From millsjames1949 today:
Just a thought , but perhaps some of the many , many hours devoted to the SNP Financegate investigation could have been better spent on serious criminal activity.
Just so.
As of February 2024, Police Scotland had spent over an estimated £1.3 million on the investigation into SNP finances, according to a Freedom of Information release.1
Police Scotland serves a population of 5.4 million.
The Met in London serves 9 million and has just invested £9 million to tackle the plague of County Lines drug gangs.2
So, pro rata, Police Scotland might need to spend around £5 million to tackle County Lines gangs, often from London, bringing cheap, stronger drugs to small town Scotland, causing a surge in violence and drug deaths, people trafficking, child abuse and extreme violence.
Sadly, however, they’ve already spent a third of that investigating an internal transfer of £0.6 million from one SNP budget head to another because Sean Clerkin put a complaint in.
Seems a shame doesn’t it?
To vire?
Verb: To shift funds from one budget to another3
Source:
- https://www.thenational.scot/news/24138444.operation-branchform-current-cost-probe-snp-finances-revealed/
- https://www.police-life.co.uk/story/2023/01/17/fresh-investment-by-mayor-to-tackle-violent-drug-gangs-and-safeguard-young-londoners-vulnerable-to-exploitation
- https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/277/Vire#:~:text=Verb%3A%20To%20shift%20funds%20from%20one%20budget%20to%20another
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
I guess the money spent on the SNP Police investigation is money, that for some, is considered to be money well spent.
As long as this investigation is ongoing with no final conclusion then opposition parties will try to gain a political advantage in what they hope the public will be assuming , as in that they too , as a public, will start to say #SNPBAD as well.
The opposition demand investigations be made by the Police into the SNP on this financial matter on members money then they, the opposition, complain about the cost of the Police investigation to infer that too is down to the SNP being to blame.
How much has the PPE Michelle Mone (Baroness) Police investigation cost and is she the only one being investigated in this via the Tory party ?
(Also this, as an investigation, is still ongoing and not been finalised).
I do wonder if others within the Tory party who were noted as also being involved in this, and who now no longer are MP’s or government ministers, whether they too should be held responsible and accountable for their part in this PPE VIP fast track awarding of contracts to friends, family members and Tory party politicians (like this one to a company recommended by the Baroness Mone).
Plus how come she, Mone, is still a Baroness ?
Perhaps the new Tory leader at Holyrood could establish all of this as he has promised “Change” under his leadership. So exploring this would be a change or rather ‘make’ a change in a Tory in Scotland ever questioning or challenging other Tories based elsewhere, like for example at WM ( in either chamber).
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