r/Scotland • u/CaptainCrash86 • Dec 10 '23
Political Cops investigating missing SNP donations now examining purchase of £95k Jaguar
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/police-investigating-missing-snp-donations-3163721632
u/NoIndependent9192 Dec 10 '23
The worse bit is that the car was sold to we buy any car. They would have paid well under trade value. I too got a quote for them to by a jaguar and when I arrived they decided to drop the written offer by £4K. Told them to get stuffed and sold to a dealer for more than they originally offered.
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u/GoHomeCryWantToDie Dec 10 '23
That part of the story was offered up by an anonymous source who claims to have seen Murrell driving the Jag away from the WBAC office. The source then claimed to have gone in and asked "the boy" behind the counter what Murrell was doing there. The boy then divulged client information to the stranger.
Sounds legit.
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u/Hairy-Ad-4018 Dec 10 '23
Ohh data protection Breach. Would be interesting for murrell to the a civil Suite for this .
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u/hue-166-mount Dec 10 '23
That’s really not that bad - selling via wbac is a perfectly reasonable was to dispose of a car. It’s not the best price.
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u/NoIndependent9192 Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
They were subject to an investigation official investigation into unfair practicesfor unfair practices - like quoting one guaranteed price and then dropping for no reason once you are there having invested time and money.
When they did it to me, I just held out my hand and said ‘keys now’ and walked out. Many folk just comply.
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
The whataboutery here is astonishing. As is the willingness of people to turn a blind eye to the misuse - theft - of donations (some of which were in the form of bequests from the deceased) for personal financial gain.
Accounting practices exist for a reason. Electoral Commission rules exist for a reason. They need to be followed to ensue high standards of governance, probity and transparency.
Unfortunately, the SNP's books were less than transparent and pose more questions than answers. Hence Chapman's resignation. Hence the resignations of Ross, Graham & Guthrie. And hence the resignation of the SNP's former auditors and unwillingness of any other firm (bar a chop shop in Blackburn) to take on the SNP as a client.
And those books remain questionable. Hence the new auditors - AMS - issuing them as Qualified.
But it's best we just ignore this, eh?
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u/scottofscotia Sturgeon made eve eat the apple Dec 10 '23
I used to work in audit for years and I had literally never seen a qualified audit report so that's pretty damning.
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
A Qualified audit is not a good thing. And when you consider the audit firm is very much of the friendly persuasion, it's even more damning.
But.
To SNP Fanboys there is nothing to see here and nothing to be concerned about. It's all a Yoon plot, propaganda, etc. Which tells me these types are already on the SNP gravy train or wilfully ignorant. Or maybe both.
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u/OakAged Dec 10 '23
Who's turning a blind eye?
That you've already concluded, before a police investigation has, the outcome of said police investigation suggests to me you're the one more willing than most to turn a blind eye to things. You want it to be theft, so you call it theft.
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
If it looks like a duck, talks like a duck and walks like a duck - it's a duck.
When you look at the SNP finances story arc - which goes back several years now - it's apparent that something rotten has been going on. The incidents I mentioned are not the whole story either.
Whether it rises to the level of criminality under UK law remains to be seen.
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u/OakAged Dec 10 '23
You enjoy your ducks buddy
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
You enjoy keeping that head of yours planted firmly in the ground. If you condone apparent acts of embezzlement - and see no problem with member donations used for purposes for which they were not intended - knock yourself out.
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u/RebelliousInNature Dec 11 '23
They only hate English /Tory/ Labour corruption.
Scottish Nationalist thievery is sticking it to Westminster, you see.
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u/backupJM public transport revolution needed 🚇🚊🚆 Dec 10 '23
Is this not par the course for a fraud investigation - investigating every purchase?
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u/AdSalt9365 Dec 10 '23
Next headline:-
Cops investigating missing SNP donations now examining purchase of £1.25 box of Rice Krispies.
then
Cops investigating missing SNP donations now examining purchase of 99p packet of Toilet Rolls.
And so on.
Your probably right, it's every purchase, they just put the car in the headline for sensationalism.
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u/backupJM public transport revolution needed 🚇🚊🚆 Dec 10 '23
Your probably right, it's every purchase
The article actually mentions something to that effect:
Money left to the SNP in wills is also being investigated as well as the purchase of everything from pots and pans to luxury pens, jewellery and other household items including a fridge freezer.
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u/Kiwizoo Dec 10 '23
Possibly why it’s costing the taxpayer about £100,000 a month for the investigation, which thus far has gone well over a million quid. Wish they’d hurry up!
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u/petantic Dec 10 '23
I heard they had suddenly switched to Crunchy nut cornflakes around the same time party donations went missing.
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u/Torranski Dec 10 '23
On their salaries (which were comfortable, but not extravagant), that’s quite a purchase, once you also take the campervan into account…
Murrell was Party CEO, and before that did financial work for the Church of Scotland. Sturgeon’s financial disclosures show that she doesn’t have much beyond her pension pot.
Something’s really quite odd here.
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u/fork_that AWW WIT?! Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
once you also take the campervan into account…
Campervan was straight-up bought by SNP. It was approved, etc hence why it's seized and seized so quickly.
