Nicola Sturgeon’s ex and his £400,000 shopping spree

Summary

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Today in Focus Podcast Summary

Episode: Nicola Sturgeon’s ex and his £400,000 shopping spree

Released: June 3, 2026
Host: Annie Kelly
Main Guest: Severin Carrell (Guardian Scotland Editor)

Episode Overview

This episode explores the dramatic fall-out from Peter Murrell’s guilty plea to embezzling over £400,000 from SNP funds, detailing the shocking list of purchases made with the stolen money, the public and personal impact on his ex-wife and former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and the implications for the Scottish National Party (SNP). With insights from Severin Carrell, the conversation covers Sturgeon's reaction, the SNP's internal culture, public opinion, and the looming questions about accountability and political legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Murrell Embezzlement Scandal: The Facts

• Peter Murrell, former SNP chief executive and Sturgeon’s husband, pled guilty to stealing £400,000 of party donations ([00:33], [00:58]).
• Purchases ranged from a £124,000 luxury motorhome, fast cars, and novelty gifts to domestic items like instant coffee and pens ([00:33], [10:02]).
• Many items were embedded in the Murrell-Sturgeon household, amplifying the scandal’s personal dimension ([01:53], [12:28]).

2. Nicola Sturgeon’s Response & Personal Fallout

• Sturgeon gave a high-profile TV interview, strongly denying knowledge or complicity:

  “I absolutely didn't know that he was committing crimes.”
  — Nicola Sturgeon ([01:21])

• Described feelings of anger, betrayal, and humiliation:

  “He has put me into a position of real peril. He has subjected me to public vilification, having the finger of suspicion pointed at me…”
  — Nicola Sturgeon ([01:38])

• Emotional reaction to learning that gifts from Murrell (like a necklace) were bought with stolen funds:

  “I loved that necklace and I wore it a lot…to then find out that these were gifts given to me that he'd bought with the party's money causes a level of, I don't know, pain, bewilderment.”
  — Nicola Sturgeon ([11:49])

3. Political Repercussions & Public Perception

• Despite Sturgeon not facing charges, significant public suspicion remains:
  • A poll found by 3:1, Scottish voters doubted her full honesty ([08:47]), and 37% of SNP voters didn't fully believe her account.
• Her interview style seen as both controlled and defensive (“classic Nicola Sturgeon”), but sometimes failing to register the broader damage ([03:30], [04:35]).
• Sturgeon resists calls to compensate members who lost money, framing it as an agenda pushed by critics, while prosecution pursues asset confiscation ([05:47]).

4. SNP Loyalty, Leadership, and Damage Control

• SNP’s current First Minister John Swinney publicly defends Sturgeon, confirming personal belief in her innocence ([06:54], [07:12]), but describes the emotional toll:

  “He looked down and he started stumbling over his words as he tried to control himself…a sense of humiliation, a sense of embarrassment and also a sense of anger towards [Murrell].”
  — Severin Carrell on Swinney’s reaction ([07:12])

• The party at large remains highly loyal to Sturgeon, credited for the SNP’s membership surge and electoral dominance ([05:47], [07:10]), though the scandal threatens its reputation.

5. Details & Oddities of the Fraud

• Severin Carrell provides a vivid list of Murrell's purchases, highlighting both the banality and extravagance: coffee pods, robotic lawnmower (£3,000), luxury watches, luxury pens, Borgon DVDs, jewelry ([10:02], [11:49]).
• Anecdote: £124,000 motorhome was driven just four miles, then left parked at Murrell’s mother’s house for two years ([16:31]).
• Some gifts, including the infamous necklace and household goods, went undetected by Sturgeon, as many deliveries were sent to SNP HQ or family ([17:41], [18:03]).

