First minister Humza Yousaf ‘didn’t know about SNP motorhome until he became party leader’
First minister Humza Yousaf has said he was unaware the SNP owned a £100,000 motorhome until he became the party leader in recent weeks.
The state-of-the-art vehicle was seized last week by detectives outside the home of an elderly relative of the party’s former chief executive, Peter Murrell, while the 58-year-old was in police custody facing questions over the SNP’s finances and funding.
Mr Murrell was released without charge pending further investigations after an 11-hour detention.
Mr Yousaf said: “Of course I have been briefed. The police, of course, give us a warrant of the items they are looking to take in their possession.”
Probed on when he became aware of the motorhome being an SNP asset, the first minister said: “Shorty after I became the leader of the party.”
As questions continue to mount over the party’s finances, there is a race against the clock to find replacement auditors for the SNP’s financial accounts after its previous firm, Johnston Carmichael, quit last September.
The information only became public in recent days.
Police Scotland officers at Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell’s home in Glasgow
Officers also raided the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh
Political parties are legally obliged to submit independently audited accounts to the Electoral Commission by July.
Mr Yousaf said: “We are going to try to [meet the deadline] but it’s going to be difficult. It is going to be a challenge, but we are going to do our best to meet that deadline.”
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Nicola Sturgeon with husband Peter Murrell
Asked whether it was wrong of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon not to reveal to SNP leadership candidates the lack of auditors, Mr Yousaf responded: “Frankly it would have been helpful to know beforehand.
“I think people have a reasonable question to ask the party around transparency. I have committed to a review of governance with external input.”
The SNP leader also revealed he did not know the full costs of mounting a legal challenge against the UK government on controversial gender reforms.
A demonstration for trans rights outside the UK government office in Edinburgh
On Wednesday, his administration announced it was triggering a court battle after Downing Street blocked Holyrood’s legislation, which makes it easier for children as young as 16 to legally change their gender.
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The Scottish and UK governments are battling over a gender reform bill
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claims the new Scottish laws infringe on UK-wide equality laws and his Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack, has therefore blocked the reforms from gaining Royal Assent.
Speaking for the first time since the legal standoff began, Mr Yousaf said: “We don’t know the full costs of the court case.”
Katy Perry has blasted off to space along with five other women in the first all-female space crew in over sixty years.
The Firework singer lifted off from West Texas on a Blue Origin rocket before becoming the first artist to sing in space.
Flying alongside Perry were author Lauren Sanchez, the fiancee of Blue Origin owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, journalist and TV presenter Gayle King, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, former rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn.
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What happened in Blue Origin all-female space flight
The star-studded crew were supported on the ground by family and friends including Kris Jenner, Khloe Kardashian and Oprah Winfrey, who said she had “never been more proud” of her friend, King.
“There’s only one time all the women are going up for the first time,” Oprah said she told her friend when urging her to go on the flight, telling her she’d regret turning down the opportunity.
(Seated left to right) Lauren Sanchez and Kerianne Flynn, (standing left to right) Amanda Nguyen, Katy Perry, Gayle King and Aisha Bowe. Pic: Blue Origin
Katy Perry rings a symbolic bell before boarding the New Shepard rocket. Pic: Blue Origin
Weightlessness
The crew were weightless for just four minutes after passing the Karman line, a 62-mile-high boundary that is internationally recognised as the boundary of space.
Pic: Blue Origin
They could be heard screaming as they began to feel weightless, and told each other to look at the incredible views of the moon.
As the crew were leaving space, Perry started to sing What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong.
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‘I feel super-connected to love’
Asked why she chose that song, she said: “It’s not about me or about me singing my songs, it was about a collective energy in there.
“It’s about this wonderful world that we see right out there and appreciating it.”
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Kardashians share support for all-female crew
She confirmed she will be writing a song about the experience.
Katy Perry kisses the ground after the flight. Pic: Blue Origin
The descent
Three parachutes on their capsule opened up to bring them safely back down to Earth and just before they landed, an air cushion blew a cloud of dust up in the west Texas desert, giving a dramatic-looking touchdown.
Pic: Blue Origin
Pic: Blue Origin
“Excited as I am, I’ll be very glad when we come back down,” said self-confessed nervous flier King before liftoff.
When she exited the shuttle, the presenter kissed the floor and said: “Thank you, Jesus”.
She said it was “oddly quiet” in space, and it reminded her that people needed to “do better and be better” on Earth.
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“It was the most incredible experience of my life to be up there and see such vast darkness in space and look down on our planet,” said Flynn, through tears.
“The moon was so beautiful and I feel like that was a special gift just for me,” she said.
Donald Trump has suggested “homegrown criminals” in the US could be deported to jails in El Salvador – saying the US attorney general is “studying the laws right now”.
He made the comment while speaking alongside the Central American nation’s president, Nayib Bukele, in the White House.
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador, since March.
When asked about the deportations – which were briefly blocked by a US court last month – Mr Trump said: “I’d like to go a step further.
“We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, hit elderly ladies on the back of the head when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters.
“I’d like to include them in people to get out of the country.”
Pic: Reuters
When pressed on the matter by a reporter, he replied: “They’re as bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones too. I’m all for it.”
US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was present at the meeting, is “studying the laws right now”, the US president added.
“If we can do that, that’s good,” he said. “I’m talking about violent people, really bad people.
“We can do things with the president [of El Salvador] for less money and have great security. He does a great job with that. We have other we’re negotiating with too.”
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The Trump administration has been deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members to the El Salvador jail since mid-March, when the US president signed the Alien Enemies Act.
The law from 1798 has been invoked just three times before, in wartime. It allows the president to detain and deport immigrants living in the US legally if they are from countries seen as “enemies” of the government.
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Lawyers and immigrant rights groups have been unable to contact the men sent to the 40,000 capacity CECOT prison – the largest detention facility in Latin America.
A judge issued a temporary block on the deportations on 17 March, but this was lifted by the Supreme Court last week.
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