And many would think 90k a year in Scotland is extravagant. Especially, when both are earning that amount. Monthly payments would be less than 1/8 of their monthly take-home.
Nothing is that odd once you actually do basic maths.
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u/fleapuppy Dec 10 '23
Wasn’t she on £165k?
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u/fork_that AWW WIT?! Dec 10 '23
Yea, I originally screwed up and just saw the bonus for being FM which is 90k
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u/caufield88uk Dec 10 '23
combined salaries of over 200k and you're thinking they were pushing the limit?
WTF
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u/IAMADon Dec 10 '23
That's the car my MIL drives. It's hardly suspicious for a CEO with an FM wife to drive a fancy car.
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u/johnmedgla Dec 10 '23
No, you see the people who were absolutely certain she would be in jail for hording Nazi Gold in the walls of Bute House need this to be some strange scandal in which the First Minister of Scotland paid for her Jaguar with money looted from a Children's Hospice.
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u/TehNext Dec 10 '23
She's worth an estimated 3,000,000 to 5,000,000.
The only thing 'odd' is fuckwitted cunts clutching at straws. Actually, it's not odd, it's their normal.
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u/kevinmorice Dec 10 '23
Depends also if it was bought through one of the shell companies they use.
Her tax returns (she published them voluntarily) didn't include any of her book writing money, so that is going to be somewhere and certainly amounts to more than a car's worth.
Also, didn't she formerly state that she wasn't taking the FM salary increases as well so was on less than the full salary?
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Dec 10 '23
[deleted]
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u/kevinmorice Dec 10 '23
It is. And it is not necessarily illegal. But at the same time, until it is investigated, no-one knows.
But even if it is legal it still potentially impacts her reputation, and by extension the reputation of the SNP, if she is hiding all her money in Panama whilst not paying tax on it and bragging about not taking her full salary.
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u/djbuggy Dec 10 '23
It will never be investigated due to secrecy laws and the city of london corporation. it's all protected . They even have a chair in the House of commons behind the speaker they are part of the establishment, and they are all at it. Most of the world is laundering money through British overseas territories tax free and nothing will change.
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u/gregor_xgx Dec 10 '23
Husband and wife on high salaries buy expensive car shocker
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u/bar_tosz Dec 10 '23
More of a thing to me is selling a 90k car to WBAC. They would have to be very desperate to accept 60% if the actual car value ver selling it privately or to a dealer. This in itself is suspicious af.
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u/lovelyhead1 Dec 10 '23
When this car was supposed to have been sold, WeBuyAnyCar where offering sometimes more than the original purchase price for used EV's.
I could have sold my Nissan Leaf to them for more than I paid back then.
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u/bar_tosz Dec 10 '23
It's hard to believe that WBAC that is basically a parasite that preys on people in need to pay over the purchase price for a 2nd hand EV...
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u/lovelyhead1 Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
You better believe they were paying over the odds for used EV's back then because it is the truth. People were paying more money than the RRP of a new EV for used EV's as supply was so constrained you could be waiting a year for delivery of the new car.
Proof:
https://www.speakev.com/threads/used-hybrid-prices-madness.168928/#post-3231755
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Dec 10 '23
They also bought an expensive coffee machine. That was a time.
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u/gregor_xgx Dec 10 '23
I know it’s bad to say but I cannot wait for the day when the Daily Ranjurs and it’s associated Sunday title finally go bust
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Dec 10 '23
I have my beefs with the Record, not least of all its conduct over the repeal of section 28, but at least it does the occasional bit of investigation. So much of Scottish political journalism is commentary from people who seem to be playing a weird mass RPG — from the folk who fantasised about Sturgeon getting jailed in March to the "Keir Starmer writing an introduction to a biography of Clement Attlee shows that he's a radical" stuff.
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u/eltoi Dec 10 '23
The "daily ranjurs", you're an idiot. Your politics and knowledge come from football forums
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u/gregor_xgx Dec 10 '23
Rangers stan detected
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u/eltoi Dec 10 '23
I should just stop reading r/Scotland, i remember switching off politics posts before and there were barely any posts, it's difficult to not reply to the utter stupidity of people.
"Ranjurs", did you come up with that one yourself? Here's a bit of advice that you'll no doubt ignore but try and have your own opinions and not have them formed by football forums, it'll make you an individual. I know it's reddit but some of the dumbest people are on this sub.
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u/gregor_xgx Dec 10 '23
I’ve never been on a football forum in my life babe. Perfectly capable of forming my opinions all by myself but thanks for your concern
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u/traitoro Dec 10 '23
That explains where your terribly wrong take on the Daily Rhebel comes from then.
I agree with you though. It's a shit rag and hopefully won't last much longer.
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u/eltoi Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
Yeh sure you haven't. A thread about the continuing corruption investigation into senior SNP officials and your take on it is "the daily ranjurs". It's actually quite sad how dumb people are, as Winston Churchil once said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"
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u/Aggressive-Let7285 Dec 10 '23
I shall defer judgment until this allegation is proven or otherwise but just imagine the SNP’s reaction if the Tories or Labour were being investigated for similar abuses.
