The Scottish Government changed key parts of the official record of Angus Robertson’s controversial Israel meeting after a backlash, raising questions about government secrecy.
Andy Burnham arrived at Westminster this week with the confidence of a northerner who’s forgotten that London is borderline uninhabitable during a heatwave.
The parliamentary Labour Party has agreed that if he can survive a few journeys on the tube and still wants to be prime minister, then he gets the job.
At The Ferret’s burrow, we've been digging up stories, as ever, not least to try and take your mind off the unreasonable price of ice lollies.
Stay cool,
Jamie
The Ferret is Scotland's member-owned investigative journalism outlet. For ten years, we've been digging deeper into the stories that matter, holding power to account without fear or favour.
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The Scottish Government has been accused of trying to “manipulate the record” of its meeting with an Israeli diplomat after documents released to The Ferret show it changed the official minutes of the talks after a public backlash.
Former cabinet minister Angus Robertson’s meeting with Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK in August 2024 prompted outrage, including from his SNP colleagues, because it came as Israel was facing international condemnation over its war on Gaza.
First minister John Swinney defended the talks after controversy erupted. He claimed the Scottish Government had only agreed to the meeting to communicate its “clear and unwavering position” on a ceasefire.
However, draft minutes released to us under freedom of information (FoI) law suggest Gaza and a ceasefire were not top of the agenda
Over 30,000 Scots in mental health crisis turned to A&E last year. Two thirds were not admitted
Lives are being lost because people are failing to get mental health support when they most urgently need it, a Ferret investigation has found.
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How I mapped Britain’s hidden ‘battery cows’
I’ve been reporting on factory-farmed cattle for over a decade. The government may finally be ready to take action. (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
On the trail of the dotcom queen: how Julie Meyer left a pattern of unpaid bills, missing funds and broken dreams in her wake
The entrepreneur was once the toast of London’s tech scene, a ‘global leader of tomorrow’ who starred on Dragons’ Den and promised untold riches for the startups she championed. But people she worked with in the last decade, from Malta to Switzerland, describe a very different reality. (The Guardian)
Peter Murrell: The Man with the Money
How Peter Murrell embezzled £400,000 from the party he ran - using a paper trail of lies to cover up a spending spree on luxury goods, from a motor home to coffee machines and even toilet seats. (BBC)
Jamie is an investigative journalist who writes on issues such as illicit finance, dark money, political influence, land ownership, nature, the environment and far right extremism. He loves puns but has yet to use them in his reporting.