6. Murrell’s Background & Power

• Nicknamed “Magpie Murrell” for suspected past thefts during Alex Salmond’s era ([13:47]).
• As SNP chief executive since 2001, Murrell was one of the most powerful party figures, with direct control over finances and staff ([14:20]).
• Exploited his position for concealment, including forging staff names on transactions ([15:48]).

7. Origins and Unfolding of the Investigation

• The criminal investigation began after £600,000 in fundraising mysteriously vanished, intended for a second independence referendum ([19:17]).
• Split in the party and external audits uncovered missing funds, leading to police involvement (Operation Branchform) ([20:33].

8. SNP’s Culture of Secrecy & "Protecting the Brand"

• Severin discusses how, similar to the previous Alex Salmond sexual misconduct scandal, the SNP’s leadership culture often suppressed uncomfortable truths to protect party reputation and the independence cause ([22:45]).
• Sturgeon’s repeated claims of ignorance for both scandals stretches public credulity ([23:18]), but there's no direct evidence implicating her in Morrell’s actions.

9. Potential Consequences for Murrell

• He is expected to receive several years in jail, with judicial emphasis on the depth of deception ([24:52]).

10. Sturgeon’s Legacy & SNP’s Future

• Sturgeon reportedly writing a thriller, possibly seeking a literary career and new life in London ([25:50]).
• Despite scandals, she retains iconic status within the party, still getting ovations at public events ([26:37]), but she can’t fully avoid tough questions from the public ([26:31]).
• The SNP faces increasing electoral risk, with two crucial by-elections upcoming and potential parliamentary inquiries being demanded ([27:02], [27:18]).
• Severin concludes that the party’s “continuity era” of leadership is likely to persist for now, and Sturgeon’s legacy stands, though a loss of momentum could eventually produce change ([29:01]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Am I angry with him? I don't even think that begins to cover it.”
  — Nicola Sturgeon ([01:31])

• “He presented [the necklace] to her as a present and she wore it very proudly ever since... This whole affair is about her private life, not about her political life.”
  — Severin Carrell ([12:28])

• “Peter Morrill was one of the most powerful people in British politics.”
  — Severin Carrell ([14:20])

• On the motorhome: “It was driven a total of four miles…from the place he picked it up at to his mother's home in Dunfermline, and then left it parked next to her house for more than two years.”
  — Severin Carrell ([16:31])

• “It's quite possible that once Swinney fails to deliver a second independence referendum, that there might be challenges to his leadership from a different faction inside the snp. But as things stand, Sturgeon's legacy will remain intact.”
  — Severin Carrell ([29:01])

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [00:33] — Introduction to the scandal and initial facts
• [01:21] — Sturgeon's on-record denial and emotional reaction
• [03:30] — Analysis of Sturgeon’s interview performance
• [05:47] — Discussion of member compensation and legal fallout
• [08:47] — Poll results on public skepticism
• [10:02] — Detailed list of Murrell’s purchases
• [11:49] — Emotional moment about the necklace
• [14:20] — Murrell’s power within SNP
• [16:31] — Court revelations; the motorhome anecdote
• [19:17] — How the investigation began
• [22:45] — SNP’s culture of secrecy and protecting the brand
• [24:52] — Consequences and sentencing expectations for Murrell
• [25:50] — Sturgeon’s potential future beyond politics
• [27:18] — SNP’s looming challenges, by-elections, and inquiries
• [29:01] — Reflection on party leadership continuity and Sturgeon's legacy

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Conclusion

This episode provides a comprehensive look at the political and personal turmoil stemming from the Peter Murrell embezzlement case, the fallout for Nicola Sturgeon, and the uncertain path ahead for the SNP. The conversation underscores the complex interplay between private betrayal and public trust, the vulnerability of political legacies, and the cultural dynamics within a party facing its toughest crisis in decades.

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Transcript

[Annie Kelly]

This is the Guardian. Today. Scotland's former First Minister, her ex husband and a £400,000 criminal shopping spree. What does a robotic lawnmower, luxury pens and a lot of instant coffee all have in common?