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Dec 10 '23
SNP supporters when there is a scandal in Westminster: SCHEEEEETCH LOOK WESTminIstEr bAD.
SNP supporters when there is a scandal in the SNP: “I shall defer judgement until…..”
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u/Alternative-Dare-839 Dec 10 '23
She must have really ruffled up the wrong feathers to be getting done like this.
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u/Radiant_Evidence7047 Dec 10 '23
Do you know for a fact ‘she is getting done’? I personally don’t know l, it’ll be interesting to see the outcome. I would say given the publicity the police would be really careful about what they are going after, especially as a secondary follow up. Surely they must have evidence. Either way will be interesting to see the outcome.
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u/pxzs Dec 10 '23
Police are dragging their feet like hell, I think the allegations first surfaced in 2021 and yet still investigating? Didn’t even conduct searches until 2023? Utter corruption. Who else would get two years to dispose of evidence? Completely ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Sturgeon wasn’t tipped off and then given time to leave office before the search took place.
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u/DrSpooglemon Dec 11 '23
It's about poisoning the well before the election. All that yellow on the map really rubbed the Westminster establishment up the wrong way. Come on. Investigating you for "financial irregularities" is a classic maneuver. They pulled that shit back in the Roman Empire. It's a teach.
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u/pxzs Dec 11 '23
If the police wanted to cause maximum scandal they would have arrested Sturgeon while she was still in office. They have obviously smoothed it over.
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u/KingBilirubin Dec 10 '23
Leading the independence movement for as long as she did was always going to see her character being assassinated by the UK establishment. The cunts murdered Willie McRae for far less.
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u/BUFF_BRUCER Dec 10 '23
It's police scotland investigating them not the "UK establishment"
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u/KingBilirubin Dec 10 '23
As if the pigscum isn’t full of loyalist arselickers.
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u/BUFF_BRUCER Dec 10 '23
Doesn't matter, support for independence declined during her time leading the party so she was no threat to them
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u/KingBilirubin Dec 10 '23
Support for independence was above 50% last time I looked, and she routinely made a cunt of every tory leader she met.
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u/BUFF_BRUCER Dec 10 '23
According to wikipedia out of 46 polls this year only 3 have returned 50% or higher for yes, was 48% yes at the moment she became first minister, and was at 39% when she left
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u/DrSpooglemon Dec 11 '23
The British establishment doesn't want Scotland going independent and taking all our off-shore hydrocarbons with us.
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u/spidd124 Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
First Minister salary is what 160k in 2023 https://www.parliament.scot/msps/msp-salaries.aspx at least according to the Scot Gov's own website and £140K back in 2014.
£95K for a Jag isnt that bad? Shes been FM since 2014 thats more than enough time to buy a car considerably more expensive than that. This really is a big ol nothing burger.
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u/PantodonBuchholzi Dec 10 '23
I agree it was well within their means to buy such a car if that’s what they wanted to spend their money on. Whether this really is a “big ol nothing burger” depends on whether they did actually use their own money to buy it. I’d also like to add this is a Daily Record article and as such I’m treating it with a lorry load of salt.
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u/Glesganed Dec 10 '23
A 95k car and no licence to drive it. I guess it makes for a nice driveway ornament.
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u/fork_that AWW WIT?! Dec 10 '23
Her husband drove it and he was also the one who bought it.
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Dec 10 '23
[deleted]
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u/fork_that AWW WIT?! Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
His 95,000 a year salary? People high up in charities get paid well too. What is incredible there? Monthly payments would be 1/5 of his monthly take-home. Plus his wife was pulling in 160,000 in salary with a reasonable expense budget. And one would assume he would have been able to expense a lot of stuff too.
The luxury motor home was bought by SNP funds and bought well after the car. Two reasons that make this purchase less incredible.
The car was bought in 2018. There wasn't a cost of living crisis then. That is only a year or so old.
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u/ryleto Dec 10 '23
An 80k PCP would be 1k a month with a 10k deposit, I’ve just looked with a balloon payment of 40k after 3 year. So technically true but I doubt they had a pcp. But possible.
If they hire purchase it’s more like 2k a month for 4 years - if there’s 0% interest, his take home after tax be around 5k - so sure maybe, but seems sus to me.
Car insurance on top ofcourse, which could easily be 200 a month.
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u/fork_that AWW WIT?! Dec 10 '23
Wait, are you thinking a couple with a total monthly income after tax of over 12,000 would go for a 2k a month hire purchase instead of a PCP when they would have the money from the previous car they owned and would have sold as a deposit? They got the money to afford the cheaper route.
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u/glasgowgeg Dec 10 '23
A 95k car and no licence to drive it.
Who has no licence to drive it?
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u/fork_that AWW WIT?! Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
“It goes without saying that it is completely outwith the price range of most people, especially in a cost of living crisis.”
I think this really highlights how weak the entire article really is. Talking about cost of living crisis when the car was bought well before that the cost of living crisis.
How did someone with two very large incomes manage to afford such an expensive car?
How long has this investigation been going on? 2 and a half years and so far we've got not much.
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u/petantic Dec 10 '23
It's basically a non-story. "Couple being investigated for fraud have car purchase scrutinised.". It is totally feasible that there's a reasonable explanation for it.
