Afternoon,
Today is “law and order day” in politics - just not in the normal way.
Just as Britons were waking up to the sight of Donald Trump being charged with 34 offences in the USA, officers from Police Scotland were raiding the home of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell following an investigation into the SNP’s finances.
Politics is getting wilder and wilder. It used to be just the fringe parties who would try to get the police involved in their affairs, a sign I always thought of their immaturity. But it is startling to see police involved in the workings of the SNP and Republican Party.
The raids in Scotland are of a different magnitude to the Metropolitan Police questionnaires and the “speeding fine”- type sanctions handed out to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak over “partygate” breaches of lockdown rules.
At the time of writing, Murrell’s Glasgow home had been sealed off by detectives while police have also carried out a search at the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh.
The BBC reported that there are “10 uniformed officers stationed outside the former first minister’s home, alongside one police vehicle and an incident tent in the front garden”.
Police have been investigating the SNP’s finances after receiving complaints about how more than £600,000 of donations were used. Sturgeon as leader had insisted that she was “not concerned” about the party’s finances.
The political damage of today’s events to new SNP leader Humza Yousaf, who this time last week was taking over as First Minister, and the Scottish government is only just registering.
The question now is who will benefit? A poll in Scotland yesterday found that it is Labour and the Liberal Democrats, rather than the Conservatives, who had picked up support from the unedifying attacks by the candidates on each other in the SNP leadership campaign.
The poll from Redfield and Wilton found SNP support has slipped three per cent to 36 per cent, while Labour were up two per cent to 31 per cent. The Liberal Democrats up four per cent to 10 per cent.
The Tories were down three per cent to 19 per cent. Wait until today’s events filter through to the polls.
The police investigation will take its course over the next few months. But certainly it seems to me that the time of “peak SNP” is well and truly receding in the rear view mirror.
Labour and to a lesser extent the Tories will be licking their lips as they eye up the party’s seats at next year’s general election, as Labour’s Scottish leader Anas Sarwar told me on my podcast last week.
There will be everything to play for.
Politics has never felt more unpredictable. And the dull leaders in charge of the main UK parties - Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey and to a lesser extent, Rishi Sunak - will benefit.
Cheerio!
Chopper |
