Steerpike

There’s more trouble in Scotland’s nationalist paradise. A storm is brewing amongst members of the SNP’s innermost ruling group as it is revealed that party secrets have been kept from its very own National Executive Committee. The resignation of the party's auditors, details on finances and the exodus of party members all came as much as a surprise to the party’s ruling group as they had to the rest of the nation.  But it doesn't stop there. Fresh allegations have sprung from a source deep within the party: an NEC whistleblower described how a group of senior figures including ‘power couple’ Sturgeon and Murrell demanded that the NEC be ‘disbanded’ in order to launch an inquiry meant to save the party from electoral disaster.

Is Humza Yousaf set to repeat his predecessor’s mistakes? He’s certainly not doing much to avert fears: today, his government has confirmed that it will be launching a legal challenge against the UK government's section 35 order that blocked the bill. Shirley-Anne Somerville, the Cabinet secretary for social justice, wrote in response to a parliamentary question: The use of section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to stop the legislation proceeding to Royal Assent is an unprecedented challenge to the Scottish parliament’s ability to legislate on clearly devolved matters. To uphold the democratic decision of the parliament, and ensure proper protection of devolution, Scottish Ministers will now lodge a petition for judicial review of the Secretary of State’s decision.

Another tough week for the Scottish National party has come to a close, leaving viewers wondering what could possibly come next. Surely the nats will do all they can to toe the line to ensure the party's reputation doesn’t diminish still further? But contradictions and hypocrisy remain in full swing at SNP HQ, with First Minister Humza Yousaf today confirming that Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the party arrested last week over a police investigation into party finances has not been suspended from the party.  Yousaf’s admission has ruffled a rather large number of feathers – not least among one of his own colleagues, the nationalist MSP Michelle Thomson.

It's less than a month to go until the Coronation and already the media are going mad for anything royal-related. A great hullabaloo has been raised over everything from the role of non-Anglican faiths in the Order of Service to the shortened route that the King's procession will be taking, compared to the much longer journey in 1953. And so, in a bid to join in this passion for pageantry, Mr S thought he would make his own inquiries as to whether Lindsay Hoyle would be doing his own bit for proceedings by using the official Speaker’s State Coach. This seventeenth century carriage has been used for every coronation since 1831 and was last wheeled out for the King's wedding to Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1981.

Oh dear. It seems that there's something of a briefing war in the Sunday papers over who is to blame for Labour's misfiring attack advert. On Thursday evening the party released a hard-hitting graphic which read: ‘Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t’ alongside a smiling photo of the Prime Minister. A series of figures on the Labour left queued up to condemn it, joining a chorus of protest from centrist commentators. So it's no surprise that the shadow cabinet are now all pointing the finger of blame at each other, as the party debates whether to double down on the strategy.

Day three of the row over Labour's backfiring 'law and order' advert. The Keirleaders in party HQ have clearly decided that attack is the best form of attack and have been busy creating another graphic, switching their focus from 'dangerous child abusers' to 'dangerous gunmen.' Labour's latest post cites figures which show that since 2010 some 937 adults have been convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to harm but have served no prison time. It prompted Tom Watson, Jeremy Corbyn's onetime deputy, to take an ill-advised pop at the Tory party deputy chairman, writing on Twitter that 'I'd love to know what @LeeAndersonMP_ thinks of 937 criminals holding firearms with intent to harm not getting banged up. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

The SNP’s week goes from bad to worse. The party’s long-term auditing firm has resigned, according to reports today. Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for over a decade, said that the decision followed a review of its client portfolio. The firm is understood to have resigned before the arrest of Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell on Wednesday, according to the BBC. The SNP must now present their accounts to the Electoral Commission by early July or else face possible sanctions under political funding laws. The nationalists are currently looking for a replacement firm as political parties with an income or expenditure of more than £250,000 are required by law to independently audit their accounts and include this in their submission.

For all his praising of Nicola Sturgeon’s governance and Peter Murrell as an ‘election winner’, it now looks as though continuity candidate Humza Yousaf is cutting ties with the SNP establishment. Questioned on the raid of his predecessor’s house and the party’s Edinburgh headquarters, Yousaf has, for the first time, dared to criticise his former boss. Speaking to journalists at his official residence Bute House today, Yousaf commented that he was ‘very, very clear that the governance of the party was not as it should be’ and that ‘a review of transparency…is clearly needed’.

Slowly but surely striking public sector workers have agreed to sit down at the negotiating table with the government and hammer out pay deals for themselves. But there is one sector that might prove more of a headache than others for Rishi Sunak to deal with: teachers. In September, the National Education Union (NEU) will have a new leader. New term, new start and all that. But it seems that this general secretary-to-be, Daniel Kebede, has some pretty strong thoughts on the state of British schools. So far this year, the NEU has shut down schools with four days of teacher strikes, and has announced five more to come before the summer is out. As with most of the other unions organising strikes the union has insisted its main reason for striking has been over pay.

Kate Forbes may have lost the battle but will she win the war? Forbes narrowly missed out in the SNP leadership race last month but she has handled her defeat much more gracefully than Humza Yousaf has greeted victory. While the Farce Minister has purged anyone of any talent from his cabinet, Forbes has done the sensible thing: left office without a public fuss while her allies brief the press on her behalf. Following reports that a 15-strong SNP caucus is being set up to keep the Forbes flame alive, the lady herself is flexing her Highland muscles. She has today been announced as the new weekly columnist for the National, the Paisley Pravda which self-identifies as a newspaper.  So why not the Herald or Scotsman?