When Henry Mcleish resigned as First Minister over the renting of his constituency office he famously said, “This was a muddle, it was certainly not a fiddle.” McLeish had resigned as First Minister in November 2001, amid a controversy involving allegations he sub-let part of his tax-subsidised Westminster constituency office without it having been registered in the register of interests kept in the Parliamentary office.

Even then, only 20 odd years ago honourable resignations were a thing. How that has changed with the Cameron Government of 2010 and the Sturgeon Government of 2014 onwards there has been a downward spiral in standards in public office. Since those two appeared, politics, decency, honesty, honour all seem to have been trashed!

It seems now that resigning on matters of principle or even malfeasance are no longer applicable. In fairness to Cameron as soon as his gamble over Brexit failed, he fell on his sword. Boris Johnson had to be practically dragged out of No 10, despite numerous infractions, lies and downright law breaking. Hancock and Gove were named in the English courts as having acted illegally over Covid contracts. Gove is still in position and Hancock was sacked for other reasons, not for profiting from the public purse.

Nobody resigned for the fiasco that is the £37 billion Track and Trace mystery. Nobody will resign for the shambles that is HS2. It started out to run between London and Leeds and was to cost an estimated £32 billion. Now we hear it will stop at Birmingham and cost around £100 billion. Again, nobody will be held to account. Incidentally Scotland will pay around £8.9 billion of this cost for absolutely zero benefits!

Nicola Sturgeon should of course, have resigned when Lord Pentland gave his famous judgement after the Judicial Review into the Alex Salmond case. “Unfair and “tainted by apparent bias.” This devastating judgement by one of our top law Lords should have seen Sturgeon penning her resignation. That she presided over this corrupt procedure against the former First Minister should have been enough for her to do the ‘honourable thing.’

Sadly as we have seen with this Sturgeon government, honour and honesty is in short supply. Then again in November 2022 when the Supreme Court deemed, that the Scottish government could not hold a second referendum on independence without approval from the British parliament, again, if she had any sense of honour, she would have resigned that same day!

Regrettably, she just carried on, by now a lame duck leader of the SNP. Undeterred she pushed her flagship policy of gender reform through Holyrood, despite pleas and warnings. She, of course, would not listen to anyone!

When Alistair Jack halted the GRRB in its tracks in January this year with a Section 35. Nicola Sturgeon should have reached for the Basildon Bond writing pad and immediately vacated Bute House! She didn’t, of course. She remained until something or someone told her it was time to go. Like so many others I did not buy for one second the guff she uttered at the longest resignation speech in history. No doubt in the fullness of time, the real and true reasons for her ‘sudden’ departure will be revealed.

That brings us nicely to this farcical leadership contest! From the outset it has been like an episode of Yes Minister or The Thick of it. A shortened campaign that was put in place to give as much advantage to the chosen ‘Continuity Candidate’ as possible. The almost immediate briefings against Kate Forbes and Ash Regan. The rewriting of Humza’s Cabinet Secretary failures. Suddenly he was a talented, experienced, super efficient Cabinet Secretary. The reality, of course, is that every single brief he has been given has resulted in that particular department being in a chaotic state when he was moved on to another role beyond his capabilities.

That SNP HQ allocated a paid Westminster SPAD full time to Humza’s campaign and the Scottish Civil Service redeployed David Clegg’s close friend and Sturgeon’s ex-Chief of Staff Liz Lloyd to assist Humza was to say the least unusual. It also, we suspect blows the apparent £5,000 election limit set for each candidate’s campaign. The use of HQ materials and personnel to promote just one candidate in itself flies in the face of open and transparent democracy!

The way all the payroll has dutifully thrown their lot in behind Humza has been a sight to behold. So-called independence warriors supporting the candidate that has admitted he has no idea how to attain independence for our nation is breathtakingly insulting and reeks of corruption and manipulation by others in the party.

However, the most ridiculous part in this entire election is the secrecy around exactly how many voters are to be included in the vote? The number varies, depending on who you are talking to from 70,000 to 54,000 are likely to vote?

Not content with alarming the members that they were not competent to run a leadership contest HQ compounded matters by inviting GCHQ to oversee ‘election security.’ Peter Murrell also outsourced that actual vote counting to a little known company Mi Voice.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/23364396.gchq-drafted-keep-snp-leadership-vote-secure/

Yesterday, things reached Brian Rix farce levels when two of the candidates openly questioned the transparency and honesty of the contest. Ash Regan and Kate Forbes teams both wrote to the CEO Peter Murrell aka Mr Sturgeon demanding to know the actual number of members eligible to vote!

In anybody’s language, not an unfair request. However, Mr Murrell managed to turn a drama into a crisis as the saying goes. He tried to distance himself, his staff and indeed his party from any responsibility over any part of the election.

The SNP said that responsibility for the election “did not rest with any member of staff.” What a bizarre thing to say! Remember Mr Murrell has been allowing those that support Humza Yousaf access to party materials and the party database and email system to promote the favoured candidate. Now he is saying the election does not rest with any member of staff. Is he trying to tell us, that all this is happening at HQ without his knowledge or tacit approval?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-64968256

Why the secrecy over the number of SNP members eligible to vote? The Party has refused to tell the candidates this simple fact. In a democracy the number of eligible voters is never a secret!

Things are coming to a head today Ash Regan and Kate Forbes teams has given SNP HQ requests to reveal the following information.

1. The total number of paid-up members currently within the SNP.

2. The number of digital voting papers that have been sent out to members.

3. The number of physical postal voting papers that have been issued.

This is not an unreasonable request. Indeed, at the start of the contest, this information should have been given to every candidate. It is just basic information required in any election.

Michelle Thomson MSP, who is working to get Kate Forbes elected as Nicola Sturgeon’s successor, said a third party company brought in to work on the election is neither independent, nor in charge of the whole process.

“The SNP themselves remain ultimately accountable and responsible for many of the processes, oversight and ultimate integrity of the ballot,” Ms Thomson said in a statement.

“The fact that questions are being asked can only further undermine trust in SNP HQ.”

Irrespective of what happens from here on in what is patently obvious is this, Peter Murrell is not up to the job of SNP CEO. Nepotism and Self-preservation is why he has been kept in place throughout his wife’s tenure as leader. Now it seems he wants to stay in place to maintain the status quo. Cynics might suggest he wants to remain to keep the skeletons buried!

As this blog has maintained since we began writing, in November 2014 when Sturgeon took over her first act should have been to fire her husband! That said, if he had a shred of decency or honour in him or any respect for the integrity of the SNP he would have resigned to save putting his wife in the awkward position of firing him! As it has transpired, neither of them has a shred of integrity.

There is already a great deal of concern over this contest. That the previous leaders husband is in overall charge is in itself unusual to say the least. He should have recused himself as soon as his wife resigned.

He should now step aside and ask the Party President to take over. The requests from the candidates should be met in full immediately. We are not just electing a new party leader. The person elected will be our new First Minister. They will also be the defacto leader of the entire YES Movement. This is a lot more than just an internal contest. A lot of people need to know everything is above board, democratic fair, and not a fix!

Lastly and most importantly this entire debacle has been a godsend for our opponents! Clear it up immediately. Murrell should be gone by 5 pm tonight if he stays on he will be shaming the integrity of the election, the integrity and honesty of HQ and the integrity of the Party. He will also be damaging the cause of independence.

So Peter, be like Henry and do the right thing before we all start to believe this is a fiddle and not a muddle!