You couldn’t make this stuff up. Within weeks of Nicola Sturgeon announcing her decision to step down as party leader – she was just burned out, she said – the Scottish National party has gone into total meltdown. Less the ruling party in Scotland, more like the Keystone Cops. Only it’s not entirely clear whether we’re in the middle of a farce or criminal proceedings. Perhaps both.
It began with the arrest of Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the chief executive of the SNP, at his home in Glasgow. Allegedly in connection with £600,000 of donations that may or may not have been used for day-to-day party expenses. Within hours, the front and back gardens had forensic tents erected in them and the police were reportedly digging up the patio. Everyone was tight-lipped about what the search was looking for: money? Accounts? Laptops? Bodies? Anything was possible. All we needed was Emilia Fox and the Silent Witness TV crew.
Then we heard that a £100,000 motorhome had been seized from Murrell’s 90-year-old mother’s home. By now we were well through the looking-glass. Almost into Breaking Bad territory. Finally, on Tuesday, the SNP treasurer and MSP Colin Beattie was arrested as a part of the investigation into the party’s finances. He was released without charge later that day.
In the midst of all this we have Humza Yousaf, the man who was narrowly elected as leader to replace Sturgeon. At the beginning of his leadership campaign, he acted as the chosen one, Nicola’s anointed successor. The man who could be trusted to protect her dreams and visions. Within a short time, it looked more and more as if Yousaf was the fall guy. Sturgeon is adamant it is just coincidence that the SNP has been caught fiddling the party membership numbers and that her husband has been investigated. In which case Yousaf is the unluckiest fall guy in Scotland.
Certainly Humza does himself no favours. Not least because he has the unerring knack of making a bad situation worse. Too much more of this and some MSPs will be asking themselves if there’s a way of rerunning the leadership election to make sure Kate Forbes wins this time. Back to the Future. Shortly before giving his state of the nation address in Holyrood, Yousaf gave a brief 90-second press conference. Safe to say that every word was a car crash.
“I can’t comment on a live police investigation,” he began. “It’s a very serious matter.” Though he made it sound as if we were dealing with an armed robbery or a serial shooter. Maybe that’s just how it feels to him, being constantly on the wrong end of questions he doesn’t know how to answer. “I’m always surprised when a colleague is arrested.” He really oughtn’t to be. It’s getting to be a habit.
Had he suspended Beattie from the party? Yousaf looked nervously from side to side. Sweaty. On edge. Beattie was innocent until proved guilty, he grudgingly replied. He didn’t seem to realise that suspension was a neutral act. One that neither implied guilt or innocence. Just a convenient way of getting someone out the way when they have become a distraction.
Who said anything about a distraction? Colin was a lovely man. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. All this was in the eyes. Would he be taking Beattie off the public audit committee? “Colin Beattie is still in the police station being questioned,” Yousaf added unnecessarily. Just in case we thought he might have been released after a few hours. “I’ll need to have a conversation with him. But not about the investigation.” Quite. That was so far above Yousaf’s pay grade. No point in him risking getting whacked by the SNP cartel. Why ask him about the one thing anyone would want to know?
“I’m surprised this has happened,” he said. Like a man staring at the debris on the road after a multiple car wreck. But he was certain this wouldn’t derail his vision for the future. He would move on from this in no time. Why would a trail of arrests, some allegedly unexplained financial transactions and a brand-new motor home create a problem for his party? Weren’t all political parties regularly under investigation for similar offences?
A generous person might say that Yousaf had more or less held it together. Up till now. A long way from convincing, but just about passable. Not for long. The killer question came when he was asked if the party had been operating in a criminal way while he was leader. “I don’t believe it is at all,” he said, not altogether convincingly. Because these were the unknown unknowns. He had no idea of how the SNP had been run either before or after he took over in charge. It was a mystery. He’d just taken Nicola at her word.
The brief press maul had clearly unsettled Yousaf, as he plodded his way through his state of the nation address a few minutes later. There was no excitement. No verve. Little in the way of new direction. Just that a bottle deposit scheme would be postponed. His MSPs applauded politely, but you could tell they had their doubts. Both the Tories and Labour piled in, saying the SNP were out of ideas and had become mired in sleaze and criminal investigations. Humza tried to fight back, pointing out that the Tories had their own problems in those areas. Somehow that made it worse.
Meanwhile, down in Westminster, nothing stirred. It’s as if Rishi Sunak is on a mission to do as little as possible. Less to go wrong that way. Today he was reannouncing the announcement on zombie-style knives for the fifth time. The biggest distraction to be found was Nadine Dorries’ new column for the Daily Mail. Though even that was dull. The Mail will be hoping to get more for their £100k than this. But then, perhaps she’s saving up her all-out assault on the MSM in the MSM for next week. Nadine and Paul Dacre can’t wait for their peerages for ever.
