How Peter Murrell has become the SNP's disgraced Atlas

Instead, John Swinney walked into the chamber carrying the political weight of a scandal that has now moved from police investigation to criminality.

The First Minister’s central argument was simple: the police investigated for five years, found criminality, a guilty plea was secured and the matter has therefore been dealt with.

"The person responsible is Peter Murrell and Peter Murrell alone", the First Minister told journalists.

Awfully convenient for the party in power to cast Peter Murrell as its disgraced Atlas - the one man carrying the full weight of the scandal on his shoulders. He, and he alone, is expected to bear responsibility for an era defined by secrecy, unanswered questions and collapsing trust.

READ MORE:

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• Sturgeon and her allies 'shut down questions on finances'
• The mood among SNP MSPs the day after Murrell conviction
• Swinney rejects call for probe into Murrell scandal
• John Swinney 'sorry' following Peter Murrell's embezzlement

“We have just had a police investigation which has gone on for five years and that police investigation has identified criminality as the source of this particular issue,” he told MSPs in the chamber.

Later, Mr Swinney doubled down on that line to journalists.

There had been “an extremely complex set of arrangements put in place to avoid scrutiny which involved false accounting and other practices”, he said.

He repeatedly stressed the “forensic length and detail” of Operation Branchform.

But there is a growing problem for the SNP leadership: that is not actually the question many people are asking anymore.

The criminality is now established. Peter Murrell pled guilty. The courts will deal with sentencing.

The political question is different. It is about culture.

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Why were concerns repeatedly dismissed? Why were people inside the SNP who asked questions about party finances shut down? Why did senior figures appear incurious about ringfenced independence donations that later became central to a police investigation?

That was the substance of Anas Sarwar’s attack at FMQ's when he accused the SNP of creating a culture where “secrecy became normal, dissent dangerous and people learned that speaking out carried a heavy price”.

Sottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay accused the First Minister of “trying to shut down scrutiny” on the issues surrounding Murrell and the SNP.

The Tory condemned the “usual desperate deflection from John Swinney”, telling MSPs: “He’s trying to shut down scrutiny and we won’t stand for it.”

Opposition calls for a Holyrood inquiry are unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

Mr Swinney insists the police inquiry answered everything. But police investigations are designed to establish criminal liability, not political accountability.

A parliamentary inquiry would inevitably ask broader and more uncomfortable questions about governance, transparency and decision-making inside the party machine during the Sturgeon era.

When I asked the First Minister if he was worried about the current governance in his party, he said he was “absolutely satisfied”. Many critics would beg to differ.

After FMQs, I put directly to the First Minister’s team whether there remained unresolved questions around culture, secrecy and internal cover-ups beyond the criminal case itself.

A spokesperson replied: “I would simply reflect what the FM’s points in the chamber.

"I can’t really go beyond that.”

That reluctance to engage with the wider political questions may become increasingly difficult to sustain.

Mr Swinney insists the system ultimately worked.

He said “the severity of the issue” had been recognised by the justice system and process.

“We’ve just had a police investigation which is the most transparent you can get on the planet,” he added.

He also argued scrutiny had been strengthened around “internal controls” and “the type of things that are necessary to have good and effective governance in place”.

On the question of public money, Mr Swinney was adamant both in the chamber and afterwards that public funds had not been misappropriated. The Electoral Commission has also said it found “no evidence of misuse” of policy development grant funding by the SNP.

Still, the broader political discomfort for the SNP remains obvious.

For years, concerns about finances and transparency surfaced internally. Resignations followed. Questions were raised. Critics were marginalised.

Now, after a guilty plea, opposition parties sense vulnerability.

Even Malcolm Offord’s debut at FMQs, where the new Reform UK Scotland leader attempted to pivot towards North Sea oil and gas, could not escape Murrell’s gravitational pull as the disgraced Titan to the SNP.

Raising the issue of a Mr Swinney's apparent lack of a new plan on independence, he said: "Is this now the time for the First Minister to reveal his cunning plan, or has Peter Murrell stolen that as well?"

This was a reminder that for the SNP, Murrell is no longer simply a disgraced former chief executive facing justice, but a political shadow hanging over everything the party now tries to say about its future.