Embezzlement, the Mandelson Texts, and Hasan Piker's UK Ban

**Alastair Campbell** (0:08)
Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

**Rory Stewart** (0:11)
And with me, Rory Stewart. We're going to get into the incredible scandal around the Scottish National Party and corruption.
We're going to get into the revelation of emails from Peter Mandelson, our former ambassador to Washington. We're going to get into the decision of the British government to ban two left-wing American YouTubers. We're going to talk about our travels and surveillance states emerging. And we're going to finish with the question of who is the most good person, the best person, the most moral person that we've ever shaken hands with. Looking forward to it very much. Where do you want to start, Alastair?

**Alastair Campbell** (0:44)
So, Rory, we are talking at a time that the political world is digesting a massive dump of documentation relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington.
And also at a time when Peter Morrell, former CEO of the Scottish National Party and husband of Nicholas Sturgeon, is currently in court having already been convicted of charges related to corruption. So Clem wants to know, do the two Peter Ms reveal that British politics is as scandal ridden as anywhere else? Are we becoming the next Italy? Bit of an insult to Italy there.

**Rory Stewart** (1:25)
It's a completely amazing story. Let me start with Peter Morrell. This is one of the absolute linchpins of the SNP. He was the chief executive of the Scottish National Party and was married to Nicholas Sturgeon who was First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish National Party. So this was the power couple right at the heart of SNP politics for years and years and years. It turns out that Peter Morrell had been systematically taking party funds and using it to buy stuff for their own personal consumption.
Now, the claim is that Nicholas Sturgeon knew nothing about it, and she keeps giving interviews saying she's as disgusted and shocked as anyone. But let me just try to put it to you like this.
The guy decides to buy a brand new top of the range, £85,000 Jaguar. He buys it partly with SNP money and he puts it through accounts as buying Apple products, Apple business products. Then he sells the Jaguar a few years later and he doesn't give any of the money back to the SNP. He pockets all the money when he sells it. He's buying coffee machines. He's buying £5,000 watches. He buys an enormous £110,000 motorhome and parks it in his parents' drive.
Through all of this, we are supposed to believe that Nicholas Sturgeon and Peter Morrell, who are on pretty modest salaries, I mean, she says they're well-paid. They're not that well-paid, right? These are people on public sector salaries. She looks out of her window and there's a brand new £85,000 Jaguar sitting on the driveway. She goes to visit her in-laws. There's a brand new motorhome. She comes downstairs, there's three top-of-the-range coffee machines. Her husband's spouting a new £5,000 watch and she thinks what exactly?

**Alastair Campbell** (3:22)
I don't know. I don't know what she thinks. I was trying to think what I would think if Fiona suddenly pitched up outside with a brand new motorhome. It was actually £124,000, Rory.
You're selling it short, this motorhome. I think I would think. You see, let's be honest, Rory, you're with Shoshana, I'm with Fiona, Peter Morrell was with Nicola. None of us know what really goes on inside the dynamics of another marriage. We can see them or we can know people.
I don't know what she thought. What she's depending on at the moment is the fact that, and she was humiliated, they were both humiliated by the fact that the police went in there, they put up those tents, it looked like a murder scene, not a fraud investigation. What she's hanging on is the fact that she was cleared. She was cleared by the police. The police investigated her as well as him. They've obviously decided that he committed a crime and that she didn't.
I guess what we're being asked to believe is that she either paid no attention to the things that he was buying or I wonder whether she realized that he had a bit of a purchasing weird things issue. But this is something I don't understand because I don't even have a watch. I would no more buy a motor home than fly to the moon.

**Rory Stewart** (4:49)
My guess on this is that it's about the way, and this is really powerful for understanding political malfeasance and how corruption happens and how embezzlement happens. This is embezzlement. He's basically taking funds which people have given for the SNP. He's buying a motor home and he later tries to claim the motor home was for the SNP. But the day after he buys it, he's buying a tour guide for motoring around Britain.