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Nicola Sturgeon Interview: The Analysis
00:30:19
The reaction to this morning's exclusive interview following Peter Murrell’s guilty plea
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D
Lucky newscasters, Laura, are not just getting one edition today, but two after your Nicosurgeon scoop.
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B
It's never enough. So you might have seen on the BBC different platforms on your phone or wherever, or if you've been watching the telly or listening to the radio, that we did a full length interview with Nicholas Sturgeon, her first proper interview since her husband pled guilty to stealing £400,000 from the SNP. What we're doing this Sunday is we've put the whole interview, 55 minutes in the newscast feed so you can listen.
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D
Really worth listening to.
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B
Yeah. And there's all sorts of stuff in there. We couldn't fit it all in on the telly. So if you're someone that's really interested in her, or you've been following the story really carefully, or you're just kind of fascinated, this full conversation is there for you in your feeds. So what we're going to do this afternoon with me and you and also with Henry at home, is talk about, I suppose, the headlines and the highlights and give you a bit of analysis on this episode of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.
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A
Humanity's next great voyage begins.
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B
We are in the midst of a rupture. Nostalgia will not bring back the old order.
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D
Six, seven.
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B
Yeah, it's supposed to be me. As a doctor Daddy has has also
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A
a special connotation thinking about it like a pant helped. Do we play music now or what do we do?
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B
Hello, it's Laura in the studio and
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D
it's Joe pike in the studio and
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A
hello, it's Henry at home.
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B
So, Joe, I'm feeling a bit knackered, frankly, so give us a recap of how we got to this place.
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D
Well, it's been a story over many years. There were, what, five, six years ago? Questions about the SMP's finances. Different parts of this story. Firstly, concerns that money that had been given for an independent referendum campaign fund were not in the account. So questions raised by people in the party and some on the ruling NEC about that. But separately, more recently, we're talking probably three or four years ago, questions about Peter Morrell's role running the party. He was the chief executive for what, about 20 years, appointed by John Swinney, who's now the First Minister, was the leader, somebody who knew Peter Morrell as a schoolboy. And most significantly, a couple of years ago, Nicholas Sturgeon, the former treasurer of the snp, and Peter Morrell were all arrested or questioned, but only Peter Murrell was charged. And this week he pleaded guilty to, to, as you said at the start, embezzling £400,000. And we've had this quite eye popping, jaw dropping, bizarre list of household items that he had as part of that haul.
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B
It's just really, really weird, frankly. Has the kind of things, whether it was loo roll or loose seats or watches worth a thousand pounds and more, or the notorious motorhome, which I'm sure we might talk about in a minute. I'm interested to know how you two thought she came across in the interview because it's not always the. Or the same on the telly as it feels like in the room. But the interesting, one of the interesting things about this is the timing. So she's wanted to have her say after his guilty plea, you can understand why she didn't want to speak in any detail during the case and before it had come to a conclusion. But he's not actually going to be sentenced until the next month. So it's interesting to me that she's taken, in a way, almost the earliest opportunity to get this out there. Now, she didn't speak, you know, not immediately after he pled guilty. She had a couple of appearances at book festivals where she really didn't want to say very much and sort of, you know, ran away from some of the cameras. Yeah. But she has obviously wanted to get her version of events out there into the public domain. And I think, you know, one of the things in all of this is not just that it's been terribly hurtful to find out what her husband was up to. She also, I think, feels really something of a fury that her reputation, for some people, in some people's eyes, has been trashed by all of this. But Henry, how did you think she came across?
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A
You know, I thought actually for somebody who is clearly in the eye of a very serious personal crisis, I think she acknowledged that given Peter Morrell is her estranged husband, as well as a pretty serious national news story, I thought she was fairly composed. That's not to underplay the emotion and at times the cold anger that she demonstrated But Nicola Sturgeon was a huge figure, not only in Scottish politics as First Minister, but in British politics at a time of constitutional turmoil, in part because she was such an effective communicator at delivering the message that she wanted to deliver at certain times. And I thought you saw glimpses, more than glimpses, actually. You saw a demonstration of that from Nicola Sturgeon, even at a time when she's dealing with something which crosses the political and the personal. And sometimes when politicians end up having to account for things in their personal lives or actions by their loved ones, even very good communicators can end up, perhaps understandably, losing sight of the message and ending up with sort of contradictory messages that they give. I didn't think that was the case with Nicola Sturgeon. Sure, there are a lot of people who are not going to like or believe that she gave a full account in what they heard, but I think it was pretty clear that she came in to your interview, Laura, with certain things that she wanted to say and she got them across very effectively.
