooge. Elton John of course makes the epic mistake of spending his own money…
It is clearly the case that the hubby of the Wee Low Chieftain of The Porridge Wogs is totally fucking mental. I mean how the fucking fuck do you buy a pencil sharpener for 110 quid? Look here. And three Nintendo DS consoles? What is he? A Hindu deity?
If I was his brief I’d know how to frame this.
The Scottish National Party is NOT Nationalist – it does NOT believe in an independent Scotland, it believes that Scotland should be ruled from Brussels (which is in Belgium – not Scotland).
So what is the point of the “SNP”? This is a question that has bothered me for some time – what is the point of a “Nationalist” party that is not Nationalist?
It seems that I stupidly overlooked the obvious – the point of the SNP is to get money, to get paid positions in politics, or just steal money – either from the taxpayers, or from their own supporters.
That is why do not care about Scotland being ruled by the European Union, or the United Nations Agenda 2030, or whatever – because the amount of money they get as members of the “Scottish Parliament” or as “Ministers” would stay the same – and so would the perks.
Do they have leftist ideology (world view)? Yes they do have a leftist ideology – but it appears that getting money is their main reason to be in politics.
They are corrupt (that has been out in the open for some time now) and they have used what powers they do have – to undermine Scots Law, and Scottish education – and to put up taxes.
And they have just been re-elected, along with the Green Party (which is actually worse than the SNP) with a clear majority of the votes in Scotland.
Jim – thank you for the information Sir.
Jim,
Yes – as I said in this post,
Paul Marks writes
SNP won 38.18% of the constituency vote, and 27.17% of the regional vote. So more votes (i.e. the majority) were cast for other parties.
The SNP may have been allocated more seats than any other party, but 57 seats out of 129 is not a majority.
Not sure where you get “clear majority of votes” from Paul?!
“I mean how the fucking fuck do you buy a pencil sharpener for 110 quid? ”
Quite easily it seems:
https://www.artsupplies.co.uk/p/caran-dache-metal-crank-pencil-sharpener
As with most things these days there’s always a version targeted at people with more money than sense. Or who would like others to think they have great taste and lots of money to burn. And thanks to online shopping, delivered to your door with a few clicks of a mouse.
“And three Nintendo DS consoles? What is he? A Hindu deity?”
My guess would be Christmas presents for the children of relatives, friends or work colleagues.
Reminds me of an old Steve Martin comedy skit:
― Steve Martin
Apparently Peter Murrell’s motorhome which Nicola Sturgeon “is not consciously aware of ever seeing” achieved this…
– The Guardian
Let’s do a comparison shall we?
The Artemis 2 space mission cost about £4,500 per mile (it went somewhat further than Dunfermline – you can check the figures yourself – I used several sources). So, if NASA is a money-pit (and it is) then the SNP has drilled down to Hell.
That motorhome “achieved” roughly seven times the mileage cost of a crewed space mission. And that is not including the cost of the pepper grinder!
“They may tek our lives but they’ll niver tek us seriously!”
Nick:
I can only assume that embezzling money from the SNP had got so easy for Murrell that he ended up buying things like a motor home he never used just for kicks. It really wasn’t a sensible purchase, even as an act of fraud. I’m sure we have all taken the odd biro home from work, but this was just silly.
Just as an aside, that’s not a “luxury motorhome.”
This is relative: in the US or Italian context, it seems indeed a piffling sum. (And there are many other such countries.)
OTOH in the Nordic context it is an outrageous sum.
There are many reasons for us cultural-Britons to be ashamed of Britain; but at least we need not be ashamed of being closer to the Nordics than to the US in this respect.
(Although i am also ashamed of being a cultural-American; and cultural-Italian for good measure.)
bobby b,
And there in lies the Macbethesque tragedy of the whole shit-show… Yup, he stole from his own party to buy a “like whatever” motorhome. I know in the USA you can buy a a veritable wheeled palace.
Snorri,
You defined yourself with two hyphens. The ghost of Teddy Roosevelt is coming round your gaff and he is not going to speak softly but he shall have a big stick 🧸♣️
Mr Campbell has done the MSM’s work for it in this post:
https://wingsoverscotland.com/up-the-hill-and-down-the-slope/
Which scrutinises the SNP’s account over the last 10 years, and conclusively shows that despite Mr Murrell’s sticky fingers it never had the ‘ring fenced’ referendum money, as they spent it almost immediately after receiving it. And also suggests that Mr Murrells actual haul may well have been far greater than the £400k he was charged with.
Just don’t expect to see anything approaching this real journalism in the MSM.