[Nicola Sturgeon]

Common?

[Annie Kelly]

All are on a long and bizarre list of items bought with embezzled SNP political donations by Nicola Sturgeon's then husband. Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the snp, arrived quietly and early at court this morning clutching an overnight bag. A clue a guilty plea was coming.

[Severin Carrell]

Mr. Morrow, any regrets?

[Annie Kelly]

Last week, Murrell, who was the SNP's chief executive, pled guilty to stealing £400,000 from the party. This weekend, Sturgeon, who resigned as first minister in 2023, finally broke her silence.

[Severin Carrell]

But as the person who shared his

[Annie Kelly]

life as his wife, did you really not notice anything?

[Nicola Sturgeon]

I absolutely didn't know that he was committing crimes.

[Annie Kelly]

In a BBC interview, she denied knowing anything about what her husband was doing. Are you angry with him?

[Nicola Sturgeon]

Am I angry with him? I don't even think that begins to cover it.

[Annie Kelly]

She said she had been betrayed and deceived.

[Nicola Sturgeon]

He has put me into a position of real peril. He has subjected me to public vilification, having the finger of suspicion pointed at me, you know, humiliation, and is paying

[Annie Kelly]

the price for a crime she didn't commit.

[Severin Carrell]

She's had a very torrid and difficult week since the true extent of Peter Morrell's embezzlement became clear. And also the extent to which the things that he paid for by using stolen SNP money were embedded into their domestic life. Things that she carried, things that she wore, things that she drank from, things that she or he will have made food with. It must have been very painful for her.

[Annie Kelly]

Sturgeon is not facing any charges related to his crimes. But with so many questions unanswered about her own role in the whole scandal, has she done enough to survive the political fallout and secure the future for the snp?

[Severin Carrell]

I think it's just an extraordinary drama. It's an epic Greek tragedy.

[Annie Kelly]

From the Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today in focus, fast cars, novelty advent calendars and that motorhome. Can Nicola Sturgeon's legacy survive this scandal? Severin Carrel, you're the Guardian Scotland Editor and you've been following Scottish politics for the Guardian for decades. Nicola Sturgeon has been at the heart of all of that. She had this stellar political career, but in the last few years, things have shifted dramatically since this HU embezzlement scandal. She just did this big interview with Laura Kuenssberg at the weekend. I wanted to ask you, what did you make of that interview?

[Severin Carrell]

In a way, it was actually classic Nicola Sturgeon. This is the Nicola Sturgeon that we've been used to watching. She had that combination of her legal training and decades of responding to very challenging situations by having a very clear control of a narrative. But also I felt that there were times where she was clearly showing the toll that it had had on her. There were very clear moments where she was getting emotional, both angry but also upset. Moments where she was clearly fighting tears. This is a man that she had shared her life with for the best part of 20 years, who was revealed in the public eye in quite graphic way of being responsible for the most extraordinary degree of deceit and deception involving her. But also, you also got another sense that Nicola Sturgeon was adopting that Persona which a lot of her critics find most difficult. There's a kind of poor me tendency in the way that she responds to a lot of questions. And at times you felt that she hadn't quite read the room.

[Annie Kelly]

And why do you think she did the interview? I've heard people say it was kind of an attempt to rehabilitate her image, her political career. What's your take on that?

[Severin Carrell]

The question about rehabilitating herself, rather, I'm afraid, presupposes that she has actually done something wrong. And on the key question about what Morrell did, the crimes he committed, she has been cleared. But she will know that so many people believe that she has either been complicit or deliberately naive or was somehow implicated in what Morrell had done. And I think for her, it's about being determined to shape and control her own narrative. So this wasn't the behavior of somebody hiding something. It was the behavior of somebody who wanted to defend themselves vigorously and put themselves up for what would be, for most people, a pretty harrowing experience of being tested and probed for 55 minutes on camera.