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E
I have been deceived, I've been lied to, I've been betrayed, as it turns out, over a lengthy period of time by somebody I thought I knew, by somebody I loved, by somebody I trusted and had never been given any reason until the last three years to think that I couldn't trust. And are you angry with him? I am angry with him. I don't even think that begins to cover it.
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B
It's interesting, though, because I couldn't believe having interviewed Nicola Sargent a million times over the years, maybe I'm exaggerating slightly. It was in the room. Extraordinary to me to see her repeatedly welling up with tears and having to stop herself from crying. And I, and I. And I do not say that in the way that drives me around the twist, which has for years. Whereas if a female politician shows any emotion whatsoever, it's like, oh, she was crying. It's something Theresa May used to talk about. Lots of people used to complain about this. And it, you know, men and women, guess what, are treated differently, often by the press. Put that aside. It was extraordinary to me to see someone who in interviews has been so tough, sort of bulletproof, actually, at times have to stop herself when her eyes were welling up. And it happened on quite a few occasions. And I don't see that to make. To make a cheat point. I think it just shows us actually how this is such a mishmash of a massive political scandal, because that is what it is. It's a huge political financial scandal. One of the biggest in recent times. You know, this is not Boris Johnson's wallpaper we're talking about here. It's 400 grand. But mix that with what is also a very difficult human story for someone, frankly, who's really famous, you know, and it was fascinating to see her. Should we just go through some of the headlines of what she actually said? If people have not yet listened to our whole 55 minute conversation. Shall I start? We've got to look. Someone's given us a list which is very, very helpful. So she said she feels like she's serving a sentence for a crime that she didn't commit. Having to do that in the full public glare. She told me she feels she's been humiliated and there was a real kind of sense of what she feels is injustice, that she's taken so much hassle on this. I had her reputation attacked, even though the criminal element of this was down to him.
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D
And I think there was a vacuum this week, which is why she's jumped in here and sat down and spoken to you, Laura. And in that vacuum where, yes, there were a couple of tweets and Instagram posts setting out her position and she'd have a couple of words to reporters at book festivals when she was being doorstepped. But in that vacuum, she admitted she has been humiliated. She's been on the front page of. Of the Daily Record newspaper being depicted. Pictures, Manuel. I know nothing is the sort of. Is the sort of image of her and is humiliating. She is a butt of jokes. And as Mamir mentioned on your show today, Laura, that poll in the Sunday times showing only 20% of people believe she didn't know. And I think after watching that, certainly on the point of, were you aware of the items she gave a case that some people might see as convincing? I think the problem. And we'll go through some of the other other headlines, the problem is on her leadership of the party and the party's finances. She didn't seem to want to take much responsibility.
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B
No. And that is the difficult thing is the, the private and the public. So privately, in her private life, she was very clear. She basically says, I was at work all the time. I didn't notice the stuff that he was buying. Some of them were presents for me. And when we mentioned one of the gifts that had been given to her, this particular necklace that she'd been bought by Murrow while they were on a campaigning trip to Shetland, she found that very difficult to talk about and really, really emotional to cast her mind back to how as she feels he had betrayed her.
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E
Peter said to me, I've got a surprise for you. And I saw you admiring this pendant and gave me it. Sorry. I loved that necklace and I wore it a lot. And this is the other thing. The idea that I would have gone about wearing things that I had known were anything other than what they were presented to me as a gift from my husband.
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B
But time and again, she was absolutely adamant that she knew absolutely nothing. She basically didn't notice. Where we get then, to the question of her job as the leader of the party, that means that she was one of the party officers. That means she had a technical and specific responsibility to monitor the accounts. When I asked her about that, she was like, well, what about the motorhome? Well, I didn't think anything of it. It didn't stand out to me, this entry line of tens of thousands of pounds for motor vehicles. What about when there was a drop of £300,000 one year in the party accounts? She didn't particularly recall that.