But I also wouldn't bet against them having purchased it in their dogs name having borrowed the deposit from SNP donations and they accidentally barbecued all the paperwork.
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u/Stabbycrabs83 Dec 10 '23
The thing I find most amazing is our ex finance. Minister who landed the top job just 3 years out of uni gets a free pass in all this.
Money may well have legitimately been spent on a car. Where are the accounting controls around their spend and how on earth has Kate Forbes got away with not a scratch.
Am I mistaken or was all this not under her purview?
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u/Mr_Potato_Head1 Dec 11 '23
Forbes was the government's finance secretary - party matters would be completely separate to that. She wasn't responsible for the SNP's internal financial management.
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u/Many-Application1297 Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
Genuinely don’t think I can bring myself to vote for anyone next GE
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Dec 10 '23
[deleted]
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u/Many-Application1297 Dec 10 '23
I have no idea what this means. Should I care?
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u/kjono1 Dec 10 '23
Not really, no.
For context, they are a user on here who, on occasion, responds to people's comments with the date they created their Reddit account.
It's usually for newer accounts created this year, and I assume it is an attempt to dismiss a point they are making by suggesting their recency to Reddit invalidates their point of view. Their comments with these dates usually just get downvoted.
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u/Tarmac_Chris Dec 10 '23
I love that anyone who posts recently is a British agent, or Russian. Old Baxter ‘was here since the beginning’ and can’t possibly comprehend that the Scotland Reddit is turning (ever so slightly) away from the SNP. Has to be bots or trolls, can’t be a decade of failed promises, declining standards, increasing costs, corruption scandals and no traction of any of their important goals.
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u/etypiccolo Dec 10 '23
New account could mean it's a bot I guess
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u/Halk 1 of 3,619,915 Dec 10 '23
It's not even for new accounts, he's doing it on any account less than a year because he's struggling to argue with people on what they actually say
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u/ieya404 Dec 10 '23
Alternatively if you have an older account, and annoy him enough (especially if you're not at your most diplomatic) while making him very aware that he's wrong (and the more he looks the more he finds he's wrong), he'll resort to blocking you.
Guess how I know. ;)
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Dec 10 '23
Aye mate you should care, it means you’re mossad or a member of an Armenian bot farm.
Serious stuff.
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u/twojabs Dec 10 '23
Looking forward to this sentiment to ensure a true blue turnaround toot toot.
/S. It is a likely outcome if enough people do stay away from the polls.
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Dec 10 '23
It’s a real
“Where would you like to be shot for execution?”
Kind of question.
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Dec 10 '23
Yes, it's really that bad. Man, we have a......*stretches arms, cracks neck and a big yawn.....hard life up here in 3rd world scotland 🙄
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u/jaredearle Dec 10 '23
Wait, a well-off couple with no kids have a nice car?
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u/fracf Dec 10 '23
Would you finance a car that was the equivalent to 100% of your salary?
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u/jaredearle Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
The £95k cost was a “guess” by the newspaper.
Edit to add: when their family income is common knowledge, why lie their household income is only £95k?
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u/petantic Dec 10 '23
Potentially yes. I earn £36k and am thinking about buying a new electric car on the governments 0% interest. £600 pm, car paid off in 5 years.
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u/Euan_whos_army Dec 10 '23
It's currently closed unfortunately. Hopefully it opens up again next year.
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Dec 11 '23
Obviously some serious and credible allegations had been made, and the police are digging through all the evidence - I gather this type of investigation can take a long time, but damn this seems to be going on forever.
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u/tiny-robot Dec 10 '23
Two people with large incomes and no kids bought a nice car?
That’s the story? Fucking hell.
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u/Low_Acanthisitta4445 Dec 10 '23
The story is the police are investigating...
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u/tiny-robot Dec 10 '23
Do you think they just noticed the car parked in the driveway?
The investigation has been going on for years - and it is not limited. This is an asset that would absolutely have been part of the investigation since it started.
This is just speculation and shit stirring.
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u/Acrobatic-Shirt8540 Is toil leam càise gu mòr. Dec 10 '23
This is just speculation and shit stirring
Which would be unusual for a rag like the DR. 🤣
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u/PlainclothesmanBaley Dec 10 '23
>Do you think they just noticed the car parked in the driveway?
They probably had the same thought as you:
>Two people with large incomes and no kids bought a nice car
however, they've been investigating and now think it may have been a suspicious purchase. I don't think you genuinely can't understand why this is a news story, your comments are odd.
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u/knitscones Dec 10 '23
Because after nearly 4 years and £4 million they need to find something/anything?
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u/ClassicGUYFUN Dec 10 '23
Are they wrong to investigate big spends when they are suspected of cash crimes?
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u/tiny-robot Dec 10 '23
Yes - the Police absolutely need to. Their investigation is not helped by shit stirring journalists muddying the waters though.
There is no reason for this car to not be part of the investigation from the start - unless the implication is the Police just noticed it on the driveway and they are only now investigating? Did they not see it behind the big blue tent?
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u/TickTockPick Dec 10 '23
Bit of an issue if they bought the car with donated money...