[Annie Kelly]

How do you think that that would have landed with the members, SNP members who, you know, some of whom lost quite a lot of money? It struck me that Nicola Sturgeon was asked in that interview, you know, if she would compensate the members whose money taken. She said it wasn't her responsibility.

[Severin Carrell]

I think the first thing one has to remember is the extraordinary esteem that Nicola Sturgeon is held in by the vast majority of SNP members. It was while she was Deputy First Minister and the effective leader of the Scottish independence campaign that the SNP's membership went up from the maybe 20, 25,000 people to as high as 130,000 under her leadership. So there will be a significant amount of loyalty to her. The point about whether members should be compensated, she will be resisting, partly because it's an agenda which has been driven by her critics and enemies, not the party membership as a whole. What one has to remember is the Peter Morrell prosecution is ongoing. As part of that process, there will be a confiscation order where it's very likely that the prosecution will be asking the court to seize his assets and also the marital assets of Nicholas Durchin herself, including the house that they shared outside Glasgow. So she isn't actually escaping from this unscathed, one assumes.

[Annie Kelly]

What has the current First Minister, John Swinney, said since Murrell pleaded guilty?

[Severin Carrell]

John Swinney says that he believes her 100%. Well, Nicola Sturgeon has made clear in her statement, I suspect you will have seen that today, that she was unaware of any of these issues.

[Annie Kelly]

Can I ask you if you believe that?

[Severin Carrell]

I do believe that, yes. And that's not surprising. I mean, John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon were, and remain, extremely close friends. Swinney was Nicola Sturgeon's closest political ally when she was First Minister. He was Deputy First Minister throughout her term and literally would stand at her side during some of the more torrid media interviews that she had to give. Sweeney was asked by one journalist how he felt personally about the whole affair. John Swinney has known Peter Murrell since they were teenagers. They were both in the same Boys Brigade troop in the west of Edinburgh. And it was John Sweeney that first appointed Peter Murrell as the chief executive of the Scottish National Party in 2001. And when Sweeney was asked that question, how he felt personally, he himself was very clearly very close to tears. He gripped the podium with both his hands. You could almost see his knuckles turning white. He looked down and he started stumbling over his words as he tried to control himself. The level of personal. Horror, betrayal, that I feel is difficult for me to properly convey to you, but I just. This is beyond what I'm thinking about. I've not been able to. So I would imagine that for both him and for Sturgeon, they are going through a very similar degree of emotional turmoil, a sense of humiliation, a sense of embarrassment and also a sense of anger towards him.

[Annie Kelly]

And what about Scottish voters in general? Do we know? Are they buying the story that she's telling them about her role in all of this?

[Severin Carrell]

I mean, obviously, in some respects, it's too soon to know, but there was one initial snap poll for the Sunday Times in Scotland by the polling agency Nordstadt, which published on Sunday and that found that Scottish voters as a whole, by a margin of three to one, doubted that Nicolas Durgin was telling the full truth. And that North Stadt poll also tested exactly how many people who voted SNP felt, and they actually found that a very significant number of SNP voters, around 37%, did not accept her account. Now, it is important to stress that this is before the full Kuenzberg interview was broadcast, but it's certainly a significant blow to the party and to her and to her reputation.

[Annie Kelly]

Severin, could you put all of this in context for us? Nicola Sturgeon, she's always said she's completely innocent. She knew nothing about what her ex husband Merle was up to. But nevertheless, last week he pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP to buy what exactly? Could you remind us of that extraordinary list that we had?