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D
And you make the point as well. In your interview. You say you were sort of depicted maybe accurately, as a micromanager in government. And why, for somebody who was so work obsessed, so detail obsessed, and presumably was so tough on civil servants when they came to you with stuff you didn't necessarily believe, were you different in terms of your own husband? And also there were. There seemed to be a strategy for her to. To try and push some of the responsibility, maybe rightly, maybe wrongly, on both the auditors and the. The SNP official party treasurer at the time, too.
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B
And, Henry, do you think that that will be convincing to her political critics, who. Who are also, frankly, you know, sometimes other rival politicians will play a game with this, won't they? It will be deeply helpful for opposition parties to the SNP in Scotland and their rivals in Westminster to carry all of this on. But do you think that she is in reputational trouble, I suppose, over this question of the accounts, even though the police made a decision not to charge her?
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A
Yeah, unquestionably. And I think when Nicola Sturgeon understandably kept saying that she'd been exonerated? Well, that's true on one very specific level, which is that she was interviewed by the police and ultimately not charged. But that doesn't mean that she's exonerated in the political arena, where a different bar applies to the criminal law. And I think it's there where she is going to have real trouble, real trouble going to book festivals in future years, which she would like to do. And being treated as somebody who is, you know, cleaner than a whistle. I mean, I think that's where she's going to have real difficulty. And it might well help answer that question that you raised earlier of why she decided to give this interview so quickly. I, you know, I've seen those clips from the book festivals and I wonder whether, you know, it took her aback that actually people really want to ask her about this. I think you get to the crucial point as well, Jo, when you mention the responsibilities she had as a party leader, you know, as a huge figure in British politics over the decade or so, that she was leader of the SNP as well as First Minister, which is that, look, Laura, you'd still have been doing this interview if Nicola Sturgeon had never been married to Peter Morrell. It still would have been a huge scandal what happened on her watch. Clearly, the fact that some of these things were bought for her and they were married adds a particular frisson and a particular character to this story. But it is still a massive scandal that happened on her watch as leader of the Scottish National Party. And obviously, if this had happened in another political party, one of the SNP's rivals, she would be prosecuting their leader in the political arena in just the same way as she is now going to face questions for a very long time to come.
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B
Oh, she would have been doing it with great force and great. I mean, ability, I think, is one of the things about this story which makes it, I was going to say, gives it such pathos. But what a ridiculously pompous thing to say that.
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D
I love it.
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B
I'd normally leave that to Paddy, is that she was one of the biggest political stars of her generation and her political career has ended with massive and profound embarrassment. And how did it end?
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D
How did it end? Well, one thing that she sort of nodded to there, but maybe caught herself, I couldn't work out in the longer version. Newscasters will have maybe able to listen back and give their. Their sort of thoughts. But she talked about first being aware the start of 2023.
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B
Oh, then she said a bit.
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D
She, of course, resigned in February 2023. It was a massive shock. It came from nowhere. She talked about being at a funeral of a big SMP figure and that maybe being the final point. Is it possible that maybe the fact that she heard from others that the police were progressing their investigation, we don't know, but it's fascinating to know what really pushed her.
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B
Well, that's right. And she said at the time that the two events weren't related. There was a lot of skepticism about that, but that was her position. But I was really fascinated as well when she was talking about when she first confronted him, had she ever confronted him, had he ever given her an explanation? And the first thing she remembers doing and confronting him is when the motorhome was reported. This notorious motorhome worth More than 100 grand that was parked in her mother in law's drive. Although she explained really for the first time in detail that actually it was parked slightly round the corner so she didn't notice it.
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E
Where the motorhome was, was round the side of the house, which is not immediately visible in the way that we went into the house and it's between their house and the next door neighbour's house. Now I genuinely, genuinely don't have any conscious memory of seeing that motorhome. If I saw it, I probably would have assumed it was a neighbour's. My mother and father in law were in their mid-80s. I would have just not. It wouldn't have crossed my mind it was theirs and it would never. Why would it have crossed my mind that it was the snps, that Peter had bought it?