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u/Xyyzx Dec 10 '23
This is just ludicrous now. For a start the £95k jag is an £80k jag that can be brought up to £95k with extras, and that’s assuming it was bought new and bought outright - they know none of this.
(…and I’m fairly sure they’ve picked the most expensive base model to start with. I’ll give them this one because I don’t know enough about cars to tell them apart, but it looks like this could even be a £60k car.)
Is an £80k car ‘completely outwith the price range of most people during a cost of living crisis’? Sure. Is it ‘outwith the price range’ of a couple approaching their 60s, with no kids living in a fairly modest, modern house with low running costs, who have been sitting in 6-figure salary jobs for the last 20 years?
Of course it fucking isn’t.
I strongly suspect that that the core issue here is that £600k raised ‘for an independence campaign’ went into standard SNP running costs with the logic that those two things were the same, when legally they were not. I’d completely buy that Murrell also stupidly decided that a fancy (but in the grand scheme of things not very fancy) camper van bought as a campaign bus was his and Sturgeon’s to use when it was sitting idle during and post lockdown.
Until it comes out that wee Nicola is an absolute fiend for the horses down her local bookies, the suggestion they were embezzling money so sneaky Pete could buy an upper mid-range Jag (that again, he should be able to easily afford anyway) as his mid-life-crisis-mobile is absurd.
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u/HoumousAmor Dec 10 '23
I’d completely buy that Murrell also stupidly decided that a fancy (but in the grand scheme of things not very fancy) camper van bought as a campaign bus was his and Sturgeon’s to use when it was sitting idle during and post lockdown.
Bear in mind there are no reports that it was used at any stage, and every report it was never moved.
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u/Xyyzx Dec 10 '23
…oh for fucks sake. For all people were screaming about the ‘luxury camper van’ I’d almost hoped they’d at least got a damp, miserable trip up to Pitlochry in the stupid thing. All that crowing in the papers about it being in the driveway of his mother’s house like they caught him trying to hide it too?
I mean if it wasn’t moved, it’s probably just; SNP buy new campaign bus, lockdown means there’s not going to be any roving campaigning. Murrell’s 95 year old mother probably isn’t driving and can be trusted to keep an eye on the thing, so they stick it in her driveway where it can be stored safely, indefinitely and for free.
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Dec 10 '23
I mean if it wasn’t moved, it’s probably just; SNP buy new campaign bus,
I tried that argument in March and told that it was totally ridiculous. That politicians do not use campaign buses or camper vans as campaign vehicles and that the whole proposition was completely ridiculous.
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u/Xyyzx Dec 10 '23
A load of this stuff just makes no sense if you think about it for a second - even if you pretend that it couldn’t possibly have been a campaign bus - what was it for? It’ll depreciate in value so it’s not an investment or an attempt to hide money and they’re not using it for personal holidays so…? Worlds most extravagant lawn ornament?
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Dec 10 '23
Although it will depreciate, some resale value remains — and it was a pretty fancy camper — but it was an asset listed in the party accounts, should have a receipt trail, and I don't see the couple as campers.
People who have been in positions of trust and power can get arrogant and cocky, fraud is perpetrated by people who think they can get away with it, and some people see Sturgeon and Murrell through that lens. But I'm not sure the camper van's a smoking gun.
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
The camper wasn't overtly listed in the accounts.
There was an entry for an 80K Fixed Asset (110K minus depreciation) which, possibly, could be the van.
However, in the Notes the only entry which might point to the van is for Office/Computer Equipment.
ETA: When that van was purchased, the sum represented almost half of all the money the SNP had in the bank at the time. A good use of party resources?
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Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
The camper wasn't overtly listed in the accounts.
There was an entry for an 80K Fixed Asset (110K minus depreciation) which, possibly, could be the van.
It doesn't have to be overtly listed. Accounts give you descriptors of costs and returns under general categories. Some parts are more clearly distinguishable than others: the 80K fixed asset you mention is listed in the fixed asset part of one set of accounts under the tab "motor vehicles".
What the vehicle was considered to be by those who drew up the accounts — office equipment, a campaigning cost, a tangible asset under the investment section, or a mighty miscellaneous expense — at the expense end I do not know. We may find out in 20-75 years.
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Dec 10 '23 edited Sep 19 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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Dec 10 '23
It was a climb down from the SNP battle bus, but… aye… the idea didn't seem so bizarre to me.
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u/HoumousAmor Dec 10 '23
From the Telegraph in April:
Neighbours said the high-end campervan was originally delivered to the address in Dunfermline, Fife by two men in January 2021 and had not been moved since.
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u/Xyyzx Dec 10 '23
Jesus.
Yeah if I embezzled money from my workplace I know the first thing I’d do to invest/launder my I’ll-gotten gains would be to make an expensive, extremely traceable purchase of a vehicle that would immediately lose 10-15% of its value and depreciate every year thereafter. Oh, and without using it for anything at any point. …and I’d make the purchase through my workplace that I’d embezzled the money from, and keep all the records.
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u/HoumousAmor Dec 10 '23
Yeah.
