Nicola Sturgeon's future and legacy

Subscribe to The Spectator and get twelve weeks of Britain's most incisive politics coverage, unrivalled books and arts reviews, and so much more. All for just twelve pounds. Not only that, but we'll also send you a twenty pounds Amazon gift card absolutely free. Go to www. spect ator.com forward slash voucher to claim this offer now Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Megan McElroy and I'm joined today by James Leale, our deputy political editor, and Mikey Simmons, our economics editor. But Michael is not joining us in his capacity as economic s editor today. He's dialling in from Scotland. And today we're here to discuss the fact that the ex-SNP chief executive, Peter Morrell, has admitted embezzling £400,000 in party funds. Morrell is, of course Nicolas Sturgeon's estranged husband. Michael, what did you make of the story when it broke this weekend? Well it's this was a massive shock and really all everyone was talking about in Scotland yesterday was the was this news. Um because we weren't quite sure when this was gonna happen. I mean, behind the scenes it had been suggested that the the Crown Office, who are the prosecutors in Scotland, had uh had pretty irrefutable evidence. And the hearing in this case was meant to happen before uh the Scottish election and it was moved to yesterday. Peter Murrell turned up in court and he admitted to that embezzlement charge. There was a slight plea bargain where they knocked off fifty thousand pounds from the the initial charge. So um not sure why uh why he was so insistent on that, but he he's he's pleaded to that, guilty to that and was remanded in custody and sentencing will happen next month. And it it's quite funny. There's been various places have done lists of all the stuff he was he was buying with SMP party funds. So that included things like um that are known about like the cam per van, um this Jaguar car, but there was little things as well. I mean he spent twenty thousand pounds on uh fancy pens , there was various coffee machines, he was buying like games, consoles and, g ames. There's been quite a quite quite a fun online game emerging where um Nicola Sturgeon, of course, is claiming, I think ridiculously, that she knew absolutely nothing about this. And her kind of outriders are saying that it's misogynistic to say that she must have known because she was married to the criminal. But you know, she wasn't just married to the criminal, she was also his boss uh and signed the accounts um that he's now admitted were fraudulent. But a fun game has emerged of looking at the lists of things in the charge and seeing if you can find photos uh with Nicholas Sturgeon. So I think someone's um found the toaster so far uh and her beside one of the fancy kettles. But where in terms of where the story is gonna go next, I think it's about who else in the SNP kind of knew what and when. I mean Nicola Sturgeon herself faces serious questions now. I mean one of the s news stories that emerged last night is that in her police interview when she was arrested before being released without charge, that she didn't operate at all, she sat in silence and she went, no comment. Now, I'm sure, you know, all of us and everyone listening has seen enough episodes of 24 Hours in Police Custody to know that that's not necessarily unusual. It's standard legal advice, you know, not to comment and to say no comment in a police interview. But I think it's hard to square with the press interviews that Nicola Sturgeon was giving at the same time when she was claiming to be cooperating fully So I think you know that she has questions about her own honesty to answer there. And I think what one la one last thing I would just say about this is the SP have questions to answer. I think the wider media have questions to answer about this story as well. Because without getting into the nitty-gritty of this, this only came about, and this police investigation only came about because of a nutter who's called Sean Clarkin, who runs something called the Scottish Resistance. I mean, he's known for various stunts, such as trying to set fire to the Tory Manifesto, uh, but his not being able to use his lighter. And it was uh he's also reported the British government for international war crimes before. He's an interesting character. But he was ha he was the person that made the police complaint about this embezzlement. And you know, fair enough he is an utter, but at the time members of the Scottish press were saying this was total nonsense. Um Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister was telling people in her own party not to raise these complaints and told the public that there was nothing to see here . And you know, it's it's a bit of an indictment, really, that the SP allowed this to happen, but also that the media up in Scotland were left behind by online crazies pursuing this.ile Wh the media down here in London, where I'm proud to say the spectator was a was a good exception, were we're you know fawning over um Nicholas Surgeon and saying how great she is. So um, you know, a plague on everyone's houses. Yeah, I think that the SNP are clearly going to try and move on from this story, but it's keep it's going to keep coming back to haunt them. Today, recording this on Monday, John Swinney is setting out his vision in the Scottish Parliament, suggesting that there can be now steps for a second referendum. Uh he's changed the goalpost slightly on this to previously before the election he was suggesting you needed to have a majority of SNP members. Now he's pointing to the