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B
People will make their own judgment when they watch the interview in full or whether they listen to it or when they watch the clips. But the motorhome has taken on, I think, think the same sort of status as, you know, Boris Johnson's wallpaper, hasn't it? You know, the motor home. Subject of memes, subject of people sort of poking fun at it. But this isn't funny, you know, this was hundreds of thousands of pounds. And there's an unresolved question too about whether or not, not in this case, but whether or not Peter Merl was using taxpayers money too as part of his spending. We don't really, you know, we don't really know about that, but there are questions being asked about taxpayers money because fun fact, political parties are given a certain amount of money, short money as it's known, dependent on how big they are theoretically, because political parties should have some cash for the public good so they can exist and work on policy and, and you know, help the help the sort of democratic system. But if there is to be a Westminster inquiry or a Scottish Parliament inquiry, that I think would be one of the areas that they'll go after.
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D
And Pat McFadden today, the working pension secretary who's a MP from Scotland, although he doesn't represent a Scottish constituency, he was quite clear he'd like to see an inquiry. It's interesting what Happens in terms of Holyrood, because of course the S P are far more powerful at Holyrood. Want to block one at the moment. But that could lead to a Westminster inquiry where they have one seat of, I think maybe 10 or 11 people, where therefore the opposition to the S and P are stronger.
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B
Yes.
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D
And therefore that could be bit more awkward. So why don't you just get it done in Hollywood and have more, more control over who, who appears and what happens?
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B
We will see. But I think either way, I think there is probably going to be some form of inquiry, whether it's in the Scottish Parliament or in the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, or maybe even in both. Who knows? All sorts of fun.
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D
And two more court appearances as well. Firstly, you've got the appearance where maybe the narrative around Peter Morrow was offending will come out. What we don't know too much about yet is the. Is the sort of COVID up. People talk about how he covered up, but we will get more details, presumably. And then there's a sentencing. And what will his defense lawyer say in mitigation? What was going through his head? What is the explanation for all of that?
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B
And we don't know.
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A
I thought, I thought Pat McFadden's declaration that there should be an inquiry sort of guarantees that this story drags on for sure in ways that will be very uncomfortable for Nicola Sturgeon way beyond the sentencing. But I also was just really struck by the kind of almost emotion of his language. He talked about how the SNP has been dominant in Scotland for years now, not just in politics, but also in society and culture. And I think he said that had been sustained by their sense of virtue. I mean, Pat McFadden is very, is very restrained man. He's quite laconic, he's quite softly spoken. But I think that was essentially, you know, a Scot as well as a cabinet minister in the Westminster government, saying that he believes this party pretended to be holier than thou and that, you know, that this needs to be interrogated so that that sense can be interrogated. I just thought that was in a very brief sentence. I thought that actually said something which you two know much more about than me because you've lived there, which is about the ways in which Scottish society has divided over the past two decades as the SNP strength has grown.
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B
I think that's really interesting. Yeah. And the discipline, and the discipline that they had as a unit and you know, that is the thing, frankly, that critics of Nicola Sturgeon find probably hardest to believe is that she was somebody who's incredibly disciplined, incredibly effective, incredibly politically gripped, and yet when it came to the running of the party, that does not appear for them to have been the case. And that really is at the sort of heart of all of this, for the sort of Scottish political establishment. I suppose there's all these amazing elements to this story. There's the personal story, there's the human story, there's the public going, you what? You can get salt and pepper grind, it's for three grand. What? I mean, who knew that they even existed? And there's so much that's weird. She says in our longer interview, bought all these watches. Actually, he never even wore a watch. So where were, where were the watches? I mean, where's the onesie? Where's the. All of this stuff is. Is just kind of grimly fascinating. Well, who knows? The loo roll, Luxury loo roll, apparently. Lots and lots of it.
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D
On the discipline point, Laura, I think it's really worth noting that the SMP is unlike other parties and that it's incredibly disciplined because there is a wider aim and it makes sense to have that discipline. But there isn't really a culture of internal criticism. After the 2015 general election, when the SNP really broke through and got 56 out of 59 seats, there was also this sort of. These sort of new, tightening, ratcheting up of rules.
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B
Yeah.
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D
So you, you were told as an mp, you can't criticize other people within the party.
