EDINBURGH — Cynthia Guthrie did not wait for the First Minister to finish speaking before she made her own view clear. “That’s how they’ve got into the mess in the first place,” she said. Her words landed hard.
They came after John Swinney, for the second time in as many days, refused to apologise to her and fellow whistleblower Allison Graham. The two women say they were bullied by senior SNP figures — including former leader Nicola Sturgeon — when they tried to ask questions about the party’s accounts while serving on its internal financial watchdog.
Swinney’s stance is blunt. He will not say sorry. He will not admit anyone was bullied.
He will not order a full inquiry. That refusal has become the story itself.
It has earned him the label “king of the SNP cover-up.” The label sticks because it describes a pattern, not a single moment. Guthrie said Swinney’s denial shows “that they have learned nothing and they have not changed.” She pointed at the people around him. “This hubris and this denial he is going through,” she said.
“He’s giving journalists a terrible time, they’re shouting down like clapping seals. Scotland deserves so much better than this.” The timing matters. This row comes just days after Peter Murrell, the former SNP chief executive and Sturgeon’s husband, was jailed for five years and three months for embezzling more than £400,000 from the party.
That conviction blew a hole in the party’s reputation. Swinney’s response to the bullying claims suggests he is trying to patch it with denial rather than truth.
Guthrie has supported calls for a KC-led inquiry within the SNP. She wants an independent process. She wants answers.
She said her frustration runs deep. “I believe in an independent Scotland and want an independent Scotland and this isn’t good enough,” she said.
Then she turned to Swinney directly: “John has to step up to the plate, grow some and start leading the country. It’s unsustainable.” For the families watching this unfold, and for the ordinary SNP members who voted for a party that promised transparency, this is not a side issue. It is the central question.
Can the party govern itself before it tries to govern a country? Swinney has resisted every call for a full investigation. He has declined to apologise.
He has rejected the claim that anyone was bullied by Sturgeon or other senior figures. Each refusal tightens the knot.
Each denial pushes the party further from the values it claims to stand for. Guthrie’s words carry weight because she has been inside the machine. She saw how it worked.
She knows who was promoted and who was silenced. She said the party has “learned nothing” and “not changed.” That is a damning verdict from someone who still wants independence and still believes in the cause.
She is not an enemy of the SNP. She is a critic who stayed loyal long enough to be disappointed. The question now is whether Swinney will shift.
He has not so far. He has held the line. But the line is holding him in place while the ground around him shifts.
Murrell is in prison. The money is gone.
The trust is draining. And the First Minister will not say sorry.
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