It’s a day ending in y, which means another bad 24 hours for the SNP. And as the party’s leading lights all turn on each other like rats in a sack, this morning it was the turn of the party’s former treasurer Colin Beattie to come out swinging. Beattie said earlier that he was not aware of the purchase of the £110,000 motorhome supposedly bought for a second referendum campaign, back when he was in charge of the party’s finances.
Cornered by journalists in Holyrood today, Beattie floundered when faced with a simple question ‘Did you know about the motorhome purchase and did you sign it off?’ The beleaguered beancounter hesitated before insisting ‘No, I did not know about it.’
But with the evening comes a fresh twist: Beattie has issued a statement for clarity, and now says that he ‘was unaware of the transaction at the time of purchase’ and ‘became aware of the transaction via the 2021 annual accounts’. Just the kind of attention to detail that a party of government would want from their moneyman…
This afternoon, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn MP has also admitted to The Spectator that he was also not told about the six-figure campervan purchase before the Mail’s scoop, saying: ‘I’ll be straightforward with you: I became aware when it was on the front of a newspaper.’
The infamous campervan has now assumed the status of Chekhov’s gun in the psychodrama playing out north of the border. It was seized earlier this month from outside the Dunfermline home of the party’s former chief executive Peter Murrell’s 92-year-old mother in a kind of suburban Scorsese gangster bust.
The SNP subsequently claimed that the vehicle was intended to be used for campaigning, but neighbours replied that it had sat unused since 2021. The expensive purchase not only came as a surprise to the party treasurer, but to new First Minister Humza Yousaf too, who confessed he became aware of the motorhome only after he was elected SNP leader.
After all this drip-drip-dripping of information, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen next. Tune in tomorrow for the next installation of SNP comedy of errors!
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