Nicola Sturgeon arrested

Meanwhile, back in mainstream Scottish politics:

– the Scottish government has binned its decarbonisation targets and adopted the pisspoor English and Welsh approach

– life expectancy in Scotland is the worst in Western Europe and the drugs death rate is 3 times higher than in England, despite child poverty being about ⅔ of that in England.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/18/scottish-government-carbon-emissions-pledge-carbon-budgets-2030

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/18/scotland-life-expectancy-western-europe-smoking-drinking-drugs-deprivation

– life expectancy in Scotland is the worst in Western Europe and the drugs death rate is 3 times higher than in England, despite child poverty being about ⅔ of that in England.

perhaps just how you’ve worded that but the likely benefits of child poverty for life expectancy won’t be seen for decades.  It IS an important metric but it the important point of Devi’s article is not that the life expectancy is poor but rather that it’s very varied and directly correlates to deprivation.

im not really sure why it in a thread about the former first minister(‘s husband) being arrested though?

im not really sure why it in a thread about the former first minister(‘s husband) being arrested though?

A pathological hatred of the snp ?

As above.  The reduction in child poverty which is a direct result of SNP policies will take many years to have any effect on life expectancy and anyway is only one factor.

The SNP government has made mistakes but its important to recognise also what they have done well and one big win is Scotland is a better place to live if you are a child of low income parents or are an adult on benefits

On Murrell.  Im suprised he has been charged.  I’ll still bet no conviction for anything serious

I’m sure life expectancy will shoot up and drug deaths will plummet as soon as we have we have a Labour/whoever coalition after the next Scottish Parliament election.

“the important point of Devi’s article is not that the life expectancy is poor but rather that it’s very varied and directly correlates to deprivation.”

And yet deprivation is worse in England but life expectancy and drug death rates are better (well, less worse). It doesn’t directly reflect deprivation.

Across a basket of other European countries, drug-induced deaths are highest in Finland (very rich) and lowest in Romania (pretty poor). They don’t directly correlate to deprivation.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1066573/drug-induced-deaths-europe/

“A pathological hatred of the snp ?”

Reality has an anti-SNP bias too!

Having briefly viewed drug-death stats the best correlations I can come up with are an inverse correlation with daylight hours in Winter and a positive correlation with crap weather.

When looking at the legal differences I’m stuggling to find any Scottish-made laws that are worse for poorer people than in England. Perhaps the SNP haters can quote some.

Charges brought, so obvious something worth taking through the courts.  That’ll explain the sudden completely unrelated ‘retirement’ from politics then.

For the charges to stick they’ll have to prove it, in all likelihood everyone concerned is likely to have a ‘forgetful’ moment so its unlikely the case will hold.  Does that mean they didn’t do something dodgy / incredibly stupid?

life expectancy in Scotland is the worst in Western Europe and the drugs death rate is 3 times higher than in England, despite child poverty being about ⅔ of that in England.

The Union is working well then…

On Murrell.  Im suprised he has been charged.  I’ll still bet no conviction for anything serious

Same as with Rayner, it’ll be the square root of FA and won’t be ‘completed’ until after the General Election – the latest ‘arrest’ I reckon is for the local elections.

“the latest ‘arrest’ I reckon is for the local elections.”

Just to be clear – are you suggesting someone is directing Police Scotland (and possibly COPFS) to arrest SNP figures before the local elections? If yes, who, and why?

For the charges to stick they’ll have to prove it, in all likelihood everyone concerned is likely to have a ‘forgetful’ moment so its unlikely the case will hold.

Don’t you just follow the money trail in an embezzlement case? It’s either moved from X account to Y account or it hasn’t.

Same as with Rayner, it’ll be the square root of FA and won’t be ‘completed’ until after the General Election – the latest ‘arrest’ I reckon is for the local elections.

This is nowhere near the same as Rayner, she is being investigated currently due to the tories putting in a complaint about potential historic activities, Murrell has undergone investigations for a while now, and has been rearrested and charged on the basis of the evidence.

Again, i think it’s a storm in a teacup, but now that Police Scotland have charged him, i do think that he may be found guilty of something, it sounds like he may have bungled up what he was attempting to do, so a slap on the wrist and hopefully it all ends.

The only common thing between them is the absolute waste of police time on this, by that i mean the amount of resource being used on both these issues, which is well out of line with this occurring outside of politicians.

Don’t you just follow the money trail in an embezzlement case? It’s either moved from X account to Y account or it hasn’t.

And whether the paper trail of authority matches the transactions made.  It should be a Y/N sort of thing rather than needing anyone to remember anything.

“This is nowhere near the same as Rayner, she is being investigated currently due to the tories putting in a complaint about potential historic activities”

Rayner is either guilty or she isn’t. Tax evasion and lying about residence in elections are serious, particularly for someone in a position of public trust (Sturgeon’s husband wasn’t in such a position, I think). The fact that the Tories made the initial complaint is irrelevant – it’s up to the police to investigate independently and the CPS to decide whether to prosecute independently. There’s no room for double standards here. Let them investigate and charge and convict – if there’s evidence of wrongdoing.

Don’t you just follow the money trail in an embezzlement case? It’s either moved from X account to Y account or it hasn’t.

A bit more to it than that, the crown require to show (with corroborated evidence for each of these points):

1. The accused held another persons money or property, with that person’s permission.
2. The accused had a duty to account to the owner for what he did with the money or property.
3. The accused took the money/ property for his own or did something with it that he did not have authority for.
4. The accused’s actions were in bad faith or were dishonest.

