As yet another day passes, the good people of Scotland remain in suspense about the outcome of the police probe into the SNP. The three-year long investigation — which has seen multiple arrests, the impounding of a £110,000 campervan, a military-style raid of SNP HQ and the construction of a rather large forensic tent outside the Dear Leader’s own home — has still not concluded.
In fact, witnesses are being interviewed for the, er, fourth time as police attempt to get to the bottom of fraud claims relating to purchases of a £95,000 electric Jaguar to gardening equipment and women’s razors.
And it now transpires that there is one very particular line of questioning that the police are focusing their efforts on. Witnesses are being quizzed about a leaked video from a meeting Nicola Sturgeon had with her national executive committee back in 2021. The secret footage shows the former FM lecturing SNP apparatchiks to be ‘very careful’ about suggesting there were ‘any problems’ with the accounts, claiming SNP finances have ‘never been stronger’. The angry tirade came the party’s finance and audit committee suffered three resignations after a transparency row broke out. But the police are reportedly interested in what party members took from Sturgeon’s outburst, with questions being asked about how much Sturgeon actually knew of the accounts — or whether her blow-up was all bluster.
One source told the Sunday Mail that:
[The police] want to get to the bottom of whether it is proof she had access to and did, in fact, access accounting information or whether she was merely speaking to what she believed to be the case about the accounts.
How curious…
The police investigation remains a rather large thorn in Humza Yousaf’s side. The new First Minister narrowly won the leadership contest on the basis that he was the continuity candidate — which was not quite the blessing Yousaf might have hoped for. He has had to deal with the poisoned chalice ever since, with the vast majority of his premiership overshadowed by Operation Branchform. Police Scotland told Mr S that the investigation remains ‘ongoing’ — but for how much longer they couldn’t say. With the SNP on course to lose 20 seats at the election after last year’s events, Yousaf will surely be hoping it gets cleared up sharpish…
Watch the leaked footage here:
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