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B
And that's where I think a lot of people listening this morning will think that she was vulnerable, because there was a pattern of people trying to raise concern about the finances over a fair period of time, who were accused of being conspiracy theorists, who were accused of running a dirty tricks campaign against the leadership. And in our interviews, her defense on this is they weren't raising claims about embezzling, which is what Peter was doing. They were raising claims about something else. Our point to her, journalistically, is, look, there were people raising concerns about what was going on with the finances and they were not given the transparency that they were seeking. Not you, not as the leader of that party, have greeted the calls for transparency with transparency. Rather than trying to say, go away, you're just trying to make trouble for the leadership. So even internally in the snp, this became a real proxy for disputes, unhappiness. Because there are people in the SNP who didn't like Nicholas Sergeant's leadership very much either.
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D
And Joanna Cherry was one of them. Former SMP mp, pretty eminent lawyer, kc, who has been watching your interview this morning, Laura, and tweeted about it. Some of the coverage says that Sturgeon was flatly refusing to accept whistleblowers were blocked. And Joanna Cherry tweets this, this is simply untrue. The footage of her telling us the finances were healthy and to be careful about asking questions was her response to the announcement that three members of the Finance and Audit Committee were resigning because Morrell would not show them the books. So some who were critics back then remain critics even after watching your interview.
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B
But John Swinney, the First Minister, was also speaking this morning. Let's hear what he had to say.
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F
Well, what actually happened, we now know, is that there was criminality underway, that Peter Morrell was deceiving people, that he was, as the police statement said to in the aftermath of the court guilty plea on Monday, that invoices were being filed, forged, that items were being miscoded, that essentially there was a whole elaborate set of arrangements in place to ensure that Peter was covering his tracks. Now, that is. That is what happened. We now know that there was a criminal act underway.
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B
Okay, shall we tell you what some newscasters made of the interview? Because I think the public reaction is going to be fascinating. Newscasters have been whatsapping. Thank you very much indeed for getting in touch with us. So, first message. This is blatant victim blaming against Nicola Sturgeon. Her husband committed insider fraud. He's the criminal. And this is. This is a societal problem. Put my teeth back in that we blame the victims over the criminal. However, some people have taken a very different tack.
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D
Joe Sturgeon honestly thinks, quote, we're all that gullible. The only person buying that version is gullible. Swinney. It would be easier selling Christmas to turkeys. And I think the opposition parties in Scotland, if they're wise and they seem to be already doing this, are not going to worry too much about Nicola Sturgeon. She's not the person they're fighting anymore. The person they're going to try and go for is John Swinney. Ramping up the pressure on him, putting pressure to hold some form of inquiry and also highlighting his long friendship over many decades.
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B
And a senior labor person in Scotland was when we announced our interview, six o', clock, someone was messaging me late last night saying, oh, trying to. Trying to get me to tell them what was in the interview, scurrilously. Which I will say on the record that of course, I completely refuse to divulge anything. But their point was, I want to know what this means for what is next. There's no Political advantage beyond kind of causing reputational embarrassment and tying them up in knots. In terms of opposition politicians trying to give Nicola Sturgeon a hard time, there is huge advantage for them trying to cause trouble for John Swinney in terms of the government that he now runs and has only just got back into power. And, Joe, just because you, you know, you know about this, you've literally, literally written the book on this. Just explain to people how tightly knit political parties are in Scotland. I mean, they are everywhere in the uk, but this sort of Scottish SNP political family. Just explain how tightly knit it really is.
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D
Well, I mean, the key characters haven't changed that much in what, the 27 years of devolution. And certainly John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon were in the original sort of 99 intake. And some of the key characters, like Jackie Bailey's, the Scottish deputy leader, also came in that intake, partly because the electoral system there isn't that much of a change of key characters, even though reform have joined the fray. But a lot of the big beasts are unchanged and one of the constants is John Swinney. It's sort of unlikely that he is leading the party that he led in the early 2000s, pretty unsuccessfully then, a bit more successfully now. But it also shows how, I suppose small and tight some of the relationships are, which makes the sort of fallout difficult. I think one thing that Henry knows well from political scandals is that when.
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B
So Henry Summer always lurking around political
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D
scandals, well, that this, the key sort of headline moment may be passing. But it's about details, isn't it? About what was really happening behind the scene. And Henry, smaller things that we don't know now could cause problems for the First Minister.
