#nicola-sturgeon

#nicola-sturgeon

Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National party, has pleaded guilty to charges of embezzling 400,310.65 from the party after agreeing a deal with prosecutors. Murrell, the ex-husband of the former SNP leader and first minister Nicola Sturgeon, appeared in the high court in Edinburgh after being charged last year with stealing from the SNP to fund an expensive lifestyle including a Jaguar car, a luxury motorhome, a luxury pen and shoes.

Sturgeon announced her departure in February 2023. In April that year, Murrell was arrested, with police searching the Glasgow home the couple shared, as well as the SNP's headquarters in Edinburgh. Officers also seized a motorhome parked outside Murrell's mother's house in Fife. Murrell, the SNP's longstanding chief executive, was later charged in connection with alleged embezzlement and has not yet entered a plea.

Nicola Sturgeon expressed an obsession with living up to being Scotland’s first female first minister, fearing a particular kind of failure tied to success. She felt pressure as the sole female representative, a test case for women in leadership roles, and faced scrutiny in expressing vulnerability about personal issues like menopause and miscarriage.

Sturgeon was extremely lucky and often wrong, sometimes seriously so. There are examples of all these qualities in her newly published memoir, Frankly.