fact that you've got fifty eight SNP members and also fifteen Greens, that's seventy-three of one hundred and twenty-nine MSPs, arguing it's the biggest ever pro inde pendence bloc in the Scottish Parliament. But of course, today's debate is going to be completely consumed by all the questions about what John Swinney knew. Uh the SNP is a very interesting party, it is one with long memories, long careers, and of course who was the person who appointed Peter Morrell chief executive twenty five years ago? It was John Swinney in one of his various other stints as the SNP leader. So I think that it's definitely not going to go away. And Swinney obviously gave the press conference yesterday where he very insisted he didn't know what was going on. I think what is so striking, as Michael says, is uh the element of farce in how long this was going on for. The items evolved of be purchased will be going between twenty ten to twenty twenty two. Uh obviously they're tied up in issues around party funding. Uh party funding stories are incredibly complex, but they've also led to many political careers across the UK being brought down. You think about Peter Haynes deputy leadership bids, some almost twenty years ago in the Labour Party, uh you think about uh various other sort of local candidates being caught up in spending stories. So I think that this is going to be one where partly because of the sheer volume of items purchased and the fact they're quite funny and the fact that uh posters such as myself are now putting out things such as a Halloween to couple costume idea, two thousand six hundred pounds salt and pepper shakers uh for his and her uh I mean I think means this is going to keep on going and of course it does raise the spectacle of course when we're talking about you know independence , etcetera, and the SP putting back on the table, who were the ones who wanted to create a new army, a new currency, a new bank? It was the SNP, led at that time in twenty fourteen by the chief executive Peter Morrill and her husband, who was then the Deputy First Minister and then First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon. So all these ghosts are gonna keep coming out and haunting them no matter how much the SNP wants to move on. And it's important to say by the way, the most the most crucial important thing to note about this story is just how hilarious it is . Um it's just brilliant. And the dam really has broken now that because we don't have to worry about content of court , um, there's gonna be more and more stories coming out. And and one of them was a as James says, how far this goes back. We've had um friends of Alex Salm, the late first minister, briefing that Merle was nicking stuff for years. Apparently he stole potentially stole some money from Alex Salmond and maybe some of Alex Salmon's's mum antique furniture but Salmond you know covered it up because he thought he he had some kind of problem. So I think as the days rolls on, more and more is gonna come out and and as James says, no one's gonna be talking about anything else. I think we've been quite surprised by how um the SP has so far kept together. Obviously they've just won re-election , but I think that it does lead to all different questions of money's involved and bank sums, etc. That the kind of edifice on which the S and P is built, which is between quite a relatively small group of individuals who nevertheless command support among a huge number of Scots, many hundreds of thousands. Um I think that potentially the more you start pulling at these threads now that the trial's been concluded, as Michael says, uh you do think more will come out and that will be very embarrassing for the SP, albeit it does go back to the question does any of it matter in terms of damaging the SP's momentum or um actually uh is it going to be something that the the independence movement gets riled up about. So we're not sure on that front. But uh it is certainly one thing's very clear as Michael says, it is very, very funny. My final question then, is what's next for Nicola Sturgeon? Well, I hope she sort of finds out more and more about her past life. I think you know it's crazy. I mean how many wives have the husbands suddenly turned up with all this was it two hairdryers, four coffee machines? For a bold man by the way. For a bold man buying like dice dice and hairdress. I was going through two loose seats. Uh you the Sun have done a wonderful piece of journalism. Seventy nine pages online where you can scroll through all the different items. Four hundred thousand pounds worth. Fifty quid Amazon card. I mean just and just she basically makes look She's just there just looking at all this stuff that's coming in and no, no, no worries at all. It's extraordinary, it baffles the mind. I'd agree with James. Wha while the S P you know, I think will end up being relatively uns cathed by this. Nicola Sturgeon is surely finished as a public figure. I mean, I know she's she's gonna move into this career where she wants to be an author and she wants to talk about books and stuff, but you cannot get around the fact that people in her party tried to raise raise these complaints and she shut them down. She made public state statements saying there was nothing to see here. And it and the most damning one, I keep going back to this, at this on the same you know, day that she was saying she was cooperating fully, she was sat there in a p in a police interview room for seven hours, saying nothing. And sh I'm afraid to say she's been shown to be dishonest, and I think a period of silence from Nicola Sturgeon