Is this Scottish politics' 'lock her up' moment?

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Two formidable female politicians putting the world to rights, basking in the appreciation of all around.

Now though there are some who believe she could be about to face a similar public battle to Clinton's in the 2016 US election, when she was consistently met with chants from MAGA supporters of "lock her up".

They were incensed by the use of a private email address for government businesses when she was Secretary of State but mostly by the fact an FBI investigation concluded Clinton had been "extremely careless" but there were no criminal charges.

Nicola Sturgeon is not standing for office of course, but there is a belief held by some that she has in some way escaped justice, while her estranged husband Peter Murrell, is in fact locked up.

Murrell - one-time chief executive of the SNP, the party she led - is in jail, awaiting sentencing after admitting embezzling more than £400,000 from party funds over a 12 year period.

Nicola Sturgeon was part of the police investigation that landed him there. She was arrested, but never charged. And that investigation is now over.

And yet the question on most people's lips is - how did she not know?

How did she not notice his randomly ludicrous, expensive shopping sprees? How could she not ask about the luxury motorhome which appeared outside his mother's home?

And why, when others in the SNP were raising concerns about the finances - not necessarily in the knowledge that mass embezzlement was happening, but knowing that something was amiss - did she shut down the questions?

These are all perfectly legitimate, and indeed apolitical questions. They're the kind of questions always asked when families, businesses, organisations of any kind appear to have overlooked a master criminal in their midst. Even if, even now, it's hard to see Murrell in that guise.

Nicola Sturgeon is emphatic. She says she did not know. Opposition MSPs in Holyrood - many people in the wider public - do not believe her.

There are now demands for a Holyrood inquiry, indeed even suggestions one might be held by a Westminster committee given concerns that taxpayers money may be entangled in the mess.

The Scottish Tories have gone one step further. They want the Lord Advocate to publish the Crown Office's reasons for not charging her.

Like the MAGA crowd they think there's been one rule for her, one for her husband.

They are not going to get their way. The prosecution service never reveals details about why they choose not to prosecute, for fairly obvious reasons of fair justice.

But Labour and the Tories - and indeed those who quit the SNP over this whole affair - are not going to let it lie.

They would perhaps like Nicola Sturgeon's head on a silver platter (not bought from Hamilton & Inches on the SNP credit card), but at the very least they want her on oath in front of a committee, explaining her actions.

She has said that she is distressed by Murrell's behaviour, but consistently rejects any suggestion that she knew what was going on.

She points to the fact they had separate bank accounts for one, and that they were both on big salaries and able to afford life's luxuries. Why would anyone need to steal?

And it is plausible that as First Minister she spent little time at home, little time with Murrell, to notice the comings and goings of delivery men. We already knew she didn't cook, so would new Le Creuset pots and pans, or even coffee machines, even be noticed?

It is even - at a stretch - plausible that his explanation that the motorhome would be a campaign vehicle for the 2021 Covid election campaign was accepted at face value. Why it was never used and yet still sat there two years later perhaps less so.

It is also believable that if the person who you love and trust tells you that there's just an "awkward squad" in the party trying to make trouble for you, and there's nothing wrong with the finances (look the auditors have signed them all off!) that you would take it at face value.

Nicola Sturgeon's problem though with any of that being credible is that she built a reputation on knowing the detail, of micro-managing, of working harder than everyone else to get where she wanted to be. Her book, Frankly, tells us that.

She is also known to be incredibly tribal, and not averse to throwing people under a bus to shore up her own position. Her ruling with an iron rod was well known. She was not a person who would take a lesson from anyone.

Those who resigned from the party have first-hand experience of what happens when you are declared to be against her. But it was also clear in her book too.

She still has many supporters in independence circles, those who have gone out to bat for her this week. They believe she is being made to answer for her husband's crimes, and believe in her reasoning impllicitly. Yet they would all roll in behind her every word if it was she leading the demands for inquiries and explanations should all this be happening in another party.

Of course none of that micro-managing, tribalism or authoritariansim, necessarily leads to knowingly, covering up crime, or aiding and abetting theft, in any shape. Some people may want her locked up, but as with Clinton that is not going to happen.

Nicola Sturgeon has said that this has "probably been the worst week" of her life. An inquiry, should there be one, will likely put that claim in the shade.

Gina Davidson is LBC's Scotland Political Editor.

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