[Severin Carrell]

It was very odd. I mean, some of the items on that list were trinkets, very, very prosaic. They included coffee pods. We know that he spent around 85 pounds buying 2 kg of Nescafe Gold blend coffee powder. They included toilet rolls. But what they Also included was £124,000 luxury motorhome which was parked in the driveway or next to Peter Murrell's mother's house in Fife. In there were also two cars, a VW Golf and a Jaguar I Pace. And there were of course, the luxury watches, there were luxury pens. There were the Lalique salt and pepper grinders. There were also iPads, Kindles, Xbox games, copy of Grand Theft Auto where he could play a criminal. And then he also spent 160 pounds buying a very beautifully embellished Folio Society edition of Hannah Arendt's the Origins of Totalitarianism. And alongside that you had some very odd things. I mean, he also would have paid £75 for the complete seasons one and two DVDs of Borgon, Nicola Sturgeon's favorite television series. He bought a box set of Sherlock Holmes. He bought a robotic lawnmower that cost £3,000. And the police indictment said that included installation as well. Folks, it was almost as if you had a teenager funding their entertainment habits and a lavish lifestyle on somebody else's credit card. But also in there, there were times where you saw that Murrell was actually buying gifts for people.

[Annie Kelly]

Nicola Sturgeon actually mentioned that in her interview, didn't she? That one of the moments she got so emotional was talking about this necklace that was gifted to her, that turned out to be in that list as well. Right.

[Nicola Sturgeon]

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, and to then find out that these were gifts given to me that he'd bought with the party's money causes a level of, I don't know, pain, bewilderment. I don't know. I just.

[Severin Carrell]

He presented it to her as a present and she wore it very proudly ever since. She even matched her clothing, the outfits that she wore, to go with the coloring of the pendant. This whole affair is about her private life, not about her political life.

[Annie Kelly]

No.

[Severin Carrell]

And I think that's why she was so emotional about it.

[Annie Kelly]

You know, we've just talked about that really sad story about the pendant, which I found really, really sad. You know, the betrayal in that is a very personal betrayal, isn't it? But the list of what he was buying, as you said, is. Is extraordinary. And I wondered, in your reporting, did you ever hear any gossip or speculation about his kind of spending habits? You know, do we know what he did with all this stuff that he bought or what he was intending to do with all this stuff?

[Severin Carrell]

No, we didn't. It has to be stated from the beginning that Murrell was actually very, very private. Generally, the only insight into any prior knowledge about the fact that he may have actually been a thief was the disclosure after his guilty plea that he had allegedly stolen some money in the northeast of Scotland when he was working for Alex Salmond in the late 1980s.

[Annie Kelly]

So Alex Salmond, the former First Minister

[Severin Carrell]

before Nicola Sturgeon, There are different stories about what Salmond then did. One person has been saying very recently that Salmond effectively sacked him from his job. But what we do know is that Salmond did hush that affair up. Simond paid the money and Murrell continued working inside the snp. And one particular phrase came to light last week, that he was known to some people as Magpie Murrell.

[Annie Kelly]

Could you just remind us what was his role in the SNP and how was he able to do this?

[Severin Carrell]

It may sound like I'm overstating it, but Peter Morrill was one of the most powerful people in British politics. He had been the chief executive of the most successful and the most effective electoral machine since 2001, and in partnership with Alex Salmond, particularly when Salmond became leader again in 2004, they were able to build a party machine effectively from scratch. So the process of going from a minority party to a party in 2007 which had won more seats than any other party, it was a process that was actually run and controlled by Peter Murrell. He was in charge of setting up all of the structures and the mechanisms that were used for the SMP's funding, the SMP's accounts, the SMP's office organization. And he was also the person, one assumes, that was appointing all the office staff that were helping him run the SMP machine. And so when you get to a point of that level of authority and influence and power over an organization that you basically built, and you're also married

[Annie Kelly]

to the boss, so what you're saying is that you know, much more than being Nicola Sturgeon's husband and, you know, having that power by association with her, he was really pivotal to building the SNP as we know it today. And also this hugely influential politician in Scotland with what seems like unfettered power.