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A
And a much more mundane detail, which I can't believe you missed from your links binding various protagonists in this joke, is that Pat McFadden, who was on Laura's program today, and John Swinney 40 years ago worked together washing dishes in the same Mexican restaurant in Edinburgh. So the. It's true. So the Scottish political set, who are turning on each other in various configurations over this, have all known each other for a very, very long time. And it does just add to the sort of sense of human drama to what is fundamentally a story about crime now. And it's not often we say that about political scandals.
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B
No, it really isn't. And just to be fair about this, it should also be said that you have cabinet ministers now, and former Conservative cabinet ministers too, who will tell you stories about how they got drunk together when they were at their student political conferences and all of those things. This is not just about Scottish politicians all knowing each other terribly well. But as Scotland is a smaller country, there is something particularly sort of tightly bound about all of this. But Henry, you've taught me a fun fact about Pat McFadden and John Swinney. Excellent trivia and we'll be sure to ask them all about it next time. I wonder if any of either of them ever broke any dishes.
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D
I don't know. I mean I can't. I can't see, you'll have to have
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A
him back on and hold him to account for his dishwashing skills.
- [27:46]
D
Come on.
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B
I know, but I love all of this. It's like last week Ella Milburn told us he got sacked from his first job as a paper, as a paper boy because he couldn't get out of bed when he was 14. And a boy in Benwell in Newcastle.
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D
And what is it about Mexican restaurants? Wasn't Granita a Mexican restaurant or did that become a Mexican restaurant later?
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B
Granita, where there was a famous Blair Brown pact over who would be able to wear the crown. Of course first Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown. So cross for many years afterwards because allegedly Tony Blair went back on the Granita pact. And wasn't it a sort of modern British restaurant?
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D
I think it became Mexican. Henry will know this better. And then became something else.
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A
I think. Yeah, I think it's. Well, firstly of the Arsenal parade today but also so we can ask Mikhail Arteta to check it out for us. But I think, I think it's been demolished or redeveloped. But it did become a Mexican restaurant. You're right.
- [28:39]
B
There we are. Well, if anybody knows where what it is now, do let us know. Newscasters, you're always very good at getting in touch answers on a postcard. You can listen to that full interview and it's all. It's 55 minutes. I think it is. Is worth it. But Nicholas certain isn't isn't incredible communicator. So do listen to the full version if you'd like to or you can watch it on iPlayer or YouTube and Henry, just give us a look ahead or Joe, give us a look ahead. What's coming in the next couple of days?
- [29:04]
A
Well, the government which is still led by Sakir Starmer. I think that's an important clarification to make at the moment given, you know, as you guys recounted yesterday, the sort of essays being offered up by various pretenders to the throne and former occupants of the throne in the case of Tony Blair. So I think we'll see Keir Starmer trying to get back on the front foot. Parliament hasn't been sitting for a week and there'll be. This is a government just in the early stages of the second session of its parliament, so it's got all sorts of important legislation. But I think we will be right back into the scene of one of Sir Keir Starmer's, by his own admission, biggest political errors as Prime Minister. Because at some point this week, the government is going to publish loads and loads and loads of documents related to all the communications that Peter Mandelson had with various cabinet ministers, various officials while he was UK ambassador to the us. And there is lots in there that people in government making no bones about. It's going to be very embarrassing for some of the people involved.
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B
Oh, dear.
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D
It's going to be fascinating.
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B
Well, we will see. There'd be plenty for Adam and everyone else to talk about or newscast in the coming days. Joe, it's been lovely having you.
- [30:11]
E
Thank you.
- [30:12]
D
Lovely to see you. Lovely to chat.
- [30:14]
B
Very nice to have you. Well, Paddy's off on his adventures. Thank you to everybody for being with us this Sunday afternoon. Adam Fleming will be back here with you tomorrow after his adventures in hay. And me and Paddy will be back with you next week on the weekend episodes of Newscast. Goodbye.
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D
Goodbye. Goodbye. Newscast.
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B
Newscast from the BBC.
- [30:34]
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Thank you so much for making it to the end of Newscast. You clearly oozed stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know and don't forget, you can email us anytime. Newscastbc.co.uk or if you want, send us a WhatsApp on 033-01-239480. Be assured I'm told the team listens to every single message by.
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