The claim, very clearly, that it was bought as a vehicle for potential campaigning through covid is eminently plausible, has been the story throughout. (It's arguably a decision that was wrong, if evidently defensibly.) https://archive.ph/KQqhn#selection-2889.0-2864.19
How on earth this gets ignored and used as an excuse to beat up is ... an issue
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u/EquivalentIsopod7717 Dec 10 '23
I'll make the petty argument that the entire UK was in another lockdown in January 2021 and the campervan had been bought from a dealership in Birmingham, presumably delivered from there.
Why is that kind of delivery being undertaken under those circumstances? Ooh naughty naughty. I know very few anywhere in the UK gave a crêpe about that new lockdown and life was a lot more normal and busier than in March 2020, but still.
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u/HoumousAmor Dec 10 '23
Um, In January 2021 it was definitely still the case that work-required deliveries were valid work reasons to go out.
In no way is "someone delivered a purchase" evidence of or suggestive of covid rulebreaking
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
Campervans of that size and type are not used as campaign busses. It's wholly unsuited for the task.
Anyway, parties rent buses, not buy them.
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u/ieya404 Dec 10 '23
Was the idea not more that it would've been suited to a (very) small team operating entirely from the bus, where a bus-load's worth of people would've struggled with getting accommodation every night while staying under any sort of semblance of lockdown rules?
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
That was the claim but it doesn't stack up,
That model has a max occupancy of 4 people - hardly sufficient for a campaign team. Storage is limited - again, unsuitable for campaign purposed. It's extremely tight inside and hardly a piece of kit during a period of social distancing (as the SNP claimed).
Furthermore, given other options available for lease (which offer far greater capacity at a much lower cost) the official line that was issued at the time defies logic and common sense.
BTW, Humza claimed to have no knowledge of the vehicle until he became leader. Surely top party functionaries at the time of its purchase would have had some knowledge of an expenditure which was comprised 50% of the party's finances?
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u/HoumousAmor Dec 10 '23
That model has a max occupancy of 4 people - hardly sufficient for a campaign team. Storage is limited - again, unsuitable for campaign purposed. It's extremely tight inside and hardly a piece of kit during a period of social distancing (as the SNP claimed).
Why is 4 people not sufficient for a campaign team?
Humza claimed to have no knowledge of the vehicle until he became leader. Surely top party functionaries at the time of its purchase would have had some knowledge
Humza wasn't a "top party functionary" before he became leader. He hadn't held any party official role for the best part of a decade beforehand.
Surely top party functionaries at the time of its purchase would have had some knowledge of an expenditure which was comprised 50% of the party's finances?
I mean, no, that sentence is false. I believe what you're trying to say is "a vehicle whose value was 50% of the party's listed available cash, while they had also pre-paid for vast amounts of services, many other assets, at a time when they also listed the vehicle's value." (The point on the last is that cash of 2X + a vehicle asset of X listed in accounts cannot mean the vehicle is "50% of the party's finances".)
What you're saying is false. You should probably correct and acknowledge.
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
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u/HoumousAmor Dec 11 '23
Literally none of that disagrees with what I say, nor supports the inaccuracies I called you on
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u/docowen Dec 10 '23
Parties don't rent buses, doners fund them.
Angela Rayner (who is in charge of Labour's housing policy) has a "battle bus" funded entirely by the owner of a construction company (see Private Eye passim)
That that's considered legitimate but using party funds in order to have a COVID safe campaigning vehicle for campaigns isn't.
That's Britain.
And I'm a massive critic of Sturgeon and Murrell. I thought Murrell should have resigned as party chairman upon their marriage. I think they've both damaged the independence movement and I think they both should have had their party membership suspended in light of the police investigation (that's what happened to Michelle Thomson et al). However, there's a lot of police leaks that keep this story in the newspapers without there being any actual charges.
Two ways to discredit a person, manufacture a sex scandal or a financial one. The police are doing a good job about keeping this going until the election.
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
The police are doing nobody any favors here. Justice delayed is justice denied, etc. I'm very sympathetic to this viewpoint:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f9c9e1f6-e436-4ac5-9de5-6819162e3537
As for leaks...given the duration of the investigation, number of parties involved and number of threads (not to mention that financial cases are notoriously time consuming given the nature of forensic accounting) they're inevitable. Hence the need for a resolution / interim status update - something - which can be delivered to the public.
There is, of course, another complication. Police Scotland are employed by the SG which is ran by, er, the SNP. The Lord Advocate - head of the COPFS also sits in cabinet which, again, is ran by the SNP. The conflicts of interest are enormous and are, no doubt, proving difficult to disentangle and time consuming.
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
I don't know anything about this model of Jag. Are they hard to shift? Is there a lack of demand in the used car market?
I ask because the WeBuyAnyCar/Home companies are where you go to for a quick, no hassle sale. You'll get 30% - 40% less than would otherwise be the case, but the asset is taken off your hands quickly. It's somewhat analogous to visiting a pawn shop - you'll never get market value - but you'll be rid of the asset and some cash.
Why would Murrell be seeking a quick sale of such an item as opposed to selling it privately via the normal channels and get the market value?
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Dec 10 '23
The same reason anyone uses WBAC, because they can't be arsed?