[Severin Carrell]

One of the most revealing things that became clear in the indictment was that Morrill had been using the names of his own office staff to commit some of these frauds. And these are people that had worked for him in a small team for years. So he not only portrayed Sturgeon, he portrayed office staff that had shown enormous amount of loyalty for a party and for a boss that they believed in. The police say that he went to extraordinary lengths to give himself the space to steal all this money, but also to cover it up.

[Annie Kelly]

And, Severin, yesterday there was another hearing which revealed even more about Murrell's crimes. What did we learn?

[Severin Carrell]

So, Andy, what we had in court yesterday was what they call a narrative description from the prosecution about the specifics of Peter Murrell's offences, exactly how he'd covered things up, the way he had lied to people, and also when he had bought things and even where they were posted to, the most, in a sense entertaining fact, was that the most famous of his purchases, the £124,000 luxury motorhome, was driven a total of four miles. He drove it from the place he picked it up at to his mother's home in Dunfermline, a whole total of four miles, and then left it parked next to her house for more than two years. It never left there.

[Annie Kelly]

How bizarre.

[Severin Carrell]

It's quite odd. And the thing which is also very revealing about it is that the information that we had from the prosecution was that while it was sitting there, he did actually stock it up with a whole number of luxury items. He bought Joseph and Joseph and Le Creuset kitchen and homeware. He bought molten and brown toiletries, which you can see in the police photographs are very neatly arranged around the hand basin in the motorhome. Nicola Sturgson herself is adamant that she didn't know that the motorhome existed.

[Nicola Sturgeon]

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 neighbor's. My mother and father in law were in their mid-80s. I would have just not. It would not have crossed my mind it was theirs and it would never have. Why would it have crossed my mind that it was the snps, that Peter had bought it?

[Annie Kelly]

Well, if you go to see, she

[Severin Carrell]

didn't know he'd bought it, the party didn't know he'd bought it, and it was pretty clear that he never actually used it. One wonders what was going through his mind. But it is an interesting insight into how secretive he was, how acquisitive he was and also how attracted he was to luxury items. He just obviously clearly loved having luxury all around him. What the additional details may actually suggest is that Morrell was quite careful to avoid Nicola Sturgeon being aware of what he was doing, because the prosecution detailed how very often he sent his illicit goods. These luxury items he'd been buying using the stolen money from the SNP. He'd had them delivered at the SNP's Headquart in Edinburgh. So much of this stuff she would never have known had arrived. And we also discovered, as the indictment implied, that a lot of the material was actually being sent to family members. I mean, the man earned £107,000 a year, and so naturally they would have thought, okay, he could afford this. Uncle Peter's a really nice guy, right?

[Annie Kelly]

Really nice guy with other people's money, it turns out.

[Severin Carrell]

Yeah.

[Annie Kelly]

And when do people start noticing that there could be be money missing from SNP accounts?

[Severin Carrell]

The reason the police began the investigation had nothing to do with Peter Murrell allegedly embezzling anything. It was because a major crisis had arisen over the apparent disappearance of more than 600,000 pounds, which had been raised from party members and from YES campaigners to ostensibly fund a second independence referendum. In late 2020, the first questions began to emerge about what had happened to this missing 600,000 PO was not appearing in the SNP's official accounts, but Then it emerged that actually some of the money was being spent on SNP election campaigns. Party treasurers were stepping down, claiming that they hadn't been given access to the party accounts. And this whole crisis also became a proxy for the battle going on inside the SNP between people that wanted to unseat Nicola Sturgeon, who were critical and very unhappy with her positions. Her policies around trans rights, her positions on Nazi oil and gas, her general drift to the progressive left. And that's part of the reason she became so defensive, that she felt that her critics were weaponizing one particular issue in order to conduct a wider war against her leadership of the party.

[Annie Kelly]

And maybe why we saw her be so defensive in that interview last weekend as well. That kind of battle hardened approach to defending her position.

[Severin Carrell]

Exactly that.

