GRAHAM GRANT: Forgive and forget? Not when the SNP's breach of trust is so egregious that it transcends the normal rules of politics

By GRAHAM GRANT, SCOTTISH HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR Published: 19:52, 13 July 2026 | Updated: 19:56, 13 July 2026 Politics depends on a kind of collective amnesia – otherwise the entire system would grind to a halt. We either forgive or forget. If we didn’t, Andy Burnham wouldn’t be heading to Downing Street. He has more baggage than a luggage carousel at Glasgow Airport but we’re encouraged not to dwell on it. Very few things in everyday life are truly unforgivable, and to some extent the same can be said for the political realm. If that weren’t the case, the Liberal Democrats would no longer exist, after they tore up a key manifesto pledge by backing tuition fees while in coalition government with the Tories. Most parties have serious form for promise-breaking but try to convince us, with varying degrees of success, that they’ve changed. For the Tories, Kemi Badenoch is showing how it’s done by slowly turning around the tanker as her approval ratings rise – though she’s helped by her opponents’ many own goals. So, we move on and give them another chance, either because there’s not much of an alternative, or they’ve won back our trust. In the case of the SNP, however, it must never be forgiven for the irreparable damage it has done to Scotland. First Minister John Swinney was very close to Nicola Sturgeon during her time in charge of the SNP Its failure goes far beyond the odd manifesto breach, which might be considered par for the course. Instead, its legacy is one of utter devastation, irretrievably shattered trust, and failure on a mind-boggling scale. And that failure is so deeply entrenched that it has altered the global perception of Scotland, for the worse, and indeed the way that we see our own country. There has been a collective loss of self-confidence and even national pride as a result of being told for more than 20 years that we can never prosper until we are free of the yoke of Whitehall rule. Insular Nationalism is corrosive – a slow-acting poison whose effects are as much psychological as material. On the latter front, it can be measured using a variety of all too familiar yardsticks from a sclerotic, bloated public sector to a vast, dysfunctional state healthcare system weighed down by gargantuan waiting lists. It is evidenced by a failing economy, a plethora of costly quangos run by placemen on eye-watering salaries, and once-thriving schools blighted by truancy and pupil violence, subject to a woke curriculum which eschews rote learning for woolly ‘values’. Most of all, it is seen in the SNP government’s inability to get almost anything right, as it presides over an unaffordable welfare state which prizes handouts over personal ambition and hard graft. From roads to ferries and nationalised rail, the litany of broken pledges is long – and underpinned by weapons-grade incompetence. The SNP and its supporters can, and frequently do, argue that much the same can be said of other parties, though that hardly amounts to a serious defence of the Nationalists’ record. Devolution was meant to be about doing things better, not just differently, but it has turned out to be both different – and infinitely worse than anticipated. Ah well, the SNP’s allies say, people keep voting for the SNP, so it must be doing something right – a statement that’s only half true. The last election victory in May was against the backdrop of voters being kept in the dark about the Murrell scandal. A scheduled preliminary hearing was delayed until after polling day because we’re told Murrell’s defence team needed more time to wade through the paperwork. That’s a claim that needs serious analysis, because you have to question whether the SNP would have won the election if this volume of dirty laundry had been aired before May 7. In any sane universe, there would be a re-run of the vote – but Scotland in 2026 is a consequence-free zone. The Lord Advocate was quietly keeping John Swinney informed about the Murrell case – she later quit and has now been appointed a judge. The Peter Murrell saga shows no sign of going away quickly The official line is there’s nothing to see here – but you’d have to be suffering from myopia worse than Nicola Sturgeon’s not to see that something has gone horribly wrong. Meanwhile, the Murrell farrago shows no sign of abating – in fact, it’s taking on a new dimension. As former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell languishes in a prison cell, while his now-estranged wife and former First Minister lets her hair down at every opportunity, attention has turned to Yes Scotland. It was the cross-party campaign group which pushed for independence during the 2014 referendum. Allegations that £1.5million is ‘missing’ from the past accounts of the organisation have now been reported to the police. A former director of Yes Scotland said Murrell ‘was not willing for us to do anything that wasn’t under his control’, while revenue from Yes Scotland merchandise provided to an SNP conference stall in 2012 went to the party. Murrell was a compulsive thief who robbed SNP coffers blind in an epic, 12-year bout of retail therapy while his wife was blissfully unaware of the fraud – and he seems to have had a vice-like grip on the body which shamelessly churned out separatist propaganda. The SNP insists it’s the victim and that there’s no need for a Holyrood inquiry, a probe which was rejected by the Nationalists and the lap-dog eco-Marxists of the Scottish Greens. This is the real reason that the SNP must never be forgiven – it has turned Scotland into an international laughing stock. We’re derided as a banana republic whose reputation has been dragged through the mire by a kleptocrat party boss and his spectacularly incurious wife – who led both the party and the country while her husband used other people’s money to ensure they both lived in luxury. At the same time, the SNP was driving Scotland to the brink of financial ruin while setting up a secret state – currently managed by a minister who has failed in every single portfolio he has ever held. Mr Swinney was Ms Sturgeon’s consigliere – an ultra-loyalist in the upper echelons of a party compared by aggrieved former supporters to a ‘criminal syndicate’. Fleeing headlong from any form of scrutiny, the First Minister would have us believe it’s all over bar the shouting. But he’s manacled to Murrell – and a Houdini-like escape is impossible while so many questions remain unresolved. Mr Swinney hopes the lengthy summer break for MSPs will erase Murrell-gate from the public memory – but it’s going nowhere. The SNP’s breach of trust is so egregious that it transcends the normal rules of politics. There can be no forgiveness – and no chance of recovery for Scotland until its nightmare reign comes to an end.