Sunday's opinion pages were filled with continuing claims of in-fighting with the nationalist movement - highlighted by a fraud probe.

Sunday Mail

Its leader concentrates on revelations that the police are investigating SNP fraud claims.

Detectives are looking into claims £600,000 raised by activists for a second independence referendum was diverted from SNP accounts.

Three members of the party's Finance and Audit Committee are said to have resigned two weeks ago after the First Minister's husband and party chief executive Peter Murrell refused to show them accounts.

Whle the party insists it is nothing more than a dirty trick, the paper said the problem for Nicola Sturgeon is that at the heart of the scandal lies "in-fighting and division".

"There is, at this point, nothing to suggest anything illegal has happened," it said.

"But clearly something has gone wrong given the resignation of senior officials.

"Meanwhile, the Alba Party's Alex Salmond has been busy unveiling The Proclaimers as his most recent high-profile supporters.

"Whether you like or loathe the former FM, it would be a mistake to underestimate his skill as a campaigner and political tactician.

"There must be some at the SNP quietly wondering what they could have been achieving right now working together."

The Herald:

Sunday Times

Alex Massie said that it is "nonsense" to say that the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentary election might lead to a referendum on Nicola Sturgeon's preferred timetable.

It was in the nationalists' and Scottish Conservatives' interests to pretend that that is the case.

He wrote that it was the same Tory campaign people saw in 2016 and 2017 and 2019.

"Vote for the Conservative and Unionist Party as though your life, which is to say, the Union, depended upon it," he said.

"Against all evidence to the contrary, the first minister insists an SNP majority would magically shame the prime minister into conceding a referendum he does not want and might lose," he wrote. "Meanwhile, the Tories scurry around arguing that the SNP is right about this: an SNP majority means a referendum.

"Both parties know this is a nonsense.

"Neither believes an SNP majority would deliver a referendum but each has to pretend it would to encourage their core vote. As such, the SNP and the Tories collaborate with one another, the better to hoodwink the electorate."

Mail on Sunday

Ruth Davidson indicated that the launch of the Alba Party under Alex Salmond has helped to expose how SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon's claim that she leads 'the most united of all the parties' is mere hot air.

The Scottish Conservatives' Scottish Parliament leader said: "The SNP clearly has no idea how to deal with being outflanked on independence by Salmond and the party's messaging careers from talking tough, to insult to light dismissal and back again.

"But one thing all pro-Union voters should take heart from is that with this rabble fighting like ferrets in a sack, they are beatable. A nationalist majority is hanging by a thread. Time to go to work."