The Mystery of the Lost Auditors becomes ever more exciting by the day. As scrutiny intensifies so does the shirking of responsibility, for it has now been revealed that the House of Commons authorities were not informed about Johnston Carmichael cutting ties with the SNP’s accounts until 13 February – a full five months after the fact. That was also incidentally three days after Stephen Flynn was informed, a mere two months after replacing Ian Blackford as Westminster leader.
And last night, it was Blackford’s moment to return to the spotlight when asked if it was his responsibility to have let parliamentary finance staff know about his party’s lack of auditors. Going on to berate the poor journalist who had dared enquire, an enraged Blackford fumed:
I think the question is awful and let’s leave it at that. I am not responsible for the appointment of the auditor and I shouldn’t even need to explain that to you. What did happen, and this is a matter of record, is that there was a full handover of all the information to the new team when I was no longer leader. I didn’t pass that information on because that wouldn’t be my responsibility. Your question is insulting quite frankly. How dare you. How dare you.
Oh my. A slight overreaction, perhaps, from our Right Honourable friend?
In his attempts to escape the spotlight of scrutiny, Blackford has now thrown his colleague Peter Grant – the SNP treasurer at Westminster – to the wolves. Party sources are briefing in turn that Grant did not tell the Commons’ authorities because there is no ‘legal obligation’ to do so. The reliance on technicalities is noted…
But does this explain why Flynn only heard of the party’s lack of auditors in February? On BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show, Blackford previously said that his deputy, Kirsten Oswald, had passed over a ‘very firm and detailed briefing to Stephen and his team’. But given Flynn remained unaware that the auditors had quit for another two months, it would appear that, bizarrely, Oswald had chosen to omit this rather significant detail. Or, alternatively, that she hadn’t known in the first place…
Just where will all this end? Tune in tomorrow for more SNP shenanigans…
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