People collect books they will never read, records they will never play, or gardening tools they may rarely use. The acquisition itself can be enjoyable. There is anticipation, research, comparison, choice. The purchase becomes a hobby. Then there is the arranging of acquired objects that might bring a sense of order into someone’s world. And there is the hoarder who might see themselves as someone who rescues things people throw away as if they are trying to save their very selves, and then there is Peter Murrell.
I have spent some of the weekend poring over the Murrell Collection – the list of objects the former chief executive of the SNP purchased with funds embezzled from the party. My fantasy is that this is not a shopping list of someone seeking pleasure but more like an inventory of a lost soul attempting to construct a self.
There are the obvious luxury purchases: the Jaguar, the motorhome, the watches, the fountain pens, the Smythson leather goods. But what strikes me is not extravagance so much as repetition. One Montblanc pen is followed by another and another. One coffee machine becomes several coffee machines. There are multiple Dyson vacuums, multiple umbrellas, multiple pen cases, many travel wallets, and how many top-end knife sets can one family need? The pattern is not "I have acquired the thing I wanted". The pattern is "perhaps the next one will do it". Do what exactly?
Most of us have experienced the brief lift that accompanies a purchase. Anticipation activates the brain's reward system. The wanting is often more exciting than the having and the thrill, the dopamine surge happens at the point of sale and then fades again. We often imagine that obtaining an object will bring lasting satisfaction, but once the object is ours, it rapidly becomes part of the furniture of our lives. The emotional uplift fades and another desire emerges. This may be why the list feels melancholy to me.
If luxury goods really delivered fulfilment, one fountain pen would be enough. One beautifully made watch would be enough. Instead, what we have here seems to be accumulation. It is as though each object arrives carrying a promise it cannot keep.
Luxury brands occupy a peculiar place in the psyche. They are rarely purchased solely for their practical function. A £400 Montblanc pen writes but a £1 biro writes too. The difference lies in the meaning we bestow on these objects. We are led to believe that luxury ones tell stories about ourselves. The brand owners want to imply that their clients are always successful, discerning, cultured, important, sophisticated. They are sold as external symbols of an identity we wish to inhabit. And, surprisingly, we can buy into this.
If I feel uncertain about my worth, perhaps the watch can lend me some status. If I feel ordinary, perhaps the luxury car can make me feel exceptional. If I feel invisible, perhaps the visible symbols of success will make me feel more substantial. And, speaking from experience, I can say that when you are married to someone successful in the public eye, it is possible to feel occasionally eclipsed, and maybe – this is guesswork – Peter Murrell felt overshadowed by his more visible wife, Nicola Sturgeon, and wanted to compensate.
What I am pretty sure about is that the sheer repetitiveness of the purchases suggests something beyond enjoyment
Perhaps Smythson desk sets, Le Creuset cookware and Montblanc pens do work for a while, but the trouble is an identity built through possessions has a weakness. The reassurance comes from outside. These things may look good, but they don’t feel as good as, say, acquiring a skill does, or feeling loved. An identity built on external markers rather than internal fulfilment needs a lot of topping up. The next purchase becomes another attempt to dampen a discomfort that has not really been addressed.
What particularly interests me about the Murrell Collection* is how often the purchases cluster around craftsmanship, order and control. There are fitted libraries, expensive pens, desk accessories, collectors' boxes, storage systems, tool kits, telescopes, precision coffee machines and carefully curated household objects. Is this a fantasy of mastery?
The purchases could be serving as props in a personal narrative – not merely "I own this", but "I am this sort of person". “I’m a man with an important pen, so what I write must be important. I have the discernment of someone who has a £3,000 coaster. All these things prove that I am successful.” I must emphasise again that this is only guesswork, even if it is built on working for decades as a psychotherapist.
The tragedy is that if embezzlement funds this construction of identity, then the act of acquiring these symbols will undermine the identity they were supposed to support. A person attempting to feel successful through stolen money is building self-esteem on foundations that can never feel entirely secure. The object becomes both trophy and reminder. You might think: better buy another one to make any discomfort go away.
I must be careful not to psychoanalyse someone I have never met. There may have been greed, entitlement, addiction to spending, a void because they don’t feel loved or any other number of motives I cannot know. But what I am pretty sure about is that the sheer repetitiveness of the purchases suggests something beyond enjoyment.
I don’t think we have any evidence here that luxury goods make people happy, and trying to sate a compulsive appetite isn’t going to bring lasting satisfaction until the motivation behind acquiring all this stuff is looked at. It just feels sad to me, each purchase appearing to ask the same question: will this finally be enough? No, it won’t.
When we have a problem, for example, feeling inadequate, and then react to try to solve the problem, for example by buying some luxury brand with stolen money, we are likely to get into trouble. The ideal is to notice the problem, then reflect rather than react, then come up with a more lasting solution. A bit of personal development never did anyone any harm.
* This imaginative play on words, riffing off the real Burrell Collection, a museum in Glasgow, is not my own. I stole it, to appear cleverer and funnier than I actually am.
Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist, writer and broadcaster. Her Ask Philippa advice column is on Substack, and her debut novel – Shrink Solves Murder, published by Hutchinson Heinemann – is out now