Jenny Lindsay: Sturgeon's cynical attempt at dodging responsibility from a highly-skilled mistress of spin

Misogyny is hatred of women on the basis of sex. This takes various forms, from the ultimate act of murderous erasure, to the denial women are of any importance as a category of human being at all.

Nicola Sturgeon, former First Minister and SNP leader, presided over the worst period of profound misogyny in Scotland in my lifetime. Women’s right to any spaces and services of their own, won historically on the basis of sex, came within a whisker of being obliterated, with her full, ongoing, ‘I will never apologise’ approval.

Any woman opposing this erasure – the end result of her ‘self-ID’ policy push, where even male double-rapists must be viewed as women if they want to be - were punished and hounded, including women inside her own party.

It has therefore provoked understandable impatience that Sturgeon and her acolytes have spent much of the last week crying ‘sexism’ and ‘misogyny’ as she faces questions over her estranged husband, Peter Murrell’s, admission of appropriating SNP party funds when Chief Executive.

He’d held the position since 2001, and married Sturgeon, then Deputy First Minister to the late Alex Salmond, in 2010. Sturgeon’s former mentor turned nemesis had warned of the potential folly of having a husband and wife team in charge of both party and country. Like all other critics of Sturgeon’s, he was ignored then vilified.

Sturgeon’s handling of Murrell’s guilty plea last week on the charge of embezzling £400,000 of party funds has been graceless. It’s also surprising, given she must have known such a plea was forthcoming.

Instead of clearing the diary, preparing a statement to the effect she was taking time to deal with the - perfectly understandable - feelings of betrayal as a spouse, she has gone on defensive mode very publicly.

Speaking at the Hay-On-Wye literary festival, Sturgeon raged she was being ‘held responsible’ for the actions of her husband. ‘It is the age-old cry of when a man does something wrong, well, the woman must have known about it, somehow it’s her fault,’ she snapped, when questioned.

This is crass. It’s neither ‘sexist’ nor ‘misogynist’, as Sturgeon supporters have wailed this week, to question the incuriosity about luxury items turning up in her own home. Her justifications she was busy, wasn’t home much, she and Murrell had large enough salaries to justify £2k designer salt and pepper pots and various £500 Montblanc fountain pens are, in fairness, plausible. They’re beside the point, though.

Her failure is not as an incurious spouse, but as SNP party leader and at one point temporary treasurer, who was questioned internally by those on the National Executive Committee (NEC) over the party’s finances as early as 2021. She berated and shot down those questioning the party’s accounts.

It is entirely her own actions – or inaction - she faces questions over, including why she didn’t recognise internal SNP governance structures were flawed and open to corruption.

With what certainly sounded like a warning of repercussions, she sternly rebuked those in the NEC in 2021, in a video leaked to the press, to be ‘very careful’ about questioning the party’s finances, saying there were no issues.

Did she know that? Did she check? We don’t yet know.

That Murrell was her husband is relevant. It’s feasible this led to an unwillingness to question further. Instead, it was left to Stuart Campbell, the man behind the Wings Over Scotland blog, to provide the initial much-needed scrutiny, asking, in his 2020 blog ‘You Were Robbed’, where thousands of pounds of SNP supporters money had gone.

Sturgeon undoubtedly experienced sexism in her journey to the top of Scottish politics.

Branded ‘Nippy Sweetie’ in her early days, due to appearing unsmiling, glum, too serious, dowdy, shrill, from around 2005 onwards, in her mid-30s, she underwent something of a transformation.

In a fawning, 2005 puff-piece profile in the Scottish Daily Mirror, she was presented as an ‘independent’, ‘feisty’ Scotswoman who ‘loves to shop.’ She told the pliant journalist ‘she has a shoe collection to rival Imelda Marcos.’ She may regret making that comparison this week.

Was she a feminist? She described the word as ‘devalued,’ adding women ‘should be judged on our own merit.’

Indeed we should. So, to be clear: Sturgeon was the most powerful woman in Scottish politics during the most serious embezzlement scandal to hit a political party this century.

She must answer for this, not due to criminality, but for evident failures of leadership, and a seeming allergy to accountability.

She presided over a regime where questioning her led to bullying and many subsequent resignations, while she and ambitious, younger colleagues pushed the maddest, misogynist ideology – gender identity – while turning a blind eye to excessive abuse of women, including party colleagues.

Her attempts to claim she’s judged by different standards from men is an absurdity; a cynical attempt at dodging responsibility from a highly-skilled mistress of spin.

It’s not sexism, let alone misogyny, for a powerful woman to be judged by the same standards as a man in a comparable situation. Both she, and her acolytes, need to wake up and smell the tainted coffee.

Whatever sympathies can be extended to a betrayed wife by a corrupt husband cannot be permitted to override serious political scandal. Judge Nicola Sturgeon, and her conduct, as you would the actions of a man. It’s sexist not to.