It’s often said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first turn mad, which may or may not apply to the Scottish National Party. But the deities always find it easier to punish hubris when those guilty of it turn themselves into figures of fun. And, when it comes to that, Humza Yousaf is your man.
The First Minister is a virtuoso of bathos. He can hardly open his mouth without saying something that turns a serious matter into an unintentional gag. When the SNP national treasurer, Colin Beattie, was arrested last week, on the day of the new First Minister’s big ‘vision’ speech to Holyrood, Humza told reporters that he ‘did not believe’ the SNP is a criminal organisation. He then helpfully added that he is ‘always surprised when a colleague is arrested.’ No shit, Sherlock.
Following his first meeting with Rishi Sunak this week, after which no pictures were released of the happy couple, Humza was inevitably asked about the SNP’s ever deepening financial woes. It recently emerged that the party’s auditors, Johnston Carmichael, had resigned six months ago, and journalists wanted to know when they would be replaced. To be fair to Yousaf, he wasn’t told about the audit problem until he became SNP leader last month. But his response to questions this week was far from reassuring:
It beggars belief that SNP should be in such financial distress
‘Er um, it will be challenging’, said the First Minister disarmingly, ‘We’re continuing to contact auditors to see if we can get someone to audit the SNP’s accounts’.
The BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason, put it to him that it sounded like the SNP had been ‘ringing round every accountancy firm you can find and they’re all saying no’. His response?
‘I’m not going to pretend otherwise’
This is the First Minister of the governing party of Scotland – a party that has dominated Scottish politics for 15 years. The SNP is the third largest party in the UK, with 45 MPs in Westminster, and could be deciding who gets into No. 10. Yet it risks losing access to £1.2 million in what is called Short Money – taxpayer’s cash – to run its Westminster operation, hopefully not in a criminal way. Yet Yousaf spoke about it as if it was just like rearranging the date of the next NEC meeting.
Accountancy in Scotland is a small world and you can imagine other firms, approached by the SNP, have done their due diligence. You’d presume they’ve rung their mates in Johnston Carmichael and asked them whether it passes the smell test or any other gauge of party probity.
After submitting the 2021 accounts, Johnston Carmichael left a carefully worded statement raising questions about the ‘extent to which the audit was considered capable of detecting irregularities, including fraud’. Irregularities is one way of putting it. Three members of the SNP audit committee had just resigned over lack of ‘transparency’ to be followed by the then national treasurer, Douglas Chapman, who claimed he could not carry out his ‘fiduciary duty’.
It beggars belief that SNP should be in such financial distress. The SNP took in £4.5 million in 2020, according to the Electoral Commission. It still has 72,000 members paying around £5 a month. And each of its elected members, MPs and MSPs, pay £250 a month out of their own salaries. Then there are the donations from wealthy nationalists, like the lottery winners, the Weirs, plus annual conferences and merchandising, like those ‘Nicola Says Yes’ T-shirts. Yet it can find no one willing to validate its party accounts.
To be fair, Yousaf was honest about this after he became SNP leader last month. ‘It’s certainly problematic’, he told journalists, with characteristic gravitas. You can say that again. At first it looked as if the SNP, like any party with turnover of more than £250,000, was merely facing a fine of £20,000 if it failed to submit its accounts to the Electoral Commission by July.
But then the Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, who’d also been kept in the dark, pointed out that the deadline for Short Money is actually 31 May – only weeks away.
‘When you are not in control of something’, said the SNP’s Westminster leader scarcely concealing his frustration, ‘it’s best not to make firm commitments as to what could or couldn’t happen.’
Now, I don’t want to be unhelpful, but perhaps we should be asking whether financing a party that is so clearly unable to manage its own financial affairs is a legitimate use of public money. Where will this Short Money go? Might it be used to pay for the motorhomes, ‘luxury pens’ and even fridge freezers which the police are now reportedly investigating as part of Operation Branchform?
A police source quoted in the Sunday Mail revealed that detectives investigating what happened to the ‘missing’ £660,000 in party funds are now searching for an extraordinary array of household goods.
‘It is mostly high value items’, said the police source, ‘– expensive pens, pots and pans, jewellery but also a fridge freezer’. It sounds rather as if the Scottish National Party was intending to open a department store.
Today we learned that the former national treasurer of 20 years, Colin Beattie, who was released without charge following his arrest, didn’t know the party had bought a £100,000 motorhome at the time it was purchased. Well, it’s something anyone could overlook. But who then bought this luxurious vehicle with SNP cash – and why?
This is all turning the Scottish National Party, and Humza Yousaf, into a standing joke. The First Minister has already been stuck with the nickname Humza ‘Useless’ and he has done nothing so far to restore the dignity of his office or restore the credibility of his party. The gods must be watching the madness in hilarious disbelief.
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