For years Peter Murrell was one half of the husband and wife team that took the SNP to success in election after election.
He served as chief executive of the party for more than two decades, holding the post from 1999 until he stepped down in 2023.
His wife, Nicola Sturgeon, meanwhile rose to become its leader, and in 2014 was appointed Scotland’s first ever female first minister.
The couple met through their work with the SNP in the late 1980s, and were first announced to be in a relationship in early 2003.
They married in 2010 in Glasgow, while Ms Sturgeon was deputy leader of the party and serving as the Scottish Government’s health secretary.
Prior to taking on the chief executive’s job in 1999 – the year of the first ever Holyrood elections – Murrell had worked in the constituency office of Alex Salmond, the then leader of the SNP.
The former top official was regarded by many as having played a key role in transforming the party’s fortunes, helping to modernise SNP operations.
The party has become the dominant force in Scottish politics, seizing power at Holyrood in 2007 and winning every election since then.
While membership has fallen from the peak of about 125,000 achieved in 2018, it remains the largest political party north of the border.
However after over eight years in the top job, Ms Sturgeon, who was at the time Scotland’s longest serving first minister, announced in February 2023 she was stepping down from the post and as SNP leader.
Murrell then quit as party chief executive the following month during the contest to replace her.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article