Nicola Sturgeon’s home looks like a murder scene, with the corpse being the SNP – her ‘inclusive’ ways are now laughable
DO you remember how, when it seemed Donald Trump might take a jaunt to one of his Scottish golf courses to avoid being in the US for President Biden’s inauguration, Nicola Sturgeon jumped on her high horse and announced that Trump would be banned from entering her country?
Two years on and it is hard to distinguish between Trump and Sturgeon’s SNP.
![Glasgow, Scotland, UK. 5 April 2023. .PICTURED: Aerial photograph of police presence outside the house..Police raid the house of Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeons husband and former Scottish National Party (SNP) CEO, arrested over SNP funding investigation. A police presence is seen outside and in the rear garden, along with large vans parked in the drive way and a bus and white tent which has been erected in the front garden as police carry out investigations..Credit: Colin Fisher/CDFIMAGES.COM.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/unnamedjpg-JS808022962.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
![Police officers stand outside the house of former SNP Chief Executive and former Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell, in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, April 6, 2023. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/RTRMADP_BRITAIN-POLITICS-SNP-ARREST_1709614566_RC2Y80AZLH9O_2023-04-06T110559Zjpg-JS808194330.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
![EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - DECEMBER 08: SNP Chief Executive, Peter Murrell is sworn in before giving evidence to a Scottish Parliament committee at Holyrood examining the handling of harassment allegations against former first minister Alex Salmond on December 8, 2020 in Edinburgh, Scotland. A cross-party inquiry is looking into claims from former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond that senior figures in the devolved administration in Edinburgh and the Scottish National Party (SNP) orchestrated sexual offence claims against him. Salmond, 65, was acquitted of attempted rape and a string of sexual assaults after an 11-day trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in March this year. (Photo by Andy Buchanan - POOL/Getty Images)](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/BRITAIN-SCOTLAND-POLITICS-ASSAULT-SALMOND-JS808234958.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
While Trump was defending himself against various charges in a New York courtroom this week, Scottish police investigating the alleged disappearance of £600,000 from SNP campaign funds taped off Sturgeon’s home like a murder scene, and erected a blue tent on her lawn.
They also arrested her husband, former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, although they later released him pending further investigations.
You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh — at least if it were not so serious for Scotland and the United Kingdom.
The corpse in this “murder” scene was that of the SNP itself.
What a dramatic implosion for a party and a leader which for most of the past decade has been posing as morally superior to the government in Westminster.
Look at the shambles in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street, Sturgeon invited Scots to think — over and over again.
That is what independence could deliver you from.
Instead, voters are left contemplating an even worse mess at Holyrood.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Gender fiasco
The SNP tried to make itself out to be the antithesis of what it thought the Tories to be.
The party was, in its own mind, modern, progressive, inclusive — not to mention underpinned by science.
![Alamy Live News. 2PHGJ00 Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. 28th Mar, 2023. PICTURED: Nicola Sturgeon MSP, Former First Minister of Scotland and former Scottish National Party (SNP) Leader. Humza Yousaf MSP is voted in as the next First Minister of Scotland. Credit: Colin D Fisher/CDFIMAGES.COM Credit: Colin Fisher/Alamy Live News This is an Alamy Live News image and may not be part of your current Alamy deal . If you are unsure, please contact our sales team to check.](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Alamy_Live_Humza_Yousaf_voted_in_as_Scotlands_next_First_2PHGJ00jpg-JS806180558.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
![EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - MARCH 28: Newly elected leader of the Scottish National Party, Humza Yousaf (centre), signs the nomination form to become First Minister for Scotland, with his proposer Shona Robison (L) and seconder Neil Gray (R), at the Scottish Parliament on March 28, 2023 in Edinburgh. Humza Yousaf was elected as the new leader of the Scottish National Party yesterday after Nicola Sturgeon resigned in February. (Photo by Jane Barlow - Pool/Getty Images)](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/GETTY_Humza-Yousaf-Is-Sworn-In-As-Scotlands-First-Minister_NEW_GYI1477509685jpg-JS806155183.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Where the Westminster government was happy to see Covid run amok, Sturgeon would have us believe that a sensible SNP administration had all but eradicated the disease north of the border.
What delight she took in banning people travelling from England to Scotland, and closing Scotland’s schools for even longer than England’s.
Except that Scotland ended up with a similar death rate to the rest of the United Kingdom.
On drugs, her government tried to distinguish itself by adopting a policy of treating addiction as a health issue rather than a crime — and ended up with the highest death rate from drugs in Europe.
Scotland’s schools and hospitals under-performed — in spite of Scotland enjoying the benefits of the Barnett Formula, which means that for every pound spent on public services in England, £1.26 is available in Scotland.
Then, of course, came the fiasco of the Gender Identity Bill, which Sturgeon tried to present as a high moral issue — until faced with a male rapist trying to gain a place in a women’s jail by changing gender.
Almost everyone could foresee that — except Sturgeon.
But anyone who thinks the SNP can escape from a long, dark night under its new leader, Humza Yousaf, is fooling themselves.
Yousaf, Sturgeon’s anointed successor, makes her look like a great achiever.
Having failed in every ministerial job he has held, presiding over everything from a bungled ferry-building contract to long hospital queues, the first thing he did as leader was to try to demote one of the few SNP politicians who really does have talent — his defeated leadership rival Kate Forbes.
Anyone with an ounce of sense can tell that when a party has imploded like the SNP in recent weeks, the first thing a new leader needs to do is try to build bridges between its different wings.
Instead, Yousaf has taken the approach of the saboteurs in Bridge Over The River Kwai — and blown the whole thing up.
The speed of the SNP’s collapse is truly astonishing.
One-party state
Just two months ago Sturgeon was trying to do battle with the Westminster government over her insistence on holding a second independence referendum in a decade — fooling herself that this time around Scots would come up with the “correct” decision.
But it isn’t just SNP poll ratings that are collapsing.
![File photo dated 23/6/16 of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with her husband Peter Murrell as they arrive to cast their votes at Broomhouse Community Hall, Glasgow. Ms Sturgeon's husband Peter has resigned as the SNP's chief executive with immediate effect. Reports had suggested members of the SNP's ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) threatened a vote of no confidence in him. Issue date: Saturday March 18, 2023. PA Photo. See PA story POLITICS SNP. Photo credit should read: Jane Barlow/PA Wire](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/POLITICS-SNP-12375192Ajpg-JS803986430-1.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
Support for independence is crumbling, too — not that there has ever been a sustained majority for it.
It would be very easy for Unionists to laugh at the SNP’s plight, but it is also terribly sad.
Twenty five years ago, Scots voted for devolution, hoping it would bring the country a new sense of confidence and purpose.
Instead, Holyrood ended up looking like the seat of a one-party state.
The SNP seemed to think it was Scotland — with its activists trying to make enemies of anyone who opposed independence.
For Rishi Sunak, the SNP implosion has brought an unexpected breakthrough.
No longer are the Tories looking like Britain’s most shambolic political party.
Yet if the SNP vote collapses at the next General Election, as seems quite likely, it could well be Keir Starmer who benefits.
That may well bring problems of its own for the entire United Kingdom.
But in the meantime we can at least be grateful that the SNP’s unhealthy domination of Scottish politics is over.
We will have proper political debate again — rather than moralising from a flawed leader facing far too little in the way of opposition.