When SNP supporters who’d donated to a fund for a second independence referendum campaign began asking questions about where all the money was, their then-leader Nicola Sturgeon was not happy.

Members of the party’s National Executive Committee – meeting virtually in March 2021 – were told that, contrary to damaging gossip, the party’s finances had never been stronger.

The woman who once dreamed of leading Scotland to independence and, in doing so, taking her place among the giants of political history is now a national laughing stock

Sturgeon, a politician who prefers to engage from the moral high-ground, left colleagues in no doubt that, as far as she was concerned, there was nothing further to discuss. Everything was fine and anyone who suggested otherwise risked damaging the party’s relationship with donors. Footage of Sturgeon’s stony remonstration was soon leaked and it remains online to haunt her.

And haunt her it does, for even as the then-leader of the SNP was briskly insisting there was nothing to worry about, her now-estranged husband was absolutely rinsing the party’s bank accounts.

On Monday morning, Peter Murrell – chief executive of the SNP between 2001 to 2023 – pleaded guilty to embezzling £400,310.65 between 12 August 2010 and 19 October 2022.

Money donated by SNP members and other supporters of independence to fund another referendum campaign was siphoned off by Murrell who splashed out on a series of luxury items, from a top-of-the-range motorhome to a two-and-a-half-grand cruet set by Lalique.

Reading through the list of things Murrell bought during his 12-year spree, the pathos becomes almost unbearable: the designer pens, the luxury suitcases, the hand-made shoes. Markers of the sophisticate bought by a man nicknamed for his resemblance to Penfold, the sidekick of cartoon superhero Danger Mouse.

Sturgeon, who was interviewed and released without charge during the lengthy investigation into irregularities in the SNP’s finances – designated Operation Branchform by police – has been estranged from Murrell for some time. During the promotional tour last year for her risible memoir, Frankly (an unflinching account of the many and varied ways in which she is correct and everybody else is not only wrong but malign), Sturgeon spoke of how she and the man she married in 2010 had been living apart together for some time. There was still love and there always would be, and all that Gwyneth Paltrow/Chris Martin-style blather but now it was time for a new chapter.

Shortly after Murrell admitted his guilt, Sturgeon posted an emotional response on social media. Her reaction, she stated, was difficult to put into words. But she had a crack, anyway.

‘I am angry, hurt, sad and very distressed about the impact of his actions on family, friends and the SNP’, wrote Sturgeon.

‘To be deceived and let down by a husband I loved and trusted has caused me acute pain. Why he acted as he did is, and always will be, beyond my comprehension.’

The ex-FM, whose former seat of Glasgow Southside was taken by the Scottish Greens on May 7, had ‘no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever that he was using SNP funds for personal purposes.’

And, in case anyone was in any doubt about who was the real victim of this crime, she added: ‘That I was fully cleared after a thorough investigation underlines that these are not my crimes. I was misled, just as others were.’

But the days when Nicola Sturgeon reigned as Scotland’s adored selfie-queen are over. There was no wave of sympathy to carry her through. Rather, the reaction to her statement was brutal.

There was a time when the former leader of the SNP would have searched her name on social media and been presented with paeans to her political brilliance. On Monday, she’d have found a potent mix of fury and derision.

How, people wanted to know, could she not have realised something was wrong? Why, when tens of thousands of pounds worth of luxury goods kept turning up at their home, did she not ask where it was all coming from and why? Didn’t Nicola Sturgeon think it slight peculiar that her bald husband has bought two expensive Dyson hairdryers within the period of a few months? What was he drying? And why?

Shorty after her emotionally-charged post on Instagram was torn apart by all but a few remaining hangers-on, Sturgeon issued a further statement through the solicitor Aamer Anwar (the Glasgow iteration of the ‘oh, you’ve hired him’ lawyer, common to every city) in which she reiterated she had ‘no knowledge or suspicion whatsoever that personal items had been purchased using SNP funds.’

If she thought that would close matters down, she was very much mistaken.

The woman who once dreamed of leading Scotland to independence and, in doing so, taking her place among the giants of political history is now a national laughing stock, mocked up on the front page of the Daily Record as Manuel from Fawlty Towers next to the headline: ‘I know nothing.’

The questions aren’t going away.

The people who donated to the SNP’s fundraising drive weren’t the mega-rich, they were ordinary people giving fivers here, tenners there in the belief they were funding a longed-for second referendum.

In the face of that extraordinary breach of trust, Sturgeon’s unfiltered expression of self-pity is not being received as she might have hoped. Nor does her lawyer’s statement close questions down.

Nicola Sturgeon sold herself as a politician of uncommon integrity but that’s all over now. Her political career has ended not only in failure but profound shame.