Why Swinney needs to stop defending Sturgeon and back inquiry into Murrell scandal – Jackie Baillie
Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell’s thieving has damaged trust in all politicians
If Nicola Sturgeon is to believed, Peter Murrell is a master of espionage who forensically covered his tracks while charming his wife with such thoughtful gifts that she didn’t think to question the new Jaguar in the driveway. “I am not going to take responsibility for someone else’s crimes,” she told Laura Kuenssberg. “He betrayed me.”
And perhaps Sturgeon – that clever politician, always over the details – genuinely had a blind spot as far as her husband was concerned. Spouses often do. But despite her protestations, this is not about her being responsible for her husband’s crimes, but Sturgeon’s responsibility as party leader and First Minister. On this basis, she fostered a culture where questions were shut down and the questioners banished.
Her first consequential decision was ignoring Alex Salmond’s advice, back in 2014 when she became First Minister, that Murrell’s position as SNP chief executive was a clear conflict of interest. By 2016, Murrell was spending nearly £50,000 a year on the SNP’s credit card.
Quite astonishing
In March 2021, three members of the SNP’s finance and audit committee resigned after their request to see the party’s accounts was denied – yet, at the next National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, Sturgeon claimed the party’s finances had never been stronger.
The party’s treasurer, Douglas Chapman, resigned at the end of May 2021, publicly expressing his concerns. Soon after he was followed by Joanna Cherry, an SNP MP and senior lawyer. Yet John Swinney said he had no idea why the party’s treasurer resigned. Really?
Sturgeon, who briefly served as acting treasurer after Chapman’s resignation before a new one was appointed, said in June that year that money had not gone missing. That same month, Murrell loaned the SNP £107,620 to cover the party’s cash-flow problems. Quite astonishing.
At this point, surely the party leader, First Minister and acting treasurer should have hauled the chief executive in to ask what on earth was going on. Even after the SNP’s accountants resigned in September 2022, it was another six months before Sturgeon claims she was aware that something was seriously wrong.
If this is the case, Sturgeon has shown an incompetence quite out of keeping with her reputation as a details-orientated, strategic politician.
Swinney must back inquiry
It was the current First Minister, John Swinney, who appointed Murrell, and who today is blocking a parliamentary inquiry into the decision-making that led to Murrell getting away with his crimes for so long.
And if Swinney wasn’t paying attention to the NEC in 2021, that was because he was busy defending Sturgeon to the parliamentary committee investigating her government’s handling of the Salmond harassment complaints. As Cherry put it: "John Swinney is there to sweep Nicola Sturgeon's mess under the carpet.”
For the sake of trust in Scotland’s political institutions, the First Minister should break the habit of a lifetime and stop defending his old boss. He claims a parliamentary inquiry isn’t needed because the police have investigated but there remain questions about governance and whether there has been misconduct in public office due to a failure to act on knowledge or suspicion of criminality.
Murrell’s thieving has damaged trust in all politicians – the least Swinney can do is support a parliamentary inquiry and give the public the transparency they deserve.
Jackie Baillie MSP is Scottish Labour’s deputy leader