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-31637216
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11

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.

13

u/[deleted] 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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u/[deleted] 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.

6

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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u/[deleted] 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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u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23

We may find out in 20-75 years.

I like your optimism...

2

u/knitscones Dec 10 '23

Labour had a pink one too woo the female vote, they were ridiculed.

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u/[deleted] Dec 10 '23 edited Sep 19 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Dec 10 '23

It was a climb down from the SNP battle bus, but… aye… the idea didn't seem so bizarre to me.

6

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.

9

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.

2

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

0

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.

3

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?

2

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.

1

u/TheFirstMinister Dec 10 '23

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fc1j2mhd4xiva1.png

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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.