When Police Scotland first dug up Nicola Sturgeon’s garden and arrested her husband, one thing which stuck out was the extremely convenient (for the Scottish National Party) timing. Officers arrived on the scene and pitched their evidence tent on April 5; the leadership contest had concluded on March 27.
From the off, there were suspicions that the move had been timed so as not to disrupt the campaign. Supporters of Kate Forbes were almost certainly right to point out that given the closeness of the final result Humza Yousaf, Sturgeon’s anointed successor, would have lost had the operation taken place any earlier.
Now there is more fuel for the fire, as it turns out that Police Scotland actually applied for warrants on March 20, a full week before the contest ended – but the Crown Office didn’t issue them until April 3.
Current and former police officers have been telling the Daily Mail that such a delay is not standard practice, not least because it greatly increases the risk of someone being ticked off. One source described it as “very, very unusual” whilst Tom Buchan, a former chief superintendent, told the paper:
“In my 30 years in the police, I never experienced a situation where it took two weeks to get a warrant. I could go to a justice [of the peace] at any time of day, explain the case, and it would be granted. They wouldn’t always be happy if it was in the early hours, but we would get a warrant. Even if there was an issue, it could be sorted in a day.”
Whilst the First Minister has denied any connection to the election, the Crown Office itself has offered no explanation. Nor is this the first time it has come under scrutiny for its relationship with the Scottish Government; the same thing happened during the Holyrood inquiry into the Alex Salmond scandal.
As the Scottish Conservatives point out, the Lord Advocate is put in a very difficult position by serving both as head of the (independent) Crown Office and as chief legal advisor to the Scottish Government.
In other developments in the ongoing investigation into the SNP’s finances, the police are reportedly probing Amazon accounts that may be linked to it. The authorities are reportedly looking into “more than 1,000 alleged instances of fraud”, according to the Daily Telegraph. Items purchased range from “quite expensive items to relatively cheap everyday products”, according to a source.
Meanwhile we have another absurd development in the Ferry Fiasco – this time one that lends a particularly direct meaning to the idea of the sunk-cost fallacy. The Daily Telegraph reports:
“SNP ministers have overruled their civil servants and ordered taxpayers’ money be spent finishing a scandal-hit ferry at a nationalised shipyard despite accepting it would be cheaper to start from scratch elsewhere.”
That’s right. Despite having started the project all the way back in 2015, despite throwing hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at it, despite actually nationalising the shipyard in 2019 (taking on its £70m debts in the process)… it would still be cheaper to start from scratch than wait for Ferguson Marine to limp over the line.
Yet despite the Scottish Government’s most senior economic mandarin raising a formal objection (the first in almost 16 years) to the SNP minister’s spending plans, he was overruled. Neil Gray MSP conceded the cost point but argued that it would take two-and-a-half years longer to actually get a finished vessel from another yard.
It is not reported what the minister is basing this claim on. Given Ferguson Marine’s record to date, I personally would take a bet that if HM Government stepped in tomorrow and laid down a rival contract with a properly-vetted yard, the good ship MV Edward I would sail first.
The ship contract is not just about money, either. Many of Scotland’s island communities depend upon ferry links, not least for essential supplies such as food and medicines, and these are being increasingly disrupted by mechanical failures on the ageing fleet of existing vessels.
Finally, Scotland’s outgoing children’s commissioner has said that Sturgeon ““absolutely” failed to improve the lives of children in Scotland”, according to the Times. This despite her repeated calls for education and young people to be the yardsticks by which people judged her time in office.