Peter Murrell’s guilty plea will be a welcome relief for the SNP members whose hard-earned money he stole. They will be furious their donations were embezzled on a series of luxury goods.
The former SNP chief executive betrayed his party and he should be jailed for his crimes. But the guilty plea also means there will no trial or cross-examination of witnesses.
Nicola Sturgeon, his estranged wife, was not charged and there is no suggestion of impropriety. But ordinary folk are understandably questioning how she did not see anything suspicious in his behaviour over 12 years.
Voters are also furious the SNP governance structures were so weak they could not stop or root out the embezzlement. Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie’s call for a Holyrood inquiry to take place into this scandal is a good one.
Such an exercise would not be a costly public inquiry hitting the taxpayer. MSPs from across the political divide would instead investigate how this outrage ever happened.
It would be time limited and focused purely on examining how such a catastrophe was allowed to occur. The SNP has run Scotland for nearly 20 years under the leadership of Sturgeon, Alex Salmond, Humza Yousaf and now John Swinney.
For most of this period, the SNP was run by a chief executive who was a cruel thief, in politics for personal gain. The public want answers and a Holyrood inquiry is the correct way to proceed.
Despite what John Swinney repeatedly argues, now is not the time for another long and drawn out debate on the constitution. Rather than spend hours at Holyrood debating a referendum the UK Government will not sanction, the new SNP government could spell out in more detail how it plans to fix the NHS or end the continuing problem of violence in schools.
At a time when trust in politics is at an all time low – and almost half the electorate didn’t bother voting earlier this month – Swinney could set out why people should trust Holyrood to deliver for them.
Because right now, public services are failing and all that the SNP wants to talk about are matters reserved to Westminster. Scots cannot put up with five years of their devolved government talking about fantasy constitutional politics.
Get on with the day job and focus on using the powers you already have, effectively.
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