Nobody knows the detail of the charge (ie the specifics they think there is evidence to support – not the rumours and claims originally made to the media. Theoretically it could be he posted a birthday card to him mum using the franking machine at work.  Presumably if the evidence chain was really simple and clear there would have been a charge long before now – it’s not like this case has been sitting at the bottom of some overworked PC’s in tray.  Because:

The only common thing between them is the absolute waste of police time on this, by that i mean the amount of resource being used on both these issues, which is well out of line with this occurring outside of politicians.

and it probably is right that politicians are held to the highest account given their role in law making.  He wasn’t technically a politician but he had a very significant role in political life and I’ve no issue with big questions being asked.  But everyone who will say “no smoke without fire” will likely also be angry about sub-postmasters being convicted wrongly!

Tax evasion and lying about residence in elections are serious

So YOU’VE always updated informed the authorities to enable them to update the Electoral Roll the minute you’ve moved house?  Don’t lie, none of us do.

And “tax evasion”, CGT is bloody complicated and worse case £1500 would’ve been taken from her Tax Code over the following year.

And for both these ‘offences’ she wasn’t an MP, just an ordinary person.

Did we also miss your outrage at this, don’t remember it at the time?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/20/nadhim-zahawi-agreed-on-penalty-to-settle-tax-bill-worth-millions#:~:text=Experts%20estimate%20the%20tax%20due,due%20to%20%C2%A34.8m.

“Presumably if the evidence chain was really simple and clear there would have been a charge long before now – it’s not like this case has been sitting at the bottom of some overworked PC’s in tray.”

There will be a mountain of electronic records. Imaging the devices, getting records from third parties under subpoena, dumping it into a platform, deduplicating it, agreeing search terms or setting the parameters of AI search, actually reading the stuff, understanding the stuff, presenting it to various managers and case handlers (of whatever title), presumably going through the whole process again with COPFS (idk if they’re involved in charging decisions in Scotland)…it takes absolutely **** ages even when there’s limitless money to spend and an infinite supply of drones. And being in the political realm it’ll be more complicated that the normal story of Middle Manager Michael at Wernham Hogg plc faking invoices and inventing suppliers and buying personal goods on work orders.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that this has taken 3 years so far.

“So YOU’VE always updated informed the authorities to enable them to update the Electoral Roll the minute you’ve moved house?  Don’t lie, none of us do…Did we also miss your outrage at this, don’t remember it at the time?”

I’m surprised to hear you say you don’t update your details on the electoral roll. I mean, apparently you seem to be organised enough to maintain a database on what every STW poster has said on every political topic in the last couple of years… 🤣

He wasn’t technically a politician

But he was married to the leader of the party while being in charge of the bank accounts. It stunk at the time and it stinks still further now.

And trying to tie Rayner’s massive £2000 – £3000 potential tax avoidance to actual theft is just shouting “squirrel!”

My guess is it’s centring around the campervan. Bought with party funds, kept at a private residence, have they been using it for personal holidays? I highly doubt they’ve been syphoning money off to their own banks but I’ll be incredibly disappointed if they have as I had huge admiration for NS as a politician and first minister.

“the latest ‘arrest’ I reckon is for the local elections.”

What? The Scottish local elections in 2027?

I’m surprised to hear you say you don’t update your details on the electoral roll.

And neither do you until the form comes thru the door.

Well the campervan, as reported, was highly suspicious.  Who knows what else they found when they started digging something of that scale is unlikely to be a one-off mistake – possibly there is a trail of other little whoopsies with accounting, we will find out in due course

I also respected NS, when she suddenly retired and wasn’t honest about the reasons she sadly proved that she is no better than the current bunch of lying * we currently have running the country

My guess is it’s centring around the campervan. Bought with party funds, kept at a private residence, have they been using it for personal holidays? I highly doubt they’ve been syphoning money off to their own banks but I’ll be incredibly disappointed if they have as I had huge admiration for NS as a politician and first minister.

I don’t get the feeling Sturgeon or her husband would go on holidays in a campervan, they’d have access to as many freebie first class trips as you could shake a stick at (same as any leader), so a week in a campervan sounds a bit depressing if your first minister 🤣

Personally, i just think it’ll be a mix up at best, a la father ted, if the evidence is there, it’ll more than likely end up with a fine and move on, the police bill however, well i’d love to hear how much that will be.

The campervan was “discovered” during the investigation. It wasn’t the reason for the investigation.

What? The Scottish local elections in 2027?

This is on the national news. Getting people to think “they are all at it, and all as bad as each other” helps the Tories because they are definitely at it and thoroughly bad. Doubt it’ll help much but I’ve seen the “They are all at it” line on social media quite a few times recently.

“Personally, i just think it’ll be a mix up at best, a la father ted, if the evidence is there, it’ll more than likely end up with a fine and move on,”

I would put money on it being jail time if there is a conviction. There is a precedent after all. A previous SNP MP got custody for having her fingers in the till.

https://judiciary.scot/home/sentences-judgments/sentences-and-opinions/2022/06/30/hma-v-natalie-mcgarry

The premise of the Father Ted joke is that Ted has been dishonest, that it’s not an innocent mixup, and that his explanation is painfully unconvincing…

Its right and proper this is all investigated properly

The timeline laid out here does cause some concern. Almost £700k raised, yet only £97k in the bank and PM had to give the party a huge loan to help with cashflow. Something isn’t adding up there

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-65310664

It’s all a bit of a mess.

Who would have thought it – politician and/or senior staff member involved in financial shenanigans.

I’m absolutely stunned by this revelation.