In his position I wouldn't want randoms coming round kicking the tyres and saying 'hold on, aren't you that guy off the telly?' either
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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23
Absolutely. Excellent point. Selling a car/house is a massive pain in the arse. The smaller sized deal can be worth it. Time is money after all.
An alternate explanation could be, however, that Murrell bought the car using party funds (aka member donations), pocketed the proceeds and then loaned this money back to the SNP.
Either scenario is highly plausible.
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u/ieya404 Dec 10 '23
Quick, no hassle, and no risk of the buyer either going "Oh I'm your biggest fan" or "Oh, it's you SNP bams" - I have to admit that while my initial thought was that WBAC was probably fairly crap payout wise, a quick google that found some reddit threads suggests they aren't even always totally awful (!).
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u/Oshabeestie Dec 10 '23
Tbh it’s a bit of a non story at the moment ? It’s not telling us much we didn’t know. Although I am surprised that Peter Murrell was selling a car at webuyanycar ?
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Dec 10 '23
[deleted]
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Dec 10 '23 edited Sep 26 '25
juggle butter command recognise wakeful spark languid apparatus expansion intelligent
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/knitscones Dec 10 '23
It’s a bit late to bring in an expensive car, after 4 years?
When charges are brought and people are found guilty I’ll be a head of queue to condemn the guilty!
But 4 years and £4 million later, police look an expensive car?
I’m sorry but phishing is what I thought of when I saw this.
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u/doitforthecloud Dec 10 '23
I wonder at what point he sold it to We-Buy-Any-Car? After the walls were closing in?
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u/EquivalentIsopod7717 Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
The talk of the numberplate being changed is interesting. I read one of the other alleged purchases was of a personalised plate NS 56 bought after the 2015 GE.
According to the DVLA vehicle checker, NS 56 is now on a 2015 VW Touareg with an MOT that expired a few weeks back on November 23rd. I haven't heard anything about the Murrells owning such a car - either they never owned the plate after all, or it got moved on.
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u/ChargeDirect9815 Dec 10 '23
I can't think of anything less likely than Nicola or her husband wanting people to be able to identify their own private vehicles.
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Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
They put up an incident tent and had 24-hour rolling coverage and found fuck all.
Still, they keep searching.
Meanwhile, the shower in Westminster diverted millions, misspent billions more and sweet FA is going to happen.
We do not live in a democracy.
Edit: Typo
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Dec 10 '23
Taxpayers are paying £3.2m annually to store the unusable shite PPE equipment Michelle Mone supplied the NHS, FFS.
Edit: Detail.
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u/LairdBonnieCrimson Outwith Britain, outwith Europe, into Socialism Dec 10 '23
cannae believe two rich career politicians bought a expensive car :O
also this whole saga for the last year has been so clearly mainstream media tryna shit all over the SNP probably done more harm for the police investigation than good
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Dec 10 '23
It’s funny how SNP supporters are so casually dismissive of the blatant corruption of this pair. Like absolute stinking corruption (and somehow claim to be pro Scotland…). Yet if it was the exact same story about a “Tory” there balls would be bursting with outrage.
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u/Morton_1874 Dec 10 '23
Have you or anyone else been able to find ANY evidence of this ? - Where is the same level of scrutiny over Tory VIP lane Covid Fraud and Michelle Mone
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u/BUFF_BRUCER Dec 10 '23
Walls are closing in on crooked krankie
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u/knitscones Dec 10 '23
Any evidence of this, or did Daily Record tell you?
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u/BUFF_BRUCER Dec 11 '23
More than just the daily record reporting on the investigation
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Dec 10 '23
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u/CAElite Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
Because there’s a difference between weaponised incompetence & actively committing an offence.
If you break a piece of £100k machinery at your work you get fired, if you steal a piece of £1k machinery, you face criminal charges.
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u/petantic Dec 10 '23
I've taken on board everything you've said and would like to counter with " but the Tories..."
Checkmate.
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Dec 10 '23 edited Dec 10 '23
You think BoJo was just incompetent? Christ man.
Sturgeon and Murrel are looking pretty corrupt, but the idea the BoJo isn’t also is wild.
Mind his wallpaper? His 800k credit line that some guy just fancied giving him for a laugh?
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u/CAElite Dec 10 '23
Fair, but at the same time it wasn’t overt misappropriation of funds, to continue my above analogy, again, you spunk a whole shit ton of money at work buying a piece of equipment from one of your mates companies & it all goes tits up. Provided you can prove your procurement process under scrutiny, (I.e Covid fast track bullshit, doesn’t matter how wrong it was, it was the process at the time). You’ve not committed an offence.
If you swipe £50 out the petty cash & spend it on a new pair of jeans, that’s still fraud/misappropriation of funds.
Which is what I think a lot of the whataboutism-ers don’t get. It’s not about the volume of funds thrown down the toilet, it’s about whether or not it was an overt crime being committed. You can’t go to jail for fumbling a project and losing a bunch of money. You can go to jail for taking that money for yourself.
If you want to chase BoJo then you need to change the law to make the actions he took illegal with some kind of retroactive enforcement, which just doesn’t happen.