[Annie Kelly]

And also, you know, maybe a tried and tested method, because in 2018, Alex Salmond, the former First Minister and her mentor, faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct from his time in office.

[Severin Carrell]

Alex Salmond arrived at Edinburgh Sheriff's court to face 14 charges, including two of attempted rape.

[Annie Kelly]

Yeah, ultimately he was cleared, but it was a huge scandal, wasn't it? I mean, she also managed to distance herself quite firmly from that as well.

[Severin Carrell]

Yeah, that actually is quite an important precursor to what we're witnessing now, because the question arises as to why Nicola Sturgeon, in two very, very significant crises and scandals, appeared to be none the wiser. You know him well, you keep your ear to the ground. Had you heard any stories about him before it broke in the press?

[Nicola Sturgeon]

Nietzsche? Absolutely. Not until. Well, I've said previously, Alex Hammond informed me about these complaints in April. That was the first I had known.

[Severin Carrell]

We, as journalists had been hearing rumors that Alex Salmond had been having extramarital affairs and there were even questions about whether he had been guilty of some kind of sexual misconduct or misdemeanors. Those had been the stuff of political gossip for decades and Nicholas Sturchon denied any knowledge of those whatsoever. And for many people, that just stretched credulity, given the closeness of their relationship, that Nicola Sturgeon had been mentored by Alex Salmond. And if you wanted to take a positive slant on that, the only conclusion one would draw is that people that knew about these rumors about Salmond's conduct or knew of the specific allegations had made a deliberate decision to withhold that information from Nicola Sturgeon in order to avoid poisoning their relationship or in order to avoid giving her knowledge of something that they were helping to conceal. And that actually is the most serious issue of all, is you have a political Party, an organization where lots of difficult and damaging issues aren't being surfaced and aired, because the overriding motivation amongst people in the S and P hierarchy is to protect the brand and protect the cause. The brand is the smp. The cause is seeking Scottish independence. Everything else is either secondary or just noise. And that's partly, I believe, why Nicola Sturgeon and why the SNP are in the position they're in now.

[Annie Kelly]

And it's also, you know, it stretches credulity as well, doesn't it, this idea of, well, no one told me, no one told me again and again and again that you didn't just see Sturgeon, but other SNP senior politicians take, and that's a really good point, that kind of closing of ranks to protect the brand.

[Severin Carrell]

The most important thing to remember about the two greatest crises that Sturchon has to weather as First Minister, the Salmond sexual misconduct crisis and the moral crisis, is that with Sammond, there was so much evidence and in fact testimony that people in the government and SMP apparatus knew about the allegations against Summond and they often chose not to tell Nicola Sturgeon about what they knew. The moral affair is in a different category because it seems abundantly clear there was no inkling or evidence at all until the police stumbled across some sort of moment of revelation during their investigation into the £600,000 that had gone missing, that in fact their inquiry was actually about embezzlement, it wasn't about misappropriated funding. But only Murrell has been charged and there is no evidence that anybody else was complicit in this. There is no evidence that anybody knew and covered it up. Sturgeon has been investigated, interviewed, cleared. Everybody involved in New Murrell have just genuinely struggled to understand how this happened under their noses.

[Annie Kelly]

Peter Murrell's going to be sentenced later this month. What kind of consequences could he be facing?

[Severin Carrell]

I think many of us expect he's going to be given a custodial sentence, a term of imprisonment. And even though this was a first offence, the judge himself spoke to the core fact that he had deliberately and very cleverly deceived so many people and betrayed a party and the party's membership. We don't know exactly how long the sentence will be, but one could imagine he's going to face several years in jail.

[Annie Kelly]

Coming up. How badly will this damage the snp? Severin, plenty of former politicians go on after scandals like this to have post politics careers. What do you think Nicola Sturgeon's prospects are?

