Spare a thought for the poor souls who have to fundraise for the SNP. Long gone are the glory days when celebrity tax exiles, lottery winners and some of Scotland’s wealthiest individuals threw money at the Scottish National Party. Big-money donors have fled in droves. In fact, over the past five years, the SNP has received just one donation worth more than £50,000 from someone who is alive.
Yes, you read that last part right. Today’s SNP is largely kept going by bequests from the deceased. If you have an elderly parent and someone from the SNP calls them, get power of attorney and pronto.
In fact, donations from the dead represent 91 per cent of the £2million donated to the SNP over the past five years. The only substantial recent donations from people who might actually get to live in an independent Scotland were from Colin and Christine Weir, who scooped £160million in the Euromillions lottery in 2011. The Weirs started giving to the SNP that very year, but they soon became disillusioned. In 2018, they demanded £1million of their donations back.