Nicola Sturgeon sat down for an interview with Laura Kuenssberg after her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, admitted embezzling £400,000 from the Scottish National Party. Scotland’s former first minister, who led the SNP from 2014 to 2023, told the BBC she feels like she is “serving a sentence for a crime I did not commit”. During the interview, Kuenssberg pressed Sturgeon on the motorhome her husband purchased, which was worth more than £100,000.
Nicola Sturgeon sat down for an interview with Laura Kuenssberg (Image: BBC)
“That motorhome was parked in your mother-in-law’s drive for a long time, and yet you say you knew nothing about it,” Kuenssberg said. When asked if she visited her mother-in-law during the time it was there, Sturgeon responded: “Less than a handful of times.” When Kuenssberg interjected that she must have walked past it, the politician retorted: “No, I didn’t. My mother-in-law’s house has a driveway where we park our car. The motorhome was round the side of the house, which is not immediately visible in the way that we went into the house.
The interview sparked a fierce debate online (Image: BBC)
“I genuinely don’t have any conscious memory of seeing that motorhome. If I saw it, I would have assumed it was a neighbours’. My mother and father-in-law were in their mid-80s. It would not have crossed my mind that it was theirs.”
She added: “Why would it have crossed my mind that it was the SNPs, that Peter had brought it?”
The interview sparked a fierce online debate, with many taking to social media to complain and accuse the 55-year-old of lying.
One wrote: “Nicola Sturgeon having her ‘Prince Andrew moment’ interview with #BBCLauraK. ‘The motorhome was up the side of my in-laws house and I’d just have assumed it was the neighbours, not that I remember seeing it, of course’. Utterly ridiculous.”
Another echoed: “‘I genuinely, genuinely don’t recall seeing a motor home at my in laws house’. Disingenuous nonsense right up there with her evidence at the Covid enquiry. Can’t believe people believe this garbage.”
A third raged: “Of course she’s a good liar – she’s a politician ffs!”
Another viewer weighed in: “Sturgeon saying she didn’t see a massive motorhome while visiting her in-laws and it wasn’t mentioned by anyone in the family. Aye ok.”
A fifth echoed: “This interview gets worse and worse. What a liar.”
Not everyone was convinced Sturgeon was being dishonest as others took to social media to defend her.
One viewer said: “Unpopular opinion and i’m not her fan but I believe her when she says she knew nothing.”
Another posted: “This #BBCLauraK interview with Nicola Sturgeon is ludicrous, she is one of the victims in all this and is being painted as the villain! Being asked ‘gotcha’ questions about why she didn’t notice a new coffee machine or expensive pens given her and Murrell’s salary.”
A third penned: “On a personal level of course I feel for Nicola Sturgeon but this interview of hers with @bbclaurak is excruciating. The motor home alone sounds bizarre. #bbcLaurak.”
