That the Scottish National Party seemed to be run as an extension of the household of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell, her husband, was never a good idea. It was wrong that the party should have been run as the personal fiefdom of the leader.
Mr Murrell made the right decision to resign but he really should have stepped down long ago. It is alarming that the party’s internal democracy should have asserted itself only now that Ms Sturgeon is on the way out. If she had not already announced her departure, would the national executive committee have threatened a vote of no confidence in her husband?
The immediate cause of his resignation, which pre-empted any vote by the NEC, was the supply of misleading information about the party’s membership numbers to Murray Foote, the head of media who resigned on Friday. Mr Foote felt he had misled journalists because he had been given incorrect information by the party HQ that concealed the decline in membership.
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