Nicola Sturgeon

I can’t understand how she didn’t know though.
It would seem so obvious to me that my H was spending far beyond our income.

I'd just like to know why has she decamped to London, surely England and it's capital site of the loathed WESTMINSTER would be the last place in her sights as somewhere to park herself

Nothing about this smells good.

TerriBull

I'd just like to know why has she decamped to London, surely England and it's capital site of the loathed WESTMINSTER would be the last place in her sights as somewhere to park herself

May well be safer for her to be away from Scotland and angry and disappointed voters.
For some the SNP Party was almost like a religion with the her and husband like untouchable gods.

I saw the interview, and part of me agrees that she shouldn't be tarred with the same brush as her husband, but another part knows that if Mr Dog had four expensive coffee machines I would 100% know about it. Similarly a Jaguar.

I know they lived pretty much separate lives, but the house isn't so big that things like that wouldn't be obvious, surely?

If she's right about the necklace she says he gave her, I feel sorry for her about that though - it must be a blow to find out that a present of that nature wasn't given with kindness.

Their house, tho nice was a modest size, I remember being surprised on seeing it.

Well it was a lovely gift but not actually paid for by him, so yes that hurt …if it wasn’t known about.

this s from the guardian

^Murrell pleaded guilty this week to embezzling the sum from the SNP between 2010 and 2022 to fund a lavish personal lifestyle.

The 61-year-old spent the money on items including a luxury motor home, a Jaguar SUV and a VW Golf, boutique cosmetics, iPads and a Lalique Feuilles salt and pepper set worth £2,618^

I understand her ex husband has been convicted of these crimes but a motorhome and 2 cars? You would question your spouse on how they have afforded this surely? they are pretty big purchases

The salt and pepper set costing over 2.5k I'm completely boggled by

I wonder where all the coffee machines were? The best one in their own house and the others at work or given to relatives?
Why would anyone spend that amount of cash, even the SNP’s on just one pen?

It wasn,t an expensive necklace …most or many of us have bought or been given gifts around the £500 mark at some point.
Please remember Nicola had her MSP salary and her FM salary alongside what Peter Murrell earned….they were hardly poor and struggling.!
Lotsof people buy stuff and move it on when it’s not what they thought it was.I do it myself my other half wouldn,t give it a thought if something was there on Monday amd a different version by the next Monday.
My kids love getting mums “bad buys” in fact they drop hints about stuff they might like if I didn,t get along with it.
The ONLY time in our lives we ever sat and budgeted together was when we started our business and had a list of things to be paid and see what was left for food.
I thought that was soul destroying …we gave it up once our income improved.
Seems we,re the strange ones!

maybe there was a coffee machine in the motorhome? one in the jag and the other in the golf

From the ST today "Peter Murrell stole from Alex Salmond's office more than 30 years ago - but rather than being thrown out of the Scottish National Party he went on to be made its chief executive, the party's former treasurer has claimed" So he had form ...and Nicola didn't know

I don't think the necklace problem comes down to money. If Mr D had given me a necklace I'd admired and it turned out he's bought it with embezzled money it wouldn't matter to me whether it was made of diamonds or tin.

I did wonder about the coffee machines - one i the kitchen, one in each of their offices and one in the camper van? There are bad buys and bad buys though. If I'd paid £75 for a coffee machine and didn't like it I might pass it on and get another, but if I'd forked out £3k for it and it didn't work I'd be taking it back, or at least selling it on eBay or something.

Guilty by implication and speculation does not hold water for me.

The other thing that keeps going through my head is that OH had Parkinsons (so has my brother, so had my mother) and this sort of rash illogical spending can be a symptom of either the disease itself or a side effect of some of the meds. The fact that his spending had no logic to it and sounds compulsive just triggered a thought about this.

Murrell committed the crime not his wife so she is not a criminal but is being treated as one. I think they separated in 2023 so we're leading separate lives.
The only thing she can be accused of is not questioning him on the expensive items and acting if she thought he was embezzling.
It can be difficult within a marriage to acknowledge your husband as a criminal.

What we don’t know is whether the goods he bought did end up in their house. The coffee machines may have been gifts she knew nothing about for example, and did she get on with her mother in law or never visit her so didn’t know about the motorhome, etc. The devil is in the detail we don’t know I think.

I disagree that the spending had no logic, because it did, they were all high status items, the pen, the latest expensive coffee machines, watch, cars and motorhome and cosmetics.

Nicola stamped down on anyone querying the books. People left the Audit committee as they weren't allowed to see them. Auditors refused to sign off the books? Why? How could Nicola not have known.
I don't feel sorry for her in the least. She treated those who queried the situation abominably.

That’s not really what I was getting at, as one pen, one necklace, one coffee machine etc. would be normal purchases in a high income household, so it’s whether she knew about the excess, particularly the motorhome?

AGAA4

Murrell committed the crime not his wife so she is not a criminal but is being treated as one. I think they separated in 2023 so we're leading separate lives.
The only thing she can be accused of is not questioning him on the expensive items and acting if she thought he was embezzling.
It can be difficult within a marriage to acknowledge your husband as a criminal.

I tend to agree with you. Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t a wife with a career that meant she was home cooking the dinner most nights. She was a First Minster on the World Stage. She had bigger things to occupy her rather than her husband’s spending.
Peter Murrell was a high earner and could easily have defended or hidden the purchases real costs. The motor home bought on credit payments, perhaps.
As has been said she hasn’t been accused of any crime.

What exactly did she think had happened to the money? Why was she so keen to cover up the massive hole in party finances?

This won't be the end of it. More and more will come out about what happened there. The way those who raised concerns were treated was unpleasant to say the least. I have no idea how anyone is surprised by this. The positioning of a husband and wife in such positions of power within one organisation was undoubtedly going to lead to corruption.
I am happy to predict what 'excuses' she will roll out soon.

Probably right Galaxy. Read this one about the pizza and garlic bread if you want a laugh!
www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/16311160/sturgeon-campervan-denial-disputed-murrells-mums-neighbour/

I’m sure the further police investigation will discover if she was involved. However, a previous investigation brought no case against her.