Ferret Underground: Stampgate

Hi ,

Did SNP MSPs use stamps illegally during the general election campaign?

It seems not, according to an investigation into claims that stamps bought with Scottish Parliament expenses were used by general election candidates to campaign.

The scandal threatened to envelope Scottish politics, but the issue seems to have been licked with no-one being removed from their post.

We hope this intro doesn't come across as dis-missive. This newsletter supports any impropriety being stamped out, and wants the law to be followed to the letter.

Investigating wrongdoing will always be part and parcel of what we do at The Ferret.

So, in this post-truth world, where better to get your news and fact-checking.

Scottish members of the House of Lords cost the taxpayer nearly £10m over the last five years, The Ferret can reveal, including tens of thousands of expenses claimed by some who rarely showed up, spoke or voted.

Some peers who claimed expenses had not voted in years and were present on fewer than one in ten working days.

Critics slammed the cost of unelected “party cronies and donors”, some of whom, they claim, treat the Lords as a “gentlemen’s club”. They urged the new government to reform the house “as a matter of urgency”.