[Severin Carrell]

Well, as we understand it, Nicola Sturgeon's writing a thriller at the moment. She wants to have a literary career. She's spoken previously a lot about wanting to move to London and just start a new life. I mean, she said when she resigned, part of the reason she was resigning at this stage in her career was that she wanted to have a second chapter, enjoy later life and go on to do different things.

[Annie Kelly]

Do you think she will ever be able to shake this off, though? I mean, already we've seen her at the Hay Literary Festival recently. Having to answer, you know, gets to the Q and A section. Do you regret that you shut down party members?

[Nicola Sturgeon]

I didn't do that and I will answer the questions in the fullness of time. And I'd ask you to respect the people who've come to see me today.

[Annie Kelly]

Will you apologise to those who mess up? Is she ever going to be able to avoid those difficult questions?

[Severin Carrell]

I mean, one can also, however, look at the book festival event in Northern Ireland a couple of nights before the Hay event, where she got, as I understand it, standing ovation from the crowd. There are lots of people that still deeply admire Nicola Sturgeon and regard her as an icon. I mean, she certainly had iconic status inside the Scottish National Party in the yes movement. It's difficult to know. I mean, I think we'll just have to see how good the book is, won't we?

[Annie Kelly]

I can't imagine any publisher turning her down, though, if she wants to pitch a political thriller. Right. She's got plenty of material. Yes, yes, but what about the snp? Are there any outstanding questions from this whole affair that the SNP leadership is going to have to answer?

[Severin Carrell]

There are lots of questions that the SNP's opponents and critics believe that the SNP have to answer. They are very, very, very confidently and bullishly pressing. John Swinney and the SNP over the question about whether SNP members ought to be compensated. John Swinney has been push back very hard on that. There's also the second question that the SNP's opponents and rivals are pushing for some form of parliamentary inquiry at the Scottish Parliament and possibly even at Westminster. Swinney is also resisting the parliamentary inquiry question. The police investigation, which was called Operation Branch form, which cost a couple of million pounds and involved tens of thousands of police hours, is itself the most robust and effective inquiry that one could expect to have in a situation like this. I think the other question that they are going to face, however, and this is the more salient one, is the damage that this is going to do to the SNP's reputation. The SNP have got the two by elections on 18 June, where they now, I think, are at greater risk than they were before of either losing or very narrowly winning to Westminster by election campaigns. So that's going to be a significant electoral test. That'll be the point at which we can establish whether the SNP's popularity has taken an immediate hit.

[Annie Kelly]

And what about Nicola Sturgeon's legacy? I mean, she's putting it all on Peter Morrell and the SNP is standing by her for now. But could there be a moment when this is all, you know, just too damaging and the party moves on without her?

[Severin Carrell]

No, that will never happen. I mean, you have to remember that we are dealing with a political party that has had this extraordinary continuity of leadership. The party was led from 2004 by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, and that continued up until 2023, when Sturgeon stood down as First Minister. But it was her anointed successor, Hamza Yusuf, who became the next First Minister. But the person that succeeded Humza Yousuf, was John Swinney, one of Nicola Sturgeon's closest political friends and political advisors. So what you have there is you have this continuity that has marked out SNP leadership for, well, two and a half decades now. And one assumes he's going to be in power until 2031. Now, it is possible that the SNP will go through a form of evolution. It's quite possible that once Swinney fails to deliver a second independence referendum, that there might be challenges to his leadership from a different faction inside the snp. And you may see that continuity era ending. But as things stand, Sturgeon's legacy will remain intact.

[Annie Kelly]

Severin, thank you so much for your time today.

[Severin Carrell]

Thank you very much.

[Annie Kelly]

And that's it for today. My thanks to Severin Carell and you can read all of his [e-mail] this episode was produced by Eleanor Biggs, Saskia Collette, Ivor Manley, Tom Glasser and Aisha Riaz, and presented by me, Annie Kelly. Sound design was by Ross Burns and the executive producer was Homa Khalili. And we'll be back later on this afternoon with the latest. This is the Guardian.