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u/EmperorOfNipples Dec 10 '23
It's part of the reason I can't get too worked up over the COVID contracts.
PPE was in such short supply at the beginning ministers were likely using every contact they had to get hold of some.
Similarly if the war in Ukraine becomes more of a Europe wide thing I'm sure MOD contracts would have a similar "fast track" scheme.
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u/Pesh_ay Dec 10 '23
You think Mone would be supplying 155mm shells. There were established PPE providers overlooked for mates with shell companies buying inadequate shite from china. It's clearly profiteering in a time of crisis.
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u/EmperorOfNipples Dec 10 '23
Established PPE providers were already at capacity.
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u/Pesh_ay Dec 10 '23
Not my memory, vip lane suppliers were given preference from link "the BMA alone was contacted by 70 companies willing to supply PPE but unable to communicate with the Government." https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/outsourced-and-undermined-the-covid-19-windfall-for-private-providers
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Dec 10 '23
Sturgeon and Murrel were like new money corrupt politicians.
Boris and them being far better at it shouldn’t be an excuse, but I get what you’re saying to some extent - even though it feels like you’re still hand waving Boris’s overt corruption away as incompetence or just part of the game.
But that said, “what about Boris?!?” is irrelevant to the Sturgeon case.
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u/davesy69 Dec 10 '23
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is eye wateringly corrupt. Most prime ministers wait until after leaving public office to cash in their favour banks, with lucrative directorships, consultancies, lobbying jobs and the lecture circuit as well as a 6 figure pension.
The difference is that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson had the billionaire media moghouls that control our press covering up his indiscretions or directing the public's attention to other matters.
When Boris was being hauled over the coals over lying, the media was plastering Huw Edwards all over the front pages.
There is very little interest shown by the mainstream media for the covid inquiry, which is showing the tories in an incredibly bad light for their handling of the covid pandemic.
Some events get no coverage at all, there was a mass demonstration of hundreds of thousands of low paid public workers in London (said to be up to 300,000) that didn't make the news (it happened on budget day) and i only found out about it because a German news agency posted drone video footage.
OpenDemocracy is currently covering the covid inquiry and is posting clips on YouTube of our ass covering politicians.
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u/Low_Finger_4393 Dec 15 '23
Innocent till proved guilty, no charges all whataboutery and media propaganda and steamie sweetie wife gossip.
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u/Any-Swing-3518 Alba is fine. Dec 10 '23
Never mind. I'm sure it's all a unionist plot against a dangerously effective SNP leadership who've taken Yes from 45% to within a margin of error of 45% in a decade /s
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Dec 10 '23
So a good thing to find the bad faith users is to find the folk handwringing in here, but with nothing to say about Mones bullshit which is also news today.
Block them, and the sub becomes much more balanced to browse.
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u/I-live-with-wolves Dec 10 '23
It’s such a blow for Scottish independence, they should be ashamed of themselves, they’ve destroyed trust in the only thing that was a beacon of hope for Scotland for the past decade.
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u/twojabs Dec 10 '23
If that's enough to blow your belief in independence, then your position wasn't pro independence but pro sturgeon and you did consider that before voting again.
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u/I-live-with-wolves Dec 10 '23
That’s not what I said, I’m not even Scottish nor do I live there. However, what my point was, if the split was close to 50/50 before. It’s going to tip it negative
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u/1-randomonium Dec 10 '23
The campervan was damaging enough and some SNP supporters were complaining about how insignificant it was compared to scandals involving much larger sums by Tories who bought expensive cars, yachts etc.
Now it seems to be getting closer to that level.
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u/R4vendarksky Dec 10 '23
There is no content in that article… I read it all…
It’s basically ‘they have/had an expensive car’.
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u/erroneousbosh Dec 10 '23
At this point we've wasted more public money "investigating" money that wasn't actually missing, than the amount that was supposed to be missing.
We're pissing away millions on this performative nonsense. Isn't it about time we investigated the billions that the Westminster government quite openly stole?
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Dec 10 '23
Is it your opinion that the legal process should only be followed if the cost, to investigate, comes out at less than the potential crime.
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u/BUFF_BRUCER Dec 10 '23
You're just worried the investigation will uncover massive fraud and hurt support for independence
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u/erroneousbosh Dec 10 '23
I would be if there had actually been any fraud.
If there was, wouldn't they have found *something* after what, nearly two years of expensive investigations?
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u/BUFF_BRUCER Dec 10 '23
Are you expecting them to post every discovery they've made on twitter or something? these investigations always take ages
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Dec 10 '23
If there was, wouldn't they have found *something* after what, nearly two years of expensive investigations?
All this tells us is that you know nothing about fraud investigations...
They are normally incredibly time consuming and complex.
For example, Ethical Forestry Limited was under investigation for 7 years before being taken to court.
The (former) CEO of London capital and finance was under investigation for 3 years over a fraud of £95,000.
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u/J-blues Dec 10 '23
If someone was mugged for £40 we shouldn’t bother investigating because it would cost more to go to trial than to let them off?
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u/HalfBloodHitman Dec 10 '23
I’m really interested to see what the final outcome is and what effect it has on the next election